Gang of One: One Man's Incredible Battle to Find His Missing (21 page)

‘Why does it matter so much?’ I asked, wearily.

‘Because it does,’ he answered quickly, before pausing slightly then changing his tone. ‘Look, Scotland . . . it’s like this. Each gang runs a certain part of the “business” of the prison.’ He leant forward on the bunk, hand gestures patiently mirroring his words, like a teacher. ‘Each gang has a shot-caller; the guy who calls the shots. Everything goes through him, and he determines what actions, what punishments or retributions take place. If we sort things out ourselves, in the quiet of the Ranges, then the cops never need get involved, and they are happy and we’re happy,’ he explained. ‘This way it’s good for business, good for everyone.’

I doubted that. Chief had already told me that the gangs operated an uneasy truce, dividing the various ‘business lines’ between themselves from prison to prison. In Big Spring, those lines were gambling, steroid usage, smoking, drugs, alcohol and male prostitution. On top of these main streams, there was more of a free-for-all in the extortion market, with each gang free to find their own ‘marks’ to extort. Sometimes one gang would encroach into another’s territory and a mini war would ensue. The war would never determine who was right, said Chief, just who was left. Then the cops would step in to restore order and allow the one gang or other to prevail. And there was big money in each of these rackets. In Federal prisons there was a complete smoking ban (unlike UK prisons, which still allow smoking) and a full packet of cigarettes retailed at a staggering $450 in Big Spring. With many of the cops on around $22,000 per year, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine where a lot of the gangs got their supplies from.

‘So, are you a shot-caller?’ I asked. Angel smiled easily. He had a gold tooth with a diamond encrusted in it, just left of centre on the top row.

‘Sure. I run the Kings. We are based out of LA. On the out I used to be responsible for two prisons,’ he offered matter-of-factly as he took off his top and showed me a tattoo of a crown covering his entire back. ‘That’ll never come off,’ he said, with some pride.

‘What do you mean you ran two prisons on the out?’

‘Man, you really don’t know shit about shit, do you?’ he said with a smile. Then he mused, more to himself than to me, ‘You really did come from another kind of Pollok.’ He had so much energy and enthusiasm when he spoke. He was constantly moving around; such a stark contrast from the usual sluggish inhabitants of Big Spring. ‘I ran the prisons for the Kings,’ he explained. ‘Everything you get on the inside needs to get paid for on the outside. No one in here can pay hundreds of bucks for a packet of cigs – someone on the outside has to pay it for them. So I used to make sure the money hits the right accounts, and then gets used properly – most of the guys on the inside have families, kids and shit, and we need to make sure they are looked after. We look after our own. It also helps fund our businesses on the outside. Once you join the Kings, you’re always a King. You never leave the Kings, unless it’s in a body bag. You know what I’m saying?’

I nodded. I knew what he was saying and I mentally crossed the Kings off my list of potential gangs to join. ‘Each prison should make about $2 million a year,’ Angel said. ‘Although I think I can make much more from them now I’ve had a chance to spend some time on the inside.’

I refrained from making any quips about Angel reconnecting with his customer base. I just wanted to know what it had to do with me. ‘Not everyone runs in one gang or another, Scotland, but for the smooth running of operations here, we prefer that people who are high-profile or who interfere have at least some allegiance. And that’s why we need to figure out what to do about you. Problem is you are already high-profile: you’re European, you’re seen as part of all that Enron shit irrespective of the facts of it, so you’re too high-profile to walk alone. And as for that shit you tried to pull the other day, well, that just compounds matters. We can’t allow that.’

Thinking again about the beating, I nodded slightly. ‘Look, I’m not from here and all this stuff is new to me, but I’m a quick learner. You said not everyone runs with someone. Can’t I be one of those guys?’ I asked hopefully.

‘No, Scotland. Shit happens around you, shit happens to you. That’s how you rock, that’s how you play. You’ll be too dangerous outside a gang and it will be too dangerous for you too. You’re gonna have to run with someone. Let me read through your papers and check that everything’s cool there, then we’ll talk some more. In the meantime, try to stay out of everyone’s shit and do your own time. You know what I’m saying?’

