Casey shrugged. “I don’t know if the Judge is Jewish,” he said wearily. “Maybe he is. What’s the difference?”
It seemed to make quite a difference to DeJesus. “Don’t try to come into this cell,” he howled suddenly, bringing both his forearms down violently onto the metal spring of the iron double-decker bed. There were no mattresses. He twisted full around to study Correction Officer Davis, who was standing in a corridor on the other side of the cell, then lashed around again suddenly, as if to catch Casey off guard. He began gesturing, jabbering incoherently.
The Tombs is only one section of the Criminal Courts Building complex, located at 100 Centre Street, Manhattan. There are four parallel wings to the complex, the first three of which contain courts, judge’s chambers, and offices connected by corridors. The last wing is The Tombs connected to the courts by two bridges—the Bridge of Sighs, named after the Florentine bridge of the same use—over which prisoners are brought to face their accusers and their fate. On each floor of The Tombs, there are two identical cellblocks, one at each end, separated by a center core of elevators and common messrooms. Each cellblock contains a long double line of cells which have outside corridors on each of the far sides of the cells and a wide interior corridor in the center. During certain hours of the day, on most floors, the inmates are allowed into the wide corridor between the cells, to talk and socialize. Tables, bolted to the floor, are there for that purpose. On the eighth floor, however, where DeJesus was held, some of the men were judged too dangerous to be left out with the others. Near the center elevators, the guards have a desk and telephone. Above the elevator and desk area, reached by a stairway inside the bars, is a large cage for washing and shaving as a guard watches the single safety razor passed from inmate to inmate.
Captain Casey looked at Davis, a young Black, thin, with a pencil-line mustache. His work uniform was dark trousers, dark military cap, and light blue shirt. Davis shrugged.
“The Jews and the super-rich, the important people,” DeJesus growled out. “They wish to destroy me.” He looked over to Casey, then stealing a look at Davis, moved closer to Casey. “They know who I am. They know! And they wish to destroy me. They are sending out radio magnetic waves to influence your brain chemistry, Captain, to make people do things, to make me do things. They want me to plead guilty so I’ll stay in jail. Are you Christian, Captain, sir?”
Casey nodded.
“Then believe me, Captain, believe me, and I will reward you greatly. They want to destroy me. They influence the Judge. The Judge is a Jew, don’t you see?” He looked hopefully at Casey. “They influence the D.A., even my lawyer, with their machines. But I won’t plead guilty to anything, anything,” his voice rose. He shook his fists.
“Ray, I don’t want you to plead guilty,” Casey said softly. “You don’t have to plead guilty to anything. I just want you to come out of the cell for a while. I’m your friend. I won’t let them hurt you. I mean that. I don’t want them to hurt you.”
Casey turned his head toward the center core of the building. There stood three additional correction guards sent up by the Deputy Warden. Earlier, DeJesus had assaulted the regular floor guard who had opened the cell to take him to court for a sanity hearing. The “Dep” then ordered his men to get DeJesus out of the cell, even if they had to tear-gas him. Casey had stationed the three guards where DeJesus couldn’t see them. He wanted one last shot at talking DeJesus out of the cell.
“What are you looking at? What’s there?” DeJesus demanded, moving to the barred cell door, pressing his face brutally into the bars. His eyes twisted wildly to the side. “See, see, they’ve sent them to come and get me. But I won’t come out, I won’t,” he screamed, moving violently away from the bars, bringing his arms down on the metal spring again. He began mumbling and cursing in Spanish. DeJesus was strong, and he knew his best defense was to stay in the cell, letting the guards come at him one at a time through the small cell gate.
“Come on, man,” said Davis now, “don’t be no fool. I’m a brother. I won’t let them do things to you.”
DeJesus grumbled and growled to himself, moving back to the middle of the cell. His eyes roved from Casey to Davis in mad terror. He was motioning with his hands wildly as he muttered. He raised both arms over his head, gazing heavenward.
