Loose cannon: Robert Kirby Following a hot tip-off, last week I wangled permission to visit the maximum security dungeon of a well-known South African prison.
I went there to interview a leading activist in jail factions, a man currently serving 243 years for a variety of hideous outrages, particularly against several octogenarian blind nuns in wheelchairs. He asked me to identify him only by his nickname, “Satan’s Nephew”.
Buck-naked, he was chained to the damp stone wall of the interview room. Surly cast-iron shackles bound his ankles. His waist, wrists and throat were lashed tight against the weeping masonry by raw lift-cable and, just in case, someone had driven a couple of Rawlbolts through his scrotum.
I began on a cautionary note: “Why would a monstrous degenerate like you be thinking of forming a new political party?”
“Because the present South African criminal population now represents a sizeable chunk of the electorate. And growing greater by the court day. To you people out there we are the stomach- wrenching epitome of just how filthy, contaminative and morally defiled a society can become when allowed to pillage, rape, burn and destroy, unchecked by Meyer Kahn – but to ourselves we are sentient and vulnerable human beings.”
“Bar-coded and ready,” I quipped pleasantly, stepping back a little.
He coughed up a cloud of bile-streaked blood. “Ever since the African National Congress gave the vote to us subhuman ditch-eyed gutterheads, we have needed an appropriate political structure to represent our interests. It’s no use sitting in prison with a perfectly legitimate vote if you’ve got no one to aim it at. We jail persons need an external political party which fully sympathises with the depth of our degradation. We need a dedicated voice in Parliament to whine on our behalf for our socio-democratic constitutional rights.”
“So that’s why you’ve formed the Hard Labour Party?”
“Exactly. There are many hundreds of thousands of citizens like me, rotting away in these prisons, and now that they’ve taken away our M-Net, with nothing to wank to but the daily SAfm readings by Jani Allen from On the Street Where I Walk.”
As if to underline his previous point, there came a hollow screech of agony from a nearby rack-chamber. “Shame,” said Satan’s Nephew. “Just listen to poor old Freddy Steenkamp. Two days they’ve had him in there. That’ll teach him to perjure his Christian benefactor.”
“So what you are saying is that you’re looking for your own man in Parliament. Someone who doesn’t believe the best thing to do with human waste material like yourselves is throw it down a mine?”
“Exactaymonte,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter how devious, venal, corrupt, serpentine and deceitful he actually is, your standard issue politician doesn’t understand the complexity of modern penology. We need professional political handlers. I mean, in the very next cage to me there’s a fellow who used to run around raping three-legged Korean infant lesbians. Anyone can see he’s got special needs.”
“So who are you planning to put up as candidates for the Hard Labour Party?” I asked.
“We’ve already had an offer or two from the Legalise Dagga Party. Nice guys, but they tend to get out of control when that late harvest Transkei rooibaard hits the streets. There’s been a flood of enquiries from recently retired members of the Mpumalanga Parks Board and, not surprisingly, one or two upwardly mobile members of the Freedom Front.”
“And your election platform?”
“Hard Labour candidates will be touring the prisons with one primary message. Although there’ll be many different slogans like `Better Crime Deserves Better Time’ or `Make All Our Miles Golden’, they’ll all mean essentially the same thing.”
“Take the punishment out of the sentence,” I murmured.
A grim-visaged warder stuck his head through the wall. “You’ve got 30 seconds,” he bellowed hoarsely at me. “Then it’s time for his soldering iron haemorrhoid therapy.”
“Any last words?” I trembled.
“Indeed there are,” rumbled the grotesque creature on the wall. “Go out there and tell them for us. We criminals demand better cell furniture, more recreational facilities, more free weekend passes, better food, private clinic medical treatment, stained-oak lavatory seats and e.tv.”
“Not a smidgeon less than you deserve,” I agreed.
“And if we don’t get `em, we’ll come and claim `em. Don’t ever get on the wrong side of snap debate with a chainsaw murderer, I always say. The Hard Labour Party is on its way to Parliament.”
“I’ll warn Frene Ginwala,” I promised.