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MARCHING POWDER

moved the remaining contraband elsewhere. As they closed the door behind him, Samir shouted, 'Señor político, we're going to give you a new face that your plastic surgeon won't be able to fix!' On their way back down the corridor, the guards were smiling to themselves. I didn't think the politician would last long.

His first night was hell. The others stood at their doors explaining to him in great detail what they were going to do when they got hold of him.

'No one's going to save you in here. The police are on our side. They'll give us the key to your cell and they won't find you until the next morning.'

Samir was the loudest, although you couldn't hear him properly because at night the guards kept him handcuffed to the water pipe at the back of his cell so that he wouldn't escape. 'You're ours now. You're going to die very slowly, cabrón. Eight hours is a long time to bleed.'

Sanchez didn't say a thing all night. However, when I saw how tired his face was the following day, I knew he'd been awake and had heard every word. He was smart, though; when it was morning yard time, he refused to come out. Instead, he bribed the guards to bring his soup to his window. Chino rattled his door and laughed at him.

'You have to come out sometime, bastardo. Politicians have to shit too, you know. And your shit stinks worse than ours, so you can't do it in your cell.'

In the afternoon, Gabriel Sanchez did come out to take his yard time, but it was after the rest of us had been locked up again. He had the entire exercise yard to himself. And since he wasn't in La Grulla as punishment, the same restrictions didn't apply to him. He was given as much yard time as he wanted and got to decide when he should go back to his cell. He sat in the sun, smoking cigarettes, listening to his CD Walkman and reading the newspaper, while the other inmates stood at their doors, going out of their heads in frustration.

Over the next few days, their anger grew. They threw burning toilet paper and cups of urine through his window, but the politician simply stayed at the back of his cell. Samir tried to pick the new padlocks. Sanchez was smarter than Samir, though; he had made a phone call to the governor and had the door reinforced and extra locks installed on the inside. They tried everything to get to him, but no one could even get close.

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