“They’re trying to kill me, kill me, again,” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “The lousy Jews, the capitalists, the super-rich. They’re trying to destroy the son of god. I am the son of god, and they want to destroy me.”
Davis stared across at Casey. Casey took out his handkerchief and dabbed at the back of his neck. He didn’t want to order the tear gas if he could avoid it. It wasn’t only DeJesus he was worried about. It was the other prisoners. In this humid, stifling heat, the potency of the tear gas would be intensified, and it would affect every prisoner and guard for two floors above and below. Everyone’s eyes would burn for hours.
And it was not just the discomfort. Casey knew the inmates were restless. Not that they weren’t always restless, because of the crowding, the food, just being caged, because they were facing trial. But now they were exceptionally edgy because of the heat. Over 95 degrees four days in a row. In the last two days, Casey knew of three serious altercations between guards and inmates.
Casey glanced over to the center core again.
Lou Adler, one of the three waiting guards, caught Casey’s eye.
Casey shook his head. He knew it was hopeless. DeJesus wasn’t coming out of the cell, not today, not peacefully anyway, not without being gassed. The prisoners from all the adjacent cells had already been evacuated. They were standing in the common messroom in the center of the building behind the three waiting guards, talking quietly among themselves, listening to every sound, watching every move with suspicion and hostility.
“Ray, come on out, just stand out here with me,” said Casey. “I’ll go with you to the courtroom. I’ll go with you myself. Don’t make trouble, Ray. It’s too hot.”
“They are influencing you too, with their electro-magnetic radio waves, Captain, sir,” DeJesus shouted. “They are trying to kill me.” His voice echoed in the high ceilings of the cellblock. “Don’t let them kill me again,” he called to the other inmates. “They are trying to kill me. Save me, you oppressed and untrodden, and I shall reward all of you greatly, I promise you this, all who save me.”
Casey saw the other prisoners shifting uneasily, the echoing voice spooking them.
“Put everyone in their cells,” Casey ordered suddenly, walking to the center of the building. He wasn’t going to risk any more trouble than he already had. He decided to forego gassing DeJesus for the moment, wanting to talk to the Judge, to see if one day’s appearance in court was worth this much stirring up. Besides, Casey thought, it would be easier to get DeJesus out of the cell during the movies, when all the other inmates were off the floor anyway.
Adler, Scott, and Lockwood, the three waiting guards, opened the interior gate and started moving the inmates, back into the cellblock.
One of the prisoners, Oscar Johnson, also known as Ali Al-Kobar, a dark Black man with a shaved head, wearing a black, red, and green skullcap, was staring at Casey. He nudged another Black prisoner next to him as they came abreast of the Captain. The second prisoner looked at Al-Kobar, then pushed back against him. Al-Kobar seemed to fall off balance, then, suddenly, he violently shouldered into Casey. Casey, wiping the sweat band in his cap with his handkerchief, fell backward, twirled, landing hard against the cells. Al-Kobar was upon him in a flash. A second, then a third prisoner was on the pile in a moment. Suddenly, there was screaming and thrashing. And running. And curses.
Lou Adler, seeing Casey go down, spun toward the gate leading to the elevators and the regular floor officers. An inmate still in the messroom jumped on a table and leaped onto Adler’s back. Adler staggered, and he and the inmate sprawled onto the floor. Lockwood and Scott were surrounded simultaneously by a host of screaming inmates. The t
hree guards were hauled bodily into the corridor where Casey was jammed against the cells by three of the excited inmates.
Now screaming and howling echoed through the cell-block on the opposite end of the building. They wanted out too. Casey and the others were relieved of their keys, cigarettes, money, and whatever else was in their pockets.
Davis, who had still been in the narrow outer corridor when the screaming started, was snapped up in a pincer move as prisoners moved in from each end. He just lifted his hands in surrender.
The two regular guards at the desk near the elevator had already pushed an emergency button. Bells were sounding through the building, their claxon intensifying the yells of the inmates. One of the guards at the desk was on the phone. He pressed a finger into his free ear to try and keep out the pandemonium of violence erupting around him.
