ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (6 page)

Topo called Paulo to check what he was hearing on the police scanner and apprised him of the situation. A few miles away Topo pulled off where a restaurant over looked the highway. Topo stopped Felipe and had his associate park Felipe’s car while Felipe watched the road. Topo hid the suburban and they all went into the restaurant.

At the table the minutes were ticking by and it wasn’t looking good. Topo said, “We’re either going to see your family driving by or their vehicles on tow trucks. Do they have California driver’s licenses and insurance for those vehicles?” Topo had already taken note that they had current registration back at the reservation.

Felipe nodded his head vigorously. “Ernie made sure it was all legit.”

Topo thought to himself how much better he would have been able to do the drug run in an eighteen wheeler that blended in better and cars without so many obvious antennas. In California there were a lot more angles to think of relating to the law then in Mexico. Topo said, “That’s good. Now we can bail them out of jail if we need to and move on it fast enough.”

Forty minutes later they saw Jefe drive by in the Honda going forty miles an hour with two squad cars behind him. Both squad cars got into the passing lane and accelerated past the Honda. Felipe held his emotions in check and looked to Topo the problem solver. Felipe told himself that it was his back yard… And when in Rome, live as the Romans live.

Topo told Felipe to go get the Festiva and he’d keep watch on the highway. A few minutes later as Felipe pulled up Jefe called from the Honda. Felipe and Topo listened to Jefe explain.

“They let me go after searching the Honda but they held Javier to wait for the police canine unit to arrive. What do you want me to do?”

Topo got on the line and explained where to get off the highway in Indio. From there he helped him navigate into a hotel’s underground parking lot he’d used in the past.

A few minutes later the eighteen wheeler Javier had been driving went by on the back of a tow truck with two squad cars trailing it. Felipe’s heart ached when he saw Javier in the back of one of the squad cars. Right then Paulo called and gave Topo some information that came off the police scanner. The canine units arrived and the dogs responded inside the eighteen wheeler. It was being towed to the police station for a thorough search.

Every hour thereafter Topo called the county jail to run a check on Javier’s alias, Jesus Rodriguez. The first three times came back without any charges. Then on the fourth call the hammer dropped. Jesus Rodriguez was being charged with health and safety code violation of transportation of narcotics for sale.

Topo made a few more calls to establish the bail situation and the wheels were in motion. Six hours later Topo had his driver associate pick Javier up from jail. Javier’s alias, Jesus Rodriguez had a case pending for possessing over fifty pounds of narcotics.

Felipe called his uncle in Michoacán, Mexico to report the details. They both thought about what the loss of fifty pounds of narcotics meant to them. It cost them about a hundred thousand dollars. It would have sold to Topo for over a half a million dollars. It would have sold to the white biker gang for one point two five million. The biker gang could have potentially broke that down to near three and a half million.

Ernie swallowed the loss like a champion. After the near heart attack he found the silver lining. “It’s a blessing we got Javier out on his alias. Send him back to me immediately.”

Felipe responded, “I can’t believe how easy the California system is for us to manipulate.”

Ernie said, “It should be. California used to be ours.”

CHAPTER 10

On the very next cartel run Felipe got pulled over in San Bernardino and lost the Festiva and a smaller load of drugs to the authorities but Topo and Jefe bailed him out on his alias.

CHAPTER 11

A Central California State Prison in the 2000’s

A tattooed down Mexican prison guard stood at our forty man holding tank holding the bars trying to get our attention. He finally got us quiet enough to talk.

“Listen up! Everybody quiet and pay attention. Welcome to our State Prison. It’s going to be about four more hours until we get your bedrolls and your housing situated. If you keep the noise down we’ll get you some extra bag lunches. If you get too loud, and it bothers our work down here in receiving, we’ll keep you cooped up in this cage until morning. Work with us with respect and you’ll get the same in return. You Southern Mexicans… You’re having problems with the Mexicans from Fresno. So be on your toes.”

A youngster Southern Mexican nodded his head and said, “We’re always on our toes!” All of the other youngsters from the South nodded their heads in agreement.

The prison guard continued. “You whites… You’re having problems with the Mexicans from Fresno and the blacks so be on your toes.”

I looked around at the couple other white faces and wondered if the guard was stirring the pot. We’d be finding out all of the details from our cellie when we got housed in a little while.

The guard continued. “B.L.T.’s arrive from Bakersfield on Wednesdays so there’s your heads up on that, any questions?”

I looked around and saw that almost every inmate understood. Some were laughing at the guard’s straight forward style; some were a little shocked by it.

One inmate asked, “What’s a B.L.T.?”

The guard looked like he wanted that question asked. “Does anybody want to tell this guy?”

A tattooed down inmate said, “A butt load of tobacco.”

CHAPTER 12

Later, a couple of deputies escorted some of us out of receiving to the yard where we were processed. They told us we were headed to the cells on D-yard. My name is Benny Johnson but I also go by B.J.

The hallway out of receiving took us into the prison where main control opened gates that went full circle. There was the main kitchen, C-yard’s gated entrance, D-yard’s gated entrance and then the medical offices. On the way toward the D-yard gate we went past the counselors’ office and the program office where all of the guards checked in for their shifts and some worked. I took it all in and saw a white inmate working out in front of the program office sweeping the sidewalk. He looked like an older dope addict.

The deputies escorting us were watching us closely so all we could do was nod our heads and walk on by. At D-yard’s gate, once opened and through, it split two ways. The path to the right took us to buildings one, two and three and the path to the left went to buildings four, five and six. It looked like a baseball diamond. Right there where the path split a gun tower rose approximately thirty feet high. Like a home plate umpire he could see all six buildings and their mini yards to get to the path and the rest of the yard. Looking up I couldn’t see the guard inside the tower and determined he must be sitting down because the windows he scoped the yard through were tinted up the halfway point. The rifles and block guns were visible though. You could see them stationed for the guard to grab when he stood up.

