Hard Sentences: Crime Fiction Inspired by Alcatraz

by David James Keaton

  Now, all this has got me to putting my thinking cap on. The way I figure it, there’s just the skootch of a chance that the Dream Flyer was onto something. I even disremember something way back when I was in short pants myself, a time when I used to get out of my body and float around the trailer. Thing is, I can’t tell if I really remember something like that, or if talking to the Dream Flyer makes me think I remember it. But the more I cogitate on it, the more I’m sure I done it.

  Starting tonight, I’m gonna start practicing. See if maybe I can get out of my body a little bit, for a few minutes or so, maybe fly over to the chow hall and get hold of one of those steaks the cooks save back for themselves, cop a piece of that sweet tater pie they claimed they was out of. Maybe go over to the Anglin brothers’ cell and see if they really do have that escape plan they keep yapping about in the showers. If it works, then I guess it’s possible to fly. I remember everything the Dream Flyer told me about suspending the molecules and such, and if it’s possible, I can do it as well as he could. Better, I hope.

  If it’s possible, think of the feasibilivities! I mean, there’s not a joint built that could ever hold me! I’d like to see that judge’s face, next time I stand up there for some cockamamie crap like gambling. I’d fly up to the ceiling and wave at him right before I shoot out the window.

  “Hey, judge,” I’ll yell. “I believe I’ll do those thirty days over on the Redneck Riviera over to Panama City.”

  That’s the kind of statement I’ll be making.

  Let’s see, Karol said you suspend your molecules And do something with your breath . . . Damn! This is gonna be easy! See how the justice system likes it, playing on an even field.

  Color my ass gone.

  The Sympathizers

  by Rory Costello

  April 1865

  Schadenfreude had long been life’s prime delight for Samuel Parks. Yet the sensation had never been so sweet. Glad tidings! The Illinois ape, Lincoln, had been shot. About damned time, Parks mused.

  Parks knocked the dottle out of his corncob pipe and packed a fresh bowl. He fired it up and drew slowly, contentedly. The whiskey tasted mellower, too, as he began to compose his editorial for the next day’s edition of his newspaper, the Buena Vista Partisan. Parks had earned his nickname—“Prattle”—because he never would shut up. He wasn’t about to start now.

  “A Man Reaps What He Sows!” the banner headline proclaimed. Six paragraphs of inflammatory sour grapes followed.

  Much of Buena Vista was pro-Confederate—indeed, there were secessionist hotbeds up and down California. But the pro-Union populace was outraged. Armed with crowbars, axes, and torches, a band of townsmen razed the Partisan’s offices.

  Word of the incident spread quickly, and the U.S. Army responded. A force of 20 soldiers on horseback rode into Buena Vista to restore order. They found Parks gazing at the still-smoldering ruin of his building. The Army captain moved his horse forward a few paces.

  “Samuel Parks?”

  “Who wants to know? State your business, blue belly.”

  “We have orders to detain him.”

  The captain handed Parks a sheet. Parks snatched it with a contemptuous snort and read:

  Headquarters Department of Pacific

  San Francisco, April 17, 1865

  General Orders No. 27

  It has come to the knowledge of the Major General commanding that there have been found within the Department persons so utterly infamous as to exult over the assassination of the President. Such persons become virtually accessories after the fact, and will at once be arrested by any officer or Provost Marshal or member of the police having knowledge of the case. Any paper so offending, or expressing any sympathy in any way whatever with the act, will be at once seized and suppressed.

  By command of Major General McDowell.

  R.C. Drum

  Assistant Adjutant General

  Parks looked up. “McDowell?” he said, cackling in perverse glee. “Irvin McDowell? The bungler of Bull Run? The one who wore that damned ridiculous helmet? But yep, I’m Parks—and I’m exulting, all right. ‘Utterly infamous’ is a good one, too. This Drum fella can turn a phrase. Anyway, you’re just a leetle bit late to seize and suppress. The mob already did a good job of that. So what else you gonna do?”

  The captain’s response was simply to turn and tell his men, “Clap him in irons.”

  A burly sergeant and three other wolfish soldiers dismounted. As Parks railed in fury, they shackled him and marched him out of Buena Vista.

