Doing Time (31 page)

The negotiations continued over the next several days like a Ping-Pong match, back and forth, neither side wanting to lose the first point. Prison authorities still wouldn't agree to live media coverage.

“You either get the news media in here or else these talks will end!” the convicts yelled. “We don't have to talk at all!”

But the officials acted like it was all just a game. “We can't let a TV crew inside for security reasons. It can't be done!”

Several more bodies were dumped into the rec yard. The phone began to ring.

“Okay. We're working things out with an Ohio news network for a live TV interview. Can we get a hostage in return, as a show of good faith?”

“A hostage is no problem. We'll bring one of your people out when we come to do the interview. Set it up and call when you're ready.”

The following morning, before the interview was scheduled, a group of masked prisoners explained to those manning the phones that more food and water was needed.

The authorities saw this as a chance to show who was in control. “We can't change the original deal. You said all you wanted was a TV interview and we got it for you. Now you're playing games. We'll give you the interview but nothing else. If you want the food and water you'll have to give us two hostages.” A few minutes later another group of Masks, who called themselves the “hardliners,” came to the phone.

“Here's what's gonna happen,” said a spokesman for the hardliners. “You people are going to bring us more food and water with the TV interview for one hostage. This is not negotiable. If you play games, we'll send you a hostage — but he won't be walking out!”

The authorities denied the demand and asked to talk to the original negotiator. Returning to the phone, he said, “All we're asking for is food and water. We know this won't cost you a thing. If we don't get it, the hardliners will take over! There's nothing I can do. You could lose a hostage for something as bask as food and water!”

A local radio station, hearing of the exchange, expressed concern that the hostage might be killed, A spokesperson for the prison authorities released a statement to the media: “We don't take this too seriously. We believe it's a serious threat, but it's a common ploy used during a hostage situation.”

Later that day a hostage was killed. His body was placed on a mattress and carried into the rec yard by six convicts. Everyone waited for the National Guard to hit the joint, guns blasting at anything that moved.

Suddenly, one of the convicts at the back window yelled out: “They're crossing the yard! The state boys are in the rec yard heading this way!”

I ran to the window to see how much time I had before they reached the walls of L Corridor. Outside a light fog had begun to roll in, and from the center of the rec yard about thirty National Guardsmen marched forward in V formation.

“Get your motherfucking asses back across the yard, boys, or you'll get one of these hostages hurt!” a rioter yelled at the police.

All movement came to a halt. The phone began to ring. Before the prison officials could say anything the prisoner manning it yelled, “Get those police off the yard now! What the fuck are you trying to do?”

They cleared the yard. It was later discovered that they were only on the yard to serve as security while the news media set up a conference table and moved their equipment into place. Though tragic, the murder of the hostage had served as a catalyst. From that moment on, things moved forward quickly. The special negotiator from Georgia was now supervising most of the talks. A horde of thirty-five “experts” swarmed the prison authorities who were manning the phone banks.

The state wanted the siege to end without further bloodshed. They wanted the prison back under their rule, the remaining hostages released unharmed, and themselves out of the national media. The takeover had been dragging on in a slow blur, and people on both sides wanted to get on with their lives. Live TV and radio coverage was soon arranged. To show good faith, two hostages were released. The remaining five would be held till the day of surrender. One of the rioters' demands was that the 409 prisoners inside the L Corridor be represented by competent legal counsel to assure their safety and the protection of their rights. The authorities quickly agreed and flew in an attorney from Cleveland, who hammered out a contract with the convict negotiators. It was decided that they would surrender the following day.

Inside, the mood changed dramatically and activity shifted into high gear. Demolition crews were formed to destroy as much of SOCF as possible. Unit managers' offices were gutted, files destroyed, and windows, walls, and ceilings bashed. Each cell was hit. Toilets, sinks, and windows were busted; cell doors were removed, plumbing destroyed, and cabinets ripped off the walls. The control panels in each block were dismantled, and all the wiring and electrical components were ripped out or set ablaze. The sounds of destruction could be heard by the troops surrounding the prison. They stared as though expecting the walls to fall and the prisoners to come pouring out into the rec yard.

