by Nuel Emmons
Music in prison isn’t considered vocational training or education, so the institution won’t assign you to the music room like they would to a job or school program. It’s considered a hobby or recreation. The practicing has to be done on your own time, after your daily work assignment is completed or on the weekends. Consequently, I sought work assignments that permitted me as much time as possible to practice my music. And while the prison didn’t employ music teachers, there were plenty of inmates who had been professional musicians on the streets. Some were very capable instructors. As with any other trade, learning to be a good musician requires dedication, concentration and practice. I had plenty of time. I was barely two years into a ten-year sentence when I decided music was going to be my bag. Time, practice, a lot of broken guitar strings, and numerous instructors established me as an average guitar player.
Once I got involved in music, everything seemed to fall into place for me. A work assignment in the auditorium opened up and I no longer had to work around the normal institution schedule when I wanted to practice; the auditorium housed the music room. The only setback that ever interrupted my becoming a musician involved a scene with my mother. She didn’t move to Washington to be close to me, but as fate would have it, Mom moved to Tacoma and she visited me a couple of times. After I got heavy into the music trip I asked Mom if she would shop around and maybe spend a couple of hundred dollars on a decent used guitar for me. Her answer was, “Gee, Charlie, I’d really like to, but we don’t have an extra dime. For me to even visit I have to steal from our grocery money.” Knowing what it’s like to be broke, I told her, “It’s no big thing, and if you can’t afford it I understand.” About two months later my mom showed up for a visit with a little girl in her arms. She greeted me with, “Charlie, meet your little sister.” “Wow,” I said, “how in the world did this happen?” Mom explained, “Well, for the last several months we have been trying to adopt a little girl. Last month the agency informed us that they had found a child for us. Isn’t she the sweetest thing?” All kids are sweet to me, but at that moment—call it a jealous rage, or maybe just the memory of what my childhood had been like—there wasn’t any joy in hearing my mother’s words. Especially when she told me the fees for the adoption had run well over two-thousand dollars. I flipped and said some pretty nasty things. “Fuck you and your daughter! Two months ago you couldn’t afford a lousy two hundred dollars to buy me a guitar. When I was a kid, half the time you were pawning me off on somebody else. When the somebody elses ran out, you had a judge lock me up so there’d be no strings on your life. You lied to me when you said you didn’t have a dime.” Telling my mom I didn’t want to see her again, I got up and left the visiting room. It was a nasty scene, one that I have often regretted, but at the time I was so hot and mad at everyone all over again, I almost went on a roll of self-punishment. For a day or two I said, fuck that guitar and music too. But that was short lived and by the end of the week I was into music heavier than ever.
One of those who taught me a few things was a nationally known gunman of the thirties, Alvin (Creepy) Karpis, who had been transferred to McNeil when the government discontinued the use of Alcatraz Island as a federal prison. Old Creepy was a member of the notorious Ma Barker gang and had been convicted for fourteen gangster-style slayings about the time I was born. He had been in prison ever since. With over thirty years of prison behind him, the old timer might have been a humbled, shriveled-up, defeated old man. Not Karpis. At sixty-plus years, he was still in good physical shape. He had an extra-sharp mind and a quiet dignity that commanded respect from the convicts, guards, prison personnel and everyone who met him. Karpis played steel guitar, and though we weren’t tuned in to the same style of music, our mutual interest in our instruments and music established a solid friendship between us. He taught me a few chords and I had the opportunity to teach him a few things. In many ways I was still a snot-nosed kid and headed nowhere, but Alvin always had more than just the time of day for me.
When we weren’t playing or practicing, we spent a lot of time just talking. I liked the old man and listened with open ears to everything he had to say. He hardly ever discussed the chain of events that led to his imprisonment, but for a guy with so much time behind him, he was well versed on what was going on in the outside world. His knowledge of government, unions and foreign affairs always amazed me. Like a lot of old timers, he was always saying how corrupt the system was. But unlike the other guys who just said the words, he would pinpoint circumstances and motives behind laws and government procedures. He told me things that the CIA was doing in other countries (time has since proven he knew exactly what he was talking about). Hell, at that time I didn’t even know there was a CIA.
