Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (8 page)

"The ones already sentenced to die, they keep
them apart — or if they think they might cause trouble."

The cells were left open while we ate; then we were
locked up while trusties swept and mopped the run. When the floor was dry, the
gates in the front section were opened again. D'Arcy look a folded blanket and
spread it outside the cell doorway and plopped down two decks of Bee playing
cards. Other prisoners gathered and sat down on the runway around the blanket.
"You in?" D'Arcy asked Cicerone.

"Uh uh. My lawyer's comin' tonight. I gotta write
some shit down for him."

It was a poker game. Lowball, where the lowest hand
wins, and the best is ace through five. It is also, as I would learn over time,
me poker game that requires the most skill. Lying on the bottom hunk, I watched
the game without being in anyone's way.

After dinner, the jail was quieter, though never
silent. On the walkway outside the tank, little bells dinged and little red
lights flashed. These were signals for "prowlers," the guards who
walked on quiet feet along the tanks. Cicerone was called out. While he was
gone, the game broke up for count. We had to line up on the runway in ranks of
three, so the two jailers walking along outside could count us by threes.
"Count's clear," yelled a deputy when he reached the end.

"Want some tea?" D'Arcy said.

"Yeah. But I'd rather have a cigarette."

"You don't have any cigarettes? Here." He
dumped several from a pack of Camels and handed them to me. I hesitated. I
wanted no obligations. It was one of the primary unwritten rules of jail and
prison: don't get obligated. "Go ahead," he insisted, so I kept the
cigarettes.

"Have any money?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Family?"

I shook my head.

He shook his head. "It's a tough life if you
don't have nobody."

He took a roll of toilet paper, unrolled and loosely
re-rolled a bunch of it; then tucked the bottom up through the hole in the
middle, put it on the rim of the toilet bowl and set it afire. It burned in a
cone, like a burner, and lasted long enough to make a metal cup of hot tea. He
poured half into another cup and handed it to me. It was good, especially with
a cigarette. He told me about Johnny Cicerone. The so-called "gangster"
squad of the LAPD was after him. He was collecting a $2,000 debt from a
wanna-be who had stiffed him. In the course of the collection, he had slapped
the guy and taken him to a cocktail lounge in a bowling alley on Vermont that
the debtor owned. That was where the money was. He'd gotten paid, but the LAPD
was trying to bury him. Because Cicerone had slapped the stiff with a pistol
they had charged him with kidnap/robbery with intended violence. It was the
same offense that had gotten Caryl Chessman on Death Row. Even if a death
sentence was unlikely, a life sentence was not . . .

"What's going to happen to him?" I asked.

D'Arcy indicated that he had no idea. (A couple of
years later I would discover that Cicerone had plea-bargained to something else
where he served about three years in Soledad.)

The front gate opened and Cicerone came down the tank
and into the cell. "Any tea left?"

"Yeah. I saved you a cup. Gotta heat it."

From elsewhere in the jail, through the walls came the
vibration of the gates as they slammed shut.

A minute later, our deputy yelled, "Grab a hole A
one."

The
men on the runway headed for their cells. One of them
slopped at our gate. "Here," he said, handing me a folded note.
"Cook sent it."

I opened the note, reading only a few words before I
threw it in the toilet. He would see me when the tank went to showers. D'Arcy
and Cicerone were looking at me with sympathy. "He's a sicko," D'Arcy
said.

"Yeah." I half hoped that my cell partners
would help me even I though I knew it was unlikely. They had just met me. They
had their own very serious troubles. Their sympathy ended with sympathy, not
intervention. Besides, in the cage he who cannot stand alone must certainly
fall.

"Fuck him," I said.

"What're you gonna do?"

"I'm not gonna let him fuck me . . . and I'm not
gonna run to the Man. When do we shower?"

"Tomorrow."

"He wants to see me in the shower."

"Jesus."

"Got any old blades and a toothbrush?"

"In the milk
carton." Cicerone glanced over at a milk carton on the shelf at the rear.
It had one side cut away so it served as a knick-knack box as well. Old rusted
razor blades, pencil stubs, a toothbrush whose bristles had been used to clean
something besides teeth. Using the flame from half a book of matches, I set the
toothbrush on fire. When it was soft, I twisted off the bristles, lighted more
matches, and when it was burning and soft, blew out the matches and pushed half
a razor blade into the plastic, squeezing the plastic around it. I'd seen a
Chicano in juvenile hall open a guy's back from shoulder to hip with one slice.
A hundred and twenty-five stitches. As deadly weapons go, it wasn't much, but
it was the best I could devise under the circumstances. My cell partners
watched me with impassive faces. Only when Cicerone patted me on the back and
said, "You've got guts, youngster," did I know positively that they
were on my side.

