by Larry Lawton
“The orderly asked me, ‘Who do you know?’ He wanted to know if I had any connections. I was also offered credit if I wanted to buy drugs. Many times I saw guys who bought drugs on credit, and before they knew it, they had a heroin addiction.
“I kept a low profile. My goals were simple. I wanted air, food, and shelter. I told myself, That’s all you have to worry about.”
Lawton would learn that he had one more goal; one more important even than the others, and that was survival.
Finally, after two weeks in the hole, Lawton underwent Captain’s Review.
*
The captain, who is head of security, has to clear each new prisoner for his yard. He and his staff do this by asking a series of questions to see if the prisoner has problems with any particular group, or any particular inmate, or to find out if the prisoner fears for his life, in which case he might find himself in solitary confinement.
“The Captain’s Review is important,” said Lawton, “because if you’re a wise-ass and the captain doesn’t like you, you could end up in the hole forever.”
Lawton’s review went quickly.
“Do you have any problems on the yard?”
“No.”
“Do you have any separtise?” Meaning, was there anyone with whom he had a beef? This could be someone involved in the prisoner’s case, like a snitch, or it could be someone the prisoner had a fight with in another prison. Every new prisoner gets asked, because if unchecked these feuds can get somebody killed.
“No.”
“Are you scared to be on the yard?”
“No.”
“All right, Lawton. Pack up.”
Pack up what? Lawton thought, What the fuck do I have to pack up?
*
Once in the general population, now Lawton really had to watch his back. He was one of two thousand inmates at Atlanta. Most were in for violent crimes including murder, rape, and as in Lawton’s case, armed robbery. About eight hundred of the prisoners were sentenced to life, meaning they weren’t going to get out and they had nothing to lose if they were to commit further mayhem. Two hundred were psychopaths, who chased drugs and punks (guys who were gay or who were gay in prison) and who were intent on escape, as impossible as that might be.
Many of the inmates belonged to gangs including the Aryan Brotherhood, the Bloods, the Crips, the Latin Kings, Surenos, Gangster Disciples, and a number of others.
Worse for Lawton, most of the inmates were black guys with chips on their shoulders. Though he had no prejudice in his bones, Lawton quickly learned what it was like to be in the minority.
“Atlanta was a terrible place for a white guy to be,” said Lawton. “The Atlanta penitentiary, fittingly near the Atlanta zoo, was only fifteen percent white.” Of the two thousand prisoners, only 375 were white. And eighty percent of the guards were black. “And they hated white prisoners,” said Lawton. Over and over he would hear, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re a white guy. Forget it.”
“The white guards weren’t much better,” said Lawton. “Most were out to prove themselves.”
Every day behind the concrete walls of Atlanta crimes such as stabbings, rapes, robberies, drug dealing, extortion, prostitution, gambling, and pretty much any other illegal activity you can think of took place. For inmates found to be a snitch, a child molester, or someone not accepted in the minds of the inmates, the likelihood of a stabbing, a severe beating, or even murder was inevitable.
“I was a monkey in a cage,” said Lawton. “The trick was to avoid the worst of the worst and survive.”
*
After getting his bedroll, Lawton was assigned to cellblock A-1. Accompanied by guards, he and a half dozen other inmates had to walk past C-block, the long-term hole that consisted of five tiers of cells with old iron bars, like dungeons, from the time Al Capone was housed there. Lawton could hear the commotion coming from behind the steel doors.
As Lawton headed toward A-block down a long passageway, he could hear all the commotion coming from D-block and B-block as well. As he entered A-block all the inmates were looking at him. Not a word was uttered. It was eerie, because A-1 had two tiers, and the inmates were hanging over the top tier watching him in silence. On every floor in Atlanta there are two guard stations where the guards often stay when not making rounds. They were looking too.
As he walked past the cells toward the guard station, he noticed one inmate who looked just like a woman, with his eyebrows and lips tattooed. These inmates who looked like women, of which there were many, were called punks, he would soon learn.
