by Mike Walsh
“OK, kid. We’re ready. Pick him out.”
Michael studied the four pictures on each page and tried to remember the description he was given. It was quite easy because all the pictures were white men except one. He pointed at that one leaving his finger on the picture just in case, like he might slide it over, but Moran put his hands on the arm of the chair, leaned back and smiled.
“How’s that lieutenant? A positive ID with no help.”
The other cop touched Moran’s shoulder, said, “Pick him up,” and walked away.
Moran picked up the phone and dialed. Then he said into the phone, “You got him in sight, Weiss? OK, bring him in. We got a positive.”
Then to Michael, “OK, kid. Let’s get all the details and paperwork done. I’m not going to bother going over what he did to you, we have legal jargon for that. And in court you probably will only need to show you are there and acknowledge who you are, your true name and stuff. If he fights it and doesn’t cop a plea, we got plenty of time to build the rest of the case. Now, what’s your name?”
• • •
Michael was moved to a lockup room in the basement of the L.A. Police Headquarters. It was better than a cell and he got to sit outside in a courtyard when he wanted to. He had a radio to listen to and some magazines and comics to read. A woman cop took him across the street to eat in a cafe. It wasn’t too bad.
The cop Weiss had asked Moran what to do with Michael, him sitting right there. He belonged to State and County wanted him back to face charges on the Whittier riot. Moran told Weiss he would tell County that Michael was on loan from State and they might as well drop any charges because they would have him for a long time, and take him down to VIP lockup.
• • •
He knew it was a Monday, because the day before, all the programs on the radio seemed to be religious. They came for him and brought him to the back of the building to a loading dock. There were a bunch of other guys in grey jumpsuits shackled together standing around the dock. The cop that brought him out there put cuffs on his hands in front and cuffed his ankles with a foot of chain between them. Then he clipped a chain between his handcuffs and clipped that to a chain on the back of another prisoner. A real chain gang.
Eventually, a long van backed up to the dock and all were ushered into the back. A guard split the gang in two and the kids sat facing each other. Everyone was strangely quiet, so Michael kept quiet also. Of course he would have anyway.
The van only went across the street and pulled up to the back of the court house. They filed out and were connected together again. After they packed into a freight elevator, a guard started giving instructions. “You will all be sitting down on a bench in the hall behind the courtroom. Don’t get up until your name is called. No talking or moving around.” Shit like that.
The bench they sat on was at the back of the court room with double swinging doors entering into the court room. Pretty soon they started calling names and different guys would stand up, get unshackled from the rest of us and be taken through the courtroom doors. Michael didn’t pay too much attention until his name was called. He stood up and got unshackled and led into the courtroom.
The judge sat up on his perch, it looked like a hundred feet away. Michael was nearsighted and could not make out what the judge looked like. He was standing way in the back, next to a uniform. He heard someone up front say, “The state versus Roland King.”
A greasy-looking Latin guy stood up and looked around, finding Michael’s eye. At least Michael thought he did. He turned back to the judge as the judge was saying, “How do you plead, Mr. King?”
The guy looked around at Michael again, turned back and said “Guilty, your honor, with circumstances.” The judge said something about a sentencing date and Michael was taken back out of the courtroom and shackled again, sitting down on the bench.
Later, after everyone had their turn, they left the courtroom, back into the van and back to the dock behind the police headquarters. Everyone was taken away and Michael stood there alone, the cuffs and shackles removed. The two cops that took him for the ride were at the end of the dock.
Michael looked around and thought about making a break for it. There was a long cement drive uphill to the street and, what the hell, he jumped down the three steps to the drive and sprinted up the drive. No one hollered stop or came after him. At the top of the drive he saw was a huge turnaround for the cars and trucks coming and going. The gate to the street was guarded with the little shack in the middle of two drives, one in and one out. He walked around the perimeter of the circle to the out drive and gauged his speed to walk past the guard when he was checking someone in. He hit the sidewalk and hung a quick right and just kept walking.
Luck be it, he ran smack into that social worker lady. This wasn’t the side of the headquarters, but the main in and out for employees and others that had business here often. She looked surprised as she grabbed Michaels arm.
“What are you doing out here?” she demanded.
“Let go.” Pulling on his arm. “They just let me go.” Struggling.
“No you don’t. You need to go back to Whittier PD. You’re not clear there yet.”
He wanted to tell her that he was, Moran fixed it, but didn’t get the chance. She marched him up the steps, in the door and over to a cage window. After talking to a bored clerk, he looked for some papers, found them, stamped them a few times and handed them over to the lady.
“Let’s go, Michael, you’re clear here.”
Back at the Whittier jail, apparently Moran hadn’t been successful or had lied, because they put him in a holding cell and brought him a meal. The lady said there would be a court hearing on his “disposition” and he would probably be sent home to Rhode Island. It was two days before they came for him for court.
