A WEEKEND IN TWITTER JAIL

Twitter jail is a very real thing. This is a fact I learned much to my surprise. I never thought I of all people would ever end up there but sadly, last weekend, I did.
After watching Celtic v Rosenborg in the pub last Thursday night with my pal, I got a bit mwi. Anyone with a Twitter account will tell you that tweeting while mwi is a recipe for disaster. It is such a truly bad idea that it can, and will, ruin your entire life.
A bit of background as to how this situation kicked off…
While on holiday in Portugal with my girlfriend the other week, a certain unnamed French professional footballer slid into her DMs. I laughed it off, ‘Haha, naw of course I’m no bothered about this incredibly handsome, talented, muscular, millionaire Frenchman talking to you, hen! Naw I’m no worried you’re gonnae dump me for him, why do you ask?’
I ranted on twitter about this guy one night about a week later when I got home from the pub, steaming. Then I put my phone on charge and went to sleep.
That’s when everything kicked right fucking off.
4 in the morning. BANG BANG BANG. The sound of guys shouting. About 10 pairs of heavy footsteps come charging up the stair. My bedroom door flies right off its fucking hinges. When I sit up to see what the fuck’s going on, I’m met with the steely gazes of several armed policemen. Fully clad in riot gear and all that as if I’m some hardnut who’s gonnae be hard to take down and not just some 9 stone, half cut wee guy lying sleeping in the spare room of his maw’s house. Before I can even ask what’s happening, a bag is thrown right over my head and I’m cracked right across my jaw with a baton, knocking me out.
I flitted in and out of consciousness in the back of the polis van. ‘Cunts like him are vermin,’ I heard one of the polis say. ‘Who knows what he’s capable of,’ said another. It took me a minute or so to realise they were talking about me.
‘It was just a wee joke,’ I said from under the black hood. ‘I wisnae actually gonnae kill him.’
Another crack to the jaw sends me back into unconsciousness.
When I wake up, I’m relieved that the bag has been removed from my head. I I’m in a barely lit, windowless room. A single low watt light bulb swings from the ceiling above me, spilling its sodium glow over the small space. The floor is concrete and the walls are bare, exposed brick. I’m tied to a chair.
From behind me, the heavy metal door makes some clanging noises. In walks a big scary polis. Must be the head honcho of wherever I am.
‘Mr McQueer,’ the guy says, pacing round my chair, his arms behind his back. ‘I’m Vinnie Gunn, the governor here. You routinely say you could batter everyone on Twitter. Think that’s big and clever, eh?’
‘That’s the joke,’ I say, trying to explain myself. ‘I obviously couldn’t batter anybody, but some folk seem to think-‘
The cunt slaps me right across the cheek.
‘I don’t care,’ he seethes. ‘Then you say, just a few hours ago, that you want to KILL a professional footballer? Not on, son.’
‘Wit? I never said that?’
‘You bloody well did, son. Now you’re gonnae pay for it.’ He lets that last sentence hang in the air, obviously trying to make me shite myself even more.
It’s worked, I’m absolutely going to shite myself. I’m basically greeting. ‘How? Where am I?’ I blub. I’ve even got a petted lip. What a riddy.
‘You’re in Barlinnie, son.’
‘I’m in the jail?! Wit fur? Fur how long?’
‘Until you learn to stop being such a wee fucking ned online.’

