BACK TO PRISON CHAPTER 1
The prison was off the beaten path on a remote stretch 100 miles from civilization where nobody knew or cared about the nightmarish tension within. I thought about the war zone I was headed back to. This was one of the hardest core prisons in the state of California. The Pelican Bay SHU released inmates here and often times sent them back.
Redwood trees soared in the distance as the bus climbed a hill and the prison came into view. One fence after another boxed one little yard after another and was the only concrete other than the street taking us there. I counted 12 different mini fenced in concrete jungles and there were more I couldn’t see behind other buildings as the bus pulled into a narrow strip where the razor wire tops of fences started. We waited until a guard came out of a booth and checked the bus. We were waved in, and shuffled to the receiving part of the prison where we waited to get processed. I, who answered to the name B.J, was one of a handful who had already been housed. I’d left to court on appeal. My case, a drug case, had already been heard in court but I sent it to the Supreme Court. The reason I did was for ineffective council. 6 out of 10 cases from Orange County, California that go to the Supreme Court on appeal are overturned, most for ineffective council. In my case I was guilty as hell of dealing drugs but still holding a chip on my shoulder for being labeled a cartel level gun and drug dealer, outright lies. I am a California bred white man who used to surf , play sports and go to church until drugs polluted my soul, and I started to use them to pay bills. Being an obsessive compulsive hypersensitive individual I happened to be very good at gathering and collecting and had made to many enemies in the drug world who put together a collection of lies law enforcement was only too happy to write in police reports. Having already been housed in the mainline population of the prison I only had to wait a couple hours for the escort deputies to arrive.
On the walk from the receiving portion of the prison I had a prison guard on my right and left and was escorted down a 6 foot wide strip of concrete to building 6. On the way there I looked to the right where the prison yard opened up like a baseball field where a gun tower of green had a gun hanging out a square box where home plate would've been. Exercise bars were in rows where first base would've been, and a circular track surrounded the rest of the yard. To my left, we walked past building 4, then 5 and then I heard the guard on my right speak into his headset, "Escort deputy Landry, pop gate 6."
A chain link fence with swirling razor wire in circles at the top of it opened. We walked into a 70 foot by 70 foot Sally-Port the gun tower for building 6 was in watching from above. I looked up and saw the tower guard behind a bullet proof window with bars diagonally spaced a foot apart. He was carrying a 50 millimeter rifle hanging from a shoulder strap over a dog door sized opening he could take aim and fire through.
Chapter 2
We entered the building. Walking through a narrow vestibule underneath the gun tower I looked up and saw guards walking on the glass above and knew they had to see us in case we picked this narrow vestibule for a race war or other violent act to handle business. There were two squared openings in the thick glass, one for dropping tear gas, the other for firing rounds.
Twenty feet of vestibule later the building's interior. The noise from 200 inmates reached my ears. As the sound registered, so did something deeper, more pervasive, the energy behind the noise. Yelling from inmates locked in cells became visible as did a few inmates walking with brooms. A couple of Black crip gang members were showering on the bottom floor. One went by Danger and looked like a crack baby skinny as a rail and all elbows and kneecaps with a wild afro on to small of a head. The other went by T-Rock and looked like a body builder and was all business. Upstairs in the second set of showers were a couple of Mexicans rinsing off. One was from West LA and the other from south of the border Tijuana.
I looked up at the gun tower past the red block letter sign- NO WARNING SHOTS FIRED, WARDEN- and saw the 2 guards talking to each other, they weren’t paying attention, and this gave me some time to roam around before getting locked in my cell.
I walked toward my cell and seven cells down on my left I stopped at Popeye’s grilled door and knocked from the side allowing him privacy rather than stick my head in without consideration. "What's up Pops? I just got back from my appeal and lost. Now I need medical for a check up from the neck up."
"B.J...Just a second I'm just finishing my bird bath."
