Escape Artist

by William A. Noguera

  As I did, I felt it. My nostrils flared and I focused. I realized my mistake immediately, but I didn’t have time to be upset at my stupidity—I had to act. A Peckerwood named Hellhound had approached me and stood a few feet away. Hellhound was a murderer, six feet, 225 pounds, and his face clearly betrayed his intent. He was angry and out of his mind. As soon as he got close I smelled the meth oozing from his pores, and I could tell he hadn’t slept in days.

  He accused me of putting a camera and microphone in his cell so his enemies could listen to his thoughts—hallucinations brought on by the meth. He was paranoid and unpredictable, but because I was still in a good mood I told him he should kick back because it was all in his head.

  He continued to accuse me of everything from planting bugs in his mind to turning off the hot water in his cell, until I grew tired of his nonsense.

  “Check this out, motherfucker. Take your punk ass off the yard. I don’t want to hear this silly weak-ass shit,” I said.

  That’s when I made my second mistake of the day. I turned to walk away, and before I took the first step he struck, hitting me hard on the side of the head. He partially connected with my left ear. The blow staggered me and I nearly fell. My vision narrowed and darkness threatened to swallow me. I hung between consciousness and unconsciousness, and for that millisecond everything slowed down. Then the inferno inside me—that place where everything ever done to me dwelled—erupted. I didn’t think, only reacted to the danger I was in. I didn’t know what he hit me with, or how much damage he’d inflicted, but my response was immediate and extreme. Darkness still threatened to swallow me, and my vision was clouded, but I struck out first with my left fist—a clumsy blow, but it was enough to center me and, most importantly, it located my target. I followed with my right fist, connected with his face, and smashed his nose. As he fell, I moved in and finished him with a kick to the side of his head. It was over. I stood, overwhelmed by anger, and saw blood draining from his face.

  “Down. Everyone down.”

  I was so overcome with the moment, I didn’t hear or see what was happening around me until the second I heard the distinct sound of the gunner chambering a round with my name on it.

  “Noguera, turn around.”

  I turned and looked at him.

  “Don’t move or I’ll put one in you.”

  I stared at him. He was threatening me and I didn’t like it. I didn’t care if he held a mini-14 pointed at me. At that moment, I was too angry to fear him or anyone.

  Bulls poured out of the East Block doors and I was ordered to come to the gate, where I was cuffed and led to a holding cage, and then to the hospital for an examination.

  Within the hour, I was in the AC cell. Anger still gripped me and I thought about everything that happened and what it meant. My biggest concern was my work, my commitments to commissions, and how long it would take to get back my grade-A status and get back to work. I second-guessed myself and wondered what I could have done to avoid the mess I was in, but, short of not going outside, I came to the conclusion there was nothing I could have done to avoid it.

  The second day in the AC I received the 115 write-up and I got angry all over again. The gunner wrote it up as if I beat up Hellhound with no provocation. I had hoped the gunner had seen him hit me so he’d know my actions were a response to being attacked. It was obvious the gunner only noticed after the incident was well under way, and by that time I was doing the damage to Hellhound and he looked like the victim.

  The way the 115 was written, I was facing at least a year in the hole. It was that simple. By the seventh day I accepted my fate. I would spend the next twelve months there.

  The men around me in the hole told me about the damage I inflicted on Hellhound—a broken nose, fractured eye socket, and a couple of broken teeth. Part of me smiled, but another wanted to cry because of what I’d lose. I didn’t care how much damage I inflicted on the idiot. The damage to my reputation as an artist mattered more to me. How would it look to the clients who trusted me with their orders? How would I appear to the people of Intangible? But most of all, I was angry about not being able to continue my journey toward that place where my vision, my imagination, and emotions became one in my quest for clarity.

  As I worried about the consequences of the incident, I heard bulls coming, then the large outer steel door that closed me off from the world opened and two bulls stepped to the small area in front of my cage.

  “Noguera, someone wants to see you.”

  The bulls looked familiar, but I didn’t know their names. They cuffed me behind my back and escorted me to the second floor of the AC, where I was surprised to see Captain Hales sitting behind a desk. I hadn’t seen him in a few years, not since I helped him win the bet with an associate warden at Folsom Prison who thought he had the best artist in the system. The pieces I created for Captain Hales proved that associate warden wrong.

  “Good morning, Mr. Noguera. Please sit down. Imagine my surprise when I was told you had been placed in my AC for assault on an inmate. I looked over the 115 investigative report and it was pretty cut and dried. Except the medical report indicated your left ear was bleeding and bruised. The gun-rail officer’s report states he only witnessed you assaulting the other inmate. So how did you sustain the injuries to your ear?”

  I only stared at him.

  “I’ll tell you how. My gun-rail officer didn’t see the whole picture, did he? I did some investigating of my own and, in speaking to Mr. Cutler (Hellhound), he admitted he assaulted you.”

  “I think the evidence speaks for itself, Associate Warden Hales,” I said. “And congratulations on your promotion.”

  He laughed. “Normally this incident would be written up as Mr. Cutler being the victim and you the aggressor, but the evidence proves you were defending yourself even though he looks like he got hit by a truck. I’ll write a memo for your file to document this finding, and I’m sending you back to East Block.”

