On the overhead catwalk appeared a guard with a bucket of tear gas grenades and a short-barreled launcher. Behind him, sweating and panting from the exertion, came a couple of guards lugging carbines. The convicts below, black and white, were confused. The shot callers had told them nothing. They had no idea what to do.
The steam whistle blew afternoon work call and the convicts, like trained milk cows, began moving slowly toward their job assignments. I went back to my cell to continue reading a biography of Alexander the Great. Never in history did anyone deserve that appellation more than the Macedonian warrior king. I learned about the victory over Darius and the Persians, the burning of Persepolis and the founding of the world's first great library at Alexandria by Ptolemy, Alexander's general, whose descendants nded Egypt through Cleopatra. In a lockup somewhere, I'd had an argument with a semi-literate black who asserted that Cleopatra was a "black African queen with skin of ebony." It almost reached a physical altercation when I said that she may indeed have been black, but no reputable historian disputes that her antecedents were Greek - that was an undisputed fact. Then came the ad hominem vitriol: "White devils steal the black man's history." I had not known of Alexander's fantastic march through the Kush and the Khyber Pass, conquering all who opposed him and tainting his golden image with what we would call war crimes. His will was indomitable, and he was often victorious through sheer determination. When he was my age he had already conquered the world and was both dead and immortal, whereas I was an outlaw and outcast serving time in a gray rock penitentiary. I had been born in the wrong era and the wrong circumstances.
About 2.30 I had switched to Camus' "Reflection on the Guillotine," perhaps the most thoughtful, and certainly the most beautifully written, essay on capital punishment. I stood up to un-kink my back and take a leak. When I turned away from the toilet, I could see the yard through the windows. Convicts were trudging en masse toward the cell houses. No lines were being formed. It was an hour and a half until the regular lockup. Something was still going on and I knew it was about race conflict. Had there been another incident?
Within a minute I could hear them begin to come through the rotunda door and trudge up the stairway to the tiers. A few passed my cell, moving too fast to stop and ask. Then Billy Michaels appeared. A tall, blond handsome dope fiend — what is called a "hope-to-die" dope fiend - he was the kind that wants more than merely feeling good. He wants to keep fixing until his chin rests on his chest and he is oblivious of the world around him. Before I could ask him what was going on, he asked: "Lemme borrow your outfit."
"Whaddya got?"
"I ain't got nuthin, but Chente just came off a visit. His old lady gave him a taste. A couple grams. He can't get his back at the job because they're lockin' the joint down. I can slide in if I can get him a rig."
"I don't have it here." "Shit!"
The tiers were rapidly filling with bodies. A voice on the loudspeaker said that all inmates were to proceed to their assignment for the main count. That meant me. "I can go get it and bring it back after the count clears."
"Oh, man, I'd sure appreciate that."
"I know I'm good for a fix."
"Oh man! He ain't got but a gram or two."
"Two fixes is pretty easy - if he wants to get high tonight."
"I'll put it to him."
"What's this lockup about?"
"I dunno. Probably about all this race shit."
"Something else happen?"
"I didn't hear anything. I was cutting hair downstairs."
The cell house bell rang out. Security bars were raised and a thousand gates opened as convicts stepped in. I stepped out onto an empty tier of slamming gates and the inevitable straggler running hard to reach his cell before being locked out. Missing a lockup wasn't a disciplinary offense, but several misses could bring one. It tended to be the same convicts who missed lockups.
As I went through the yard gate, two groups of guards were hustling a pair of black convicts toward "B" Section lockup. I knew neither by name, but one had frequented the Folsom law library when I was the clerk. He was trying to find an error in his extradition. The FBI had kidnapped him from Mexico. He was barely literate. He was one of many convicts who seem to believe that if you find the right cases and repeat the citations like some kind of magical chant the prison gates will fly open. I tried to explain the essential law: the Supreme Court said that it didn't matter how they got you before the court, the court didn't lose jurisdiction. He didn't like it. I remember saying, "Okay, okay, forget it. I was just trying to help you." His reply was laden with venom. "No white man ever helped a black man." It left nothing more to say; then or now. He had been Fanonized, even if he never heard of Franz Fanon. He sneered at me as he went by. Not to be undone, I sneered in reply, but inside I felt a keening ache. It was a sad, sad day.
