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And I would go back and propose to the woman I loved…
No matter what the fuck I had to do to make it happen.
91
After the property room, guards marched me into a room where I was ordered to strip. Once I was naked, they hit me with scoops of some kind of powder all over my body. I found out later that it was a de-lousing agent.
At the time, I just closed my eyes against the clouds of acrid powder – and then braced myself as they washed me off with a blast of ice-cold water from a firehose.
I dried myself with a towel that smelled like bleach and felt like sandpaper. I was given white boxers, a white undershirt Americans call a ‘wifebeater,’ black slip-on shoes, beige pants, and a beige short-sleeved shirt.
Once I was dressed, I was buzzed through a metal door as armed guards escorted me into the bowels of the prison.
The interior of San Vittore was the ugliest I’d ever seen – and I’d served in Afghanistan, so ‘the ugliest I’d ever seen’ was saying something. Everything was stained concrete, peeling paint, and dull fluorescent lighting.
And the smell – a fetid mix of body odor, sweat, bleach, and stale cigarette smoke, with a hint of urine and shit. The stench of violence and despair.
The guards marched me down a corridor of cells. The barred doors were all open, and the inhabitants lounged on beds or walked around freely. As soon as they saw me, they started jabbering at me in Italian.
It was like a chorus out of hell: swearing, catcalls, threats. The words were unintelligible to me, but I had a pretty good idea of the intent just from their tone of voice.
Some of them wanted to rape me…
Some of them wanted to kill me…
And some of them wanted to do both, not necessarily in that order.
All of them wanted to intimidate me.
I stared ahead stonily as I walked past them.
I wasn’t afraid. Tense, yes – but not afraid. I’d been in combat over 60 times; I’d been shot and stabbed; and I’d been in more fistfights than I could count. I’d met enough violent, stupid men to know that if I showed any weakness, they’d be on me like wolves – so I resolved to show no weakness.
The first man who attacked me, I was going to put him down. I might kill him, I might not… but whoever was first, he was going to serve as an example to the rest: do not fuck with me.
The biggest source of tension – other than being trapped in a shithole with a bunch of murderers – was that I didn’t speak the language. Which meant it was going to be even harder to anticipate the first attack. Not understanding Italian was a severe disadvantage, and one that could prove deadly if I didn’t address it as soon as possible.
The guards stopped in front of a cell. Inside was a metal bunk bed, a toilet, and a grimy sink at the far end of the room. Sitting on the bottom bed was a burly guy with shitty prison tats on his neck and face. When he saw me, he scowled – probably because he’d had a private room until I showed up.
He yelled something at the guards. They yelled back and threatened to beat him with a nightstick. He shut up and sulked, but as soon as the guards were gone, he snarled something at me in Italian.
“Non parlo italiano,” I said.
That much I knew: I don’t speak Italian.
The burly guy smirked and said something I didn’t understand.
I just watched him emotionlessly, refusing to turn my back on him.
He yelled something, and two guys in the hallway strolled over to the door of the cell.
One had muscular arms and pecs from lifting weights, but he’d apparently forgotten leg day. His quads and calves were comically underdeveloped compared to the rest of him.
The other guy had a massive gut. He kept watch outside as his muscular friend stepped inside the cell.
My new roommate stepped slightly to my side, trying to flank me.
I could see where this was heading.
