📸 Photo

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

occasionally let visitors in to see us and, most importantly, I got one guard, Mario, to bring us food. He was reluctant at first, but once we became friends, he would do anything I asked.

Mario was a new recruit who had been transferred to San Pedro directly from the military training academy. He was still filled with ideas about honesty, integrity and serving the Bolivian Republic. He was nineteen years old, but he looked younger because his face was covered with severe acne. The other guards called him Pizza Boy behind his back. For the first few weeks, he did everything by the book. He was always shining his boots, and his green trousers had sharp creases down the front. And he wouldn't talk to me at all, because the guards were under strict instructions not to speak to prisoners.

Finally, I got a response from him, by commenting on how shiny his boots were.

'The secret is cotton,' he answered. 'You have to finish the job with cotton. Not many people know that.' I offered him a few coins to bring me some food, but he refused them outright. 'Put that away, please. I don't accept bribes.'

'It's not a bribe,' I said. 'It's for your lunch.' That usually eased their conscience, but it didn't work on Pizza Boy.

'I'm not hungry, thank you,' he snapped back, then marched off with his head held high.

I tried everything, but the only things Mario was interested in were his shoes and his girlfriend. Our conversations always started in the same way: 'How's your chica?' or 'Those shoes are even shinier than yesterday.'

He would respond angrily, 'She's not my chica, she's my fiancée,' or 'They're not shoes, they're boots. There's a difference, you know.'

Bit by bit, I learned how to get through to him. He was disappointed that the Bolivian government could only afford to give each man one uniform, which made it nearly impossible to have it washed, dried and ironed before work each day. He also confided in me his ambition to make sergeant one day, or maybe even an officer, in order to get enough money to marry his sweetheart.

Even though our conversations became longer, Pizza Boy continued to refuse my propinas. Luckily, however, he was a fast learner. Lucky for him, since honest cops risked being transferred to remote postings as soon as they were found out. Lucky for me, because I was always starving in