ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) (61 page)

“I’m just glad we’re out of the county! It would have been a nightmare sitting in jail for years, fighting a life sentence, going to court shackled down in leg and waist chains on a bus nonstop. It’s all downhill from here as far as I’m concerned.”

I stared out the window at the Imperial Valley and could see the border in the distance. I saw what looked like a Hummer driving right out of a tunnel to cross the border and I pointed it out to Damon. “Did I just see a load of dope enter our country that blatantly?”

Damon saw it. “This stretch of land is all deserts from here to Arizona and Texas. There are so many remote places to bring dope across, its ridiculous. When will our government realize the futility of trying to stop it? If people are struggling with poverty in a dirt town and ten dollars can turn into a hundred or fifty thousand turning into a million dollars as a mark up on drugs, how can you blame them for taking advantage of the demand? With our borders so porous and our fish tank filling up with so many migrants; our job market has shrunk down to the point the kids in school are seeing there is money to be made also.”

We pulled up to the prison and walked to a RECEIVING building. Damon said, “Welcome to our level four luxury suite where they offer 120 degree desert views, where only a few miles away our drugs are being driven through tunnels.”

I saw a white clerk working and called him over to our holding cell. “What’s up with this prison? How are the whites doing on these yards?”

The clerk looked like he’d been around and had experience. He stood at the bars and started with the facts. “The whites make up 8% of the population and the others make up 8%. The Mexicans make up 50% and the blacks make up the other 35%. D-yard is the most active yard but they’re all good yards. We don’t have any P.C. yards yet. D-yard had a war going between the Mexicans and the blacks for the last couple of years but it seems they’ve ironed out the issue because the whites just had an incident with the Mexicans over there. They are on lockdown over it right now. I hope they iron out the issue before it gets ugly.”

Damon asked, “Hey holmes, what are they fighting about? What’s the issue over?”

I watched a prison guard call the prison clerk at our holding cell. The prison clerk stuck his finger in the air for one and said, “One more minute.”

To us he said, “Nobody is talking about what it’s over…But I do know that two Whites and two Mexicans all fit into one cell and went at it. They came out a bloody mess from a knife fight the whole prison is talking about. One of the Whites almost died from 13 puncture wounds and one of the Mexicans almost died from a slashing near the jugular…It was some gangster shit.”

CHAPTER 179

A couple of hours later Damon and I got called out of our holding cell.

“You two are going to D-yard. Single file line hands behind your backs.”

We followed two guards in front of us and had two behind us to D-yard. We got to D-yards gate and walked through the opening to another prison guard. I looked into the dark Mexican’s smiling face with the scar from his right ear to his lip giving him a devilish clown look. I looked at his name plate. VALDEZ. I asked, “Were you at Corcoran in the 90’s?”

The ring leader kept a poker face and stared at me while he thought. Then he laughed a short laugh and said, “Why would you ask? Neither one of you were there.”

He pointed to Damon and said, “You went to Pelican Bay’s S.H.U.” Then he pointed at me and said, “You went all the way up North to a level four prison far away from Corcoran… Now you’re as far South as you can get.”

We started walking to the building we were going and the ring leader said, “Remember I told you this… You fuck with one bean, you get the whole burrito!”

We entered the building and I looked at all of the bodies standing in front of their cells. None of them were white. I looked at the ring leader’s smiling face. He said, “You’re in cell 150 where you can’t see anything on the dark side of the dayroom. You better light a candle.”

I stepped into the cell first and Damon kept watch at our cell door. I looked out our back window and all that was out there was razor wire fences and desert and the border of Mexico.

Damon said, “All I see are Mexican and Black cells! Not one white cell!”

I said, “You’d think we’d have at least one white cell representing this building. Maybe they didn’t see us or they’re on the opposite corner of the building. We’ll have to wait until the guards run showers to find out.”

CHAPTER 180

The next morning we heard the shower announcement. I stood at the cell door watching doors pop open and convicts walking to the shower in a way that said a lot about them. The Mexicans and Black felons I saw walking looked solid. I saw a few youngsters trying to stroll too hard with an exaggerated limp all slung back with tattoos just dying for people to think they were KILLERS. One youngster even had his forehead blasted with ink in a billboard of his claim. I wanted to tell him that those streets were temporarily the politicians, not ours. Then I recognized a Mexican I’d done time with the last time I was incarcerated. I called out the side of our cell to get his attention, “EXCUSE ME ON THE TIER!! SMILEY!! OVER HERE, CELL 250!!”

I told Damon, “I used to play handball with him. He’s good people…He’ll look out for us.”

Smiley recognized me, “B.J.! What’s up foolio? I heard you were doing really good out there! These cops aren’t going to let me park it here in front of your cell. I’m in cell 126 in the corner. Come by when you shower.”

“Smiley, do we have any other white cells in this building?”

“You’ve got one white cell on the opposite corner in 101. I’ve got to go.”

I watched Smiley run back to his cell. Damon said, “I’ll go check on our cell and you go talk to Smiley.”

Our cell opened for showers and I went to Smiley’s cell. “How is this yard, Smiley? Do we have a bunch of good Whites and Mexicans on this yard? When are we getting off lock down?”

Smiley got close to the side of the cell door like I was and said, “It’s a good yard with some big components but your people just got done dirty. The cops took all of your leaders off this yard so you guys have to start over from ground zero with building reps and a shot caller. Don’t trip though, I’ll get at my people and tell them you’re here. You know a lot of us know what’s up with you foolio.”

I wanted another foot in the door to establish ourselves. “Hey brother, my cellie, Damon was in the S.H.U. at the Bay in Crescent City for years and knows a lot of your good people. We’re going to shoot kites out to our people to see who’s here and who’s communicating for us so we don’t step on toes but our cell is always open. Thanks for the 411.”

