Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs

by Charles Falco

  This newer facility was an octagon-shaped jail containing a single guard tower surrounded by six steel tanks, thirty-six cells two levels deep. Each housed seventy killers awaiting sentencing. A glass-front panel allowed deputies access into each coffinlike containment. We were shuffled inside, segregated by race in our cells. The F tank, dubbed the “fag unit” by inmates, held the transvestites and homosexuals. Psycho and Bandit shuffled apart to different tanks opposite mine; I squeezed into the C tank with six other whites and several Hispanics and blacks. Deputies led Joe, Rust, and Walter to different units and I lost sight of them.

  Each tank served as a microcosm of society, a cultural pocket that dictated rank and protocol. And though the guards controlled by force and dissent, real manipulation existed inside among the inmates. I never got used to eyes watching me or the constant noise: moans, screams, toilets flushing, chains rattling, batons smacking against glass. We pissed, shit, slept in front of someone. But the dehumanization began with the clothes, shapeless orange scrubs made of thin cotton. Tough killers reduced to convention and sameness. The strong survived; the weak shriveled with fear. I could do this for one night. Warm air constricted me, like a noose around my throat.

  The normal process was to post bail.

  * * *

  The next morning, Psycho and I, chained together, attended our bail hearing. We opted for the physical experience of the courtroom rather than a video-screen prompt and a borrowed public defender. The court considered the Vagos, more than any other organized gang, an extreme public threat and ordered a full SWAT team to guard the perimeter and interior of the courthouse. At least twelve armed deputies lined the jury box. And while the show of force may have served as protection for the judge and spectators, it also had an unfortunate consequence—it inflated the Vagos’ “terroristlike” persona.

  Psycho, confident that his release was imminent, assured me the club would loan me 10 percent toward my $50,000 bail. Koz promised to pay the rest in a week. Warm air filtered through the ducts inside the courtroom; a hint of peroxide skimmed my nostrils. Long rectangular windows sealed out sunlight. A young prosecutor, maybe no more than thirty, clicked across the floor. She huddled at the bench with defense counsel, her face animated, blond head shaking side to side.

  This couldn’t be good.

  She insisted $50,000 was too low, that the Vagos ran a “terror campaign” and their “brutality knew no limits.” The judge agreed, increased our bail to $500,000, and ended the verbal ping-pong.

  “I could go to the DA right now,” Koz assured me as soon as I could reach a phone.

  “No.” I was adamant. “That would just invite suspicion. Let’s wait.” None of the witnesses had mentioned my involvement in the fight. I figured the DA would either reduce my bond or drop my charges altogether based on lack of evidence.

  “We can’t post your bail.”

  “I know.”

  And while we formulated a plan that would keep me safe, protect my cover, and preserve the integrity of the investigation, I returned to the Murder Unit.

  * * *

  Once a week, cellies in each tank enjoyed an hour outside in the concrete yard, unless the lone deputy “forgot” or confused the rotation. If that happened, an entire cell could suffer a week without exercise. The space consisted of four walls and a shaded bulb to simulate a colorless outdoor sky. Mostly the yard offered a chance to stretch. Some races clustered together for a fierce game of handball, the sound of balls bouncing on concrete eerily similar to fists hitting bone.

  The Murder Unit was run by two disinterested deputies. They announced day-to-day routines with whistles that signified meals, yard, lights-out. But really, the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang, controlled the “Woods” (their moniker for whites) throughout the complex. Each race ruled its own: the Mexican Mafia, housed in another unit entirely, dictated the rules for the Hispanics in the Murder Unit. The Bloods and Crips ruled the blacks, and so forth.

  Each tank, equipped with an open bathroom and a so-called dayroom where meals occurred, offered the illusion of humanity. But in fact the “amenities” created opportunity for abuse. Once the steel doors of our cells buzzed open for meals and we funneled to one of the fifteen tables, the deputies’ attention diverted.