I’m frogmarched through to another part of the jail, by the guy. He doesn’t say a word. A couple of times he pushes me in the back so I stumble forward and he can laugh at me. He even clips my heels a few times so fall over and hit the deck.
‘Who’s this?’ a bearded guard asks, waiting at the end of a corridor.
‘Chris McQueer,’ the guy says. ‘Take him to the Tweet Wing, Frank.’
‘Tweet Wing?’ I laugh. ‘This is a bam up, eh?’
A fist hurtles into my ribs. ‘Less of your shite,’ the beardy bastard says. ‘I’ve seen you oan that Twitter. You dae my fucking heid right in. “Oh look at me I’ve wrote a wee book. Please buy it!” You make me sick.’
I get to my feet, holding my side, it feels like it’s on fire. These lads know how to fling a punch.
‘What’s Tweet Wing?’ I ask Frank as he escorts me through the jail. Other prisoners point and laugh at me, they can see my petted lip from a mile away. Or maybe they can smell the fact that I’ve shat myself a wee bit.
‘It’s where cunts like you end up. Social media hardmen. Wee jumped up pricks that think they’re something and think they can say anything they want online without repercussions.’
‘Is this no a bit daft? A bit of a waste of taxpayer’s money and all that? There’s actual real criminals out there… for fuck sake.’
I shouldn’t have said that and I definitely shouldn’t have added the “For fuck sake” in.
Frank digs a punch into the other side of my ribcage. ‘That you quite finished, aye?’
I just nod.
‘Good. You’ll be sharing a cell with a lifer.’
‘A lifer? Wit, like a murderer or a paedo or something?’
‘Naw, this is the Tweet Wing. You no fuckin listening? I’m sure he’ll tell ye his story.’
Frank shoves me into a cell and slams the door shut behind me. There’s nothing here except bunk beds, a chest of drawers, a filthy sink and an equally filthy toilet. My cellmate seems to be asleep in the bottom bunk. I’m shattered myself so I decide to take the top bunk and get a kip.

DAY 1. Friday.
When I wake up and open my eyes, I forget I’m in the jail. There’s a face at the side of the bed, watching me. My foggy mind thinks it’s my dug, Timmy, and I reach out to clap his head.
‘Aw that feels dead nice,’ the face says. I wake up sharply when I realise it’s no Timmy, it’s a greasy haired man.
‘Wit the fuck!’ I shout.
‘Calm doon, wee man. I’m Tam, your cellmate.’
I suddenly remember I’m in Bar-L and my stomach churns. When I get stressed out or nervous or anything, I could shit through a straw. That toilet is about to get even more bogging.
‘Aw, eh, nice to meet ye mate. I’m Chris,’ I shake Tam’s hand.
‘Wit’s your story then, Chrissy boy?’
‘Told a fitbaw player I was gonnae kill him for messaging my burd. Just a wee joke.’
‘Long ye gonnae be here fur?’
‘No idea, mate. How long you in for?’
‘You’ll be oot by Monday, I reckon. That’s small time. Me though? I’ll be here til the bitter end.’ Tam looks forlornly out the tiny window. Very dramatic.
‘What did you do,’ I ask. I assume it’s something properly heinous.
‘You’re maybe too young tae remember this, but did ye ever huv Bebo?’
‘Bebo? Aye of course, I’m no that young. Bebo was class.’
‘Class, aye? Well it wisnae class fur me. Ruined my life, so it did. Landed me in here.’
‘What happened?’
‘Och, started aff wi minor infringements. I never shared the love enough. That got me a couple ae overnighters here. Started picking the odd fight wi the goths and emos and that, that was another few strikes tae my name. But my biggest crime?’
He looks at me, narrowing his eyes, choking for me to ask what his biggest crime was. I oblige. ‘What was that?’
‘Made my wife’s sister my top pal instead of my wife. She lost the rag. Went tonto. That was me. Locked up for good.’
I question the ethics of jailing a man for such a trivial thing but the Scottish legal system is mysterious thing.

DAY 2. Saturday.
‘You’ve got visitors, McQueer,’ Frank says, opening the cell door. ‘Move.’
I’m led up to a room filled with the families of other prisoners. All here to see their incarcerated loved ones for a precious and quick half an hour.
Sitting at a table in the back corner is my maw and my granny. My maw wipes away a tear from her eye as I’m led over, in handcuffs and the standard issue jail trackie.
‘My ain grandson,’ my granny says, she looks raging. ‘In the fuckin TWEET WING! WIT’S THE MATTER WI YE?! EH? Fucking idiot ae a boay.’ She skelps me round the head. ‘Ah’d rather ye wurr a fuckin beast.’
‘Och, calm doon,’ I say, ‘I’ll be oot on Monday.’
‘An then wit? Naebody’ll gie ye a joab noo.’
‘I don’t need a joab, I’m a writer, I told ye.’
‘Yer a lazy, work shy bastard is wit ye urr.’
Fuck sake, nae bother Granny. Cheers for the support.
‘I’m mortified, Christopher,’ says my maw. ‘It’s all over the papers and everything. “Bad Boy Scots Author” they’re calling you.’
I snigger at this which sends my granny into overdrive.
‘Wipe that fuckin smirk aff yer face afore ah dae it fur ye,’ she snaps.
‘Is there no way yous can get me out of here?’ I ask. ‘I mean, this cannae even be legal. I’ve no even had a chance to get a lawyer or anything.’
‘They’re right, the guards and that,’ my maw says. ‘You need to be taught a lesson. You’re getting too wide for your own good.’
‘Fuck sake, c’mon, maw, don’t be like that. Where ye going?’ My maw and my granny have obviously heard enough and stand up. They signal for the guard to tell them they’re finished here.
‘Ye need tae learn, son,’ my granny says, a bit calmer now. ’Cause if this dinsae get aw this nonsense oot yer system then ah’ll fuckin kick it oot ye when get hame. Awrite?’
I’m led to back to my cell to sit with the Bebo Danger for the next 24 hours.

