Six by Ten

by Mateo Hoke

  You think you see shit. I was seeing a young girl running around the hallway of the pod. It went on a couple of weeks. I’d look out and see her running around at night. I asked if other people saw that. They said no. At one point I thought there was a dude in the cell next to me looking at me. I asked about him, and the guys in the other cells were like, “No, nobody’s in there, you’re tripping.”

  This happened to me, but thank God I got it under control. But it happened. It happened. Being in the SHU is like being a dog tied to a pole with a ten-foot chain. Imagine leaving a dog like that for months at a time. He could eat, drink, shit, you know, take a shower and everything, but just in that space right there, ten feet. He can’t go anywhere besides that ten feet, you know? Imagine what he’s going through. For thirty days, two months. Eight months. Ten months. Imagine.

  A lot of people died in the SHU. The medical attention was horrible. One Fijian guy I knew had high blood pressure and it wasn’t treated, and he had a heart attack. People cut their wrists with razor blades. Hung themselves.23 There were mentally ill people who weren’t medicated. I saw two people straight up lose their minds in there and go crazy. They fucking just lost it, dude. If you’re not strong-minded, and you don’t have that strong will, you’re screwed. Eventually that cell is gonna get to you, is gonna start eating you up and making you crazy.

  There was this Haitian soldier, his name was Baptiste. He snapped. He was smearing shit on his windows and putting soap up his ass. I knew the dude before the SHU, and he flipped out in the SHU. He straight up lost his mind. He just lost it. That place got to him. His cell was across from mine, so I saw it firsthand. Even after I moved cells I could still smell his shit ’cause we were on the same pod. Each pod is ten cells, with five on each side, so everybody had to smell his shit. Even the COs. He’d be screaming for help, and they never gave it to him. Even when he got out of the SHU he wasn’t the same.

  Three days a week you get to leave your cell. And what I remember most was how it enrages you. It’s like being a kid and you look out the window and see everybody playing and having fun, and you can’t join them for some reason. You start to get angrier and angrier, and you have all this hate for everybody. If you don’t know how to release it, when you finally do come out, you come out angrier than before.

  Still, some things I actually liked better about being in SHU. I got to read a lot of books. I got to actually read the Quran and understand it. I got to freakin’ have the peace of mind to think, work out, you know? When you were in mainline, which is another way of saying general population, you couldn’t let your guard down. When you’re in the SHU, you can relax, kick it, hang out. You could talk to the guy across from you, you know, and don’t trip about, Aw, man, did I say something wrong? In a pod you can’t do that. What you say, who you associate with, all this other stuff you gotta watch. When you’re in the SHU, you don’t. You don’t got to worry about none of that shit.

  But after a while it got to me. We have to act all tough and put up this front, but I got wore out. At one point I cried. I just thought, Send me back to Fiji, I can’t take it anymore.

  I BROKE DOWN AND CRIED LIKE CRAZY

  I spent most of my four years at Eloy in the SHU for fighting. One time I was just singing that song that goes “shake it like a salt shaker” and they sent me to the hole for that. I was miserable. But in 2003 I got connected with the Florence Project, which helps with legal cases in immigration centers all over the area. Florence Project comes into Eloy to do pro bono work, so that’s how I met my two lawyers, Rachel and Holly. They encouraged me to fight my case.

  I’d just about given up fighting, but I remember what changed things for me was that I broke down and cried in front of my lawyer, Rachel. I think that was the biggest thing—when I broke down crying in front of her. It took a burden off my chest. I think that changed me. It just—like all the pain and stuff you hold inside, it broke. I broke down and cried like crazy. And I think that helped. I started growing after that. I wasn’t thinking about going back to the streets and all my grudges anymore, I just wanted to go home.

  The immigration authorities had said my crimes were deportable, but in 2007 someone in New York won a case similar to mine, so suddenly my case wasn’t deportable anymore. Still, the authorities decided to keep me at Eloy. So in 2007, my lawyers filed a habeas petition arguing that they didn’t have any reason for holding me, so I was being detained illegally. Which meant in order to keep holding me the immigration authorities had to prove I was a threat to society. The prosecutor argued that I was too dangerous to release based on the fights I’d got into at Eloy. I spoke directly to the judge about that and told him, “Look, in Eloy you’re either a predator or you’re the prey. If I didn’t fight, I was going to be prey, everybody and their mommas would be bullying me.” I think that helped sway the judge. He granted me bail for $5,000. I was freed September 27, 2007. I was still under threat of deportation until 2010, but we fought and had my convictions dropped. And after that, there was no threat of deportation.

  DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO BE GOOD?

  In 2007, I came from the SHU straight out to the street. The holding tank at Eloy is where they process you to go out. It’s crazy. It’s the same place they process you when you come into Eloy. People screaming and hollering the whole time. They separate those going out into two groups: those going back to the streets and those getting deported. There were five of us going back to the streets that day. They let us out of Eloy at eleven at night and dropped us off across the street from the Greyhound station in Tucson. But the Greyhound station was closed. We couldn’t get in until 6 a.m., so we had to sleep on the sidewalk. In the morning I had to call my dad and have him go to a Greyhound station and buy me a ticket from Tucson to Phoenix to San Diego to LA to Fresno. That shit ride took more than a whole day.

