Alcatraz (78 page)

In August 1959, after twenty-four years in federal prison, Volney Davis left Leavenworth with $390.90 in release money and traveled to his sister’s home in California. His “pleasant, cooperative” attitude led his probation officer to note two months after Davis’s first office visit: “it seems safe to expect that this will be a no-problem type of case.” Using skills picked up at Leavenworth, Davis found steady work as a printer. He also became active in an Alcoholics Anonymous program. There he met a woman sixteen years younger; they got married, and he moved into her home. His main difficulties were learning to drive a car, and “lacking self-confidence” on the jobs he held. In 1961 he received a letter from James Bennett inviting him to visit the federal prison at Lompoc, where a printing shop was to be established. Because travel funds were not provided, he was unable to accept this invitation; his probation officer told him, however, that this request “was quite a tribute to the director’s confidence in him.”

Davis and his wife moved to Guerneville, California, where they bought a home within which they operated a gift shop featuring items made by Mrs. Davis. His probation officer worried about this venture but wrote: “Volney by this time has proved himself to be a pretty solid citizen and has demonstrated that both he and his wife are sober, industrious and honest persons.” Success with the gift shop business was uneven and Davis was often unemployed, “not because of laziness on his part, but principally because of his age [sixty-two].” He polished cars for one
period and then took a factory job at $1.25 per hour. In June 1964 his obligation to report to the probation office was reduced from monthly to semiannually.

In July Davis appealed to James Bennett for assistance in obtaining his release from parole because that status had prevented him from taking a job as an orderly at a nearby state hospital. (He couldn’t even qualify as caretaker at a county dump.) Bennett responded that the parole board did not have the authority to discharge life sentence prisoners from parole; he advised Davis to apply to the president of the United States for a commutation of his sentence. Bennett asked the pardon attorney to send the appropriate forms to Davis, and to list him as recommending approval; he also asked the Bureau’s employment placement officer to contact Davis to offer assistance.
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The chief probation officer for the Northern District of California also supported commutation of his sentence.
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Davis continued to take odd jobs and live quietly with his wife; two years later on June 9, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson commuted his sentence, to “expire at once.”

Most Alcatraz convicts were determined to prevail in their adversarial relationships with federal authorities, and to walk away from the Rock with a sense of pride at having done the hardest time the government could deliver. But doing time on that island was not a walk in the park for every convict. The travails of several men who had severe emotional disturbances at Alcatraz have been described in chapter 4; the following account illustrates the difficult postrelease adjustment some of them experienced.
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Number 1600 (a fictitious identification number assigned by the author) came to the island in the mid-1940s to serve a twenty-year sentence for kidnapping. According to a special progress report, he was transferred to Alcatraz from another federal penitentiary for “conniving, distributing and dealing in Benzedrine,” for “selling contraband food,” and because he was “regarded by many prisoners as being dangerous and vicious.” The report also noted that he had “revealed psycho-neurotic tendencies and was hospitalized 49 days under observation for this condition.”

On the island 1600 had “extreme difficulties in adjustment” and was “checked into the hospital frequently for short periods to relieve his extreme tension.” A report concluded that “he undoubtedly does have a serious nervous condition which governs his conduct much more definitely than in many other cases.” During his time on the Rock, number 1600
received nineteen misconduct reports: four for fighting with other prisoners, and others for refusing to obey orders, insolence, creating a disturbance, mutilating himself, destroying government property, refusing to work, “mutinous participation in group resistance to duly constituted authority,” and “agitation.” He was locked up in the disciplinary segregation unit eight times—in one instance, only after four guards physically subdued him. In a letter to his sister, he wrote: “I still have the headaches constantly and am definitely a candidate for a nervous breakdown”
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One incident in particular reflects this man’s inner and outward conflicts. He asked a lieutenant to admit him to the hospital but was told “there was no damn way” that was going to happen. Then, in front of the lieutenant, 1600 swallowed a dozen Nembutals, stating, “I’m going to the hospital one way or another.” When he collapsed, he was taken to the hospital in a coma where he remembered the medical technical assistant (nurse) saying, “‘his pulse is very weak.’ I have to give credit to Dr. Yokum and the nurse for saving my life. Did I really want to die? My feeling at that time was—what difference would that make?”

After nine years on the Rock, 1600 was transferred to another federal prison. In October 1954 he was conditionally released with $7. Because conditional release, unlike parole plans, did not require a prearranged job, this man arrived at his sister’s home with no money and no employment. While she provided room and board he looked for work, being rejected by many when he indicated he had been in prison. Returning to life in the free world was not easy after so many years in prison:

Going back to my hometown meant entering the new world that I was totally unprepared to cope with—with $7, the clothes on my back, and no job. There were thousands of little frustrations, things everyone else took for granted. It meant not understanding little things, like trying to get a Coke from a machine—and failing. It meant people not willing to give me a job because of my past. It meant seeing an old friend cross the street to keep from passing you on the sidewalk. It meant meeting a deacon of the church meeting me on the street before services began, calling me off to the side to talk to me. He said, “I want to talk to you and I want you to know that I am talking to you as a friend.” I replied, “Sure, go ahead.” I’ll never forget his words. He began, “You know, most of the people here know of your past, and I think you would be happier if you went to another church, so as to keep you from getting your feelings hurt.”
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Thirty days after his release he found work at an iron company that paid 65 cents an hour. Three months later, when that company went out of
business, his brother-in-law referred him to a job as a laborer on construction projects. During this period he met a woman and risked a parole violation for her sake:

Three things you were not supposed to do—own an automobile, get married, and leave the state—I broke all three rules at one time. My wife and I went to Mississippi and got married; I told my parole officer, but he knew my wife was “a very nice person” and he was very lenient with me.

