A Place to Stand

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  Big Foot tapped my shoulder with his nightstick, and I sat. There was an odd silence as I watched the warden flip through my folder—not the kind of silence in isolation but a forced, taut silence that made his presence more menacing. On top of the steel filing cabinet and on the wall behind his desk were law-enforcement distinctions: seniority plaques, service duty awards, police academy diplomas. I couldn’t imagine who would give such a man a ribboned basket of fruit or the decorative silver inkwell and pen set on his desk.

  He finally looked at me. “My job is to run this prison, give citizens a good night’s sleep, so they can go about their business without fear.” His cold blue eyes drilled into me. My facial muscles tightened as he came around the desk, stocky as a tree stump, broad-shouldered, carrying himself as if ready to fight, his jaw rigid. Shoving his face in mine, he shouted, “You understand that?”

  The force of his voice made me flinch, but I managed to stare straight ahead and avoid showing I was scared. As flecks of spittle sprayed my face, his tongue moved back and forth in his mouth.

  “Since you rolled in you been nothing but a pain in the ass. A malingerer. A troublemaking malingering sonofabitch!”

  I didn’t know what malingerer meant. I was trying to be agreeable, but my voice shook slightly as I said, “I’m not trying to cause trouble.”

  After what seemed a long silence, he said, “I run this place. I own your ass. You understand that? You fuck with me”—he stuck his pissed-off face in mine again—“and you don’t know what I can put you through.” His coffee breath and the doughnut sprinkles melting in the crevices of his teeth almost made me gag.

  “You’re a gang member,” he claimed.

  “In a gang?” I said, surprised. “Never. I’ve never—” I started to protest but didn’t. I had often been approached by gangs to join, but I always turned them down.

  “Don’t play stupid! You want to collect the contract on Rick because Rick snitched, and a dealer laid two grand to take him out! You’re no slicker than the rest of the scumbags I’ve nailed. I’m taking away your good time and you’re starting your sentence over.”

  “But I didn’t—it wasn’t—” I stopped short of saying anything more. And looked straight ahead.

  He pointed his finger right in my face. “There’s a craziness in you,” he said, and walked back to his desk.

  Maybe there was a craziness in me. If so, it came from the fact that the contrast between the innocent boy in Estancia and the terrified man wielding the cleaver was too hard for me to comprehend, much less explain. He had already decided I was in a gang. But if he was right about my craziness, part of it came from being in the hole sixty days and from my nightmares of the Mexican’s guts pouring out of his belly, of him holding his intestines in his hands.

  “I don’t need proof. What I believe is enough,” he said sharply.

  My neck trembled and my eyes itched. I hardened myself, waiting for another outburst.

  “Get in line or I’ll hand you your balls,” he said. “You gang bangers can kill each other, but if anything happens to Rick, I’ll bury your ass. No one breaches security in my prison. No one.” He paused and turned toward the window and the overcast sky. “I don’t want to hear from you again. Now get out of here.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied weakly.

  For the next few months, snug in my blue denim coat and beanie cap, I went out at 4:30 A.M. with the kitchen workers and lined up in the yard for head count. Then we marched to work. These were the finest moments, before the world woke up, when the moon was so bright it bathed the prison grounds in beautiful haunting shadows, light and stillness. I could smell prairie herbs. The Wheel-house tower guard, the stars in the dark sky, the razor wire and walls—my past all seemed mere reflections of a bad dream that would pass when I woke up. The beauty of the desert dawns also strengthened my determination not to be a corpse carted out of the cell block on a gurney, covered in a sheet, toe-tagged, and buried behind the prison. I would never forget that half a mile from here the road I came in on led back to Albuquerque. I was going to be on it one day, heading home, or die trying.

  After scrubbing pots and pans, I’d go back to my cell on the second tier. CB2 was constantly noisy with the racket of clanging gates, stereos blasting, cons shouting, and guards yelling out orders. After my cell gate closed behind me, sliding on a greasy tow chain, I’d sit on my bunk and roll State Issue smokes from the stringy bad-tasting tobacco they gave out for free. I’d rest my arms on the bars, smoking a cigarette, watching runners drop off drugs or other stuff.