Despite total exhaustion, I found it hard to sleep
that first night in the county jail. High power was an outside tank. It had the
wall of bars, beyond which was the jailer's walkway — but then there were small
windows, through which came the sounds of the city at night, autos and
streetcars on Broadway ten floors below. The streetcars rang two bells before
moving from each stop. The sound stirred the same inchoate feelings as a train
whistle in the night. Why was I so different? Was I crazy? I didn't think so
despite my sometimes seemingly insane behavior. There seemed to be a
preordained chain of cause and effect. In the morning I planned to attack a
maniac who had killed at least seven times. What else could I do? Call out for
a deputy? Yes, they would protect me this time, but the stigma of cowardice and
being a stool pigeon, which is how my peers would see it, would haunt me
forever. It would invite open season on me. I did have one advantage: he would
never expect me to attack without warning, not the skinny little kid he saw. He
would assume his string of bodies would paralyze me.

Despite
the storms in my mind, my exhaustion was so complete that I fell fast asleep.

In the morning, before going to showers, we had to
strip our mattresses, fold up the covers and blankets and line up all our
personal property on the floor against the cell wall. We were only allowed to
wear underwear and shoes and carry a towel. While we were showering a dozen
deputies would search the tank for contraband. I folded my towel around the
toothbrush handle. I was confident it would pass unnoticed as I went through
the gate in the crowd.

Several deputies passed our cell. The gates of the
rear section popped open. The men already sentenced to die went first. Billy
Cook looked at me and winked as he passed. I was expressionless although my
stomach was hollow.

Seconds later, a jailer called, "Bunker, property
slip and jumper." In those days, before riveted wristbands, we carried
property slips for identification and, because jail prisoners kept their
civilian shirts, a denim jumper stamped
l.a. county
jail
was
required when out of
the tank. I pulled on my pants and the denim jumper. I couldn't take the
toothbrush with me.

"Give it here," D'Arcy said.

I handed it to him.

"Cell six! Coming open! Watch the gate!"
yelled the jailer.

The gate vibrated and popped open. I walked down the
tier, past the faces behind the bars. Where was I going? Had somebody snitched
that there was going to be trouble?

An escort waited. "Where'm I going?" I
asked.

"Bertillion Room."

 Bertillion Room? That was where mug photos and
fingerprints were taken. Bertillion was the nineteenth-century man who used
skull and bone measurements to identify criminals, a useless procedure that was
replaced by fingerprints. The name remained. What did they want me for?

I
   
It was for a thumbprint for a
Youth Authority detainer. It took but a minute; then the deputy escorted me
back through the jail. Billy Cook was on my mind. If showers were over it would
be another week until we confronted each other. Anything could happen in a
week. He might be moved to Death Row at San Quentin. He had already been
sentenced.

We came to a corner. Straight ahead was the route to
the tank. The deputy turned: we were heading for the shower room. Showers were
still in progress.

The dice had thrown me snake eyes. My stomach sank.
For a moment I wanted to blurt out: "I've got trouble with Billy
Cook." I couldn't do it. Whatever happened ... let it happen.

We turned another corner. A score of deputies filled
the corridor outside an open grille gate, beyond which was a short hall and a
room full of benches and steam. The showers were beyond that.

"Here's Bunker," the escort said to the tank
jailer. "Back from Bertillion."

"Go on, get wet," the jailer said, gesturing
to me for emphasis.

The shower room beyond was almost empty. There were a
few vague figures in the steam, men who had already finished and were drying
themselves. The benches were full of underwear and shoes. Everyone was in the
showers — where it was really steamy.

D'Arcy appeared. "Here." He handed me a
towel. I could feel the toothbrush inside the folds. "He's in the back of
the first row."

I clenched the meager weapon through the towel. Fear
tried to sap my strength. I shut it off. I set my mind on frenzy.

Without undressing, I headed for the archway with the
steam pouring forth. Inside were several waist-high partitions. Down each were
half a dozen shower heads. Two or more naked men shared each shower, some
soaping while others rinsed. As I squeezed along the wall, avoiding naked
bodies, I stared into the thick steam, holding the toothbrush tight and
ignoring the water wetting my pant legs.

He was alone in the last shower. He had shampoo in his
hair and his face was turned up into the stream of water. His skinny little
white body was pitted with acne, his arms covered with blue jailhouse tattoos.
He was two steps away and I hesitated for one moment. When he turned his head,
the white shampoo foam rolling down, his eyes were open and he saw me. His eyes
widened and he started to smile; then he saw the weapon, or something in my
face. He turned to reach for a towel that had been thrown across the half wall
separating the rows of showers. I was sure it held a weapon. He would have
gotten it if he hadn't slipped on the wet floor. One foot shot out and he went
down on one knee.

