By morning, Big Yard inmates boycotted the dining hall and asked the trusties to support them. Trusties had more to lose, having spent years acquiring minimum-security status, which carried the prospect of better jobs, outside travel, and transfer to better facilities, not to mention a better chance at parole or executive clemency. Yet, on occasion, the trusty population had shown itself capable of being every bit as rebellious and violent as inmates on the Big Yard. Political militants among the trusties were calling upon us to boycott the dining hall at noon. Two trusties from rival families got into a fight, which was soon broken up. Many of the trusties just wanted to distance themselves from any conflict.
We were all strung out in a neat single line stretching from the dormitories to the dining hall when someone up the line hollered, "Will y"all look at this crazy motherf.u.c.ker!" Major H. D. Byargeon, the morning security shift supervisor, was shouting curses at the inmates in line. "That stupid sonuvab.i.t.c.h better not holler no crazy s.h.i.t at me when I pa.s.s," someone near me said. I could not believe my eyes when I saw Byargeon was carrying a baseball bat! He was clearly trying to incite a major disturbance. Adrenaline surged through me. We were ordered to return to the Trusty Yard, where violence was festering, rather than to our job a.s.signments elsewhere. My friend Robert went to Byargeon. "Major, I think there"s some kind of misunderstanding here about-"
"Git yoah gawdam a.s.s back in line!" the major said, pointing to the Trusty Yard.
Trusties living in Ash and Magnolia proceeded toward their dormitories. A large number of inmates I recognized as being from Spruce and Cypress dorms milled around the gate and barbershop area, indicating the action would be on that side of the yard. There were about fifty inmates, divided into two groups. The conflict hadn"t begun, but it was about to.
"Say, man-them G.o.dd.a.m.n hacks in that guard shack act like ain"t nothing happening!" Daryl said to me.
The guard at the gate appeared oblivious to what was taking place a short distance away. I looked up at the guard tower and saw the officer there smoking a cigarette, gazing idly at the empty sky. All my instincts told me this whole scene was wrong. Those guards knew something was about to go down in the clearing in front of them.
Daryl, who had left us briefly, returned. "Jive motherf.u.c.kers got the G.o.dd.a.m.n gates locked," he said in a low voice.
"We all locked in," said one of the inmates from our dorm. Like most men who did not belong to any clique or family, he was hunting for a safe harbor to weather the storm. Other inmates drew near us for the same reason. They knew that while my family was powerful and would fight if we had to, we were reasonable men who did not like violence. We were mostly model prisoners whom they could trust.
There were now about three hundred prisoners outside the dorms, and another hundred or so inside the dorms seeking sanctuary there. Family clashes were generally confined to those involved, but because security was interfering with the natural course of things, there was no way of gauging how wide this would spread. Big Lionel Bowers suggested we all go to our dorm, pointing out that if things got bad we could hold and defend it.
As we neared the dorm, I spotted Silky and several members of his family leaning against the railing of the Walk, idly watching the growing belligerence taking place in the clearing. "What are you up to, Silky?" I asked. "Going to referee this s.h.i.t?"
"Motherf.u.c.kers want to kill each other-I say let "em."
I leaned against the railing, staring out at the men. I could see some had weapons. "Can you stop that?" I asked Silky.
"Probably-but I thought we agreed to stay out of s.h.i.t, to be low profile?"
"We did, but this needs to be stopped. Security wants it to happen, which means it"s not in our best interests." I shared my suspicions with him. He studied the guard tower and the general nonchalance displayed by the security officers. He leaped off the Walk with a couple of buddies following him. Voices twittered around me as we watched the young gang leader as he half walked, half ran over to the two groups about to spill each other"s blood. He stood between them, talking. The heads of the men turned, looking in the direction of the guard tower, the checkout point, the gate, and finally back at each other. They began to disa.s.semble, slowly at first, then more quickly, anxious now to stash their weapons.
