Death Row Breakout by Edward Bunker Read Free Book Online

can get out in a couple of years… or you can serve fifteen years. If you’re a robber, you have a one-year to
life
sentence. You can get paroled in two and a half, or you can stay here half a century and watch it get painted twice. You won’t wear out the concrete. You can waste your life and get old. You can die here without ever having lived. Most of you are so stupid that you can’t read.” (Booker listened, and vowed once more to learn to read while imprisoned; he would do that no matter what else happened.)
    “You do what you’re told and no guard will bother you. If any convict tries to push you around, before you stab him, you come to me and I’ll take care of it.”
    While he spoke, the door opened and two convicts carried in a laundry hamper filled with white overalls fresh from the prison laundry.
    “Okay, we’re gonna dress you in these overalls. Then you’re gonna go to the mess hall. As you cross the yard, you keep closed up. I don’t want you stoppin’ to bullshit or play grabass with your buddies.”
    The two convicts passed out the white overalls to the ‘fish’. While they were getting dressed, two more guards arrived and reported to Lieutenant Whitehead. A few words were exchanged; eyes turned toward Booker. The two guards came over. “Let’s go.”
    They took Booker out of Receiving and Release. When the inner steel door opened, Booker stepped inside San Quentin. What he confronted made him stop and look. It was called “The Garden Beautiful”, half an acre of brilliant flowers in a formal garden sectioned off by gravel walkways. To the left of the garden was a cell-house from the nineteenthth century. The cells opened onto a long, open balcony; the doors were solid steel with tiny peephole slits. To the right of the Garden Beautiful was a giant mansion of the Victorian era – with a porch running along its front. It housed the Captain and Associate Warden’s offices. Convicts circled the Garden Beautiful to reach the Pass Window on “The Porch” of the Captain’s Office. The exception was if they were under escort – as was Booker. As he walked between the guards, he devoured his new world – a small city with a skyline. A few convicts lounged on wide stairs to a landing with wide double doors. The sign said, “Garden Chapel”. It was the prison church. The convicts eyed him with expressionless curiosity. One nodded acknowledgement. Booker nodded back.
    The road sloped and turned between the prison wall and a century-old building that had once been the women’s prison. One of the guards unlocked a heavy steel door and turned on a light hanging from a bare wire. Ahead was a narrow passage with rough floor and, on each side, steel doors with eye slits. The light bulb was small and the passage remained shadowed.
    One guard led the way; he carried a huge key. Next came Booker. He looked at the eye slits and saw eyes looking back. Behind him came the second guard. Beneath his feet the floor was uneven. It was cobblestone. When the guard inserted the key in a door and opened it, the stench from the shit bucket in the corner rolled forth.
    “Ahhh, shit,” said the officer with the key, turning his head as he closed the door. “Put him in twenty-one.”
    They moved to another cell. It had a bucket, but the bucket had a lid and the odor was less. The guard stepped aside for Booker to enter. Instead, Booker stopped. These guards had not been hostile or threatening, so Booker was emboldened to inquire, “What‘s up? How long am I in here for?”
    “Cap’n said to lock you up… ‘til he can see you Monday morning.”
    Booker nodded and stepped inside. The cell had a round roof. It was five feet wide and seven feet long. On the floor against the wall were some dirty blankets. In one corner was a small bucket covered with a lid; beside it a roll of toilet paper. In the opposite corner was a gallon can.
    The guard, using a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, entered and picked up