Locked Up In La Mesa Read online

  The border couldn’t have been more than a mile or two away. If I could make it, I’d be home free. There was no way anyone would bother chasing me once I was back in the States, and no way they’d bother extraditing me on such a pissant little case. There were definitely risks: the other prisoners could rat me out to the federales, or I could get my head blown off as soon as I popped up out of the hole; still, I had to try it. I at least had to try it. The sun would be going down soon; there was no better time to make my escape.

  The hole was in the corner, and I found I could reach it without much trouble if I stood on the bench below. The plaster was dry, and harder than it looked, but with some scratching and scraping and pulling I was able to loosen a few pebble-size chunks and crumble them off. One of the guys who’d come over in the same van from La Ocho climbed up to help me. I guess he wanted out as bad as I did. At first the others just stared at the floor, or shook their heads like we were crazy, but when they saw it was working they got into it. There wasn’t room on the benches for more than two guys to work at a time, but they kept a lookout for us and kicked the loose chunks out of sight so it wouldn’t be too obvious what we were up to.

  We’d gotten the hole open about a foot in diameter—almost there!—when somebody whispered that the feds were coming, so we all scattered and sat down real fast. The door opened and in walked the same fed, Pudgy, the one who’d roughed me up. He did a slow lap of the cell, eyeballing everybody, and even stopped right under the hole at one point, but he never looked up. I was the only white guy in there, the only American, which I guess made me some sort of candidate for special treatment, because he made his way over to me and stood right in front of me. It’s weird the things you remember, but I can still picture the sweat running down his face, hanging on the end of his nose until it finally dripped off. He looked at me for a while, real mean, and then made some kind of grunting sound and kicked his leg at me, but I dodged it. Then he pulled me to my feet and shoved me out the door. On my way out I gave a little nod to the guy who’d helped me with the hole, like, “Good luck, partner.”

  Pudgy and this other fed took me outside and around the building to a wooden staircase that went up to a little office. I remember the office was painted three different shades of blue, with red and yellow trim. There was a ceiling fan in the middle of the room, all wobbly and rusty but it worked. There were three secretaries at wooden desks spread out around the room. Two were these kind of heavy older ladies, and they were having some deep conversation with each other about something. They never even looked up. The third one was younger, maybe late thirties, and really attractive. Her desk was right next to a window, and that’s where they told me to go sit down. She didn’t look up either at first, just kept on typing, so I sat across from her and looked out the window and also peeked at her breasts a little bit, I’ll admit. Finally she looked up at me and smiled.

  “Hello,” she said. It was the first time someone had treated me with anything like basic human kindness in nearly two weeks. I smiled back and said hello. She asked if I spoke Spanish. I said no. Still smiling, she got up and went over to talk to the federales, Pudgy and the other guy. I guess they were figuring out what to do with me. They looked over at me a few times, and when they saw I was watching, they slipped outside so they could talk on the stairs without me seeing them. The other two ladies kept their heads down, chatting; they paid no attention to me.

  I was all alone next to an open window. Holy shit.

  My palms were all sweaty and my heart was beating so fast I felt sick. I could see the ground outside, and I imagined how I’d land and roll and sprint away down the alley. I could also easily imagine them waiting for me outside, so instead of jumping down and escaping I’d jump down and get shot dead. It was either my last chance at freedom, or a trap. Stuck between the two possibilities, I just sat there paralyzed until the door opened and my window closed, so to speak. It was a relief, to be honest. I wanted out, but not like that; the risk was too scary. The pretty secretary sat back down and finished her typing. Then she waved Pudgy over and he cuffed my hands and herded me back down the stairs and into the van again.

  The inside of the van was just a plain metal box and it was boiling hot. No benches or windows. It smelled like years of old vomit. There were about six or seven of us altogether, I believe, with our hands cuffed behind our backs. I wasn’t sure of the exact number because who cares and also because it was pitch black with the doors closed. They basically threw us in there like we were sides of beef, or garbage bags; they didn’t care.

  So we got rolling, and after about a block or two I figured out what the puke smell was all about. There were no shocks or springs or anything, is what it felt like, and it seemed like they were hitting every pothole on purpose. So in the back there we were bouncing all over the place and sliding side to side around the corners and banging into each other in the total darkness. Remember, half these guys were junkies in full-on withdrawal from something or other, so they were pretty much ready to throw up just walking around. How we avoided getting puked on on that trip was some kind of miracle. It wasn’t a very long drive, I guess that was it.

  Anyway, so we bumped along for a while and then we stopped and after a couple minutes they threw the doors open and dragged us out. And there it was, right in front of me: La Mesa. The sun was pretty much down now but I could see the walls sort of looming over me, beige walls, wider at the top so the guards could walk around on them. Gun towers every hundred feet or so. And looking up at it, the whole truth of the situation just landed on me. I was trying to keep it together but inside I was like, “Holy shit,” you know?

  “What have I gotten myself into?”

  Sopilote

  Okay, Showtime

  THE FEDERALES SHOVED ME AND the other new guys into this chain-link cage attached to the front of the prison, sort of like an entryway or a sally port, and that’s where they planned to process us before they threw us to the wolves inside.

