The pull of that tractor beam is no joke. The San Francisco Bay might be the closest thing our country has to its own Bermuda Triangle, with more than a hundred shipwrecks due to its strange weather, a perfect storm of strong currents, thick fog, and a reef as sharp as any jaws. I know how an island is supposed to work, anchored to the Earth and not bobbing there in the water like bait, but somehow this island seems simultaneously more and less stable than that, as if the mirror image of Alcatraz really does extend beneath the waves, as if the symmetry of this rock spins imperceptibly on its own, exuding its own gravity, letting no one free, no matter how hard they swim.
Planet Alcatraz.
After those historic Mayan ballgames, there’s still some debate as to whether they sacrificed the winning team or the losing team. Which seems like something that should have been agreed upon before the game started or you’d end up with some serious Blue Chips point-shaving incidents, but maybe these games were where point-shaving originated, at exactly the same time as basketball itself. Not surprisingly, they also invented the first three-step rule, to avoid Keatons on the Feetons, I presume, but their games only went to eight points. Coincidentally, that’s exactly the same number of points I scored all through high school. Exclusively foul shots. Hey, at least they weren’t underhand, like that kid in the wheelchair in Hoosiers.
Speaking of underhanded! Okay, time to come clean. I can’t dunk for shit either. You already knew that. So the head didn’t go on adventures. Here’s the truth of it, since this is an introduction and not a story. Instead, Frank’s head came down on the rim, and those white Chiclets went everywhere, like Frank had been curb-stomped. And the rim tore through the head much easier than it would have torn through an actual skull. Or so I’m told. But what I’d done, and what saved me from being charged with whatever crime that might be, was I’d inadvertently proven this fake head was more like a real head after all, hidden in a plain sight in a National Park where over 5,000 tourists passed by it every damn day. Not a real human head, of course, because that would be fucking bonkers. But for whatever reason, the dummy head from Frank Morris’ old cell contained the skull of a coyote, presumably for heft? Or maybe shape? Or the smile? Who knows. But this revelation, combined with the cherry-preserves filling that topped off the ridiculous prop, was realistic enough to get referee whistles blowing and children screaming, and me and my almost Vaudevillian handful of pie I was still holding got us both hustled off the court and into the old guard tower for questioning. The actual guard tower! I was swooning.
Later that night, I heard that 36-year-old L.A. native Tarron “The Beast” Williams won the tournament and the $20,000, and he was crowned the final “King of the Rock.” I can’t remember who got the thousand bucks for winning the slam-dunk contest, but I still feel like I’d earned an honorable mention, at least. TVs recorded none of my feat, however, or if they did, the tapes were destroyed, as the National Park Service was already working hard to deflect rumors of prison tours decorated with bona fide human remains.
This is why tours rarely give details of the grisly Mesoamerican ballgames, and only whisper of the blasphemous Mayan slam-dunk. Because prison is weird enough already, you know? And if White Men Can’t Jump taught me anything, it’s that if you’re palming a human head like a basketball, especially if you’re down by one and going up for the final shot, or doing something as stupid as telling a story in the middle of a movie, or if you clear your throat and flap your arms like wings when your only task is to write the introduction for a collection of stories that can more than speak for themselves, only a fool would try to show off.
Break
by Glenn Gray
The first self-inflicted fracture was the middle phalanx of the right fifth digit, but that was just a test. It didn’t matter because it would have nothing to do with the job. Bone snapped easily with just a slight jerk, as if cracking a knuckle. It fractured swiftly and effortlessly, and surprisingly without much pain. I’m no stranger to fractures. A good part of my childhood was spent in hospitals and doctor’s offices, showing up with bones broken due to forces that seemed no greater than a strong gust of wind. It started early on, as a toddler, and continued into my teens until things got sorted out. I always figured my bone issues were probably why I chose to become a doctor in the first place, thinking it would give me some kind of control, of which I had none.
I was born with a mild form of osteogenesis imperfecta, better known as “brittle bone disease.” Genetics gave me bad collagen. Fractures were a regular occurrence, a routine part of my life, and the whole thing didn’t make for a particularly active or happy childhood. I probably shouldn’t complain too much because children born with more severe forms of the disease typically don’t make it past their first month.
And it turns out, my brittle bones, in conjunction with my medical knowledge, became quite useful when I arrived at Alcatraz in July 1941. I laugh sometimes thinking my bones were also why I was there in the first place, angry at the cards I was dealt, huge chip on my shoulder. But that’s a horse of another color. This story, the one about the prison, won’t be found in any history books or newspapers, but it should be because I’m the only person ever to escape from Alcatraz and survive.
Well, sort of.
The first key was that the warden took a quick liking to me. My appearance was unintimidating, and I could be charming and affable when I wanted. My face had the classic physical features typical for the disease: triangular in shape, with a broad forehead and mild mandibular prognathism, or subtle underbite. The whites of my eyes had a blue tinge. But if you passed me in the street, you would think I was sort of funny looking and probably carry on, forgetting you ever saw me. I was average height, only achievable with mild forms of the disease. And due to prior fractures, my arms and legs had slight angulation deformities. My chest also had a barrel shape. And I possessed mild thoracic kyphoscoliosis. All in all, a perfect storm of impediments.