  Once a week I stripped my cot and tucked in fresh sheets, folding the coarse blanket at the foot of the bunk, stacking my freshly washed prison blues on the top bunk, lining my toothbrush, paste, comb, and shaver on a hanky next to my clothes. During showers when the cells were opened, the gangs waited until last to shower because they were gossiping about who was going to get who. I’d do push-ups and sit-ups, pace, and stare out the bars until lights were turned off at nine. In the darkness, cons bluffed in a game of one-up, cutting each other down to see who could come up with the worst insult to tire themselves out so they could sleep. Curled up under my blanket, wearing my pants and T-shirt and beanie cap because of the night cold, I’d think how we all had our places where we once felt happy—even gang soldiers had their own Estancias, forgotten over time, just as mine was slowly fading since getting out of the hole.

  But while these memories did fade, my routine never did. Each day I shaved off another sliver of time. The conflict with La eMe was a fact of life; my enemy walked next to me in line, celled next to me, ate at the next table, exercised with me on the field. In the cell-block foyer, solemn-faced mafia soldiers hunkered in a circle and gave me contemptuous stares. Brujo’s mafiosos mad-dogged me and I remained ready, knowing they were waiting for their chance to get me. Entering and exiting the block, looking up at the cells, I saw them watching me. Sooner or later, for a leftover heroin cotton or spoon residue, one would try.

  It happened one afternoon when I got off work early and the cell block was almost empty. Porters were carrying bundles of dirty laundry out, yard crews were shuffling off, trusties were running errands, and I had just stepped out of the shower when two soldiers came at me. I saw them heading my way and was ready to jump down two floors when I saw a mop bucket outside the shower, one of those heavy old-fashioned steel ones with the roller on it. I picked it up and went for them. They did a quick U-turn down the stairwell. From that point, I never took a shower without my shank in reach.

  Wedo gave me the latest on who was paying protection, who was extorting who, and what the current rumors were. He was one of those who couldn’t do his own time and he was always yelling at some con he was going to beat up on the field. He was freelancing in the strong-arm business, collecting poker debts and interest payments on drug fronts, and he and his two crime partners, Can Do and Gamboa, tried to get me selling drugs. I kept out of trouble, though, and even took on extra jobs. After general population ate and I finished scrubbing the pots, I’d load the chow cart and follow the guard to each of the three cell blocks to feed cons in the isolation cells. Depending on who the guard was, I’d smuggle tobacco, papers, and matches between slices of toast or under cereal boxes.

  I counted the months until my reclass hearing day finally came. It was a wonderful spring day, and here and there in the hard-packed dirt of the yard sprouted little blossoms. I was feeling strong and hopeful and optimistic because everything had been going well for me. I went into DC through the scanners and handed my slip to the bull in the guard station. He motioned me to sit with others on a bench down the left-wing hall in front of the hearing room. The guys were talking about court appeals, writing chicks, or getting drugs from girlfriends on visiting day. The block speakers thundered out numbers, making my first weeks in prison come back to me. I wondered how Macaron was doing. I’d heard he was a minimum-security trusty, outside the walls. They got a lot of privileges—nice white khakis
instead of blues, conjugal time with their girlfriends, better food, and more visits, and they got to walk around freely. If I could persuade the committee to let me go to school, it would be a start toward making my way out there. Cons were going in and coming out pretty quickly, getting classified to a lesser-security status and better jobs.

  My number was called and I went in.

  The room was small and painted all white, bright enough to blind me momentarily and make my eyes water. Five committee members sat behind a long folding table, with a recorder on it, serious as a high crimes tribunal. Under the overhead fluorescent tubing, their starched beige uniforms, brass badges, rank stripes on sleeves, and name tags gave them a forbidding formality: Captain (Mad Dog) Madril, Captain (Five Hundred) Smith, Lieutenant (Big Foot) Naya, a black sergeant, and the counselor, the last wearing casual sports wear. They opened my prison folder.

