Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (45 page)

I would stand up so I could see him through the glass.
Three times a week we would have the same conversation. He would ask wher j he
was and I would tell him. He would ask where I was from. I would tell him. He
would ask if I knew Eddie the Fox Chaplick. In a day his memory would nearly
return. He would say. "Oh yeah," and remember something else. It was
always the same sequence of conversation. When his memory was almost back, they
would take him out for another electric shock treatment. It went on for two
months.

They let me out of S-3, put me in the parole
violators' unit and began preparing for a parole violation hearing. They sent
to the field for a report, and when they gave me the charges, included were the
same charges for which a court had ruled that I was incompetent to face in a
court of law with an attorney and all the protections of American
jurisprudence. He couldn't face the charges there, how could I face them in a
parole violation hearing without any legal protection or even a
record? I sensed that they had made a mistake and I began
studying law books.

The parole violator unit had
several men I'd known in San Quentin and elsewhere, including one who would
eventually tell me the story that is the basis of my novel,
Dog Eat Dog.
My legal insanity became a
running gag. Loitering in the long corridor was prohibited. A guard would come
along, telling inmates to move on, out to the yard or into the housing unit. As
a joke, when they got about fifteen feet away, I would turn and begin jabbing
my finger at the wall and talking irrationally: "What? What? You better
not say that. I'm tellin' ya now . . . now and now . . .. Stop it. . . freeze.
Vroom . . . vroom . . . vroom . . ."I would punctuate the last words by a
pantomime of shifting gears in a car: I would throw it into third, make a hard
pivot and take off walking while making engine sounds. The guard would look
consternated, and my friends would choke back their laughter.

In the mess hall serving hne,
the new arrivals assigned to ladling the food were scared of me. I would look
at them wdd-eyed and shake my tray in front of them. They would overload it,
although I did it more for the fun than for the food, which was usually hard to
eat in a regular ration, much less in extra portions.

About this time I received a
letter from the daughter of Dr Marcel Frym, the psychoanalyst whom I'd met
through Al Matthews during court proceedings for the assault on the
correctional officer. Every so often there is a newspaper account of some
apparendy middle-class woman fading in love with some apparent human monster
with a passel of grisly murders and awaiting execution. Most people simply
shake their heads in awed distaste; it is beyond their range of experience.
Actually the infatuation is not with a real person but with someone created in
fantasy, someone they can visit periodically, as a patient does with a
psychoanalyst. The convict behind bars suddenly has all the attributes for
which the woman yearns. She gives them to him. She creates an
imago
and loves it as if it is a
fully realized person. She can come every week, or every month, and sit across
from him for several hours, pouring forth the torments of her soul and psyche
until the inevitable transference transpires.

I could see that this was what
was happening here. I was very ambivalent about the relationship. I'd been
accused of being manipulative and exploitative, especially of women. In all
candor, it was a judgement I thought erroneous. Where were the facts? Mrs Hal
Wallis? I had not taken advantage of her even when she was having the breakdown
and would have given me anything. Nevertheless, I was still very conscious of
the accusation — even though the whole world was arrayed against me and I
needed at least one ally.

Dr Frym's daughter, named
Mickey, was not merely willing; she was enthusiastic. She said she had been in
a cocoon since she was a teenager, "and now I'm a butterfly flying
free." Frankly, she scared me. If she got hurt in my world, the other
world would blame me. I was unconcerned about most of them, but Mickey's father
had befriended me. On the other hand, this was a war for survival, and anyone
close could get hit by shrapnel. Alone save for some scruffy convicts, I was
desperate for allies. I let her into my life.

Her letters became fiery and
voluminous. Mail was pushed under the cell door before morning unlock, on the
assumption that it would start the convict's day with him in a good mood. The
assumption was correct. Mickey wrote every day, but with the vagaries of the US
Mail and the prison mail room, some mornings nothing was beneath the door, and
on others, usually Tuesday, her letters would literally cover my floor.

Then she came to visit. She was
no drop dead beauty, but she radiated a powerful sensuality from the toss of
her thick, raven hair to the bounce of her hips as she walked. She bore some
physical resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor, with a great upper body and legs a
littletoo short for perfection. Although I have always been a connoisseur of
legs and
derriere,
with only minimal interest in the female breast (a near un-American attitude),
I found Mickey sexually attractive. Her most attractive characteristic, however,
was not physical; it was her moxie. She was dying for adventure. She would get
plenty before it was over.

