Doing Time

by Bell Gale Chevigny

Race, Chance, Change

  U.S. racism is nowhere more inescapable than in the brute facts and figures of our criminal justice system. In the general population, African-Americans constitute less than 13 percent, yet 51 percent of all prisoners nationwide are black. Thirty-two percent of black men in their twenties are under some form of criminal justice supervision. While blacks and whites are murder victims in roughly equal numbers, 82 percent of prisoners executed since 1977 were convicted of the murder of a white person.

  How does racism operate behind the walls? “I’ve heard some men say prison made them much more racist than they were when they went in. The opposite was true for me. I never thought of myself as a racist, yet we all have our fears,” writes Richard Stratton, who is white. “Unless we have the courage to break through the carefully structured fear that works so well in prison, we merely reinforce old biases.”

  “First Day on the Job,” Henry Johnson’s dramatic monologue here, shows that guards face the same choices about handling their fears as prisoners. An old white guard at Attica is breaking in a new one. Reminiscing about the time before the 1971 uprising, repression, and ensuing reform, the speaker conjures up a time when leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya, stirred the pride of African-American male inmates and the fear of their white keepers. We see how racism may be fostered to bolster the confidence of the keepers.

  While some guards like Sam in Michael Wayne Hunter’s story here overcome racial fears, others, like those who urge inmates to make “hits” in the same story, manipulate racial strife between inmates. Jesse Lopez reported in “Arrival at McNeil Island” (1978)* that some prisons even put into solitary confinement those “guilty of interracial association.” Some prisoners report on having been encouraged to practice racism openly inside. Others assert that the administraton causes more racial tension, for example, by exaggerating the extent of gang activity, keeping the races at each other’s throats, and thus deflecting anger from the administration.

  In Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville in 1993, the administration forced members of different races — often from areas foreign to racial intermingling — to cell together, according to Paul Mulryan, author of “Eleven Days Under Siege.” This often resulted in one or both parties being sent to the hole, labeled a racist and hence a gang member. Black and white prisoners, knowing that forced interracial celling caused more hatred than it prevented, organized an uprising to demand, among other things, that the practice cease. Relying on the public’s assumption of racial strife and disregarding its interracial leadership, corrections officials told the press the uprising was a race riot. Of the several hundred riots in U.S. prisons since 1970, Lucasville was one of the most catastrophic: prisoners killed one guard and nine prisoners.

  Trapped with hundreds of others in L Corridor with no way to exit during the riot, Mulryan was transferred to Mansfield Prison and held in the hole until he was cleared of any participation in it. There he wrote “Eleven Days,” seeking to “describe the experience as candidly as possible” without inviting repercussions. The “very real possibility” of his “narrative being used by the state as supporting evidence to prosecute someone” prevented him from using names. Later, with others cleared of responsibility for the not, Mulryan joined a class action that ended double celling.

  Prison has become that rare place where, through pure demographics, African- American men clearly seem to wield power. Their real or perceived threat can fire the animosity of white gangs. Although many new prisoners feel virtually forced into gangs for pro* tection, this survival strategy can backfire. In Lance Fleming’s play Lockdown (1995)* an Aryan gang buys drugs from a black gang and deliberately refuses to pay for them. By thus violating the code, they “force” the black gang to save face by killing two white gang members, Though the white protagonist knows the Aryans are planning a retaliative strike, he feels powerless to avert it. because snitches end in the morgue.

  “Lee’s Time” by Susan Rosenberg narrates a variant on this kind of moral crisis, with the difference that the prisoners are women and the issue is the highly charged one of interracial sexual contact between a prisoner and a corrections officer. Rosenberg reports that the case on which her story was loosely based was used with others to pass the federal law that makes it a felony for a C.O. to have even consensual sex with an inmate. No such law existed at the time of the event, Rosenberg says, but the extraordinary twenty-year sentence of the C.O. was actually imposed.

  Chance — his being in the path of a riot — causes Paul Mulryan to be doubly punished, yet also impels him to bear his careful witness and to join a suit to redress some of the underlying wrong. Chance — her overhearing a sexual encounter — obliges Lee to decide to change the way she does time. Similar chance contacts change the odds for interracial friendships in Charles Norman’s memoir and Michael Wayne Hunter’s story, “Sam.” Sam and the narrator also share opposition to the death penalty and grieve for Bobby Harris, the first man to be executed after California’s five-year moratorium on the death penalty. It’s surprising to find such triumphs over prejudice in such a violent environment. It would be profoundly ironic if the supposed dregs of our society can produce a higher standard of human responsibility than its “respectable” citizens.

  First Day on the Job

  Henry Johnson

  I have learned this: it is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.

  — Oscar Wilde

  “Twenty years ago when I was young, kid,

  we kept a special room in the basement at Attica —

  ripe as any butcher shop, soundproofed.

  Wild Bill, your squad commander,

  shackled nigger convicts to the wall

  and we beat hell out of them

  with rubber hoses ‘n such.

  Lord, the screams in that place,

  the heat and smell of blood.

  Don’t step on that junebug near your foot.

  Had that same look in my eyes

  my first day on the job,

  like a child separated from his mother in a department stote.

