by Mateo Hoke
It was scary going in there the first time. I wanted my mom. They’ve got hall units for different age groups, and hall units for kids who have mental issues and a hall unit for kids on trial for murder and other major crimes. During the day, they’d make us go to school. After school, we’d go to our rooms for a couple of hours and then have dinner. After dinner, we’d go back to our rooms. Then at night, I think it’s for an hour, an hour and a half, we get to have free time and can play ping-pong, basketball, watch TV, take a shower, things like that. Then go to our rooms and go to bed. I was in juvenile hall for about a week and then out with an ankle monitor for another week.
I was still in fifth grade when I got arrested again for assault with a deadly weapon. I was with my buddy Eric at his apartment complex. I can’t remember how it started, but we were hanging out on his balcony and ended up talking shit with this fat older dude and his buddy down below us. A teenager, I think. This guy said to come down to where he was. My friend and I ran down there, and on the way, I grabbed a bat. I got down there and smashed the guy with the bat in his side. I didn’t really do anything to him—it didn’t knock him down. But then I pulled out a big-ass knife that I got at the flea market and said, “Come on then.” The guy’s friend just said more shit and then they walked off.
My friend and I were walking down the street back to my house when the police pulled us over and found the knife on me. I got booked for assault with a deadly weapon and for brandishing a deadly weapon. It turns out the guy I’d hit with the bat was actually a woman. I thought she was a dude!
So I was in juvenile hall for a couple more months. I was eleven. The first time I went into juvenile hall, I was scared, and it sucked. The second time, I knew more what to expect, and it still sucked. I was too young to understand where I was really. But I don’t believe that institutions like that help in any way, shape, or form, other than to hone your criminal skills if you want to be a criminal. I’d say the main thing that juvenile hall taught me was how to keep my mouth closed. It taught me how to blend in.
YOU GET USED TO IT
I made it to high school but got kicked out freshman year for fighting. I was a hothead. Right before I was going into high school, I had football coaches coming to my games watching me and talking to my coaches, telling them that they want me to come to their high school to play ball. I had a good opportunity with football, but my anger got in the way.
I spent some more time in juvenile hall. I was going back and forth through middle school and all my high school years. I’d go in for things like theft, more breaking and entering, assaults, numerous parole violations. One of the little counselor dudes at juvenile hall told me, “We should give you a key you’re here so much.”
In juvenile hall, I was constantly in trouble. They got this shit called “risk” and then “maximum risk.” You get put in max risk if you’re a violent threat. But you know how kids are. One thing I’d learned is to get off first. That means, if you’re in a hostile situation with someone, you punch them in the mouth before they punch you in the mouth because that’s what’s coming. I was constantly hitting other kids, so I was always in risk or max risk.
When you get into a fight, three or four counselors with names like Dion and Mondo, a goon squad, would come and fuck your ass up. They were breaking kids’ arms, pulling them behind their backs. You’d fight back, they’d pepper spray you. They’d tell you to stop, and if you didn’t, they’d spray you again. If you didn’t stop then, they’d slam you to the ground, cuff you, and take you to your room. The first couple of times I got sprayed, I stopped right away. It burned like hell. But just like anything, after you’ve been through it a couple of times, you get used to it.
I’M IN JAIL WHILE I’M IN JAIL
Levi continued to move in and out of the prison system after turning eighteen, typically with sentences of a few months to a few years. In his early twenties, Levi’s girlfriend, Maddie, became pregnant, and they married. They had four daughters together, even as Levi continued to return to prison for various lengths of time. His longest sentence was for four years on burglary charges, of which he served two. It was while he was serving time for that burglary conviction that Levi first experienced solitary confinement.
The first time I was in solitary was when I was in San Quentin. I went in on a four-year sentence for burglary, breaking into houses, and just a bunch of stolen shit.
A regular cell at San Quentin still has bars. In the cellblock area, there’s five tiers. Each cell is about big enough to stretch your arms and touch both walls. Each cell has a bunk for two people. You sit on the bunk against one wall, and the wall across from you is like a foot away. In the back of the cell is a sink and a toilet, which are together in one little unit. Then you’ve got a shelf in back. I remember first getting to the cell and being like, How are we living in this shit? And you’re in there with your cellie, another guy in the same small space. We all spent a lot of time working out. There’s enough room for someone to be doing pushups and then a bird bath.45 Other times we’d spend reading, talking, writing. Where I was in the H unit, the yard was open from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Then we’d go back to our cell for the count and to eat. After that, the yard would open back up until 10 p.m. So at least we were free all day running around.
I was sent to ad seg for a week, week and a half, for supposedly helping to plan a riot that hadn’t happened yet. Ad seg is the hole, solitary confinement. When you go to the hole, everything is done by committee. You don’t just go straight to the hole. You got to go to classification first. That’s where you go in a room that’s got the warden, the captain, all the bigwigs, and a classification sergeant. They go over your file and what you’re back there for. They don’t want to put you in a unit where you’re going to get stabbed or beat up because you’re a rat or whatever the reason, so they go over your file and classify you. The whole process of getting the paperwork together and reviewing it can take maybe two weeks and during that time you’re just in the hole with no yard time at all.