The prisoners packed up their personal property, preparing to leave a bad memory behind. High fives, laughs, and jokes filled the air, and the last of the food was given out in generous portions. It wasn't so much celebration of what had been accomplished as an expression of incredible relief that the thing was finally coming to an end.

The next afternoon, prisoner negotiators went through L Corridor collecting names of convicts who were willing to transfer to other prisons. As part of the agreement, the prison authorities had approved mass transfers, L Corridor would be closed for a couple of years or at least until all the damage had been repaired. This meant that hundreds of beds had to be found in a system already working at 185 percent over capacity. I didn't care where I ended up. I just wanted to leave SOCF; Val felt the same way. Our names were added to the transfer list. We knew anyplace would beat the shit out of Lucasville.

Val and I walked into one of the opened blocks and sat next to a fire. Our property was packed into large plastic trash bags and we were ready to walk out.

Out in the rec yard, state officials, media, legal counsel, and prison negotiators sat facing each other at the conference table. Each was furiously signing copies of the twenty-one-point agreement that the lawyers and prisoners had prepared.

I watched everyone shake hands and laugh, a false show of fellowship. Hell, I knew they held each other in contempt, but it meant that the agreement had been reached. If the package was wrapped in blatant hypocrisy, so be it.

TV cameras were trained on the door that would release the surrendering prisoners. The sick and the wounded went first. Some were busted up so badly that they came out on stretchers. Bloodied T-shirts and dirty makeshift bandages hung off their bodies like rags off scarecrows. Those able to walk on their own limped or hobbled as fast as their feet could carry them, eager to put distance between them and their assailants. Convicts watched the process from behind covered windows. If anything happened to the first group, the exchange would no longer be honored.

The surrender went smoothly, and at 10:30 P.M. Val and I walked into the rec yard with a group of thirty other prisoners. The special negotiator from Georgia escorted us to the state patrolmen.

“All right, men, listen up! When I direct you to come forward, you are to walk over to that officer there,” said a state official pacing in front of us. Pointing at me and two other prisoners, he shouted, “You, you, and you. Move up!”

I walked forward.

“Listen carefully to every word I say! Put your hands on your head, interlock your fingers, look straight ahead, and don't move!”

I stood there while one man held my hands on top of my head and another searched me for weapons. After tying my hands behind my back with a nylon rope, the officials escorted me to the K Corridor gym. My shoes swished through the wet grass as I walked away from the most bizarre eleven days of my life.

Two hours later over a hundred other convicts and 1 were put on three prison buses and shipped to the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The bus stopped at a red light in a small town, and through the steamed windows of the bus I could see a digital clock glowing a distorted 4:00 A.M. I looked over at Val. He was off in a world of his own, probably thinking of home and family. It seemed like the right thing to do, so I closed my eyes and went home too.

1995, Mansfield Correctional Institute Mansfield, Ohio

I needed a request slip, and as I walked out of my room on my way to the laundry I stopped by the officer's station to ask for one. There's a heavy metal drawer that slides in and out, where you can put your ID tag to get Tylenol, cold pills, envelopes, or requests. I was about to lean over and speak into the drawer, until I looked through the bulletproof glass window and realized that both guards were asleep sitting up, both their mouths hanging open. I could never sleep that way. I stood there for a minute or so. I hated to wake them up — they might cop an attitude and shine a flashlight in my eyes when they came around on midnight shift to get even — but I needed that request slip, and if I didn't hurry, the laundry would be closed. 1 figured that if I just stood there one of them was bound to wake up soon on his own.