DAY 3. Sunday.
This should hopefully be my last day in the Tweet Wing. Frank the guard confirms to me that this is the case. He doesn’t look too happy to be having to wave me off so soon, he seems to have quite enjoyed punching me.
I try and do a bit of Louis Theroux style journalism while I’m in here, might as well get some good material out of this sorry situation after all. So, during the recreation time, I conduct a couple of interviews with the other guys in Tweet Wing.
First up is Jamie. A young guy, a couple of years younger than me. He was brought in two weeks ago and he’s serving 13 years for constantly replying ‘didn’t happen’ to people, especially lassies, on Twitter.
‘I started doing it for a laugh,’ he says, he’s dead behind the eyes. ‘Soon I didn’t even believe anything. The news? Didn’t happen. Anything my da said to me? Didn’t happen. I was in uni one day, I studied history. Anything the lecturer said I just blurted out DIDN’T HAPPEN!’
He rubs at his eyes.
‘You awrite, mate?’ I ask.
‘That didn’t happen,’ he says, walking away.
I then sit down with Jim. I recognise him from Twitter. Online he is a very publicly horny man.
‘Och, wit’s wrang wi tellin lassies ye fancy them,’ he says, ‘an sendin thum the odd picture ae yer boaby?’
An awful lot to be honest, mate. I can’t be arsed talking to this pervert.
From across the room I hear an English accent. This pricks up my ears as Bar-L is full of Glaswegian accents.
‘Yeah, mate,’ Tony says in his broad cockney accent. He moved to Glasgow when he was a teenager but was banged up in the Tweet Wing a few months ago. ‘It’s that fackin Scotch accent, ya know? Why da you lot always have to fackin type in it? Can’t understand a fackin word of it.’
People typing in Scots really annoys Tony. I neglect to tell him I’ve written two whole books in Scots.
‘So I started saying ‘What language is this?’ to cants tweets. Threw in the odd ‘can someone translate this for me please?’ too. Jock police didn’t like that one bit. Locked me up. Fackin joke.’
I realised I had truly been locked up with the scourge of society.

DAY 4, Monday
‘McQueer,’ booms the voice of Frank. ‘Say yer goodbyes. Time tae boost.’
‘Thank fuck,’ I say, running out the cell without even saying cheerio to daft Tam below me.
Frank leads me back to the room where I found myself when I woke up into this nightmare. Vinnie Gunn is waiting for me.
‘Think you’ve learned your lesson, pal?’ he asks, hands behind his back, rocking back and forward on his heels.
‘Eh, aye, I think so.’
‘Ye “think so”? If I see you back in here anytime soon you’ll be in for a much tougher time. This was just a wee taster.’
‘Can I go now or wit?’
‘Aye. You’re free tae go. But under a couple of conditions. Number wan,’ he holds a big sausage finger right up to my face. ‘Your twitter account’s been deleted.’
I nod, that’s no too bad.
‘Two. You need to send an apology to that fitbaw player.’
Fuck sake. Fine.
‘And three. Stop the fucking cheek online. Awrite?’
I practically run out the jail now that he’s finished. My maw and my granny are waiting on me in the car park. They look happy to see me, even if my granny is trying to hide her joy.
Will I stop the cheek? Will I stop getting wide with folk? Have I learned my lesson?

It remains to be seen.