Alcatraz-1259

by William G Baker

  They have a saying that the chance for survival in such a swim is fifty-fifty—that if you can make it from the island to shore in the fifty-degree water temperature in fifty minutes you might be okay, providing you are in good shape and providing the treacherous currents don’t suck you right under and bash your head against a log or something, those currents created by two big rivers that empty into the San Francisco Bay and the tides that roll in and out from the sea. Never mind the sharks; they are the least of a swimmer’s worries.

  Ranger John could also talk, man how he could talk. It’s a good thing most every word he spoke made good sense and was delivered with an easy-going clarity, because Ranger John could outtalk Buck Poe. But I could listen to Ranger John all day, while Buck Poe, even though he was a legend, made my ears hurt after a couple of hours. And Ranger John’s boyish charm won me over from the very start.

  He, Ranger John, was married and settled down when I met him that day on Alcatraz Island, but he told me he had a reputation in his younger years, that his nick-name at one time was Johnny Rotten. Nice girls were warned severely not to date him under any circumstances.

  That he courted and married a nice girl, who was also a park ranger, is an Alcatraz legend in itself and a love story that would give the most hardened convict the sniffles. But this is not the place for that story and I only mention it to emphasize the unshakeable optimism of Ranger John. He was and is a remarkable human being.

  It was my good fortune that it was he, Ranger John, that the Godfather turned me over to that Saturday afternoon on Alcatraz Island. I was to be the focus of a documentary video for the historical archives. John was the narrator, a job he handled as if he were born to it.

  Filming took most of the day, with John feeding me questions with an easy manner that made my answers come naturally, for I am not a good talker, or at least I never thought so until that day. Now I can’t get enough, for on that day, thanks to Ranger John, I became a super star. When a crowd of tourists gathered to see what was going on with the camera I talked to them, answered their questions easily, sometimes passionately. Because their questions were about prison life, and prison life is something I know about. And Ranger John was hollering at the camera man to get it all.

  When the day was over I was exhausted but still pumped up on adrenalin. Man, what a crazy day.

  We took a break, then. Ranger John took me to quiet area to relax and rest. I popped a chew of tobacco in my mouth and did just that.

  Laura Sullivan of NPR News was coming over on the four-thirty boat to join me for the alumni sleepover. I would sleep in my old cell. She would sleep in the cell next to mine. Her request to do that had been granted at the last minute thanks to the quick intervention of, guess who, the Godfather.

  The Reporter

  I would sleep in my old cell. That was the news. What would I feel? That would be the question, one of the questions among hundreds more, as it turned out.

  Laura Sullivan was an attractive blonde—no, I can’t apply that stereotype to her; she was an attractive woman who happened to have blonde hair. It didn’t take me long to find out that she wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill reporter. From the minute I met her I knew she was different, that she was just as crazy as me.

  I’m a guitar player, maybe not a great one, but I still have that Creative Thing that makes guitar players, all creative people, crazy. And people with the Creative Thing recognize it in others. Simple as that. Laura Sullivan possessed the Creative Thing.

  She had ordered my book, read it on the plane on the way out from DC. Now she was armed with a long skinny microphone cradled in the crook of her arm and aimed at me, and that’s the way she carried it the rest of the day and the rest of the night and the following morning as well—except when she let it down and pointed a camera at me, which she often did.

  She was a professional, a perfectionist. “Just one more time” (trying to get the perfect picture) “Just one more…” Apologetic laughter, she was really into it. And that was okay with me. “Just one more, this one will be perfect.” And then another.

  Laura Sullivan specialized in Crime and Punishment for NPR radio. She had previously done interviews with prisoners at the notorious San Quentin state prison, and various other prisons and jails across the country. And when she did an interview she didn’t just talk and record, she had to live the interview, to wallow in the mud in the bottom of the ditch to feel the pain, to experience the life of the person or persons she was interviewing. It was in her eyes, her face, her every question. Laura Sullivan was a Reporter (capital “R” intentional).

  I saw all this as the evening wore on.