I finally got what Malone had meant all that time ago about ‘doing your own time’.

Angel stood up to leave. ‘And by the way, if that lieutenant hauls your ass in about that beating, you didn’t see shit!’

‘I didn’t see shit,’ I echoed, as if it were true. We fist-bumped and he went on his way, my papers and immediate fate in his hands.

12

DON’T PANIC

I
LASTED IN THE CLEANING JOB
for six weeks, during which time I availed myself of every opportunity to find alternative work. I had initially hoped to continue my partnership with Gato, as I felt we made a good team and I hadn’t been hassled by anyone else wanting to use the toilet while I had my head halfway down it. Gato talked to me constantly, often about the many buildings and banks he had robbed, and how he had managed to get into them and escape without a trace. I say without a trace although that isn’t strictly true as he was eventually caught because of his insistence on leaving the ‘paw mark’ of a cat in each conquest. I asked him if he thought of leaving a fairy cake instead, but he didn’t see the funny side of that. Like many others I had talked to, Gato had a barely disguised pride in his work and I doubt he was actually interested in what he stole – it was the challenge he liked. He seemed constantly frustrated that it was a drug bust that finally got him Federal time; like he was cheapened by it, since his real artistry was in breaking and entering. Sadly, however, my education was curtailed. One day Gato approached me and told me that another Sureno brother was coming to Big Spring and that he would be taking my job in the toilets, thus making me redundant. It seemed the gangs really did control every aspect of the prison – even the least glamorous ones.

This was a pity as I’d got into a tolerable routine by then. Everyone would head off to work by 7.30 a.m. and I would continue reading to around 8 a.m. I got into the habit of reading while facing the wall at that time in the morning, so I didn’t have to see who specifically had just been into the latrines, or speculate as to what they might have left there. That helped me. It was pretty gruesome work, but I was usually finished in an hour and a half, by which point there would be a queue of people waiting to undo all my hard labour. I didn’t mind. No one came to check my handiwork, and I would be finished and back to my bunk well before lunchtime.

That gave me time to try and find new work. Big Spring offered a number of interesting positions for the misplaced Bank Executive on a range of salary levels, peaking at $200 a month in the ‘factory’ assembly line, producing fine garments for other prison establishments. Unfortunately that career path required a six-month initial stint in the kitchen, unattractive to me on grounds of the sharp knives and the Tex-Mex menu. I had also heard that there was much fun and merriment to be had from placing various concoctions and organisms into certain inmates’ food, and since I had to eat this stuff every day, I really didn’t want to know what was in it. Fortunately, some career advice came to me from my favourite source.

‘You can read and write, right?’ Chief asked me one typically airless afternoon.

‘Of course.’

‘Cool,’ he responded, ‘I’ll speak to the Head Librarian, Miss Reed, for you.’ He went back to his drawing then, when I didn’t go away, looked up again. ‘Can I do anything else for you, Scotty?’

‘Erm, well, this Miss er . . . librarian. Won’t she want some more information from me? Or a CV – you know, résumé – or something?’

Chief chuckled. ‘You just done give me your “CV” when you said you could read and write, Scotland.’

Miss Reed seemed to feel the same way. Our interview, which took place the next day, was brief, focused and involved minimal eye contact. I went off to the library wearing my best khakis, having paid another inmate – El Turko, aka Turk the Knife, who apparently was as gifted with the knife as he was with an iron – one stamp to iron them for me the night before. Stamps were the currency everyone used in Big Spring – all trading between inmates was calculated by the number of stamps needed, and fortunately Chief had given me a few to get me going until I could get some funds into my prison account. I had also shaved with a brand new Bic razor and washed my hair, placing a handwritten CV (colour-coded, no less) in my shirt pocket. Chief found all of this preparation very amusing and kept telling me it was going to be unnecessary. And he was, of course, right.

