Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (53 page)

At 12.45 a fistfight broke out
in the segregation unit exercise yard. The gunrail officer blew his whistle (no
response) and fired the obligatory warning shot. That fight broke apart, but
the rifle shot was heard throughout the prison. White convicts waiting in the
lower yard thought the general attack was underway. They drew their weapons and
charged a group of unarmed blacks lounging around the gate into industries, men
waiting to return to work after lunch. Unarmed and taken by complete surprise,
they ran for their lives. There were two stragglers, gray-haired old men who
faded to realize their mortal danger in time. They tried to run, but the pack
of wolves closed on them swiftly. The leader sprang upon one man's back. Down
he went, disappearing under half a dozen more, the rising and fading knives red
in the sun. The second old man reached the chain link fence around the
gardener's area. They tore him loose and fell upon him with the fury of wdd
dogs. The medical report said he suffered at least forty-two wounds that could
have caused his death.

San Quentin was locked down for two months after all
that. Dady buses rolled to Folsom, Soledad, Tracy. A couple of the craziest
were sent to the California Medical Facility at Vacaville and given electric
shock therapy. That took away their aggression but also a few points of IQ that
these guys couldn't afford to lose.

The lockup continued. The white
clique and their Chicano partners managed to exchange a few words on the
grapevine. The words were "wait . . . wait . . . wait . . ." They had
been taken totally off guard by the series of attacks and had no idea it was in
retaliation for the black being stabbed in the East Cell House. That had been
done by a Chicano. So what if he was a fan of Hider's S.S.?

Nothing happened on the
following Wednesday and Thursday. The lockup was too tight. Every convict out
of the cell was searched several times. Even I got frisked by a rookie bull. On
the weekend the West Honor Unit returned to normal schedule. A few other
workers were pulled from the breakfast lines.

The Associate Warden had many
inmates brought to his office. He wanted to know the mood of the prison. This
Associate Warden, however, was both disliked and lacking in contacts with the
right convicts. Those he called lacked prestige or influence in the yard. He
appointed a committee of convicts to "cool" the situation, but those
on the committee were without respect among their peers. The blacks,
especially, had no juice. The very fact that they would even talk to the
"chief pig" closed them off from their brothers.

A black program administrator
summoned me and three other whites considered leaders. He wanted us to assure
him that nothing more would happen. I told him that I didn't run anything and
couldn't speak for anybody. Two others stood silent, heads down. The third
flushed and stuttered: "They done downed five or six white dudes . . . old
men and strays who didn't do nothin' to nobody. Next they'll want us to pluck
our eyebrows and get a black jocker. Me . . . I'm not promising anything."
Nothing was resolved.

The plan of waiting for normal
routine was gaining acceptance. Nazis and Hell's Angels backed away, claiming
that none of their brothers had been hit and they would stay on the sideline
until that happened.

The blacks weren't waiting for
Whitey. They continued on the offensive.

I happened to be on the fifth
tier, standing outside a cell occupied by a couple friends of mine, when I saw
two blacks appear around the corner and start down the tier. Luckily my friends
had a roofing hatchet in the cell. They passed it through the bars. The blacks
saw it, stopped and went the other way. It wasn't cowardice — but even if they
killed me, I would surely inflict some wounds, and wounds would get them
caught.

