Lock Up Diaries-Drug Debts (A California Pelican Bay Prison Story)

  CHAPTER- 1

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The state bus had 42 California prisoners in it bouncing with every bump on dilapidated shocks. I, who answered to B.J, was like the rest of the prisoners fighting for a more comfortable way to sit handcuffed at the wrist to waist chains with feet locked at the ankles in more chains. The constant grinding noise from the moving chains combined with the sound of the squeaking shocks, this was our symphony of destruction.

I was stationed in the last row scrunched in next to a Black man. Behind me in a steel cage were two Transport Prison guards. I didn't have to look again to know they were sitting in an almost standing position, one with a block gun and the other with a rifle. The rows of inmates in front of me sat two per seat, some leaning forward resting their heads on the seat in front of them. At the front of the bus before the driver and his copilot another steel cage had another prison transport guard standing facing us with a block gun hanging from a shoulder strap constantly barking orders.

           

"No talking...Keep the noise down..." Then, "We are 15 minutes from your next P.O Box."

           

I knew our new P.O Box was the mailing address to a somewhat less tense Level 3 & 4 California Prison than we had just come. This one was on the other end of California on the border of Mexico. I heard this prison had temperatures that reached 120 degrees, with the asphalt concrete track on the yard sealing in that heat and amplifying it to 140 degrees. The prison’s nickname- Sent-to-hella.

            The prison we left 10 hours ago was a volatile environ full of Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit kick-outs. Inmates that had finished their isolated SHU terms, some for 5 years or more, these men were processed into the highest security level 4 as a de-escalation phase. I was in that prison on the specific yard the SHU released prisoners landed. Seeing muscular White, Brown, Black and Asian men walking slower, with looks on their faces like they had just come from a meditative place, you could see they were trying to make sense of things and adapt. It looked like they were almost where they needed to be, but not quite. It was like the released SHU inmates had been to the end of the tunnel and instead of finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow they had found the Truth; it only held a dark bottomless pit of lonely frustration and emptiness. The California Prison Union and other Criminal Justice and Political voices termed the Pelican Bay SHU, the worst of the worst. It was more like the strongest of the strong willed. Maybe the most misguided, or the most lost, definitely the voiceless. It is always the wrong thing to try and take the soul away from a human. I often wondered if someone besides me would figure out that if we would take that strong will and direct it in more positive direction rehabilitation would be possible. Processing out of the SHU into a prison yard where other prisoners hadn't seen the end of the tunnel and still thought there was gold there made the prison population’s political landscape a struggle for influence where pride becomes the issue in a fight for power to control. I thought about how that comingling of power seekers caused the worst riot in Pelican Bay’s history. Seeing it firsthand a few months ago left visuals my mind wouldn’t stop analyzing…

It was an ugly day out for afternoon yard. The sky was filled with black clouds that looked on the verge of bursting into a deluge of rain. I knew the Mexicans were about to explode on the Black race any second and sat with the rest of the White race in the corner of the yard trying not to be obvious in this awareness. My workout partner who answered to Popeye was doing sets of pushups on the curb along the track and we were using each other as body weight. From our perspective on the yard we could see the main gun tower for the yard 40 feet high watching everything. Underneath, 50 feet away the exercise pull-up and dip bars were where the action would start, any minute. I knew it was coming, I could hear it in that there wasn’t any noise at all, I could feel it in that those inmate races that didn’t know it was coming felt the difference. Every inmate on the yard looked almost identical dressed in brown state boots, blue denim jeans, and a blue denim jacket buttoned to the chin, with a beanie pulled tight over the head like a helmet just above the eyes. The Black inmates were the only inmates making noise and were the biggest physically, mingling with the Asian inmates being the smallest, but the Asians knew, they felt it, they were more watchful all of a sudden and I saw them getting some of the Black inmates attention. I looked at the Mexicans and saw a sea of groups of 2 walking tightly from every angle of the yard in a choreographed maneuver that would bring them all together almost in the middle of the yard. A separate group of Mexicans, 10 of them in groups of 2 were forming 100 feet from the exercise bars; these were the ones who were going to kick it off. I watched that group of 10 split into two groups of 5 where they circled the bars and met together. Just before it started I looked at the larger group in the middle of the yard and it looked like a group of penguins tightening up in a herd, then my attention went to the main tower guard who now knew just as it started underneath. The 2 groups of Mexicans unleashed with arms that came out of jackets holding weapons in each hand and the noise hit with the sounds of grunts and yells and arms flying and legs shuffling, then the alarm sent a screaming noise quickly drowned out by more outright screams of war. I looked toward the middle of the yard and the Mexicans were all running toward the exercise bars to attack the outnumbered Blacks. The sound of prison guards shooting block guns never sounded weaker in the midst of the noisy warring chaos. I laid down flat on my stomach with the rest of the White and Asian inmates, watching in amazement at the organized mayhem. Prison guards came pouring out of all 5 buildings and an army of 20 other prison guards from other yards were waiting at a chain link fence 50 feet away from us, the gate opened and they, with all the rest of the guards ran toward the action with block guns and rifles aimed sky ward. I realized the main tower guard was now screaming into a microphone over and over with more fervor and desperation- “GET THE FUCK DOWN!! GET DOWN!! LIVE ROUNDS COMING NEXT, GET DOWN!!” to no avail, the inmates weren’t coming close to getting down, to do so would mean certain death. My vision took me 100 feet away where a skirmish of 20 Mexicans had chased one skinny Black man against the side of the wall where he went down. Mexicans were jumping up and stomping state boots into a now unconscious man. His beanie covered head was bouncing off the concrete and my soul rebelled against it. The Mexicans circled him and thrust prison knives in and out of his body and I felt the bile rising in my stomach at the senseless rage. I heard the live round fired, “Ping” and saw one of the Mexicans drop to the ground next to the unconscious Black man. The prison guards squeezed in closer to that specific skirmish and sprayed a torrential amount of pepper spray from canisters the size of fire extinguishers, some swung Billy clubs, all yelling, “GET DOWN!”, those inmates finally obeyed and laid out flat on their stomachs but the war continued elsewhere. By now most of the Black inmates caught unaware and nowhere near the exercise bars, had made it to the action. Some of the Blacks had weapons of their own and piles of inmates raged in battle. Finally, after a couple minutes the prison guards got everyone down, for a second, the Mexicans had said they were going to pop back up to slam the victory home and they did. All of a sudden nobody could stop them as they jumped back on the laying down Black inmates. Arms slamming weapons downward, feet kicking and stomping and another live round fired, “Ping” and another Mexican crumpled in death and for 30 more seconds it raged. I shook the memory out of my head… I was glad to leave that behind. But knew this new prison I was to lay my head was going to be more of the same to a different degree.