Small tokens take on oversized importance in the small, lonely cells of Donovan Correctional Center.
Richard J. Donovan Correctional Reception Center Facility at Rock Mountain
480 Alta Road, San Diego, CA 92179
Design Occupancy: 2200
At In-processing: 4711
Today: 3340
In that final hour, rolling along Otay Mesa Highway toward the Inmate Reception Center, I tried hard to psyche myself out and pump myself up as self-respect drained at my feet. Each passing bit of desertscape became another piece of life taken for granted. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, my head repeated. The best I could do was remember I was now an “inmate” rather than just a lowly “prisoner.”
Within an hour of dropping anchor and being unshackled the Holding Tank Shuffle began. I lost the sagacious scalper right away, but at least things seemed to move more efficiently at the Inmate Reception Center and the CDC officers appeared less angry than their sheriff’s deputy counterparts. When I saw how civilly they addressed their inmate clerks and trustees, I realized I hadn’t been expecting anything so uplifting.
I did know that, should my custody situation be left uncorrected, State would be easier than County. Back on the Freeway, I’d learned that penitentiary convicts have more to lose. Careless fools are put in check sooner and staffers can often be bargained with, using the simple currency of keeping their shifts hassle free.
The inmates I saw at Donovan—sitting behind desks, managing files, and working with corrections officers—seemed to have attained the ideal setup. They didn’t cower or menace, and there were even traces of pride (and profit) in their work. They winked at familiar faces, read secret hand signals, and later collected on debts incurred by each of the guys to whom they granted quicker processing. It was diverse, too; no single race dominated the assigned duties.
I was disappointed to learn that only permanently assigned inmates were eligible for clerical positions at the quarantined Inmate Reception Center section of Donovan. These clerks live on the adjacent “real Yard,” and many are life termers, now woven into day-to-day operations.
One such Lifer, a guy called “Ernie-with-the-Big-Forehead,” ran the IRC library for his civilian boss, a woman human enough to give away old periodicals and even chat with her inmate clerks. As soon as I discovered that oasis, I could be found there during every one of our unit’s exercise periods, flipping through magazines. I was also studying Ernie’s interactions with his boss, and other inmates’ deference to Ernie. In County jail, the Blacks would’ve run the old fucker right down. At Donovan, he was in charge.
Ernie eschewed prison-issue denim for loosely allowable 501s and a Levi’s jacket with Nike runners. The look in his eyes was severe, but there were things about him that said he could be reasoned with and had goods with which to bargain. From his Uni-Ball Fine Point retractable pens to his ever-present plastic coffee mug and well-groomed appearance, this was a man who indeed had something to lose. This guy had a place he called home. With IRC accommodations matching those of the dorm units at Super- Max—bunk beds and all—I was jealous.
Our first week at Donovan saw us undergoing an initial round of inmate evaluations, which included medical and mental-health tests. My favorite questions covered feelings of anxiousness and worry, distrust and suspicion. When asked about having witnessed any traumatic events I wrote, “Before lunch?”
A single experience with a CDC Classification Committee will assure you that humor isn’t always lost on a CO; they just avoid showing it in front of others. Instead they stick to the offender’s crime, his social backdrop, education, job history, and previous stints in State or Federal custody. Based on this information—and, I soon discovered, on departmental politics and matters of public image—inmates are assigned to facilities and work details. My only option was to volunteer, so I asked to work at the library every day until the boss lady agreed to “hire” me for the duration of my quarantine. It got me dirty looks from some of the others under her watch, but most of the guys were happy to be there and happier still to leave with magazines they could use for barter back in their units. To them I was irrelevant, if not flat-out invisible. Unlike at SuperMax, I’d keep it that way.
