Big Boy Jail

I had been invited to go and visit some friends of junior who were now residing in Quezon city jail, feeling brave after escaping the juvenile prison and still having all my limbs. I thought how hard could it be? I was not prepared for what i saw that day.

We road a jeep away from empire hill the part of Payatas B we were currently staying. We crammed ourselves into a jeep that would just get us as far as the highway. Passing all the Junk shops overflowing with rotting garbage and the dirty faces that worked inside them occasionally pulling my t shirt over my nose when the smell got too foul. The everyday trip made to get out of the place not even the police will venture into and that i proudly call home. A long hot bus ride sitting between an old lady with incredibly bony elbows and a man with live fowl in his lap took us outside a police station. Jumping off myself and junior met the Tito nick and his daughter a friend of mine who were there to visit juniors cousin. We all entered together junior giving descriptions of what to write in the book and had already instructed to bring nothing but enough money to get there and back. So with empty pockets i was searched and patted down three times by three separate men all with mean scowls. Stamped and laughed at they jeered me up a set of stairs until i was in a cage looking down on a large basketball court covered with tattooed bodies some with wife-beaters some just shirtless. Junior led with Tito nick close behind me and his daughter between us all stepping carefully down a caged set of stairs i had to duck to get through the bars at the bottom and as my foot hit the hot concrete of that basketball court i knew i wasn't in Kansas anymore. Every eye was on me as i took the long walk inside. Quezon city jail is made up of five sections each with 1000 convicts each of these sections is like one big fraternity any man steps outside of his section he is dead. I rapidly noticed there were no guards anymore, we had left the last one at the foot of the barred staircase. We entered the section of which all of our friends were staying, it was tiny, the rooms were all open and i brushed shoulders with rapists murders and drug lords all giving me toothless grins from there painted faces. We sat on a bench in the middle i could see into every room and every man in here was just stacked on top of the other, just like in the graveyard. The boys came out and after a lot of hugs and handshaking, we sat surrounded by inmates. They spoke for hours i listened intently nervously looking around me but trying hard not to make eye contact with anyone. They told stories from being inside and of the outside lives that got them there. I could do nothing but to cling to the edge of the bench dumbfounded and listen. After the boys had there catching up and were told how everyone was back home they invited us to see there room. nodding and following too scared to do anything else we went to the end squeezed down through a narrow alley of bunk beds and their in inhabitants until we entered a small room ducking to get in there was one bed a small cooker a clatter of few personal possession that were deemed allowed and posters of ladies advertising cheap rum with no clothes on. It was barely the size of a cupboard and yet i was told five persons slept in there and they pointed to various areas where everyone slept i tried hard to use my imagination to deem it even remotely possible but my imagination failed me. The boys began to banter and after two hours of being inside i finally began to relax mostly because i was still alive. We stepped back out to the larger area of the boys section full of bodies we sat back on our bench to say the goodbyes. A huge guy walked passed his shaven head gleaming and a big gold necklace sitting pretty around his neck, my friend squealed excitedly she recognized him and asked her brother if he was who she thought he was. He was a famous Filipino rapper who was now serving time for three accounts of murder, "he is my idol" she whispered I laughed saying "there is seriously something wrong with you did you not hear your brother say what he is here for" she looked at me coyly saying "I know" we laughed but it was soon stopped by stern disapproving looks and i went back to staring at the floor not making eye contact. As we left back through the caged maze having said our goodbyes we got back to the main entrance the guards at the door looked at each other and laughed as one passed 20 pesos to the other "he made it out alive" one guard said and they both laughed. I was glad to know the people who were being payed to protect me were doing such a sterling job but was not disgruntled and left smiling at the adrenaline buzz of surving a visit to 5000 murders, rapists and what became more apparent people with no money or home who the government deemed easier to deal with inside a jail they had no control over. I have no delusion that i was lucky to be in one piece and all i can say is Quezon city jail makes wormwood scrubs look like a nursery.