Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (18 page)

Sure enough, Judge Ambrose vacated the probation and
sentenced me to the Department of Corrections for the term prescribed by law
for violation of Section 245 of the Penal Code, Assault With a Deadly Weapon (ADW)
with intent to do great bodily harm. It was an indeterminate sentence of six
months to ten years, although the many ex-cons in the tank, considering the
cases they knew, said I would do two and a half to three years. One ex-con
thought it would be less, maybe eighteen months, but wiser men said it would he
more, the Adult Authorities were hard on ADW. Al Matthews had given up, but Mrs
Wallis wanted me to put her on my mad and visiting list. I was so blas
é
when the judge passed sentence that I was cleaning my fingernails and winking
at the buxom Italian sisters that Wedo had brought to court. He eventually
married one of them and had two children; then he, too, came to San Quentin. By
that time I was on parole.

Because there had been some marijuana on the arrest
report, the booking deputy put me in the white drug tank, designated 11-B-l.
The eleventh floor was an outside tank facing toward Chinatown, with the
unfinished Hollywood Freeway stretching out to the left. I could see the city
at night by standing on the first cross-bar and peering through the small opening
of the outer bars. In those days all known drug users, which included potheads,
were in special tanks. There was one thirteen-cell tank, 11-B-l, for white dope
fiends; one twenty-two-cell tank for black dopers; and two tanks, one of
twenty-two cells and another, smaller tank for Chicanos. There was a
camaraderie among the white junkies, many of whom knew each other from the
streets. It was said that they were the best con men and thieves because they
needed to succeed: "That Mexican selling caps don't give no credit."

Each
of the thirteen cells had two bunks chained to the steel wall. Under the bottom
bunk were three more mattresses, except for the first three cells. Those
belonged to the tank trusties. Cell one had two bunks and two occupants — unless
they invited a friend to move in. Cells two and three had three occupants, one
of whom slept on the floor inside the cell. The men in those cells ran the
tank. They distributed the food; they assigned the cells and the bunks in the
cells, keeping a list of who had seniority in each cell, and they made sure
that everyone lined up in ranks of three for the deputies to walk along outside
the bars and count. In the event of trouble, if someone took umbrage at what
they dipped from the pot to the plate, all eight acted in unison. Not even King
Kong could hope to prevail alone, and if someone started to seek allies for
rebellion, word easily got to the trusties. How could it fail to in a world of
thirteen cells and the width of a sidewalk? The trusties would appear at the
rebel's gate, with lookouts at each end of the tank, and their friends ready to
yell and bang the cups to hide the noisy counter-revolution stomping the crap
out of an erstwhile rebel.

The "chain" to San Quentin left on Friday
afternoon. Everyone sentenced to the Department of Corrections left on the
first Friday ten days after judgment. The ten-day wait was because by statute
every defendant had ten days to file Notice of Appeal. I played poker while
waiting for the train.

The poker game ran as long as the cell gates were
open, which was all the time except before chow. The cells were closed while
things were set up. They were also closed after chow while the tank was being
swept and mopped. The game broke up for the night at lights out.

The money man came on Wednesday. Prisoners with money
in their accounts could draw $10 each Wednesday. That and the $3 a prisoner
could get twice a week from a visitor was all anyone was allowed. A few dollars
went far in '51, when a pack of Camels was 20 cents, a stamped envelope was a
nickel, a small tube of Colgate was 15 cents, and a paperback book was a
quarter. We could buy candy bars (5 cents), quarts of milk (16 cents) and small
pies (20 cents). The sheriff's brother-in-law owned the concession.

I was a good jailhouse poker player by then and
jailhouse poker is as tough as poker anywhere and for any amount. There was an
overabundance of players on money day, but by the weekend the best four or five
were all that remained. I was among them. I also ran a store. On Friday I
stocked up on cigarettes, candy bars, milk and pies. The vendors didn't come on
weekends — but new prisoners poured in. Their cigarettes were confiscated in
the booking process downstairs. By Sunday noon I always sold out my stock and
doubled my investment. Nobody visited me or put money on my books. I had to
survive by my wits if I wanted any of the amenities allowed in the Hall of
Justice jail in November and December of '51. I was also trying to accumulate
$100 or so to take to San Quentin.

I remember the sweaty, slightly bent Bee playing cards
sliding across the gray blanket on the runway floor one particular evening. At
distant tanks the "roll ups" were being called. Several names were
announced, followed by: "Roll 'em up!"

My cards that evening were an ace, deuce, trey and
five — with a face card. Four cards to a wheel. If I could draw a four, I would
have the best hand in lowball. A six would make it the third-best hand. A seven
would make a powerhouse; and even an eight would give me a good hand.

