Across the honor unit yard to the big steel doors into the building rotunda. I pulled one door to make sure it was unlocked but hesitated to pull it open. Across the rotunda, just within the cell house itself, was the small Sergeant's Office. During the day convicts came and went freely, but maybe he would notice someone entering at this time of morning. The sun was up because it was summer, but the mainline had not yet begun the breakfast unlock.
As I debated what to do, the rotunda door was pushed open from the other side. Three convicts came out. "Where's the bull?" I asked.
"He's up on the tiers," one replied.
I slipped inside, crossed the rotunda, walked the length of the cell house and went up the rear stairs two at a time. When I reached the top, I swung around the corner. Leon lived half a dozen cells down the tier. The gate was open and Country was leaning against the doorframe. What was going on? I was only three or four steps away. I stopped. My face must have taken on a weird expression that the human animal assumes in such situations. My mind had been locked into stabbing this man, but I had no knife. I'd planned to get it after I talked to Leon.
Country started with surprise. "Bunk! You live here now?"
"Naw. I'm still in the garbage can."
Leon came to the doorway. "What's up?" he said. He was wearing white shorts and T-shirt and his hair stood up like watch springs, which would have made me laugh at another time.
"I wanted to see you," I said.
"Wait a minute until I roll this joint." He had an open magazine on the top bunk and on top of it an aluminum fod bag of Topper, a rough tobacco which was once issued to California convicts. The situation looked more convivial than confrontational. Leon finished rolling the joint and handed it to Country.
"I gotta go," Country said. "See you."
"Yeah. Right."
Country walked away.
"What brings you here this time of day?" Leon asked.
Quickly I told Leon what had happened, and that it was at the final lockup last night.
"Country showed up when they opened this morning. He asked me what I'd lost and kicked it out. No hassle." Leon held up some US currency. "What do you think?"
"Who knows? Walt couldn't have sent word since I talked to him. He's still in his cell right now."
Leon looked puzzled. "I'll bet Walt was just talking for himself, y'know what I mean? And I don't think he expected your reaction. He was just fat-mouthing." Leon grinned. "He didn't know you were deadly serious."
"I guess. You got enough to give me a joint?"
"Of course."
As I waited, I decided that Leon was right. Country had intended to pay all along. I had spent an unnecessary sleepless night, working myself up to murderous violence. A ton of weight had been lifted from my shoulders: I wouldn't lose my parole and spend a couple of years in segregation.
I never talked to Walt again. Years later when he was dead (in a wreck after a highway patrol chase), I learned that he had managed to send word to Country by a convict nurse who came up on the tier to deliver medication to another convict. The nurse got off duty at midnight and lived in the West Honor Unit in a cell next to Country's. They had planned to stiff Leon. They never thought I would get involved because they were white and friends of mine. Besides that, all three were pretty tough. Duane, by himself, could punch me out very quickly in a fistfight. But they also thought I was crazy - and having trouble with a knife-wielding maniac wasn't what they planned. What I did for a black friend in the mid '50s I would never have even considered a decade later. Back when I did it a few would mutter "nigger lover," but not loud enough for me to hear. That would end it. But when the race wars were in full swing it would have been like a Tutsi having a Hutu friend. By
the time Martin Luther King was assassinated, racial estrangement was absolute in San Quentin. And it remains almost the same three decades later.