On the fourth tier, another
white, a motorcycle rider, was in front of a cell trying to buy a tab of acid.
He worked in the mess hall scullery and had just gotten off work. In fact he
was still wearing the heavy rubber boots from the job. The cell where he stood
was in the middle of the tier. The same two blacks came down the tier from the
rear. A third black walked along the tier below and climbed up near the front.
The white was between them. He saw them and sensed danger, for he backed up
against the rail, refusing to turn his back on them. Had I been in his
situation, I would have climbed over the tier long before they arrived. The
white convict spread his arms and rested his hands on the railing, leaning back
so he could look up. He was probably trying to hide evidence of fear. A smart
convict, white or black, would have climbed up or down without hesitation. This
man probably thought he wasn't involved; he hadn't done anything to anyone. He
was insufficiently afraid to save his own life. The black from the front
arrived first. When ten feet away, he pulled his shiv and rushed forward. The
white turned to face him and threw up his hands to ward off the blade. It
went
between his hands and plunged
into his chest. An instant later the other two arrived from the rear. One
knifed him in the back. The biggest of the trio grabbed him from behind and
pinned his arms. The first black stabbed at his throat. The blade entered just
above the collarbone, drove down through his lungs and into his heart. He
continued struggling, but blood was spewing from his mouth and he was already
dying. The second black kept stabbing him. There were no screams, just grunts
and gasps and the horrifying sound of tearing flesh. Mirrors jutted between
bars along the tier, periscopes of men trying to see what was going on. Whites
began yelling and rattling the bars to drive off the killers. They were
watching a murder and unable to do anything to stop it. Men on tiers above and
below called out: "What's goin' on?" "Them niggers is killin' a
motherfucker!" A black voice: "Gonna get all you honky
motherfuckers."

The killers sprinted down the
rear stairs as a score of guards arrived on the run. Only six blacks were out
of their cells. All were taken into custody for investigation. A bloody knife
was found beneath a blood-spattered denim jacket in a trash can. Neither item
led to anyone. The next morning, following calls from the local NAACP chapter,
the Associate Warden told the Captain to release the six blacks because there
was no evidence against them. Instead he ordered several friends of the victim
to be locked up, the logic being that they might try to retaliate. Before they
could be released, guards discovered traces of blood on the shoes of three,
plus they told conflicting stories. The Associate Warden rescinded the release
order.

That afternoon, word got around
that guards would look the other way when whites struck back. Bias was long
established, but outright license to kill was something new. The unholy
alliance of white guards and convicts was not mutual love but shared hatred.
Untd recent years, most guards had been even-handed when dealing with convicts.

The senseless murder in the East
Cell House was the catalyst for madness. Even I, who had empathy for the
anguish of the black man in America, now seethed with racial hatred. When the
slow unlock for supper began, half a tier at a time, faces showed how things
were going. White convicts were sullen and sdent, blacks were laughing and
joking. When the fifth tier of the East Cell House was unlocked, whistles
suddenly began bleating. Guards ran up the stairway and found two blacks in
their cell, lying in their blood. One walked out, seriously wounded. The other
was half under the bottom bunk, spuming blood from his mouth with each breath.
That indicated a punctured lung. A gunrail guard had four whites covered, and
blacks on the tier were pointing them out. Most guards were uninterested in
investigating what had happened. Both victims lived. They claimed that two
whites had run into their cell and started stabbing the moment the security bar
went up, whde the other two whites held everyone else at bay on the tier. The
jocular laughter had turned to sdence.

Except for a fistfight,
seventy-two hours passed without incident. The officials were considering a
return to normal routine. Kitchen workers were already following the usual
routine. The culinary department had a locker room and shower on the second
floor that could be reached only up a narrow, concrete-walled stairway. More
than one unsolved murder had occurred in the area, the last one a stool pigeon
whose jugular was literally torn from his throat. Whde officials were considering
an unlock, half a dozen white convicts fded up the stairway, each with a knife
in his belt. Five blacks were in the room, shaving, showering, rinsing their
hands or standing at the urinal when the whites came through the door. One
black saw the attack coming and ran into a wire enclosure where towels were
stored. He held the door closed. The others had nowhere to go. Within seconds,
blood was splattering the walls. Blacks were running in circles, followed by
whites with knives. One husky black youth lowered his head and charged at the
narrow entrance to the stairs. Two Hell's Angels waited. He got past the first
one and crashed into the second. Both of them went down the stairs. The white
broke his ankle. The black had several wounds, and a shiv hanging from his
buttocks. He ran into the kitchen proper where I happened to be standing next
to Lieutenant Ziemer and the Watch Sergeant, both of whom were eating bacon and
egg sandwiches. "I'm hit," the black convict said. His white T-shirt
was bloody and we could see the shiv dangling. It had a certain absurdity. The
Sergeant told him: "You're not hurt that bad. Wait over there."