  I hadn’t expected that.

  “You’re serious? I really appreciate you taking the time to look into the situation, and finding the truth.”

  “Mr. Noguera, I’m doing this because it’s not our policy to throw men in the hole for months or years for something they’re not guilty of. I understand it has happened before, but not this time.”

  I thanked him, and that night I was back in my old cell in East Block. My job as phone coordinator and shower cleaner were restored. To my complete surprise, all of my property, including my art materials, were returned to me.

  After setting up my cell that night, I sat on my bucket and looked out onto the bay, grateful someone remembered me and bothered to seek out the truth. I escaped a long term in the hole and realized it was because of my art. Never underestimate the power of art.

  Chapter 32

  Orange County Jail, 1987

  Three years after my arrest, jury selection began for my trial, and still my lawyer wouldn’t come visit me. In all that time, I still hadn’t had the opportunity to sit down and really talk to my lawyer. I was frustrated and confused, but I didn’t know how to change things. The truth was, I was intimidated by Martín Gonzalez. He had a certain presence about him that said, “I’m Martín Gonzalez, a lawyer, and I’m always right.” Around him, I was inept and somehow like a child sitting at the grownup’s table.

  Maybe it was all of it; my frustration, the lack of any real participation in my own defense, and the visit with Maxine I had just left where the topic was mainly my thoughts about the defense my lawyer and mother were insisting we use—a defense based on my mother’s twisted reality and her need to hide the truth and protect how she appeared to everyone.

  As I left to return to my housing unit I was still so completely preoccupied I wasn’t focused on my surroundings or the danger I faced.

  I turned the corner into the holding cage area for inmates waiting for court, but since it was a weekend, it was empty. The sound of rubber shoes on cement made me look up in time to see
a guy coming toward me. He was only a few feet away when he pulled a shank from his pocket. As I saw it, I realized the door ahead, which led to the main elevator, was closed. I was sealed off from anyone except him and the two other men behind me, also returning to housing. I took in all of it in the split second before the attack began. The men had one thing on their minds: killing me. The one with the shank stabbed at me and moved closer, pressing me back into his crew, who came at me quickly from behind. I kicked as hard as I could into his groin and managed to give myself enough space to move. Taking advantage of that, I stepped to the side and punched him in the throat. Just as the others reached me, I grabbed his hand that held the shank and twisted it hard. The shank dropped to the ground and I kicked it away from us into one of the locked holding cages. My biggest concern was being stabbed to death, but the time I took to kick the shank away cost me. I turned to engage the two men behind me and took a blow to the face. Stars exploded my vision. I fell to one knee and tried to get up, but the damage was too much. While they beat me to the ground I covered up the best I could, but in a state of semi-consciousness I couldn’t stop many blows. The next thing I remember was hearing an officer yelling for me to walk over to him and away from the three men who attacked me. I was on one knee and still my head swam. I was badly beaten. My head throbbed and blood flowed from my mouth, nose, and gashes on my face. My head began to clear, but I was sure I’d forgotten something, I just couldn’t remember what. It seemed important, though, and as I rose on unsteady legs, I looked at the men who’d attacked me and I recognized them. The one who attacked me with the shank was one of Boxer’s crew members, and Trigger and Shotgun’s partner.

  Then it all came together for me, like the snap of a rubber band. Boxer put a hit on me for what I did to Trigger in the high-power unit and for not respecting him.

  My senses returned and anger set in. I was angry at myself for allowing those idiots to trap me the way they did. I walked right into it because I was distracted. I stepped toward the cop, who was a few feet away, then I looked at the guy who’d stabbed me. He smiled, but it was a wicked, twisted version of what a smile should look like. He thought it was over and he was taunting me. The cops were there and I was badly beaten, so he stood there smiling with his hands in his pockets, relaxed and confident. He was still relaxed and confident when I passed him on what seemed unsteady legs. Blood flowed from my nose, mouth, and the puncture wounds in my chest. Suddenly, I turned, moved in, kicked him in the face, and hammered him to the ground. I looked at him and his crew and returned my own twisted smile, made nastier with the blood that covered it.

  “You’re next,” I said to the two other Mexicans. “Tell the puto that sent you to be a man and step up to the plate.”

  With that, I turned and went to the cops who led me to the hospital for treatment. I had a possible broken nose, cut lip, and contusions all over my body. I’d lost a lot of blood—most of it soaked into my jumpsuit, which hid the multiple stab wounds to my chest and ribs from the medical staff.

  I didn’t bring them to their attention. I knew the report would only show I was assaulted or involved in mutual combat. Boxer would want the report to confirm I was stabbed and dealt with. Mutual combat was not what he ordered. He didn’t just want me stabbed, he wanted me killed. But instead what he got were my words to the two Mexicans. That would be a repeat of the slap in the face he got when I beat Trigger down after he gave him the green light to kill me.

  As soon as I was alone in the hole, I took off my jumpsuit. I gently wiped the blood from the wounds with a wet towel. I found three small holes in my chest, but a scratch in my rib area hurt the most. None of the wounds threatened my life, but I washed them carefully so infection wouldn’t set in. Then I took a bird bath.

