Food had an algebraic quality in the prison canteen and Big Beef’s ladle was a large part of the equation.

X + ladle = Y

Where X was the most delicious part of any given meal and Y was the complete dish that arrived on any given plate. Although Big Beef’s ladle operated on an unpredictable scale, it was informed by clear mathematical principles, based on a system of nods, winks, and glass shards hidden in the palms of those with indeterminate sentences. Like most mathematical principles it hummed away quite happily beneath the surface of everyday existence without the need for explanation. To question how the ladle operated, or indeed to confront the operator, would be to question the integrity of an otherwise perfectly calibrated system. There was only so much meat and there were only so many scoops. Who had what could only be defined by the weighty apostrophe of Big Beef’s ladle.

So when he turned vegetarian and refused to man the stew bucket, the law of the ladle was thrown into a freefall of relativity that even the most erudite inmates found hard to grasp. Who would now judge the quantum of meat rationing? Who would explain the prison hierarchies that existed only within Big Beef’s muscly brain? Even the screws seemed restless, rolling the skeleton keys between their fingers like holy relics. 

The last straw was when Big Beef started listening to Leonard Cohen. There was only one vinyl record in the prison library, Death of a Ladies’ Man, and by common consent no one took it out to spin on the ageing turntable in the self-help section. The days were maudlin enough without the lugubrious poetry of a brooding Canadian. But Big Beef played it again and again and again.

The governor chose his moment. With two screws by his side he cornered Big Beef in the spirituality stacks.

“You gotta cut us some slack.”

“I ain’t for it.”

“No-one’s for it.”

“I mean I ain’t for no more Leonard Cohen.”

“Lose the double negatives.”

“I want more Leonard Cohen. Not less.”

“But it’s upsetting everyone.”

“I’m getting Love and Hate.”

The Governor peered curiously at Beef’s knuckles.

“The album Love and Hate. His Nashville period. Interlibrary loan.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said the Governor, with the kind of temerity that knows its place in the hierarchy of more violent mathematical forms, “why this sudden fascination with Leonard?”

“I speak with Buddha.”

“And what do Buddha and Leonard Cohen have in common?”

“Leonard loves Buddha.”

“And where did Buddha come from?”

“In the recreation yard. Next to Larry Lasso.” 

Larry Lasso was a brick tied to a rope, tied to a bag of drugs, that appeared over the prison wall on high days and holidays. The Governor and the other screws followed Beef back to his cell where he showed them the wall of bricks he had been building over the past year, one above the other; little quantums of material reality.

“You’re building a Buddha?”

“Nah. Buddha is in the bricks. Always the same. Always different.”

“I see.”

But the governor didn’t see. So he called in the chaplain.

“Why does Big Beef see Buddha in the bricks?”

“Buddhism operates under a series of contingencies in which each event is dependent on those around it. Every crime is a punishment. Every punishment a crime. Love is hate. Hate is love.”

“I see.” 

But the governor didn’t see. So he called in the librarian.

“Why does Big Beef see Buddha in the bricks?”

“Buddha believed in an interconnected universe hidden by a veil of consciousness. Part and whole are repeated again and again in Buddha and Cohen’s work, consummated in an ecstasy of ego death.”

“I see.”

But the governor didn’t see. So he called in Larry the Kebab.

“I think you might eligible for early parole.”

Larry smacked his lips.

*

The chaplain said they couldn’t build a wall tall enough to keep Big Beef in. So they had to use a wrecking ball to get him out. They played that Leonard Cohen record one last time as Beef made his way through the prison gates, his ladle by his side on the plywood base of the coffin. The small dent in his skull was echoed by the small dent in his ladle and had the fingerprints of Larry the Kebab all over it. But no one bothered to check.

“Friday night,” the governor told anyone who would listen, “is kebab night.”

“Freedom,” said the librarian, “is on a three-week loan.”

* * *

Jet McDonald is a writer, musician and psychiatrist. His first novel Automatic Safe Dog was nominated for a BFS Award. His second (non-fiction) book Mind is the Ride was shortlisted for a Stanford Travel Writing Award. His band The Woodlice have toured nationally and played on BBC 6 Music.