  At first it was a little trippy being out. I worked at the mall sweeping up, but people putting me down got to me after a while. I prefer to be alone.

  My son, he’s gonna be twenty-two in May. He doesn’t know me, most of his life I was in jail. He never calls. I call him off and on. I would love to have a great relationship with him, but he’s definitely my son. He has the same temperament as me. I’ve never been a father figure or role model to him, so I don’t blame him. I blame myself. I was never there for him when he needed me. From 1992 to 2007, all I did was get locked up or shot. I never had a real job or nothing. I have a good relationship with his mom though.

  My brother’s locked up for life, right? Growing up, he didn’t like me and I didn’t like him, but at end of the day we’re brothers and family is family. It’s his fault he went away. He shouldn’t have did what he did. But I still send him money because I know how it feels to be locked up and not have money in your books. I still talk to him too.

  My dad and I got custody of his four kids. So now I have four teenagers on my hands. It’s just me and my dad and my sister looking after them. My sister and her husband have five kids, so there’s thirteen of us in my sister’s four-bedroom house. We’re making do, but sometimes I feel really, really lost.

  At home I’m struggling. When you’re in isolation, you get this peace of mind that you’re safe because nobody can get to you, nobody can hurt you. I miss that shit. It’s fucked up because I don’t want to go back to jail, but my responsibilities are overwhelming. There’s so much shit on my plate with the kids and work. Lately I’m trying to distance myself from the world. I don’t know why. Usually I’m a really social guy, but lately I’m isolating myself. It’s flashbacks from jail.

  I got so used to being isolated from everything. So now I isolate myself from people. And it’s fucked up. Sometimes I just want to be by myself in my room. Just like I was in solitary. Confined to my room, away from my family and friends.

  When you’re locked up your mind runs 150 miles per hour. You think of everything you ever did and how you could have do
ne it different. You tend to overthink shit when you’re not supposed to. When you’re in the SHU you’re safe, but you overthink. But mentally you’re fucked in the head because you don’t have nobody to talk to. Your best friend is you.

  I want to get married. I want to get situated. But very few women will take a guy with four kids. I still want that companionship though. I miss that sometimes, I miss that a lot. I date, but I want a stable relationship. I lost my faith in a lot of things. I have a lot of heaviness in my heart. I’ve been going through girls like crazy, because as soon as something happens, I disappear for a few weeks. You get used to being by yourself in the SHU, so you want to get away from everybody. When I’m spending time with someone, I’ll want to be by myself, and I just look for excuses to be alone. It causes problems. A lot. All I know is SHU. This shit is really getting to me, but I don’t want to show my family because they’re all depending on me. I don’t want to snap, but I feel like I might sometimes.

  In my room I’m just thinking most of the time. Thinking, like Damn, I wasted most of my life doing stupid shit and getting locked up. All I did was party and try to be a gangster. Try to live that American dream to be a fuckin’ gangster. If I could change the past, I would do a lot of shit different. But you can’t. You can’t go back.

  I want to move out, and my sister and her husband, they want us to move out because they want their house for their family, you know? But the rent down here is ridiculous. It’s so hard to find a place. My dad helps out, but 99 percent it’s my income supporting the family. It seems like nothing is fucking going my way. I’m trying, I don’t do anything wrong. I don’t drink, I don’t get mad, but when I was bad everything was cool. But now I’m struggling. If you hustle, you make more money than working. Do you know how easy it is to be bad? Do you know how hard it is to be good? If I can’t make it, I’m gonna have to go back to hustling or something because I got people who depend on me. I go to work every day and work overtime and I still barely get by. Being in jail was easier.

  I work at Mills Peninsula hospital. I’m a housekeeper. I pick up linen and trash. I like my job, I get to meet people, and I actually feel like I make a difference because it’s a hospital. There’s a lot of positives, but some people won’t talk to you because of your job. People look down on you when you pick up garbage, clean floors, toilets. And honestly, having a stable job like this sometimes feels like it’s too good to be true. My whole life I’m a fuckup so when shit goes right I’m scared I’m going to fuck it up. It’s a blessing to have a good job, but that work is tough to keep going back to.

  I got a second chance, but it’s a fucked-up second chance. I’m free from a cell, but I’m locked up with responsibilities and my job. The oldest of my brother’s kids, he just started university. He wants to be a lawyer. As far as them, I’m doing good by them, but I don’t know how to raise kids, man.

  I told my brother’s kids, “You only get one chance in life. That’s it. Don’t be like me, starting life at thirty, still catching up on life.” So I gave them a choice: either you’re gonna be good or bad. Which one is it? You can’t be in the middle. You can’t do both. If you’re bad, then go all out and be bad. And I can’t do nothing but respect you because I did it. But if you wanna be good, go all out and be good. You can’t do both. So they’re good.

  * * *

  17. Hayward is a city in Alameda County, California, located fifteen miles south of Oakland.

  18. St. Rose Hospital is a major emergency care not-for-profit in Hayward.

  19. Santa Rita is a jail operated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

  20. An immigration hold is a request by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that local police hold people until they can be turned over to ICE.