I was hot and the cards were running my way. I raised
whenever I had a good one-card draw. If I only raised when I had a pat hand,
everyone would know I was pat when I raised and they would throw in their cards
rather than risk a two-card draw.

From the tenth floor, up an open steel stairwell, came
the voice: "Jones, Black, Lincoln . . . Roll 'em up!" It was a tank
of black prisoners. Next was the eleventh floor, A and B decks.

"Bet's on you, Bunk," someone said.

"Yeah, I was distracted by the roll ups. I
raise." I dumped the money from my shirt pocket to the blanket. I'd been
catching good hands since morning.

One player behind me called the bet. He deserved
watching. He had come in cold after a raise. One who was already in for his
original bet also called the raise. A third player threw his hand away.
"You're too hot today," he said.

"Cards to the players," said the dealer

The player ahead of me held up two fingers.

The dealer burned off the top card and dealt two
across the blanket. The player threw away his discards and gathered the new
two.

I discarded the face card. "Gimme one. No more
kings."

The card came across the blanket.

"I'll play these," said the man behind me.

I turned to look him over. Alarm bells were ringing.
He had come in cold behind my raise, called the bet without raising and now
played pat. Was he a fool? Had he shown weakness by not raising my raise, or
did he have such a powerhouse that he wanted everyone in? He had no idea that
one of them would pass because I raised. Had he re-raised, he would have lost
anyone drawing two cards. That was how to play it if he had a pat eight or a
nine. He didn't want too many drawing cards.

A big steel key banged on the front gate. "Eleven
B One . . . roll ups. Bunker, Ebersold, Mahi, roll 'em up for the night train
north!"

"That's you, Bunk," said the dealer.

"They won't go without me." I squeezed out
my cards, saw the faintest hint of a curve and knew I had a six. "On
you," I said to the player ahead of me.

"Check."

It was ambush time. "Check," I said, and
even made the slightest motion of throwing my hand away without further ado.

The pat hand saw it, sensed weakness and fell into the
trap. "Ten dollars," he said.

The first player threw his hand away.

"Where are my roll ups?" yelled the deputy
through the front gate. He was looking down the runway in front of the cells.
He saw the poker game, and he knew my name. "Bunker, roll 'em up,
goddamnit!"

Ignoring the deputy, I dropped three $10 bills in the
pot. "I raise."

The man with the pat hand turned beet red as he felt
the trap close. As a poker player, I usually prefer to bet my own hand rather
than play check and raise. Now and then it is good to do because it warns other
players that a "check" is not tantamount to surrender.

He looked at his cards. He couldn't decide what to do.

"Bunker!
Roll it up"
the deputy yelled.

I raised my hand and waved. "Pass or call or
raise," I said, getting up on my haunches. I had to go, no matter what.

"Don't rush me, man," he said.

The tank trusty came out of the first cell and headed
down the run. "Hey, Bunk, you better go. That bull is an asshole."

"I'm comin' as soon as this guy decides whether
to shit or get off the pot."

Ebersold and Sam Mahi were already on the tier with
their personal property in hand.

My opponent wanted to exploit the situation. He
squeezed his cards, as if to look at them.

"Bunker!" the deputy yelled down the tier.
"You better move your ass or there won't be a card game in eleven B
one."

I stood up and leaned over the other card player.
"You either throw your cards in or call the bet . . . right now ... or I'm
. . going to kick you in your motherfuckin' head in about two seconds. Don't
try to get up."

He threw his cards away. I gobbled up the money in the
pot and hurried into the cell. My cell partners had gathered the meager gear I
was taking with me. I rolled the money tight, coated it in Vaseline and stuck
it up my ass. Cash money is useful in San Quentin.

Ebersold and Sam Mahi were waiting at the tank gate. I
knew Ebie's younger brother from reform school, but I met Ebie and Sam Mahi
here in the county jail.

The deputy unlocked the gate. "The adventure
begins," Ebie said. He and his brothers were already legends in the San
Fernando Valley. Although he was virtually illiterate, he was one of the
world's great raconteurs. His speech rhythms were fascinating. He gave me a
wink and a thumbs-up. We would be friends for many years without a single
disagreement. Sam Mahi, like Ebie, would be a friend for twenty years, but
because he was a friend to everyone who had any status the depth and strength
of his loyalty was always suspect. He had no enemies, and a man without any
enemies usually doesn't have any real friendships either.