‘Mulgrew!’ Miss Reed shouted from behind her desk after I had been waiting nervously outside her office for ten minutes or so. I walked in, and waited to be told to sit at the chair on the other side of her desk. Her head was down writing something, her office in total chaos. Another decaying US government office and another person not looking at me. There were books everywhere, some new, some battered, some badly defaced. Book rage seemed to be an issue in Big Spring. Miss Reed looked around the mid-forties mark, although it was difficult to tell, as she hadn’t raised her head yet. She had curly dark hair, partially dyed, and from what small portions of her I could see, seemed a bit overweight and caked in make-up. I hadn’t seen any women so far in Big Spring, other than the psych, and I knew from Chief that the library employed ‘civilians’, so I was really unsure what to call her or what the overall etiquette was. So I stood in front of her desk awkwardly, waiting to be told to take a seat.

‘Sit, Mulgrew,’ she barked, waving her pen and still not looking at me. This began to irk me.

‘I’m a man, a human being,’ I thought, ‘not a dog,’ but just as quickly I rebuked myself. I was a fool to be looking for normal human interaction – I was here to be punished, and every engagement with officialdom was a reminder. I was a bad person, a crook, a criminal, a transgressor. I had failed society and society deemed I had to be taken out and ‘corrected’. I sighed.

Miss Reed nodded her head lightly at some of the books strewn across her desk in front of me. ‘Can you read from one of them, Mulgrew?’ she asked, still studiously avoiding looking up.

‘Fucking look at me,’ I thought. This was beginning to get to me. I looked down at the books – quite an assortment, and some of them surprised me. Paulo Coelho and a number of self-help books, lots of Grisham and Patterson, and even my fellow ‘crim’ Lord Jeffrey Archer graced her desk. I reached for a battered Penguin copy of Charles Dickens’
A Tale of Two Cities
.

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .’ I checked to see if Miss Reed was listening. She continued to write. I went on. ‘ . . . it was the age of wisdom, it was the epoch of belief, it was the incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .’ The words held resonance for me, but little, apparently, for Miss Reed. She was still writing.

Injecting more feeling into the prose and slightly increasing the volume to accentuate the negatives, I continued, ‘ . . . we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short . . .’ but before I could continue, Miss Reed looked up at me. I stopped.

I was right, I thought, about mid forties and showing signs of Big Spring wear and tear. Her face wasn’t as covered in make-up as I had thought and I imagined she probably had a nice countenance in the free world. But in here she was stern and unflinching. She looked back down at her work.

‘You Irish, Mulgrew?’ she asked as she picked her pen back up.

‘Scottish,’ I said, happy there was some sort of dialogue.

‘Where do you work now?’ she asked, back to addressing her questions to the papers in front of her.

‘I clean the toilets in the Range; I’ve only just arrived.’ I said those words, but six weeks already felt like a lifetime.

‘Oh,’ she said, sounding disappointed in this information, without offering a reason why. She was silent for a while longer. ‘Well,’ she eventually said, ‘there’s a position available in a week or two working with AJ. Do you know AJ?’

‘No, ma’am.’ I wondered if ‘knowing AJ’ was significant.

‘Well, anyway,’ she continued, ‘there’s a position for you if you want it. It pays $14 a month and your hours are 7.30 a.m. to 12.05. Let me know by next week; assuming, of course, you can manage to get yourself out of working in the kitchens. Do you think you are resourceful enough to figure that out, Mulgrew?’ she asked, glancing back at me briefly.

‘I’ll try, ma’am,’ I responded, taking my cue that the ‘interview’ was over. She didn’t speak or look up again as I exited the room, my colour-coded CV still tucked away in my shirt pocket.

I wanted that library job because I was desperate for some respite from the noise and constant chaos of the Big Room. Our Range kept filling up by the day, with new arrivals making the space feel ever more constrained. The bunk below me was still unoccupied and a few of the bunks around me as well. But I dreaded the moment, the moment I knew must come, when inmates moved into that last tiny island of space.

The most intimidating arrival of all had been a large black man (known as ‘Big City’) who, much to my horror, lumbered around looking for his bunk number before heading my way and occupying the bottom bed immediately next to my bunk. He was around 6ft 10, and about 350lbs, a giant of a man. He had a shaved head and a New Orleans Saints tattoo on his cheek which I recognised from all the coverage that team had received after Hurricane Katrina. Since we often called Cara by her middle name Katrina, I used to joke with her that she had a hurricane named after her, which given her feisty little character and sweep of curly hair, seemed rather appropriate.