  21. The Eloy Detention Center is a private prison operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, now called CoreCivic, which is one of the largest private corrections companies in the United States. In 2015, CCA reported nearly $2 billion in revenue. Eloy is located in Pinal County, sixty miles southeast of Phoenix.

  22. Before 2008, the United States and Vietnam had no repatriation agreement, so deportations to that country were not legally possible.

  23. Eloy is one of the deadliest detention centers in the country. At least fifteen inmate deaths were reported since Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created in 2003, including at least five suicides. Eloy’s death total is twice that of any other immigration detention facility, and its suicide rate is at least five times that of other detention facilities.

  STEVE BLAKEMAN

  age: 66

  born in: Des Moines, Iowa

  interviewed in: Port Angeles, Washington

  Steve Blakeman got his start as a corrections officer late in life, but at age thirty-six he felt he had a calling. Before that he had been a marine serving in Vietnam (after enlisting at age sixteen), a postwar drifter with a motorcycle, a carpenter’s assistant and homebuilder, and finally the owner of a construction company as well as a husband and father. We first speak with Steve in July 2016. Steve speaks in a direct, forceful manner—the way one might imagine someone who has spent decades as a corrections officer would talk—but he also has an easy laugh and often takes long pauses to gather his thoughts before speaking. During our long conversations, he tells us about his path to corrections, how he could easily have ended up on the other side of the prison bars, and his central role in helping to transform the use of solitary confinement in the Washington state prison system. Steve retired from corrections in November 2016, and we speak with him again in May 2017, when he reflects on his long career and whether he would want his grandchildren to work in corrections.

  I WAS A TERRIBLE STUDENT AND JUST

  DEEPLY, DEEPLY REBELLIOUS

  I had a triple hernia and pneumonia when I was born. Three months early—

  a six-month “preemie.” It was October 1951, in Des Moines, Iowa. At one point the doctor told my mother that if anybody wanted to say goodbye to this baby that they’d better come in and do so. My grandmother brought her prayer group in. I survived, and the doctor declared it was a miracle.

  My original dad wasn’t around very long. He was gone by the time I was about four or five. He was an abusive drinker, I guess, which caused a divorce. But then when I was six, my mom met my stepdad, and he was a good guy, a real stable guy. He taught me right from wrong and a work ethic, and what it means to be a man in terms of responsibility.

  Growing up, my stepdad was a delivery driver for Dolly Madison Bakery. My mom was a bank auditor. I had two younger brothers, Scott and Bobby, one two years younger and one six years younger. We were close and we had a good time. Iowa was a calm, consistent environment to grow up in. Winters, there was ice skating, tobogganing. Summers, we lived at the swimming pool. We had a lot of friends, a stable neighborhood.

  Then when I was fourteen, my stepdad got a promotion and we relocated to Texas. That was very disruptive for me. We lived in Aldine, just a little north of Houston. Down there you could either be a surfer type or what they called a goat-roper—like a cowboy. I didn’t fit into either side of that, and other kids saw me as a Yankee. I was a terrible student and just deeply, deeply rebellious.

  I didn’t get into serious trouble but just stayed on the edge of it. I felt like nobody was gonna tell me what to do. This was the late sixties though, during Vietnam, and a lot of young guys were going over there. I had a grandfather—my stepdad’s father—who had been a marine and was in Iwo Jima, and that had always impressed me.

  So when I was sixteen, I decided I’d drop out of school and join the marines. It made a lot of sense at the time. My family was all for it too. They probably thought it was a good idea. I was struggling in school, having a hard time. In those days you could have your parents sign off and go into the service. They signed a waiver, and so I was able to go.

&n
bsp; Boot camp was in San Diego. At that time a big guy in a Smokey the Bear hat slapping the shit out of me probably saved my life. I didn’t have that rebellious streak in the marines for very long. Back in 1968, when you entered the marines you got with the program quickly.

  MY CONFLICT-RESOLUTION SKILLS

  WERE NOT HIGHLY DEVELOPED

  The premise of marine boot camp at the time was, “If you’re gonna give up, then do it now before it costs somebody their life.” So that was the goal, to try to get you to fold out. I enjoyed the training. Yeah, it was a good challenge. It hit me at the right time. When I went in the marines, I weighed 135 pounds at five-eight. I came out of boot camp twelve weeks later at 160 pounds of muscle. I was seventeen. As soon as I turned eighteen, they sent me to Vietnam.

  I was first sent to a landing zone in Danang as a rifleman, doing patrols, those types of things. Then after a few months, they put me in charge of distribution convoys north of Danang. In that position I had a lot more freedom than a lot of guys. I could go into town for purchases, talk to the people. It was interesting. Then, after a year, I came back to California.

  After Vietnam, though, I was pretty messed up in terms of my attitude. I was doing too much drinking and too much partying and wasn’t being very responsible. After Vietnam, my conflict-resolution skills were not highly developed. I’m not a big person, but I used to enjoy going into bars, getting into confrontations with guys who perceived themselves as tough guys, fighters, and some of those types.