  * * *

  I shared a cell with Jan, a tall Mormon who resembled an SS guard, with pale skin, a tuft of blond hair cropped close to the scalp, and cold reptilian eyes. He had been in the Murder Unit since his eighteenth birthday two years earlier.

  “I stabbed my girlfriend’s mother in the throat thirty-three times,” he volunteered matter-of-factly by way of introduction. “I’m a virgin.”

  Already my first few minutes in the cell seemed too long.

  Jan prattled on about his tortured childhood, his parents who kicked him out, his girlfriend’s mother who had “tried to give him a blow job” in the parking lot of a grocery strip mall until she “got what she deserved.”

  “Fucking bitch.” He spat, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “‘Why, Jan? Why, Jan?’” he mimicked, reliving the mother’s last pleas. Next he described in chilling detail the spurting blood from the cuts in her neck, how she “burped, farted, burped, farted” until she expired. Jan shuddered, then closed his eyes at the memory as if the whole retelling somehow aroused him.

  “When I get out of here”—his eyes fluttered open—“I’m going to be a serial killer.”

  8

  The Rep

  Our cell’s steel doors buzzed open and we scrambled into the dayroom, lined up along the perimeter like soldiers waiting for inspection. A large black deputy surveyed us, made sure our shirts were tucked in and that we all wore orange shoes with matching socks. He couldn’t care less if we looked alike, only that we followed orders. Unarmed, he wore an ill-fitting brown uniform. Angry lines etched into his face. He scanned a disheveled Hispanic inmate in bare feet with disdain.

  “He’s lucky that motherfucker doesn’t launch him face-first into concrete,” Jan whispered to me later as we ate. “He’s done it before. He handcuffs dudes from behind, hogties their ankles, and launches them into the air like missiles.”

  And when they lay in pools of blood, I was certain there would be no infirmary, no stitches, and no recovery. The inmates made sense of their world through order and structure, codes of conduct that united them against a common enemy—the deputies—and perpetuated an us-versus-them mentality. But really, we were not so different. The deputies, too, operated in a quasi-military structured institution, their prime focus punishment of individuals who did not live up to certain standards, who disobeyed rules, or who foolishly believed they might be human or even valuable as anything other than part of a larger machine. With the uniform came a mask, a role that allowed them to dehumanize those outside their world. Not so different from the Vagos. The cuts, the bike, the tattoos—all encouraged a persona that led to increased aggression, strength in conformity.

  * * *

  I learned the rules quickly. Each tank designated a Rep responsible for “checking” inmate misconduct. The Key Holder, selected by the Aryan Brotherhood who controlled the entire prison, monitored the Rep; so-called Bullets enforced the Rep’s orders. The rank-and-file structure mirrored the Vagos except that in the tank the stakes were much higher.

  My first meal arrived, a tasteless sticky clump of carrots drizzled with white sauce that reminded me of snot. I vowed my next meal would be M&M’s from the commissary. At the Rep’s signal, we shuffled to our places. Each race sat together at one of the fifteen tables. Narrow spaces separated them. The Rep controlled when we ate, when we sat, when we left the table. The system functioned through obedience and precision, a simple hand gesture, a nod of the head. No room for error, for lapse or accident. No one spoke. Eating was a drill, necessary soldier fuel. The Woods ate together. No one left the table until everyone finished eating. A lone Wood was vulnerable to attack.

  I sat across from a tall, angular in
mate with feminine hands. He lowered his eyes and reached across the table for the salt. His sleeve grazed my plate. Like a spark, the room ignited. The Rep snapped his fingers and Bullets grabbed the offender by the elbows and dragged him to a cell located behind the stairwell and hidden from the deputies’ view.

  Although there were only six of us Woods in the entire mix of seventy inmates, no race interfered with another’s discipline. If races crossed, the results could start a prison riot. The Rep’s job was to enforce. Ours had a rap sheet for kidnapping, torture, and murder with a hammer. Short and stocky, he spoke little. A long scar cut into the base of his neck. A circle of inmates formed around the Bullets as they checked the inmate, punching him in rapid succession in the chest and stomach for thirty seconds like a military drill. Without protest, the beaten inmate doubled over, stumbled back to his table, and resumed eating.