"It"s still on between them-they just postponing it," Silky said on his return. "They might want to kill each other, but they"ll wait and see what security has up their sleeve before they get it on again."
After twenty minutes, a whistle sounded, signaling everyone to report to their jobs.
The security shifts changed at two o"clock, and the incoming shift supervisor, Major Richard Wall, made his way to the Angolite Angolite office, where several of us were discussing the situation. A short, stocky man who bristled with energy, the thirty-five-year-old was a career correctional officer who commuted daily to the prison from his home across the river in Simmsport. He had been the prison training officer before being promoted and transferred to the Main Prison. Old-line security officers regarded him as a maverick, and by traditional prison standards he was. A progressive thinker, aggressive and forceful, he would buck the established way of doing things for a new way he thought was superior, kinder to the inmate population, and more practical for management. As leader of the "across-the-river crew" of mostly Cajun officers who had traditionally been discriminated against and treated as outcasts by the ruling redneck old guard, he had the kind of backing he needed to force change in the treatment of his own men or the prisoners under his control. When other security officials refused to permit concerts in the rodeo arena, Wall, at the request of the inmates, went to Warden Henderson and got the permission, accepting personal responsibility for security at the events. Wall enjoyed enormous popularity among the prisoners and a working relationship with most of their leaders. office, where several of us were discussing the situation. A short, stocky man who bristled with energy, the thirty-five-year-old was a career correctional officer who commuted daily to the prison from his home across the river in Simmsport. He had been the prison training officer before being promoted and transferred to the Main Prison. Old-line security officers regarded him as a maverick, and by traditional prison standards he was. A progressive thinker, aggressive and forceful, he would buck the established way of doing things for a new way he thought was superior, kinder to the inmate population, and more practical for management. As leader of the "across-the-river crew" of mostly Cajun officers who had traditionally been discriminated against and treated as outcasts by the ruling redneck old guard, he had the kind of backing he needed to force change in the treatment of his own men or the prisoners under his control. When other security officials refused to permit concerts in the rodeo arena, Wall, at the request of the inmates, went to Warden Henderson and got the permission, accepting personal responsibility for security at the events. Wall enjoyed enormous popularity among the prisoners and a working relationship with most of their leaders.
"When you consider all that I"ve done for the population, will someone please tell me how the h.e.l.l my shift comes on duty and gets boycotted?" he asked.
We laughed. "That"s got nothing to do with you, Major," one of my friends said. "It started at breakfast on the morning shift."
"I don"t have anything to do with that shift," said Wall. It was common knowledge that the mostly redneck morning crew and the mostly across-the-river afternoon shift did not get along. "I"m talking about my shift. How did we end up with this?"
"They tried to leave you with more than just a boycott," I said. We told him what had taken place. He shook his head and cursed under his breath. "Those sonuvab.i.t.c.hes just dropped this s.h.i.t in my lap and split."
"They"re up to something," I said. "The question is, what?"
"My guess is that this is to discredit me and my shift," he said. "And if the trusties stage a sympathy boycott at supper, then the whole thing will have escalated under me, the shift that is supposed to have the best rapport with the inmate population." He shrugged, breathed deeply. "This is going to shoot my credibility to h.e.l.l. Can you hear them laughing next time I vouch for something on behalf of the population?" He paused, then looked meaningfully at me. "Won"t help your boy Phelps, either. In fact, this could all be aimed at sabotaging his chances of becoming corrections director. If this place blows up, his enemies will use it as proof that he can"t handle the job. Byargeon and the morning crew hate Phelps. They don"t want to see him get that job."
The employees" choice for director was rumored to be Ross Maggio, head of the agribusiness division of the corrections department. He would be bad news for the inmates, and he would reempower the guards.
"You doing anything for Phelps on this boycott business?" Wall asked.
"No," I said. "He didn"t ask for help."
