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Authors: Edward Bunker
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home.”
“Uh huh… the House of Dracula.”
We followed the sedan off the freeway to a Stop sign, then went through the underpass to San Quentin road. On the right were old frame houses on a slope overlooking the bay and Richmond’s low green hills on the other side. The outlying gate was half a mile from the walls. An old black Lifer stood at the gateway on the signal from a gate-house watched over by a guard in the arsenal gun tower fifteen feet off shore. A female guard who looked like a truck driver and was probably a lesbian came from the gate-house to the sedan and looked at the papers the guards carried. She made a hand signal and the gate swung open. We pulled up outside the East Sallyport where we sat for fifteen minutes until the Watch Lieutenant appeared. Campbell! A miserable sonofabitch if there ever was one. This was the first time he’d been seen anywhere except behind his desk, where it was safe. There were a few inmate clerks in his office, but he’d never been on the yard or alone in a cell-house with the numbered men. And he particularly hated and feared me. Long ago he’d seen in my file that I assaulted a custodian in juvenile hall, a counselor in reform school, a correctional officer in a youth prison. He was Watch Lieutenant; the main man is running things. Above him were decision makers. They didn’t have a hands-on job. He had the responsibility for running the disciplinary court. Early on, I’d come before him, charged with messing up a count and cursing the guard. The reality – which doesn’t matter in this world – is that my bedsprings had broken, and were jamming me in the back, so I threw my mattress on the floor next to the gate. The cell was four feet wide. Lying lengthwise beside the bunk, how could they miss me? They found me on the third count, when they go cell by cell with a tablet, and cursed me for causing problems. I told the guard I didn’t want to hear the orations of Cicero -and he wrote that I called him a motherfucker. So I stood before Campbell so charged. I thought it was humorous, and at worst should cost me thirty days’ loss of privileges. But Campbell turned crimson and looked as if he was about to start foaming at the mouth, when he cut me off and said “take him to the hole”.
Red fire flashed through my brain. I hunched my back, grabbed the bottom of Campbell’s desk and,
oopsie daisy
, over it went, drawers crashing, papers flying. The guards who stand as backup during disciplinary court were instantly administering a choke-hold and dragging me down on my back. I was nineteen and weighed a hundred and fifty.
Campbell wasn’t hurt, but he was screaming like a banshee. Of course it went to full committee and, although the Associate Warden did see a little humor in the incident, he had to back the lieutenant and he gave me the maximum twenty-nine days in the hole, and indefinite lockup in administrative segregation, which is different. There, you can have an amenity or two.
I did a year in administrative segregation. Campbell wanted me charged in outside court. Now he was greeting me on my journey to Condemned Row; out here with four deputies and half a dozen correctional officers.
Shit! Double Shit!
He went head-to-head with the deputy in charge of the caravan. The deputy handed him the court orders with the seals and warrants and produced a clipboard with a body receipt for him to sign.
Now he owned me. I was chained and unable to do anything to defend myself except spit on him, which I would do, futile as it would be.
But,
mirabele dictum
, he never once turned his eyes to me. Carrying the papers, he turned back to the sally port, “Okay, bring the asshole in!” With that, he gave the order and disappeared. Everything would now turn like silent machinery.
They hoisted me down because the step was too high for me to manage in leg-irons. I had to tiptoe in tiny steps, rather like a Chinese woman with bound feet. Any other way and the steel
“Uh huh… the House of Dracula.”
We followed the sedan off the freeway to a Stop sign, then went through the underpass to San Quentin road. On the right were old frame houses on a slope overlooking the bay and Richmond’s low green hills on the other side. The outlying gate was half a mile from the walls. An old black Lifer stood at the gateway on the signal from a gate-house watched over by a guard in the arsenal gun tower fifteen feet off shore. A female guard who looked like a truck driver and was probably a lesbian came from the gate-house to the sedan and looked at the papers the guards carried. She made a hand signal and the gate swung open. We pulled up outside the East Sallyport where we sat for fifteen minutes until the Watch Lieutenant appeared. Campbell! A miserable sonofabitch if there ever was one. This was the first time he’d been seen anywhere except behind his desk, where it was safe. There were a few inmate clerks in his office, but he’d never been on the yard or alone in a cell-house with the numbered men. And he particularly hated and feared me. Long ago he’d seen in my file that I assaulted a custodian in juvenile hall, a counselor in reform school, a correctional officer in a youth prison. He was Watch Lieutenant; the main man is running things. Above him were decision makers. They didn’t have a hands-on job. He had the responsibility for running the disciplinary court. Early on, I’d come before him, charged with messing up a count and cursing the guard. The reality – which doesn’t matter in this world – is that my bedsprings had broken, and were jamming me in the back, so I threw my mattress on the floor next to the gate. The cell was four feet wide. Lying lengthwise beside the bunk, how could they miss me? They found me on the third count, when they go cell by cell with a tablet, and cursed me for causing problems. I told the guard I didn’t want to hear the orations of Cicero -and he wrote that I called him a motherfucker. So I stood before Campbell so charged. I thought it was humorous, and at worst should cost me thirty days’ loss of privileges. But Campbell turned crimson and looked as if he was about to start foaming at the mouth, when he cut me off and said “take him to the hole”.
Red fire flashed through my brain. I hunched my back, grabbed the bottom of Campbell’s desk and,
oopsie daisy
, over it went, drawers crashing, papers flying. The guards who stand as backup during disciplinary court were instantly administering a choke-hold and dragging me down on my back. I was nineteen and weighed a hundred and fifty.
Campbell wasn’t hurt, but he was screaming like a banshee. Of course it went to full committee and, although the Associate Warden did see a little humor in the incident, he had to back the lieutenant and he gave me the maximum twenty-nine days in the hole, and indefinite lockup in administrative segregation, which is different. There, you can have an amenity or two.
I did a year in administrative segregation. Campbell wanted me charged in outside court. Now he was greeting me on my journey to Condemned Row; out here with four deputies and half a dozen correctional officers.
Shit! Double Shit!
He went head-to-head with the deputy in charge of the caravan. The deputy handed him the court orders with the seals and warrants and produced a clipboard with a body receipt for him to sign.
Now he owned me. I was chained and unable to do anything to defend myself except spit on him, which I would do, futile as it would be.
But,
mirabele dictum
, he never once turned his eyes to me. Carrying the papers, he turned back to the sally port, “Okay, bring the asshole in!” With that, he gave the order and disappeared. Everything would now turn like silent machinery.
They hoisted me down because the step was too high for me to manage in leg-irons. I had to tiptoe in tiny steps, rather like a Chinese woman with bound feet. Any other way and the steel
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