When she left, she went to the
county seat of Fairfield and retained a young lawyer, who came over and asked:
"How do you treat him?" The prison official replied: "We treat
him like everyone else." "That's the point. He isn't like everyone.
He's a mental patient."

The lawyer went to check the law
books for remedies. The Department of Corrections decided to throw the hot
potato. One day without warning, the public address system called out:
"Bunker . . . A20284, report to Receiving and Release."

I thought maybe it was a
clothing package, or maybe they needed some fingerprints. The last thing I
expected was that they would throw me a white jumpsuit and tell me to change.
Fifteen minutes later I was rolling out the back gate in a seven-passenger van.

When we reached Atascadero, the
state hospital was taken by surprise. They didn't want me. I told them that I
would leave immediately on foot if they were serious. The prison psychiatrists
certified that I was returned to competency.

After three hours of waiting,
they took me in and let the driver leave. The neo-Nazi doctor was ready and
waiting for me. Back to the same side room. I noted that the glass observation
windows had been replaced by metal plates with holes to look through. That was
before they put me in "full" restraints. First the straitjacket; then
they stretched me on the bed and tied bed sheets from my ankles to the bed
frame, and other sheets from my armpits to the top of the bed frame. The
restraints were so tight and the old bed sagged so much in the middle that I
was suspended over it. (No, that's an exaggeration, but barely.) The whole
thing was topped off by a shot of Prolixin, the drug of instant, prolonged
mental vegetation. The effect of a single injection lasts a week. As the
attendant readied the needle, the neo-Nazi doctor stood grinning beside the
bed. He'd taken my earlier insurrection of the insane very personally. Looking
at me, he saw an outlaw, a criminal. When I looked at him, I envisioned a black
uniform with swastika armband and death's head lapel buttons.

Reports were written, signed, sealed, stamped and sent
in record time to the Municipal Court, City of Inglewood. In three weeks the
Sheriff's Department bus came through, dropping some off,picking some up. I was
among the latter.

While I was in Vacaville, Denis
my drag-dealing friend from Hollywood came through the reception center on a
parole violation. He'd been approached for help by the pimps when I was
extorting them. Denis told me that a certain well known shyster lawyer named
Brad Arthur could get my parole warrant lifted How did he do it? Denis wasn't
sure, but it could be done. Immediately I sent Mickey to see Brad Arthur to
ascertain if lie could do this and what it would cost. "But don't give him
any money until I tell you ..."

Within days of that instruction,
I was transferred back to Atascadero State Hospital. There, wearing a
straitjacket, tied to a bed and turned into a vegetable, I was allowed neither
visits nor to write letters. The necessary pencil was considered too dangerous
for me to handle.

Mickey, who knew California
Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk through her father, called him up. Although
he didn't appreciate the imposition, and probably found her request borderline
improper, he called Atascadero's Superintendent and mack- inquiry. Coming from
a State Supreme Court justice, it was enough to get her and Brad Arthur through
the firewall of the neo-Nazi doctor. I was to be returned to LA within the
week. Although attendants and the doctor hovered around us, I was able to tell
Mickey and Brad to "take care of the parole hold."

I had no idea if it had been
done when the Sheriff's Department bus arrived at Atascadero, dropping a couple
off, picking some up. For the next several days we traversed the highways of
Central California, stopping at county jads to pick up prisoners wanted in Los
Angeles, and deliver others wanted in San Luis Obispo or Monterey or
Bakersfield. When we reached the bus unloading yard of the Los Angeles Central
Jail, it was past midnight. LAPD buses and vans were disgorging young black men
by the score, and by the hundreds through the night. The air was filled with
anger's ozone. The police wielded nightsticks, poking and prodding anil
slapping them in their palms whde yelling, "Move it! Move on in!" I
did not know it at the time, but it was the first night of the Watts riot.
While I was being booked, notice came that bail had been posted. The critical
moment would be when I was at the last stage of release, when the booking clerk
called me to the window to check my armband and compare my fingerprints.

"When the door buzzes, push
out," said the deputy.

The gray paint was worn off
where coundess thousands of hands had pushed through ahead of me. The door
buzzed, I pushed and the door opened. Mickey was waiting outside, and dawn was
coming up over the City of Angels. We went forthwith to a motel on 7
^th
Street where she had rented a room. We watched the Watts riot on the tube.
Thank God I wasn't in jad when the thousands of angry young blacks were dragged
in.