The next day I was called for the busload being transferred to the old countyjad above the Hall ofjustice. We were herded like cattle into a bullpen. Who was assigned to a particular jail was determined by where they went to court. Those kept in the new central jail were going to outlying courtrooms in Santa Monica, Van Nuys, Pasadena and elsewhere around the vast county. Those going to court in the Hall of Justice were those arrested in the central city; hence blacks were the majority being transferred.
The deputies yelled and bullied the prisoners. We were jammed together — and I smoldered. A couple of trembling old winos were on the bus.
On arrival at the Hall of Justice we were taken to the shower area. It was the same place I had cut up mass murderer Billy Cook more than a decade earlier. "Listen up!" yelled a deputy. "Strip to your underwear and throw your clothes in here." He indicated a wheeled laundry basket.
As outer clothes came off, the stench of unwashed bodies rose up. I breathed softly through my mouth, thinking that mankind must have really smelt untd recently.
Everyone was hurrying except me and an old wino shaking from age and booze who was having a hard time maintaining his balance while stripping down. He stumbled and reflexively reached out to steady himself, inadvertently bumping a black youth. "Fucking old grape," the youth said to the trembling old man. "Get the fuck away from me." Using both hands, he shoved the old man, who slipped on the floor and went down hard. Nobody moved to help him. They walked past him to throw their clothes in the laundry hamper and stand naked in line. The little display of racial hatred grated on me, but it was none of my business, according to the prison code.
I hung back. Let everyone else go first. I wasn't in a hurry to get into another set of jad denim. There was plenty to go around.
"Move it, man, move it." Pressing behind me was another young black. He was taller than me but slender.
"Take it easy. We'll get there."
He said something. The words I didn't decipher, but the sound was hostde. It has been my experience that young ghetto blacks huff and puff and bump chests together before getting it on, a sort of male dance of intimidation. Whde he was huffing, I put a short left hook into his solar plexus. His grunt was of surprise and pain. A white man fighting? That wasn't what he'd been taught. I swung another left hook and missed, wrapping my arm around his neck. Down we went on the tile floor. He was on the bottom.
Within seconds the deputies were there, dragging us apart. Off to Siberia we went. Siberia was a tank of regular cells stripped of amenities, including mattresses, and devoid of all privdeges.
It was time to add to the record of insanity an old fashioned sin cide attempt, for later use, if it became necessary. It always helped
The light fixture was recessed in the ceding and covered with mesh so the prisoner could not reach the bulb. When they brought the meal, I kept the Styrofoam cup. I filled it with water and threw it onto the hot bulb. Pop! It broke and I had shards of sharp glass. Using a shirt sleeve as a tourniquet around my upper arm. I chopped at the swollen vein at the inner aspect of my elbow At first I was tentative. It may be physically easy but mentally it is not easy to cut yourself. The skin parted, exposing white meat and the vein. It took several chops. Then it opened and blood shot up about three feet. Quickly I grabbed the paper cup and let the blood run in there untd it was about an inch high. I added two inches of water. Then I poured that slowly over my naked shoulders and chest untd it covered my torso. I began spinning and swinging my arm. The blood splattered around all the walls and dripped from the cell bars. It made for a gory mess. Finally, I partially filled tin- cup with blood and water and poured it outside the cell, so it ran along the floor on the runway. "Hey, next door," I called. "Look over here . . . through the door."
"Goddamn! Oh shit!"
"Call the bull."
The bar-shaking and screaming began. "Poo-leese! Officer! Help' Help! Man down! Man down!
In seconds, it was a chorus from all the cells.
It took several minutes before I heard the outer gates opening. At that point I stretched out in the pool of blood on the floor. The cell looked like a slaughterhouse.
The jangling keys; then the startled voice: "Jesus Christ! Call the clinic. Get a gurney!"
The gurney rattled loudly as they came on the run. As they wheeled me past prisoners looking through their bars, I heard voices: "Aw, man, that dude's dead." "Shit, man, that's fiickin' messy." "Chump killed hisself." Someone passed judgement: "Sucker gotta be weak to do that ..."
