Fuck that. They’ll have to fight me for it this time.
If this book makes any money I’m coming up out of here. If it don’t, I’ll get me a guitar and rock and roll my way up out of here. Have you ever seen an eighty-year-old rock and roll guitar player? A pitiful sight, no doubt, but whatever it takes, I’m coming up out of here.
But first I have to heal my soul.
Deep in the woods near my church is a meadow and below the meadow a swamp: the flood waters of the small river that runs through the park. Seagulls often make their way this far inland looking for food. I watch them and remember the seagulls on Alcatraz Island. My meadow is overgrown with weeds, untended and left to grow naturally. And I remember my weeds at Alcatraz, my weeds that bloomed, whether it was a miracle or not.
And one day from my meadow of weeds I saw a seagull flying high, a lone seagull. And he was not following the river, he was headed straight west with wings flapping wide open. I mean he was moving out. He was a big bird, but no mistake he was a seagull and he was headed west flying high.
Maybe he was just headed to some garbage dump and in a hurry to get there, I don’t know. But I think not. For in my imagination I saw him on the way all the way to Alcatraz Island, The Chosen One, going to free his flock. And at last those Alcatraz birds, who had waited patiently all these years for his coming, would fly away with him, free at last. And with the birds would fly the souls of all those convicts who had surrendered their souls to the warden. And they too would be free.
Just my imagination, of course, but still I watched that seagull flying high and headed west and my heart went with him. And I watched him till he was a tiny speck high in the sky, still headed west, and then he was long gone.
And then I only had one last thing to do, and I returned to my place in the woods, the bad looking for the good, hoping to find it there. But a voice told me I could not find it there, that I was but a single strand of DNA and I could not be complete until I found my other half in the heart and soul of a certain woman. And I cried “What certain woman? How will I know her?” And the voice told me, “You will know her when you find her.” And that’s all I was told.
So I went forth looking for that certain woman who I would know only when I found her, the bad looking for the good, and I wandered the streets near and far, for days and weeks and months I wandered. Would she have wings, or a halo? I did not know. And I wandered through the cold blowing winds of winter and the scorching hot days of summer, through rain and snow and—in despair, I wandered.
And then one day I returned to the apartment complex that was my home, weary and tired from my long day of wandering, and I found a chair in the computer room where I often went to work on my book. And a resident came in and sat at another computer, a woman, small, provocatively rounded and pretty, a woman I had noticed before when passing, a woman always busy zipping this way and that in a world I had not really noticed before. She was coming and going and she looked good both coming and going, but of course she didn’t notice me disguised as I was as an old man, a forty-year old kid in the body of an eighty-year old man. I had done about half my life in prisons and jails and those years do not count when calculating age because when you are in prison you go to sleep and then you wake up when you get out to find that the world has passed you by.
The woman did not have wings or a halo but she did have a tiny candle in each of her dark questioning eyes that sparkled when she laughed and gave off an amazing amount of light when she looked at me.
Her name was Mae.
So, excited by my great discovery, I returned to my place in the woods to report my good fortune, and I cried, “I’ve found her, I’ve found her, at last I’ve found her!”
And I received no answer, only a chuckle.
So, puzzled, I asked, “What do I do now?”
And this time I received an answer: “That’s your problem.” And again that’s all I was told.
To be continued, maybe, maybe not.
RETURN TO ALCATRAZ, 2013
Yes, I was going back to Alcatraz. Me. I was going back as a visitor, a guest of the National Park Service. I was going back as an eighty-year-old ex-prisoner with a mission to spend the night in my old cell in C block, to confront my past, to confront that wild, twenty-three-year-old kid who occupied that cell fifty-four years ago and took me on such a crazy-wild ride. I was there to confront myself. That was the script.
That’s the way the media was playing it: Ex-Alcatraz prisoner returns to Alcatraz to spend the night in his old cell. To seek closure.
Whatever. Me, I wasn’t sure why I was going back, to tell the truth. I had just published a book, Alcatraz 1259, and I had sent it to Alcatraz to get it reviewed for approval to sell in the Alcatraz prison book store, and the Godfather finally got hold of it, the book, and, ka-blam, all kinds of shit happened. The Godfather didn’t fool around. Like a streak of old-fashioned lightning, the book was magically approved, I suddenly received hundreds of phone calls and emails, and, wham, a thousand details were miraculously worked out at Superman speeds, and I was on my way.
The Godfather of Alcatraz, the site supervisor, the head park ranger, is Marcus Koenen, a soft-talking but decisive man of slight build and mild composure and calm but watchful eyes. He is a genius at getting things done without beating anybody over the head to do it. And everybody I spoke to, all the park rangers and volunteers, loved him for it. That’s what I learned while I was out there.
But more about that later.
In order to visit Alcatraz Island you first have to visit San Francisco. And the park ranger who met me at the airport wanted to make sure I did just that. And, man, over the next few days what an education I got.
Her name was Wendy. She was a young “temporary” park ranger who explained that being a ranger was her dream job. She got the job after originally volunteering without pay to work on Alcatraz Island, where, after a year of proving herself, she was finally hired as a temporary park ranger.
