Death Row Breakout (5 page)

When the railroad car was empty, Lieutenant Whitehead beckoned for Booker. As Booker hobbled down the aisle, the lieutenant wore a sneer. Booker expected him to say something, but at the last moment the lieutenant turned and went out. The waiting guard put the handcuffs on him. Instead of removing the leg-irons, the deputy motioned him out.

At the steps, Booker saw why the leg-irons were removed. It was too big a step to the ground. Ahead of him, the other men were being loaded onto two buses. Around them were prison guards and deputy sheriffs. The sun was up, turning the Bay into a lake of molten pewter. Booker wondered why a prison had been built on such a beautiful piece of real estate.

Booker hesitated. How could he get down? Using both handcuffed hands, he grabbed the vertical rail and swung himself down. When he dropped to the ground, it was sloped and sent him sprawling into Lieutenant Whitehead, whose back was to him. Both of them crashed into the ground, Booker on top.

“Get off me, Sambo! Goddamnit!”

Guards arrived instantly, hauling Booker up, then helping the lieutenant to his feet. He brushed himself off, glaring with a red face, his embarrassment doubled by the snickers of the watching convicts. “Smart ass, nigger, are you?”

“It was an accident, cap’n. Swear it!” Booker felt sickly in his stomach. He’d hoped to fade into the multitude of numbered men. In the county jail an ex-con had told him that, among nearly five thousand convicts, it was easy to go unnoticed. With such a minor sentence, he would be gone before the guards got to know his name. That hope was threatened at the outset.

“Swear it!” ranted Lieutenant Whitehead. “I’ll be a sonofabitch… a convict that
swears
it. I’ve heard it all now.”

The two buses moved along the road toward the prison reservation. San Quentin occupied fifty-three acres behind the walls, and several times that on the reservation. To the left was water, and there were low rolling hills on the other side. To the right was a low-rise building; the prison road ran beside it. The buses rounded a curve and the prison was visible – a long cell-house angling left, and on a ridge on the right were a row of big houses. Their big front windows looked down over the prison walls into San Quentin.

No rain fell at the moment, but the ground was dark and wet, and the rolling clouds, black and gray, announced that rain would fall again. As the bus got close, the vast structure made Booker think of a fortress castle from the Dark Ages. Excitement filled the bus, hiding fear in many. Those who were returning pointed out landmarks, the #1 Guntower in the water, “Got a water cooled fifty caliber machine on a swivel up there.” The bus passed through the gate of a storm fence, opened by an old colored man in bright yellow rain slicker. “That’s Old Man Charlie,” said a voice, “he’s been down since ninety-nine… for a stagecoach robbery.” “Yeah, he could get a parole if he wanted one, but this is home for him.” The old wizened face looked up and waved at the newcomers passing by.

The buses stopped outside the East Gate, the pedestrian sally-port in and out of San Quentin. The outer gate was a grid made of steel bands. “Watch your step… watch your step,” chanted a guard beside the outer gate as the ‘fish’ prisoners filed through. As always in such circumstances, they were counted as they passed.

Along a tunnel called “Between Gates”. Benches are along each wall of the tunnel. At the far end is a solid steel door, but before that, up two steps, is another door. One by one they are called through the side door, on top of which is a sign: “Receiving and Release”. As each man enters, a guard removes the handcuffs and points him to three narrow benches. “Close it up and strip naked. Throw everything in there.” He points to a canvas laundry hamper. All except Booker. His handcuffs remain on. He is told to stand to the side.

When all the newcomers are seated naked on the benches, Whitehead stepped up. He looked them over, mostly young and white, with faces already battered by life, many with blue, India ink tattoos, reform school stigmata. They hid their fear with haughtiness; they were waiting for someone to mess with them. Booker counted the blacks – eight out of forty-one, or maybe seven. It was hard to tell if one guy was colored or something else. He was brown-skinned and kinky-haired, but his features were sharp, and he spoke English with some kind of accent; it sounded Mexican but was sharper.

Booker came back to Whitehead’s indoctrination speech. “This is the California State Prison at San Quentin. It is a
pen-i-tent-iary
. The Court sent you here because you were convicted of a crime… or several crimes. We don’t give a shit if you did it or if you didn’t do it. We care what you do here. You’ll get a rulebook, and most of the rules are in there. But I’m going to tell you a couple that aren’t in there.