  I spent the next hour circling laps around the fifty-by-fifty-foot tank just to pass the time until I returned to my cell, to Jan and his ramblings about death and torture. Day blended into night and I slept little. Exhaustion wore on me like a heavy coat. All around me inmates slowly rotted, pressed together, slipping in blood and sweat, soon to be serving life sentences. Theirs was no kind of life. And yet, most wanted to be there, took comfort in rules, in structure, a world within a world, none of it real. Deputies existed like fixtures in the tower, lightbulbs that flickered on and off and faded to black.

  I had been in the Murder Unit only one day, but already it felt like months.

  * * *

  By day two, the Rep had designated Jan and me as the tank Bullets.

  “You’re as big as a house,” Jan explained. “And a gang member.”

  “What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m tall.”

  That was pretty close to the truth. Our size made us eligible.

  * * *

  Hours filled with mini assaults and “exercise.” My laps around the dayroom relieved stress. I blocked time by counting. Soon, I had company, a small pale creature with bulbous eyes and large hairy feet. He rarely spoke and reminded me of a Hobbit. He kept pace beside me, breathing heavily as if the exertion gave him asthma. Then an apple sailed past our heads and splattered against the nearby wall. Juice dribbled onto the concrete. I stopped walking, startled by the juxtaposition.

  “That’s Mexican Hitler.” The Hobbit nodded to the Hispanic deputy with cinched pants, a black strip of mustache, and polished boots. The deputy scavenged through the cells kicking errant bananas, stray oranges, and bruised plums. He smashed the fruit into wall phones so that the receiver became sticky and attracted bugs.

  “He hates it when we hoard fruit.” The Hobbit shrugged as if this behavior were completely normal.

  * * *

  Apart from Mexican Hitler, the deputies left me alone. My only experience with abuse came in the form of deliberate neglect. I had never fully recovered from the flu and my fever raged intermittently, making me clammy and weak and dizzy. I worried that my asthma inhaler would run out. Without a prescription refill, soon I could literally take my last breath. The deputies ignored my requests, “lost” my paperwork, or “misplaced” the forms beneath piles of bureaucratic files. Other inmates contracted viral infections, vomited, and fainted at regular intervals, and they never got relief.

  “You have to practically be dead before they’ll do anything for you in here,” Jan said.

  * * *

  By the end of the week, the deputies transported our Rep to his preliminary hearing. As he shuffled to his place on the chain, we all spotted the deputy’s error. He had mistakenly hooked the Rep next to a convicted child molester. Panic skittered across the inmate’s face. He knew his fate already. Prison code dictated that wolves devoured rabbits. Survival required adaptation. Child molesters were excluded; no one protected them. The F tank offered the illusion of separation. But now on the chain, in the presence of a wolf, the child molester became prey. Head bowed, hands limp, breath heavy, the inmate stumbled, as if drunk, eyes glazed and watery.

  The Rep had no choice. As the tank bully, he had to strike or risk retribution from his own kind. He recoiled from the inmate as if the child molester had a foul odor. Silence hung heavy around us. If the child molester returned from court unscathed, Bullets would “roll” the Rep out, beat him to a pulp, demand that he “ring the bell” to summon a deputy, and insist on suicide. The Rep might spend time in isolation, crouched in darkness until deputies transferred him to another unit. But if the child molester never returned, the Rep might still do time in solitary.

  At least he would preserve his dignity.

  Secret sexual encounters happened during church services, the only place where prisoners were permitted to mingle with inmates from the F tank. But while some prayed and others confessed their sins, transvestites and gays disappeared into the communal restrooms.

  * * *

  “You know what happens to stretchers in here?” Jan enlightened me later that night.

  “Nothing good,” I acknowledged, darkness pressing in on me like a mask.

  Jan wagged a finger at me and said, “If anyone put his pecker in me, I’d force him upstairs and toss him over the railing.”

