Forty Days at Kamas

by Preston Fleming

  And to the young criminals: "It's about time we had some red–blooded macho Americans like you to keep these traitors in line. You can count on us to back you to the hilt."

  The criminals stayed close together as they made their way down the aisles toward the rear of the barracks, ignoring vacant bunks as they went. When they could go no further, they gestured for the existing occupants to vacate the last three rows of beds. There was a moment of uncertainty while the occupants considered whether to defend their bunks and the thieves considered whether to take them by force. Then the confident voice of an older prisoner spoke up.

  "Come on, let's show these men some hospitality. Let them have their own area in back if they want it. You guys in back, come on up here with us. There's plenty of empty billets."

  And rather than begrudge the newcomers the bunks they coveted, the politicals at the rear of the hut gathered their belongings quietly and moved to vacant bunks closer to the entrance. An uneasy quiet prevailed as the new arrivals took their places.

  But the quiet was quickly broken. On a bunk adjacent to those of the criminals, an emaciated political used a homemade knife to whittle a tiny bear from a block of wood. A slender youth with a wispy mustache and goatee crept up behind him and snatched the knife away.

  "Go make yourself another one, old man," he said as he retreated with his prize to a third–tier bunk.

  Not far away, a compact, muscular youth eyed a bespectacled prisoner reading a paperback novel and made a beeline for it.

  "Let me see that," he said, but only after he had already torn it from the startled man's grip. He glanced impatiently at the cover, then tore a handful of pages from of the middle and tossed it on the floor.

  "What kind of bullshit book is this, anyway? Who's got some porn around here? Come on, you limpdicks, hand it over!" He scanned the other bunks within range for more reading material.

  The political prisoners turned their backs on their new neighbors. Most had learned in the transit camps that when the thieves crossed the room to torment and plunder, it was best to surrender whatever they wanted and offer no resistance. If it came to blows, the thieves would defend each other to the death while the politicals cowered and left their fellows to meet their fate alone.

  To the thieves, fighting was a way of life and an essential survival skill. No blow or trick was too foul or underhanded if it offered a tactical advantage. The thieves flaunted their brutality to intimidate the politicals, who abhorred violence both in principle and in practice and lacked the stomach to hit below the belt, bite, stomp, gouge an eye or break a nose, even to save their own life or that of a close friend. The result was that, whenever politicals mixed with thieves, any sense of unity or camaraderie among the politicals broke down and every man was left to fend for himself.

  In Barracks C–14, however, we politicals outnumbered the thieves by a margin of at least five to one. Like many of my neighbors, I was prepared to fight if I had to. But I was not inclined to start the fight and risk facing the thieves alone if no one joined me. Before I could decide what to do if one of them attacked me, a scuffle broke out two rows away.

  A pair of thieves in their late twenties sat down on either side of the youngest political prisoner in the barracks, an eighteen–year–old high school student who had been arrested for publishing an article in his school newspaper critical of Unionist officials in his town. The student looked panic–stricken. My instincts told me that they were sizing him up for rape. I looked around me to determine whether anyone else had noticed and whether I would be alone if I came to his defense.

  To my surprise, Brian Gaffney was already on his way. At six feet three inches and nearly two hundred pounds, he was one of the strongest men in the barracks even after his stay in the isolator. Before starting his career as a commercial artist, Gaffney had once worked as a lumberjack and had also crewed on commercial fishing vessels off the Alaska coast. Gaffney faced the two thieves and spoke to them in a low voice.

  In an instant, both thieves jumped him. I hesitated for a moment, then rushed to his aid, grabbing one of the attackers around the throat and tossing him back into the thieves' corner. Two politicals blocked his return while Gaffney dispatched the other thief with rapid–fire punches to the face. The rest of the thieves were ready to fight but were held in check by a handful of politicals separating them from Gaffney and his opponents.

  Gaffney stood, flushed with anger and dripping blood from his nose and mouth. He looked around the barracks and saw how few of his fellow politicals had supported him.

  "You people are pathetic! Here we are, seventy–five against fifteen, and you're willing to stand by and let these punks humiliate us? When are you finally going to stand up for yourselves?"

  Before anyone could speak, I heard the hard rap of a wooden nightstick swinging against a bunk. It was Grady. He and Mills had watched the entire fight without intervening. Now the two warders swaggered down the aisle toward Gaffney.

  "It's back to the isolator for you, pal," Grady declared.

  Mills circled behind Gaffney and pushed him toward the door while Grady raised his stick to strike. Suddenly a hand darted out from a top bunk and snatched Mills's hat from his head. Another pair of hands reached out from beneath a bunk and untied his bootlaces. Mills didn't know which one to attack first. Another hand reached out from a mid–level bunk and slipped Grady's pepper spray out of his breast pocket.

  "Hey, give that back or I’ll…"

  There was a faint hiss and Grady screamed as he raised his hands to his eyes. The next spray hit Mills. Both men fell writhing to the floor. The thieves instantly went to work stripping the warders of their boots and coveralls and dragged them out of the barracks into the yard. Their hats, nightsticks, boots, pepper spray, and the contents of their pockets disappeared.