  Similar arrests took place elsewhere around the state. In Manteca, Anthony Markham had capered down Main Street, giving his version of a rebel yell and discharging two pistols into the air. The county sheriff handed him over to the Provost Marshal’s staff, and Markham made a grueling hike of 75 miles west to San Francisco.

  In Punta Arenas, up the Pacific coast, Richard Potter was apprehended for echoing John Wilkes Booth’s cry of “Sic semper tyrannis!” He was thrown into the cargo hold of a schooner and left in the dark for the duration of the sail down to the Bay.

  Down south, in Monterey, John McManus was just as intemperate. With the better part of a fifth in him, he announced, “The horrid-looking wretch had it coming years ago! The world is well rid of its greatest scoundrel.” In one way, McManus had it easier than Markham and Potter; he was placed aboard a steamer, and his trip was quicker. He was put to work shoveling coal ash, a taste of what was to come.

  One curious case took place in Humboldt County when dressmaker Nellie Masters, not wishing to befoul the streets of Eureka, fashioned a diaper for her white mare from an American flag. Though she was arrested, as a member of the fairer sex, she was released with merely a reprimand.

  All in all, more than 40 Confederate sympathizers from California—excluding women and children—were taken into custody for rejoicing over Lincoln’s murder. Their destination: Alcatraz.

  Captain William Kindell was a man of indeterminate age with scanty blond hair and no beard, unusual for the time. This kept his hallmark creepy smile visible at all times. Kindell had assumed command of Fort Alcatraz the previous year, and the ongoing development of the fort continued, with Army engineers in charge.

  Lieutenant Richard Barnes oversaw the work crews, which had included a number of Union soldiers who’d been sent to the guardhouse for various reasons, along with assorted other military prisoners. Kindell had summoned Barnes to his office to inform him of the incoming batch.

  “What’s the most prisoners you’ve had working for you before?” asked Kindell.

  “My guess is 10 to 20,” Barnes replied.

  “We don’t guess in our line of work, Lieutenant. Guessing gets men killed. We estimate.”

  “Indeed, Captain. Military science,” said Barnes, thinking, You pompous twit.

  “At any rate, Barnes, you’re about to get some reinforcements. Quite an influx—at least 40, I’m informed. Their boat is due in shortly. Do come with me to greet them.”

  Kindell and Barnes walked to the wharf, near where one of the new projects, a bombproof barracks, was being constructed. The launch full of prisoners arrived and was moored. The guards escorted the sympathizers to an assembly point near one of the batteries, where Kindell addressed them.

  “Allow me to quote a great man,” said the captain, amused with himself as ever. “‘Work, work, work, is the main thing.’ Do you know who said that?”

  Parks had the answer. Naturally, he couldn’t hold his tongue. “The idiot!”

  The odd grin remained on Kindell’s face. “Who?”

  “The baboon!”

  Kindell remained tolerant. “I know who you mean, but would you kindly refer to him by name?”

  “Not for all the gold in California,” Parks growled. “I don’t speak it or write it. I wouldn’t even piss it in the snow.”

  “A man of principle,” said Kindell. “I admire that. Your principle shall be tested here, Mister . . . ?” He let the question hang.r />
  “Parks.”

  “Thank you, sir. Does anyone else care to venture the answer?”

  None of the other prisoners responded.

  The captain let the silence linger a few beats longer, before continuing. “Mr. Parks is correct. It was the man who brought us all here together—Abraham Lincoln himself.” Kindell took relish in the looks of disgust that swept across the faces of the sympathizers. “Mr. Lincoln spoke often on the subject of work. And work you shall.”

  “And if we shan’t?” asked Parks.

  “Splendid question,” said the captain. “I’m very glad you brought it up. The alternative is warm accommodation—the warmest we have to offer. It can be quite chilly here, but you’d never know it.”

  “If I may, I’d like to regale you with another tale featuring our esteemed late commander-in-chief. Two years or so ago, the president visited one of our Navy’s steamships. He was shown a sweatbox and told that it was used for insubordinate sailors. He insisted on trying it for himself but could endure no more than three minutes. Forthwith, he ordered the Secretary of the Navy to ban the practice aboard all vessels flying the American flag.”

