Hotel Kerobokan by Kathryn Bonella

find’. He thought of everything. He’d even procured a syringe with snakebite anti-venom, in case he was bitten by a cobra in the grassy passage between the inner and outer jail walls. He had a long rope with large knots tied into it for footholds. He had a little hammer to smash the jagged glass stuck on the top of the wall, and a bent metal tray to throw over it like a saddle so he didn’t get cut.
    Ruggiero knew that once he got onto the wall and jumped into the real world again, his next move would be crucial. Many prisoners had been dragged back inside after their feet had hit free soil. Neglecting to plan the getaway was the flaw in countless failed escapes. Ruggiero had no intention of failing. Two friends would be outside on standby to phone him when the coast was clear. Parked just outside would be a tiger motorbike he’d already hired; the key hanging like a lucky charm around his neck. He planned to leap onto the seat of the motorbike and roar off down the potholed Kerobokan streets, riding for thirty minutes to a waiting boat at Turtle Island, which would whisk him across to Java. He’d already organised for an immigration official there to stamp his passport with an entry stamp and tourist visa, so he could leave Jakarta Airport without suspicion. It was the perfect plan.
    Ruggiero had worked hard at this chance for freedom. He needed it. He was suffocating. His impulsive nature hadn’t served him well inside Hotel K. He’d been badly beaten many times. Now, he believed, this was it. He felt sure he’d soon be inhaling the fresh air of real life and was convinced he’d be free for Christmas. Mentally, he already had one foot outside the jail. He felt the Bali gods were finally smiling down on him.
    He had only one move left to make before he climbed out of his cell window in his wig, saddled up the wall with his metal tray and threw himself over it like a drunken cowboy. He needed a clip to hook over the wall, to which he’d attach his rope and haul himself up. So, very early one morning, after his cellblock had been unlocked but most inmates were still asleep, he slunk behind the medical clinic and started cutting a metal bar off the roof, which he could bend into a clip. He sawed almost right through and then snapped it off. This was a fatal mistake. The bar made a loud clunk. A local prisoner heard it and started screaming, ‘ Malang, Malang [Satan, Devil]’.

    One Balinese guy snitched on me. He was the biggest motorcycle thief there. The Balinese hate foreigners, they are so jealous. He was just a piece of shit. The guards came running. I got back to my cell and threw the bar outside the window and hid my hand phone. But they found the bar. They asked, ‘What are you doing with this?’ ‘Oh, people are threatening me, it’s for self-protection,’ I told them. They didn’t even know yet the window was cut because I made a beautiful work of gluing it, so they didn’t know. But they said, ‘You can kill someone with that bar’. That was enough. They put me in solitary .
    – Ruggiero

    An anguished and desperate Ruggiero was dragged to cell tikus after being bashed by the guards. He spent the first 48 hours without food or water, lying on the concrete floor of the small concrete box. It was hot, and he was hungry and hurting. They’d stripped him down to his underpants. The cell was dark, with only a small barred window high up on one side. The Brazilian surfer who loved life, wine, women and poetry wondered for the millionth time how his life had come to this.

    I fell down from heaven to hell in a blink of an eye. I was so confused. I didn’t even know if I was in jail. When I woke up I was like, ‘Am I in jail?’ .
    – Ruggiero

    Ruggiero had been living the good life for many years, following his dreams of surfing the best waves at the best beaches around the globe. The fast-talking dark-haired Latino was always a player; he quickly made friends, had many lovers, got married to and