Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (24 page)

A couple of days later, when I was partaking of my
daily hour walking up and down, a key banged on the gate up front. I thought it
was a signal to return to my cell until I saw the front gate open and the bull,
Big Zeke Zekonis, his hat cocked wildly in the side, standing there beckoning
me. I pointed to myself, disbelieving. He nodded. I went, warily. Maybe they
were around me corner, wanting to stomp me good for turning the desk over OR a
lieutenant.

As I neared the gate, he extended a folded magazine. I
wondered why. My first thought was not that he was handing it in to me. Except
for the good old
Gideon,
reading was
verboten
in the hole.

"Here," he said, erasing doubt. "Chess
sent it over."

He meant Caryl Chessman. I sputtered my surprised
thanks. He was not known for doing favors for convicts — but he had done this
one. It wasn't smuggling a gun, or even drugs, but it was against the rules and
would get him a suspension.

I waited until the evening meal trays were collected
and the mattresses returned; then I took out the
Argosy
magazine. A man's magazine, it had several million readers. It
was on the cover, the lead piece. Caryl Chessman, LA's notorious "Red
Light Bandit," had written a book,
Cell 2455,
Death Row,
that was scheduled for publication in a few months.
Argosy
had excerpted the first chapter. I turned
to it forthwith.

Although the complete book, which I would soon read,
was about Chessman's life, the first chapter recounted how a convict named Red
was put to death in the gas chamber. It began with the evening count the night
before. The entire prison was locked down; that was when the doomed man was
moved to the overnight condemned cell. First he was given all new underwear and
clothes. He was cuffed through the bars before the gate was opened. Surrounded
tightly by four or five guards and a lieutenant, Red was allowed to start at
the rear of Death Row and walk to the front, saying his goodbyes to the other,
waiting to die. His personal possessions had already been given away, or packed
for shipment home. They took him down In the elevator and through the green
door to where he spent the night.

Chessman's written words took me step by step to Red's
death at 10 a.m. Red had a photograph of President Eisenhower. As he stepped
into the gas chamber, he handed it to a guard and said, "He doesn't belong
in here." The cyanide pellets were dipped in sulphuric acid and deadly
cyanide gas rose around him.

I
couldn't judge the writing, but it was so real to me that my heartbeat
increased. Of course I had the advantage as a reader of being where I was, not
far from the reality. I read it again, and although I had no training in
critical judgement, it was impossible to be more astounded. A convict had
written it, a convict I knew and had it published in a huge national magazine,
not the
San Quentin News.
A book was coming
out soon. To write a book look a magician, or even a wizard, or an alchemist
who took experience, real or imagined, and used words to bring it to life on a
printed page. I have many flaws, but envy is not among i hem. Yet I was afire
with envy that late afternoon in the hole of San Quentin.

Dusk became darkness. The lights gained power. Zekonis
came for the magazine before going off duty. If I was farther down the tier, I
could talk to Chessman through the ventilator, but he was u one end on one
side, and I was at the other end on the other side. I could hear him, or at
least his typewriter. It rattled through die night. The only time it hadn't was
when Santo and Perkins were on Death Row.

Sounds from below marked the evening's passage,
footsteps and voices echoed against the building-formed canyons. Convicts were
filing back to the cell houses for the night. Soon the sound of
"Taps" would waft through the prison. The shadow of the gun hull
passed outside the mesh wire and steel bars. Chessman's typewriter stopped. Why
was it he who had written a book? He was on Death Row. The book wouldn't change
that. If it was me, it could change my life.

Suddenly, with the force of revelation, I said aloud:
"Why
not
me?"

The idea was so sudden and intense that I jumped up
from the mattress, and immediately got dizzy and grabbed the bars for support.

As quickly as the
thought had come, I sneered at my own hubris. How could I write anything worth
publication? I was in the seventh grade the last time I attended school.
Voracious reading was a different game than writing. Writers went to Harvard or
Yale i Princeton.