“
Everybody
who comes through that gate wonders if it’s possible to escape. Yeah, it happens. Every now and then somebody gets out – but
nobody… NOBODY
gets out with a hostage. If you have the Warden’s daughter and he orders the gate opened, nobody will follow the order. We had a couple guys take a choir hostage. They wanted a car. I told them the only car they’d get was a hearse, ‘cause that was the only way they were going anywhere. So don’t even THINK you’ll get out that way.

“Another thing… you may stick a shiv in another convict… and if you get caught, you will be punished… but we won’t take that personal. I won’t be mad at you. But IF you even DREAM of assaulting a free person or a guard, I will stomp your brains out on the pavement. If you strike a guard, hang yourself – because your life will be more horrible than your worst nightmares. Kill a convict, that’s okay, but if you give a guard any shit, you will wish you hadn’t. We’ll turn your brain into grits with these.” He held up the cane with the ten inches of lead at the tip. He could twirl it as casually as did Chaplin, to deadly effect.

“You may be tough… you may be the toughest sonofabitch in the whole world, but you’re not tougher than the concrete and steel in this prison. It will wear you out. All of you have an indeterminate sentence. A burglar, you have one year to fifteen years. You can get out in a couple of years… or you can serve fifteen years. If you’re a robber, you have a one-year to
life
sentence. You can get paroled in two and a half, or you can stay here half a century and watch it get painted twice. You won’t wear out the concrete. You can waste your life and get old. You can die here without ever having lived. Most of you are so stupid that you can’t read.” (Booker listened, and vowed once more to learn to read while imprisoned; he would do that no matter what else happened.)

“You do what you’re told and no guard will bother you. If any convict tries to push you around, before you stab him, you come to me and I’ll take care of it.”

While he spoke, the door opened and two convicts carried in a laundry hamper filled with white overalls fresh from the prison laundry.

“Okay, we’re gonna dress you in these overalls. Then you’re gonna go to the mess hall. As you cross the yard, you keep closed up. I don’t want you stoppin’ to bullshit or play grabass with your buddies.”

The two convicts passed out the white overalls to the ‘fish’. While they were getting dressed, two more guards arrived and reported to Lieutenant Whitehead. A few words were exchanged; eyes turned toward Booker. The two guards came over. “Let’s go.”

They took Booker out of Receiving and Release. When the inner steel door opened, Booker stepped inside San Quentin. What he confronted made him stop and look. It was called “The Garden Beautiful”, half an acre of brilliant flowers in a formal garden sectioned off by gravel walkways. To the left of the garden was a cell-house from the nineteenthth century. The cells opened onto a long, open balcony; the doors were solid steel with tiny peephole slits. To the right of the Garden Beautiful was a giant mansion of the Victorian era – with a porch running along its front. It housed the Captain and Associate Warden’s offices. Convicts circled the Garden Beautiful to reach the Pass Window on “The Porch” of the Captain’s Office. The exception was if they were under escort – as was Booker. As he walked between the guards, he devoured his new world – a small city with a skyline. A few convicts lounged on wide stairs to a landing with wide double doors. The sign said, “Garden Chapel”. It was the prison church. The convicts eyed him with expressionless curiosity. One nodded acknowledgement. Booker nodded back.

The road sloped and turned between the prison wall and a century-old building that had once been the women’s prison. One of the guards unlocked a heavy steel door and turned on a light hanging from a bare wire. Ahead was a narrow passage with rough floor and, on each side, steel doors with eye slits. The light bulb was small and the passage remained shadowed.

One guard led the way; he carried a huge key. Next came Booker. He looked at the eye slits and saw eyes looking back. Behind him came the second guard. Beneath his feet the floor was uneven. It was cobblestone. When the guard inserted the key in a door and opened it, the stench from the shit bucket in the corner rolled forth.

“Ahhh, shit,” said the officer with the key, turning his head as he closed the door. “Put him in twenty-one.”

They moved to another cell. It had a bucket, but the bucket had a lid and the odor was less. The guard stepped aside for Booker to enter. Instead, Booker stopped. These guards had not been hostile or threatening, so Booker was emboldened to inquire, “What‘s up? How long am I in here for?”