Down the elevator, into an ambulance and out the tunnel for a siren-screaming ride to the general hospital several miles away. They sewed me up, washed me off and took me to the jail ward on the thirteenth floor. When the doctor asked why I'd done it, I said the Catholic Church had a radio in my brain and told me to. He wrote it down. Thank you, doctor.
The jail ward in the hospital was so overcrowded that beds overflowed the rooms and lined the big main corridor. Late that night they discharged me back to the Central Jail. I was put in a room with three beds in the jail infirmary, left ankle and right hand chained to the bed. The middle bed was occupied by an old diabetic. Next to him was a husky young Chicano who had one foot cuffed to the bed frame. He sat up, rocking back and forth while saying his rosary over and over, sometimes mixing in Acts of Contrition. The nurse who passed out medication said he was having a reaction to angel dust. She gave me two brown pills that I recognized as Thorazine. I feigned taking them.
It was in this hospital room that I saw something so grotesque that it remains etched in my mind as if burned by acid. "Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the old diabetic, then jumped up and began pounding and kicking the door. For a moment I looked at him, and then turned my gaze to the Chicano on the other bunk. He was sitting up, still rocking and muttering prayers. His right eye socket opened and shut — but it held no eyeball. It stared up from the white bed sheet. His left eye dangled back and forth below his chin, held by some kind of tendon. He had used his thumbs to reach into both eyes and pluck them from his head. My heart bounced and my hair stood up. It was horrifying. More than a year later, I came back to the Central Jad and saw him being led to court. He was totally blind, but they didn't drop the charges. Oh no, he wasn't going to get off that easy. I don't know if they sent him to prison. It wouldn't surprise me. After all, he had stolen something.
When the jail doctor came to talk to me, I told him that the Pope had assassins waiting to murder me in the Hall of Justice, and that I couldn't be in a cell with anybody else because I could see lights floating over their heads. I hoped to be put in the "ding" tank here in the Central Jad. I wanted to avoid the Hall of Justice, mainly because they would immediately put me back in Siberia when I returned. He wrote it down on the chart and told me not to worry, I wasn't going back to the Hall of Justice.
The next morning, needing the space, another doctor discharged me. I was put in a section of one man cells in the Central Jail. That suited me fine.
Two days later, the deputy called out, "Bunker, roll 'em up." It was for transfer to the Hall of Justice. The transfer was determined by the numbers; nobody looked at any fdes. When the deputy opened my cell and called for me to step out, I went to the front. He was at the control panel, in a cage behind bars, busdy throwing levers and calling names. Other prisoners were being transferred, or called out to see their lawyer or parole officer. He was a fresh-faced kid, and he had been told at the Academy that all prisoners were liars and con men, scum wanting to take advantage of him. So when I approached the bars and said, "Hey, boss," which according to my education was a sign of respect, he responded with suspicious hostility. He wasn't receptive when I told him that I wasn't supposed to go to the Hall of Justice, according to the jad doctor. "Don't tell me," he said. "Tell the deputy in the control booth in the hallway." He pushed the button that buzzed open the lock to the second-floor hallway. It was long and wide. Prisoners had to walk along the right-hand wall. Next to the doorway to the escalator was the co
ntrol booth where the deputy sat up high behind reinforced glass, so he had a clear sight of everything in the corridor.
I walked up to the window. "They called me to roll up to HOJJ, but I'm not supposed to go."
"You're not? Why not?"
"The doctor said—"
"Tell the deputy running the court line downstairs." He cut me off.
I went down the escalator and followed the painted line on the floor to the doorway into the large room filled with cages, each about fifteen feet square and with a sign over its gate designating an oudying courtroom. In the morning, long before daylight, the cages were packed with prisoners waiting to take bus rides. It was less humane than the stock pens in radroad yards.
It was late morning now. The buses had gone and would not begin returning until late afternoon, continuing through the evening. The cages had been swept and held prisoners being transferred to other facilities, including the Hall of Justice.