I gave Popeye space to finish his cell shower with my back against the wall so I could see the tower and everything else. I needed to know what was up with a cell across from him. The prison administration allowed a probable notorious child molester killer into our domain. We didn’t have the facts to validate he was indeed a child molester killer; we’d heard it from a prison guard. Whether it was on purpose or a mistake was yet to come out. Of utmost import was the cell mate of the possible child molester. Popeye and I did our homework as thorough as could be done so everything would come out of the wash and that took more research than most district attorneys would give. In so doing, we went back way deeper. With David, AKA- "Rooster", the cell mate of the probable child killer, we knew David was an orphan who grew up in L.A and entered the prison system not as a gang member, or even any kind of violent or sophisticated criminal, just a homeless-drug addict. His life sentence for a number of petty thefts and residential burglaries kept him in hotels with a side of dope on occasion, at best. The prison system bred him into a shooter for the A.B, a notorious White Clan, by using him to put in work by stabbing their offenders. Now he was on his way to Pelican Bay. But the kicker was he was about to get a chance at having his life sentence reduced on appeal where the courts would have latitude to modify his sentence for stealing a piece of pizza, a petty theft, strike 3. Quite a dilemma. These are the days of our prison lives.
Popeye came to the door. "B.J...Our man of the hour is going to whack the piece of shit."
I had it figured that way. Even with the chance of hope for a sentence reduction it was too late. Rooster had been bred into a warrior with pride and honor devoted to his destruction. He couldn't fathom living with himself, or how others would view him, for living with a piece of shit that molested people’s daughters under the age of 10, then killing them. Could you blame him?
Popeye had more to say, "The war brewing with the Cans and the Blacks is about to go. We are not moving any weapons out to the yard for em."
I knew the Cans was short for Mexicans and that we definitely weren’t going to smuggle knives and cans of mackerel to the yard where they would get buried near sprinklers so the metal detectors wouldn't go off. Those same weapons could later be used on us, the outnumbered whites. No thanks.
I thought about how the two Mexican Mafia reps in our building had been working on both Popeye and I over the last month in, “Talks", at our cell doors to smuggle weapons to the yard. Neither Popeye nor I explained the repulsiveness at the thought of smuggling weapons for them, then burying them on the yard, and then imagining the opportunity for those same weapons being slammed into our own loved ones given a change in circumstances. Preposterous.
Popeye noticed at the same time I did. The showers across from us up stairs where the Mexicans were in were done showering and something was going down. The trained eye could see it in their even more controlled expressions as they dried off more businesslike and in concert with each other. They were more determined, and on a mission of some sort. Both lifted one leg to put a boot on the steel bars enclosing the interior of the shower while tattooed arms and hands hurried to tie laces tight in unison. Then the other foot lifted for the other boot. The Mexicans fi
nished their task and I saw one of them lean down and pull a string that was coming out from under a cell 10 feet away until a brown lunch bag became visible and quickly slid inside the shower between the bars. It didn’t look like a lunch was inside.
I heard Popeye scuffling around in his cell, then heard the drop of a couple of welding rods land a couple inches from the bottom of the cell and looked down for a second to see two ice pick shanks poking out under the door for me if necessary. I watched the Mexicans, they weren’t coming for me, I didn't need them and I saw them slide back under as Popeye’s foot dragged them back. The Mexicans were heading for the stairs across from us. That meant they were headed to the Crip gangster Blacks in the other showers. Time slowed down. I looked at the gun tower for a second and realized they still weren't paying attention. Popeye said, "Here goes World War Three.", just as the action started.