“You tell those motherfuckers downstairs we’re going to kill these motherfuckers up here,” one prisoner shouted at the guard on the phone.
“We’re going to cut their balls off, and then their cocks …”
“And their heads too,” added another.
“And their assholes,” yet another.
They were all bold now, and elated, slapping palms in jubilation, saluting each other with the rebel’s clenched fist, running around the cellblock, screaming, pounding each other on the back.
Ali Al-Kobar was the hero of the shouting. He stood tall in the midst of a milling herd, a great toothy smile playing on his face.
The shouts for freedom from the inmates at the other end of the floor were getting louder. They wanted to share this moment.
“Open the other side of the floor,” someone yelled.
“Let’s free our brothers,” exhorted Al-Kobar, raising his fists in defiance and joy.
Realizing they could use the keys removed from Casey and the officers, the inmates began to open all the cells on the floor.
“What the hell is going on up there?” Deputy Warden Margolis demanded into the phone as he stood in his office on the ground floor. He was tall and bald. Bells and lights were sounding and flashing all around him.
“They got the whole floor opened up, Dep,” shouted the floor guard on the phone at the eighth floor desk. “They got Casey and four others inside. Got the keys. They’re just opening the cells on the other end of the floor. All the prisoners are getting out now. They’re starting to break the legs off the tables.”
“You two get on the elevators now before you’re hostages too,” Margolis directed. He quickly motioned one of the captains standing in his office toward the elevators. The Captain nodded and ran from the office toward the barred door leading to the interior of the prison. “What happened to the guards and Casey?” asked Margolis. “Are they hurt?”
“Don’t know, Dep.” The guard on the phone was stuttering now. “They took them inside. I can’t see them.” He could see, however, that the prisoners were coming toward the barred doors that led to the elevators. “They’re coming this way now, Dep. They’re coming this way now.” Panic edged his voice clearly.
“Just hold on,” Margolis urged. “The elevator’s coming. It’s on its way. Try and put your key in the lock to the main gate. Break it or jam it in the lock!”
“Too late for that now.” The two floor guards were both on their feet at the elevator doors, wanting to go, wanting to run, shifting nervously on the balls of their feet like relay runners awaiting the baton.
The prisoners were gleefully swinging open the last gate. They began to sprint toward the desk.
The elevator door opened. The two guards threw themselves inside, leaving Dep. Margolis with a banging sound in his ear as the phone hit the floor. The Captain on the elevator punched the CLOSE button. Prisoners grabbed at the sliding door. An arm reached inside the elevator, groping. But the door closed. Immediately, pounding and kicking and cursing began to assault the door.
“Get this mother going,” one of the guards screamed. He was sprawled on the elevator floor, his face a mask of terror.
“We’re gone,” said the Captain as he repeatedly banged the control panel. His eyes were transfixed on the buckling door.
The sound of the shouting and pounding and stomping carried to other floors. The guards on those floors had quickly herded all their prisoners into their cells before the contagion spread. Bells and alarms intensified the panic, as guard and inmate alike awaited whatever was coming.
“We got you, you blue-eyed devil,” shouted Ali Al-Kobar, “and we got you good.” He was addressing Casey, who was now surrounded by half a dozen inmates. “We’re going to bust out of here. We’re going out, man, and you’re going to get us out.”
Screams of delight engulfed them all.
Al-Kobar looked at the joyous faces around him. He was a leader of rebellion at last. The thrill was electrifying.
One of the inmates began beating and pounding a window with the leg of a broken table, chipping away steadily at the thick glass bricks. The inmates watched. A big chunk of glass gave way, falling out into the street. The bright, clear blue of the sky could be seen.
“Free, we’re going to be free,” shouted one prisoner soulfully. “Look out there, that’s where we going. Look, ain’t that beautiful.”
They began dancing. One of the prisoners ran into his open cell and gleefully put a lit match to his mattress. Black smoke spiraled up. He put a match to another mattress.