As for his knowledge of unions, it is commonly known that Karpis had contacts with union leaders. On more than one occasion he used those contacts to help an inmate prepare a parole plan by getting the inmate an offer of employment through the unions.
There were times when I would try to sell Karpis on the things I was learning through Scientology. “Kid,” he would say, “your mind is your greatest friend, yet it can be your worst enemy. Don’t get it any more fucked up than the world has already made it!” Another old timer added, “Never try to be something other than what comes natural. Don’t tell any lies. Don’t depend on handouts, make your own way in life. Never trust a politician or a wealthy man. But never let a friend down.”
I had arrived in McNeil in July of 1961. I was twenty-six years old. The first fifteen months I was there, I tried to come on like I had experienced everything in life and knew all there was to know. I painted pictures—to myself as well as to the guys listening—of Cadillacs, strings of the most beautiful whores in Hollywood and a life of luxury. I played a flippant, don’t-give-a-iuck role to the cons and the administration. I was constantly in and out of trouble and just plain didn’t care.
But in late 1962, when the cloud settled over me, I saw myself as I really was: an immature, mixed-up person with nothing but a mouth going for him. I was without direction or a proper goal in life. In the following years I ceased to be the flippant little fool. I was sincere in my search for self-understanding and my desire to establish the capability to earn an honest living. I was serious about the music trip and felt I had my head turned in the right direction. I felt I had come a long way; I felt honest and wasn’t telling any lies or even exaggerating past experiences. I looked at the future positively and was practical about what I might expect once released. My head wasn’t filled with unobtainable fantasies. However, I had not outgrown my desire to impress, especially when I had my guitar in hand and was singing in front of a group. I felt confident and positive when I entertained. When others began complimenting me on my talent, I became more than a little conceited, but the conceit didn’t allow me to sit back and rest on my laurels. It drove me into deeper study and involvement in a skill in which I had been recognized as having talent. I became obsessed with music. I enjoyed playing the music of recording stars, but even more, I enjoyed writing and composing songs of my own.
In June of 1966, I was transferred from McNeil Island to Terminal Island. With good time earned I was getting close to the end of my sentence, and it is normal procedure for the Feds to move you to an institution (if one exists) close to where your release plans indicate you will be living after your time is served.
The transfer was a welcome one. I was tired of the rain and fog and more than just mildly burnt-out on McNeil. I had been in Terminal Island before, and if a guy has to do time T.I. is one of the better places to be. In addition, it afforded me the opportunity to make further progress with my music. Terminal Island is only a few minutes from L.A. and Hollywood, and a lot of quality show people appear at the institution to polish the new songs and acts they plan to use on future road trips. More importantly, many of them encourage the participation of accomplished inmate musicians. I took advantage of those situations and participated every chance I got. It was good experien
ce and I felt very professional up there on stage.
The final year of my sentence seemed to fly by. I was so busy writing music and playing my guitar I had stopped thinking about the streets. Though it was the streets and the desire to stay free that had driven me into music and helped me to overcome my other hang-ups, I was extremely content to stay right where I was. Warped as it may sound, I had become very happy and content there at Terminal Island. I had some good friends. I was accepted, even appreciated, as an individual. Other than a girl to love, or at least sleep with, I had perhaps the best world I had ever known right there in T.I. Thoughts of leaving brought back the feelings of inferiority I had studied so hard to master.