Hut
Chessman hadn't gone to Harvard. He'd been in Preston Reform School, the same
as me. If he could write a book, why couldn't I do it? I'd had detectives say I
was like Chessman. At least I didn't have the pressure of a death sentence. I
had time on my side - and desire. I would rather be a writer than a movie star,
or President, or a justice of the Supreme Court, all of which were closed to me
anyway. I went to sleep thinking about it.

I
woke up and it was the first thing in my mind.

When I got off the shelf, I wrote Louise. By now I was
opening with "Dear Mom," and she signed with the same word. I told
her I wanted to become a writer. Would she send me a portable typewriter?

Of course she would. It was a second-hand Royal
Aristocrat. The case was covered with a heavy waterproofing and it had a key
face unlike any I'd seen. It was seemingly brand new.

A convict clerk in Education brought me a
20
^th
Century
typing book. The lessons
were page by page. At first I put a small sheet of wood on the cell toilet and
sat the typewriter on a stool. I learned the keyboard. Once I had that, I threw
the book away Practice was all I needed. When the toilet bowl and stool setup
became too painful on my back, a convict in the carpenter shop fabricated a
table just wide enough to hold the typewriter. The passage between the side of
the bunk and the other wall was less than two feet (the cell's entire width was
four and a half feet). Still, it was better sitting on the edge of the bunk to
type than bent over the toilet bowl.

Instead of simply starting "Once upon a
time," I sold some of my blood to pay for a correspondence course from the
University of California. It was the brief era when society thought education
was a path to rehabilitation. The first lessons were about grammer and
diagramming sentences, which I never came to understand and it showed in my
grades. But when the lessons became actual writing, grades were all As and the
instructor, probably a postgraduate student, deluged me with laudatory
comments. When the course was over, I set sail alone on the sea of the written
word. "Once upon a time two teenage boys went to rob a liquor store
..."

I had no creative writing course, no mentor. The only
writer I'd ever met, excepting Chessman, was an alcoholic newspaperman in
Camarillo state hospital. He was writing a book in the linen room where he
worked. To get some sense of what | was doing, I subscribed to the
Writer's Digest.
Maybe I learned something from
its many articles of "how
to ..."
I
bought several of the books it advertised. The most useful was by Jack Woodruff
(I think that was his name), and he advised that you should picture the scene
in your mind and simply describe what you saw.

In the library I found anthologies and books of
literary criticism, from which I learned bits and pieces. W. Somerset Maugham's
A Writer's Notebook
provided some advice. At
least I remember it. If I mined one bit of advice that I could use, a book was
worthwhile. At first I tried short stories, but the censor was the librarian,
and the Department of Corrections had rules against writing about crimes, my
own or others. I could not offend any race or religion, nor criticize prison
officials or police, or use vulgarity - and other things. Besides, I had to
sell pints of blood to obtain the postage. I had plenty of prison money
(cigarettes), and even cash, but it had to be in my account. I decided to learn
my craft writing novels. I would only have to deal with the censor every year
or so, and I would decide what to do when I finished.

It took about eighteen months to finish the book. I
felt as if I'd climbed Everest when I wrote
the end
.
Instead of going through the censor, who would reject it and might confiscate
the manuscript, a friend of mine had his boss, the dentist, carry it out.
Smuggling a manuscript from prison isn't immoral. The dentist mailed it to
Louise Wallis. She gave it to knowledgeable friends to read. All said I had
talent. Despite moments of unreasonable hope, I knew it would never be
published. I wrote it to learn my craft and I still have the manuscript. My
wife says that if she had read it, she would have advised me to give it up. Hut
it is well known that fools rush in, and so I started my second novel. I never
imagined it would take seventeen years and six unpublished novels before the
seventh was published. I persevered because I recognized that writing was my
sole chance of creating something, of climbing from the dark pit, fulfilling
the dream and resting in the sun. And by reading this far you must have
realized that perseverance is fundamental to my nature. I get up from every knockdown
as long as my body will follow my will. I've won many fights because I wouldn't
quit, and I have also taken some awesome beatings for not knowing when to quit.