  Mad Dog Madril punched the black portable recorder button and started, “Three-two-five-eight-one?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “Says you want to attend school,” Five Hundred mumbled to himself, looking down, reading. He was a big blond guard. His son, Smitty, was in prison in the same block I was in. It was weird seeing him lock his son up. Smitty was a tough guy who was always fighting cons who ridiculed him because of his father.

  “You’ve had problems adjusting,” the counselor said.

  “I’m adjusting,” I said, searching his face for a hint of alliance. Now and then, over the past few months, he’d stopped at my cell to tell me how good I was doing.

  Captain Five Hundred said, “You been in—sixteen months.”

  “Commendable job performance,” the black sergeant added.

  “I haven’t missed a day, sir,” I said proudly.

  “You in a gang?” Mad Dog Madril asked.

  “No, sir, never. Gang members have to get tattoos to be in, and I don’t have any.” I was wearing my T-shirt, and they could see for themselves.

  “You think it’s time you took responsibility for your actions?” The counselor’s voice was accusatory.

  “Yes, sir, when it’s mine—”

  Before I could go on, the black sergeant pitched in. “You’re in for a violent crime. You’re a menace to society. An FBI agent was shot; you escaped. Don’t tell me your record isn’t bad.”

  “Because you don’t have a long rap sheet only means you’ve gotten away with a lot of things,” the counselor stated.

  I was confused. What could I say or do to convince them I was earnestly trying to do as they wanted, when every time I tried they put me back two steps? Why were they doing this? Had someone told them something? Had they had made up their minds before I walked in? Was it because a FBI agent had been shot during the drug bust? Had Rick said something to them? Had the warden given orders? I wanted to scream that I just wanted to get on with my time, but I sat there, stunned.

  Mad Dog Madril glanced at the others. “Anything else?”

  “Probationary period six months,” Big Foot said, and wrote it down in my file.

  Mad Dog Madril lowered his voice into the recorder for closing comments.

  “This committee cannot in good faith recommend school at the present time. Prisoner is assigned field duty for six months. Request for schooling will be considered at that point.” He shut the recorder off.

  I was almost on the verge of begging them to reconsider. Feeling a great emptiness overwhelm me, I raised my eyes to the counselor and blurted, “You promised—you stood in front of my cell telling me how great I was doing!” I felt my whole body swell with an explosion of rage.

  He leaned forward. “It’s a fucking prison and don’t you forget it. You’re here to be punished.”

  “But the fights; I had to do what I did. You know what’s going on. I was defending myself!”

  Mad Dog Madril snarled, ‘Three-two-five-eight-one, you’re dismissed.”

  I couldn’t move. I wanted to start the whole proceeding over and ask them what I had done wrong. I would have apologized and even admitted I was guilty of whatever they wanted me to be guilty of, but in each committee member’s face there was only contempt and hostile disinterest. Despair and pain were mounting rapidly toward eruption, and I was afraid I was going to black out. I was trying to control myself, but my hands and legs had no feeling in them. An overwhelming sadness swept through me, an all-consuming sense of helplessness that ate through my face and hands and legs, burning me down to nothing, to the end of my life in this room, my whole aching soul and heart hating them.

  “Dismissed!” Mad Dog Madril commanded.

  I don’t know where it came from, my sudden inability to move. It wasn’t courage or defiance. I just sat there until Mad Dog Madril and Five Hundred came around the table and grabbed me and stood me up.

  I can still see myself. I’ve gone over and over it. All I remember is hearing myself yell, “I know what I was! But I’m trying to change! I’m just asking for a fucking chance!” But the simple truth was, from the warden on down to the guards, they had the power of life and death over me. And I truly thought they were going to keep me in prison forever.