PART TWO
A CIRCLE OF ONE
CHAPTER 4
IT HAS BEEN WRITTEN that at the time of my release from Terminal Island in 1967, I asked if I could stay. That is true. I had spent the last seven years of my life looking forward to the day when I would get out. I had dreams and plans, but as I was being processed for release, I knew the dreams would never be realized and the plans were nothing more than wishful thinking. I’d had my releases before. With me, nothing had ever been as I imagined it. There is a big difference between illusion and reality, and neither was a stranger to me. Since I had at last found a comfortable atmosphere in prison, the streets were not the place for me. My job assignment at T.I. was pleasant, I had my guitar and plenty of time to play it. There were no hassles with the authorities or other inmates. In thinking of starting all over in the outside world, all my escapes and even the legitimate releases flooded my mind. I remembered myself as a small boy, huddled in an alley trying to sleep and stay warm, yet afraid to sleep too soundly for fear a policeman might wake me up and take me off to jail. I saw myself as a man sleeping in sleazy rooms and wondering how I was going to pay the next night’s rent or find food for myself the following day. I reviewed what may have been my peak—my days during the late 50s as a pimp. I remembered all the shallow thoughts of what a wheel I was, the whole time knowing I was a bogus bastard who was really afraid to take an honest look at himself. And all the desire during the last seven years for a new image and self-esteem left me. I was afraid of trying to cope in a world that I had never understood. I had my music, but I was afraid that if I depended on it too strongly, I would fail at that too. No, I did not want to go out into a world of uncertainties. For the moment I was secure, and that was how I wanted to stay.
I told the officer who was signing me out, “You know what, man, I don’t want to leave! I don’t have a home out there! Why don’t you just take me back inside?” The officer laughed and thought I was kidding. “I’m serious, man! I mean it, I don’t want to leave!” My plea was ignored.
The release procedure is a simple one. A last photo for the files. An address and instructions to report within twenty-four hours to your parole officer. If you have money on the books they give it to you. If the government is helping you with funds, those funds are to be picked up at the time you check in with your P.O. You get thirty dollars until you see the P.O. One of the institution vehicles takes you to public transportation and the driver says goodbye, and in some cases wishes you good luck. After that, you are on your own.
Terminal Island is separated from the mainland, San Pedro, by a span of water that is perhaps a tenth of a mile wide. There are two ways to get to the other side: a ferry for pedestrians and a bridge for motor vehicles. I was dropped at the ferry slip. A boat was departing but I purposely didn’t try to board it. Instead I sat on a piling and watched the people, the cars and the seagulls. I tried to establish the make of the automobiles. Seven years of confinement limited my ability to distinguish a Ford from a Chevy. The seagulls swooped and dived for the garbage discarded by the people. As I watched the people I wondered how many of them had ever experienced confinement, if any of them had spent more than half their life behind bars. I was thirty-two years old, and over seventeen of those years had been spent in jail or some form of confinement.
I kept taking long deep breaths of fresh air, at the same time sending messages to myself, “I’m free, I’m on the outside. I can go where I want, I can do as I please. I don’t have to get in line to eat or get out of bed when a bell rings. Nobody’s going to tell me, ‘Line up, Charlie,’ or ‘Stand up for count.’” Excitement should have been racing through me; instead there was a flat void. I wasn’t scared, but felt lost and very much alone. I sat there in my ten-dollar suit; thirty dollars in my pocket, my parole officer’s address and a couple of phone numbers of ex-cons who had said, “Give me a call when you get out.” It was March 21, 1967. It was a bright sunshiny day, there was a brisk, air-cleaning breeze, but I was in a fog.
