Straight Life - Art Pepper [170]
There were other people that shunned gangs, but instead of doing it the way I did, they gambled. Cards were illegal, so they played dominoes. They played all the time, and they played for cigarettes. From the minute they finished breakfast-sometimes they'd start before breakfast and not eat-until lockup that night, they were at the tables. Even in the rain. The tables were under the shed in the big yard. Some guys made a lot of money, and some guys lost a lot of money, and that caused some terrible things to happen.
There was this young white guy,. a young gunsel, a real gangster type supposedly; we'll call him Charlie. He was gambling all the time playing dominoes, and he finally went through everything he had. But he had a mother that loved him, so she sent money to everyone he could imagine. She'd visit him, he'd give her a name, she'd send money to that name, and the guy would take five and give Charlie the rest in cigarettes. Sometimes his need for money became so immediate he couldn't wait for that, so he'd send her a letter saying he had to see her, and she would come, and he'd tell her he's got to have money right away. She'd put the money in her mouth and pass it to him when they kissed goodbye. But he finally drained her dry. He couldn't get any more money from her, so some of the guys he was in debt to told him, "Alright, we've got a proposition for you." The proposition was this: they would send a friend of theirs to make contact with Charlie's mother; they formulated a plan using the guy who cleaned up the visitors' waiting room; Charlie had to talk his mother into this; he told her, "If you don't do it I'll be killed." So now, not only does he have his mother smuggling money to him, he's got her smuggling heroin. She's just a poor mother that loves her son.
This is a classic example of what happens through the domino tables. She was given instructions. She would visit him and drop the heroin into the big ashtray in the visitors' waiting room. She made the drop. The convict got it. Charlie was paid off in his debt. They even gave the mother a few dollars, but now she was trapped and she had to keep doing it. Finally somebody talked in the yard, and the guards and the police set something up and pulled a bust. They busted the mother and the guy picking up the stuff and the people delivering it. Now the mother is in jail. They're going to send her to prison because this is a serious charge, and the only way she can get out is for Charlie to talk. So he feels a little remorse. They promise him immunity. They'll put him in protective custody. He goes to court in San Rafael and testifies. He cops out. Then, the time comes for him to go back to prison and he thinks they're going to put him in another prison and protect him. They just put him on the Grey Goose and take him back to San Quentin. Evidently he had incurred the wrath of somebody on the staff of the prison who wanted him done away with. They put him in between-gates and he's screaming, "I can't go in there! I can't go in there!" They say, "Get in there, you son-of-a-bitch!" And they threw him through the second gate, and now he's in San Quentin. There he is, he's just there, he's in the yard. There's nothing he can do.