Chapter 8
The Land of Milk and Honey
In the summer of '56, I was paroled from San Quentin. Louise Wallis arranged for me to pick up a ticket at the United Airlines office on Union Square in San Francisco. It was still the age of low-flying prop airliners, so as I hurtled through the afternoon light above the Salinas Valley, I could see the plane's shadow racing across the geometric patterns of green and brown fields below me. There were white farmhouses, each one encircled by a stand of trees. Everything looked so neat and so empty of people. I thought of Steinbeck's tales mined from this relatively empty land. If he could find The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men down there, my meager writing skills should have been able to find stories in the places I had been and the people I had known. Reading taught me that prison had been the crucible that had formed several great writers. Cervantes wrote much of Don Quixote in a prison cell, and Dostoevsky was a mediocre writer until he was sentenced to death, had the sentence commuted within a few hours of execution and was then sent to prison in Siberia. After these experiences he became a great writer. There are two worlds where men are stripped of all facades so you can see their core. One is the battlefield, the other is prison. Beyond any doubt I had plenty of raw material; the question was my talent. Louise reported that friends of hers had read my manuscript and said it wasn't publishable but showed promise. I'd felt great simply finishing it, but reading it a year later it seemed pathetic, although I saw improvement between the first and the last chapters. I'd learned something in 300 pages. I was almost a hundred pages into my second novel and hoped it would be a quantum improvement. I really wanted to be a writer, although I didn't yet have all my hopes and dreams invested therein. Who knew what I would find in the world outside. Maybe I would feel different about everything. Erich Fromm made me aware of one aspect of my nature — I had the hunger to transcend.
Sipping a bourbon and 7-Up as I looked at the plane's shadow rushing over the terrain, many things went through my mind. I was free. I had gone into San Quentin at seventeen and now was out at twenty-two. I had grown to manhood behind high prison walls. As I mentally weighed my assets and liabilities it was obvious to me that I had more going for myself than almost anyone else I knew. Mrs Hal Wallis would help me to help myself. What else did I need? I'd never heard of anyone being released without being issued a package of work clothes — except me. The field parole agent sent word that she would take care of my wardrobe. She had an apartment for me, too, although she hadn't divulged the address because she didn't want me to hand it out to my convict pals. That was okay, for although I had many friends, I would only keep in touch with one or two, and I could send them the address after I was free.
Even without Mrs Hal Wallis, or anything else, I was confident of my abilities. In a test that compared anyone taking it to a graduating class of Harvard liberal arts majors, I was equal to the top 5 percent, plus I had skills they never dreamed about. I had knowledge of life that many people never learn, and never have need to learn. But I knew I had gaping flaws, too, emotions and impulses without the internal controls that we learn from parents and society. Most people obey the law not from fear of the consequences but because they have accepted its beliefs as their own. My beliefs were based on what I had learned from the underworld and jail. I would never have followed Raskolnikov's example and made a spontaneous confession to murder because of conscience. For years after reading Crime and Punishment, I thought Dostoevsky was wrong in that regard — until I saw two men I knew quite well, Jack Mahone and Bobby Buder, men I thought were hard core convicts, turn themselves in for murders for which there was no evidence against them. That would never happen to me. For one thing, I wasn't a killer, although there had been times in prison when I would have killed in self-defense. I wasn't going to run. I wasn't vengeful, nor did I feel remorse for most things I had done. I believed that yesterday could be learned from, but never erased. If I had dwelled on my past there is a good chance I would have gone insane. I had done too much already, and too much had been done to me.
Still, all this was simply squirrel-ca
ging, running around in a circle. Leon gave me the only advice that mattered: "You're not normal, but you're not crazy. It's up to you if you commit another crime. Whether you do or not is all that matters."
It was true. I was different. How could I be anything else? I would never view the world or behave as a member of the bourgeoisie, nor did I so desire. I craved experience and wisdom, not the average life of quiet desperation. The best I could hope for was a marginal adjustment, but that was all I needed. I had brains, I had Louise — and as the plane came over the mountains and the Los Angeles basin, I had great expectations.
It was twilight when we landed. Instead of the raised tunnels that fit against the plane, in those days we still descended onto the tarmac and crossed the field toward a chain link fence, behind which stood the people awaiting arrivals. I saw Louise from some distance: her white clothes and blonde hair made her stand out, plus she was enthusiastically jumping up and down and waving. It made me grin and I felt a surge of affection. I was a lucky ex-convict; there was no way else to put it.
She met me at the gate and hugged me; then pushed me back and looked me up and down. "We'll get rid of those clothes," she said. "Tomorrow."