Just down the path I saw where a gate opened for inmates to get escorted to the yard at their yard time when the program wasn’t locked down. Inside the yard I saw pull-up bars lined both baselines, the outfield sported a soccer field from right field to center field and there was a full court basketball court in deep left field.

Our escort deputies walked us down to one block and dropped a couple of inmates into the custody of the guard waiting at one block’s gate. The same thing happened at building two and three. The buildings were that tan prefab concrete color and the towers were all painted green. The guards wore the same green colored military fatigue style outfits. From the feet up they sported a pair of jacked up army boots for good stomping power and traction, then at the belt they had an almost fire extinguisher sized can of pepper spray, a Billy club and what we refer to as their panic button. Once pressed it activates a high pitched alarm that pierces the air with decibels that rise up and down in pitch. The guards were trained to immediately identify the level of the incident and where it was cracking so that, if needed, every yard at the prison could respond. In contrast to the deputies uniforms, we were dressed in paper thin jumpsuits similar to what hairnets are made of and jap flap shoes that let you feel every inch of the pavement.

In front of five block, one of the escorting deputies called all but one of us, Inmate Rodriguez. That meant he had to be going to the hole, ad-seg, in six block, over night.

“Inmates Johnson, Grisham and Sanchez this is your new home for a while. Probably three to six months unless you’re level four… Then up to a year or more. Have fun!”

I said goodbye to inmate Rodriguez who went by Topo. He’d said he was going to a prison down South on the border. I’d talked to him briefly and he knew I went by B.J. He told me, “All right Johnson, see you around the corner huh…”

I knew Rodriguez was a straight mobster, you could just see it. He was one of those guys who was brought up right under the old school. None of that Pepsi cola generation shit where everyone calls each other by their A.K.A.’s in front of the cops. Neither would he self-admit his own nickname or self-admit he was anything other than a human being just trying to figure this thing out also.

Rodriguez made me laugh in receiving. He explained that the climate in California started changing in the late eighties and nineties because prisons started processing prison sentences like D.M.V. processed licenses. Gone were the days where you’d only go to prison for very serious crimes and there were only a hand full of them. Tough on crime platforms, overzealous detectives and the meth craze worked together to build thirty five new prisons in a ten year period to change everything. He’d said, “Now everyone in prison wants to be someone. The new generation wants to be so hard that they go around telling on themselves with all their claims about what they’ve done, who they’re with and where they’re from. They stamp their gang in ink all over them to fit in with the ones that are smart enough not to tell the cops anyway. They’re just helping the cops build up a file on them that all levels of law enforcement and the courts share to classify you as a terrorist. Some act this way because they’re too new to know any better, some to fit into crazy circumstances with a name and a platform and others because they assume it’s the only way. It’s the seven up generation, never had it never will. When I get a chance to play on the main line prison yards I call them on all their shit. If I hear them talking about how many people they’ve stabbed or shot or other high powered attitudes I find work that needs to be put in on child molesters or rapist and tell them to go blast them. I explain that I know I can trust them to do a good job since they’ve already done so much… Right?”

A big black deputy with a name plate that read C. Jackson came out of five block and sent the escort deputies on their way. He looked us over with a quick scan for obvious knuckle heads and said, “Listen up! Inmates Johnson, Grisham and Gomez you’re on A side. Johnson you’re in cell 123, Grisham you’re in cell 125 and Gomez you’re in cell 213. We entered the building and deputy Jackson stopped us in front of his office and told us to wait there until the tower deputy got back to pop our cells open.

Deputy Jackson left us and walked through a sally port that connected five block to B-side. Once through he was out of view and inmates locked in their cell started calling for us. I looked up to the tower and tried to make out the shadow of the guard through the dark tinted Plexiglas. The rifles and block guns were visible but not the guard. An inmate close by in cell 104 was yelling out from the side of cell.

“HEY ESSAY!! HEY HOMMIE!! I’M OVER HERE IN CELL 104!! COME HERE HOMMIE!!”

Standing right with us, inmate Gomez looked over to see who it was that was calling him. He noticed it was a Mexican but wasn’t sure if he was from southern California. He looked from cell 101 to cell 107 that made up A-section, then from the right angle cell 108 took to cell 117 that made up B-section, then another right angle from cell 118 to cell 125 that made up C-section looking for a more familiar face. Inmate Gomez didn’t bother looking over the top tier because the inmate calling him identified himself. Inmate Gomez walked his way and looked over his shoulder to check for the guard in the tower.

I looked around and saw some expert fisherman slinging their fishing line off the second tier up in the air and over the fourth bar barrier to land on the first tier. It looked like the line was made out of dental floss it was so thin and a tooth paste container was the sports car getting launched off what I now saw was a ramp constructed out of a magazine the inmate slid out of his cell to send it on the mission. An inmate downstairs raced his car and line out of his cell and onto the tier to run it down and cross over it. The inmate downstairs yanked his line back and it caught the other one in a loop so he could reel it into his cell. Then there was another cell that didn’t look like he was used to being in a locked down cell environment. He was trying to fish to the cell next to him and his line looked like it was made from half of his sheet and a bar of soap. I took another look around and found a sign on the wall that read in both English and Spanish WARNING! NO WARNING SHOTS WILL BE FIRED IN THIS AREA “Warden”

CHAPTER 13

Inmate Grisham had come from Orange County jail with me. I told him to look the bottom tier over for white faces at the cell door while I scan the top tier. I found a white cell in 223 who was finger signing me “Where are you from?” I quickly signed the letter O.C. Then I watched him sign me “Are you affiliated?”