I really like prisons
The day I turned 11, we met ”The King of Leaves” when leaving the residence. His nickname arose from his skills in raking fallen autumn leaves. My mother took me to school that day, probably in order to help me carry the cake or the ’flødeboller’ that I was to give to class. Seeing the King of Leaves, I happily told him about this being my birthday. He instantly wanted to give me a gift, some Ga-Jol liquorice, which was everything he had at the moment. Our joy was short. My mother was kind, but determined, when declining the gift. One does not accept presents from inmates, that’s it.
Other children knew prisons, too – though to them they had to to with the Dalton
Brothers (from the European cartoon called Lucky Luke), the Beagle Boys and cartoon-striped uniforms for inmates. I knew those, too, but at the same time I lived in a real prison: The State Prison of Sdr. Omme, where my father was the warden.
The prison entailed three zones: Outside, inside and the inner core, which was home to the inmates and where I was not allowed unless with my father. We went there way too seldom. At the age of five – ten years, I would have spent most of my time in the ‘inner core’ if I had been allowed. The inmates were just as fond of the prison child as I was of them, but apart from that the prison was really interesting. I was allowed to go much more often to the office building, on Sundays, where the head quarter officers offered me Danish pastry (a no-go at home) and where I played with my father’s Dictaphone while he worked. Finally, I did get to go to the office building all by myself, when my father had managed to forget the key to the safe
(containing inmate files) and I went over there to give it to him.
These three zones meant that there were two magical borders in the prison. The first one delineated the inner core of the