When I reached the Yard Office, I found out what had happened. A fifty-year-old white convict who was being transferred wanted to say goodbye to a teacher. The classroom was up a stairway in an annex to the education budding. Three blacks waited in the shadows on the landing to ambush whatever white appeared. It happened to be the man being transferred. They came out of the shadows whde he was on the top stair before the landing, surprising him so that he fell crashing back down the stairway.
In the classroom, the teacher heard the ruckus and went to the door. As he opened it, the assadants were going down the stairs. The victim cried out and the teacher sounded the alarm with his whistle. Nearby guards came running. They caught two of the blacks as they ran out. As they were led away, one yelled: "Power to the people!" The elderly white convict had a sprained ankle.
That aborted assault was enough to bring the order to lock the prison down. The cons were sent back to the cell houses. On the tiers, paranoia ran high, for in the narrow space it was impossible to know when, or if, the long shivs would be pulled. Men without friends, those trying to quietly serve a term and get out, were in the worst predicament. They had no allies. Whites were indignant and afraid. Blacks were both jubdant and afraid, though they waited to yell their pleasure until they were locked in their cells and were anonymous voices.
That night guards and freemen began a search of the prison that would continue for days and reveal hundreds of weapons. Cell blocks were first. Personnel fded along the fifth tier without warning, until two stood outside each cell gate. Riflemen behind them gave cover. Security bars were raised and convicts were ordered to strip to their underwear and step out onto the tier. As soon as the convicts realized what was happening, knives were thrown between the bars, sailing down to clatter on the floor of the bottom tier. It was really unnecessary to discard the weapons, for the searchers were sadly out of shape, accustomed to sitting on their butts. Before finishing two cells they were panting, unable to do more than perfunctorily raise a mattress. Many just walked into cells and sat down.
On each tier behind the cells is a narrow service passage with plumbing and electrical conduits. Convict electricians and plumbers have access to the passages. Guards found two dozen knives and three roofing hatchets in the East Cell House passageways. The arsenal belonged to whites and Chicanos: the plumber and electrician were a white and Chicano.
The only convicts out of their cells were essential workers - a couple of Captain's Office clerks, hospital attendants, the firewatch, the late cleanup crew in the kitchen, and me. I could wander almost wherever I wanted within San Quentin's walls until midnight. I went to the South Cell House. It was the Skid Row of San Quentin. The oldest of the big cell houses, it was divided into four sections, one of them a notorious long-term segregation unit named "B" Section. The rest of the cell house was quiet, but "B" Section was a cacophonous uproar until dawn; then the men slept the day away, rising up just for meals and an hour in the exercise yard. Many were now in segregation from the last race war. I don't remember all the detads of that one, but after a cycle of stabbing, retaliation, stabbing, retaliation, the militant white convicts worked up a pla
n. Each of several really violent convicts would take a group of two or three or four to various positions, i.e. the library, the education budding and elsewhere. As soon as the afternoon work whistle blew at 1 p.m., each squad would attack and murder every black in the vicinity.
At 12.45 a fistfight broke out in the segregation unit exercise yard. The gunrail officer blew his whistle (no response) and fired the obligatory warning shot. That fight broke apart, but the rifle shot was heard throughout the prison. White convicts waiting in the lower yard thought the general attack was underway. They drew their weapons and charged a group of unarmed blacks lounging around the gate into industries, men waiting to return to work after lunch. Unarmed and taken by complete surprise, they ran for their lives. There were two stragglers, gray-haired old men who faded to realize their mortal danger in time. They tried to run, but the pack of wolves closed on them swiftly. The leader sprang upon one man's back. Down he went, disappearing under half a dozen more, the rising and fading knives red in the sun. The second old man reached the chain link fence around the gardener's area. They tore him loose and fell upon him with the fury of wdd dogs. The medical report said he suffered at least forty-two wounds that could have caused his death.
