Mr Nice: an autobiography (70 page)

At the reception’s holding cells we were, for the seventh time that day, thoroughly searched. Yet again we were photographed, fingerprinted, and medically examined. We were give plastic cards to serve as identification. They could also be used to buy junk food from vending machines if one had money in one’s inmate account. We were led to our respective cells.

Built in 1940, and holding a twenty-year escape-free record, USP Terre Haute resembles an enormous insect whose outside skeleton is razor wire, whose body is the main thoroughfare, whose legs are cell blocks for prisoners, whose claws are holes for administering torture, whose arms are mindless facilities for its 1,300 inhabitants, whose compound eyes are TV cameras, and whose head is a gymnasium. The razor-wire insect sits in a razor-wire-enclosed adventure playground containing tennis courts, basket-ball courts, at least a hundred tons of weightlifting equipment, racquetball courts, handball courts, bowling pitches, football pitches, baseball pitches, throwing-horseshoe pitches, jogging track, outside gymnasium, covered casino-type card-playing area,
and an eighteen-hole crazy golf course. Close to the casino was the Native American Indian sweat lodge and sacred area. Close to the totem pole was a prison industry factory, Unicor, where prisoners slaved away for pittances making government-issue materials and surreptitiously fashioning ‘shanks’, home-made but lethally sharp knives and swords. Facilities provided inside the insect included a chapel accommodating every conceivable religion, a law library with photocopying machines and typewriters, a leisure library, a cafeteria, a pool hall, two recording studios, a cinema, a school, a hobby shop, a supermarket, and thirty television rooms. Each cell block differs from the others in terms of type of accommodation: dormitories, single cells, multi-prisoner cells. Movement between cells within a cell block was permitted most of the day. Movement between one’s cell block and common areas was allowed for ten-minute periods at specific times. My assigned cell already had three occupants: a redneck who was dying of liver cancer, a Lebanese heroin smuggler, and a Black crack distributor. Conversation was surprisingly easy. They were incredibly friendly and considerate towards me.

USP Terre Haute had one major advantage: one couldn’t be transferred anywhere worse. At a non-penitentiary, one could be threatened with transfer to a penitentiary. At one of the other penitentiaries, one could be threatened with Terre Haute. Apart from the hole, which had long lost its bite due to frequency of imposition, there was no threat available to the Terre Haute prison authorities other than dishing out more prison time. For those doing life without parole, this was hardly relevant. There was plenty of illegally distilled alcohol, plenty of dope brought in by bent hacks, and largescale gambling was endemic. Although most of the time the prisoners were content either to play basketball or to watch it on television, the lack of any effective deterrent often resulted in periods of mindless mayhem. At least one prisoner was ‘shanked’ every day. There would be several vicious and messy fights every day. There were plenty of
murders and immeasurably more maimings. Most were gang-related, but some would result from petty individual squabbles.

Most of the gangs were Black Muslim-based. One of the most formidably powerful street gangs ever is the El Rukhn gang of Chicago. Originally the Black P. Stone Nation, formed in the 1960s by an amalgamation of the Blackstone Rangers and other Chicago street gangs, and shrewdly financed by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, the El Rukhn gang had a membership in the tens of thousands and large real-estate holdings acquired through a wide range of criminal operations. Other Chicago gangs had sprung off from the Blackstone Rangers, including the Vicelords, who under the leadership of Roosevelt Daniels, later to be brutally murdered in the prison cafeteria, had, at that time, the stranglehold on prison life in Terre Haute. Sometimes the Vicelords got on with the El Rukhns at Terre Haute. Sometimes they didn’t. Many members of Los Angeles’s two notorious rival street gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, were too much for the Californian authorities to handle: they were sent to Terre Haute. In Washington, DC’s infamous Lorton prison perennially fighting Blacks had proved to be uncontrollable: they were sent to Terre Haute. Neither the Vicelords nor the El Rukhns got on with the Crips or the Bloods or any of the DC gangs. Each gang had its own peculiarities of vocabulary, its own colours, and its own system of elaborate hand signals. Different from the American city street gangs and hating them with a passion were the Jamaican Posse gangs, some with dreadlocks, some without.