At San Quentin, the ad seg cells are exactly the same as the regular cells, only in a different cellblock, and you’re there by yourself. When I was by myself that first time, it was like, Fuck, man. If you’re in ad seg, at first you only get out of your cell every other day to shower. The only contact you have with another person is when the guard comes to escort you to the shower for five minutes.
Once you’ve been classified, then you get time in the yard every other day. Depending on what you’re in for, when you get yard time you might go to a dog cage. A dog cage is a kennel for a person—just a metal cage that’s like eight by twelve feet. But you’re outside. You don’t have anything with you in the dog cage, there’s no weights or anything like that in California prisons. So you work out by doing pushups, burpees, squats.
That first time I was in solitary, I felt like, I’m in jail while I’m in jail.
PRISON POLITICS TO THE FULLEST
Levi was released from San Quentin in 2008 but was back in prison twenty days later. He was sent to California State Prison in Solano for a year on an assault charge. Levi says he assaulted his mom’s boyfriend because he was beating her up.
I’d only been in Solano a week, and I wanted to earn a name, a reputation.46 After a week, a child molester showed up on the yard. I’m not going to live with a child molester and nobody else who’s on the yard’s going to live with a child molester, just like they wouldn’t live with a rapist, a rat, or somebody who hits old people. People like that have got to go. That’s just what it is. A child molester is going to get smashed on. Of course, I can only speak for myself. I’ve got issues around child molestation. That touches a personal note for me, and I’m not going to be around a chil’ mo’.
Me and this other dude got him in the chow hall. We just started punching and kicking him, whatever we could do, until the guards shot us with block guns. That’s a gun that shoots a nonlet
hal projectile, something like a wooden block. So a guard shot me with a block gun, and it completely knocked the wind out of me and knocked me to the ground. I was doing no more fighting after that. I was done.
First, they took the guy we smashed out on a stretcher. Wherever he went, he went. I don’t know. Most likely he was taken to a SNY, which is protective custody.47 I wound up with twelve months in SHU for causing grave bodily injury.
Unlike at San Quentin, the SHU cells at Solano had doors that electronically opened and closed. The cell has a window slit in the door that’s maybe three inches high by a foot, and that’s all there is to look out into the building. The rest is all enclosed, and it’s quiet.
When I got to the SHU, the first thing I did is something called “fishing.” That’s where you make a “car,” which could be a piece of soap or an envelope or anything you can find, and you spin line with any thread you have and tie it someway to the car. Then you can take your car and slide it out the slit under your door, then yank the line so it’ll go to the cell next door to yours. That way you can pass notes or whatever it is you need to pass.
Then there’s also COs. There’s COs who are there to be assholes, and then there’s COs who are there to get a paycheck and mind their own business. The COs who are there to get a paycheck, it’s probably one of the best jobs for guys out there, literally. Unless you’re in a really high-level prison, you don’t do anything but babysit a bunch of dudes. Depending on where you’re from and how long you’ve been in, you might have a CO who’s willing to do shit for you.
Not long after I went into the SHU at Solano, a CO showed up at my door and was like, “You got paperwork?” I showed him my paperwork. Paperwork is the incident report that explains why I got a lockup order in the SHU. Now, the paperwork will either say you’re an aggressor or a victim. If you’re the aggressor, then you need to produce that paperwork so you can say that you’re “good.” Your paperwork might say “assault on an inmate,” and that actually looks good. It means you’re active, you took care of a problem. It might also say “mutual combat” and that’s okay, cause it just means two guys got into a fight. But if it says “victim,” you don’t want to show anyone your paperwork. Because that means you got attacked for a reason. In the prison system, if you’re a victim, it’s probably for a reason like you’re a child molester, rapist, rat, abusing elderly people. A jailhouse thief. Those would be the reasons you’d get attacked. There’s also a section on the paperwork that says “Statement.” That needs to be blank. If you make a statement about the incident that got you locked up, you fucked up; something’s going to happen to you.
It’s all prison politics to the fullest.48 However your race runs things inside is how it is, and how you’re expected to act. And every race is different—white race, Black race. For me and my kind, if you’re white and you’re active, you’re going to act a certain way and you’re not going to act a certain way. We’re too good to lose our shit. We’re expected to be better than that.
I think it’s like that because you got guys in prison who are still holding on to them old days when things were more racially divided. In prison you’re racially separated because that African is not going to help you if you’re getting whooped by a Mexican. And that Mexican sure the fuck ain’t going to help you if you’re getting whooped on by a Black man or even a white man. So who do you have? You have your own people because your people are going to have your back. It’s just the way it is.
I didn’t have any white power tattoos before prison. I got the swastika tattoo on my stomach after a riot at Solano State Prison against the Blacks. The other tattoos I didn’t give a fuck. When I was in prison and following the politics, I could see the hatred from the Black men. You can see the animosity, you can feel it from them. You know they don’t like you and you know they want to hurt you—it’s all bad. Even when shit’s not happening you can tell that they want to hurt you. So, I was in there and that opened my eyes. These swastikas that I have on me, to an older generation’s Black man, it’s an eyesore, it’s blatant disrespect. Well, when I was in there I was all about disrespect to those mutherfuckers because I know they don’t like me. I didn’t put the swastikas on my body because I’m racist.