The next key was that I was a well-respected physician prior to incarceration, albeit with anger issues. I made sure I was a model prisoner and behaved myself, easy with the “yes, sirs” and the nods and smiles. As a result, the warden singled me out. Not infrequently, he called me to his house in order to attend to minor medical issues for him and his family. He seemed to value my opinion much more than the prison docs that were usually just out of training, and besides, they never lasted that long, running back to the safety and tranquility of civilian life at the first hint of danger.
The real reason he requested me was his daughter, Mindy. Most people weren’t even aware that she existed. It was obvious to me the warden was ashamed of her and kept her hidden. I was often called to treat her physical ailments, like pressure sores, contractures, and bouts of mild pneumonia. She was twenty-one when I first met her. Her body was ravaged by childhood polio, but I thought she was beautiful. The first time we met, I saw nothing but warmth, and I knew right away she felt the same for me. It was as if we connected through our deformities, our ugliness a response to the world at large.
Apart from the bones, I had other medical issues, things I didn’t divulge. I didn’t want any unnecessary attention or questions, but I also had celiac disease, an intestinal malabsorption disorder. As a result, my intestines had problems absorbing calcium and vitamin D, a double whammy with the brittle bones, but a blessing and a curse, as I later discovered.
The celiac disease was also the main contributor to my pale, anemic coloring, a lack of vitamin D and B12, adding to my odd appearance. Because of my unusually white skin, I was referred to as Casper the Doc by fellow inmates, like the cartoon, or sometimes “Doctor Ghost.” Eventually it was shortened to just “Casper.”
I had been taking phosphates, vitamin D, and calcium supplements for years, in order to help prevent fractures. That and exercise, mostly walking and swimming. But when I arrived at Alcatraz, I stopped taking my supplements and cut out any dietary sources of calcium. I avoided the sun at all costs, wrappi
ng myself up like a mummy anytime I was in the yard, as sunlight was necessary for vitamin D activation, something I was now denying my body. Everyone thought I was weird and quirky, which was perfect. Inmates kept their distance, and the warden thought I was a harmless loner, but my overall goal was two-fold:
I would lose weight and allow my bones to revert back to their tragic, weakened state.
As I sat in my cell and fractured my pinky finger, it dawned on me that I was ready. Sitting there on my cot, I shifted the fracture fragments back and forth, embracing the sense of freedom this new motion signified. It was the dead of night, and I glanced at the dinky sink, metal toilet, the 5x9 foot space and thought, 20 more years? No way.
Pinching the middle phalanx on the opposite hand, I gave it a swift twisting jerk. There was a soft snap and another new motion.
The fragments, now as free as their brothers, glided right past one another.
I noted a subtle skin bruise at the fracture site, much less than normal, likely because the bone had diminished vascularity, and as a result, less oozing.
I stood. Shuffled to the bars. Grabbed cold metal with both hands, evaluated the width once again. Turning sideways, I passed my arm through to the shoulder and assessed the depth of my barrel chest. Turning forward, I pushed my face into the space between the bars, the metal squeezing my skull and my head stuck at the junction of the frontal and parietal bones, just above the squamous portion of the temporal bone. This was good.
The horizontal cross bars were a definite nuisance and created a dilemma in that the overall height of the space was cut in thirds, so I would have to squat and straddle my body to get out. Options were going out headfirst, front-way, or legs first and backwards. I needed to think about that. I put a leg through sideways until the bars met my pelvis. Anteriorly, the pubic symphysis would be an issue, so I made a mental note of the width of my pelvic girdle.
After full analysis, I sat back on the cot and set about doing some serious fracturing. Each night for two weeks, I fractured the same bones over and over, not allowing them to fully heal, but instead building a soft bridge of callus. I fractured the fourth through eleventh ribs on each side laterally, resulting in a vertical line from the armpit down. Each snap was easy, a short push with a fingertip, sometimes three pushes, each time a little harder than the last, right before the pop. These fractures allowed the front half of my rib cage to ride over the back half, like some kind of bony piston, and narrow my thoracic cage significantly.
The pubic bones required multiple fractures, two spots on each side, given the osseous configuration of a pelvis was akin to a pretzel, so it wouldn’t normally deform. I had to fracture both the superior and inferior pubic rami. This allowed the front half of the pelvic girdle to ride past the posterior portion, and, like the chest, narrow the front to back dimension. These fractures were hard to achieve given their location. I couldn’t just push like with a rib. I found the best way was to squeeze between the bars and force myself in until the cracking started. First on the left, then right.
The hardest part was the skull.
I only did it once, to make sure it worked. I had to be careful the fracture line didn’t extend into the squamous temporal bone and lacerate the middle meningeal artery. The result would be catastrophic, ending up with an epidural hematoma, death almost instantaneous, my head probably outside the bars straddling my neck when I was found cold and stiff in the morning, like I’d hung myself between the metal. Embarrassing. I was not suicidal.