Holy fuck, Lawton thought, this is a world unto itself.
Cells were not assigned. The inmates picked their own cellmates. It was nerve-whacking because Lawton had no idea how the inmates approached each other.
Who will be my cellie? he wondered.
He was on the lookout for a white inmate who didn’t appear to be a homicidal maniac.
Lawton and an inmate by the name of Lee Sharow found each other. As he walked by, Lawton was asked by Sharow, “Yo, where you from?” That was always the first question asked.
“New York,” said Lawton.
Sharow then began talking, asking him questions like, “Where’d you come from? Who was on the bus? How long have you been traveling?” And then he asked, “How long you got?”
“I have four 12s,” Lawton said, meaning he had been hit with four twelve-year sentences to run concurrently. Lawton was a little embarrassed. Compared to most everyone else, it was a very short sentence. Sharow, who was from Pensacola, Florida, had attacked a man with an axe handle and killed him. He was serving a life sentence.
Sharow didn’t want a cellie who was a snitch or a wacko. He wanted a cellie who would live and let live. Early on Sharow and Lawton clicked, important because strangers who were going to be living in very close proximity for a long, long time better get along.
“Hey, I got some toothpaste,” said Lee.
“Hey man, thanks a lot.” Sharow also gave him a pair of sneakers.
Sharow and Lawton together walked over to the guard.
“We’re going to cell together,” said Sharow.
Sharow, it turned out, was part of the group of cool white inmates. The word went out: Lawton’s a New York guy, a white guy, and he’s okay.
*
Lawton’s next order of business was to get in touch with Vic Orena, who before his incarceration at Atlanta had been the acting boss of the Columbo crime family. Oreno, convicted of murder and racketeering, received three life sentences plus 75 years in a federal penitentiary. In prison Orena was an important person to know.
Lawton asked Sharow if he knew Orena.
“I have a letter for him,” Lawton said. The letter was from Jerry Chilli, a capo from one of the crime families who controlled the operations for the mob in Broward County, Florida, and in Hollywood, Florida. Lawton and Chilli had met while Lawton was on trial for the jewelry store robberies. When Chilli learned that Lawton was going to Atlanta, Chilli wrote Orena a letter of introduction letting Orena know that Lawton was a stand-up guy.
“Vic Orena is in D-block,” said Sharow. “He usually goes to the yard every day. You should see him there.”
His cellie situation settled, Lawton’s most fervent wish was to go outside on the yard. He had just been in the hole and travelling for the past six weeks, and he was dying to see and feel some sunlight. And he badly wanted to meet Orena, one of the most powerful inmates in the prison.
Orena was on the yard, as advertised, and when Lawton gave him Chilli’s letter of introduction, he was greeted like it was old home week. On day one, Lawton had found a cellmate and for his protection and for companionship joined Orena’s group, which included other powerful Mafiosi including the murderous Vic Amuso, once a soldier for Joe
y Gallo but later the reputed boss of the Lucchese crime family. Amuso had killed several members of the Joseph Profaci crime family.
Also there was the fearsome Nicodemo “Nicky” Scarfo, the cold-hearted murderous boss of the Bruno-Scarfo Philadelphia crime family. Scarfo was responsible for twenty-eight murders, half of them members of his own gang. He was also suspected of killing a federal judge. Pasquale “Patty” Amato, another member of the Colombo crime family, also was housed in Atlanta. Patty and Larry often would sit on the yard and on Sunday afternoons would listen to an Atlanta radio station that played Frank Sinatra from two to four p.m.
“The only good thing about Atlanta was that it had good radio stations,” said Lawton. “That’s because we were in the city.”
Lawton got to know all these men. Often he would walk the yard with Nicky Scarfo, but he got to know Vic Orena the best.
“I learned that Vic made some phone calls, found out I was a stand-up guy, and along with the note from Jerry Chilli, that’s why he took care of me. Being one of the guys helped me get through Atlanta.”
