Straight Life (44 page)

Now, I've had them walk up for a shakedown, and they'd see me standing there, and they would draw the line at the guy standing next to me: "Alright, let's clear the way. Clear the way. Let's just move out. Clear the way." And they'd get everybody in the area right next to me, and they wouldn't shake me down because I had juice.

We got the guards' clothes and the clothes of the women that worked outside, and we'd send them to the employees' dry cleaning plant. A panel truck would come. The same kind of truck that took the bodies away from the gas chamber. When the truck came in the morning at ten I'd take off the dirty clothes I'd worn to work and put on some others I'd stashed in my desk. I'd put my blues under a guard's overcoat. Ernie, who was in charge of the plant, would have straightened the guy that was driving the truck or else I would lay a couple packs of cigarettes on him, and when I was loading the truck I'd motion to the guy that this was for Ernie from me, but the guard would be watching so I'd have to do it real cool. I'd just shake the coat or flick it back so the driver could see there's blues underneath. He would take them to Ernie, who'd wash them, starch them, press them, and send them back in the afternoon. Then the driver would touch a certain overcoat and nod to me, and I'd know my clothes were under that. I'd take the coat inside. Guards were coming in to get their stuff; they'd be waiting; and if somebody came in and saw his coat and wanted it and my blues were underneath I'd be in trouble. I'd get somebody to turn the guard, and I'd grab the thing real fast, go into our little shitter, take my blues out, and sneak back in with the guard's coat. It was really a scene, and it was exciting. It was very exciting. And after work when I went through the gates the guards could see that my clothes were freshly pressed. They'd look and give me a little smile.

I'd do a favor for a guy who worked at the ODR, take his clothes and shoot 'em through, and he would give me a couple of steaks. I'd put them in our toilet, and I'd eat one. I'd take the other and stash it down in my shorts and sneak it in to Ernie. And then, again, going through the gate, the shakedown was very light.

If any of the guards did shake us down or do anything bad to any of the six of us that worked in the paymaster's office, when their clothes came in, to let them know they couldn't get away with that, we'd take a razor blade and cut the linings in their coats. If they brought shoes we'd cut the insides out. We'd do it in such a way that when the coat went to the cleaners they could clean it; it would hold together. And we had an understanding with them there that if they noticed any tears or cuts they'd ignore them. The guard would pick up his coat, and then the next day when he'd put his arm into it the whole lining would shoot out the sleeve. In his pants the seat would rip when he sat down. The linings would come out of his shoes. And he would know what had happened, but there was nothing he could do. Too many people had access to his stuff. He'd know, but he couldn't do a thing, and when he came back he'd give us one of those looks and we'd say, "Oh, hello, Officer So-and-so, .nice day." And he wouldn't shake us down again.

We kept the books on the guards' hours. They got overtime for going on a deathwatch or whatever. We recorded it in code. If all those things weren't recorded accurately by number, when the books went to Sacramento the computer there would throw them out and the guy wouldn't get paid his overtime. It would take forever. He'd fill out a form, and we would lose the form. He'd know that we had goofed purposely, but he couldn't prove it. So when he was going to shake us down or shake down our cells, the guard would think, "Oh, no, I don't want to go through that again." And he'd turn his back and give us a pass.

As you entered the paymaster's office, in the front, to your left, was the counter. Across from that, on the right, was a big bin, and everything that was lost in the laundry would be put in this bin. Now, you know how women are-they love secondhand shops and sales and bargains, so they'd come in sometimes to look in the bin when I was alone in the morning or late in the afternoon. And there were some real pretty ones who worked in the offices, and no one ever saw them, no other convicts. They'd come in when I was alone, and they'd do little things. Like, when I was writing the ticket up they'd show me something on their clothes and they'd reach so their hand would touch my arm, and that little, teeny contact ... Or one of them would come in and I'd say, "We have some new stuff in the bin there. Why don't you look through it?" She'd say, "Well, I don't think I lost anything." I'd say, "Oh, that's okay. Look through it. We're just going to throw it away, and if there's anything you'd like to have, take it." She'd walk over to the bin, and I'd immediately walk out from behind the counter and join her. I'd purposely arranged this thing so she had to bend way down to get into it, and I'd stand where I could see part of her breasts or her brassiere. And from being locked up like that, just seeing that, I'd almost come right then. I'd move a little closer to her and say, "Oh, how about this? This looks like something you might use." I'd reach down and across her and raise up so my hand touched her breasts. I'd tell her to take her time looking, and I'd bend down as if I was straightening out the shoes that were in a row on the floor. I'd try to see up under her dress.