  I call ‘em wolves, but they were really more like vultures. I could see them through the fence and Jesus, they looked terrible. Filthy, like villains straight out of a John Wayne movie. Twitchy, evil-looking, eyes just dead, like snakes or something. They were all pressed up against the fence and looking us over. I don’t remember anyone licking their lips, but they might as well have; it was that kind of a look. Just up and down, up and down, checking us out, checking out our stuff, like they were window shopping. It was freaky.

  I knew the only way I’d survive was if I kept my cool. Be cool, and stay cool. I wouldn’t be a dick to anybody, I wouldn’t act like a tough guy, but I wouldn’t be a victim either. Even though I felt like I wanted to puke and cry and run away just looking at those guys on the other side, I played it cool.

  Then the comandante—the warden—came out to give us a little speech. It was in Spanish, so most of it went right over my head, but whatever—I doubt it would have helped me much even if I had understood it. He was this little nerdy guy, not very impressive, but he seemed decent enough. He had a few buddies with him, and one of them I just took an immediate dislike to right off the bat: this big fat piggy-looking guy with tiny eyes. Real mean eyes.

  The warden finished his talk and this piggy dude stepped forward, digging in his pockets like he was looking for change. The vultures started getting real animated all of a sudden, agitated. They crowded around on their side of the fence like they knew what was coming. So the guy pulled his hand out and it was change, he had a handful of change, and he tossed it through the fence like he was scattering seed. You know that move? And the whole time, he was laughing this real mean laugh. The vultures on the other side, man, you would have thought it was diamonds this guy threw. They pounced on those coins like they would kill each other for them. Punching, kicking, wrestling—and these are just nickels, basically. Small change.

  So this fat dude and his buddies, the warden and everybody, they were laughing away like they were having a great old time, and
it was just gross. But I looked at those poor junkies—I mean, I knew they’d slit my throat in a second if I let them, so I don’t mean I thought they were nice guys or anything—but I looked at them and I felt bad for them. I was thinking, “Jesus Christ, look at these guys! Where’s their friggin’ pride?” You know what I mean? Like, how do you let yourself get to the point where you’re gonna fight a guy halfway to the death for a damn nickel? And then it hit me. I remember thinking in the moment: “Oh shit—what if that’s me?” Like, what if I was looking at a vision of my own future? Because I bet those guys didn’t start out that way, either. That was a depressing thought.

  Then the warden and his pals, the pig-looking guy, they all cleared out of there and then they opened up the gates and shoved us inside. “Oh, boy,” I thought, “here we go.” My hands were shaking but I stuck them in my pockets and strolled in there like I was taking a walk on the beach. That’s the look I was going for, anyway.

  The way those vultures swarmed us, it was like we were the coins. Most of the guys I was with, the new guys, were small and weak or sick or strung-out or obviously scared or whatever; they were easy targets. So for most of them, anything they had that was worth stealing was gone pretty much right away. Some of them just gave it up without a fight, and the rest got their ass kicked and then gave it up. A few of the new guys were obviously veterans of the place, or places like it. You could tell they weren’t guys to fuck around with. They walked in like they owned the place and nobody bothered them at all, or they said hi to them, welcomed them like they were guests showing up at a party. The guys sort of in the middle, like me, the ones who didn’t look like badasses but didn’t really look like pushovers either, we got surrounded, and there were basically two choices: either fight it out right there with the whole crowd and definitely lose, or kind of go with the flow and bide our time, try to find some better odds down the line a little bit and make our stand then.

  So I went strolling in there, and of course I stuck out like a white crow. Here I am, I’m this young surfer kid from California with my blue eyes and my curly blond hair. “Borrego,” they called me, which means lamb. (I found out much later that, as a nickname, it also means “dummy.” Bastards.) So right away I was surrounded, and it was kind of like being at a concert or something, when you’re in a big crowd and it just carries you along wherever it wants to go. These guys all circled around me, checking me out, tugging at my jacket, patting me down, looking for my wallet. I just tried to shrug them off and keep walking, but the crowd kept pushing, and I went where they went.

  After maybe a dozen yards or so I looked around and realized that I couldn’t see any of the other new guys I’d come in with, like maybe they’d separated us, on purpose or not I didn’t know. There was a pretty sizeable crowd around me, and I saw that they were moving me toward this big fenced-in area, sort of a compound within a compound. (I found out later it was called the “corral.”) Beyond the chain link fence were several structures that looked like concrete bunkers, painted bright blue. I got a real bad feeling when the crowd herded me inside of that cage, and when we started heading for one of those buildings, I about lost it.

  Not that there was anything I could really do about it. The thing about playing it cool is, as soon as you stop, everyone knows you were just playing; you can’t go back again. You gotta pick your moment, and you better make it count. I wanted to be sure the situation was as bad as it was gonna get before I freaked out and let everyone see how scared I really was. Out there in the open, it’s not like there were any guards around or anyone who’d give a shit if I got my ass kicked or even if I got stabbed, so I wasn’t any safer making my stand out there than I would be inside that bunker. At least inside I might be able to get my back against the wall so they couldn’t get me surrounded.