The Mexican from Tijuana acted normal in his greeting as he led the way and gave the Mexican from L.A a shadow to hide in. The Mexican from Tijuana clapped hands in a handshake with Danger who had his arm sticking out the steel bars enclosing the showers. His black arm got slammed at an angle against the steel bar at his elbow and the Mexican kept pushing it that way and I heard the bone fracture and Danger screaming in pain. He tried to resist by arm wrestling his arm back into the safety of the shower but it was useless. His fractured arm wouldn't respond it was uselessly folded at the elbow. The other Mexican came out from behind and thrust a thin steel ice pick at an angle through the shower bars into Danger’s face as he leaned away to use the steel bars for protection while at the same time still trying to get his fractured arm back through the bars. After getting hit in the cheek just below his eye he backed hard enough to free himself. The other Black Crip T-Rock fired punches at the second Mexican attacker. The steel bars enclosing the shower were blocking any further action and the outraged T-Rock yanked the door open, yelled, and slipped in shower shoes. The second Mexican took advantage of his slip and used his left arm to hold the shower door open and with his right hand jabbed the steel into T-Rocks shoulder. T-Rock gathered himself with even more rage. The warrior took the ice pick poking as if it were only bee stings and fired so many punches the Mexican backed out of the shower but closed the door on the forward charging T-Rock. He made it through the narrow closing door but took the impact on his shoulder and head and was made even more furious. His anger alone separated him from the two attacking Mexicans. Incited by his partners rage, Danger came running out of the shower with his fractured arm hanging at an unnatural angle. The sound of the block gun was next, "BOOM!"
I slid down Popeye’s cell with my back against it to sit on my haunches and realized inmates in cells were yelling and kicking their cell doors. I looked at the tower and saw the smoke from the tip of the rifle and at the same time heard the alarm send a siren of decibels in screeches that rose and fell. Another tower guard at the control booth yelled into the microphone, "GET DOWN! GET DOWN!", then ran to the opening in the tower window with another rifle.
The two Black Crips were engaging the Mexicans with punches, kicks and grapple throws with arms going everywhere and all four inmates were bouncing off cell doors with the fight going further away from the tower down the tier. Prison guards poured through the vestibule and got as close as they could and fired block guns, then pointed canisters of pepper spray at them from four feet away and a stream of painted orange followed the combatants still fighting and bouncing off cell doors. The gun tower yelled into the microphone, “GET THE FUCK DOWN! LIVE ROUNDS COMING!” I saw the four inmates fighting hesitate for a millisecond, like they knew what they'd heard from the tower changed this melee into deadly consequences or life sentences but they kept fighting for honor waiting for the other side to back down first. "BOOM", the block gun spoke, then "PING", a live round ricocheted, and it was enough. All four inmates sprawled out on the floor just as another army of prison deputies with gas masks came pouring through the vestibule with plastic shields thrust in front of them.
Popeye said, "That was weak."
Twenty minutes later the four inmates were led out of the building in handcuffs and the building's occupants inside cells emanated energy that blew rage, frustration and confusion through the air like wind. I walked up the stairs wondering if any Mexicans or Blacks heard Popeye say in disgust, "That was weak." I agreed with him, it was weak. Not the battle, the reason for it and the position it would put every single one of the inmates in, along with the deputies, along with the families of both, along with the communities outside the prison walls.
My cell door popped open and I took a last look with my shirt over my mouth. The tear gas fog floated slowly in a cloud and I could see the canisters it came out of under the tower still whispering gas. Almost every inmate and guard coughed and felt the sting burning their eyes.
Down the tier from the canisters the floor was painted orange in a path the pepper spray extinguishers’ sent that followed a line that went up and on a few of the cell doors the combatants bounced off. Blood stains soaked some of the floor and stained a few of the cells. Almost every cell still had a bald head with a pair of eyes at their cell doors studying the building the way I was with shirts bunched up covering their mouths.
CHAPTER 3
My cell mate Damon was at the cell door staring at the wreckage and moved out of the way for me to enter. He stood at 6'3 with a long angular body that ended in a large bullet shaped head. He has pale aqua blue eyes that always scrutinized life and now bore into mine as he asked, "How long do you think we will be on lock down?"