"Well, I"m asking: Can y"all do something about this? The Big Yard ain"t gonna convince n.o.body they"re suffering from food poisoning when the trusties ate the same food, from the same pots, and not one has complained. The health department got food samples and they"re a.n.a.lyzing them right now, and common sense tells you they ain"t gonna find nothing. Look, I got a responsibility to see that my men return home to their families in good health and without a scratch on them, but I have that same kind of obligation to all those inmates in the Main Prison who don"t want trouble, who just want to do their time and tend to their own business. If you can do something about straightening up this mess before it turns ugly, I"d appreciate you doing it-as a favor to me and my men. We"ll owe you one."
After he left, we all looked at each other. "He"s right," Daryl said, speaking for all of us.
"Okay-we all agree it"s stupid and that Wall is right," Robert, the most political of us, said. "But he wants us to cut our own throats. There are some dangerous f.u.c.kers on that yard who"re gonna look at us as selling them out."
That was always the problem. Even when you had reason on your side, the fear of being perceived as a coward, of surrendering, or of selling out, often prevented inmates from doing the right thing. In a world so given to extreme machismo and the criminal ethic, the appearance of having violated the tenets of that world could cost one dearly.
"It"s all in how you present it to them," I said. I recalled what Silky had done. "You just point out what happened at noon and ask, Why? In fact, we owe it to them to give them that information."
Robert rose from his chair enthusiastically. "Look, if everything goes down right, we benefit from both sides," he said. "Wall and his shift will owe us a favor, and the dudes down the Walk will appreciate our rescuing them from a bad situation, "cause you know they"re going to think that security was setting them up for a kill."
We split up and headed to different areas to spread our information. But stopping the boycott would require more than information; it would require physical leadership. I found Wall and told him we needed the dormitories to be released for supper in a precise sequence. When the whistle sounded at five o"clock, our dorm, Cypress 3, was released first. Although my guts were in a knot, I betrayed no anxiety as my family stepped onto the Walk and began marching toward the dining hall as hundreds of trusties watched us. After a pause that seemed longer than it was, the rest of our dorm fell in behind us. Our strongest allies, from Cypress 4, followed suit, and their whole dorm joined in. We were 120 men strong as we filed past Cypress 1 and Cypress 2, doubling our strength as we picked up their numbers. Silky and his family brought all four Spruce dorms into the march. There were nearly 500 men on the Walk by the time the men in Ash and Magnolia caught sight of us. As we led the way, all 1,000 trusties went to supper. With no support from our ranks, the Big Yard inmates went to breakfast the next morning. We had broken the boycott while maintaining the peace.
Phelps visited the Angolite Angolite office the next day, wondering how it was that everything had returned to normal. office the next day, wondering how it was that everything had returned to normal.
I told him the whole story, but said I wasn"t quite sure why the whole thing had gotten started.
"The inmates said it was food poisoning," said Phelps.
"There was no food poisoning. I ate the same food," I said. "This was about you. Nothing else makes sense."
"Me?"
"It might come as a surprise to you, but prisoners don"t always start the disturbances. I know the morning security shift was trying to instigate something more than a boycott. We got involved because one of your better security officers asked for help."
"Tell me-had I asked, would you have interceded?"
I smiled. "You know, when we last talked, I was kind of expecting you to. But you didn"t."
"No, I didn"t. I don"t feel that I should have to ask," he said. He told me I was as responsible for the prison as he was.
"Whoa, Chief-we live in two different worlds," I said, a bit heatedly.
"Your free world is about the pursuit of happiness; this prison world, the struggle to survive." He had the luxury of being moral and civic-minded, of believing in justice and that right triumphs over wrong. Prison required me to tend to my own business and interfere in others" only at my own peril.
"What I"m saying is that you live here; you can"t just criticize what"s wrong and do nothing about it," he said. "Who do you expect to fix it-me, alone? The prison employees? Most of them are here only because they need a job. As soon as they find something better, they"ll leave this place behind without a thought. Besides, when you leave a problem to be fixed by others, you may not like the way they do it."
