{"id":652,"date":"2019-06-07T20:06:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.wpcomstaging.com\/?p=652"},"modified":"2019-06-07T20:06:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T20:06:13","slug":"i-guess-it-takes-3-men-to-make-a-rapist-my-prison-journey-part-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/?p=652","title":{"rendered":"I guess it takes 3 men to make a rapist! – (My Prison Journey – Part 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s another in the ‘My Prison Journey’ series. More of this series can be found in the link on the right of this page or by clicking\u00a0\u00a0‘My Prison Journey<\/a>‘<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it takes 3 men to make a rapist.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mood was sombre. There were six of us locked into my cell. Two of them were on high protein diets trying to bulk up for the gym, so there was a palpable fear of toxic emissions.<\/p>\n

A storm of tension that had been building on the wing had broken when three men had fairly battered a fourth guy using table-legs as cudgels. As the Kangas (prison officers) hit the alarm bells, the sirens screeched and the entire wing was being put on lockdown. The cleaners had happened to be outside my cell and were ushered inside in order to clear the landings.<\/p>\n

What was most disconcerting was how \u2018matter-of-fact\u2019<\/em> the whole process was. It didn\u2019t take long to become inured to the sporadic violence and the ensuing alarms. The first time I saw a charge of Kangas it put the shits right up me. I dived for cover, hands raised in supplicant compliance and breathed deep relief as they ignored me. As the days and weeks of my time in prison went by, I simply stopped noticing them. In some regards it became normal, even as farcical as the procession of Roman soldiers conducting searches in \u2018The Life of Brian\u2019 movie. So on this day we merely shuffled along eyes down (it did not pay to witness anything), shuffled into my cell and waited for the situation to be resolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho was it?\u201d one of the lads asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho what?\u201d came the reply, \u201cWho was doing the hitting him or who was being hit?\u201d<\/p>\n

There were various names suggested for the three assailants, but nobody seemed 100% sure who the victim was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reckon it was that nonce rapist,\u201d came a suggestion. There followed an exchange of descriptions. The lads in my cell were trying to picture who it was, listening to them he was both tall and short, fat and thin, wore glasses and didn\u2019t – as one description was challenged and superseded by another.<\/p>\n

While the lads were arguing about the man\u2019s description I asked, \u201cHow do we know that he\u2019s a rapist?\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowded (and increasingly sweaty) cell became quiet.<\/p>\n

I continued, \u201cAll I\u2019m saying is that if he was a rapist, why would he be on this wing? Surely as a VP (vulnerable prisoner) he would be on the nonce wing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell one of the lads said that he saw him in another jail and he was on the VP wing there,\u201d came a helpful suggestion.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid it not worry you a bit how you got your information? How did your source see him on a Nonce wing, eh? Unless he was also on that nonce wing.\u201d Vinney picked up on the train of thought.<\/p>\n

While I was grateful for Vinney\u2019s lateral thinking, I was concerned too – his arse emissions were legendary. He was a huge lump from St Helen’s.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I\u2019m saying here is that we don\u2019t know for certain that the lad who got battered is a rapist, or nonce or anything. There\u2019s an old saying that it only takes three men to make a tiger – and that happens in here every day.\u201d I continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh here he fuckin goes again. It\u2019s like being back in school with you Moose!\u201d came the protest of the group.<\/p>\n

I have to admit that I was \u2018that guy\u2019<\/em>. I have a head full of stories and parables and I often struggled to just shut up sometimes. I think I might have a form of allegorical Tourette\u2019s syndrome. Anyway, I ignored the complaint. I was good at that.<\/p>\n

\u201cVinney mate, do you want to hear how three men can make a tiger?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh aye Moose. Sounds fascinating!\u201d came the reply. \u201cAnd anybody who doesn\u2019t want to hear this tale of wisdom can just leave the cell! What? No Takers? Very well, on thee go Moose – learn me about this tiger thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

After some good natured grumbling I told my captive audience about a Chinese urban legend that involved a concept that a court adviser had proposed to his king.<\/p>\n

He asked the king what he would do if a man came running into the court claiming that a tiger was roaming the market. The king said he would dismiss the story as ridiculous. The adviser asked what he would do if a second man came and said there was a tiger roaming the market. The king said he would still dismiss the story, but with reserve. The adviser asked what the king would do if a third man claimed a tiger was roaming the market. The king replied that he would probably dispatch some soldiers to investigate the claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I\u2019m saying lads is that it only takes a few people to say the same thing before everybody will start to believe it. We need to be careful before we jump to conclusions about what people are in for. It\u2019s too easy for any of us to be painted as a nonce or a grass just because a couple of lads claim that they knew a bloke who knew a bloke who heard something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinney was first to respond, \u201cI guess it takes three men to make a rapist. He\u2019s not wrong you know lads. It\u2019s too fucking easy to ruin a lad\u2019s life in here.\u201d That would have been a poignant moment to end, but Vinney was not finished. \u201cAnd on that note, I\u2019m going to ruin 6 lads\u2019 lives right now.\u201d Vinney emptied his guts in the cell to much gagging and cursing. Two of the boys started banging on the door and eventually we were released back onto the landing. The commotion was over, the bio-clean lads were already at work on the blood and the wing was returning to \u2018normal\u2019.<\/p>\n

We never found out who the victim had been, what he had been convicted of or why he had gotten battered. His ordeal was merely a blip, forgotten save in this account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s another in the ‘My Prison Journey’ series. More of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[247,364,423],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prison","tag-life-in-prison","tag-prison-stories","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}