I felt that they knew what they were doing because a couple of these little chicks would bring in silk pajama type outfits to be cleaned which had stuff in them, as if they had come in the pants. We'd all smell them and save them for the other guys so they could smell them, and if they were really far-out I'd take them back to my cell with me and put them over my head and play with myself at night. You became so obsessed with sex that the smell of something like that just drove you insane.

When you first came in, in order to keep yourself from being run over by any group or any person you would have to pass that first test. Somebody'd test you, try you, bump into you, call you down to meet with them in the lower yard with a shank just to see what you would do. If you chickened out then everyone would just take your commissary and run all over you from then on. You go to the store and buy your cigarettes and whatever else you need. Some people bought all their stuff for one month at a time. So you'd walk out of the line with a big sack or two sacks full of stuff, and a couple of guys would walk up to you, and one guy would tap you on the shoulder and engage you in conversation, and the other would hit you on the back of the head, and then they'd take your bags and run. Sometimes the guard up on the walkway would see this. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he'd fire his gun into the yard.

There was a black guy that killed a girl at the University of California in the library. He was a fat, slobby guy, and everybody hated him, including the blacks, because he killed this pretty girl for no reason. Every time he went to the commissary, whoever happened to see him in line would just beat him up and take his stuff. And the guards saw it, and they wouldn't do anything because they hated him as much as everybody else did. He never got any commissary. People would spit on him. That's the way guys were treated that killed women or anybody that molested a child. Gangs were excepted. There were a lot of Mexicans who used to go around, and that was their kick, to go out and rape a chick, that was part of their gang experience. That showed they were men and they got away with it because they were in a group and had a gang to fight for them. But any loner that killed a woman ... Murderers were treated awful because they weren't a part of any group.

No matter if you were white, Mexican, black, Indian, there was something everyone had in common-if you were sharp and hep and talked the language of whatever society you might be in, then you were accepted as a regular, okay, we all live the same kind of life. They don't want to admit it, but it's an unwritten law. And if you have that, you have something going for you out front. But if you're a murderer that just killed somebody, a passion killing, because somebody took your old lady out, well, you haven't been robbing or stealing or living that life so you're really an outsider. They wreak havoc on that kind of person.

When I first got to San Quentin I could feel people watching me. They look for weakness. They observe you for a day or so and watch who talks to you. And if somebody comes in that's young and pretty and doesn't have a lot of friends, then all the little splinter groups and the black group as a whole, they may want him for a sissy. They'll have talks among themselves about who's going to get him, and then they'll drive on him with a shank and tell him they're going to fuck him, and if the guy doesn't attempt to fight back it's all over for him. They'll just take him and fuck him and he belongs to a group. They'll turn him into a punk. If he fights it's different. He's accepted as one of them because he's got nerve. I didn't have to prove myself because I knew so many people. I was sort of a celebrity, although that was both good and bad. It was good in this one respect: I had many people come to me and say, "If anyone messes with you let me know." Guys that were real bad, tough people that were feared. On the other hand, some guys would say, "Oh, that punk motherfucker. He ain't nothin'. That lousy motherfucker, he's probably a rat, that stinkin' cocksucker. He's a convict just like we are, that cocksuckin' motherfucker. Who does he think he is?"