The black who got down the
stairs actually saved the lives of the others. The whites thought the alarm was
given and they fled before finishing off the remaining trio. One of the victims
died. His spinal cord had been severed. He went into a coma and never regained
consciousness. The other victims were never shown photos to identify. Higher
officials were hamstrung by the hostde indifference of their sergeants and
lieutenants. The plan to unlock the prison was put on hold. Cold sandwiches
were pushed through the bars twice a day, except for the previously mentioned
"essential workers," who were served hot meals. I was locked up all day,
but when the shift changed, I was let out. About 10 p.m., Lieutenant Ziemer
went to Key Control and drew the keys to the kitchen's walk-in refrigerators.
It was T-bone time for the favored few, me and the late cleanup crew. During
the day I worked on cutting the novel and writing my first essay; it was about
prison's racial troubles.

Gone was the blacks' laughter of
the first few days, but blacks and whites who had known each other since
childhood now passed with stone faces without speaking or even acknowledging
the other's existence. Friendships ceased. In a world absolutely integrated,
each cell identical with every other cell, each man eating the same food and
wearing the same clothes, racial hatred was malevolent and intractable. Most
convicts lacked a sanctuary where they could relax. Even the cell offered no
safety. An empty jar could be filled with gas and smashed against the bars,
followed by a book of flaming matches. It has happened more than once. Going to
eat, even half a tier at a time, with two gun bulls fifteen feet away, required
passing blind spots on the stair landings where an ambush could be laid. A
group of whites or blacks could be waiting for someone of the opposite color,
or maybe simply waiting for another friend — but someone of the opposite color
wouldn't know why they were there, and virtually had to brush against them. A
white was jumped that way but he managed to get away. Ten minutes later in
another cell house, a white lunged at a black, but exposed his knife before he
was in range. The black saw it and bolted down the tier.

The Associate Warden's committee
of inmates was allowed to roam the cell houses at night, hoping to talk to
militants and end the war. One white used the peacekeeping unlock to take a
shower. A black caught him naked and wet and stabbed him in the neck.
Miraculously he survived. Two black guards worked the cell house that night.
They covered for the black assailant as the white guards had covered for whites
in other situations.

The next day a friend of the
latest victim lunged into a group of blacks with a knife. He stabbed one
through the upper arm. Another black jumped on the assaliant's back and pulled
him down. Guards arrived and overpowered him. He would get a five to life for
possession of the knife.

In the North Cell House the
convicts reached a truce. No attacks would be made in the building. Outside the
budding it was still open season. Neither side entirely believed the other. No
white, or group of whites, could speak for every other white, nor could any
group of blacks speak for all other blacks. Yet the truce held as days became
weeks, at least in the North Cell House.

In the rest of San Quentin a
week went by; then two weeks. So many convicts were locked up that they were
four and five deep in the hole, and the buses were rolling. After another ten
days, the prison was slowly returned to regular schedule. On Saturday afternoon
the weekend movie was shown in the North Mess Hall. One of the blacks involved
in the shower stabbing had not been picked up. He was at the movie. When
the end
flashed onscreen and the lights went up, the crowd
started moving toward the exits. A white and his Chicano homeboy tried to stick
the black, but someone yelled a warning and he got away.

Minutes later a hundred blacks
were bunched under the weather shed, facing an equal number of whites and some
Chicanos grouped next to the East Cell House. The Big Yard was totally sdent.
The convict disc jockey in the prison radio room then turned the country music
full blast. I'll never forget the song: "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon
You." I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

Only four or five of the white
clique who did the killing were still in general population. The rest were in
segregation. Two of the remainder walked toward the blacks, as if going for a
drink of water at the fountain. One small black started to ease forward through
the crowd, trying to move in from the rear. Several others moved with him. The
two whites turned suddenly. One drew a roofing hatchet, the other a shiv the
size of a short sword. The small black ducked back and discarded his knife,
stopped both by the size and weaponry of the opposition, and by the clacking
sound of lever action rifles being readied. It was the blacks that the white
guards would shoot.

The whites near the East Cell
House who had started forward now stopped. The two men in front got back into
the crowd. A black guard kept one of them in sight, but the convict managed to
drop his shiv and kick it into the crowd. Someone got rid of it.