San Quentin was locked down for two months after all that. Dady buses rolled to Folsom, Soledad, Tracy. A couple of the craziest were sent to the California Medical Facility at Vacaville and given electric shock therapy. That took away their aggression but also a few points of IQ that these guys couldn't afford to lose.
The lockup continued. The white clique and their Chicano partners managed to exchange a few words on the grapevine. The words were "wait . . . wait . . . wait . . ." They had been taken totally off guard by the series of attacks and had no idea it was in retaliation for the black being stabbed in the East Cell House. That had been done by a Chicano. So what if he was a fan of Hider's S.S.?
Nothing happened on the following Wednesday and Thursday. The lockup was too tight. Every convict out of the cell was searched several times. Even I got frisked by a rookie bull. On the weekend the West Honor Unit returned to normal schedule. A few other workers were pulled from the breakfast lines.
The Associate Warden had many inmates brought to his office. He wanted to know the mood of the prison. This Associate Warden, however, was both disliked and lacking in contacts with the right convicts. Those he called lacked prestige or influence in the yard. He appointed a committee of convicts to "cool" the situation, but those on the committee were without respect among their peers. The blacks, especially, had no juice. The very fact that they would even talk to the "chief pig" closed them off from their brothers.
A black program administrator summoned me and three other whites considered leaders. He wanted us to assure him that nothing more would happen. I told him that I didn't run anything and couldn't speak for anybody. Two others stood silent, heads down. The third flushed and stuttered: "They done downed five or six white dudes . . . old men and strays who didn't do nothin' to nobody. Next they'll want us to pluck our eyebrows and get a black jocker. Me . . . I'm not promising anything." Nothing was resolved.
The plan of waiting for normal routine was gaining acceptance. Nazis and Hell's Angels backed away, claiming that none of their brothers had been hit and they would stay on the sideline until that happened.
The blacks weren't waiting for Whitey. They continued on the offensive.
I happened to be on the fifth tier, standing outside a cell occupied by a couple friends of mine, when I saw two blacks appear around the corner and start down the tier. Luckily my friends had a roofing hatchet in the cell. They passed it through the bars. The blacks saw it, stopped and went the other way. It wasn't cowardice — but even if they killed me, I would surely inflict some wounds, and wounds would get them caught.
On the fourth tier, another white, a motorcycle rider, was in front of a cell trying to buy a tab of acid. He worked in the mess hall scullery and had just gotten off work. In fact he was still wearing the heavy rubber boots from the job. The cell where he stood was in the middle of the tier. The same two blacks came down the tier from the rear. A third black walked along the tier below and climbed up near the front. The white was between them. He saw them and sensed danger, for he backed up against the rail, refusing to turn his back on them. Had I been in his situation, I would have climbed over the tier long before they arrived. The white convict spread his arms and rested his hands on the railing, leaning back so he could look up. He was probably trying to hide evidence of fear. A smart convict, white or black, would have climbed up or down without hesitation. This man probably thought he wasn't involved; he hadn't done anything to anyone. He was insufficiently afraid to save his own life. The black from the front arrived first. When ten feet away, he pulled his shiv and rushed forward. The white turned to face him and threw up his hands to ward off the blade. It went between his hands and plunged into his chest. An instant later the other two arrived from the rear. One knifed him in the back. The biggest of the trio grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms. The first black stabbed at his throat. The blade entered just above the collarbone, drove down through his lungs and into his heart. He continued struggling, but blood was spewing from his mouth and he was already dying. The second black kept stabbing him. There were no screams, just grunts and gasps and the horrifying sound of tearing flesh. Mirrors jutted between bars along the tier, periscopes of men trying to see what was going on. Whites began yelling and rattling the bars to drive off the killers. They were watching a murder and unable to do anything to stop it. Men on tiers above and below called out: "What's goin' on?" "Them niggers is killin' a motherfucker!" A black voice: "Gonna get all you honky motherfuckers."