  I tried not to think about what had happened in the hearing room. But after a while, with nothing to occupy my thoughts, I had to. I wasn’t the same after my hearing, and the next day I stayed in my cell, snacking on sweet rolls and candy bars. I didn’t shower, I didn’t speak, I just lay on my back and stared at the underside of the top bunk, deciphering the graffiti and trying to explain my behavior. I tried to look at it from different ways, feeling the greatest desolation and hoping to understand why I just sat there. When the intercom crackled out my number at dawn for work, the cell opened but I didn’t fall out. I felt removed from everything. I had already blown my opportunity to go to school and I didn’t even have a clue as to why. I had always been able to endure anything, take it in stride, and move on; always the bad shit with the good because life always offered small clearings in the gloom in which I felt blessed and happy. What was wrong? I had no answers then, but looking back today, I know what happened: I knew in my soul that if I had gone along with their classifying me as they wished, simply ignoring my request for school, that I would still be in prison today.

  Flaco and Chacho yelled up from the landing, but I told them I wasn’t going and motioned them on. They understood I was doing what I had to do. I’d already gotten two disciplinary write-ups for not going to work, and the situation was becoming a standoff. But going into the second week, they began to worry. I felt guilty when I saw my homeboys worrying about me. I saw them murmuring among themselves and then their voices shot up.

  “Come on, carnal, let’s go,” Icy urged.

  “What’s up, homeboy?” Choo-Choo asked.

  “Let’s kick it, vato” Zero said.

  “¡No andas chafiando!” Gamboa growled. Don’t be kidding like this.

  To this day I still feel bad when I remember looking at them behind my cell bars. I knew what really counted with them was respect and loyalty. We were solid partners; they watched my back and I theirs. I also remember they were willing to give their lives for me and how it hurt me in my soul not to be able to be with them as I usually was, laughing and horsing around. Most of my acquaintances knew I wanted to do good; we’d talked about going to GED school together when we walked around the field, and they hadn’t seen this side of me. How could I have told them I hadn’t expected it either? I didn’t know why I didn’t get up out of the chair. Coming from the very depths of my soul, it was beyond my control. Sure, I had had enough of the hole, but my defiance was going beyond casual noncompliance to serious opposition.

  I worried about not only what was going on with me but also with everybody else. I knew they thought maybe I had a problem with someone, and I might be afraid to confront the guy. To their minds, it was impossible. Wasn’t I the guy who kicked ass, who strapped down against La eMe, who spent so much time in isolation? My defiance had strengthened them, fortified their reso
lve to confront anyone. And now, “¿Qué estaba pasando con el vato?” they asked themselves. What was happening with him? They went to the chow hall without me, dismayed that they didn’t understand and couldn’t help me through my dilemma.

  Over the next week I quit making my bunk and cleaning my cell. As usual, every time the bull came down the tier, he placed a write-up on the bars for breaking institutional rules. When I looked at the pile of pink slips, I had the feeling I was fucking everything up. I also knew that by simply refusing to take them off the bars, I was deflating the importance of what they represented. For the next few days, when the tier guard stood in front of my cell with his clipboard at count time and barked out my number and I’d turn my back to him like he wasn’t there, he’d place another write-up on the bars and move on. The cons wondered when I might get up and stand for count time, but I never did.

  To this day, it still amazes me how taking myself out of the system and refusing to work had everybody in an upheaval, from my friends to the guards. The more I did nothing, the more aggravated everyone became. It was the first time I felt I was accomplishing something, even though I couldn’t see why. Regardless of what little my life meant in the larger scheme of things, at least for the moment it was mine and not the warden’s, despite what he had shouted at me. It didn’t belong to the state, the judge, the guards, or the cons either. They’d told me all my life what to do, and I had obeyed. But I couldn’t take it anymore.

  Before my reclass hearing, I was getting it together. I had friends and respect. I was starting to believe I was going to make it. Who knew that not working would take me out of my life as I lived it into a whole new chaotic and unrecognizable reality?

  It started with my homies. At first they extended their hands and hearts to help me with whatever might be disturbing me. They would stop at my cell and exchange a few words. Now they avoided me. They avoided my eyes or, if they did look, it was a quick side view that meant they now suspected me of being a coward, of betraying their trust, of letting them down. I could sense the peer pressure boiling over, the secret accusations in their blood, the hard core stone-cold glares, and finally I heard the words I dreaded.