  The Sergeant assigned me to work in D Block,

  had to feed the cons waitin’ to appear

  before the adjustment committee.

  It was like feedin’ hogs. I watched

  the trustee pour hot coffee for each of ‘em

  from a three-gallon tin can.

  One of the cons in lockup begged me for a match,

  dashed a mug of scaldin’ hot coffee

  in my face. The doctors saved my eyes,

  but the skin on my face never healed right.

  Friends told me they found the bugger hangin’

  in his cell, one Sunday. One of his friends

  must’ve slipped him some rope, God bless’m.

  This here’s your locker,

  used to belong to old Deke Miller —

  he shriveled up like a burnt piece of bacon

  before he passed. Heard it was cancer.

  When my wife ran off with a mechanic

  from the next town, I staggered around for a while

  like I was dazed from a blow to the heart.

  Look here. See the girl with the blond pigtail?

  that’s Ellen, my daughter. Put her through

  one of them fancy nursin’ schools myself.

  She’s in Denver now, don’t see her much

  except for Christmas. Old Deke and his wife

  clothed and fed her while I drank.

  I was proud, hard.

  But how hard is a man? —

  pushed around against his will,

  that King boy

  tootin’ his communist ass in our faces,

  and singin’ his heathen songs

  in our streets.

  And in anger, kid, in anger he swears

  that no door in America will be closed to them

  even if it means breaki
n’ us

  law by law.

  So you see, you have to treat these bastards right.

  See the con moppin’ the rotunda floor?

  Used to wear one of them afro haircuts

  almost a foot high, and cobra-quick with a knife.

  He’d call you cracker so often you’d answer

  as though it was your Christian name.

  But look at him now: bald, shaky in the knees.

  Wild Bill pounded his head like a T-bone steak

  with the south corridor keys,

  slipped him back into his cell before mornin’.

  Go on, ask him who Malcolm X is, or

  Jomo Kenyatta. He’ll shit all over himself.

  You look pale, but you’ll be just fine.

  Cain’t use the room no more, dammit.

  So you gotta be smart.

  They need to know the discipline of a guard’s club,

  the keys jangle like death bells ringin’.

  We got to control their words, break ‘em

  and fling ‘em into the mud like we did that King boy.

  And we have to feed ‘em right always

  if not pork

  then with an education that will send ’em marchin’

  into the fire. Know what I mean, kid?

  Here, bite a chew of this tobacco —

  it keeps you calm.

  Don’t think it’s over, kid, believe me, it ain’t.

  There’ll be another one of ‘em

  screamin’ and preachin’ and scramblin’

  for the mountaintop one of these days.

  Heh heh. We should have a prison or two up there

  by then, kid; maximum security.

  Jobs for us all, and maybe

  a special room somewhere.”

  1988, Sing Sing Correctional Facility Ossining, New York

  Eleven Days Under Siege:

  An Insider’s Account of the

  Lucasville Riot

  Paul Mulryan

  “Hey, Paul!” I heard my road dog calling me from the other side of the fence dividing the blocks from the yard. “I just heard that some rollers got downed outside L Corridor! Keep your eyes open, rap, some strange shit is going down.”

  I didn’t give much thought to what he had said. Fights between convicts and guards weren’t exactly uncommon here. But I told him I’d keep my eyes open.

  Then I heard the two guards in charge of my block yell, their voices full of panic and urgency, for the porter: “Lock up! Lock up now, damn it!”

  Someone in the cells called out, “The guards are locking themselves in the bathroom! What the hell’s happening?”

  “They’ve got control of L Corridor! There are guys running around with masks on! They’ve got the keys! They’ve got the fucking keys!”

  The rumble from the corridor began to grow like a rolling thunderstorm: muffled screams, the pounding of feet running through the halls, glass shattering and showering the floor, and echoes of loud ramming sounds as though heavy steel bars were battering down the walls. There was a louder crash, and then orders were yelled. “Open these cells! Let’s get these doors open, and get these people out!”

  By now I knew that the block I was in had been taken over, but I didn’t know by whom. An icy dread swept through me. My first thought was that there must be a racial war.

  Keys that the block officers had abandoned were thrown to the prisoner now manning the control panel. The eighty cells in the L Corridor were instantly opened. I grabbed a metal tray for a weapon and headed out of my cell. Down the range I could see several teams of masked convicts converging on the block. Each man was armed to the teeth: baseball bats, chains, and shanks of stainless steel, two foot long and honed to a point as fine as an icepick. These men meant business.

  “Everyone out! Get the fuck out of your cell!” they yelled as they moved from cell to cell. “If anyone is caught trying to hide in their cell, kill the motherfucker! Let’s go! Let’s go!” I watched each man closely, trying to read his intentions from his eyes and body signals. If they tried to move in on me I’d go over the range to the first floor. The jump was nothing, and there were too many of them to even think about dealing with them head-on. My adrenaline shot to flight mode. I put my foot on the edge of the range, ready to go over. They came closer checking me out, and clearly not rattled by my metal tray. Then I saw both black and white skin showing through their masks. I was relieved. Blacks and whites wouldn’t be working together if this was a race riot. “Everything’s cool, brother,” one said. “But we still want everyone out in the hall, so if you need to get some of your things together get them now and leave the block.” I didn’t recognize any of them, nor did I want to. Still I inched closer to the edge of the range.