There were White prison gangs too: the fanatically racist Aryan Brotherhood, the equally racist Dirty White Boys, the rednecked Dixie Mafia, the Mexican Mafia, innumerable Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Colombian syndicates, and various biker gangs. Although rival biker gangs such as the Hell’s Angels, the Pagans, and the Outlaws would kill each other almost on sight in the street, in prison they would
sensibly call a truce and allow their conflicting ideologies to coexist peacefully. One of the most famous bikers ever, James ‘Big Jim’ Nolan of the Outlaws, resided at Terre Haute, scheduled for release in 2017.

Rules of prison gang initiation varied. Some would require the carrying out of a random killing within the prison. Being British and a famous non-rat, I could avoid most conflict by being nice, charming, and eccentric; but I never felt safe. I would have to choose my friends carefully.

Terre Haute boasted quite a few notable
mafiosi
. Apart from Gennaro ‘Jerry Lang’ Langella, the most senior Mafia member, one found John Carneglia, Victor ‘Vic the Boss’ Amuso, and Frank Locascio, high-rankers in New York’s Gambino crime family, the facilitators of my New York airport hashish scams. There was Anthony ‘Bruno’ Indelicato, son of Alphonse ‘Sonny Red’ Indelicato and a
capo
in the crime family of Joseph ‘Joe Bananas’ Bonanno. Also in Terre Haute were Sicilian Antonio Aiello of the Pizza Connection case and Joey Testa of the Philadelphia Mafia. I made friends with them all. The Italian Mafia, like the bikers, ‘truced up’ against the common enemy when inside and postponed their differences, seeming very resigned to doing their time. The outside operations they still headed were continuing and prospering through the prison’s telephones and visiting room. Their main concern was the quality of the prison pasta and availability of keep-fit facilities. Classified somewhere between the Italian Mafia and a street gang are the Westies, a no-nonsense New York Irish criminal organisation. A few of its members resided at USP Terre Haute, including its highly intelligent and charismatic boss, Jimmy Coonan. The rest of the prison population was made up of psychopaths, spies, perverts, and sophisticated, high-profile individual criminal personalities serving decades of time.

One of them, Corsican Laurent ‘Charlot’ Fiocconi, became one of the best friends I have ever had. Charlot’s case was the
last of a series that became immortalised as the French Connection. In 1970 he was arrested in Italy, extradited to the United States, convicted of heroin smuggling, and sentenced to twenty-five years. In 1974 he escaped from a New York jail and went to the middle of the Brazilian jungles to mind his own business. He stayed there for seventeen years. He met and married a beautiful lady from Medellín, Colombia. In 1991 they were both arrested in Rio de Janeiro in connection with cocaine charges. The United States locked him up in Terre Haute to finish his sentence.

Another prisoner with whom I developed a strong friendship was Veronza ‘Daoud’ Bower. He had been a Black Panther in the 1960s. In the early 1970s he killed a cop. He had been in penitentiaries ever since. Daoud had grown waist-length dreadlocks and had devoted his twenty-odd years of continuous prison life to playing chess and Scrabble, perfecting his own physical fitness, and studying and practising various healing techniques. He could do several thousand push-ups non-stop and relieve or cure virtually any ailment. Daoud was the only non-native American Indian who participated in religious sweat-lodge rituals.

The prison staff varied from fat military megalomaniacs to fat and demented local Ku Klux Klan rejects. Indiana is the state with the highest incidences of illiteracy and obesity and traditionally has been host to many fervent Ku Klux Klan supporters. The hacks’ hobbies included shooting animals and brawling in bars. One hack was busted for running around bollock naked, another for bringing in dope, and another was dismissed for participating in a convicts’ pornography racket. The prison chaplain was busted for bringing heroin into the prison.