Since I carried the double stigma of “first termer” and “temporary help,” the only magazines I got to take back to my unit were torn, dog-eared, and drooled-on copies of Field & Stream, Good Housekeeping, and Redbook. They passed the time, but clearly had limited value compared to others. Still, they were something, and I was grateful. Big Forehead Ernie, for some reason, took only the oldest issues of Reader’s Digest. There were newer ones he could’ve had if he’d wanted ’em, but he pursued only vintage issues. He got pretty adamant about them, too, so I started to view him as another institutionalized kook.
When Ernie was late for work one afternoon, the boss asked me to retrieve him from his unit. She wanted to avoid the documentation that came with involving a Badge, so off I went with my custody equivalent of a Hall Pass. As an emissary from the library, I was allowed through the IRC checkpoint, but only after submitting to a strip search of the bend-over-and-show-me-your-nuts variety like in County.
Fifty feet later, I looked back to where I’d left my training wheels. I was walking on a real prison Yard at last, and the place was bustling. Guys were going places and doing things and lying out in the sun. I was out in the sun. Yeah, okay, it was technically the same sun as the one shining behind the IRC fence, but it didn’t feel like it in that moment. I reached down and picked up a little leaf, appreciated it for a second, and stuck it in my pocket. The sound of iron weights being thrown into racks and the shit-talk of basketballers filled the air. Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics: separate, industrious, and—best of all—ignoring me.
I found Building 5 and pushed the intercom button. “You’ve got another twenty minutes before this door opens.” “Mrs. Hall sent me from the IRC library,” I said into the small intercom. “Her clerk is late.”
A full minute passed before the big sally-port door rolled open. I went in and found the unit empty. My neck felt like rubber, but I kept my eyes front. As I approached cell 105, I noticed that Ernie’s door was already open and that a mop bucket was sitting be side it. When I stuck my head inside he barked, “I know, I know, I’m late! I knew that broad would send somebody. Surprised she sent you. You ain’t even allowed on this Yard, Holmes.”
God, I hate that “Holmes” shit.
“Anyway, I can’t leave my cell messy: have to finish straightening up, damn it! You might as well come in.”
Fuck that. I leaned into the cell instead. It was dark and something crazy covered every inch of wall space. It looked like . . . automobile advertisement wallpaper.
“Oh man!” I yelped. “It’s covering everything!”
“No it isn’t!” Ernie grumbled. Every automobile of his youth must have been represented. I was captivated by the kaleidoscope of colors: flashy cars, enormous hoods, and lots of shitty mileage. There were Plymouths, Chevys, Dodges, and Fords; Impalas, Bonnevilles, Galaxies, Gremlins, Mustangs, Pacers, Jeeps, Skylarks, and Cougars. On another wall were Volkswagens, Datsuns, Barracudas, Pontiacs, Cadillacs, Corvettes, Corvairs, Coronets, Coronados, and even a Comet. There were little cars, midsize cars, subcompacts, luxury battleships—you name it. The text and taglines had me in stitches.
Still more ads broadcast the benefits of Turbo-Thrust, Astro-Ventilation, Mag-wheels, Air-Grabbers, Cruise-o-Matic transmissions, Accu-Drive, Highway-Pilot Speed Control, wall-to-wall carpeting, “Plush and Practical” vinyl interiors, “Deluxe” fold- down armrests, Supra-matic Hydro-drive, Twin I-Beam suspension, Hurst Shifters, aluminum lifters, and more. I went from one to another, giggling and gaping at Ernie’s America. A whole wall was covered with engine ads alone—blocks that could have plugged the hole in the Titanic: 383 cubic inches, 440 cubic inches, 490 cubic inches.
“Oh, that high-tech rack-and-pinion steering!” I chirped. Advertisements covered the walls from cement floor to cement ceiling, from the doorway to the thin slot window, down past the bed, and even under the sink. Ernie’s parking space-sized cell was a classic automotive advertising shrine. Not my cup of tea to this fanatical extent, but it was obviously important to Ernie.
“I just need another minute,” he mumbled, to which I think I made some under-the-breath crack about mania.
