It was approximately 11:15 in the evening when everyone was kicked out of a lovely little pub on the main island of Bocas del Toro, Panama. On mass the crowd was moving up the street to hit the next bar and spirits were high. A lot of people were hiding there beers and when asked by a new friend, Robert, if we too should hide our beers, I with great conviction said ¨pssshht Why?...nothing´s going to happen¨. It was less than 40 seconds later that a small police man tapped three of us on the shoulder and ¨dragged un into the police station we had unwittingly walked directly in front of.
Noting that we were the only ones being taken to the station and the only ones with beers I put 2 and 2 together and started looking for an out. As he lead us from the front, into the station, I hid my beer under the nearest car (mistake number 1). Having not looked up, I didn´t notice that there were 5 policemen on the balcony above me. THey chouted from the balcony to their comrad and the beer was eventually found by the now slightly annoyed policeman. ¨Sit down!¨ was the only command we received.
We sat down and I put on the all too familiar ¨I´m sorry, puppy dog face¨. About 15 minutes went by and nothnig was said to us. Eventually I got a bit tired of the whole thing and started, in broken spanish, to ask some questions. I thought they were quite reasonable and pretty importnat. Are we under arrest?, what have we done?, how long will we be here?, can I have an interpreter? was the basic jist. I got no answer.
¨If I am not under arrest, can I go?¨
...no answer. If I walk out that gate, what happens?¨
¨Bad¨
¨How long will I be here?¨
¨Until 0630 tomorrow when the chief arrives¨
Excellent I now had some idea of the preicament I was in. ¨In that case I would like to speak to my embassy¨
¨You can speak to embassy tomorrow¨
He started spinning his handcuffs around his finger and started doing the physical threat of pretending to get up... he was 5´6¨ not very convincing and frankly he was just amusing me.
¨No I would like to speak to them now...or at least have an interpreter¨...I was starting to get mad and foolishly raised my voice (mistake number 2)
The man behind the desk, who had been ignoring us previosuly stood up, walked around to us and handcuffed me to the hand rail in the waiting room. Now for those not familiar with jail house situations I have one very important tip for you. Before doing anything, before arguing or demanding your rights, go to the toilet.
The hand cuff thngn had worked for them for now, I was being quiet.
¨Can we go to the toilet?¨ the other two asked.
¨Yes!¨They were lead away and allowed to relieve themselves.
¨Um...can I go to the toilet?¨
¨No, piss your pants¨!
¨I´m not pissing my pants!¨
¨Can I go to the toilet?
¨.......¨
¨Ok, I´m just going tyo piss here then¨I said pointing at the corner of the waiting room.
¨NO!¨He unbuckled his baton
¨Well I´m not going to piss my pants so I guess I have too¨
He span the baton.
My hands headed south and I started undoing my fly¨
¨No!¨ he said again this time faking that he was going to run at me.
It was at this stage that a new player entered the game. From no where a bottle was hurled from a sell and in the thickest and coolest Carribean accent I have ever heard came the cry. ¨Piss in da bot-tal man, go on, piss in da bot-tal¨.
The guard shook his head.
i reached down and retireved the bottle and the guard again threatend me with his baton.
¨I´m either pissing here on in this bottle.¨
¨Piss in da bot-tal man,¨e aint gonna hit-choo piss in da bot-tal¨
¨Will you hit me if I piss in this bottle, will you?¨
¨Can I use this bottle¨
¨Ok I´m going to use this bottle¨.
As expected, I was not tonked with a baton for whizzing in the bottle...but I can tell you one thing, taking a leak in the police waiting room in front of 5 guys when when one hand ischained is cuffed to the wall is both difficult and a little demeaning. Having been at the pub for a few hours prior to this incarceration I was accutely aware of a new potential problem that was rising.....the bottle was only 600ml.
As the bottle rapidly filled and the stream did not slow I realsied I was in serious trouble. I would have to break mid piss. Filling the bottle to the top I cut the stream and was left to hold the rest for another time.
¨Um, I´ve filled the bottle...can I go to the toilet now?¨
No answer and worst of all no more bottles...Well I thought that was worst of all things were mounting. ¨Drink it!¨ he said pointing his baton at the bottle¨
¨What?¨
¨Drink it¨
¨I am NOT drinking my own piss¨
¨Drink it!
¨Um...NO!
Fortunately for me I was much larger than constable Espinosa and by no means scared of him, baton or not., and worst of all I think he new it.
He gave up this approach and then let me sit back down (still needing the lav).