Other prisoners started smashing at the glass bricks, wanting more of that sky, more of that heady feeling of freedom.
“Use your head, brother,” urged Officer Davis as he looked around. “How can you win this way?”
“Don’t call us brother,” shouted Al-Kobar. “You’re the brother to a pig. You’re a white man.”
“Let’s give them a trial.”
“Give them a trial like they tried me,” shouted Raul DeJesus, still inside his cell. The inmates wanted everyone to be free, but they weren’t about to let DeJesus out of his cell. “Hurry before the machines are turned on again. They must have shut the machines off, thinking we were beaten. Hurry.”
The inmates from the cells on the other end of the eighth floor had now converged to the side where Casey and the officers were being held captive. There were about 230 inmates crowding, shouting, dancing, smashing.
Al-Kobar stood on the only table in the cellblock that hadn’t been destroyed.
By now, many glass bricks had been knocked out of place. Some prisoners were hacking at the remaining windows. Others sat on the shoulders of fellow inmates and could see down into the street. The police had already cordoned off the building. Riot police in helmets surrounded it.
“The pigs are all over the place down there,” one of the inmates shouted from his perch on someone’s shoulders.
“Fuck them, they’re not getting in here,” shouted another.
Some inmates tried to get the elevators to stop on the eighth floor, but Deputy Warden Margolis had ordered the floor sealed off. The eighth floor was being monitored from the main control board in the Warden’s office on the ground floor.
Restive and anxious, aroused for action, prisoners began using the weapons they fashioned from the broken tables to break everything in sight—the toilets, the sinks, the beds. Several mattresses were on fire. The entire floor was filling with black smoke.
“Smash open all of those windows.”
“We’re going to break every fucking thing in the place.”
Water started to gush out from the broken toilets, flooding the floor. The inmates began slipping as they swung at the windows. Some fell to the floor, laughing hysterically as they tried to get up.
Margolis ordered the water mains shut off for the entire building. Everyone was under siege now.
“Burn the place down, burn it down.”
“Let’s kill these bastards.”
“Kill them, kill them,” the chant began.
“No, we have to give them a trial,” shouted James Phelan, a thin white man with
cold, beady eyes. A tooth was missing in the front of his mouth. “Give them a trial, and then we’ll kill them.”
Casey and the guards were tied and gagged by now. They stared at the inmates around them, then looked at each other. Their eyes were glazed. Sweat was soaking their uniforms.
“Before we kill them, I got a better penalty,” said a Black inmate. “We’ll give them a little ass-fucking.” He took out his penis and shook it at the guards.
Other inmates began a general shouting and shoving and laughing with that suggestion. Several of them took out their penises, shaking them at the prisoners, then at each other, laughing.
“Hold it. Wait a minute.” A thin Black man with glasses stepped onto the table next to Al-Kobar. “We have us some hostages and we all been bitchin’ ‘cause they been treatin’ us like shit, right?” His voice was hardly heard over the din.
“Right on!” from the crowd surrounding the table.
“What the fuck you doin’ up here, man?” asked Al-Kobar, not wanting to share the limelight. “Mind your fuckin’ business.”
“Leave him talk,” said a burly Black man, standing amid a group of prisoners from the other side of the building. “Let him have his say.”
“We want out,” Al-Kobar urged the crowd.
He was cheered lustily.
“Well,” said the thin Black man on the table, whose name was Moody. “They ain’t about to let us out of here. Kill these pigs or not.”
Boos and curses.
“But we got these guys alive now,” Moody continued. “Maybe we make a stink, give them our grievances, we can get faster trials, better food …”
“More dessert …” shouted another.
“Yeah,” chorused some of the inmates.
“And air conditioning …”
“And better food.”
“And bail. Let’s get the fuck out of here and I’ll eat my momma’s cooking at home.”
“Yeah,” said Al-Kobar. “We want out, not some shitass jive. If you got no balls, step down, man.” He was glaring at Moody.
The inmates stood quietly now, looking at each other, perplexed as to the next move.
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