Monday July 18 would turn out to be my last day at the prison, certainly for the season, and maybe forever.
The death threat had yet to be dropped. The one on Chris Marshall was found on the floor at PIA where he works; this one on me–I will likely never know.
Saturday July 9 was when the event happened that necessitated I do something. The Giants were playing a team from the Stockton area and Kevin was running the game that day. Frankie Smith, our inmate coach, was in the first base coaching box while I was mostly in the dugout. Frankie had to leave the game to attend a class and asked me to go to first base to coach, I did and apparently few, if any, saw the change. There I was in the bottom of the seventh when I heard my name being used. It was Bobby and Joe on the other side of the fence that separated the third base, visitor’s dugout, from the area where the convicts, or fans, were. Bobby with arms waving wildly was shouting to the opposing team’s coaches. It was so loud that even with my poor hearing I could make out that I was being called an ass hole, among other honorific titles, and was accused of being bi-polar. I just stood there and listened.
After the inning was over, I had to walk in front of the place where it was still going on and Bobby and Joe saw me. The coach of the visiting team stopped me on my way back to the third base dugout and proceeded to tell me what he had just heard. I explained that I knew because I heard the entire harangue. Bobby and Joe knew they had been observed and when they walked near me later in the game Bobby pointed his finger at me in simulation of someone shooting a gun and smiled at me. I acknowledged his gesture by slowly shaking my head as though I was saying, “I saw and that was not good.”
That next Monday, July 11, I spent an hour in the building that housed the warden’s office confiding in and asking for counsel from a higher-up. He vowed he would get to the bottom of it and asked me to check back in with him on Thursday. With some vague trepidation, I made the call and the higher-up’s report bothered me; there would be no discipline, nothing. Despite this, I was assured I would be fine. Then the death threat came, which meant there would be an investigation.
Then the practice Monday the 18th. As usual the east gate officer did not let us in until 5:30pm. Year after year we would be let in when count cleared, usually some time around 4:30pm. Count, one of many taken throughout the day, but this one demanded that each person be visually counted, and this in every prison in the state. A bell, and old fashioned bell, that hung from a steel frame high above the gateway into the actual prison, would ring, six, seven, or more times. It signaled the start of the count. Always at 4pm.
Stan, Mike, and I would sit on a picnic type bench in front of the hobby shop store. It was rarely open but when it was, visitors and mostly members of convict’s families, could buy crafts, art work, and so on, that the convicts had made in hobby shop inside the prison. An inmate from the “Ranch” served as the storekeeper. The Ranch was a place in the western most part of the sprawling prison, a dorm like setup, where guys who had a low number[1] would spend some time, transitioning, before going home.
We sit on the bench waiting for count to clear, then and talk, tell stories, and sometimes wave at or converse with the guy who mans the US Post Office just across the street that serves the tiny population of San Quentin Village and the prison itself. About 4:30pm, when all the inmates are found, we will hear the count bell ring though it is about 130 yards away. At that point one of us will walk to the iron gate and try to catch the eye of the officer. Sometimes there is a response, sometimes not. You get the idea the man, or woman, does not care much how long you wait. But if an eye is caught and it would be awkward for the officer to be silent, the word is–“Yeah, let you in at 5.” If asked, “Why so late?” the answer, if there was one, would “warden’s office rules.”
On game days the opposing teams show up at 4:30pm, overly early this since we can’t go in until 5pm, but it takes time for the players to get dressed, go through their equipment bags to make sure nothing unusual is hiding therein, be sure they have their photo ID, sign the visitors sheet, then wait and wait.
Once 5pm rolls around, Stan begins bringing the team in. I have gone in already, to get things going.
Stan works wonders, and without him I would not be any longer involved with the prison. He is like a big brother to me. It is a job to keep me out of trouble, stopping me from doing dumb things and soothing the feelings of those who are mad at me. Stan gives new teams a talking to, warns, advises, threatens; the main rule is: nothing in, nothing out and that includes the exchange of any contact info like phone numbers and email addresses. Despite Stan’s speech, he is not always obeyed.
It is a long walk from the east gate to the count gate, which is the real entrance into the prison. Here the count gate officer, and I am told the higher-ups pick the most cantankerous cops they can find for that duty, collects each player’s photo ID and once again runs the info through the computer’s list of who has been cleared to come in. Then each player’s equipment bag is checked, an infra-red stamp is placed on the left wrist, and the sally port’s foyer is entered. After the whole team makes it through the count gate, an officer who is seated at a kind of control panel, in a separate room but with a glassed in portion that extends in the sally port, hits a switch, and a large black iron gate opens, and the players file into the sally port. One by one each person must face the officer in the control room, hold up the photo ID so the officer can match the actual face with the photo on the ID.
