" Right get into that room of yours and do not make a sound."

" Yes of course… looks calmer today so will not really bother anyone I guess…"

And he turned round and looked at me with that look of disdain.

"Look I don’t give a fuck ….you shut it….remember you have been here a longtime at least try?."

There you go…nothing like a good conversation really to make you reflect. But really what happened to me?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I was always the quite one and always in control. They always saw me like that and it was good to be predictable. I was able to  tell what and how I felt. But life is full of surprises I was told.

I met Terry when I was 21 and starting to grow confident in my own skin. I was surprised that the passion and the hate I would later feel was to be totally consuming. It was created for me by his presence initially. It was if I was either in deep awe or jealous of the fact I lacked the spontaneity that he seemed to easily ooze. His personality was fun, risky and always exciting compared to my dull and safe persona.

It started at low level shop-lifting which was so much fun as we were really crap at it and were chased by middle aged men all over the east end of London. We always seemed to have too much for them and really, a twix here or there is not worth the two mile chase is it?

It got riskier and more fun as we went for the bigger things in life. It was booze and off licences next and that was really the best way to get into parties. We would turn up and every one would look forward to our arrival. Women loved us. They always said to me that they loved dangerous men. I had to pinch myself to really believe it was in reference to me. Never in my world had I taken risks but it was so much fun. I was having a ball.

From booze to the cash tills, and then from the supermarkets to the banks. This was evolution for the criminal class and we both seemed to have talent for not getting caught despite some real screw ups. But it was the sheer bottle of Terry and his real crazy personality that enabled us to escape certain situations scot-free.

The thrill seeking was becoming bigger than the for both of us and it was me who was becoming the driving force for many things. Of course it was to prove that we were bigger and better than before. Progress, confidence and the experience we gathered made us very good at what we were to be known as.

Of course the violence was part of it. If you did not have the stomach for this then you were really in the wrong business. But it could take a while to lay someone down and was getting harder. Everyone these days were so much fitter than before. Where were all these obese people in England. They were never in the Bank, the Nightclub or the drug den we often raided. But I suppose you never come looking for trouble unless you really do have the bottle. But it is funny when I think about myself, and my transformation into something I was to become later known for. In the end I do feel funny saying it but I was comfortable being known for what I did. Inside, it was given a gold status and everyone left me alone in terms of press-ganged casual homosexual activity. Of course no one was ‘gay’ inside right, and of course they were all mistaken and innocent. Denial inside if very common and it is a way of getting by. To admit the truth would indeed be soul destroying and to re-build your character would be pretty much too hard a task for the sensible and law abiding, let alone the likes of myself and my colleagues.

I often stared into the sky thinking did I really have any regrets? But society, and living in a world driven by wealth is hard to survive in. And without an education and having a degree of intelligence, there was not many alternatives for me. It was either tesco’s on the 24hr shift or a life of crime to enjoy the finer things in life that people worked hard to get. I worked alright but in an intense and often violent way to attain the ultimate goal of capital accumulation. We all have to get by somehow but I recognise that my way was very destructive of course.

But, while 'choice' in life were not the same for everybody, I remember I did have a choice of a university education and an escape for my humble estate and all its social problems. However, I found the ‘being bad’ part so much fun I did not want to really do anything else. I wanted to be this way, and I suppose sticking me in my box did not make me regretful in many ways. It sort of made those days special and more fond as memories. And like most memories we only remember the good things and really takes a rain-check.

But really, robbing and the odd beating were not category A stuff. But my appetite was growing more and more and it was just going to happen I guess now.
I was never that aware of that fact then. But we always went bigger and tried and outdo our peers. This time I had to be really violent and this was a bloody affair. It was a local job and I knew that the person I was soon to sculpture in blood, from school twenty years ago. He was a decent man with a family and working to try and get by. Like the rest of us but, he was in the wrong place in the wrong time. Terry was becoming sloppy and his drug habit did not help and he would sweat all the time and look terrible but was always up for a job. Although the truth was he was not really ‘up’ for any job and let security guard number one come at me. I had to lay him down but the recognition of who he was stopped me and he got the vital first contact and I was on the floor. But I got up and pounded him in the head and he just got up and decked me again. Boy he was strong and he was fit and I was sure he was a ‘I go to the gym three times a week’ guy. I needed help and it came in the form of queue guard while I hit him with. He went down but I just kept on going…and going …and going. I crossed a line and I was really forfilling my appetite for something but I knew there was no going back. His face did not have a bone structure to speak in the end.

At times when I think of it, it sickens me, but then again, I should have seen it coming. There was something animal I ignited in myself many years ago and it was a controlling thing. It was funny that I would never take drugs or alcohol but that violence and its desire was growing in me all the time. That was my habit. I know that now… since being inside makes you reflect on it so many times with Dr that and Professor this. I really do get it…but I should have more regret not come to the conclusion that I was naïve and stupid not to see the science of human behaviour.

" Come in Mr Hurst. Take a seat there…"

"Thank you ." I replied and sat there.

" It appears that you have been here with us for thirty three years and maybe its time to see if you have really learnt anything from that murder you committed forty years from today. What have you learned?"

Um… interesting….

* * * * * * * * * * * *

" …and you can see that in the main thought processes there is no ideology or any sense of the ideological state apparatus. It is a more basic feeling than that. It seems raw, instinctual and animal. It is there in all of us and the process of socialisation makes these feeling controlled. However without that and no developed ISA this becomes an exposed frightened animal."

" But you fail to recognise that there is a choice in everything. This person has either ignored or failed to think about this simple but important concept."

" Through the process of exclusion this choice has been dumped. It is a basic and violent reaction that encourages the instinctive basic natural behaviour to flourish within the individual cannot you not see that."

" Maybe."

At last the smart-arse has been tamed.

" ….it just seems hard to change... and therefore law and order are compromised in their ability to turn this individual bad to a useful citizen."

Spoke too soon.

" It does but you have to be realistic and understand that some damage cannot be repaired. It goes to deep and the basic natural urges that are fed for so long do become dominant in some individuals. What is needed is cognition and understanding not a focus upon remorse and guilt."

"Of course… thank you Professor"

He was tamed and I had again showed myself that I had learned something.