I must have missed several ferry crossings, and though watching everything, I was not aware of any of it. I was wondering what I was going to do after I checked in with my parole officer. A voice directed at me brought me back to the present. “Hey, fellow, you want a ride to Pedro?” It was a truck driver whose daily route took him to T.I. He was familiar with the prison and could easily spot a guy just released. No thanks, I told him and went back to my thoughts. I wasn’t aware of time but I guess a couple of hours passed, and again I heard the voice. “You sure I can’t drop you some place?” It was the same driver. I got into the truck and we headed over the bridge. He was a friendly, talkative guy and was curious as to what I had done time for and how long. He whistled slightly when I told him I had been locked up since 1960, and asked, “Man, how can anybody stand jail that long?” He then told me that he had once done a weekend for being drunk and had just about gone crazy. We both laughed and commented on his luck. I hadn’t been in the truck for five minutes when he lit up a joint. It blew my mind how unconcerned he was about people seeing him. We both proceeded to get stoned. I couldn’t believe that we were smoking pot driving through all the traffic. Christ, before doing this last bit I had lived in fast circles, and even then, a person didn’t just light up where there was a possibility of being seen by a “square.” I was to see a lot of changes compared to what things were like when I started my sentence in ’60.
The guy invited me to his place and said I could spend a couple of days there if I wanted to. Why not? I sure didn’t have anyplace else to go. He gave me a ride to the parole officer’s so I could check in and then he took me home with him. When we entered his house, he introduced me to his wife. “Marge, this is Charlie.” She smiled and was very friendly. She had already prepared his dinner and there were two plates on the table. Without asking me if I was going to stay for dinner, she set another plate. During dinner she asked me where I worked; before I could answer, her husband spoke up and told her I had just got out of the joint and was going to spend the night or a couple of days with them. Her smile suddenly faded and she no longer knew how to be friendly toward me. I spent the night and might have stayed for the two days I had been invited, but Marge wasn’t as willing to share her home with an ex-con as her husband was. I don’t mean she was rude, but I was sensitive to the tension created once it was mentioned I was just out of the joint.
The guy gave me a ride into L.A. the next morning and dropped me in front of the building where my P.O.’s office was. I went into a restaurant and had a cup of coffee while I tried to figure out what my next move should be. I had an impulse to go on into Hollywood and see if I could locate any of the crowd I knew in the late 50s. But in thinking of that group a slight surge of resentment came to me as I remembered their lack of concern when I had needed the bail money eight years earlier. No! I didn’t need any of those people. Instead, I went through my pockets and took out the phone numbers of the ex-cons who had said, “Give me a call.” One was a San Francisco number and belonged to a guy I had related to pretty well in the joint, so I tried his number first. My friend said, “Sure, come on up, I’ll line you up for something.” I then went into the P.O.’s office and told him a relative in the Bay Area had offered to help me find a job and give me a place to stay until I got on my feet,
and I asked if I could go north. The P.O. agreed to anything that might give me an easier start and gave me permission to leave the L.A. area and relocate in northern California.
Frisco and the generation that now occupied its streets was something else. While in the joint, guys would mention, “Man, if you been locked up since 1960, you ain’t going to believe the changes out there.” And they would describe all that was happening in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and across the bay in Berkeley. For that matter, the whole generation, everywhere, would be an extreme eye-opener. I believed some of it, but wrote most of it off as just more convict bullshit. But, man, they weren’t lying. Some mighty big changes had taken place since I had last been on the streets.
The friend I had called was a “rounder”; he had his fingers in everything. He made book, sold dope, hustled girls and fenced for some pretty accomplished thieves. He had connections I couldn’t believe and offered to set me up in some of his activities. Eight years ago I would have jumped at his offer, but at the moment I was geared to play it straight and give my life a chance. I don’t mean I was so straight I didn’t want to smoke a little grass and romance a few girls, but I didn’t want to start hustling and stealing things that would put me right back in jail. I did accept his offer to arrange an audition for me at one of his friend’s night clubs in the North Beach area. During the audition, I didn’t really let my hair down. I tried to play it cool. I strummed my guitar and used lyrics that were popular in the 50s. After listening to me, the club owner tapped his fingers rapidly in musical tempo on the bar and said, “Hey, man, you got some talent and sound fine, but you are ten years behind the times. Like the music is . . .” and in time with his finger tapping, “pa-pa-pa-pa, not daaa, daaa. Get out there and update and then drop by.” The guy didn’t realize how right he was in telling me I was ten years behind. And I mean in more than just music.