The skull fractures needed to be horizontal and high, so the inferior bony plates would push in under the superior plates, narrowing the key part of the calvarium. I did this by sitting alongside the cot, pushing the mattress away to expose the metallic edge, then imagining a line along the calvarium. I whacked my head sideways into the metal edge over and over, like some kind of desperate mental patient, of which I was neither.
It was the hardest fracture of all to achieve. The calvarium, even diseased, is thick and built to protect from exactly what I was doing to it. Eventually, it fractured. While banging the opposite side, in my excitement, I knocked myself unconscious on the fourth and final blow. I woke up on the cold floor in a daze, staring at the ceiling, just in time to crawl back in bed before the guard’s perimeter walk.
The final key was Mindy. I said we connected immediately, but it was much more than that. We were in love. I knew from the moment I was called over to treat a decubitus ulcer on her lower back. Her left leg was paralyzed, the right partially, and she had poor sensation from the waist down, so she often developed pressure sores. One of her arms was severely spastic, causing her elbow and wrist to curl forward. Surprisingly, she was able to walk well with a cane, despite the bulky metal brace on her left leg.
When I arrived that first time, she was on her stomach, and I evaluated her gaping wound. Bad decubiti are typically hard to look at, even for a doctor. The smell, the pus, the dead skin and exposed flesh and bone. When she rolled over though, our eyes met and it was glorious. All I saw were her eyes, wide, stunning, symmetrical orbits, full of wonder. She gazed at me and our line of vision was awkwardly locked in place, like a tightly tethered clothesline, until the warden, who was standing nearby, cleared his throat. He knew right away what had happened, and I believe he was pleased. He must have been, because I was asked back, again and again, and my love for Mindy deepened each time. We shared only one furtive kiss when we were alone for nine glorious minutes, but that was enough.
Over time, I whispered to her my plan to escape, and we spoke about spending the rest of our lives together once I was free. But first, I needed her to do one thing. I needed her to hide a raft and life vest at a particular spot along the shore on a particular night. She resisted at first, but ultimately agreed. After many evenings in the library, I became an expert on every current, tide, and weather pattern around San Francisco, and, specifically, around the Rock.
When I finally chose a week, a day, and a time, I was so excited that I almost risked cracking my knuckles.
On the night of the escape, I fluffed and arranged blankets and clothes in my cot to appear as if I were sleeping. Approaching the bars, I put my right leg through and shifted until my pelvis stuck. My original plan had been to go through legs and pelvis first, then chest, and head last, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I would put my arms through first, as if diving, then my head, then squiggle the rest of the way through. If I was able to pass my skull through first without a problem, then I figured I would be fine, and the rest of my body would follow me to freedom.
Withdrawing my leg, I got on my knees. I extended my straightened arms out, palms together, and slid them through the bars. I twisted sideways, but turned my head so that I was face out. My skull met the bars and stopped. Snug. I was able to bend my arms back and grab the bars from the outside, to get some traction, and I shifted my legs so that my feet were on the floor, bent as if at a track meet, ready in the starting blocks. Firming myself up, I waited a moment and took a deep breath. Closing my eyes as I exhaled, I pushed and pulled and heard the crackle of cranial plates, and a lightning bolt of pain flashed through my head as my brain squished inward. I actually felt my brain pulse, as if it was drawing breath, as I grew dizzy.
A dribble of saliva leaked from the corner of my mouth right before I passed out.
I woke a few minutes later, I think. I couldn’t tell how long I’d been out, hanging there between the bars, but I hadn’t been discovered, arms and head dangling, my worst fear. I regained my bearings and returned to work. I shimmied sideways so my sternum pressed against one bar, and my back, at the mid thoracic level, was at the other. I braced myself with arms and feet and pushed until I couldn’t move anymore, and with a victory grunt lurched forward. With loud snaps, crackles, and pops, the anterior and posterior halves of my rib cage shifted over each other and choked the air from my lungs, compressed my heart so I was lightheaded again, and short of breath, pulse stuttering like a backfiring car.
I thought of Mindy, and my heart grew tight as a fist.
And as I passed through the bars and the rib cage retracted outward, the air pulled in with a great whoosh and rivers of blood re-expanded my heart and it sped back up like a jackhammer. I hung there, slumped sideways up to my mid abdomen now. It took me a half hour to regulate my body and convince my organs to stop their revolt and regroup.
Eventually they agreed. We were all in this together.
Needing to work fast now, I wriggled and heaved my pelvis in between the bars, locking it in place. This awkward position made it harder, didn’t allow for a good thrust from my legs, still thrumming in their starting blocks. I would have to rely more on arm strength, of which there never was much. And there was new pain growing in my chest with each movement.
I managed to get a hand around a bar, the other palm flat on the floor, and I inhaled and exhaled deeply as I yanked forward. The bones didn’t move. I rested a moment and tried again. This time I tried harder, and I heard a crunch, but it wasn’t enough. I waited a moment and sensed something, and when I looked around, I saw the prisoner next door glaring at me in horror. I brought a broken finger to my lips, imploring him to remain quiet, but something like a boat motor erupted from my mouth. He just shook his head at the ghost suspended between the bars, maybe a sight not unfamiliar to a prisoner after all.
Hard Sentences: Crime Fiction Inspired by Alcatraz Page 2