A new arrival at the prison must find himself alternative official employment within forty-eight hours to avoid being forced to work in the kitchen for $25 a month. There are scores of different jobs available in the libraries, laundry, classrooms, and other common areas. While Desert Storm
was in full swing, I presented myself to the prison’s Department of Education and was interviewed by a likeable and intelligent hack named Webster. His teenage sons were fighting in Desert Storm. He gave me the job of teaching English grammar to prisoners studying for their General Education Diploma (GED), a qualification regarded as equivalent to a high-school diploma. My pay was $40 a month. On my first day I faced a classroom of seventeen young Blacks, most of whom were looking at the rest of their life behind bars. Correctional Officer Webster sat at the back ready to step in if there were problems. There had been in the past, like the time a mutilated and bloody corpse was found in the bathroom. It had always been difficult for a prisoner, even with the protection of a hack, to teach other prisoners because he dared not display any authority or superiority and could not even begin to appear to be administering any kind of discipline. An inmate teacher, if not cautious, could find himself regarded as a semi-hack or jailhouse snitch. I was scared, but I applied the usual rule: never show your fear.

‘My name’s Howard Marks, and I hope to be able to help you study for the English grammar section of the GED exam.’

‘Hey! Hey! Hey! Webster! Webster! I ain’t trying to learn no motherfucking thing from no motherfucking cracker. There ain’t nothing no motherfucking White dude can tell me. Nothing. You know what I’m saying? There ain’t nothing no motherfucking White dude can tell me.’

‘Now, now, this is an equal-opportunity prison,’ said Webster, in an attempt to pacify and control Tee-Bone Taylor, cop killer and second-in-charge of the Vicelords.

‘Webster, it ain’t like that. You be welling, man. Don’t be laying no racist government crap on me. I ain’t trying to hear that motherfucking shit. This cracker don’t be knowing more than me. He ain’t chilling in no projects like me and my brothers. What does he know? Hey! Hey! Hey! Teach! Teach!’

‘Call me Howard, please.’

‘I said Teach, Teach. You want to teach. I call you Teach. You know what I’m saying?’

‘Okay, call me Teach.’

‘Teach, what gives you the motherfucking right to teach me English?’

‘I am English, Tee-Bone,’ I lied. I usually corrected those who called me English. I was Welsh. These guys would have never heard of Wales.

‘So? Is you saying that makes you speak better English than us niggers here?’

‘Of course. We invented the language.’

‘We has our own language, Teach.’

‘I accept that. And it’s no better or worse than English. But if you want to pass this English examination, I honestly want to help you.’

‘What motherfucking use is English going to be to me, Teach? I ain’t trying to be disrespecting your language or dissing you about no motherfucking thing, but I ain’t trying to be no writer, Teach. You know what I’m saying? I ain’t trying to be no writer, Teach. I don’t be seeing no streets again, Teach. This motherfucking Government got us homeboys here till we die, Teach. We niggers ain’t trying to be no badass Americans. If it wasn’t for you crackers, we wouldn’t be here. Our ancestors was brung here against their will from our own country in chains.’

‘So was I. And you know who brought me over? A Black US Marshal.’

Tee-Bone stood up.

‘What the fuck is you saying, Teach?’

‘You know what I’m saying. Whoever we are and however we got here, we all want to get out. Look, guys, I’ve only just got into this system, but I’ve already worked out that there’s only three ways out of here: you pay a lawyer a few million dollars, which none of us have; you get over the fence and give government lunatics like Webster here some target practice; or you write your way out.’

‘How is you going to write your way out?’ asked a young Washington, DC crack dealer.

‘Listen. Most of us got more time than we deserved. Some of you shouldn’t even have been convicted. The Government lied and cheated about how much dope you did so they could bang you up forever. Blacks get hit harder than Whites. A lot of people out there want to put a stop to this government racial harassment. A lot more people don’t even know it’s happening. Even some of the judges don’t believe it’s going on. It’s only judges, a few honest politicians, and some powerful individuals can change things. I don’t mean to be rude, but most of you can’t even write a letter that these guys could understand. And they’re the only ones who can get you out of this shit. Don’t tell me you’re going to lie down that easy. I meant it when I said I was brought here in chains. The DEA came to my house in Europe, dragged me and my old lady over here, and left our three children without a mum or dad. I hate your fucking Government more than you ever could.’

‘Okay, Teach. Chill out. You’re not a bad dude. I know where you be coming from,’ said Tee-Bone. ‘Teach us some cracker rap, Teach.’

‘Sure. Now why did you guys choose to speak English rather than Spanish, Portuguese, or French? These guys fucked you around just as much as we did.’