Death Row Breakout by Edward Bunker Read Free Book Online Page A

the gallon can. From somewhere nearby, Booker heard a running faucet. It went off and the guard came back with the can and put it in the corner. “That one’s water. The other one is a shit bucket. Don’t mix ’em up. Ha, ha, ha…” The door clanged, steel on steel, and darkness filled the cell, although a tiny glow came through the eye slit, enough so the darkness wasn’t absolute. He listened to the footsteps recede; then the outer door clanged. “Hey, Six Way, who’s that come in?” called a voice with a white Southern lilt.
    “Dunno, man… some colored guy I ain’ n’er seen before,” answered Six Way. “I think he’s a fish, man. He was wearin’ one of them jump suits.”
    “Yeah, it’s Saturday. The train come in this mornin’.”
    “Hey, cell twenty-one!”
    “Yeah,” Booker answered. He was wary, but he had to reply.
    “You just come in, huh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And they put you in the dungeon right away.”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s all you got to say is ‘yeah’?”
    “That answered everything so far.”
    “Hey, hey,” said another voice. “Lighten up on the guy. He just got here… What’s your name, man?”
    “Johnson… Booker Johnson…”
    “How come they put you in the dungeon.”
    “They say the cap’n wanna see me ‘fore they lemme out.”
    “Hey, man, who’d you kill? Maybe you supposed to be on the row.”
    “Shaddup, fool,” came a new voice. It had command and authority. “Hey, cell twenty-one. Booker –”
    “Yeah,” Booker answered.
    “You were in Siberia with Smokey Allen. Right?”
    “Siberia” was one step above the utter darkness of the county jail hole. It was a row of regular cells, but its occupants had no personal property, no privileges and were locked in the cell twenty-four hours a day. It was cold, too, because they had no blankets and the chill night wind came in through the open windows. “Yeah, I know Smokey Allen. He came on the train a couple weeks ago. Who’re you?”
    “Sullivan Brewster. They call me Sully.”
    “Sure, man,” said Booker. “Smokey talked about you.”
    “He talks about everybody.”
    “Did you fight Dempsey?”
    “He told you that, too,” Sully said with a chuckle.
    “Oh, yeah. We talked a lot. Wasn’t nuthin’ else to do in Siberia. He’s out in the yard, ain’t he?”
    “No. They transferred him to Folsom yesterday morning.”
    “Shit!” Booker said; he had counted on Smokey Allen showing him the way around San Quentin. “Hey,” Booker asked, “Smokey said you ran the boxing program. How come you’re in the hole?”
    The question brought a chorus of laughter. Booker wondered what was so funny.
    “Tell him, Sully,” said one.
    “You tell him,” Sully replied. “You can hardly hold it.”
    “I’ll tell you why, man. He’s doin’ fifteen days ’cause he put the flag in the Garden Beautiful at half mast when they fried Sacco and Vanzetti last week.”
    “Yeah, I had to do that or pay three cartons. That’s what I bet. I thought they’d get another stay of execution.”
    “Bullshit! You just like doin’ flamboyant shit like that.”
    From the rear someone started singing in a terrible voice.
    “Radio that shit!” someone else called, simultaneously banging the steel door with his fist.
    “Don’t you think I sound like Bing Crosby?”
    “Ohhh, man, you sound like a fuckin’ turkey gobbler.”
    The words whizzed by Booker. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and now he could see that a tiny bit of light came through the eye slit. It was meager, but it spread out, as light does, and he could at least vaguely discern his hand held up in front of his face. It made him feel better for a moment. He’d had enough of total darkness in the county jail.
    When his mind turned to the conversations around him, he found they had shifted to matters other than ‘fish-colored guy’. He had nothing to do but listen and, within an hour or so, the voices began to take on personality and history.