  Ms. Picavet, our stern but beloved chaperone, was the public affairs officer for Alcatraz. It was she who managed all contact with the media, she who made sure everything was done by the book, she who, with doting care, made sure I got plenty of rest and who refreshed me from time to time with water breaks and bathroom breaks and snack breaks whether I wanted them or not. If she could never become the godfather of Alcatraz for one reason or another, including the wrong genitalia, she certainly would qualify as the god-mother of Alcatraz. She was a wonderfully warm woman whose job it was to always say the right thing at the right time when dealing with all sorts of people, tourists, politicians, media, you name it, while maintaining her own sanity. She managed that all right, I think.

  Anyway, she escorted us, Laura Sullivan and I, to the prison recreation yard, where we sat on the top steps of the concrete bleachers and looked out over the wall at the City of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, a scene I remembered well from the years I had been a prisoner there, except it’s a lot prettier when you know you can leave anytime you want.

  The west wind had picked up, as it usually does in the evening on Alcatraz Island. Laura Sullivan’s blonde hair was blowing wildly. Nice. She asked Ms. Picavet to take some pictures of her interviewing me. Which she did. Seagulls squawked in the background.

  Then we wandered down onto the yard, and ultimately to the fencerow where I had watered my weeds that bloomed, miracle or not, and the raggedy tree I had planted which didn’t make it, thanks to a young prison guard with a mission, and at that point memories really came flooding back with a crash and I cussed old Simmons out right there on the spot, recorder rolling. I don’t know what came over me, but I really got pissed off.

  Forget that.

  What was I thinking, what was I feeling? The Reporter wanted to know.

  So she could feel it too?

  We wandered through the dusty cell house, through the hole, D block, segregation. Ms. Picvet finally had to leave to join the other sleepovers up in the hospital. We were not deterred. The microphone was in my face and I was worn out, but loving it just the same.

  What was I feeling? The Reporter wanted to know.

  Finally it was that time. The time to retire to my old cell on the second range of C block where I had spent the majority of my time imprisoned. The time to confront my past, whatever. It was that time.

  The question would come: What was I feeling. That’s what my return to Alcatraz to sleep in my old cell was all about.

  Laura Sullivan deserved an honest answer. She had worked for it, earned it. So we talked for another hour, microphone permanently implanted in the crook of her arm by now, and we took some pictures, “Just one more; this one will be perfect.” Me and her were in my cell, camera set on automatic timer. And I answered her questions as honestly as I could. I was feeling strange, that’s what I was feeling. I was feeling strong, as if that twenty-three-old kid was with me somehow, a part of me, that instead of confronting him, as I had planned, he had become part of me again and I was ready to rock and roll. I wished I had a tin cup so I could rake it against the bars about ten times to make a little noise for old times. To stir up a little shit.

  I don’t think I expressed that to Laura Sullivan in those exact words, because words come slowly to me, but that’s what I was feeling. And I was feeling something else
that I didn’t say at all, couldn’t say at all, not to her anyway.

  I was thinking that the ultimate redemption of all time would be to seduce a woman right there in my old cell, that if I could do that it would be the Shawshank Redemption doubled and redoubled, the most awesome piece of ass imaginable. Just fantasy, I know, but that’s what I was thinking that night, me and that wild kid who was inside me again.

  The ultimate seduction in my old cell in Alcatraz—for Jackrabbit, for Forest Tucker, for Fat Duncan and Jack Waites, for Burgett and Benny Rayborn and Al Doolin and Buck Poe, and Punchy Bailey and Whitey Bulger and every prisoner who ever walked the yard in Alcatraz— and for all mankind.

  And all the seagulls on Alcatraz Island would squall a mating call, and the wind would howl and lightning and thunder would flash and crash. And Alexandra Picavet, our sleeping chaperone, would sit straight up in her bed, suddenly wide awake, and know something was terribly wrong in her world.

  And afterward I would cast a taller shadow on the land.