“Can you guys use any cosmetics or food?”

Before I could say no Smiley’s cellie was sliding stuff under their cell door. I picked up two handfuls of stuff and heard the tower guard yell, “YOU JUST LOST YOUR SHOWER! TAKE IT BACK TO YOUR CELL! YOU, TOO, OVER THERE AT CELL 101!!”

I got back to our cell right in front of Damon. He closed our cell door behind me and filled me in. “We’ve got a couple of old war horses in cell 101. They’re both about 45 years old and look like they’ve seen a lot of this California prison beast; they look physically monstrous and loyal. One goes by Big Vic and the other goes by Thor. They gave me a roll call list of the other whites we have on the yard and even drew a quick map of the layout of the yard and the single table we as the whites have.”

I looked at the map. It was a layout of the yard. I could see all five buildings stretched out, pavement was marked that stretched in front of each building in a circle around the yard, then the tables in front of each building, then the handball court as the pavement track kept going, then the basketball court, then the drinking fountain, urinals and misters all clumped together on the other corner of the yard, then the kitchen, then the gym with the gun tower for the entire yard above it, then the program office, then the baseball field and interior of the yard all the way to our building again. There was an X in front of our building that represented the white table. There were a few notes on the bottom that said the workout bars were underneath the main gun tower above the gym with some x’s as to which bars we used. Damon showed me the other kite with the roll call of the whites we had. There were 44 white cells in total on both tiers, we didn’t have anyone in the gym.

Damon said, “I’m going to write a kite to one of our cells in each building to introduce myself and ask a few political questions. Why don’t you do the same thing with a different cell in each building?”

“Is that your way of getting a mental map of what we’re working with concerning how we’re structured on this yard?”

“Exactly. If we have someone running our yard with an iron fist, we won’t get ten different kites back responding to our inquiries about our politics. We’ll only get one or two.”

We got busy making phone calls on paper. We found a way to get them sent out that evening.

CHAPTER 181

It took a few days to get a response and we only got one. I opened it up and Damon and I both read it. GREETINGS WHITE MEN: Utmost love, loyalty, and honor to you as our kin entering our flock. On this yard we are short in number, yet strong in unit. Our core represents our heart and our spirit holds each link of our chain together and must not be broken! We ask that you benefit the whole first and foremost! The first set of rules is as follows: Respect yourself, your cell and all others at all times, mandatory yard mon-fri that starts with a visit to our tables to greet each other. We’ll get to the rest of the program when you hit the yard. With that said, enjoy the rest of your day. D-yard general signing off!

Damon said what I was thinking. “It’s a kite the shot caller constructed to hand out to all the new arrivals to let them know the yard was in good hands and being run with brains.”

A few hours later, another kite came sliding under the cell door. I opened it up and noticed it was from a different author. Damon and I read it. DAMON/B.J. This is Smashmouth and my cellie Red sending our respects to you both full blast. We got all ten of your kites. My cellie and I will be getting popped out of our cell tomorrow to talk to all of the Whites regarding why we’re locked down so we’ll meet you then. With vigilance.

The next morning Smashmouth arrived. It was easy to see how he got his name. His lips were shaped with scars that had me imagining a baseball bat did the damage. Even with the missing teeth and scarred lips he stood at our cell exuding confidence at over six feet of tendony muscle. He squeezed to the side of our cell for more privacy and began explaining.

“It started on the basketball court. We had two white men who play like they’re in the N.B.A. They never lost. They were gambling against a couple of the best Mexican players and things got chippy. It started to get out of hand with about 50 Mexicans clumping closer and closer together like penguins bouncing from one foot to the other when some good people for the Whites and the Mexicans intervened. Our shot caller and the Mexican shot caller were on the yard and they problem solved the issue right there. The decision was for the basketball players to take it into their cell and handle the problem in there since they lived in the same building. I heard they went at it in the cell for a couple of minutes before the guards heard all of the bouncing off the cell walls. Then it took another couple of minutes for the guards to line up outside of the cell in riot gear. It took a tear gas grenade and a bunch of pepper spray to get them out of the cell. It was such a blood bath it looked like red paint all over the ground and cell walls.”

Damon asked, “Is our shot caller still here?”

“No. They took Shotgun and all of our building reps in the middle of the night. It was hinky. I happened to wake up at 4 a.m. so I saw the gang coordinators take them.”

Damon asked, “Were the whites pushing the line too hard? Were we doing a lot of stabbings in a short period of time?”

I understood that would be a justifiable reason for the prison officials to remove the leaders.

Smashmouth said, “Nope. We haven’t been locked down since last year for getting a rapist, a child molester and someone else who put hands on his six year old daughter after beating up her Momma. I can’t understand why they moved our components like that.”

Damon asked, “Before they took our white reps did they have time to talk to the Mexicans to make sure we’re on solid ground with them?”

Smashmouth looked like he was uncertain. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and finally offered, “I think they were waiting to hear back from the Chicans…I’m not sure.”

Damon asked, “Are you going to get at them and see what’s up?”

Smashmouth looked like he was in over his head when it came to being a diplomat. He looked like he’d follow orders to the letter though.

“Yeah…I’ll get at L’il man. That’s who Shotgun was talking to.”

I asked, “Are you talking about L’il man from San Bernardino?”

“Yeah, I think he’s from there. He’s short and stocky…He’s got a puckered scar on his arm and a bullet wound on his shoulder…And some tattoos of his gang in San Bernardino. You’re right.”

“I know him.”

Smashmouth said, “That’s a good thing. That guy is pretty legendary but his cellie is seriously one of those guys. I don’t know how they let him out of the S.H.U. His people look up to him like he’s Montezuma the Aztec warlord sun god. They’re in cell 125 right over there.”