"Don"t throw that responsibility on me," I said. "Your society created this system and has had the power to fix it anytime it chose. Even the reformers of your world only want to sweep the streets of h.e.l.l clean."
"You can"t always do what you want or be what you want. Sometimes circ.u.mstances impose obligations on you," he said. He told me change would come only through strong individuals who knew what to do, if they were not afraid to do it. In his view, I was obliged to be one of them, like it or not.
"You operate in the background, removed from the chaos of this place. Even with The Angolite The Angolite, Bill Brown is the putative editor. I wonder how you would behave if you were forced to operate in the open."
"That"s not likely to happen," I said.
"We"ll see, because you"re coming out from behind the scenes."
On a Friday afternoon, two white police officers from the town of LaPlace, where Bill Brown was to give a speech, arrived at the prison to pick Bill and me up. I had recently been approved as an outside speaker. The trip would be a learning experience for me. It was the first time in my fifteen-year imprisonment that I was allowed out of Angola without having to wear handcuffs and shackles. We reached the local jail after a three-hour drive. The sheriff, Lloyd Johnson, welcomed us and invited us to consider ourselves guests, not prisoners. Our cell remained open so we could go in and out as we pleased. In the employees" coffee room we chatted with a couple of female officers and answered their questions about Angola.
The next morning, accompanied by an unarmed plainclothes officer, we went to the local community center, where an all-day drug-abuse-prevention fair was being conducted for the general public by narcotics law enforcement agencies and the local Jaycees chapter. I felt a little uneasy and out of place at the virtually all-white event until I was introduced to a group of Jaycees and their wives, who immediately lavished attention on me the way whites do with lone blacks to make them feel comfortable.
I was acutely aware that I could simply excuse myself to go to the restroom and walk off into freedom at any time. In the not-too-distant past, this opportunity would have been a dream come true. I had twice planned to escape from the East Baton Rouge Parish jail; the first plan failed when my compatriots neglected to unlock my cell before running off (and promptly getting caught), and I scuttled the second plan when I saw cigarette tips glowing against the night in police cars waiting just outside the jail for us. During the twelve years Louisiana was trying to execute me, I had been desperate.
Things were different now. I was serving life in a system that had historically required only ten and a half years to satisfy that sentence. Lifers going before the new pardon board had been winning recommendations for sentence commutations. Robert Jackson, who had been on death row with me, had his life term reduced to thirty years, which made him eligible for parole. I had recently been visited by pardon board member William Carroll and the board chairman, John Hunter. Carroll patted my file, sitting on the table in front of him, and said, "I don"t have any questions about you. I see no problems-none at all." Hunter agreed. I felt I was merely biding my time until I was freed.
Becoming an outside speaker was the most sought-after bra.s.s ring inmates at Angola reached for, the one that would bring contact with society and the hope of getting help or a girlfriend. Model prisoners could also become visiting-room concession workers; drivers of trucks, patrols, or ambulances; hospital workers; administration building orderlies, clerks, or B-Line workers; workers at satellite facilities, such as the minimum-security state police barracks; even servants at the governor"s mansion. But being an outside speaker required a unanimous vote of all the wardens, a difficult feat. The speaking program had been created to convince the public there was a need for prison reform. Inmates were effective public relations agents because the media and the public saw them as being more credible than officials.
When the day"s program ended, we returned to the local jail. "The Jaycees" people been telling me that you boys put on a real good presentation today," Sheriff Johnson told us over coffee. "That"s good. They"re a large and influential organization here. I like to keep "em happy. They asked me to get y"all for them and, to be frank, I wasn"t sure I could do it. The warden told me it was voluntary, and y"all come only if y"all want to. So I sure appreciate y"all coming. Now the Jaycees owe me a favor, and that"s what it"s all about." He laughed. "I feel like I oughta do a little something for y"all." He paused. "You think if I call the warden and told him that we needed y"all to stay over for another meeting tomorrow, that he"d okay it? If y"all have girlfriends, call them to come meet you, and y"all just have a little holiday on me." He smiled knowingly.
