If symptoms persist...
LAST WEEK, my prison doctor friend was struck down by one of those myste- rious illnesses (viral, or course) which afflict working men when they want to go to the races, and I stood in for him. By happy coincidence, I found two of my old friends, Dover and Beach, in adjacent beds in the prison hospital.
Dover's nickname is Hate-All Harry, or Ate-All Arry, on account of his somewhat combative personal relations. At present he is threatening to sue the Home Office for negligence in failing to discover the cause of what he calls is blinders, or headaches. When I declined to represcribe the tablets which he said had not relieved his blinders, he declared very forcefully that he was a ooman being, not a animal.
The warders disagree there. Hate-All, who has practised many of the genres of crime, will have a tidy sum in the bank when he leaves prison, derived from the prison phonecard racket which he runs. A phonecard worth £2 on the out is worth £20 on the in. And it is rumoured that Hate-All is one of the prison drug barons.
That isn't the only rumour about Hate- All. Before he threatened to smash my face, he indignantly denied another story about, him doing the rounds. `They say the bluebottles are trying to pin a murder on me what I'm meant to have done for ten grand, but not even they're that stupid. They know I could get at least £10,000 from a post office on a good day.' Beach, on the other hand, is a pathetic creature, a schizophrenic in whose dis- ordered kind of thought certain modish psychiatrists and French intellectuals once affected to find deep meaning. Generally, I can't understand a word he says, but indignation had briefly caused a clearing in his mind.
Hate-All, it seemed, had offered him a packet of cigarettes in return for his Walkman, a possession of incalculable value in prison. But tobacco is the only consolation for schizophrenics, and Beach therefore agreed to this dubious bargain. Hate-All got his Walkman but repeatedly refused to hand over the promised cigarettes. Beach was dis- traught.
I called Hate-All back into my office. My plan was to appeal to his better nature by painting a heart-rending pic- ture of the manifold disabilities under which schizophrenics suffer. My plan had one defect: it presupposed the existence of a better nature in Hate-All. He merely replied that, Beach being a schizophren- ic, he shouldn't be in prison: true enough, as far as it went, but scarcely an excuse for swindling him.
Hate-All was unmoved. Eventually, we concluded a deal. If he would return Beach's Walkman, I would reconsider his blinders, and no word would be said about the matter to the governor. I promised no pills (which Hate-All would sell), but said I might have him X-rayed. I watched Hate-All return Beach's Walk- man, and left the prison with a warm glow of achievement in my heart, pleased with my powers of diplomacy.
The line between success and failure in diplomacy, however, is a thin one, as it is in medicine. When I returned to the prison next day, I asked Beach whether he was glad to have his Walkman back.
`Yes,' he replied, grinning delightedly. `This morning I swapped it with Hate-All for some cigarettes.'
Theodore Dalrymple
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