Memorial Day. Like all days, it was announced long
before dawn by the raucous clutch of birds, pigeons and sparrows, in the
outside eaves of the cell house. No rooster ever crowed earlier or louder,
although convicts slept through it. Then came the early unlock, guards letting
out men who went to work before the mainline. On weekdays I was on early
unlock. During my last year and a half I worked on the early laundry crew, but
not today. This was a holiday.

I woke up when the convict keymen began unlocking the
cells. Using huge spike keys, they could hit each lock while walking fast —
clack, clack, clack, the sound grew louder as the keyman came closer on another
tier; then receded as he passed, and grew loud again as he came down the next
tier.

Soon the convict tier tender was pouring hot water
through the cell bars into gallon cans placed next to the gate. The cells had
only cold water, and the toilets used water from the bay.

From my cell I could see through the outer bars. It
was sunny and bright out but nevertheless, I took a jacket. It was always wise
to take a jacket when leaving the cell in San Quentin. San Francisco might be
sunny and bright while the Big Yard was windy and cold.

A bell sounded, followed like punctuation by the
ragged volley of the fifth-tier convicts exiting their cells and slamming their
gates shut. A torrent of trash poured past as men kicked it off the tiers
above. Every so often the falling newspapers and other effluvia had an instant
coffee or peanut butter jar wrapped in them that exploded as it hit the
concrete, sending splinters of glass flying. A voice called out, "If I
knew who did that, I'd fuck you up . . . punk!" Nobody responded. It would
be another fifteen minutes before the unlock worked its way down to the second
tier. That was when I got up and got dressed. I crossed off another day on the
calendar. I had sixty-some remaining; I cannot now recall exactly how many.

It was Memorial Day. There would be a boxing card on
the lower yard in the afternoon. I hadn't boxed in two years, but my former
trainer, Frank Littlejohn, had asked me to substitute for someone he trained
because he was afraid the man would take too bad a beating. Why not? It was
only three rounds. I pulled a box from beneath the bed and extracted sweat and
bloodstained Ace bandages that I used for handwraps, plus my mouthpiece and
boxing shoes. It was a wonder they didn't have spiders in them considering how
long they had been in the shoebox.

As soon as the tramp of feet receded above, another
security bar was raised and another tier of convicts came out with another
deluge of trash. I gathered what I was taking to the Big Yard.

In addition to
the
boxing equipment, I put a loose carton of cigarettes inside my shirt to pay a
gambling debt. The goddamned Yankees had lost the night before. What was the
adage of my childhood: never bet against Joe Louis, Notre Dame or the New York
Yankees. Bullshit! I picked up a book I was returning to someone.
Science and Sanity
by Korzybski, the fountainhead
of general semantics. Frankly, it had too many examples in mathematical
equations, which turned off my brain as if by a light switch. I thought
semantics was an important discipline in understanding reality, but I preferred
the books of Hayakawa and Wendell Johnson.

I debated carrying out the pages of the new book to
show Jimmy and Paul and Leon — but decided that I was packing too much already.
I would have to carry what I took all day.

I was waiting when the second tier was released. I
stepped out, closed my cell gate and waited until the bar went down. Some cell
thieves lately had been running in and out of cells to grab things if the
occupant walked away before the security bar went down.

The near 2,000 convicts in the four sections of the
South Cell House walked to the center stairway that led down to the rotunda and
the steel doors into the mess hall. As usual the food was barely edible. The
menu proved that between the word and the reality lies the chasm. I could eat
this one breakfast: oatmeal and a hard cinnamon roll with peanut butter. It
softened in the tepid coffee. I got the food down and went out into the yard.

The Big Yard was already full. The South Cell House
ate last. Exiting the mess hall door, I plunged through a wall of sound made by
4,000 numbered men, all convicted felons imprisoned for murder, robbery, rape,
arson, burglary, selling drugs, buying drugs, buying and selling stolen
merchandise, all the crimes set forth in the California Penal Code. The crowd
was thickest near the mess hall door, for although a guard told everyone
exiting to move out, they tended to go ten feet and stop to light up cigarettes
and greet friends. As I squeezed through I was sure to say, "Excuse me . .
. excuse me," if I brushed against or bumped someone. Convicts may have
the foulest mouths in the world, but unlike the images set forth in movies and
television, they are better than New Yorkers about certain amenities. Still,
among the numbered men there were always a few with a paranoid streak. Prison
adages include: "Everybody bleeds, anybody can kill you." Where
anyone can get a big knife, good manners are the rule of the day - even if they
are accompanied by vulgarity. Think about it.

