When the runner opened the green steel door, Willy was in the open gate of one of the two overnight cells. He had a broom in hand and a grin on his face. Beside him was a bucket on wheels with a mop handle protruding. Behind him was an open green steel door, and two or three feet beyond that was the open oval door into the gas chamber, somewhat reminiscent of a diving bell. There sat two chairs side by side. I immediately thought of the story of Allen and Smitty, Folsom convicts executed for killing another inmate. A bull told me that when the door was closed and the wheel turned to seal it, they leaned their heads together and kissed goodbye, chair to chair. As I thought of it, I laughed. Willy had just said something funny, he was often very funny, and thought I was laughing at his witticism.
"Hey, Bunk, I see you came to help."
"I'll be back for you two in half an hour," the guard said. "How's that?"
"Sounds good," Willy said. "We should be done by then."
The guard closed the door and we were alone with the overnight cells and the gas chamber. I stood in the opened gateway of the first cell. One step out, one step to the right through the door. One long step (or two short steps, or one skid mark of dragged feet) was the entrance to the gas chamber. Damn, it was small. It was painted green and shaped like an octagon with windows from about waist height up. Venetian blinds now hid the interior from the witnesses who stood outside. The first row had their noses inches from the glass, and the doomed fellow was inches on the other side. A witness definitely witnessed things up close.
"Didn't Shorty Schrekendost paint this place?" Willy asked.
"I think so . . . 'bout ten years ago."
"I think he wrote his name under one of the seats."
"He wrote it everywhere else in the joint. Lemme check." I flopped on the floor and rolled over on my back so I could see. I saw no graffiti, but I did see how death was administered. Low technology, a lever with a hook where the gauze bag of cyanide pellets was draped. When the lever was moved, the bag dipped down into a bucket of sulphuric acid and gas was created. The seat bottom was perforated to ease the gas's flow upward.
I raised my head. Thinking about smells and stuff stirred a memory. "What about my outfit? Where's it at?"
"I got it stashed out there. As soon as we leave . . ." "I hope you cleaned it so it doesn't stink." I was riding Willy as a joke. It was part of the relationship. If I acted otherwise, he would suspect some kind of put on.
"It's clean . . . and oh, I've got a present for you brother."
From a shirt pocket he brought forth a matchbook. Inserted so it stuck out both sides was a joint. "Well fire the sucker up," I said.
So he did. We sat side by side in the gas chamber, passing the joint back and forth. It was pretty good pot and we got high, laughing and telling stories until we heard the key turn in the outside lock. We jumped up and looked busy. Willy was swinging the mop and I was swiping a rag across the witness chairs. I wondered how many pissed in their britches when the cyanide hit the pan and they were eyeball to eyeball with the dying man.
The guard was unconcerned with cleanliness, although he did sniff the air and ask, "What's that I smell?"
"I don't smell anything," Willy said. "You smell anything, Legend?"
"You put Pine Sol in the mop bucket, didn't you?"
Willy shook his head. "No . . . nuthin' but a little ammonia."
"That's what it's gotta be."
The guard sensed a put-on without knowing what or why; he didn't recognize the smell. "C'mon," he said, and told Willy to bring the gear. "The lieutenant wants to see you pronto," he said to me. I went out with a grin.
While Willy and I were mopping the execution chamber, Lieutenant Ziemer had been questioning convicts who had cells where the incident occurred. He had discovered very little, but he had to file a report of some kind. That was my job. All incident reports had the same form: "At approximately , on date, while on duty as , I 'observed,' 'was told,'" etc. It was very ritualized and I had it down pat.
"The victim, Robinson, B-00000, suffered three puncture wounds
from an unknown instrument in his right upper chest. (See medical
report.) Subject claims he was assaulted by an unknown Mexican.
It should be noted that Robinson was recently transferred to this institution following several disciplinary reports at the California Men's Colony. It should be noted that the subject has a hostile demeanor. The writer placed him on administrative lockup pending investigation and disposition of this incident.
