Free You Changed My Life by Abdel Sellou Page B

it. I turn down the volume and turn on the TV. Charles Ingalls is sawing wood, his kids run across the prairie, Caroline tends the coals in the little house’s fireplace. I drift off . . .
    I’m living it up. Fleury is summer camp. Like Club Med, just without the sun or the girls. Those nice counselors, the guards, make sure nothing upsets us. Blows from nightstick,
insults, humiliation, I’ve seen all that in movies, but none of it since getting here. And as far as “bending over for the soap” in the showers is concerned, it’s pure legend or fantasy, I don’t know which one. I’m just sorry for the guards, because they’re the ones sentenced to life here. They leave these gray buildings at night only to go to another that’s not much better. The only difference is where the locks are located: theirs shut from the inside, protect them from bad guys like us they haven’t locked up yet. Whether in here or out there, the guards live locked up. The inmates count the days until they get out, the guards count the years until they can retire . . .

    When I got here, I counted the days, too. One week was enough to know it was better to stop, let the time pass, live every second without thinking about the next, like always . . . I became social, I knew how to earn the esteem of my neighbors. Between two cells, there’s always a hole in the wall about three to four inches wide and waist high. It allows you to talk, pass cigarettes, and also let your neighbor watch TV if he doesn’t have one. All you have to do is set a mirror on a stool so it reflects the image. The other guy has to watch in an uncomfortable position, his eye glued to the hole, and he has to lean his ear in to hear the dialogue, but it’s better than nothing. Every first Saturday of the month Canal+ shows a porno. A few minutes before it starts, all the inmates drum on the doors, on tables, on the floor. Not to demonstrate some irresistible need to escape, for sure. So why? I don’t know. I join in on the noise like everybody else. I crack up listening to the others, even if I wish they’d shut up most of the time. Fleury-Mérogis is never
quiet. Never. Except during the monthly porno. As soon as it starts, nobody makes a peep.
    I figured out how to get away from the ambient noise by making my own music. It’s inspired by films mostly. Once Upon a Time in the West came out two years before the blessed Abdel arrived on this Earth. Luckily, my favorite western comes on TV a lot and I never miss it. I learned the lines by heart: “I asked you to scare them, not kill them!” The cold reply from the other: “You’re a lot more scared when you’re in pain.” Or this one: “I saw three coats like this one at the train station this morning. In each coat was a man. And in those three men, three bullets.” The coolest! Sometimes I come across one of the silent films with Charlie Chaplin and laugh so hard that the guards worry about my mental health. I laugh almost as hard when I listen to the news on the radio or the TV. In Creil, three girls showed up at school wearing full veils, and suddenly the French think they’re in Iran. They’re panicking. The news is so pathetic, you’re better off taking it as a joke.

    It’s already evening. The light and the TV go off by themselves after the second movie. It’s already the end of the year, and I’ve pretty much done my time if you consider the suspension period. I must have gained twenty pounds lying around all year like an old pasha. It doesn’t look so good on me, but I’m not worried. I know business is waiting for me on the outside, and I’ll have to get back on top of my game, start right away, run fast and far. I’ll lose the weight. In June, I confessed to everything I was accused of because I thought I’d see daylight a lot sooner if I went straight for the truth. In reality, I