Nearly everyone in San Quentin seemed to be in some gang or other. Being a musician, I had friends that were black; I had a lot of friends that were Mexican; and I had friends that were white. I had more friends that were Mexican, so the whites really got on me. "What are you doing with those cholos? Those beans? Aren't you a white man?" Or when I'd play music with the black guys in the yard, they'd say, "What are you, a nigger now? Have you turned nigger?" It was scary, and I'd been told by different guys that they were going to kill me because they didn't like the way I was carrying myself. And the black musicians, because they were afraid of pressure from the Muslims, when they were in a group they'd act like they didn't know me, but when we were alone we were the best of friends. I wanted to belong to every group but I couldn't, so the only way I could make it was just to be loaded all the time and act crazy and go from group to group. But then, when I started getting way out, some of these Mexicans I knew came and jacked me up and told me, "Man, what are you doing?" They ranked me because I was acting weird and taking black-and-whites. They'd say, "Ain't you got no class? If you act like that, when something good happens, when some stuff comes in, you're not going to get any. We won't be able to give you any because you're too crazy. The guys'll say, `No, he's too nuts.' "

There were other people that shunned gangs, but instead of doing it the way I did, they gambled. Cards were illegal, so they played dominoes. They played all the time, and they played for cigarettes. From the minute they finished breakfast-sometimes they'd start before breakfast and not eat-until lockup that night, they were at the tables. Even in the rain. The tables were under the shed in the big yard. Some guys made a lot of money, and some guys lost a lot of money, and that caused some terrible things to happen.

There was this young white guy,. a young gunsel, a real gangster type supposedly; we'll call him Charlie. He was gambling all the time playing dominoes, and he finally went through everything he had. But he had a mother that loved him, so she sent money to everyone he could imagine. She'd visit him, he'd give her a name, she'd send money to that name, and the guy would take five and give Charlie the rest in cigarettes. Sometimes his need for money became so immediate he couldn't wait for that, so he'd send her a letter saying he had to see her, and she would come, and he'd tell her he's got to have money right away. She'd put the money in her mouth and pass it to him when they kissed goodbye. But he finally drained her dry. He couldn't get any more money from her, so some of the guys he was in debt to told him, "Alright, we've got a proposition for you." The proposition was this: they would send a friend of theirs to make contact with Charlie's mother; they formulated a plan using the guy who cleaned up the visitors' waiting room; Charlie had to talk his mother into this; he told her, "If you don't do it I'll be killed." So now, not only does he have his mother smuggling money to him, he's got her smuggling heroin. She's just a poor mother that loves her son.

This is a classic example of what happens through the domino tables. She was given instructions. She would visit him and drop the heroin into the big ashtray in the visitors' waiting room. She made the drop. The convict got it. Charlie was paid off in his debt. They even gave the mother a few dollars, but now she was trapped and she had to keep doing it. Finally somebody talked in the yard, and the guards and the police set something up and pulled a bust. They busted the mother and the guy picking up the stuff and the people delivering it. Now the mother is in jail. They're going to send her to prison because this is a serious charge, and the only way she can get out is for Charlie to talk. So he feels a little remorse. They promise him immunity. They'll put him in protective custody. He goes to court in San Rafael and testifies. He cops out. Then, the time comes for him to go back to prison and he thinks they're going to put him in another prison and protect him. They just put him on the Grey Goose and take him back to San Quentin. Evidently he had incurred the wrath of somebody on the staff of the prison who wanted him done away with. They put him in between-gates and he's screaming, "I can't go in there! I can't go in there!" They say, "Get in there, you son-of-a-bitch!" And they threw him through the second gate, and now he's in San Quentin. There he is, he's just there, he's in the yard. There's nothing he can do. He panics and runs to Fourposts. They tell him to get out of Fourposts. He runs into the gym. He had been back, I guess, about two hours. He went into the gym back by the weights. He was only there a little while when word came out that Charlie was dead.