"I have to see the parole officer tomorrow."
"No, no. I took care of that. He'll come by to see you in a few days. Let's go."
As we turned to push through the crowd, I noticed that she was accompanied by a youth of sixteen or so. She introduced us as we headed toward the parking lot. His name was Mickey and he was her driver from the McKinley Home for Boys, which was giving me a job. "You'll have a room at McKinley and the apartment where we're going now. Here." She gave me a key on a key ring with a religious medal of St Francis. "Blessed by the Pope," she said. "When we go to Europe, I'll take you to meet him."
The apartment was over a four-car garage behind a two-story Victorian style house on the corner by the edge of Hancock Park. She had built the house before she met Hal and her parents had lived in the apartment over the garage. She and Hal had just purchased the estate of Joan Bennett and Walter Wanger on Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills. Walter Wanger was in deep financial trouble at the time. Ingrid Bergman's Joan of Arc had collapsed at the box office, and Walter Wanger had spent a few months in the LA County Jail for shooting Jennings Lang (who would later become the head of Universal Studios) in the parking lot. It was all over Joan Bennett. The end result was the need to sell the house as quickly as possible. Louise said she got it for the value of the lot, $90,000 and the house's value back then was about $250,000. Thirty years later, when Hal Wallis died, the same house sold for $6,500,000.
At the time of my release, Louise was still residing in her Van Nuys estate. It had been condemned under eminent domain, and was to be used for a school. Although it was a fortune in '54, for a twenty-acre estate she got no more than the price of an average house south of Ventura Boulevard today. She had written me about it. She had a long time to move, a year or two at least.
Louise was excited when we went up the stairs and opened the apartment. It was a one-bedroom, perhaps 800 square feet, neady designed. It was narrow, of course, for it was above four garages, with the doorway at the top of the stairs opening into the living room. It had windows overlooking sycamores on the street, and the front house on one side. The other was a blank wall from a new apartment building. It provided absolute privacy. The living room was very comfortable, and also tastefid. The sofa and overstuffed chair were in gray slipcovers; the walls were burnt orange. On one wall were two small watercolors in ornate frames. I would learn that the artists were well-known. What dominated the room from a corner was a huge, ornate antique secretary, its burled wood gleaming in deep, dark colors. "I had it and I didn't know what to do with it," Louise said. "So here it is." She leaned closer, confidingly: "It's worth forty thousand dollars." She winked. I didn't know why she winked but smiled as if I did.
The bathroom and the kitchen faced each other across a narrow hallway. It was a smart use of space. Beyond the bathroom the hall opened onto the bedroom. It was adequate — much larger than any cell I'd lived in, but perhaps smaller than a bullpen. Classy windows, the kind with wooden frames and small panes and a latch that turned, ran along one side and the rear. The bedroom furniture was simple and expensive, she told me. It had come from the Wanger residence. Its closet was full-sized walk-in. "We'll put some things in it tomorrow," she said. "Get rid of those things." she ordered, pointing at my clothes.
I started to protest. The gray flannel slacks and the navy blazer went everywhere then and now. They were good quality. The label read Hart, Shaeffner & Marx. It wasn't Hickey Freeman, but it was excellent. "They look good, don't they?" "Yes, but they came from prison."
"So did I."
"I know. I know. But for me, get rid of them."
"Sure."
She opened half of a French door into a breakfast nook at the end of the kitchen. "Well, whaddya think?" she asked.
As she spoke, I spotted a new Royal portable typewriter on a writing desk next to a window overlooking the swimming pool. I was literally choked speechless, unheard of for me. Tears welled into my eyes. How could I fail? How could I let her down? She had made the dream real for me. She wasn't going to give me the world on a platter, but she would help me to help myself. She would open doors, although I had no idea what those doors were.
"You'd better do some writing on that," she said.
