(17NOV2008)
I try to take showers in the middle of the day or very late at night, times when the shower point won’t be too crowded and there will be plenty of hot water.
I walk up to the showers tonight just before midnight, and am met by a female soldier standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the shower bays. She shakes her head and tells me I can’t take a shower. “We’ve got a detainee in there.”
I nod and walk on to the next nearest shower point, further up Disney Drive.
There’s a fairly large prison on post. I work with a guy on the airfield and when I visit him I walk right past the high walls topped with concertina wire. I’m not privy to who’s being held there or why, and the only stories I hear are second and third-hand accounts from soldiers who occasionally stand guard inside as part of their duty.
I rarely think of the prison, in fact, unless it interferes with my shower. Tonight it results in a much longer, and therefore colder, walk back to my room.