  “But this is not the Navy . . . it is the Army. And with respect to Mr. Lincoln, some infractions require more stringent measures, as do some places. This is one of them.”

  “For the privilege of expressing your opinion, you will engage in the tasks we set you until such time as you see fit to recognize the opinion that matters most—the law in these United States. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Labor is the true standard of value.’ By that token, gentlemen, you will prove your worth.”

  Lieutenant Barnes and his men assigned the sympathizers to three different crews. McManus and Potter were sand packers: their job was to fill 60-pound jute bags with sand to reinforce the bulwark at the Presidio. Markham was a rock breaker. Parks was a digger: his crew was excavating the foundation for the bombproof barracks. They were all hobbled with ball and chain. If that wasn’t humiliating enough, they had to work in view of visitors to the island, including children, who pointed and snickered.

  At Kindell’s direction, the soldiers paired Parks with the most annoying partner available, a lewd-minded Union prisoner named Norton who was even more voluble. In particular, the former farmboy from Indiana held forth endlessly on the subject of “public women” and his carryings-on with them.

  “Christ, Norton, I’m no Puritan, but you’re making me sick,” Parks grumbled. “Will you shut your hole? I think syphilis must be eating your brain.”

  “Not me, buddy,” said the Hoosier. “I always wore a skin. They weren’t so easy to get, though, so I hadda keep washing ’em out.”

  “Enough! I don’t want to hear another God . . . damned . . . word.” Parks longed for a smoke. Remarkably, his pipe hadn’t been confiscated, and he even had a little baccy left in the pouch. But he didn’t have a single match. It was maddening.

  “Okay, okay. No more whores. But I got other good camp stories for ya. Wanna hear about the grayback races? Them cooties can scoot!”

  After just two hours on Day One, Parks had had it. He picked up his 24-pound ball and dropped it on Norton’s foot. Yet despite two cracked metatarsals, the farmer didn’t cry out. Instead, he grabbed his own chain, swung the ball like a knight with a flail, and nailed Parks across the shin.

  A guard spotted the action and ran over, asking, “What the hell’s going on?”

  Norton calmly lied. “He asked me to do it, Corporal. He said he didn’t wanna do no work for no Union sonsabitches.”

  “Well, why’d you do it, you stupid bastard? What’s in it for you?”

  Norton shrugged. “It’s not like I got nothin’ to lose. Y’already got me for ten years. Can’t make my sentence no longer or harder.”

  Parks was writhing in pain, yet he perked up a bit. Prison hospital would be boring, but it beat this ditch digging—and it would get him away from Norton.

  Kindell’s unsettling grin was still fixed as Parks—in a temporary splint—was dragged before him by two beefy PFCs known as “The Ox Team.”

  “Mr. Parks. It would appear that you don’t place the same premium on the value of labor that Mr. Lincoln did, and, in the here and now, that I do, as well. We take a rather dim view of malingering in the U.S. Army.”

  Parks tried to spit but couldn’t gather it from his dry mouth. His voice was a hoarse mutter. “You takin’ me to the doctors?”

  “In due course. We don’t want to see you lose that leg. Just to let you know, though—even with it in a cast, you should be able to dig quite effectively. You should have asked Private Norton to swing for an arm. But meanwhile, we have a little discipline to mete out here.”

  “Sweat box?” asked The Ox Team.

  Kindell nodded.

  “Take him.”

  It wasn’t even fit to be a coffin—two-feet deep, two-feet wide, and just a little over five-feet high. It had just a one-inch hole bored in the top to admit air. One of the Oxen crammed Parks inside. Although he stood just five-feet-six, Parks still had to bend. The lid was drawn down tightly, muffling the shouts and imprecations.

  The temperature on Alcatraz seldom got above 75 degrees, but The Rock was sometimes at its balmiest in April and May. Soon Parks was drenched. He felt nauseated and headachy. Dizziness followed. He yelled and pounded on the lid but to no avail.