"I will," I said with all sincerity, although future months would expose the promise as hollow. I meant it, but the lure of bright lights, fast cars, sweet-smelling young women with long legs, was too much for me. It would be decades before I spent one night at home when not incarcerated. I would sleep when I was tired and eat when I was hungry — and every day outside of prison was swollen to bursting with possibilities for adventure after the first few months of acclimatizing myself.
Late the following morning, she arrived with Bertha Griffith, whom I'd met before going to prison. Bertha's husband was a wraith-like figure ravaged by paresis, with twisted facial muscles and distorted movements. He'd been a sdent-film director who caught syphilis from a young actress fifteen years before antibiotics could cure it. I wanted to ask her how he was, but sensed it would be an impropriety and kept sdent.
Using Louise's long white Chrysler station wagon, we drove a few blocks down to the Miracle Mde. The shopping area was planned with the automobile in mind, with large parking lots behind the stores. It was considerably more tasteful than the giant shopping malls of the future. At the time this stretch of Wilshire was considered the most expensive real estate in Southern California.
Starting at the art deco masterpiece of Bullocks-Wilshire, we worked west, shopping for my wardrobe as we went. Louise bought me everything. The rear of the station wagon was piled high with boxes. In one department store, a dazzled sales clerk followed her with a chair. When she stopped to sit, he shoved the chair under her. She whispered to me: "I'm Lady Wallis, remember?" In her pristine white gabardine pants suit, it was impossible to forget. Playing that role was one of her greater enjoyments in life — it was a scene out of many movies made real. I was awed and grateful. She was so munificent that I felt a gudty discomfort. Still and yet, beyond doubt I would take it all — and thank you.
In Beverly Hills, we went to Oviatt's, at that time the most elegant classic tailor in Southern California, where Hal's suits were made. She had me fitted for two, one a worsted navy ("If you have nothing else, you have that"), the other a lightweight white flannel that was soft and smooth between my fingers. "They'll think you're Gatsby," she said.
Gatsby was great, but most unlikely. Gatsby was too unreal. Although I thought Fitzgerald wrote as well as any American novelist of the twentieth century, Gatsby was as far from truth as Fu Manchu. He was too soft to be what he was storied to be. Gatsby might be a cat burglar, but he was definitely not a gangster. He lacked the force of will to compel tough men to his bidding. He failed another test: he was too weak for a broad.
<
br /> "I was in several movies from his stories and books," she said.
That was something I have never verified. Today I simply repeat what she said, which is how an honest memoir should be. At the time, I wondered how they could catch Fitzgerald's character nuances in sdent movies, or any other for that matter.
From the Beverly Hills of two-story buddings, courtyards and fountains, and many red-tile roofs, circa '56, we crossed Beverly Glen into the San Fernando Valley. About a mile from the Wallis estate was the McKinley School for Boys. It had about 120 boys, from age five through high school; several who had grown past eighteen but were still not ready to leave stayed on as employees. They had a budding of their own. In '56 the boys of McKinley were predominandy white, but there was a liberal collection of colored kids and Mexicans, the operative and acceptable terms then. Most came from homes of drunken abusers, some were sent by social agencies, a few came from the juvenile court. Once upon a time they had tried to put me here. In the parking lot I threw a tantrum of such maniacal ferocity that whoever was looking out of an administration building window decided not to accept me. I felt wonderful then. I would get to stay with my father in his furnished room, sleeping on the army cot in the corner, for at least a couple more weeks. My father's face was scarlet; veins stood out in hard ridges. He was stifling rage. I had perfected getting thrown out of these homes and schools that I hated; now they wouldn't even take me. Not long thereafter, I went from being the concern of social service agencies to that of the juvende justice system.
Louise turned off Riverside and passed through a tunnel of trees to a parking lot. It was full of cars, but the only person visible was an eight-year-old in a bathing suit setting off along a sidewalk. As soon as his bare feet hit the hot cement, he danced and jumped off onto the lawn then disappeared around a two-story building. As we went that way we could hear splashing and excited voices cheering, "Go! Go! Go!"
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Page 22