• • •
The courtroom was small, not at all like the L.A. court. Michael felt like he was in an old time western movie. The judge sat up high, looking real mean, and the two tables in front of him were full of lawyers. All the seats in back were full and some people were standing in the back. Michael thought, “Christ, all these people here for me? I must be in real trouble.”
A bailiff started calling case numbers and names and a lawyer would stand up and spit out some charges and recommendations and the judge would say, “So ordered” and other lawyers would look pissed and throw their papers in their briefcase and storm out. He guessed they were not all there for him.
Michael heard his name called and was shoved to stand up. A lawyer stood up and read from some papers. “Your honor, the subject is a minor runaway from the State of Rhode Island. While incarcerated at Whittier Juvenile detention, awaiting transportation back he has created problems and numerous damages to the State. We recommend he be remanded to the California State Youth Authority program in Sacramento for holding until rail transportation back to Rhode Island be available.” The social lady was there and she started to get up to speak, but the judge said, “So ordered. Next case.”
She sat back down looking pissed and threw her papers into her briefcase.
Chapter 18 – California Youth Authority
The ride north was in an old school bus painted blue with thick wire on the windows. Michael was not tethered but several of the other guys on the crowded bus were shackled by their ankles to a bar on the bus floor. There were colored and Mexicans and a few white boys, like himself. Michael looked out the window and tried to block out the smell and the tears. He thought he had really done it this time, going to an actual prison, cell blocks and all that stuff. He prayed to God, “Help me out of this and I’ll be good.”
The bus skirted the City of Sacramento and drove out into the country. When it went through the big chain link gates, barbed wire along the top, all he could see was farm fields all around, and workers in the fields doing stuff. He recognized the vegetable and grape arbors and fruit trees. His spirits were lifted. Pretty soon a bunch of long barrack type buildings came into view. Someone had said
this was an old army base from the big war that had a bunch of Japanese people housed here.
The bus pulled up and stopped in front of a building with a big sign that said “Reception.” They filed out of the bus and were told to line up in two rows. A robust man in khakis came out of the building carrying a clipboard. He took some papers from the bus driver and snapped them onto the clipboard. He had a walrus mustache and looked like some guy in the movies.
“Welcome, gentlemen. This is the first and last time you will see me. This will not make you unhappy. I am Doctor Shelton and your mine until I turn you over to your company commander. I decide who that will be. But I can tell you right now, if you’re colored you’ll go to Company H, if you’re Mexican, Company C, and if you’re queer, Company I. And if you are queer and you don’t tell me, and I find out later, you will be castrated. In other words, I cut your balls off. I’m a doctor. I can do that.
“The rest of you will depend on your age and crime. The company commanders will tell you how the rest of the place is run but I can tell you now, you will be doing some honest work and a lot of marching. Now turn to your right, first row through that door and take a seat on the bench along the wall. No talking and keep your hands in your lap.”
After they were seated, a guy in an army-type jumpsuit, that seemed the dress of everyone, walked down the line dropping a sack in front of each of us.
“Gentlemen, there is a stubby pencil and a string tag in the sack. Take it out and put your name on the tag below the number and tie the tag on the sack. Then take off all your clothes and put them in the sack. When you are finished, rip the second number off the tag and hang onto it. Push the sack out in front of your two feet. If you don’t understand what I am saying or you can’t write your name raise your hand now.”
Two guys with their heads down raised their arm. Several of the Mexicans did nothing and probably didn’t understand English. The guy that dropped the sacks went to each of them and told them what to do in Spanish. The other two guys, he wrote their name for them.
The doctor was coming down the line with his clipboard, taking the number tags and taping them on a page on the clipboard. It looked like he had a page for each of them. When he got to Michael he looked at him with watery eyes. Michael thought he smelled booze.
“Company A kid, follow those guys to the showers and then out the back door.” Michael did as he was told, showered and dried off with a large, rough paper towel, tossing it into a 55 gallon drum like the others did. He went out the back door and saw that it was a couple of steps down, a couple up and into another building. There was a long counter and behind it was a ton of clothes and further down bed clothes. A clerk behind the counter looked at him, turned around and started pulling clothes out of open cupboards. He asked him if he knew his shoe size and Michael thought ten. They fit OK.
When they finished dressing at the benches on the wall, they took the extra clothes and moved down to the bedclothes. They grabbed a stack and out another door. When they were all assembled, loaded down with clothing, a truck came along and several tough looking guys hopped out of the back. They all called out different company letters and everyone started to follow the guy who called it out, now walking away.
Michael and two other kids stood around, no one had called company A. The driver of the truck came over and told them to get in the back of the truck. The truck took off, passing all the others and drove past the lines of barracks with high chain link all around them individually. They rode through a clump of trees and pulled along side a chain link fence. The huge yard was rectangle with the barracks at one end. What amazed Michael was the row after row of brown blocks in little forms. Other blocks were stacked and another area had piles of dirt and straw and a leaning screen thing. There were also large mixing containers with mud all slopped around them.