The killers sprinted down the rear stairs as a score of guards arrived on the run. Only six blacks were out of their cells. All were taken into custody for investigation. A bloody knife was found beneath a blood-spattered denim jacket in a trash can. Neither item led to anyone. The next morning, following calls from the local NAACP chapter, the Associate Warden told the Captain to release the six blacks because there was no evidence against them. Instead he ordered several friends of the victim to be locked up, the logic being that they might try to retaliate. Before they could be released, guards discovered traces of blood on the shoes of three, plus they told conflicting stories. The Associate Warden rescinded the release order.
That afternoon, word got around that guards would look the other way when whites struck back. Bias was long established, but outright license to kill was something new. The unholy alliance of white guards and convicts was not mutual love but shared hatred. Untd recent years, most guards had been even-handed when dealing with convicts.
The senseless murder in the East Cell House was the catalyst for madness. Even I, who had empathy for the anguish of the black man in America, now seethed with racial hatred. When the slow unlock for supper began, half a tier at a time, faces showed how things were going. White convicts were sullen and sdent, blacks were laughing and joking. When the fifth tier of the East Cell House was unlocked, whistles suddenly began bleating. Guards ran up the stairway and found two blacks in their cell, lying in their blood. One walked out, seriously wounded. The other was half under the bottom bunk, spuming blood from his mouth with each breath. That indicated a punctured lung. A gunrail guard had four whites covered, and blacks on the tier were pointing them out. Most guards were uninterested in investigating what had happened. Both victims lived. They claimed that two whites had run into their cell and started stabbing the moment the security bar went up, whde the other two whites held everyone else at bay on the tier. The jocular laughter had turned to sdence.
Except for a fistfight, seventy-two hours passed without incident. The officials were considering a return to normal routine. Kitchen workers were already following the usual routine. The culinary department had a locker room and shower on the second floor that could be reached only up a narrow, concrete-walled stairway. More than one unsolved murder had o
ccurred in the area, the last one a stool pigeon whose jugular was literally torn from his throat. Whde officials were considering an unlock, half a dozen white convicts fded up the stairway, each with a knife in his belt. Five blacks were in the room, shaving, showering, rinsing their hands or standing at the urinal when the whites came through the door. One black saw the attack coming and ran into a wire enclosure where towels were stored. He held the door closed. The others had nowhere to go. Within seconds, blood was splattering the walls. Blacks were running in circles, followed by whites with knives. One husky black youth lowered his head and charged at the narrow entrance to the stairs. Two Hell's Angels waited. He got past the first one and crashed into the second. Both of them went down the stairs. The white broke his ankle. The black had several wounds, and a shiv hanging from his buttocks. He ran into the kitchen proper where I happened to be standing next to Lieutenant Ziemer and the Watch Sergeant, both of whom were eating bacon and egg sandwiches. "I'm hit," the black convict said. His white T-shirt was bloody and we could see the shiv dangling. It had a certain absurdity. The Sergeant told him: "You're not hurt that bad. Wait over there."
The black who got down the stairs actually saved the lives of the others. The whites thought the alarm was given and they fled before finishing off the remaining trio. One of the victims died. His spinal cord had been severed. He went into a coma and never regained consciousness. The other victims were never shown photos to identify. Higher officials were hamstrung by the hostde indifference of their sergeants and lieutenants. The plan to unlock the prison was put on hold. Cold sandwiches were pushed through the bars twice a day, except for the previously mentioned "essential workers," who were served hot meals. I was locked up all day, but when the shift changed, I was let out. About 10 p.m., Lieutenant Ziemer went to Key Control and drew the keys to the kitchen's walk-in refrigerators. It was T-bone time for the favored few, me and the late cleanup crew. During the day I worked on cutting the novel and writing my first essay; it was about prison's racial troubles.
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Page 43