Lieutenant Ziemer read the report and signed it. "Goddamn I write a helluva report," he said, widening his eyes and gaping his mouth in feigned naivety. "Big Red Nelson complimented me at the last staff meeting. He asked how you were doing."
"I'm goin' over to the cell house," I said. "Unless you need me.
"Be around about eleven. Those officers working the East Block will have to fde reports." "I'll be here, boss."
When I reached the yard, where the yard crew had finished cleaning and were putting away their equipment, Danny Trejo had the real news about the East Block stabbing. The altercation had begun in the education building where the Chicano and the black were both enrolled in literacy training, which means they tested lower than the fourth grade and were being taught to read. Somehow they had exchanged stares, which became sneers and then a word or two: "So?" "So whatever ..." The bell then rang, ending the period. Both existed in worlds where it was impossible to conceive, much less articulate, the senselessness of murder arising from locked stares and nothing more.
When word got around that it was Chicano and black, most whites relaxed, glad not to be involved. Some especially militant blacks plotted retaliation. As far as they were concerned a brother had been stabbed and nothing else mattered. Chicanos anticipated possible trouble and readied themselves. Black tier tenders delivered knives from mattresses and ventilators. Chicano cell house workers did the same. Perhaps a dozen on each side actually armed themselves, taping large, crudely honed but deadly knives to their forearms so they were easy to jerk from their sleeve. Or they poked a hole in the bottom of their front pants pocket, so the blade went down against their thighs while they held the handle out of sight in their pocket. It could be drawn in an instant. As in the Wild West, the quickest draw often decided who lived and who died.
The prison slept without realization that the tinder of black rage toward the white man had been ignited. No one could have imagined how hot the inferno would be or how long it would burn.
Two giant mess halls feed San Quentin's convicts. The larger of the two, the south, is divided into four sections, with murals of California history on their walls. It was like a high school cafeteria instead of the feeding place of robbers, rapists and murderers, drug addicts and chdd molesters. Both mess halls together are inadequate to feed all of the convicts simultaneously, so it is done in shifts. The North and West Cell Houses ate first in the morning. After eating, the inmates could go out on the yard or back to their cell house until the eight o'clock work call.
By 7.30 the last of the East and South Cell Houses were usually in the mess halls. Those first unlocked were, as a rule, already leaving for the yard. I never got up for breakfast, but this morning Veto Tewksbury (a San Fernando Valley Chicano despite the name, which came from an English squire who owned many thousands of acres in Arizona once upon a time) reached through the bars and shook my foot. "Get up, man. Shit's gonna hit the fan out in the yard."
I stood up and looked out through the cell bars and the cell house bars to the Big Yard. Sure enough, it was more segregated than usual. As always, blacks were gathered along the North Cell House, directly below my window, but where they were usually joshing, laughing and talking, this morning they were somber and silent. The line dividing the races was usually narrow and overlapping, with nobody paying real attention to the territorial imperatives, but on this morning the space was at least thirty yards. About 300 blacks stared balefully at two clusters of Mexicans; one cluster of
about a hundred was partially under the shed on the blacks' right flank. Another hundred faced the blacks head on across the empty asphalt. Behind the Chicanos, backing them, were a dozen young Nazis and a score of Hells' Angels. Sprinkled among the Chicanos were ten or fifteen whites ready to back their homeboys, or tight partners. One clique of whites was conspicuous standing on benches along the East Cell House wall. In the last black versus white race war, they had carried the brunt of the mayhem, and had committed other stabbings and murders. It was the strongest white clique, but its numbers in the general population had been depleted by officials locking them in segregation and transferring them. Though violent, the clique was not especially racist; that is, they would not start a race war. But its members, like me, had Chicano partners who backed us in a confrontation with a large Mexican gang, which would become La Nuestra Familia, mortal enemy of the Mexican Mafia, a.k.a. "La Erne." In the southwest, especially in Southern California but also Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas, it is far better to be an enemy of La Cosa Nostra than the Eme. On this particular morning, however, these gangs were still nameless embryos.