Looking at Robert, I saw the potential for this situation to get really bad. Whilst the other lad had become completely beige an un-noticeable figure in this roomand sat in his own boring zen state ,Robert was taking everything in and it was getting to him, he was starting to crack. This was bad! Not only was it bad for him but it would be really boring for me to sit with someone who didn´t think this situation was a little bit funny. I did the only thing I could think of at the time
Bom, ba, bom, bom bom bom bom-bom-bom bom ba bom bom bombombom
Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the and of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
I was busting out Redemption song by Bob Marley in a Panamanian prison...and before too long it was a duet. Two gringos called Rob, sitting in a Panmanian singing Marley we both started to laugh. The next half an hour passed quite quickly and included a haunting version of Buffalo soldier but it all went sideways when I decided that I wanted a photo of me in jail. I took out my camera, vaguely aimed it at myself (making sure to get my cuffs in shot) and snapped a picy.
Even without my head in it, I love this photo¨No, no no. No photos. Give me the camera¨
¨um no¨
¨You will give me the camera!¨
¨Um...no I won´t¨
With one hand chained to a wall, I knew this argument was going to end very quickly. Two hands against one tyhere was no way I could stop him taking the camera....or could I?¨ Using both his hands little Napoleon gripped my hand and tried to take the camera...he couldn´t. I certainly do not claim to have an iron grip, in fact if anything it is a bit girly, but this idiot couldn´t get the camera out of my hand. After 2 minutes he gave up and went to speak to the captain. The captain then demanded the camera and when I said no he simply gave up...somethnig I´m still a little confused about.
Napoleon walked back to hius seat in a huff and I went back to being chained to the wall. Whilst playing with my handcuffs I accidently tightened them (I think were up to mistake 3 now aren´t we?). The cuffs were getting uncomfortable but I lay down on the bench with my hand raised above my head (it would stay that way for another eight hours). Zing! As I lay back the steel of the cuffs slid against the metal making a horrible metal on metal sound ¨ooh, that´s annoying¨ I thought. This is when it started. Angry about my toilet situation, the tight cuffs and the threats I transformed into the worlds largest 6 year old. Zing Clang, zing clang, zing clang. Moving the cuffs at speed The sound of metal on metal sliding was horrid and the clang of the cuffs hitting the steal poles that connected the rail to the wall really blended well to make a very loud and irritating sound.
They ignored me....well for the first 10 minutes anyway. Then one pretended that it was nice and you could dance to it. OH thankyou for the hint, you are right. It is irritating when I do this rhythmically but if I do it without rhythm it will be much more irritating. Zing clang, zing clang, zing clang. This was fun!
Half and hour later one of them cracked and came over with the keys. Sweet I´m getting out I thought.....ah nope. He simply undid the other end and connected it to a shorter section.
¨Um excuse me, this section has no end I can take the cuff of the rail¨
He came back and tighted it to one of the poles which fixed the rail to the wall. Now I only had about 5 inches of steal to make a noise with. Dang, this is going to be hard, I thought. Fortunately I was wrong. This piece of metal had ridges in it so when I pulled on the hand cuffs, they didn´t move until it built up enough force and then it crashed into the metal really, really loudly. Think of a factory that stamps things out of metal and you will have a good approximation of the sound. Awesome!
This was really annoying them.
Knowing that I would at least give them a bad night as well I decided I would try and keep this up for some time. Counting the clangs was a good way to keep the mind on the job...I chose one thousand as the number to count to and once I reached this number I started again. So how long can this little ¨Ever Ready Bunny¨ maintain a really annoying sound. Well from my estimates I started at apporximately 11:30 and gave up around 0530. My favourite part was when they had to leave their own office to answer the phone.
Getting a solid hour sleep I was eventually taken to the hospital at 0730 to be checked for signs of abuse. They do this by taking your blood pressure and heart rate (????). The real benefit of this trip was I got to take the second half od the piss I started 8 hours earlier. Man o man, was I happy to finish that task!
With a missing judge somewhere floating around town and a police officer sent to find him, it was 2pm before we taken for a hearing. Unsurpringly we were let off with no fine or other punishment. It was deemed that 13.5 hours in jail was a just sentence for having an open beer. Reviewing the documents relating to our case i noted that not one of our names had been written correctly, when I queried this, the judge said it didn´t matter anyway as we werer going free. It truly is a great system they have here!
Returning to my hostel I was keen to see my jail house shots, unffortunately in the struggle it seems that Napoleon broke the screen of my camera and worst of all I had aimed poorly and chopped off half my head in the pic. Dang! Oh well, you win some you loose some.
I guess the most important thing about situations such ias these is to learn something. So what did I learn.
Well for one thing I need to learn the words to redemption song. There is probably also something in there about keeping my mouth shut...but I´m not really sure that is wholly practical.
Old pirates, yes, they rob i;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took i
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the and of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? ooh!
Some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.
---
/guitar break/
---
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Wo! have no fear for atomic energy,
cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say its just a part of it:
Weve got to fulfil de book.
Wont you help to sing
Dese songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.