  He spoke the truth. Sex offenders were “disposed of” in the Murder Unit, forced by fellow inmates to crawl on their hands and knees to the top level of the tanks and free-fall onto hard concrete.

  “Sometimes when it’s really quiet, I’ll hear the thud of a body.”

  9

  King of the Killers

  Without a Rep to control our tank, we had to rely on the Key Holder, a prospective Aryan Brotherhood member housed in the next unit, to “check” inmate violations. We couldn’t see him through the steel doors, but his voice thundered through the cracks. He had loyal spies. Failure to follow the Key Holder’s orders had deadly consequences. As we lined up at our tables, one Hispanic inmate stood across from me, arms folded across his chest, jaw jutted in defiance. Though dark skinned, he insisted he was white because he spoke white. And in truth, it was easier to be white in the Murder Unit simply because the Woods had fewer numbers and fewer opportunities to mess up.

  But more than rejecting his own race, the Hispanic/white inmate renounced his allegiance to Southsiders (aka Serrano), a group for which he still wore the tattoo on his back. The inmate had disrespected both races; he needed more than correction.

  The Southsiders Rep planned to jump him. He issued orders to each Hispanic in the tank to punch the inmate at least once in the head. The Woods, too, were expected to participate. But without a Rep, someone had to take control. I banged on the steel door in the dayroom. “Get me the Key Holder,” I said. Within minutes, a deep disembodied voice ordered a beating. At my command, Bullets emerged from the corners and ushered the Hispanic/white inmate into a cell behind the stairs, a blind spot where deputies had no visual access. The cell doors opened with an old-fashioned key and often just stayed open.

  The inmate protested mildly, whined that the rules were “stupid,” that he could be white if he wanted to be white. Who were we to decide? Maybe he had a point? Several Hispanics pummeled the inmate with sharp blows to his stomach. Wired and frenzied, they followed their punches with kicks to the head. Blood flew from the inmate’s nose onto their orange shoes. He rolled onto his side, moaned, sputtered, and clutched his head. He rocked in the fetal position, his hair sticky with sweat and blood, his back slapping the concrete wall behind him. Anger exploded in the inmates’ faces.

  “Get up,” one ordered. But the Hispanic/white inmate refused. Another kicked him in the back of his head, and I heard a loud crack. A small crowd formed around the perimeter of the open cell. The beating had become a spectator sport. The Woods each took a swing at the slumped-over inmate. I worried that the man might die. He caved inward with each blow to his ribs. Blood oozed from his eyes. He struggled to stand and glared at me with dark wet eyes. I extended my hand. He gave it a weak shake. The Southside Rep shook the inmate’s ha
nd, too.

  “It’s cool,” he said. And just like that, order was restored to the tank.

  Later, we learned that the inmate actually had mental issues; he was slow. Maybe he really thought he was white after all?

  * * *

  “I should be the new Rep,” Jan announced later as we lay in the dark listening to the clank of metal and drip of water. “I’ve been in this hole the longest.”

  “You should apply.” I encouraged him, knowing our tank needed a replacement Rep. No one else jockeyed for the job. The Rep typically incurred additional charges. He had to commit or supervise assaults or risk being killed. Jan had two years in the tank, and a flash temper and brute force that matched his frame. Perfect.

  But the Key Holder had other ideas. He nominated me.

  “You?” Jan bristled. He paced our small cell, chewed the inside of his lower lip, and made a sucking sound that grated on my nerves. “What makes you so special?”

  I lay back on the cot, clasped my arms behind my head, and closed my eyes, but Jan’s voice droned on as he recounted his crime: virgin, blow job, stabbed thirty-three times.

  “When I get out of here, I’m going to be a serial killer,” Jan repeated.

  By now I’d had enough of Jan and his career aspirations. “Listen to me.” I sat up, swung my legs over the cot, and rubbed my hands through my hair.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jan stopped pacing. A spider crawled across his foot and in a flash he snatched it between his fingers and dangled it upside down by its legs.

  “You’re not ever getting out,” I promised, my voice a tight whisper.