Just as I was about to tap on the glass, this sissy named Jerome came screaming down the stairs from the second floor, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Pearl got stabbed, Pearl got stabbed! My God, you gotta help her! PEARL'S BEEN STABBED… !” It was bloodcurdling, Jerome's screeching, so panic-stricken and desperate that I thought for sure I'd see a butcher knife sticking out of Jerome's back as he raced past me. Jerome screamed into the drawer to the sleeping guards, “PEARL GOT STABBED, PEARL GOT STABBED,” and the shock of those words caused the guards to almost jump out of their socks. They snapped awake like they'd been shot. Confused and befuddled, not knowing what to do, they stared at Jerome as he hammered on the impregnable glass with his fists, hollering over and over, “PEARL GOT STABBED, PEARL GOT STABBED.”

I knew this wasn't a good time to ask for a request slip, so I stood there for a moment, frozen, tike everyone else. The guards were arguing over who would call it in on the telephone, and who would go back upstairs to see what happened. Neither one of the guards seemed to want to race up the stairs to investigate. Survival instincts are strong.

We all went back up the stairs together. As the guard came out of the control room, Kilgore, Pearl's chain gang boyfriend, pushed past him and walked out of the building, the blood on his hands unnoticed. When I got up to the second floor, I saw a crowd of prisoners looking down the hallway. I didn't need to see any more, I'd seen enough of death and dying in prison, and I didn't want to see poor Pearl butchered up. I turned away, walked downstairs, and headed to the laundry to drop off my clothes before it was too late.

As I walked down the back road, I thought of the last time I'd seen Pearl, the day before. I had been by the window of the upstairs TV room when 1 looked out and saw Pearl spreading his freshly washed underclothes out on the grass to dry. Pearl had on a bleached-white T-shirt and white cutoff shorts, stark contrast to his jet black skin. Pearl was small and slight, like a young boy physically, but toughened beyond his years by the time he'd spent in prison, playing a woman's role in a little man's body, trying to get along and live a normal life in an abnormal environment. I had known Pearl since we'd both been at “The Rock,” Raiford Prison, and I had signed him up for the GOLAB (Growth Orientation Laboratory) program, for which I was working at the time.

I knew him then by his given name, Emerson Jackson. In the GOLAB, prisoners spend eight days talking together without any free people observing them, going through a series of events that give them the chance to talk about their lives, to hear other people's stories, and to gain insight into their own situations. I remembered Pearl talking about his early life. He was reticent, shy, unwilling to share his experiences at first, then finally opening up, talking and talking, about his childhood, how he came to prison, how he'd come to that point in his life. We listened with rapt attention. Pearl and I had virtually nothing in common, it seemed, besides being prisoners, and under normal circumstances in prison we'd not likely have even so much as spoken to one another, but in the GOLAB we developed a mutual respect and camaraderie that transcended racial, ethnic, cultural, and social boundaries. I came to know Emerson Jackson as a sensitive human being, a decent person, a man who had endured incredible hardships, who had survived and succeeded in the harsh prison environment, and as Pearl, who had pursued a lifestyle that was alien to me. It was Pearl's life though, and I respected him. He was my friend.

Years went by. I left The Rock and went on a tour of Florida prisons after making the mistake of thinking that filing grievances would have any effect besides causing me to be bused from one prison to another until I wised up and shut up. I finally made it to central Florida, thirty-eight miles from my family in Tampa, and decided that for their sake I'd keep a low profile. My mother was getting too old to drive out to swamps in the middle of nowhere trying to find where they'd shipped her son this time.

When you're serving a life sentence, and you've served a chunk of years, no matter where you go you find people you've done time with before. It was no different this time. When I got off the bus and hit the yard, it was like old home week at the reformatory, seeing men I'd known for years, when we'd all been younger, thinner, with more hair and fewer tattoos. We laughed, talked, compared notes, asked about mutual acquaintances, who'd gotten out, who'd come back, who'd died, who'd escaped.

A day or two later I saw Pearl standing in a line. He glanced at me as I walked by, averting his eyes, and we both continued on. There are barriers beyond the razor wire that surrounds us and keeps us in, racial barriers, gay versus straight barriers, homeboy barriers, among others, that constitute an etiquette of sorts in prison. I didn't want to embarrass Pearl in front of his friends by letting it be known that some white person knew him, and perhaps Pearl didn't want anyone to think the wrong thing if he spoke to me.