  When the lid was pulled off the box, after not even half an hour, The Ox Team found Parks unconscious and covered in vomit. They each dumped a bucket of cold seawater on him. This revived Parks, and got his core temperature down.

  The damage, however, had already been done. Heatstroke caused Parks’ speech to be slurred; he suffered hallucinations. He was allowed to remain in the small frame building behind the guardhouse that held all the additional prisoners. But a few days later, he had a series of seizures, and The Ox Team carried Samuel Parks away, never to be seen again.

  The remaining sympathizers wondered vaguely what became of Parks. Some speculated he’d been buried in one of the pockets of rock that had been blasted out to make way for gardens—a few of them were freshly filled with imported soil. Others figured he’d just been dumped at sea. Another theory held that he’d been put away in an Army asylum. The Oxen were no longer around to talk either; the word was they’d been mustered out.

  Lieutenant Barnes looked vainly for written orders, and next of kin for Parks. When he asked Kindell about it, all he got was a sigh and a platitude.

  “This War Department bureaucracy, Barnes. The reams of paperwork. It’s—how shall I put it . . .” The captain glanced up at a quizzical angle, searching for le mot juste. “Augean? You wouldn’t want to get bogged down in that muck, Barnes. Be happy you’re an engineer, not an administrator.” The subject did not arise after that.

  Meanwhile, the sympathizers just kept their heads down—digging, breaking rock, and packing sand. They stayed at it for several weeks, 8 to 12 hours a day. Finally, in mid-June, they were ferried across the Bay and brought to the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. There they stood trial for their use of disloyal language toward the government. It was all just a technicality and went swiftly. The judge found them guilty, and the men were compelled to take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America.

  “Now repeat after me, gentlemen. ‘I do solemnly swear . . .’”

  Most of them were genuinely humbled by the whole experience—but three expressions were anything but solemn, ranging from a sour grimace (McManus), to a roll of the eyes (Potter), to a smirk (Markham). And as the men enacted the charade, they remained unrepentant. Sedition still infected their hearts and minds.

  “‘. . . that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States . . .’”

  The South shall rise again, Markham thought.

  “‘. . . against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign

  . . .’”

  Federal government is the true enemy (Potter)

&
nbsp; “‘. . . and that I will bear true faith, allegiance and loyalty to the same . . .’”

  Secesh to the bone (McManus)

  “‘. . . any ordinance, resolution or law of any State, convention or legislature to the contrary notwithstanding . . .’”

  States’ rights forever (Potter again)

  “‘. . . and further, that I do this with a full determination, pledge and purpose, without any mental reservation or evasion whatsoever . . . ’”

  Markham wasn’t the only one crossing his fingers behind his back.

  “‘So help me God.’”

  To the Devil, thought McManus as he parroted the final words easily—they were the same number of syllables.

  As they walked out of the court building, free men once more, Markham stopped for a moment. “Say, I was just thinkin’ again about that Parks character. Ya think if he hadn’t lost his mind, he coulda gone through with this?”

  Potter shook his head. “Never in hell. He’da sooner cut his throat with a rusty razor.”

  Even without the sympathizers, work continued at Fort Alcatraz. The foundation for the bombproof barracks was dug out, and the last remaining task was the cement. But before that final pour, Barnes looked over the lip of the trench and tossed in a small object he’d found in the room that had last held Parks. It was a corncob pipe, its stem cracked.

  Construction of the building was abandoned in 1867, after only the ground floor had been completed. The Army assigned both Kindell and Barnes to new posts. In another of his aphorisms, President Lincoln once said, “Half finished work generally proves to be labor lost.” But that wasn’t true in this case. In 1874, a wooden barracks was added on top of the unfinished structure. And in 1905, it became Building 64, which housed newly arriving military officers and their families.

  Many of The Rock’s residential buildings have since been torn down, but Building 64 still stands today—it’s the first structure one sees upon docking. And for more than a century and a half, there remains an oddity. People standing in a certain spot have sometimes reported an audible rapping—like a plug of dottle being cleared. And on those rare occasions when the winds off San Francisco Bay subside, those with an especially keen nose have even claimed to catch a faint whiff of smoke.