I couldn"t believe my ears. I did have a girlfriend, Dot, a beautiful black-haired white woman of about forty with a figure years of dancing had given her. I had met her the previous year at a Jehovah"s Witnesses" gathering at Angola. She tried to interest me in the Word, and we fell in love. She was my first girlfriend. She had told her husband, a business executive, who had no objection to Dot and me exchanging pa.s.sion-filled letters. But he did not know about her prison visits, granted at the discretion of prison authorities for inmates who got few or no visits, or about the speaking trips for which Phelps had just made me eligible. I knew Dot would go anywhere to be with me, although her race might sometimes present problems.
Bill Brown a.s.sured the sheriff that last-minute requests for speakers to stay over were routinely granted. When he called, Peggi Gresham said she would normally approve it, except that we had to be in Denham Springs, sixty miles away, for a Jaycees meeting the next day. I was crushed.
On the trip back from LaPlace, we pa.s.sed a Klan rally, where a flaming cross burned brightly in the night. Still, the speaking trip was like heady wine. I wanted to travel as much as possible. But the administration would send speakers out only at the specific request of a school, or a social, civic, religious, or police organization, and speakers were prohibited from soliciting such requests. The more innovative inmates created all sorts of public service programs that would appeal to social-minded citizens and outside organizations, resulting in requests for speakers. The most alluring incentive securing the inmates" cooperation was, unofficially, s.e.x. Speakers always tried to set up schedules that lasted at least several days-many were a month or longer- preferably in smaller cities and towns, because local cops there were generally not hampered by big-city-type policies and procedures on the treatment of visiting prisoners. Most small-town officers saw no reason why inmate speakers should not be rewarded with "a little nooky" on a trip. Like so much else in Louisiana, it was unofficially okay as long as you didn"t get caught and it didn"t become public.
6.
Crackdown 1976.
Speculation about who would fill the top jobs in the penal system had become feverish. "It"s gonna be a whole new ball game when Maggio takes over, Rideau," one security officer said to taunt me.
One afternoon in mid-March, I was sitting behind my desk in the Angolite Angolite office with my feet up when the door opened. A well-built, good-looking blond man wearing a tan leather blazer stepped into the room. His movements exuded confidence, strength, and power, like the gunfighters in the cowboy movies of my childhood. "I"m looking for Rideau," he said, walking over to the large chair and sitting down. "I"m Ross Maggio." office with my feet up when the door opened. A well-built, good-looking blond man wearing a tan leather blazer stepped into the room. His movements exuded confidence, strength, and power, like the gunfighters in the cowboy movies of my childhood. "I"m looking for Rideau," he said, walking over to the large chair and sitting down. "I"m Ross Maggio."
I didn"t move. "Glad to make your acquaintance," I said. "From the way security talks, you"re the new warden, even though the governor hasn"t made a decision yet."
"I heard a lot about you and wanted to come by and see you. You"re the one who wrote that article on the rodeo a couple years ago, eh?"
"I did. And did you give the behind-the-scenes order to have me locked up for writing it?"
Maggio smiled. "Didn"t have anything to do with it," he said. "What makes you think I had something to do with it?"
I shook my head. "Just asked."
Ross Maggio, Jr., began talking about himself, his years with the corrections department, his philosophy. He was thirty-six, with a degree in agriculture. He looked and talked like he could have been a rancher, a businessman, or a hit man. There was a hint of violence about him.
The next time I saw him was on March 20, 1976, the day after the governor appointed Phelps to head the corrections system. Griffin Rivers, thirty-six, the only Louisianian in the corrections system to hold a master"s degree in criminal justice, was to serve as his deputy, the first black ever to occupy that position. Maggio was named warden of Angola, the youngest ever.
I went out that morning to cover the transfer of seven hundred Angola prisoners to Dixon Correctional Inst.i.tute, a new facility opened to relieve overcrowding, and found Maggio supervising the operation. Beaubouef, no friend of mine, was at his side, implying a relationship between the men that gave me pause.