We three joined the stream of prisoners from all over
the Hall of Justice, about two dozen riding the prison train, the weekly catch
of fish
en route
to California's three
prisons. Everyone was in the bathroom, changing into whatever civilian clothes
they
'd
worn when arrested, had slept in for
several days at the precinct, and had worn to court appearances. Most were
scruffy by the time they reached the county jail. Their civilian clothes had
been stored on hangers, crushed together so they had no air. Now they also had
a musty smell. Just one man looked sharp; he wore a double-breasted gray
sharkskin suit, a light-skinned black man named Walter "Dog" Collins.
Tall and handsome, he was a junkie con man to whom Ebie introduced me. I would
get to know him better in the penitentiary. He was clean because he
'd
been on bail until he was sentenced.

When
we were dressed, deputies checked our names off the list and chained us up in
batches of six. In two groups, we were loaded onto the huge freight elevator
and taken to the basement tunnel where signs pointed to
Coroner's Office and County Morgue.
A Sheriff's
Department bus took us a short mile to Union Station, where a section of booths
in the Harvey House was roped off. Hamburgers and fries were pre-ordered. We
could choose between coffee and Coca-Cola, served by a whey-faced young lass
who was nervous indeed. Nobody said a word, but eyes burned through her
clothes, noses flared and fantasies were rampant. It would be years before any
of these men scented another woman.

The prison train was actually a single coach with
sheet metal welded over the windows and a mesh wire gun cage at one end. It was
December and dark early. A misty rain fell when we boarded. As we did so, a
deputy put leg irons on most; then released them from the six-man chain. That
way they could at least make their way alone to the toilet across the aisle
from the gun cage. Nobody was ever out of sight. Three, including me, had both
leg irons and handcuffs. Some authority had designated us for tighter security.
It made the other prisoners look at us with wary respect.

The rolling crash of steel couplings heralded a jerk -
and we were underway through the night. Within seconds the coach filled with
clouds of cigarette smoke as nearly everyone lighted up, but after that it was
more moderate.

Throughout the night the train stopped for other men
sentenced to San Quentin. In Santa Barbara we added two, in San Luis Obispo ii
was four. I was made to sit in front of the guard in the gun cage
so
they could keep an eye on me. Beside me was a man
named Ramsey who had been to the joint before. He seemed happy to be going
back. He liked to talk about how things were and what he would do when he got
there. I pumped him for a while, but quickly decided he was a phony and cut him
off. The sheet of metal outside the window had a three-inch space. When I
pressed my face to the inside glass, I could see a narrow slice of landscape.
It was Stygian blackness most of the time, broken without warning by a few
seconds of light as we flashed through a hamlet, whistle blowing warning.
Clickety clack, clickety clack, clickety clickety clickety clack, the steel
wheels had an endless chant. For a while the tracks ran beside a highway. I
realized that this was the same route I'd taken riding the freight train when I
was seven years old.

The gun cage was close behind me. I could lean my head
back against the mesh screen. Across from the gun cage, over my left shoulder,
was the toilet. It had a partition toward the seats, but it was open on the
side so the gun guard could maintain surveillance through Plexiglas. Maybe they
worried that someone would flush himself onto the highway. What an escape that
would be.

One thing that wasn't escaping was the stench.
"Goddamn!" said a loud voice several rows away. "Somebody's dead
and rotting away. Good God!"

The way it was said brought a titter of laughter.
Amidst the ozone of fear of the unknown ahead there was a convivial leavening.

Darkness still reigned over the Bay area when the
prison coach was unhooked from the train and put on the ferry that crossed the narrows
from Richmond to San Rafael. On the other side we moved onto a bus for the last
mile to the prison. It had stopped raining, although the clouds promised more
and the ground was wet, when we pulled up at the outer gate. Half a mile ahead
was the actual prison. A giant cell house stretched off to the left along one
shoreline of the peninsula. The silhouette of a huge tower offshore reminded me
of something from the Middle Ages. It was #1 gun tower, the prison arsenal.

Outside the bus, an old black convict, in a yellow
rubber raincoat and rain hat, stood beside the first gate made of chain link on
rollers. The guard in a little booth called ahead; then signaled for the black
con to roll it open. As we drove by, he grinned and shook his head in mock commiseration.
A good look at his face told me that he was at least seventy.

The next gate was also made of chain link fencing, but
it was topped with rolled concertina wire brown with rust. The #1 gun tower
looked down on the bus as it made a half circle and stopped a few feet from an
older building. Several guards were waiting. The step from the bus to the
ground was too far for the leg irons, so as each fish stepped into the doorway,
a deputy unlocked the leg irons and let them clatter to the ground. The fish
walked between the prison guards into the sallyport. My leg irons were removed;
my handcuffs remained.

As I stepped inside, a guard was telling each man,
"Watch your step." We were going through a pedestrian gate set into a
vehicle-sized gate. The smaller gate had a ridge several inches high. Despite
the warning, the man ahead of me tripped and nearly fell. It warned me.