The driver took them through the fence gate and into the barracks. He told them to find an empty cot and put their stuff on it. The mattresses were folded up so the empties were easy to find. Michael picked one out with the window behind the bed facing out to the field. They were only about three feet apart and you put your extra stuff under the cot. They made the beds, as told, and went back to the truck, as told. They had driven on the bus all night and Michael thought the company was at breakfast, it being morning and him starving.
They were driven to what was obviously the mess hall, a very large building with a high ceiling and lights dangling down. Large sections of bench tables were separated by four foot high chain link. They walked along the wall aisle fenced in to the other end of the building and the food service area. Michael took a tray, separated in four sections, and a spoon and metal cup. The tray clattered on the bars that you slid your tray along. There were two serving lines separated again by chain link. After he loaded up his tray and got some milk in his cup, he turned toward the sitting area. There were four fenced areas on each side with little openings to walk into. A high fence separated the two sections. Over each opening was a hanging sign with a large letter painted on it. This side had A, D, E and G. The other side had B, C, H and I.
The three of them entered the A aisle and followed the path to where the left side of the fence stopped and the tables were accessible. A few eyes looked at them but most were sitting chatting, having finished their food and waiting to leave. They found a half empty bench and sat down to wolf their food. Michael had not said word one to these two other kids, not seeming to have anything in common to talk about. And they said nothing to each other, looking scared now that they were finally here.
Michael was not scared of this group at all, but on the other side of the fences, well, that was another story. These guys were all supposed to be under twenty one, but some of them were huge and muscular with mustaches and a few beards. And the colored guys in company H looked surly and mean.
A kid sitting across from Michael leaned forward and said “The fence is there, cause if they could get at us, they’d kill us just for fun.”
Michael looked at him, a puny little kid with glasses, and went back to his food. He had expected powdered eggs, but these tasted fresh. The pancakes were light and fluffy. Eating was important to Michael, and he thought things couldn’t be all that bad. Besides, how long could he be here, anyway?
The company commander, he supposed anyway, came and stood behind the three new arrivals. He put his arm out for them to stay, and then clapped once loud. Everyone in the company got up, picked up their tray and filed out to the end, one row at a time. In the back was a bucket to scrape garbage into and a shelf to stack the trays. Your spoon was handed to a guy in uniform who tossed it into a bucket.
When everyone was filed out the CO tapped them to follow and do the same. When they got outside, all the others were lined up four across ready to march back to the barracks. Michael and the other two new guys were pointed to the rear. The guy way up front raised his arm and shouted out “Forward... March!” After a few steps he shouted “Double-time... March!” And they started trotting, Michael taking up the rear. The company commander ran along side. He hadn’t said a word yet.
Chapter 19 – Fitting In
So the days went on, into weeks and then months. Michael worked hard all day, making adobe bricks and drying them in the sun. Apparently they were used at other Youth Authority facilities for walls and buildings. Big flat bed trucks would drive in every day and haul away a load. They would go from barracks to barracks until the truck was full and then drive off into the sunset. All the trucks were loaded by hand to give more work to the inmates. Sometimes Michael tossed the bricks up and sometimes he got to be on the truck to catch and stack. He wore the rough leather gloves but some of the tougher guys liked to work barehanded, making their hands rougher. They were heard to say that in a fight, there was less chance of breaking bones in their hands.
Michael thought the discipline was good and there were very few fights, certainly nothing serious. Of course, that was in his barracks. They heard of pretty nasty fights,
bad cuts and some guys actually killed in Company H, the colored guys, and in Company I, the queers.
Christmas had come and gone, nothing special was celebrated except you could go to church if you asked and were not on discipline for some infraction of the rules. Same for the weekly movie. Each company had a different night to see a movie. Usually an old western, but Michael liked it because he liked movies. There were no radio or newspapers, but plenty of paperback books were rotated around the barracks. They were sent by relatives and friends of the inmates and put into a pool. Sometimes there would be notes in the books and everyone left them there so they could find their way to the intended. There were visiting days every two weeks, but Michael had no visitors. As far as he knew, no one knew where he was. He lay on his bunk reading on visitors day.
The only job the queers in Company I had was the kitchen. They cooked the food, served it at the line and cleaned up after. When Michael went through the chow line, the queer guys behind the serving line were always laughing and joking around, flirting with the straight guys getting their food. Some had favorites and guys would be kidded for getting extra desserts and stuff like that. Michael thought it was all in good fun but he could see the serious side behind the eyes of some of them. He kept quiet and didn’t invite any attention out of the ordinary. No eye contact. Sometimes he felt he was cheated on some food item, but unlike some others, he just pushed on down the line. He had seen some guys get treated real bad after complaining about something. The best course of action to get along was to keep your mouth shut and never look anyone in the eye. And that’s what he did.