A deputy sat behind a table that had lists of names Scotch-taped to its top. As prisoners gave their name, he directed them to a cage. Even before I stepped up and started my story, I knew that the deputy at the module, who had sent me to the booth, and the deputy at the booth, who had sent me here, had been playing a game: to move me another step closer to the bus.
"I'm not supposed to go to the Hall ofjustice."
"What's your name?"
"The doctor wrote it in the medical records."
"What's your name?"
"Bunker."
"Cage six."
"The doctor—"
"I don't give a shit about the doctor. Get in cage six."
"Would you check with the medical department?"
"I'm not checking with anybody. Get in the goddamn cage." He stood up to add threat to his order. Cage six was direcdy across from the table. I stepped inside and he slammed the gate shut.
"Look here, Deputy," I said, "can I see a senior or a sergeant?"
"No. You can't see anybody."
"Okay . . . but let me say something — I'm not going."
"Not going! You're going on that bus if I have to put you in chains and throw you on it."
I decided I might as well add more insanity to the record. I was carrying an empty cigarette carton with my meager personal property: comb, toothbrush — and Gillette razor blades. I unwrapped a new razor blade, put it on the bars, took off my shirt and the bandage around my arm. I twisted the sleeve around the bicep, pumped up the vein, retrieved the razor blade and began to chop. It was much easier than with the piece of light bulb. Two whacks and the blood squirted. I kept the homemade tourniquet tight and held my arm close to the bars. The blood sprayed across the space and began to rain on the lists fastened to the table.
The deputy had missed what I was doing until the blood rained down on his paperwork. Even then it took him a couple of seconds to wake up. "What the hell ..." He jumped to his feet and tried to grab the paperwork, but it was Scotch-taped to the table. He ripped one sheet in half. Blood splattered across the rest as I moved my arm and changed the trajectory.
The deputy yelled for assistance and other deputies came running. Whde they reached for a key to open the gate, I moved my arm back and forth, spraying blood on their uniforms, which made them cry out and curse as the wool olive twill sucked up blood.
The door came open and they swarmed over me. I must admit that they only punched and kicked me a few times. I expected worse from the Sheriff's Department. Three or four of them carried me, face down, along the corridor to the infirmary. I saw the deputy who said he was putting me in chains. "I told you I wasn't going," I said. He said nothing, but I think he would have sizzled if someone threw water on him.
An hour later I was back in the hospital ward with the three beds. After a couple of days the doctor put me back in a regular cell. This time there was no doubt that I wasn't supposed to go to the Hall of Justice.
The psychiatrists appointed to examine me came one at a time. I was called down to an interview room in the hospital area. I was ready. I sat rocking back and forth, looking at the first psychiatrist with narrowed eyes; then I looked down at the floor. He asked me what the voices were telling me. I told him it was too dirty and I couldn't repeat it. Then I asked him if he was a Catholic. When he assured me that he wasn't, I told him that the Catholics had been after me for years.
"What do they do?"
"You know what they do."
"Can't you tell me?"
"They talk to me through the radio and TV . . . call me bad names . . . tell me I'm a queer. I ain't no goddamned queer."
"Of course not."
After about ten minutes the examination was over. There was no suspicion of my feigning because, stricdy speaking, the provisions of Sections 1367 and 1368 did not constitute an acquittal by reason of insanity. They simply said I was incompetent to stand trial at this time. As soon as I was adjudged competent, I would be put on trial. Someone may commit a crime and be sane and responsible when it happens, but when arrested and charged years later may be totally out of his mind. How can a defendant be brought to trial, or punished, whde crazy?
The second psychiatrist was a cafe au lait black man with a French name, probably with ancestors from Louisiana. I put on the same act, but he seemed to be observing me very closely — so I suddenly yelped, overturned the table and ran out of the room. Down the jail corridor I sprinted, deputies in hot pursuit. They tackled me and dragged me back. I sat trembling in the chair. The examining psychiatrist told me his decision without knowing that he did so. He said, "You can go back to your ward." It was an obvious Freudian error. "Ward" means hospital, and that's where the sick go.