There was more room beyond the packed crowd. I circled
the yard counter-clockwise, looking for my friends. First I headed for the
inmate canteen. Only convicts actually in the canteen line, a row of windows
reminiscent of those at the race track, could cross the red
"deadline" thirty feet away. Above was a gunrail with a rifleman,
looking down on the crowd. I saw many men I knew, but none of those I was
seeking at the moment. I was both confident and watchful, for while I had many
friends, I also had my share of enemies. I didn't want to come upon them
unexpectedly; they might think I was trying to make a sneak attack.

Outside the gates to the East Cell House I saw San
Quentin's two pairs of bookmakers. Sullivan and O'Rourke were the Irish book,
Globe and Joe Cocko were the Chicano book. Each pair had a green sport page
from the
Chronicle,
checking race results
from the eastern tracks. Waiting nearby were the horse players. Most of them
were compulsive horse players, and some were quite good. They had lots of time
to study the charts

I walked between the East Cell House wall and the
domino tables. The games were hot and heavy, the sound of plastic dominoes loud
as they were slammed to the tables. Double six went down first. The next player
had six three. He slammed it down. "That's fifteen." "Goin'
behind the house for the change," said the next man, playing six two on
the six. Each game was owned by a convict who took a cut, collecting from the
losers and paying the winners. I knew how to play, but not well enough to
gamble. It had been too expensive to become a first-class poker player to now
get involved in dominoes. These were some of the best domino players in the
world. They played from breakfast unlock to afternoon lockup. They even played
in the rain, holding newspapers over their heads.

The East Cell House wall intersected with the North
Cell House rotunda door. The yard outside the North Cell House was first to
catch the warming rays of morning sun. The Big Yard was usually cold in the
morning: its concrete seemed to hold the night's chill until the sun was high.
Most blacks congregated in that area. Although each race tended to congregate
with their own, there was little overt racial tension or hostility. Any
altercation between convicts of different races involved only them and,
perhaps, their close friends. That would change in the decade ahead.

I wasn't looking for him but I spotted Leon Gaultney
standing with two other blacks, one being Rudy Thomas, the prison's lightweight
champion. Rudy had the skills to be a world champion. Alas, he was a junkie.
Also standing there was the heavyweight champion, Frank Deckard, who was doing
time for killing a man with a single punch. Deckard and I were civil to each
other. He had once threatened to break my jaw, and I said that I would stab him
in the back. I was bluffing, confident he would back off, which he did.

Rudy Thomas and I were friends, but I think he
suspected all whites of being racists at some level. True enough, if it came to
a race war, I was white and I would fight, but I didn't think anyone was better
or worse than anyone because of race.

Then
there was Leon. Over my life I've had an unusual number of close friends.
American men seldom have really close male friends, the kind that can be called
"brother." I've had at least a dozen, or twice that, and scores who
were partners. Leon was among the top half-dozen, and for a while he was my
very best friend. I don't recall how we met. During my first year or so I would
have been too self-conscious to have a black man as a running partner. I had
several black friends, guys I'd known from juvenile hall through reform school
and, now, in San Quentin - but they were not running partners. I did not walk
the yard with them. Now, however, I had enough recognition and status, despite
being just twenty-one, for nobody to think anything, and even if they did, they
wouldn't say anything. Moreover, through me, Leon developed friendship and
gained respect from many white convicts of high status. Jimmy Posten had gotten
him a job in the dental clinic. The chief dentist would not sign a job change
for anyone without Jimmy's giving a nod. Leon was the only black to work there.
It wasn't because of racism; it was because you get your friends the good jobs.