  About one in the morning Laura Sullivan, the ultimate reporter, finally removed the implanted microphone from the crook of her arm and slipped into her sleeping bag in the cell next to mine. We were both tired. But I couldn’t sleep. I could hear her moving around over there, tossing and turning, so I knew she was awake also.

  For history. For all mankind. For Burgett who died out there in the Bay. A fitting celebration of life. Final closure on the island called Alcatraz.

  The next morning, Sunday morning, the big day for the alumni event and I was dead—or at least I thought I was. Laura Sullivan was still alive, though, and back on the job, her microphone in place, a smile on her face, jaw set firmly, the Reporter at work again.

  We visited the main book store (there are three book stores on Alcatraz Island), and I saw my raggedy book modestly displayed in a little corner of one of the many shelves in the big store. There were hundreds of other books, too, most of them written by the carpetbaggers, those authors who had never set foot on Alcatraz Island until they suddenly discovered that there was money to be made, and the gold-rush began. And like the carpetbaggers who invaded the South after the Civil War was over, they came in swarms to write books about Alcatraz, the Rock, whatever would make a buck.

  The exception to the carpetbagger tag belongs to Michael Esslinger, Alcatraz Historian and author. He spent years in meticulous research and wrote a definitive history of Alcatraz prison that is worthy of being called a great work.

  And I saw Jim Albright, an ex-prison guard at Alcatraz. He had the author’s chair that day and was autographing books like crazy. He was wearing his old guard’s uniform, which amazingly still fit him after all these years.

  Laura had to go that morning, sadly, but she left me in the hands of hundreds of bright-eyed tourists, who had somehow learned that I was on the Island signing autographs and allowing pictures to be taken with anyone who wanted to point a camera my way. I was a rock star again. I gave speeches, took questions, what a day. It was like playing guitar for a large audience—give them love and they’ll give it back a thousand-fold. And I loved every minute of it. John was with me, Ranger John, feeding me questions when it mattered, and the tourists were eating it up, me and Ranger John. Man, what a team we turned out to be.

  And the Godfather was there, standing quietly on the sidelines, as was his way until needed. And Ms. Picavet, she was there too, watching over me like a mother hen, and somewhere in the crowd I spotted Terry MacRae, himself, the owner of Alcatraz Cruises, and Denise Rasmussen, his very capable Director of Sales and Marketing for the Alcatraz Cruises—and there was Wendy, sweet little Wendy with a heart bigger than her hat (she didn’t have to wear her hat on the island), and inexhaustible Ranger Lori with her constantly flashing camera, and (who did I miss) more. Oh yes, I ran into Chris Warren, the retail sales manager for the island, a quiet, mater-of-fact man who took care of the business of selling books and souvenirs on Alcatraz Island, and I met Elizabeth Siahaan, his boss, who worked for the Park Conservancy over on the mainland somewhere in a complicated partnership that I still haven’t wrapped my head around completely. She was the “book buyer,” a woman of few words but awesome results. She bought the books that appear on the shelves of the Alcatraz book stores. And I sensed from my brief encounter with her that she wasn’t overly impressed by my rock star status. In other words, she wasn’t a pushover. Oh well, business is business. While the Godfather and his crew of shining rangers ride white horses into the battle to save the world, somebody has to mind the store.

  And I’m okay with all that. I mean, my raggedy book is just one of many that compete for space on the book store shelves, and I am just one of many squabbling authors who compete for time in the coveted author’s chair to sign autographs and sell books—even though mine is the best…

  Stop it Baker!

  Okay, I’m done.

  You’ve kissed about every ass in San Francisco. What now?

  Shut up; I’m writing this raggedy story, and it ain’t brown-nosing if you mean what you say.

  Why am I dropping so many names? Simple, the names I mention are just as much a part of the story of Alcatraz as anybody else, including me and my sea gull buddies.