Lawton’s first week on the yard wasn’t too bad. Then he got in trouble. Lawton was standing with a group of white inmates, the cool guys, who began complaining about the food.
Lawton had eaten the food, and it was disgusting.
“This was 1998,” said Lawton, “and we’d been given the meat from Desert Storm, which took place in 1992. One time I bit into the slop, and I almost chipped my tooth. The worst meat is cut right near the bone. It was disgusting. That’s what they gave us. There was no way they could have sold this meat anywhere in the world.
“The guys said to me, ‘Go to the warden and tell him how shitty the food is. Maybe it’ll help.”
Lawton, a newbie at Atlanta, didn’t know it, but his cool friends were messing with him and leading him down a dangerous path. Atlanta was run by Warden Willie Scott, a large, hulking black man known as “Big Willie the “trouble-shooting warden.” During his career Scott was sent to prisons to straighten them out and impose discipline after a riot or other disturbance. He had so much pull that he could transfer an inmate without going to the regional office. He would say, “Put him on the bus.” And the inmate would be shipped out to another prison that night.
Warden Scott was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t stand for backtalk, criticism, or even a wrong look, – or suggestions from inmates. Lawton’s friends were having fun with him and knew what was going to happen.
Lawton walked up to the warden, and he said, “Warden Scott, the food here isn’t very good.”
“‘Oh really,’ he said calmly. ‘Hold on.’ He called the lieutenant over.
“‘Throw him in the hole.” he ordered. And into the hole Lawton was thrown.
“What the fuck did I do to be in the hole? asked Lawton. I said, ‘The food’s not that great.’ I didn’t even say it in a bad way.”
The injustice of it all made him boil with anger, an anger he had no way of dissipating.
During his time in the hole he was banging on the door to get the attention of the counselor on the floor, a decent man by the name of Farley.
“I said to Farley, ‘What kind of place is this, Disneyland?’
“Farley was a big black guy who was pretty cool,” said Lawton. “‘What the fuck is going on?’ I said to him. ‘This place is a fucking zoo.’
“‘Larry,” he said, ‘Just be quiet. Don’t say anything.’
“I always bitched. I couldn’t help myself.”
And because he couldn’t help himself, three of the eighteen months he resided at Atlanta was spent in the hole. Unlike his stay in the hole before Captain’s Review, this time Lawton was sent there as punishment. This time his treatment wasn’t as humane. He was put in a cell, stripped naked, and as punishment the guards made him sit naked in the cold for a couple hours before they brought him his orange jumpsuit.
“It was winter, and you’re on the floor in a fetal position freezing your balls off,” said Lawton. “You’re at their mercy.” Two weeks later he was returned to his cell on the yard. All the while Lawton was learning what it took to survive.
He learned to eat Ramen noodles raw, which when raw look like a chunk of straw.
“Then you drink a glass of water, and the noodles expand in your stomach, and you’re full. When you go from being a millionaire riding around in a limo to eating Ramen noodles raw to keep from being hungry, you truly understand the big picture.”
He also learned that to survive, he had to be vigilant every day.
“Imagine waking up every morning fearing for your life,” said Lawton. “I never slept past six o’clock in the morning. Every single morning you put your boots or sneakers on. You never know when you’ll need them in a fight. You never look into a cell. One time I noticed an inmate being stabbed by two other inmates, and I just kept on walking. Another time I watched four inmates run in on a guy and stab him thirty times. The guy came staggering out of his cell, blood dripping everywhere, screaming. The four ran to ditch their shanks, because they knew the guards would come running, and there was going to be an investigation. Everyone knew who did it, but no one was ever able to prove it.”
Another time Lawton saw a guard attacked by an inmate. That doesn’t happen in most prisons, but in Atlanta the inmates with life sentences would go crazy, and they didn’t care. Lawton watched an inmate slam a guard to the ground and then kick him repeatedly. No one came to stop him until the other guard on the floor hit the alarm button, and then dozens of guards and staff came running to his defense.