The guards were aware of the volatile situation in the yard. Several with rifles and a body-budding sergeant with an antiquated but effective Thompson sub-machine gun were lined up on the gunrad outside the North Cell House wall. It was easy to tell that most were lined up on the blacks. (It wasn't whites or Chicanos who had killed several guards during the last year.) One black guard, however, was conspicuously targeting the Mexican ranks. That was the racial situation in San Quentin. I was disgusted with the whole ignorant mess. It was beyond racism, or race pride, or even revolution. It belonged to tribal wars in the New Guinea jungle, complete with headhunting. No matter how insane it was, it wasn't something I could ignore. Too many whites, then still the majority, tried that tactic. It only invited aggression.
The standoff and stare down continued for the next ten minutes as the mess halls finished disgorging prisoners into the yard. The ranks swelled. The riflemen watching from above anticipated an open riot, but tension was reaching an unbearable pitch.
From the sidelines, a black and a Chicano appeared. The black, lightskinned and handsome, was a prizefighter so good that nobody within forty pounds of his weight would fight him. He did perform Ali's mantra of dancing like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. He was also a dope fiend and disregarded racial lines to satisfy his craving. He was not known as a militant, although some suspected him of undercover agitation. I don't think he hated whites, but he was a proud black man and, like me, when the lines were drawn, he stood with his own. Nobody could blame him for that. The Chicano, who had recently returned to San Quentin on a murder conviction, wanted to be a "shot caller" in the prison firmament and had gathered a clique of about a dozen, whose members now stood with the throng under the shed.
When the two reached the center of the empty asphalt, the black prizefighter motioned toward the mass of blacks. Two came forward, both tall and military in bearing, one with a head shaved and oiled like my own. It glistened in the morning sunlight. He had influence among the Black Muslims. The other wore tiny Ben Franklin glasses and a bushy Afro, the style favored by blacks at the time.
The quartet stood in a tight circle. The blacks spoke, gestured, tense with accusation and ire. The Chicano took over, held the floor, and the conversation went on while the yard gate was opened and the steam whistle blew the morning work call. Half the convicts in the yard streamed out, glad to avoid possible trouble. The faced-off warriors on both sides held their places. So did the riflemen looking down from the gun walk. The conference was allowed to continue because it might setde things without further bloodshed.
The conference broke up. The black fighter shook hands with the two militants and the Mexican walked back to his waiting crew. He said something and gestured toward the gate, leading his clique off the yard. The black spokesmen went back to their waiting throng. A dozen black warriors gathered around them and listened to what they said.
The public address system blared an order to clear the yard. T.D. and Bulldog stepped off the bench along the wall and walked past me. T.D. held up a packet of canteen ducats. "I'm buyin' the spread." (He meant pints of ice cream that would be passed out and eaten with identification cards, which were perfect for dipping into the pint boxes.) "Ain't nuthin' gonna happen."
"And everybody's glad," another voice said.
To which I thought, I don't know about everybody, but I'm damn sure glad.
The confrontation disintegrated and turned into individuals and tiny clots moving toward their assignments. Within minutes the yard was nearly empty except for a few night workers, our crew standing in a circle. The seagulls and pigeons that saw their chances descended to take them. T.D. handed me an open pint of Neapolitan. I had my ID card ready to dig in.
"I was ready to get it on," T.D. said, draping a meaty forearm on Veto Rodriquez's shoulder. "Nobody was gonna hurt Mule." Veto was sometimes called mule because of his large penis, and he really needed very little help to avoid being hurt.
"I wonder what they said out there," Paul said. "You think he apologized?" The last comment brought laughter but no further speculation. My thought was, who cares? Days later, the truth was revealed: the Mexican clique leader had disowned the assadant, claiming that he was a Nazi, not a Chicano - hence there was no trouble between brown and black.