  That was my plan, anyway, as they pushed me through the door and into the darkness—I’d wait as long as I could and then try to get my back against the wall and just go so apeshit on them that the rest would think twice about stepping up to try me. There was basically no chance of a plan like that actually working, of course, but the two alternatives I saw—just handing my shit over, or picking a fight with the whole crowd when they had me surrounded—were even worse. And I wasn’t thinking completely clearly, as you can probably imagine.

  So in we went, into the big blue concrete box, (or “tank,” they called it). Inside it was dark and it took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, it was actually kind of incredible: it looked like an indoor shantytown, with little apartments (called “carracas”) stacked like rickety tree houses two or three high all the way up to the ceiling. And I mean really rickety: the inmates built them themselves out of old wood, cardboard—literally cardboard—anything they could get their hands on. They were all painted in various bright colors. It was quite a sight. And running right down the middle the full length of the place, there was a long wooden picnic bench, a continuous picnic bench about thirty yards long, and that also had a real festive paint job.

  As I took this all in, they pushed me further and further into the place, toward one room in particular. (About halfway down on the left side, I believe it was.) As they were doing this, a new plan sort of sprang into my mind, and I almost laughed because it was so absurd. It was crazy, but as they say, so crazy it just might work.

  Here’s what I came up with: when we got close to the door, I broke off from the group, so instead of them having to push me into this room, which is what they expected, I went running right in there on my own, ahead of them. Like it was the number-one place in the whole world I wanted to be. I got this big shit-eating grin on my face and I threw myself down on the bed and made myself at home. I said, “Oh wow, fellas, this is great! Is this room for me?” Like, ‘you guys are real cool to make a guy feel all welcome like this.’

  And these guys just froze up, as if they had no idea what to make of this weirdo in front of them. They were expecting to beat me up or rob me or whatever, and here I was acting like we’re best buddies and they just did me this huge favor. So obviously I must be crazy, is what they were thinking, and it made them pause, like now they have to break their stride for a second and figure out how the hell they’re gonna handle me. And so I laid it on real thick, like “Oh, look at that,” you know, “you got the TV and the candles,” or whatever—I don’t even know what I was saying at that point, but I was making a big deal about how nice everything was and these guys were just looking at me like I was totally nuts. I had literally no idea what I was gonna do after this, what my next move was gonna be, because I had barely even thought this move through, let alone anything beyond that. So all of us were kind of out of ideas and it was just this weird standoff until the crowd split apart and these four dudes came into the room.

  Right away I could tell these guys were some kind of authority figures. And I was right—it turned out they were the bosses (the “capos”) of the four tanks in the corral, and I guess the accepted practice was they got first crack at the new guys, at least anyone who looked like they might have something worth some actual money. The poor junkies and the farmers and whatever, the guys who got their shit stolen right off the bat, that was okay because they didn’t really have anything anyway. But everyone assumed that because I was American I must be rich, so that’s why they’d brought me there.

  So these guys came strolling in and you could tell they were used to getting whatever they wanted, taking it by force if it came down to that. They were some hard-looking dudes. They each had either homemade knives as long as your forearm, or else these rebar canes, like walking sticks. Pretty menacing stuff. They started jabbering away at me in Spanish, and I understood more than I let on, but I didn’t want them to know that, so I just kept playing dumb, thanking them for this bitchin’ room. Well, I guess they got tired of that pretty quick, because they brought this one guy in from somewhere back in the crowd, and this guy spoke English. He told me his name was Johnny, and he said he was gonna be our interpret
er.

  This Johnny character listened to these guys for a minute and then he turned to me and said, “Look, these guys run the show around here. You do not fuck with these guys. They like you so far, they think you got balls, but since they brought you all the way down here, they gotta take your stuff. Otherwise they’re gonna lose face.”

  Or however he put it. He said they wanted my boots, and I said, “No way, not my boots.”

  “Well, you gotta give ‘em something,” he said.

  And that’s when I thought of the Levi’s jacket. I had snagged it off my buddy Roger when he got sprung from the 8th Street Jail a few days before. It kept me warm enough, but it was way too small, so I was getting sick of it anyway. It was practically brand new so they were real pleased with it for two reasons: A) it was a decent jacket, and B) because it showed that they’d successfully shaken me down for something worthwhile. The natural order had been preserved, the law of the jungle. So I peeled this tiny jacket off and they went marching out of there holding it up over their heads like it was some kind of trophy, like an animal pelt, which I guess it kind of was. After catching my breath for a couple of minutes I followed them out, because I didn’t want to hang around and get chased out by whoever actually lived there.

  The main part of the tank, on the ground floor all around the picnic table, was filling up with people. There were some rough-looking customers eyeballing me, as well as a lot of junky-looking types just sitting around, out of it. I also caught little glimpses of a few women and kids walking through, in and out of the carracas and also along the catwalks on the upper floors. That was weird. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I figured now was as good a time as any to take a walk around the place and sort of get my bearings, so I headed for the door. I stepped outside into the corral and took a deep breath, then walked over to the gate and into the main part of the prison.