Chereads / Jumbled stories of a wild life / Chapter 19 - Reconnecting with family-The silver lining

Chapter 19 - Reconnecting with family-The silver lining

Waking up on his first morning in jail, Ciaran isn't sure what to expect after his first custodial sentence with the adult prison as his first example, this sentence he is serving it in a young offender's institute and while that means he is around people his own age, he knows what it can be like around so many boys his age.

After morning movement where prisons assigned to education or have a job would head to where their expected, Ciaran was taken out of his cell and down to one of the induction interview rooms, this was an opportunity from the prison to get to know the prisoner's health needs, as well as set intentions for the prisoner's sentence.

While sat in the interview room Ciaran hears knocking on the window followed by the sound of his name being called, he looks up to he sees the excited smile of his brother Michael, he asks what I was doing there but the officer supervising the prison walk tells him to carry on walking, Michael said he will sort it.

Later while sitting in his cell, officers enter and ask Ciaran if he knew Michael and his reply was "yes of course, he is my younger brother" and after he assured the officers that there would be no problems between them, the officer agreed to allow to share a cell and later that day Ciaran was moved over to the other wing.

Michael had been in for some time, he already had a reputation and relationships with people, making Ciaran's time inside a lot easier and being locked in the cell with his brother was better than a lot of his time outside without his brother.

Growing up together, Ciaran and Michael were also very boisterous and hyperactive, they would playfight in the cell or should the see a fight on TV, they would get overly excited and on one occasion it seems they get a little too excited. There was a fight on one of the soaps and while they were both shouting, encouraging and cheering for one of the characters when officers ran to the cell door, opening the observation panel and happy to hear and see that it wasn't us fighting, the officer who came to the cell door was down to earth and fair with the prisoners and they both got on with him.

Two weeks after Ciaran's arrival, his brother was up for his enhanced status, this is where a prison has behaved and engaged in their rehabilitation would receive certain benefits such as more time out of the cell, more gym time and a higher spending allowance on canteen, but for a prisoner to become enhanced would require this behaviour for a minimum of six weeks. Michael refused his enhanced unless Ciaran received his enhanced status, this was because it would also mean Michael moving to another cell on another wing, because of Michael's reputation of kicking off if he doesn't get what he wants from years of prison reports, they gave Ciaran his enhanced status and moved them across later that day.

With his enhanced status came the requirement for Ciaran to enrol on to an education course or get a job, luckily for Ciaran they were just about to start another catering course and there was space for both Ciaran and Michael.

It wasn't long before Ciaran's skills in the kitchen was noticed and he started to help the tutor with teaching the class, if it was assisting the tutor with the catering class, it was showing up another tutor, this was on in a class called "Around the world".

Around the world was a single class where they would cook a dish from another country, if you are enrolled on the catering class you are not allowed on the around the world class and normally you are only allowed on one of the three classes but Ciaran and Michael were allowed on both.

The first time Ciaran had the chance to show her up was the day they were cooking spaghetti bolognaise, this was one of Ciaran's favourite dishes and could cook it with his eyes closed so he asked the tutor if he could make apple turnovers for everyone, she first said no as she failed to believe he had the time to make them for everyone and after convincing her to allow, not only was he able to finish in time, he had even cleaned down his section before others had finished their cooking. The second time they were cooking a pizza, one of the prisoners asked if she could throw it in the air like they do on the TV, she replies no, that it was really hard, Michael turns to Ciaran giving him a cheeky and mischievous look, Ciaran throw his pizza dough in the air spinning it, repeating it several time.

While most of the sentence was fun, that was to stop. Ciaran had been sat on his bed, Michael stood in the middle of the cell facing the TV with the PlayStation controller in his hand when another prisoner enters the cell, Michael must have known something was going to happen as he had just enough time pause the game and put the controller down, just after he did the prisoner starting swing punches at Michael, Ciaran sits up on his bed and watches, his brother is handling himself well enough and just as soon as the fight started it finishes.

Ciaran turns and asks what had just happened, Michael said he wasn't sure and they both tidy the cell up, the prisoner from the next cell over, came in and was playing the PlayStation with Michael when the person he had just had a fight with came back in and started it again but this time the other prison there got involved punching Michael so Ciaran jumps off the top bunk, he grabs the bigger out of the two and drags him to the back of the cell, he uppercuts him in the nose, he grabs his head and pushes it in to the toilet but every time Ciaran lifted his hand to flush the toilet, the prisoner lift his head enough that he would only get splashed by the mist.

The next thing Ciaran knows is his in on the cell floor and has an uncountable number of feet kicking him in the face and torso, they finish and run out of the cell but not before one of the steals Michaels PlayStation.

Ciaran gets up from the floor, he walks out on to the landing to look for his brother but couldn't see him, holding his chest as he looks over the top of the railings to see one of the female prison officers, she was young and very beautiful, there had been several flirtatious interactions and when she looked up to see him, she smiles and continues to talk the prisoner she had been talking with before.

Ciaran not seeing his brother turns and enters his cell to clean it when several officers run in to the cell, two pinning him against the cell wall, they lift him off the ground while another looks at the base of his trainers, they explained that they suspected him of beating Michael up and wanted to check if they matched the imprints on his chest and face, it wasn't long before the realised what pain Ciaran was in and took him to the wing office.

While the officers tried to get Ciaran to tell them what happened, he started to vomit, that with the headache gave the officers concern for his wellbeing and they moved him down to the medical wing where his brother already was, he walked into the treatment room his brother was in to find him led, half of his face swollen a bleeding, the doctor listens to Ciaran breathing through a stethoscope, he was concerned at what he heard and called for a second ambulance.

Ciaran was handcuffed to his escort officer and with luck it was the young and beautiful officer he had been flirting with, once they were handcuff together, she suggested waiting out in the hallway while they delt with his brother, minutes later one of the officers in the room with Michael comes out to the hallway, at this point the prison officer hand was placed at the top inside of Ciaran's leg, it must have been seen because after that, the handcuff was removed from the officer and Ciaran was handcuffed to another officer.

Ciaran comes back from his x-ray and while his brother was being x-raid, a nurse enters the room with painkillers, she pours them and then water in his mouth to the restrictions around his wrist, before the nurse pours the water in, he uses his tongue to count the number of tablets and stopped at six, by the time his brother and the officer he was attached to returned, the effects of the tablets kicked in and Ciaran looked doped up, the officer had even asked if was.

Ciaran had fractured his ribs and just need to take it easy for a few weeks, his brother however had multiple fractures and breaks, they were taking back to the prison later that night while Michael waited for an appointment a facial surgeon specialist.

When they returned, they were put in another cell because theirs was inaccessible, a crime scene even though they told them they won't be pressing charges and because they couldn't get in their cell, they couldn't get their tobacco. Michael asked the officers if they could get them both a smoker pack and was told it's not possible, Michael not taking no for an answer starts to headbutt the cell door and he didn't give in, he must of headbutted the door over twenty times but it worked, the officers come back with a smoker's pack.

Ciaran and Michael spent the next two weeks of Ciaran's sentence in segregation, they prison officers refused to allow them back into general population in fear for retaliation. The day following Ciaran's release, Michael was transferred to another prison.