The cell I stepped into was 8 feet wide by 10 feet long with 2 bunk beds against the rear wall that stretched to a stainless steel sink and toilet I was standing next to. I knew he knew the answer to the question he'd asked. From this point on we would be taking mental bets at every turn to predict every development so we could anticipate danger and deal with it before it dealt with us. Being on lockdown meant finding ways to be productive with the time in slow motion on a shelf, otherwise you go insane. We were going to have to play more chess, do more reading, do more writing and a lot more pacing the cell while the prison administration followed procedure after an act of violence, in this case, a race war, this was the new challenge. "We'll be locked up tight for 2 weeks."
Damon nodded his bullet head and said, “Then the prison administration will decide if the Whites can get yard.”
I nodded, “Then if we get yard the Whites will work in the kitchen and feed the yard. Yeah that’s how it will go.”
Damon saw me smile and knew why and said, “We will have all the juice.”
I laughed to myself. We used juice like apple, pineapple, or any other for making wine. We used syrup or jelly or anything else we could get with sugar to turn fermented juice into wine. Then the more refined drinkers such as ourselves would take that fermented juice made wine and distill it into pure white lightning. We'd build a jug by turning a container that once held syrup into a distillery by attaching a plastic trash bag and sealing it to a vent hole where the handle used to be, then fill the jug with wine and seal a homemade heating utensil in it to make the plastic bag blow up into a balloon with pure clear drops of condensation that pooled into the bottom of the bag where we would cut the plastic and drain it into a cup in what tasted like cheap vodka.
I had to get back to more serious business, "Yeah we'll have all the juice but you know the prison administration will probably get rid of our two Mexican Mafia reps and we'll have to start over with diplomatic relations."
My cell mate's bullet head nodded. "We'll probably get some youngster Mexican gang banger tryin to make a name and think he can by pressuring us."
I had been to this rodeo too many times. My cell mate Damon had almost as much experience. From this point on we would take turns being posted up at the cell door watching everything the Mexicans did. It would pay off to find out which Mexicans had the most influence if we were right, and the two Mexican Mobsters got taken to the hole befor
e the next round. The Black race might want to go at it no matter what. You never knew. Sometimes they were more prone to diplomatic relations when possible. They could live with how well T-Rock did and squash a second round of race war. He came out with authority and backed up the attacking Mexicans and the Black race could say they won round one even though the Mexicans took the initiative. This was why the Prison Administration would likely remove the two validated Mexican Mafia reps; it would make it so the Mexicans suffered a blow. I followed this line of thinking. "Without the two Mexican Mafia reps the youngsters might decide a war with the outnumbered Whites is easier than the Blacks who have as many numbers as them."
Damon said, "36 Mexicans, 32 Blacks, 22 Chinos and 10 Whites in this building. Hmm."
CHAPTER 4
For the next two weeks Damon and I spent time in shifts at our cell door watching everything. In the morning after breakfast was brought in carts and slid in our cell an hour later the Prison Administration would come and discuss developments among themselves. Occasionally, prison guards would let us know a few things. After they left, I would watch every cell communicate. Most of the Blacks did a lot of yelling from one cell to another. Most of the Mexicans did a lot of fishing. They would send a line that would fly out from under their cell door to another cell that carried a message, some wine or drugs or weapons. We could see who the more experienced Mexicans were by how the other Mexicans formed around certain cells.
Every couple of days, Damon or I communicated with Popeye downstairs. This time, it was my turn and I set up a little ramp made out of a magazine and pushed it a couple of feet away from the bottom of our cell door and slid my fishing line that started with an empty toothpaste container out of the cell with enough force to watch it slide on the ground and hit the ramp and fly in the air over the railing to the cells on the floor beneath us. I felt the line getting pulled into Popeye’s cell, heard him yell a couple of minutes later, “Pull”, and pulled our line back into the cell with his message tucked inside the toothpaste container just as the I.G.I, Inmate Gang Investigators, we call the Goon Squad entered the building.
A California Pelican Bay Prison Story (Race Riot) Page 1