Before he could recover, I pounced, swinging the
toothbrush handle with the protruding razor blade. It got him high on the back,
near where the neck begins and sliced down about six inches before his movement
carried him out of the blade's arc. I chopped again, this time so hard that the
razor blade snapped and flew away. His ducking plus the force of the blow threw
him on his knees with his back to me. He was naked. I was fully clothed. Killer
or not, at the moment Billy Cook's life was at my mercy and he was yelling for
help. Naked prisoners were rushing to get out. I jumped on his back, grabbed
his hair from the rear and slammed my fist against the side of his head. Pain
shot up my arm, but his cry made it worthwhile. I was soaked with water and
blood.

Someone came up behind me. Fingers dug into both
cheeks and my eyes and tore me loose, gouging out flesh as I was hauled back. I
saw the olive green of uniform legs.

The deputies dragged me out of the shower room and
moved me through the maze of the jail, passing all the curious eyes behind
bars. They opened a steel door and pushed me into a room with three smaller
doors of solid green steel.

"Strip 'em off," was the order. Half a dozen
deputies stood around me, young, strong ex-Marines. They vibrated with the
desire to dance on me. I followed the order.

When I was naked, someone threw me a pair of cotton
long johns and I put them on. Another deputy handed me a round cardboard
container, a quart of water. One of the three doors was open. The windowless
room was eight foot square and had solid steel walls and a concrete floor. In a
corner was a hole for body waste. It had no furnishings. Someone said
"five days" and understood that was how long I was to be here. Five
days. I stepped inside and the door slammed shut, steel crashing on steel. I
was in the blackness of the grave. From outside a key banged on the steel
.
When
you hear
that,
you answer up. If you don't answer and we
have
to
open the door, you'd better be dead, because if you're not
dead
,
or damn near it, you'll wish you were. Got
it?"

I heard muffled laughter; then an outer door closed
and I was alone Would I go crazy? What difference would it make? I'd simply be
crazy by myself in the blackness. Nobody would care. Imagine the darkness of
the blind in an eight by eight steel-walled cage. What would you do?

You meditate on everything you know. You sing all the
songs you might recall in whole or in part . . . You jack off — rough sex on
the concrete floor. You think about God — is there one or many — and why he
allows so much pain and injustice if he is the Joe Goss. My mother said God was
real; everyone accepted Him without question. I, too, assumed that God was real
—
until
I really thought about the facts in
support or against.
Maybe
there was something
spiritual in the universe, but God seemed to have stopped paying attention a
few centuries ago.

I heard noises through the walls and floors, many
gates crashing shut. Dinging bells signaled "prowlers." I had no idea
what the various signals meant.

Once a day they unlocked the door, exchanging the
cardboard container of water and leaving six slices of white bread. Bread and
water. On the third day they inserted a paper plate piled high with macaroni.
My stomach had shriveled and my appetite had dwindled. It was a huge ration, so
I ate about a third and put the rest inside the six slices of bread. I made big
fat sandwiches. I wrapped them in toilet paper. One for tonight, two for
tomorrow. Then I figured I would have one day left.

A little later I heard a scratching sound. When I
reached out for the sandwiches, my hand touched the greasy body of a rat.
Yoooo! I leaped up, and almost fainted from the sudden rush of blood.

Goddamned rats had come up through the shithole. No
wonder they survived. Some suckers in India worshipped them. I'd read that in a
National Geographic
somewhere along the line.

I found the sandwiches. The rat had torn through the
toilet paper and gnawed a good hunk out of one of them. I tore off the part
he'd bitten and threw it down the hole. Then I ate all the rest. Fuck the rat.
He had his chance. He got no second shot.

The gouges on my face from the deputy's fingernails
scabbed over. So did my busted scalp. One thing I had to say, I could take a
beating with the best of them. I thought of Billy Cook crying like a bitch as I
kicked his ass. "He won't fuck with me no more, what you bet?" I
said; then brayed laughter like a jackass into the blackness.

It was time to do pushups. Several times a day, I did
four sets of twenty-five. I spent a lot of time masturbating. Jesus Christ I
screwed many a goddess of the silver screen in the privacy of my mind. At other
times I played a game with a button torn from my long johns. I threw it against
a wall at an angle so it would bounce. Then I would make a ritualized search,
using one finger, poking it down every few inches rather than sweeping the
floor with my hand. That would have been too easy.

Six
or seven times a day the outer door opened and, a few seconds later, a heavy
key clanged against the door. "All right in here," I called back and
the outer door closed, leaving me alone.