Leon was precisely six foot tall, and weighed 175
pounds. He was average looking and never wore starched and pressed
bonaroo
clothes. It was when he talked that one
realized how unique he was. All traces of the common black accent had been
effaced in favor of precise enunciation. He told me that he had studied Clifton
Webb and Sydney Poitier for their speech, and he practiced by reading James
Baldwin and others aloud. In the three years he'd already served, he had taught
himself Spanish well enough to translate Shakespeare back and forth. He had
also become fairly fluent in French and Italian, and was presently studying Arabic.
The only decoration in his monkish cell was a pencil sketch of Albert Einstein.
He was the most intelligent man I'd met in prison. Few of those I'd known in
reform school could be called intelligent. It wasn't the breadth or the depth
of his knowledge that was so impressive. I'm sure I was more widely read. He
seldom read fiction, whereas I believe that nothing explores the depth and
darkness of the human mind better than great novels, and even an average novel
can throw a beam of light into an unknown crevice. Dostoevsky makes you
understand the thoughts of gamblers, murderers and others better than any
psychologist who ever lived, Freud included.

As I walked up, I nodded to Frank Deckard and Rudy,
and patted Leon on the back. "What's up?" I asked.

"I saw your name on the boxing card," Rudy
said.

I nodded. "Yeah. Frank talked me into it. He said
Tino Prieto will hurt Rooster."

"When's the last time you had the gloves
on?"

"I dunno. I guess about a year ago."

Rudy shook his head and looked to the sky. "He
might hurt you, too. He's old and he's got a little gut, but he had about
thirty, thirty-five professional fights. Look at his face."

"I know . . . but fuck it, you know what I mean.
I've got about I en or fifteen pounds on him. He's really a lightweight."

"He's in good shape and you damn sure ain't in
good shape."

"Too late now."

Leon interrupted. "Let's go. Littlejohn wants to
see you in the gym."

It was just after 9 a.m. The yard gate had just been
opened so convicts could go down the concrete stairs to the lower yard. The
first fight wouldn't be until one. I was the third bout. I wouldn't answer the
bell until at least 1.30.

I nodded, then said to Rudy, "Are they gonna
bring that lightweight in from Sacramento?" Frankie Goldstein, a fight
manager who often came to San Quentin for fight cards, to referee and
simultaneously see if there was any talent in the prison, was supposed to bring
a lightweight contender to box an exhibition with Rudy, who had gone through
everyone who would get in the ring with him. I had sparred with him in the gym
when I had secret ambitions to be a great white hope. I had never landed a
clean punch. And when he hit me, I seldom saw it coming. I think Rudy Thomas
could have been a world champion. Alas, he could not get away from the needle.

"Supposed to bring him in. We'll see."

I gestured goodbye to big Frank Deckard; he nodded
impassively in response. Leon and I walked away. "When you get done this
afternoon," he said, "I've got something to get high on."

"Let's do it now. What is it?"

"Hey, I'm not gonna get you loaded and then send
you into the ring. You'd get beat to death and wouldn't even know it."

"So it's better that way."

"Not if you get your brain scrambled. Sometimes
one terrible ass-kicking will do it."

"I see you've got a lot of confidence in
me."

"I think Jimmy Barry set you up . . . over that
thing last year."

That thing last year
was a fight between Leon and Jimmy. It happened after
I'd gotten to know Leon, but before we were partners. I'd been working out,
shadow boxing in front of a full-length mirror when someone said a real fight
was in progress. I had to be a spectator. It was happening in the handball
court at the other end of the gym. When I got there, Leon and Jimmy Barry were
fighting. Jimmy was twenty years older and twenty pounds lighter than Leon,
plus Leon was a good amateur light heavyweight. Jimmy Barry, however, had been
a top ranked welterweight. He was the matchmaker; he ran the boxing department.
He also had a bad name and a rat jacket. Good convicts shunned him as much as
possible, but it was hard to do so completely because of his position. He
controlled the boxing department. He distributed all equipment. Nobody was
assigned a locker or issued boxing shoes and mouthpiece except through him. He made
the matches, deciding who was to fight who.