Both psychiatrists said I was "an acute, chronic schizophrenic paranoid, suffering auditory hallucinations and delusions of persecution," who "is and was legally insane and mentally ill." It was as crazy as you can be. Back at the sanity court, the judge determined me "insane within the meaning of Sections 1367 and 1368 California Penal Code." He committed me to Atascadero
State Hospital until I was certified as competent to stand trial.
I was ready to stand trial forthwith. I had my defense. Although incompetent to stand trial doesn't mean insane at the time of the crime, it is admissible evidence a jury can consider. The arresting officers would testify, unless they lied, that I claimed to be en route to Dallas with new evidence about the Kennedy assassination. The precinct booking records had me claiming to be ninety years old. The investigating detectives had to testify, again unless they lied, that I claimed that the Catholic Church had a radio in my brain. The jail's hospital records had two suicide attempts and other irrational behavior. Finally, if the psychiatrists said I was insane two weeks after the crime, how could I not have been crazy when the crime occurred hours before the arrest? How could a jury not find me insane? Moreover, it was highly unlikely that the District Attorney's Office would fight very hard. It was routine burglary. Moreover, I wouldn't really beat the system, for it would take at least six months to a year to get back to court, and no matter what happened there, the parole board would take me back to finish my first term. I would serve three or four years at the minimum, which was all the crime deserved. My only gain would be getting rid of another parole, or perhaps I could escape. A state hospital was not a prison. It might have bars, but it had no gun towers. A friend of mine once led a breakout from Atascadero. He and several others had used a heavy bench as a battering ram to get through a rear door.
One thing I was unaware of at the time. My rap sheet would forever list the following: "Adjudged Criminally Insane." Anyone who saw that without knowing the truth would expect a raving maniac.
Located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Atascadero State Hospital was as close to maximum custody as a state hospital can be. The majority of its patients were under commitment as "mentally disordered sex offenders," commonly known as pedophiles or child molesters, and in convict parlance "short eyes." I'd been taught convict values, and by convict values
a child molester is a maggot to be reviled, spat upon and persecuted. In prison, anything done to a chdd molester is acceptable. Anyone sent to prison for child molesting does his best to hide the fact. Nobody admits to that despicable behavior. The usual defense, which I've heard more than once, is that a vindictive wife orchestrated a false accusation.
In Atascadero, the short-eyed chdd molesting majority looked down on the criminally insane thief minority. They were sick; we were criminals; that was how they saw it. The cherry on the sundae was that the institution had a "patient patrol," complete with armbands, which to my way of thinking was no more than a license to snitch. I remember someone in Folsom saying that chdd molesters were as bad as stool pigeons, and someone else said, "Not as bad . . . the same thing. I've never seen a short eyes who wasn't a rat, have you? They go together like a horse and a carriage." The observation was greeted with grunts of concurrence.
Atascadero was boring. Patients were not allowed to he down during the day. They had to sit in the day room, watching soap operas on TV, or maybe they went to OT (Occupational Therapy) where they made clay ashtrays or painted a picture, neither of which interested me. OT was too much like the second grade. The day room had a poker game (thank God), and I went through it like a dose of salts. I acted perfecdy rational except once, when an attendant came over to the game and asked how I was feeling. I told him I was fine except that I'd seen a priest in the hallway, ". . . and I could tell by the red light over his head that he was after me."
When we wanted to go anywhere, perhaps to the commissary, the nurse had to write out a pass. We weren't supposed to wander around. I, however, was looking for a hole, a way out, a place where I could climb, or cut, and escape into the surrounding hills. What the officials had done was make note of all the weak places, and then either reinforced them or assigned a member of the patient patrol on duty watching them. That was how I got into trouble. I was looking around backstage in the auditorium when a child molester with an armband asked what I was looking for. He didn't recognize me, but I recognized him from years earlier in the county jail. He had been awaiting trial for molesting his niece. It had started when she was three and continued untd she was seven and told on him. I was remembering that as he was asking my name and what ward I was on . . .
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Page 35