That’s when I noticed the smaller details that were impossible to detect in a cursory once-over. Ernie had doubles and triples of almost all of the ads on display, each carefully taped over the other. I walked to the rear of the cell and bent down to flip through several identical Pinto ads tacked up to one space. Around the doorway were duplicate tire ads. On another wall was a complete series of seasonal ads: spring, summer, and a holiday theme. In the corner, on top of what looked like a stack of prison-issue bibles, Big Forehead Ernie had two cardboard boxes filled with individual advertisements, neatly clipped, corners taped, ready for exhibition.
Crazy fucker rotates these! On the metal shelves of the cell were still more stacks of Reader’s Digest, in addition to modern-day car ads from newer magazines. The paper labels that ringed several tuna and soup cans had been removed and replaced by still more pictures of vintage drag racers that had been sealed in sheets of document-protector plastic. The cans themselves were filled with pens, pencils, cigarettes, and drinking straws.
As I eyeballed Ernie’s world of cars, he groused to himself. Then he handed me a big stack of ads he’d not yet manicured and told me they were ones he “didn’t need,” that I could have them if I wanted. Hot rods, late ’60s muscle cars—I grabbed ’em.
“Cool! Thanks!” I said, as I silently wondered what, for Ernie, might constitute “need.” For a second I thought about asking him, but I held my tongue and asked something that seemed a lot more relevant. “How long you been down, Ernie?”
“Seventeen years and two months.”
“Wow, that’s something. You ever collect—”
“Don’t say ‘wow,’ just nod.”
“Oh-yeah. Sorr—”
“Fucking fresh fish! Don’t ever use that word!” he spat. I inched toward the door. “Say anything but that. Like, ‘I regret this,’ or even, ‘my apologies.’ But none ’a that SORRY shit.”
“Got it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck. Okay then.” He rubbed a temple, still looking for some unseen take-along.
“So Ernie, um, you ever collect anything other than the pictures?” Must’ve been something odd. This couldn’t have come from just being locked up for seventeen years, could it?
“Yeah kid, the cars themselves. Grand theft . . . State and Federal sentencing. Habitual Criminal Act.”
“How long have you been collecting these pict—”
“Four or five years.”
“Do you have any idea how many you—”
“Over two thousand.”
“And the COs don’t come in and pull ’em down? What about fire safety?”
“Hasn’t been a problem lately.”
“Yeah-cool. So how many car ads come in each issue of—”
“Eight or so. Listen, I gotta go. Do you want those or not? ’Cause I’ll have ’em if you don’t.” Now he needs ’em.
“Yeah, I’ll take ’em man. Thanks again. Let me know if you need any coffee or cigarettes and I’ll see what I can do.”
He turned and shot me a brittle smile. “Check this out, Speak ’n’ Spell. You just make sure you don’t mess with the box of magazines I got stashed in the library shitter, you got that?”
“I do, yes.”
The last thing to catch my eye as I walked out of Ernie’s cell, smack in the middle of all the cars and tires and lunacy, was a wallet-sized photo of a small boy. I felt something when I saw it; I’m not sure what but it struck me. The boy’s face was almost lost among all the ads, taped to the wall exactly at eye level and featuring the same outrageously sloping forehead as Ernie. I looked around again. There wasn’t a single other family photo, no vacation pictures, no gathering around the Christmas tree.
That night in the relative privacy of my bunk, I thought about what’s left of a man after seventeen years in a box. I realized that it’s still a man, and that the box, no matter how small, can mean everything.
This is an excerpt from John Nelson’s prison memoir, “Where Excuses Go to Die.”
Read more on Men in Prison.
Image credit:Hugo90/Flickr
What an image I get from this…like a photograph of a vivid moment of humanity. Beautiful and detailed and sad.
How could anyone not be mentally ill to some extent, after 17 years or more in any cement box with a steel door, let alone 23 hours in solitary confinement? It’s surprising that the guards didn’t take that stuff down just to keep questions from being raised.
I can no longer say, I can’t imagine what its like go through something like this. Fascinating and sad.