Street roots., October 30, 2009, Page 13, Image 13

I t I street roots
c e l e b r a t in g
a decade
13
Education * Dialogue* Independence
A gentleman’s agreement over a fire; and meeting Mr. Tina
ast article I was at California Men’s
in the bus, and wait or I could help the
Colony fire camp. Well I decided to
others, which I chose to do. You learn to
return us there once again. Not at the
help one another in prison because if you
fire camp but at the minimum security yard
don’t, it will certainly come back on you.
which was the next yard over. Actually, I
My favorite work detail at C.M.C. was
hadn’t returned to
picking up papers along the beaches. There
the “Men’s Colony” are a number of beaches around San Luis
Obispo. Pismo beach is one of them. Maybe
y iH E
in San Luis Obispo,
Calif., until several
you have heard of i t It’s a nice tourist
DUBIOUS
, years later but I
attraction, therefore there were plenty of
LIFE
. thought, what the
beautiful women to ease our eyes. Come on,
D ,
~
.
heck, let’s just wrap
people, we were all in prison where we
By Art Garcia * up my other visit to don’t get to see women unless they are on
TV or working as correctional officers. We
■■■■■■■■ i m m m h h the “Disneyland of
prisons.”
loved walking the beaches. One time, our
This time around day was cut short because we were picking
I was in a dorm with about fifty other
up papers and enjoying the breeze from the
prisoners. Actually it wasn’t bad at all.
ocean when we came upon some sand
Everyone had their own job and for the
dunes. They were like a lot of little bitty
most part minded their own business. Yours hills. We couldn’t See what was on the other
truly worked on an outside crew. That is to
side. That would explain how about four of
say I was able to-leave the prison grounds
us almost stepped on the three naked girls
every day like I did when I worked at the
who must have thought they were well
fire camp.
hidden from view. In fact, they were, except
Before a person was able to work outside
that, like I said, we were combing the
the prison walls he was checked mighty
beaches.
thoroughly on his background. You know, no
Well, we all got so excited. The girls
prior escapes, arson, rape etc. on his
started screaming. We were whistling,
personnel file. 1 mean, that was suppose to
making cat calls — however men who really
be the case, but no sooner had I arrived at
haven’t seen a women for over a year would
my new home than I learned that three
ac t Well, the correctional officers got really
people had walked away from their job site.
distraught with us, so they loaded us back
The three prisoners were chopping weeds
on the bus and back to the prison we went
somewhere around the city of San Luis
The officers were just in a bad mood that
Obispo. Seems they got tired of it and
day. That was what they said the next day.
decided to steal a car and disappear. Two of
Most of the time the officers who took us
them were caught within a few hours. Never out were really cool. Let me give you an
did hear if they ever caught the third one.
example. We were once again cleaning up
Probably, though.
the beach at Pismo. This time, however, we
The thing is, two of them weren’t even
were also burning brush. Well, out of
suppose to be outside the walls. They both
nowhere comes the shore patrol carrying a
cardboard box. He stopped at our little fire
had holds from other states. The one who
and said something to the effect, “I really
hadn’t been caught wasn’t even a U.S.
hate to do this in front of you guys,” while
citizen. He was from Mexico. Maybe he
all -the time smiling. In this box he had
went back there and never, got caught You
dozens of beautiful roach clips, pill bottles,
see, though, how sometimes the “system”
and numerous little baggies with marijuana
isn’t as thorough as it lets on.
in them. He informed us that he had
Anyway, I was assigned to an outside
confiscated all of this from the people along
crew.Some days I would be the concrete
the beach and it was time to dispose of i t |
man putting in new headwalls under small
He then began pulling out items from the
abridges or wherever one was needed. I
box and describing them (no doubt to ,
really had the easiest jobr Some of the
others had to go get the rocks for me. Some irritate us) before tossing them in the fire.
First, he would say “is a beautiful roach
had to dig, some mix the concrete, all the
clip,” “herd’s a bottle of pills,” etc. Now he
while I would just sit and wait until
was really having fun with this. The of boy
everything was ready for me. It would take
was at the top of his form when he said
me about three hours, and then I could sit
■
A rt Garcia is a Vietnam
War veteran who returned
home to a dubious life
involving some colorful
incarcerations. H e is the
author o f “Memoirs o f a .
Vietnam vet,” a collection o f
his columns published in
Street Roots.
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seems Ike got busted for cocaine and was
doing a couple years here at C.M.C. and in
my dorm! The first I had seen Mr. Turner
was when,! was walking to my dorm the
first day and someone said, “Hey, that’s Ike
Turner there.” He was under a tree posing
for a picture with some others.
The guard who was walking us to our
dorm said we had gotten here just in tune.
The prison fair is going to start in a week.
Then he laughed just like the streets,
almost
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“Oh, how I hate to do this to you guys.” It
was-a big bag of marijuana, part of it buds.
Then he said, laughing, “The guy I took it
from was almost in tears.” About this time a
gust of wind came up grabbing the bag, and
I took this as a cue, slapping for it while it
. was flopping in the wind. It fell from his
hand and went in all different directions.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just trying to help.”
To my surprise he said, “Ah, hell with it,”
and dumped the whole box on the little fire
and turned his back and walked off. Well, a
few of us prisoners close to the fire started
stomping on it in order to get to the weed.
The corrections officer in charge noticed.
“Hold on there, gentlemen.” (They liked to
use that term.) “Nobody gets anything out
of that fire, (oUr hearts sank) until you get
me the roach clips.” Seems he collected the
pretty one with feathers.
Well, shave my head, ol’ friend. We were
* working harder than we had all day in order
to perform our new task. After all was
accomplished and we were on our way back
to the prison, the officer said that if any of
us got caught with the weed he would deny
any knowledge of i t 'If we could accept
those terms we could keep it. If not, we
would have to return the weed to him. and
he Would dispose of i t Yeah, right, we
thought However, it was a pretty generous
offer so we agreed.
Back at the prison, the five of us who
divided the weed had a nice little income for
a while. You have to realize that in prison,
an inmate will pay five dollars for a pinner,
which is about one fourth the size of a ;
I regular joint Very small, hence “pinner.”
Prisoners were damn glad to have some
weed to smoke, and I was damn glad to
- make the five dollars. Even ole’ Ike bought
a couple. Whose Ike, you ask? Well none
other than the former husband of Tina. Yep,
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