  I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I closed my eyes and fell asleep on the tiny mattress. I was safe and had cheated death once again. I wasn’t ready to bow down to death. I’d fight it to the end, and possibly beyond.

  Chapter 33

  Adolescence, 1981

  I became consumed by the stolen car business and by the admiration I received from people who knew. It gave me power and an identity I hadn’t experienced before. When I walked into a club, all eyes turned to me as if I were an alpha wolf. Looking back, I understand the twisted appeal this image had for me, but as a young champion fighter, pumped up on steroids, I craved that respect and attention. It was a good identity to have, especially after so many years as a victim. After a year as a car thief, I drew admiration from some, and resentment and jealousy from others. Ultimately, it was some of those others who betrayed me. I attacked the Bug-In event in Irvine like it was a flock of sheep, and I included the rest of the Darque Knights to share in the spoils. It was all foreign to them. They couldn’t see beyond the method they knew already—scoping, finding the car, stealing it, and changing it over or selling the parts. That’s a painfully slow method, and they were lucky to get three cars a month.

  When I exposed them to the thousand or more cars involved at the Bug-In event, they were overwhelmed. They never even imagined that world existed, and for them it wasn’t a fit. But it was a world I not only fit into but thrived in. I interacted with the people at those events and spoke their language as if I were one of them. It was made easier because I worked at Precision VW and Porsche, a job I took in order to learn how to build high-performance engines. The owner, Mike, liked me and taught me everything he knew about VWs and Porsches.

  Mike was a car thief and drug dealer before he opened his own shop, and I soon discovered he still had his hand in the cookie jar. I escape artist told him what I was doing, and Mike became one of my most trusted fences. I sold him most of the high-performance engines, transmissions, and parts I stole.

  The Darque Knights saw how I worked with Go-Go to steal cars, secure contacts, and make more money from the Bug-In operation than they could ever imagine, but they weren’t pumped up about doing the same thing.

  Adrian was the single exception. Adrian had allowed me into his world and trusted me with his secret, so I did the same for him when he came to me. I explained my operation to him and let him know that, although I would remain the Darque Knights’ Sergeant of Arms, my operation was between him, Go-Go, and me. I would gather the information, pick the targets, and deal with the fences. Adrian and Go-Go would steal the cars and strip, cut, or deliver them.

  From the start, the three of us worked like a well-oiled machine. My business grew to heights only I had imagined, evolving into a high-end car theft operation that included Porches, BMWs, Mercedes, and whatever cars the clients wanted.

  It’s easy to say I was just a car thief, but to me it was much more than that. For me, stealing cars was an art form. Any idiot can pull a gun on someone and take what they want, but what I did was different. To carefully plan and study a mark, then skillfully take it and not get caught, was nothing less than pure poetry in motion. I took pride in being a car thief, like any professional takes pride in his unique talent and knowledge.

  It’s not that I advocate that lifestyle or try to justify stealing cars. It’s just that at that period of my life it was my trade, and I experienced an intense elation at certain points in the process. Stealing a heavily guarded car gave me even more of that emotional rush. The harder the mark, the higher I got. Part of the excitement was from the risk and reward of the situation, but a huge bonus was knowing my reputation would grow with it.

  With my new business in place, I had graduated to high-end marks and bigger possibilities. Of course, with more possibilities the risk of getting caught also grew.

  Chapter 34

  San Quentin Death Row, 1997–2000

  Regardless of where you live—in prison or as a free man—state of mind plays a big role in the perception of the passage of time. When a student watches the clock waiting for the hour to end, time seems to stand still. For a man awaiting execution, time flies by. Weeks, months, and years pass in the blink of an eye. The very rules
of time seem to change and conspire to taunt a condemned man and bring the impending doom to his doorstop in leaps and bounds.

  By 1997, after nearly a decade in the same cell on death row, I noticed white hair at my temples and in the chin hairs of my Van Dyke. Time ignores none of us, but for me it seemed to take a particular interest.

  I forged ahead, and near the end of the year it happened. My work as an artist received international recognition. The London Guardian ran a front-page article about my work entitled “Cellular Seurat,” in reference to the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat. The article ended with the following paragraph:

  It is as an artist that Noguera wishes to be recognized. The progression that can be seen in his work in terms both of technique and emotional intensity, together with the increasing interest being shown by America’s art establishment, testifies to his ability.

  I sat back after reading the article and basked in a sense of accomplishment; but I was still nowhere near where I wanted to be. I had a goal and I’d reach it or die in the process. I pushed myself by recognizing it wasn’t impossible. In fact, it had actually been done before. Granted, it was in a different time and circumstance, but Caravaggio himself, one of the world’s most notorious and talented painters, was sentenced to death. Benvenuto Cellini, the famous sculptor, was also prosecuted for murder. Nevertheless, their work was accepted and revered. I found it interesting that their prosecutions for murder were only mentioned as a footnote, if mentioned at all. This encouraged me and fueled my desire to reach heights I previously never truly believed were obtainable.