  “Be cool, bro. You’ve got no problem here,” another said.

  With that, I moved out, heading quickly down the range and out of the block. Something this big and unbridled could quickly get out of hand. My best bet was to get out to the rec yard where my road dog was. I knew what he was about and that we could look out for each other.

  I stepped into L Corridor and into a world of chaos. Each of the 632 cells had been opened, and hundreds of convicts, some masked and armed, swarmed through the hallways like angry hornets. Faces were intense with fear. Eyes darted from face to face, face to hand, looking for weapons or any signs of danger. When eye contact was made, it was brief and concealed. No one wanted his concern to be misread as a threat or challenge.

  “You men get something into your hands!” one guy kept shouting. “Let’s get busy tearing this fucking place down!” He ran from window to window swinging a steel bar and smashing glass. I moved closer to the gym, hoping to find the exit door open, then spotted my friend Val from one of the other blocks. “Val!” I hollered as I worked my way toward him. “What the hell is this shit?”

  “I don’t know what’s up, Paul. I just got out of the shower and the place was crazy!”

  I told him my plans to head to the rec yard and he fell in beside me. Down the hall we came upon a body lying in a puddle of blood. There were punctures all over the guy’s face and upper torso. Someone had pinned a guard’s badge through his skin, a sign this was a snitch and that snitches would find no peace in L Corridor this day.

  “Who is it? Can you tell who it is?” I asked my homey as I stepped around the blood.

  “No, rap. Too much blood.”

  By the time Val and I made it through the hallway to the gym, it was too late. The exit door was already barricaded, wired shut, and guarded by several masked and armed convicts. Since this was the only available exit, it meant that Val and I were locked in for the long run.

  We knew that the riot could erupt into a full-scale bloodbath at any time, and it was imperative that we arm ourselves as quickly as possible. We grabbed the first suitable thing we saw: pieces of heavy pipe. As we made our way back up the corridor, the heat and closeness of danger hung like a wet wool blanket.

  “We’re stuck in this shit for however long it lasts,” I said to Val. “We’ve got to watch each other’s back.”

  Val looked around, nodding his head. “Cool, rap. Let’s get our asses out of the mainstream,” This was too big to be safe.

  “Listen up! Everyone shut the fuck up for a minute!” yelled one of the Masks as he marched through the hallway. “Everyone move against the wall! We gotta keep the middle of the corridor clear. Let’s get together on this!”

  The crowd flanked the wall as two other Masks walked down the center and announced: “Lucasville is ours! This is not racial. I repeat, not racial. It’s us against the administration! We’re tired of these people fucking us over. Is everybody with us? Let’s hear ya!”

  Hundreds of fists shot into the air as the prisoners roared their approval. I felt relief sweep over me. I was now a little clearer about what was happening. What I didn’t know was that we were locked into what was soon to be one of the nation’s longest and bloodiest riots.

&n
bsp; Teams of men were assigned to barricade and guard each block. Two men were stationed in the day rooms to watch the rec yard; two were stationed in each of the range’s top cells to watch the roof. L-2 was the only block that hadn’t been opened. I overheard someone say that one of the prisoners had broken a key in the lock to keep the rioters from taking over. One of the Masks found pickaxes and busted the glass and the steel frame from the window casing. Twenty minutes later, L-2 was taken.

  “Okay, get the bitch who broke the key in the lock! He wants to play police? We’ll show him what’s up!”

  The prisoner had locked himself in the stairwell with the block officer, hoping that the brick-and-steel enclosure would keep him safe until help arrived. The Masks attacked the block wall with forty-five-pound weight bars and a heavy pickax, and within minutes the concrete wall gave way. The guard and the prisoner were dragged out. The guard was blindfolded, but the prisoner was hit with bats, weight bars, and shanks. A coroner’s report later revealed that not only was his skull crushed, and numerous other bones broken, he had also been cut from neck to belly and gutted. His body was dragged to the end of the corridor and dumped on a pile of wet blankets near another body, both of which would later be hauled out to the rec yard.

  Meanwhile, guards were being grabbed wherever they could be found. Several managed to break away and make it to safety, but others weren’t so fortunate. Some were thrown onto the floor and hit so hard that they couldn’t get back up. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead as they were dragged into one of the cellblocks. During the first hour eleven were seized, blindfolded, and dressed in prison blues, inmate uniforms. The convicts beat some of the guards so badly they released them for fear that they might die. Of those seized, seven would be taken hostage for the duration of the riot; one would be killed.

  The rioters covered all of the windows with blankets and then searched every cell for food. With more than four hundred prisoners and seven guards to feed, food would be essential. Everything we found was stored in an empty cell that became the kitchen. That first night cookies, chips, and cake were given to anyone who was hungry. Although I hadn’t eaten all day, I wasn’t hungry. I remember thinking that I’d get something to eat when it was all over. Little did I know it would last another ten days.