Nicene #13 Blackstone

Blackstone: Behind the Tune

Nicene Creed Series #13

Blackstone Prison was built

when people thought stone

could keep sin in its place.

The walls still stand,

black with rain and soot,

but what comes through the gates now

is rarely wickedness alone.

Trauma.

Addiction.

Voices no one else can hear.

Boys who learnt violence

before they learnt to shave.

Fathers who never had one of their own.

Steve has worked here for twenty-three years.

He knows which doors stick in damp weather,

which footsteps mean trouble,

which silences are worse than shouting.

The morning briefing is over in minutes.

Three officers off sick.

Two assaults yesterday.

The nurse sighs

and writes another name onto tomorrow’s list.

The workshop stays locked.

A half-built bird table,

abandoned before Christmas,

waits beneath a skin of dust.

“Remember when they still taught bricklaying?”

“For about five minutes.”

When Steve first came to Blackstone

they still talked about rehabilitation.

Bricklaying.

Qualifications.

A trade to carry through the gate.

Now the day is measured

in keys,

radios

and paperwork,

getting everyone through

without another emergency.

His wife says he never really comes home.

Sometimes after a long shift,

He sits in silence

Whilst downing a few cans of Stella.

On C Wing there is a man called Michael.

Steve remembers him before the Bible,

before the quietness,

before he stopped trying to prove

something to everyone.

One afternoon,

checking observation panels,

Steve hears singing.

Wonderfully out of tune.

He slides back the flap.

Michael sits on the edge of his bed,

Bible open across his knees,

singing an Easter hymn

to chipped paint,

a steel door

and a strip of April sky.

Steve closes the flap

more gently than he opened it.

The following week

he unlocks the cell.

“Morning, boss.”

“Morning.”

As Steve turns to leave,

“You alright?”

“Fine.”

Michael waits.

“No… are you really?”

Steve walks on.

But the question doesn’t.

Months earlier, one of the lads

had found a church after his release.

He lasted three Sundays.

“They were kind,” he’d said.

“Made me a brew.”

Then he stared into his tea.

“But before I could belong

there were forms,

a safeguarding plan,

someone who always stayed with me.

“I know why.

I’m not saying they were wrong.

But it still felt

like I came through

a different door.

Just because I hit the bloke

who ran off with my wife

doesn’t mean I’m going to start a fight

in church.”

Steve had no answer then.

He has none now.

Easter morning.

Steve is posted to the chapel.

Not to worship.

To watch.

The vulnerable prisoners sit

high in the gallery.

Before the service begins,

the chaplain climbs the narrow stairs,

shakes every hand,

calls every man by name,

then walks back down again.

Someone below

starts muttering curses.

The chaplain stops.

“Not here.”

Silence.

Then the hymn begins.

Steve hears Michael first,

still gloriously

behind the tune.

Some have come because they believe.

Some because it breaks the routine.

Some because afterwards

there will be tea

and hot cross buns.

Officer and prisoner,

volunteer and chaplain,

lifer and remand,

stand together and say,

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Steve looks around the chapel.

For a moment

no one is introduced

by a prison number,

a uniform,

or the worst thing

they have ever done.

There are only voices

rising together

beneath the wooden cross.

Afterwards tea is poured.

One man quietly tears

his hot cross bun in half

and gives away the larger piece.

The radios crackle.

Keys return to belts.

As the men file out,

Michael catches Steve’s eye.

“You take care, boss.”

The gate closes.

Somewhere beyond painted steel,

still gloriously

behind the tune,

Michael keeps singing.

-Rev’d Jon Swales