Anyway, there was nothing uncertain about Wendy Solis in her little car darting in and out of traffic with the world by the tail, as she introduced me to the city of San Francisco.
And what a city it was. Right away it reminded me of the cities of many years past, Detroit, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, all the cities I had ever travelled through as I hitchhiked around the country fifty or sixty years ago as a runaway kid with bright lights in my eyes, cities that were once alive but now dead or dying. San Francisco was alive. It had a heart beat. Everywhere we went, downtown or throughout the many diverse neighborhoods, crowds of people filled the sidewalks, going places and doing things. Thousands of small shops and restaurants were filled with people. San Francisco has no Walmarts. Walmart is banned in San Francisco!
The only problem with San Francisco is that the cost of living is almost double that of the decaying cities of the rest of the country. Even the cost of a hamburger at McDonald’s is out of sight. Too bad you couldn’t sleep in Detroit and wake up each morning in San Francisco.
I had a room in the San Remo Hotel on Mason Street, a short distance from pier 33 where I would catch the boat to Alcatraz. It was a single small room with no television, no telephone, and no bathroom. There were community bathrooms down the hall. Cost: $161.00 a night and lucky to get it. But, for all that, it was a really nice hotel, quaint, historic, clean, and the service was great, so I didn’t complain.
My first evening in the city Wendy, temporary park ranger Wendy, in full-dress park ranger uniform with a hat bigger than she was, picked me up in time to barely make it to the Alcatraz alumni reception at the Hyatt Regency, but no worry, she navigated the traffic like a NASCAR veteran and we made it okay.
The reception was awesome. Alcatraz Cruises, the official concessioner to Alcatraz Island, in partnership with the Hyatt Regency, presented a museum quality exhibit titled “Alcatraz: Life on the Rock” which filled a large chuck of the huge hotel atrium, an atrium that could just as easily have hosted a San Fr
ancisco Forty-niner football game, in my awesomely impressed opinion. I mean I just about fell over dead at the sight.
The food impressed me even more. With what seemed like an endless line of reporters hanging on my every word and every mouth-full of food I ate, I made countless trips to the serving table to replenish my supply of short ribs and meat loaf and mashed potatoes and salads and soups and some things I didn’t know the names of but they were delicious.
I was a rock star.
Shucks, it’s hard to be a rock star with both jaws full of food, but I did the best I could.
And I met some good people. I met Molly Blaisdale, of course, who organized the event for the Hyatt, the unsinkable Molly Blaisdale, herself. And I met Denise Rasmussen, the Director of Sales and Marketing for Alcatraz Cruises who impressed me a lot with her sharp wit and intelligent conversation. And of course I met Bob Luke, the only other ex-prisoner at the event, and several ex-guards. And, yes, I met Ms. Picavet, but more about her later.
From the moment I arrived I was bombarded with attention, which I loved a lot, but when somebody said I’d better go eat because they were going to take the food away promptly at seven o’clock, I promptly forgot everything I ever knew and headed for that chow line. Meaning no disrespect, but a rock star has to eat.
Sweet Wendy, with a hat bigger than she was, finally came to my rescue at 8:00 o’clock (they still hadn’t taken the chow away and I was still eating, though I had slowed down considerably), so we found the Godfather, excused ourselves, and departed.
In my room at the hotel I crashed. During the night I had to get up to pee, as many old men do. I would have to put on all my clothes, walk down the hallway in search of the bathroom, stagger down the hallway. My room had a sink, a lone sink and mirror. So…the heck with it, I did what any red-blooded ex-Alcatraz convict would do in that situation, I pissed in the sink and went back to sleep.
The Boat Ride
The cruise boats are owned by Hornblower Corporation. Terry MacRae is the chairman and CEO of Hornblower. In other words, he’s the man. They say he’s on the move most of the time, flying here and there to oversee his empire, for his cruise boats not only carry close to six-thousand tourists a day to Alcatraz, but his New York cruise boats carry many more to the Statute of Liberty and Niagara Falls.
Luckily I met him twice during the weekend alumni event. And twice I was greatly impressed with his firm handshake and friendly manner. And even though I was the rock star on this trip I deferred humbly to his overpowering personality. It was easy to see why his companies had the concession to the three main attractions in America that could be reached by boat.
His boats were clean, modern and safe; his crews well-trained, friendly, definitely not like the raggedy boat I had ridden to Alcatraz as a prisoner many years before. It was one of his boats that I rode on my return trip to Alcatraz and on which I would leave before the weekend was over, for I had no intention of staying forever this time.
The weekend alumni get-together was a yearly event celebrated on Alcatraz Island by returning prisoners, of which there were only two—me and Robert Luke—and ex-prison guards and staff and relatives of guards and staff, of which there were many. The sleepover, also part of the event this year, was planned and supervised by Steve Mahoney, who had lived on the island as a kid. He was the son of Pat Mahoney, an ex-prison employee, who was also present. Steve Mahoney said, “The only bars I ever saw were the slats in my crib when I was a baby.” Nevertheless he felt a strong connection to the prison and spent months in planning and preparing for the sleepover. There were thirty-five sleepovers, this year. I was the only ex-prisoner stupid enough to brave the austere conditions, the cold nights and lack of facilities. The cellblocks where we were to sleep had no heat, no working showers, steel bunks to sleep on, just like old times.