That afternoon, a cheerful Phelps and Rivers visited the Angolite Angolite office. I had met Rivers some years before when, as a criminal justice instructor at Southern University, he brought his cla.s.s on a tour of the prison. He was hip and sophisticated. He greeted me like a long-lost friend. "You know, walking through this place is sort of like walking through the old neighborhood where I grew up in New Orleans," he said. "Man, I recognize a lot of old faces I came up with, men who disappeared somewhere along the way. Now I see where they disappeared to." office. I had met Rivers some years before when, as a criminal justice instructor at Southern University, he brought his cla.s.s on a tour of the prison. He was hip and sophisticated. He greeted me like a long-lost friend. "You know, walking through this place is sort of like walking through the old neighborhood where I grew up in New Orleans," he said. "Man, I recognize a lot of old faces I came up with, men who disappeared somewhere along the way. Now I see where they disappeared to."
When Rivers left, I said to Phelps, "I"m glad for your appointment, but your new warden bothers me."
"He shouldn"t," he said, looking into my eyes. "I"m his boss, and he"ll do what I tell him to do."
"Your office is in Baton Rouge," I said, implying it was far removed from what was happening at Angola.
"It may have been that way in the past, but it"s going to be different as long as I"m director," Phelps said. "You"re going to see me around this prison almost as much as you did when I was warden. And I"m going to be dropping in on you to see how The Angolite The Angolite is coming along and to visit and talk with you, just like I"ve been doing since we first met. There are a lot of things wrong with this place, and it"s going to take some drastic changes to put it in order. You"ve got a role to play because I want us to do with is coming along and to visit and talk with you, just like I"ve been doing since we first met. There are a lot of things wrong with this place, and it"s going to take some drastic changes to put it in order. You"ve got a role to play because I want us to do with The Angolite The Angolite what we said we"d do with it-I want it to be a meaningful source of information for the inmates and not some boarding-school newsletter. Nothing is changed in that respect. You are the editor. Peggi is your supervisor. Anytime you disagree with her on something, you can appeal her decision to Warden Maggio. And if you"re not satisfied with his decision, then you appeal it to me. I"m the publisher. what we said we"d do with it-I want it to be a meaningful source of information for the inmates and not some boarding-school newsletter. Nothing is changed in that respect. You are the editor. Peggi is your supervisor. Anytime you disagree with her on something, you can appeal her decision to Warden Maggio. And if you"re not satisfied with his decision, then you appeal it to me. I"m the publisher.
"Don"t get pessimistic on me before you give it a chance to work. And the same applies to Ross-don"t prejudge him. He might surprise you. I"ve known him for a long time. We started working in corrections across the desk from each other on the same day. And Ross is who Angola needs as warden right now. This prison has been a headache for the state for longer than anyone can remember. If I do nothing else during my tenure as director, I"m determined to clean it up. We"re going to regain control of this penitentiary, end the violence and bloodshed, and make it safe."
As Phelps warmed to his subject, he grew indignant. "The inmates are going to holler that we"re f.u.c.king them over, but they don"t have to strong-arm, rape, and kill each other. I"m not going to let that happen. Ross is the right personality for this situation. The inmates will find that he"s willing to deal with them on any terms they choose. They want to cooperate-fine. They want to fight-Ross will oblige them. He has a job to do and how he does it is going to be primarily determined by the inmates themselves. But make no mistake-the job is going to be done."
While Phelps in his new job coped with the lawsuits, political pressures, and the howls of a public made even more hostile by the ma.s.sive relocation of prisoners throughout the state, Maggio cracked down at Angola. Personnel were hit first; scores of entrenched employees were fired, demoted, transferred, or forced into retirement. "You can"t expect to rehabilitate the prisoners until you rehabilitate the staff," Phelps explained. Among the first to go were Lloyd Hoyle and William Kerr, the two officials who had ordered me locked up in the Dungeon over the rodeo article.