“I’m sure that inmate got the beating of his life,” said Lawton.
Lawton once heard the guards break the leg of the inmate in the next cell. He didn’t’ see it, but he could hear the snap of the bone and the blood-curdling screams through the vent.
“You have no idea from where the danger will emanate,” said Lawton. “It could be from one or more of the guards or another inmate. It could come from looking at someone the wrong way, bumping into someone and not saying ‘I’m sorry,’ or a slight real or imagined. Maybe someone thought you looked into his cell and saw something you shouldn’t have seen like a guy stashing his drugs or hiding his wine. Or perhaps a guy was fucking a punk. Or maybe the guy with the shank was just mentally ill, like an inmate by the name of Ozzie.
“Ozzie was a black inmate who went crazy,” said Lawton. “He taped two shanks, one to each hand, and he ran down the tier stabbing anyone who was in his path. By the time he got to the end of the tier, all the guards came running. They were screaming, “Drop the knife.” But the shanks were taped to his hands. They surrounded him, and they sprayed him with mace. He didn’t kill anybody. He just went crazy.
“There’s a different code in a penitentiary than in any other prison setting,” said Lawton. “It’s all about survival. Psychopaths rule the prison.”
CHAPTER 10
An Atmosphere of Violence
One fear Lawton had to overcome was that of rats. Not the human snitching kind of rat. The rodent kind of rat. Atlanta had such a major rat infestation it allowed cats, dozens of cats. One of the rats even had a name.
“There was one rat in the kitchen the inmates called Big Ben,” said Lawton. “He was so big he could get on its hind legs and get up on a chair. That rat was fearless and wouldn’t run from you. The inmates tried to poison and trap him, but nothing worked. I once ran up to Big Ben with a broom, but he just turned his head and showed me his teeth. He held his ground. I was so freaked out that I backed away. You didn’t fuck with Big Ben.”
Another time Lawton was in his cell, and he heard chewing.
What the fuck is that? Lawton wondered.
“I got up and opened my locker, and the sound stopped,” said Lawton. “I closed the locker, and I heard the sound again. I opened the locker a second time, and a rat j
umped out on top of me and ran out of the cell. I freaked out. Ahhh, motherfucker. I hate rats, all kinds.”
But his fear of rats was nothing compared to his feelings of loneliness and failure. Lawton had married Missy in November of 1994. He and Missy had a daughter, and he also had a son with his first wife. He and Missy lived together until December of 1996 when he was arrested.
While he was robbing jewelry stores, they were living high on the hog. In his six years he had cleared about four hundred thousand dollars a year, but he never figured he’d get caught, so he never stashed any of his money.
“If I had stashed thirty percent, that’s three quarters of a million,” said Lawton, “but no one in my business does that. You just don’t. You live on the edge. You live a different life. Nobody I knew lived the life of a regular person.
“People took advantage of Missy and the money dried up. She had everything, and suddenly she had nothing. All through my time in prison I would send her two or three hundred a month, but that wasn’t nearly enough to live on. She ended up living with a guy and having his baby.
“Losing Missy drove me crazy. I knew it was my fault and that she had to move on. We had lived a wild life, but we were starting to look like a family. I would sit in my cell and cry uncontrollably, want to call her every minute, but I had to be strong. My heart was truly broken.
“Your brain is amazing. It keeps working while you’re sleeping, and sometimes that isn’t a good thing. I would wake up in a sweat. I was locked in a cell and couldn’t do a thing about my situation. You truly start going crazy. You also have to appear tough, because in prison the first sign of weakness could be the last sign you see. The place was full of animals and vultures.
“Once you’re in prison, your marriage is over. You can’t expect someone to wait for you. Ninety five percent of all marriages dissolve this way. It’s the norm. I could never blame Missy for our divorce. Hell, I put myself in prison. It wasn’t her fault. I blame nobody but myself.”