No big deal, I know I promised to take more showers when I got to be a dirty old man, but that didn’t work out.
What did I feel when I first saw Alcatraz looming closer and closer? The script demanded that I feel something. I couldn’t disappoint the media. What did I feel?
Nothing, really. I was busy sitting at a table bullshitting with Wendy and Ms. Picavet and others, while trying not to think about the possibility of the boat sinking to the bottom of the ocean with me on it. That’s what I felt. But I didn’t tell anybody.
And it wasn’t until the boat docked and we stood on land looking up the hill at the prison that memories came creeping back. But the boats arrive on the side of the island we never see as prisoners, except when we arrive and when we leave years later. So it wasn’t a huge deal. The huge deal was those hundreds and hundreds of tourists coming and going up and down and all around like colorful ants. There was the long way to the top, the winding road with its many switchbacks, and then there was the short way, which was almost straight up by hundreds of stair steps. And the really huge deal was all those seagulls squawking up a storm, come to welcome my return.
But how did I feel, one of the press people asked me.
Strange, I replied, not knowing what else to say.
What I really felt was, man it’s a long way to the top for an old man to climb, that’s what I thought. But I bravely declined the offer to ride on the tram and I walked.
The Godfather
I had met the Godfather briefly at the Hyatt reception, but that scene was so crazy-mad, I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him, though I had received countless emails and telephone calls from him in preparation for my trip. Now I sat face to face with him in his office on Alcatraz Island.
First, to set the record straight, he had not bestowed the title of Godfather on himself. He was far too unassuming to do anything like that. We, I, had done that. In all my dealings with him prior to my journey to Alcatraz, he had cut through all the red tape in such a swift and decisive fashion, unlike every other government administrator I had ever dealt with, that it became obvious to me that he was an extraordinary man. He got things done. He got things done quietly and efficiently, but very quickly. Shazam, and it was done. Thus, the Godfather became his title.
Now many of his staff and fellow rangers call him that, Godfather, with affection, not deference. It has become a title spoken in fondness, friendship, comradery, you know what I mean. That’s the Godfather.
His real name is Marcus Koenen. If I had to describe him in one word it would be “genuine.” I say that because he turned out to be true to my preconceived conception of him after talking to him and dealing with him many times, but never meeting him face to face until the night of the reception. Seldom does a person live up to my perception of him in such situations. But Marcus Koenen was that rare exception.
As to how he had wound up at Alcatraz as the site supervisor, he said: “I had been working as an ecologist for the park service since 2000, first in Washington DC and since 2005 here in San Francisco. My job in both places was to run a program that tracked long-term changes of ecological conditions in the parks. This included monitoring changes in vegetation or wildlife populations such as seals, coho salmon, spotted owls and more. My program also tracked changes in air quality, water quality, and climate. I really loved that job but was also starting to get more interested in applying how research results from programs like mine would get applied to making management decisions.
“My supervisor at the time gave me a chance to take a short-term position on Alcatraz. The job provided an amazing opportunity because of the complex challenges of balancing the monitoring of seabirds, preserving historic structures, all while providing a safe and rewarding experience for thousands of visitors each day. Oh, and I have to keep everything running smoothly with all the Alcatraz partners [the National Park Service, the Parks Conservancy (a nonprofit organization) and the private Alcatraz Cruises operation] while keeping the professional staff highly motivated and engaged. Usually that means staying out of their way and helping out when help is needed. The challenges make my head spin every day and I love it. I guess
I just like to stay busy.”
Those are his words. Way to go, Godfather.
Why the concern? Because Alcatraz is and always has been battling the elements for its existence. A salty west wind blows constantly in from the sea and waves constantly crash into the rocks that form the foundation of the island. The historic structures, the cell-house, the walls, all the buildings, are crumbling into dust. The concrete and stone is turning to powder.
What do I care about a prison that kicked my ass black and blue fifty years ago? I don’t know, I guess I’m crazy. But I do. I don’t know why.
Anyway, I feel better knowing Alcatraz Island is now in the hands of another man who cares: Marcus Koenen, the Godfather of Alcatraz. History will remember his work.
The Ranger
Ranger John Cantwell first volunteered to work for the park service when he was just fourteen-years-old. That was more than twenty-five years ago. And he is still working, a permanent ranger, the ultimate ranger. Still as fresh-faced as a volunteer kid, he bounds up and down those energy-eating Alcatraz stair-steps like they are nothing. You have to be in good physical shape to be a ranger on Alcatraz Island. And he has been doing it for twenty-five years.
A dramatic example of what it takes to be the ultimate ranger on Alcatraz Island took place in 2007, when, just to prove he could do it, he, John Cantwell, swam from the dock of Alcatraz Island to San Francisco unaided by any fancy props or contraptions designed by man to protect a swimmer from the cruel fifty-degree temperature of the water or the dangerous currents of the bay. He simply pumped his nuts up like a young John Wayne and jumped into the water and swam to San Francisco. That’s what he did.
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