When a prisoner escaped from the cellblock, Maggio unprecedentedly suspended the top cellblock supervisor. "Whenever something goes wrong, they point the finger at the bottom-line correctional officer and fire him," he said. "The way I see it, the man on the bottom will only do his job to the extent his supervisor makes him do it. When something goes wrong, it"s the supervisor"s a.s.s I want, and I don"t care if he was a thousand miles away from the incident when it happened. Hold the supervisor responsible for what his men do, and he"s gonna make it his business to see to it that they do their job right."
Maggio also introduced surprise roadblocks along Angola"s blacktops to search employees" vehicles, seeking to halt the flow of narcotics, weapons, and other contraband into the prison.
In his first meeting with inmate leaders, Maggio brushed aside questions about his plans for rehabilitating them. "Rehabilitation has a hollow sound to it when you"ve got people being killed as they"ve been killed here," he told us. "Before you can think about rehabilitation, you"ve got to have a degree of order and discipline. No prisoner should have to wonder whether he"s going to walk out of this place alive."
Unlike typical corrections officials who resort to wholesale lockdowns-where prisoners are confined to their cells or dorms, and all inmate movement is halted throughout the prison-to combat violence, Maggio shunned actions that punished rule-abiding inmates. He ordered the immediate but selective lockup of all known and suspected gang leaders and members, drug dealers, h.o.m.os.e.xuals who created problems, and suspected strong-armers who raped weaker inmates or forced them to pay protection. When lifer Terry Lee Amphy was stabbed to death in his dormitory-the first prisoner to be killed in 1976-Maggio swiftly ordered every inmate found with anything resembling a weapon to be locked up. Sophisticated electronic devices and walk-through metal detectors were installed. Searching-"shaking down"-prisoners at every gate inside the prison was now required, and there were surprise shakedowns as well. A special detail of officers was a.s.signed the task. Officers could no longer warn inmates with whom they had alliances, something that had become a common practice. So many men were locked up that each of the prison"s two-man disciplinary cells overflowed with as many as eight men.
Those prisoners without jobs or who had been ducking work were now sent to the fields. Prisoners complained that picking cotton would not train them for jobs in society. Maggio agreed, but told me, "We"ve got to have something to occupy their time, burn off some of their energy. Otherwise, they"ll just sit around, figuring ways to beat us or each other."
With the grip of the former inmate power structure and cliques broken by the ma.s.sive transfer of prisoners out of Angola as well as the lockups, new and strict security regulations went into effect. The freedom of movement formerly enjoyed by inmates came to an abrupt end; pa.s.ses were required to go through gates and to travel from one area to another. The security force grew from 450 officers to 1,200. An officer was stationed in every area of work and play, even locked inside the dormitories at night with the prisoners, armed with only a beeper that, when sounded, brought fellow officers stationed elsewhere in the prison rushing to his aid.
Prison employees replaced prisoners who had previously served as clerks in many key prison operations, positions that enabled those prisoners to profit by exploiting other inmates. Inmates complained to Phelps about the shakedowns and charged that the stringent measures imposed by Maggio were unnecessary. "None of this had to happen," Phelps replied, "but you"ve made it happen. You don"t have to do the things that you do to each other."
Maggio continued Phelps"s practice of not operating the prison from the warden"s office. He ordered all top officials to create a "floating administration," moving about the prison and accessible to the inmate population. Maggio popped up everywhere, at any time, dressed in anything from a business suit to the blue denims worn by the prisoners. That kept his employees doing their jobs, which in turn kept them riding herd on the inmates-exactly what he wanted.
Maggio was a man given to action, tolerating no nonsense and accepting no excuses. One day he fired a yard supervisor on the spot. When the officer disputed the dismissal, Maggio ripped the badge from the officer"s shirt and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground in front of inmates and other employees. Except for rare instances like that, few prisoners knew that he was cracking down as hard on his employees as he was on them.