When that is completed, the other end of the sally port’s gate opens up and the guys walk through an entrance into the prison proper. On the right are the chapels, first the Catholic, then the Protestant, then the chapel shared by the Jews and Muslims (ironic in a way), and by the American Indian chief’s office.[2]
On the left is the adjustment center, a prison within a prison, where those who have received a death sentence come to adjust to the fact they will not leave the prison alive. Now it is more common for cons to die of disease or old age than be executed.[3]
Four Post, a building about 1500 square feet, odd shaped, sits just to the end of the adjustment center and right in front of the new hospital. Here are the officers who monitor who comes in and who goes out. I make it a point to wave at them, but usually I stop in and say hello. Some of my favorite officers have been assigned to Four Post.
Then we take a sharp right-hand turn, past the hospital, toward cardiac hill and the descent into the lower yard. At the right-hand front edge of the hospital, at the top of the hill, is a large black iron door that looks like it came from a medieval castle’s front gate. I have never been through the door but have been told that the door was spared from destruction when the new hospital went up because it marks the location of the prison’s first dungeon, and later on, morgue. Stan loves to tell the story to new teams coming in.
Then there is the lower yard. Around the perimeter of the field are steel tables, pull-up bars–space for the different races. I do not pass through any of them, even the areas for whites, without permission, which is nothing more than a glance at the con who is keeping watch for the group and receiving a favorable nod of the head.
The Pacific Islanders (Hawaiians, Samoans, Vietnamese, Laotians, and so on) have the space to the left of home plate, the whites are in the outfield in the area that runs from right to center fields (which makes it interesting when balls are hit into those areas), the blacks occupy the area around the basketball court (it is the largest of the groups), and the Hispanics are grouped around the tennis court, which stretches alongside the left field line but close to third base. Those without a group to be part of, and there are such, must find other spaces and often just walk and walk.
Monday now, the 18th, a practice day for the Giants. I had asked each of the coaches to come to it as we had something to talk over. Kevin Loughlin, Stan Damas, Elliot Smith, Mike Deeble, and I, we gathered up in left field while the players were getting ready for the practice. I explained what was up, some of which they were aware of, and we quietly talked among ourselves for some little time. We had lost Red and Johnny, it looked like only ten players were healthy enough to play, and I said it may be the last time I would be with the team, this year for sure, and maybe forever.
Now they knew. Sighs and groans, sad faces, a hand on the shoulder but few words. I waved the players over so I could tell them, too. Here were the guys I had been with in the battle that is baseball, some for years, some had become friends, and in ways that I am not completely sure of, people I had come to love and care for. In as few words as possible I explained the circumstances. Then, and it was not expected or planned, one by one the coaches made statements about how they felt. First it was Kevin, then Mike, then Stan. Elliot went last and gave a speech I wish I had recorded. A lawyer in the City, he spoke directly and matter-of-factly, said that he did not always agree with me but that is baseball. He talked about the need to finish with dignity the baseball season and not enter into talk and behavior that would tarnish them as Giants. Yes, it would be tempting to blame some of the A’s players but that must not happen.
Then it was over, the speeches given, we turned and walked toward the dugout. I picked up my equipment bag and said that I was going home. Slowly and silently the guys came up and gave me a hug, told me they loved me, yes the cons did use the word, and they hoped I would be back soon.
Slowly walking up cardiac hill with the thought in my mind that it would be for the last time, I thought back to that day in 2010 when we all said good-bye to Chris Rich. Just at the point where I would no longer be visible to the guys on the field I turned around and waved my hand and Chris, looking up at me, about 100 yards away, returned my wave. Once again, I did the same, waved, and a bunch of Giants waved back.
[1] Generally that are four levels an inmate may find himself in, numbered 4 to 1. A point system determines the level. Upon entry to a prison, a convict most often is a #4 level prisoner. Level 4 prisoners go to newer facilities like High Desert, Pelican Bay, Corcoran, and others, where the more dangerous cons can be better controlled. As time goes by, if there are no incidents, the points are lowered, little by little. Being married helps lower points, taking classes, being in drug or alcohol programs, these and other activities help lower points. San Quentin’s general population is comprised of level 2 convicts, but guys at the Ranch, or in H Unit, will often have worked the number down to a level 1. The CDCR, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, is quite sophisticated in their evaluation process, and significant incentives to change, at least temporary change, is built into the system. .
[2] It is not uncommon, on Saturday mornings, to hear the sound of tom-toms being banged, see smoke arising from the fires that heat up the stones used in the heat up the sweat lodge, and observe naked Indians walking around the encampment that serves as the chapel for the American Indian religion. All this behind the fence in right-center field.
[3] Capital punishment is problematic for me. Sometimes I have thought I would rather die than live a wasted life in a little cell. At other times I have thought that life itself was enough to have despite the conditions. I waffle here, but I think if I had my way I would prefer life without possibility of parole over execution. Where there is life there is hope, and even for the worst of the worse, life is better than death. Without exception, every time that an execution day comes around, I feel somehow complicit, involved, even as just a citizen and voter. Whenever I am around an argument around the subject, I simply listen and contribute little or nothing. I am not convinced that a victim’s family really experiences “closure” with the death of a perpetrator, but this is commonly stated.