This is the thing—when I was in prison, I was a full-blown convict. It’s what I believed in. I wasn’t going to do anything or act any way other than the way I was supposed to be acting, which was as a strong white man. Hold my mud or hold my ground, or hold onto my character until it was over. I did what I had to do. It didn’t matter how long it was going to be. I knew the moment I did what I did that I wasn’t going to the hole for a short amount of time. I knew that. I was prepared for that. I knew that was coming. I actually expected to catch more time.
I’D HEAR OTHER PEOPLE LOSING IT
It’s hard to explain what it was like in solitary, but I can say that being in the SHU made me feel like an animal. Made me feel like a dangerous person. Made me feel in a sense like a badass, because you’re in a place where the cops won’t even have any interaction with you unless you’re cuffed up.
I tell you this much—being in the SHU in Solano was the most I ever thought. That was the most that my mind fucked with me and played with me. What went through my head most was, What are people outside thinking of me? What’s my wife doing? Where’s she at? Who’s she with? Is she fucking somebody? Is she thinking about me right now? Who’s around my kids? What are they doing right now?
Maddie, my wife, would come visit every weekend. Even when you’re in ad seg, you can still get visits. They’re behind glass when you’re in ad seg, but you can still get visits. After my wife’s visits, I’d get back to my cell and I can remember thinking, Somebody’s in the car waiting for her. Or maybe I’d get a letter from her, and I’d start thinking, Her handwriting looks different. She’s doing something.
Sometimes you’d get to the point where you’d just yell, “Fuck!” All the time I’d hear other people losing it. There’d be other guys in the hole who’d cause scenes and just do shit to get cops at the door.
One time this guy smeared shit all over himself and laid on the ground. The cops walked by and checked on him, and he didn’t respond. They had to get medical tech out there, and he still didn’t respond. They opened up the door, he’s still unresponsive. They get him out the door and they get him on the stretcher, and then he’s fine. He’d just been in there too long. He was just bored.
It’s hard to explain because nobody can really grasp and understand the feeling of being so alone unless they’re there. When you’ve been alone and you’ve been in jail, and you’ve been by yourself for so long, going to a place where you’re really cut off, it’s easier. I’m not saying that it didn’t get to me. I’m not saying that at some times it didn’t drive me nuts. I’m not saying that at times it didn’t break me down to where I cried by myself. I’m not saying that. But I can’t sit here and say it drove me absolutely insane because I was used to the shit. It was just another experience in prison. It was just another section to be in.
Is it torture? I’d say yes because we crave human contact. After you’ve been in for a while by yourself and you get to go to the yard, you’re like, Yes. I remember going to the yard after being alone and the first thing everybody asked was, “You all right? Are you okay? How you doing?” We need that shit. The SHU is its own prison within a prison. You’re in your cell all day. The light’s on 24/7. No darkness. It’s always lit up. It drives people crazy. Of course it does.
The last prison I was at was Salinas Valley State Prison, level 4, a max prison.49 When I left there I knew how to make a paperclip into a knife, I’d learned how to fucking make a saw with thread that cuts for real, I learned how to make actual 100-proof whiskey, and numerous other things that I’m not going to put out there. But the point is I’d learned how to be more crime efficient than I did how to be a good citizen of the public.
PUTTING A ROOF
OVER MY FAMILY’S HEAD
When we meet Levi in 2015, he’s been living in a Salvation Army halfway house for nearly a year as part of a twelve-month, court-ordered treatment program. He’s split with his first wife, Maddie, and has a baby daughter with his soon-to-be second wife, Brooke, who has been with him through the halfway house program once already.
Where I’m living is a house. It’s got a rec room, a little gym, TV area. It’s got a bowling alley up there. Two lanes. Then there’s a dormitory. There’s four-man dorms and there’s a third level, which is more rooms, more dorms, and then it’s got a hall of single rooms for guys who are in phase two of the program. Right now I’m at eleven months and in phase two. I have my own room.
There are two phases of the AA program I’m in. Phase one is mainly all program—you work your steps with your sponsor. You got classes, rehab, relapse prevention, anger management, family workshop. You’re also working forty hours a week in the home. They call it “work therapy.” You might work janitorial, or in the kitchen, or nights at the front desk. When I started, I’d work the desk from 10 at night to 6:30 in the morning. There’s a curfew. The doors lock at 10:30. If you’re not in, you’re locked out and you’re discharged from the program. There’s no second chance. One strike and you’re out. That’s it. Phase one all together is a busy schedule, and it goes for your first six months. Phase two, you do less meetings, but you also get to run them at the house. Also, you get to go out and look for work.
I didn’t have a choice in being here. I’m court committed. It’s actually the second time I’ve been in the program. The problem is, when I get high, I only stop when I’m in handcuffs and back in jail. That’s what happened the first time.