“Cap’n said to lock you up… ‘til he can see you Monday morning.”

Booker nodded and stepped inside. The cell had a round roof. It was five feet wide and seven feet long. On the floor against the wall were some dirty blankets. In one corner was a small bucket covered with a lid; beside it a roll of toilet paper. In the opposite corner was a gallon can.

The guard, using a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, entered and picked up the gallon can. From somewhere nearby, Booker heard a running faucet. It went off and the guard came back with the can and put it in the corner. “That one’s water. The other one is a shit bucket. Don’t mix ’em up. Ha, ha, ha…” The door clanged, steel on steel, and darkness filled the cell, although a tiny glow came through the eye slit, enough so the darkness wasn’t absolute. He listened to the footsteps recede; then the outer door clanged. “Hey, Six Way, who’s that come in?” called a voice with a white Southern lilt.

“Dunno, man… some colored guy I ain’ n’er seen before,” answered Six Way. “I think he’s a fish, man. He was wearin’ one of them jump suits.”

“Yeah, it’s Saturday. The train come in this mornin’.”

“Hey, cell twenty-one!”

“Yeah,” Booker answered. He was wary, but he had to reply.

“You just come in, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And they put you in the dungeon right away.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all you got to say is ‘yeah’?”

“That answered everything so far.”

“Hey, hey,” said another voice. “Lighten up on the guy. He just got here… What’s your name, man?”

“Johnson… Booker Johnson…”

“How come they put you in the dungeon.”

“They say the cap’n wanna see me ‘fore they lemme out.”

“Hey, man, who’d you kill? Maybe you supposed to be on the row.”

“Shaddup, fool,” came a new voice. It had command and authority. “Hey, cell twenty-one. Booker –”

“Yeah,” Booker answered.

“You were in Siberia with Smokey Allen. Right?”

“Siberia” was one step above the utter darkness of the county jail hole. It was a row of regular cells, but its occupants had no personal property, no privileges and were locked in the cell twenty-four hours a day. It was cold, too, because they had no blankets and the chill night wind came in through the open windows. “Yeah, I know Smokey Allen. He came on the train a couple weeks ago. Who’re you?”

“Sullivan Brewster. They call me Sully.”

“Sure, man,” said Booker. “Smokey talked about you.”

“He talks about everybody.”

“Did you fight Dempsey?”

“He told you that, too,” Sully said with a chuckle.

“Oh, yeah. We talked a lot. Wasn’t nuthin’ else to do in Siberia. He’s out in the yard, ain’t he?”

“No. They transferred him to Folsom yesterday morning.”

“Shit!” Booker said; he had counted on Smokey Allen showing him the way around San Quentin. “Hey,” Booker asked, “Smokey said you ran the boxing program. How come you’re in the hole?”

The question brought a chorus of laughter. Booker wondered what was so funny.

“Tell him, Sully,” said one.

“You tell him,” Sully replied. “You can hardly hold it.”

“I’ll tell you why, man. He’s doin’ fifteen days ’cause he put the flag in the Garden Beautiful at half mast when they fried Sacco and Vanzetti last week.”

“Yeah, I had to do that or pay three cartons. That’s what I bet. I thought they’d get another stay of execution.”

“Bullshit! You just like doin’ flamboyant shit like that.”

From the rear someone started singing in a terrible voice.

“Radio that shit!” someone else called, simultaneously banging the steel door with his fist.

“Don’t you think I sound like Bing Crosby?”

“Ohhh, man, you sound like a fuckin’ turkey gobbler.”

The words whizzed by Booker. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and now he could see that a tiny bit of light came through the eye slit. It was meager, but it spread out, as light does, and he could at least vaguely discern his hand held up in front of his face. It made him feel better for a moment. He’d had enough of total darkness in the county jail.

When his mind turned to the conversations around him, he found they had shifted to matters other than ‘fish-colored guy’. He had nothing to do but listen and, within an hour or so, the voices began to take on personality and history. Sully seemed the best liked and most respected, but a man they called “Six Way” was the most feared. Piece by piece, Booker came to understand that Six Way had gutted another convict in the laundry. He was taken out for questioning, and when he came back he told Sully, “They got shit! Ain’ nobody snitchin’.”