Because the construction job did not pay enough to satisfy the new couple’s needs, number 1600 took the advice of his boss that he gain experience in a specific area of construction. He decided to concentrate on brick and concrete masonry, spending a year watching and learning on the job. A year later he went to work on his own, developed his skills, and eventually became successful. “My wife and I own our own home; we have two late-model automobiles and a savings account adequate for the remainder of our lives. I feel quite proud of what I have accomplished under the handicap of a prisoner released from Alcatraz at age forty-two.”

But despite his successful marriage and work career following his release this man was deeply troubled as a result of his experience at Alcatraz—experience he said he was unwilling, or unable, to discuss with his wife during four decades of marriage. For twenty years following his release he had to contend with recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. He saw numerous therapists and psychiatrists and spent several years receiving treatment from the state mental health department. He finally met a doctor who told him that his problems were due to “chemical imbalance”; with medication, his problems went away.

The difficulty this man expressed at many points while talking into a tape recorder to answer questions from our interview guide suggested that he suffered from a condition analogous to post-traumatic stress disorder. A particular cause of his trauma appears to have been his experiences during the 1946 battle of Alcatraz:

Some thirty-seven years have passed since that terrifying and tension-filled day in May of 1946. Seldom does a week pass without my sleep being disturbed by the most frightening nightmares imaginable. In most instances I find myself sitting upright in bed drenched in a cold and clammy sweat, my heart pounding furiously in a desperate attempt to escape the confines of my body. Sometimes I have found it necessary to walk the floor for as much as an hour before I am able to convince myself that I am only reliving long hours of terror that occurred so long ago. During these nightmares
I usually find myself in a desolate, isolated area—nowhere in sight can I find a human being, a tree, a rat, or a building—not a thing one might refuge behind. Bullets are screaming around my head and bombs are exploding all around me, throwing dirt and debris over my face and body. I have no recollection of the actual time the bombardment of Alcatraz lasted—my best guess is twenty-four hours. This episode of man’s inhumanity to man is what will live in my mind for as long as I live.

The case of number 1600 is one of the more remarkable stories of a successful life after Alcatraz. He had to overcome all the standard obstacles and conquer his own demons as well. His prison record indicates that his psychological problems predated his transfer to Alcatraz and were likely exacerbated by the strict maximum-security, minimum-privilege regime he encountered on the island.

After my release I realized that Alcatraz was the worst thing the government had to offer if I did get into trouble. . . . I had no contact after release with any Alcatraz inmates. Their rate of success after release must have been minute. I like to think that I was one of the few who was successful. I was able to overcome problems and I am quite proud of what I have accomplished.

[After my release] I didn’t know whether I was glad or sad. I can only say that I felt hatred! I wanted revenge! I believed in no one except myself, and then only to the extent that I was a survivor—they couldn’t destroy me. . . . All the wrongs I have committed over my lifetime hasn’t been sufficient to warrant me serving [nine] years at Alcatraz, a place comparable to what might have existed during the Spanish Inquisition, a place that denied its occupants all contact with the outside world . . . the philosophy of Alcatraz seemed to me to be the breaking of the spirit of the prisoners.

Considering the profound effects it had on him, 1600 was justifiably proud that he made a successful life for himself after surviving the battle of Alcatraz and nine years on the Rock. He attributed his accomplishments to “my desire to make something out of my life”—a desire that “meant more to me than any fear of Alcatraz.”

Henry Young’s murder of Rufe McCain in the Alcatraz dining hall in December 1940 made him one of the most storied Alcatraz inmates. Not only did the murder and subsequent trial receive extensive news coverage at the time, but in 1995 Hollywood revived the Young story with a
film,
Murder in the First
, that was purported to be based on the facts of Young’s Alcatraz experiences. As noted in the introduction, however, the film got most of the essential facts of Young’s life and incarceration completely wrong—he did not, for example, commit suicide two years after the trial—thus helping perpetuate the “Hellcatraz” image of the prison in the bay. The true story of Young’s life after the murder trial may be less dramatic than the film version, but it contains many intriguing mysteries.

After the trial Young was returned to the disciplinary segregation unit at Alcatraz. By February 2, 1942, according to medical and psychiatric assessments, Young was spending most of his time in his D block cell reading, writing numerous writs, and exercising. His only complaint was that he was experiencing “dizzy spells,” but there were no neurological signs or physical evidence to suggest that this was a serious problem. He petitioned the federal court in San Francisco for one hour of recreation every day and for his “rights” to send uncensored mail to a priest, his sister, and others, and to go to work.

He accumulated additional misconduct reports in D block, for such things as possessing a brass dagger fashioned from a toilet plunger, setting fires in his cell, ripping the cover off his mattress, flooding his cell with water from the toilet bowl, and fighting with another inmate during yard recreation. In 1944, while in D block (for reasons not recorded in Alcatraz or Bureau of Prisons records or known to any staff member or inmate interviewed for this project), Young decided to confess to a murder that had occurred many years before in the state of Washington. He sent the details to the prosecutor in Everett, who found that they matched an unsolved crime. Young was transported back to the state of Washington in November, pleaded guilty, received a life sentence, and was returned to Alcatraz to finish his federal term.

As the years went by he read many nonfiction books, wrote a book about hobos, and began another about his own life. A 1948 special progress report characterized him as “egotistical,” a person “with homicidal trends” who “cannot be trusted.” He remained in the disciplinary segregation unit from December 3, 1940, until he was transferred to Springfield on September 13, 1948, for “psychiatric observation.” The reasons were outlined in a report filed after his arrival at the medical center:

This inmate was transferred from Alcatraz with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, catatonic type, made by the psychiatric consultant. For a period of about two months he had appeared to be mute, disinterested, regressed, out of contact. He refused clothing, burned bedding, stood for long periods of time in strange postures.