The Dubious Life: Happiness is a good cellie, but that’s relative in San Quentin
This may sound a little scary to some people and it would be to a person going to prison for the first time. I believe that is one of the reasons that they altered San Quentin to become a reception center for newly arriving prisoners. It kind of gives you a good slap in the face of reality. I mean, there are plenty of stories and movies on San Quentin, but to actually see it live, well it kind of makes the hair on the back of your neck quiver. San Quentin is in Marin County, Calif. It was opened in July 1852, making it the oldest prison in the state. It was opened as a better means of housing prisoners rather than on ships as they did prior to this in the San Francisco area. The ships just became too overcrowded and they also had many escapees.
The old Stagecoach robber Black Bart was housed at San Quentin in the western days. The more recent prisoners have been Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez.
While I was there, I was on the top bunk on the third tier. There are I believe five tiers in each section. Each cell is 8 feet by 7 feet, barely enough room for one person let alone two. The urinal is directly behind the bottom bunk. Not very sanitary or private. You better not be bashful, or you will have trouble. I mean, you just have to learn to use the facility. We would always have a towel or blanket hanging down the bunk to separate it from the urinal. It gave the person a little privacy, anyway. You had better get along with your cellie while you were in processing to go to another prison, because after the first week, when you were examined, tested etc., there was nothing else for you to do. If you were lucky, you got to go to the yard an hour a day, that didn’t happen often. Usually you were in the cell together for 23 hours a day. You were out for one hour to go to the evening meal. Lunch was in a sack and consisted of a round blob of peanut butter and jelly in the center of the bread, or it was mystery meat of some kind, bologna, salami, I think. Who knows? Better off not knowing, I guess. We also got a piece of fruit. Anyway, what I’m trying to paint you a picture of is that processing at San Quentin was a step above hell. Remember, there’s no air conditioning in this old prison.
So, while I was there, right in the middle of summer, it was quite uncomfortable. Not as hot as the old Folsom cells but hot enough that we would soak our sheets in our little sink and take turns on the floor laying on a wet sheet. It helped a little. My first cellmate was only there for a week before moving on to another prison. I was kind of glad. He was nice enough, but he was constantly working out. Push-ups, sit-ups, etc. I mean, you have to something in order to keep in shape.
I usually waited to get to my destination before doing this. This here time I would just read a lot. It made it kind of hard when this guy a foot away was jumping up and down or something or another. Very distracting. My next visitor was more of my liking. First off, he brought some drugs into the cell. He asked me, “Want some?’ Well, now, I said I was trying to quit, and he said, “Quit when we run out,” So that was settled.
He also liked to read, so it was nice and peaceful for many hours at a time. When we did talk, I learned some interesting facts about my new cellie. He was locked up for manufacturing heroin. He would tell me stories about how it was made, from the very growing of the plant to the final cutting they do on the streets. He even had some magazine sent in, National Geographic, I believe, that had pictures with a heroin manufacturing plant in South America. I mean, there were hundreds of Gondolas, four feet by four feet, filled with this black gooey substance. It was astounding — millions of dollars worth just in what you could see. He asked me how much time I was doing and I said just two years. Now, we had been cellies for almost three months when he asked me this, so I asked why he was asking. He said since I was living on the streets at that time and I didn’t have anyplace to go to, would I like to do him a favor, and in return he would give me a place to stay. Oh, I knew this was coming and I was prepared. I asked, “What did you have in mind?”
Find out in the second part of Quentin and Folsom. Semper-fi.
By Art Garcia