While the trouble was brewing between the Nazi-Mex (he was, indeed, an admirer of the Nazis, especially the black S.S. uniforms, but being illiterate how much could he know?) and the black, another fuse was burning elsewhere. Two burly white bikers had swindled a black for twenty papers of heroin with a counterfeit $100 bill. A wife of one of the bikers had smuggled him several bills in the visiting room. The black gave it to his own wife to buy more smack. She took their children to Disneyland and the ticket booth recognized the counterfeit. She was taken in and her children were taken away. Because she had no record and there was only a single piece of currency, the US Attorney declined to indict. She, however, was mad as hell, which was quite understandable. She told her man that she was bringing him no more drugs. The black was enraged at being conned by a pair of "motorcycle drivin', tattoo wearin', bad smellin' honkies . . ." An hour after the standoff confrontation in the Big Yard, the victimized black and several friends caught the two bikers at the rear of the South Cell House and began swinging knives. The whites, both young and strong, managed to fight off being killed, but they were badly carved up and hospitalized.
The leading white clique, several of whom would later found the Aryan Brotherhood, knew about the burn behind the stabbing and decided not to get involved. "They brought that shit on themselves," was Bulldog's observation. "What'd they expect . . . they could burn the dude and nothin' would happen? Bullshit!" He emphasized his judgement by turning a thumb down, and that was the decision; he had great influence over the clique. Far more than I did.
Because my job assignment was 4 p.m. to midnight, my days were free. I seldom ate lunch, and during the lunch hour I frequendy preferred my cell to the crowded yard. It was then that I typed what I had written in number two pencd the night before using a pilfered flashlight that nobody cared I had. On this day, however, Paul Allen wanted me to shill in a poker game he was running. How could I refuse? We had no idea that the previous night's stabbing, aggravated by the one earlier today, had started the war in earnest. Men who lived in the North Cell House could come and go from their cells when they wanted. A tender on each tier unlocked the gate when you asked.
While waiting for the poker players on the yard so we could take them to the boiler room where the game was being held, I tried to assess the tension on the yard. It was more than usual, but far less than earlier in the day. I put it down to something residual, for most convicts had no idea what was going on in such matters.
Guards appeared, hurrying from several directions toward the North Cell House. Something had happened in the cell house or up on Death R
ow. Everything on the yard stopped except the whirling seagulls overhead. Everything was sdent except for their raucous cries. All eyes faced the cell house door. Moments later, four white convicts rushed out of the cell house carrying a man on a litter. Two guards trotted along beside them. As the retinue crossed the yard diagonally toward the South Cell House entrance and the hospital beyond, a couple of the man's friends came out of the crowd and hurried along beside him. The escorting guards waved them away and were ignored. I could see the man on the litter talking and gesturing. When the litter reached the end of the building where the friends could go no farther, they turned back. The yard was silent. Three thousand sets of eyes were watching. The convict, whom I didn't know, threw his hands wide and screamed: "Goddamned fucking niggers!"
"I don't think we're playing poker today," Paul said.
A queasiness started in my stomach and spread through my limbs. This was so utterly senseless. Later, when I was summoned to type the reports, my misgivings were replaced by indignation. The wounded man would survive with some scars and diminished use of his right hand because a tendon had been severed as he warded off knife blows. He was doing time for receiving stolen property and worked in the furniture factory. He'd never had a disciplinary infraction and had a medical lay-in. He was taking a nap with his cell gate open. Why not? He had no enemies. One black stepped in and stabbed him while the other kept lookout in the doorway. He had no idea who they were, and they didn't know him. He was selected because he was white and asleep. It could just as easily have been me, although I probably would not have taken a nap with the gate unlocked. Still, the black tier tender could have opened the gate for them.
Another voice yelled: "You banjo-lipped nigger motherfuckers!"
"Fuck you, honky!" was the retort from someone in the black crowd.
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Page 42