One night he busted down doors in eliminating an illicit wh.o.r.ehouse on B-Line, which he had ordered closed when he took office. A week later, during a ceremony attended by employees and inmate organization heads, I asked him about the incident. He grinned, relishing it.
"Chief, you shouldn"t underestimate those B-Liners," I said. "Some of them are not much different from inmate gangsters down the Walk. They play for keeps, and they"ve put skates under wardens before you."
Maggio"s ego was p.r.i.c.ked. "They may have run other wardens, but they"re not going to run this one," he said, turning dead serious. "They may kill me, but I won"t run. I don"t back down."
In the beginning, he and Beaubouef roamed about the prison armed, supervising and policing everything. Maggio personally led the manhunts for escapees in the rugged wooded terrain around the prison, a pistol strapped to his leg. He got lost once and radioed in. Told to stay where he was, that a search party would go out and meet him, he replied angrily: "You just tell me my G.o.dd.a.m.n location, then tell me which way those prisoners went!" Maggio was in his element; he was a man who enjoyed the macho games and was determined to succeed at them. His behavior won him respect in Angola, to the point that inmates dubbed him "a gangster," the ultimate compliment. He loved hearing that.
As Maggio settled in, my profile grew and my writing career blossomed. Penthouse Penthouse published my feature about the plight of incarcerated veterans in its April 1976 issue. Louisiana"s second-largest paper, the New Orleans published my feature about the plight of incarcerated veterans in its April 1976 issue. Louisiana"s second-largest paper, the New Orleans States-Item States-Item, did a front-page series on Angola on April 14. One article, "Rideau: Piercing the Walls with Words," was a lengthy profile by reporter Jim Amoss about my self-education and rehabilitation during the fifteen years of my imprisonment; another article, "Jungle," was by me. The timing was fortunate, I thought, because in a month the state pardon board would be hearing my plea for freedom.
But two weeks after the States-Item States-Item articles appeared, I received my first and only disciplinary report when a guard searched my locker and found "contraband"-a bottle of Wite-Out I had taken to my dorm so I could continue working after hours on articles appeared, I received my first and only disciplinary report when a guard searched my locker and found "contraband"-a bottle of Wite-Out I had taken to my dorm so I could continue working after hours on The Angolite The Angolite. It was the only disciplinary report ever issued in Angola"s history for Wite-Out, a product universally used by inmate clerks. In an environment where strong-arming, dope peddling, prost.i.tution, and fights were the stuff of disciplinary hearings, the disciplinary court declared me guilty but gave me only a verbal reprimand. Achieving prominence while in prison, I learned, exacts a price.
Even that reprimand anguished me, because I had hoped to present a blemish-free conduct record in support of my pet.i.tion for clemency. "We"re interested in what"s happened to a man since he landed in the penitentiary, rather than in the circ.u.mstances of the offense," pardon board chairman John D. Hunter had explained to Amoss. "If a man has a good prison record and shows a willingness to rehabilitate himself and gives us an indication he can operate in free society, we often give him a cut to a certain number of years, if the situation warrants it." As I said, I expected a favorable response from the board.
I was not permitted to appear before the pardon board to plead my own case, so others were to appear on my behalf: my mother; Sister Benedict Shannon, who was still my spiritual advisor; Lake Charles NAACP president Florce Floyd; and Louis Smith, the director of the Baton Rouge Community Advancement Center, who sponsored Vets Incarcerated, our self-help program at Angola for military veterans.
I knew I was in trouble from the moment I awoke on May 19, the day the board convened in Baton Rouge to hear my pet.i.tion. The inmate who slept in the bunk next to me told me he had heard on the radio that "Frank Salter is personally appearing with your victim to oppose your release. They talked about you pretty bad, man."
It was the first time in Salter"s sixteen years as a district attorney that he made the 125-mile trip from Lake Charles to Baton Rouge to oppose clemency for anyone, including a string of murderers whose sentences were commuted during that time.