  And not to forget Bob Luke, the other ex-prisoner who attended the event, he had returned to the island for the third time, he told me. He chose not to join the sleepovers this year, so I hardly got a chance to talk to him. But I learned a lot about him anyway—that he served some hard time at Alcatraz, five hard years, and, unlike me, that was enough for him. He was released in 1959 straight to the streets like me, but he got a job, got married and did all the right things for the rest of his life. He has a strong conviction that everyone has a choice on how to live his/her life, and if you wind up in prison, well, that’s your choice too. End of conversation.

  So, okay, back to the tourists—it is a fact that over half of all tourists who visit Alcatraz are not from America; they come from all over the world: Germany, England, Holland, Australia, everywhere. And hundreds were gathered around listening to me. It was daunting.

  I was humbled by it all. I was amazed and humbled at the same time. And I think it was then that I understood.

  This wasn’t all about me. I was a part of it but it was bigger than that. This was about the legend of Alcatraz, the result of the hard work of the park conservancy and the rangers to preserve and maintain Alcatraz as it was in the distant past, and I was a part of that past. I was a living breathing Alcatraz convict, an endangered species very nearly extinct, and I was to be preserved and nurtured at all costs.

  Ranger John had just a few days before scolded a tourist for unnecessarily chasing a seagull, one of those formerly nasty pestering seagulls who squawked noisily day and night and dropped their loads in mid-flight like bombers in a busy war. They were now protected, preserved, this was their home. In his speech on the dock to the arriving boat-loads of visitors, Ranger John speaks proudly of the seagulls: “And it is considered the highest honor if you are lucky enough to receive the badge of courage by being splattered with seagull poop while on Alcatraz Island,” or words to that effect. And many tourists look skyward in hopes of being blessed by a direct hit of a lucky load.

  And I was a part of all that, to be preserved and protected, a Gullie come home to roost.

  And the tourists loved me.

  Rejected all my life, at last I was home. And I was loved.

  Maybe, just maybe, uh, if I could get away with it, maybe I could plant a tree out there in that fencerow on the yard. Maybe next year, on the eightieth-anniversary event. A tree that would live forever. Yep.

  And it would be cherished, just like the seagulls and me. And neither old Simmons nor anybody else would be allowed to touch it, ever.

  Yep, maybe that’s what I’d do.

  Snicker.

  The End, maybe, maybe not.

  Tourists arriving and leaving Alcatraz Island. 5600 tourists visit Alcatraz every single day from mid-Ma
rch through late October, 3700 every day during the winter season, and the tours are nearly always sold out. Of all the parks in the region, only Yosemite National Park receives more visitors per year than Alcatraz.

  (Photo by Devick Wiener)

  Super Ranger John Cantwell (aka Johnny Rotten) and me. In the year 2007, just to prove he could do it, Ranger John swam the dangerous waters of the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz to San Francisco, just pumped his nuts up and jumped into the water and swam to San Francisco like it wasn’t nothing.

  Approaching Alcatraz—note the cell house high atop the hill. It’s great to visit Alcatraz when you know you can leave anytime you want.

  The Alcatraz recreation yard. See the concrete bleachers in the background where we used to sit high up and look out over the bay, and where the convict artists took their easels to paint freedom.

  Jim Albright, ex-Alcatraz prison guard,

  autographing books in the book store.

  Amazingly, his uniform still fits after 51 years.

  Photo provided by NPR Radio

  Interview with Laura Sullivan of NPR Radio, August 2013

  “…for Jackrabbit and Forest Tucker and Burgett and all the old convicts, me and a gorgeous blonde in my old cell at Alcatraz—a fitting redemption.”

  Photo provided by NPR Radio

  Spending the night in my old cell at Alcatraz.

  Hamming it up with the tourists.

  Photo by Devick Wiener

  photo by Al Greening

  Left to right, Marcus (the Godfather) Koenen, Ranger Wendy Solis (with a heart bigger than her hat), and Ranger John (Wayne?) Cantwell.

  Celebrating the 79th year since Alcatraz prison first opened in 1934, ex-Alcatraz employees and families, (of which there are many), along with ex-prisoners and relatives, of which there are few, came together for this annual alumni event. They are the Alcatraz alumni.