  The thieves tossed the empty coveralls back to the disabled warders and disappeared into the crowd that had gathered outside. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Kamas. Before long, a squad of guards came along and carried Grady and Mills off to the dispensary. But the prisoners who had seen the attack on the two warders talked about it all day long, wondering aloud why the thieves would have come to the aid of a political whom they had battled only moments before.

  At lunch I fell into line behind Jerry Lee and Steve Bernstein, the Long Island drug salesman I had met on my first day in camp. As a four–year veteran of the camp system, Bernstein had lived among thieves in a variety of transit camps. He also had an ear for gossip. We took our seats at a table at the rear of the mess hall. Bernstein pointed out the table where the thieves sat.

  Their senior capo, Bernstein told us, was Frank Brancato, a thirty–five–year–old brute who stood six feet six inches tall and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. According to Bernstein, Brancato had once competed as a professional wrestler and was still known by his wrestling name, "The Beast," which some said referred to the mat of black fur that grew on his back, chest, and limbs. After leaving the ring, he had joined a narcotics–distribution ring in western Massachusetts and had served three years of a five–year sentence for drug trafficking.

  Two seats away sat Brancato's chief deputy, Randy Skinner, a one–time motorcycle gang leader and methamphetamine entrepreneur. Bernstein explained how, during the Events, Skinner’s network of mobile meth labs had delivered drugs to fighters on both sides of the battles that raged across the Plains States. Skinner's paranoia and raging temper fueled speculation that he himself was a speed freak but those who knew him claimed that these were simply the natural traits of a born psychopath.

  The head table of the thieves' contingent also included various sycophants and personal attendants. Among those were Ramon Sanchez, a Mexican–American drug smuggler who spoke for Hispanic gang members at Kamas, and Jabril, a Harlem–born master burglar whose specialty was looting retail stores by night and reselling the wares by day to an army of sidewalk peddlers.

  Bernstein painted a bleak picture of what was in
store for us once the thieves gained a foothold at Kamas.

  "You've got to remember, people like Brancato and Skinner buy and sell small–time government schmucks every day of the week. Labor camp trusties are no different. Before you know it, Brancato's men will show up as warders, then in the mess halls, and then even as foremen and team leaders. After a while they'll be running the whole goddamned camp. Believe me, the best thing you can do is to stay out of their way and give them what they want."

  "Come on, Steve," I argued. "Most of the thieves I’ve seen are just ignorant kids. They can't be very bright or they wouldn't be criminals in the first place. For heaven's sake, we've got over a thousand combat veterans among us. It would be absurd for us to surrender to a handful of delinquents."

  "Not as long as Rocco and Whiting run the show," Bernstein countered. "Look, if Whiting can grind us into the dirt the way he's doing now, how bad do you think it can get with six hundred criminals on his side? And who's to stop him from shipping in a thousand more? No, this time Whiting's really got our number."

  Jerry Lee and I looked at each other and finished our meals in silence. There was no point in arguing with someone like Bernstein. He had already accepted defeat and nothing we could say would persuade him otherwise.

  We had finished eating and were about to leave when we saw Reineke, Knopfler, Perkins, and Murphy coming our way. They passed behind us in single file and continued in the direction of Brancato's table. Approaching the table from the left and right were two other groups, one led by Gary Toth and the other by one of Toth's lieutenants. As they came nearer, everyone at Brancato's table stood except Brancato and Skinner.

  Jerry Lee and I followed a few paces behind in a show of support.

  "We've heard you're the leaders of the new transferees," Reineke began, speaking directly to Brancato. "The four of us were elected a while back to represent the prisoners here. Now that your men and ours are going to be living together, we thought it might be a good idea to have a talk. Can you bring together your top men and meet us outside? We'll be waiting."

  Brancato acknowledged Reineke with a slight nod.

  Reineke headed for the door with his team in tow. Jerry Lee and I joined them outside and waited for Brancato. In a few minutes he came out the door with an entourage of more than a dozen. They glared at us from the porch.

  "Let's talk four on four," Reineke called out to Brancato. "Follow us behind the mess hall. Leave everybody else here."

  "There will be six of us," Brancato replied.

  "Fine," Reineke called back. Then he pointed in our direction. "I need two more men: Wagner, Quayle, come on over."

  I swallowed hard and set off to catch up with them.

  When I reached the back of the mess hall, Reineke and the others were already seated cross–legged on the ground. I took a seat next to George Perkins. In a few moments Brancato arrived with his team. I recognized Skinner, Ramon, Jabril, and two of Brancato’s enforcers.

  Reineke introduced himself and then followed the camp custom of stating the section of Title 18 under which he had been convicted, along with the number of years in his term. The other five of us did the same. Brancato and his team followed by naming their own crimes and sentences.

  Then Reineke went straight to the point.

  "In case you haven't heard about Kamas, let me give you some highlights. Over the last year we've executed over fifty stool pigeons. Last month we held two strikes and a thousand of us went to jail for it. Five hundred were sent north. We're not the same breed of politicals you're used to seeing in the transit camps. We know how to enforce our rules and you'll live by them or suffer the consequences."

  "You know how my boys are," Brancato replied with a crooked smile. "They aren't used to rules. I'm not sure I can help you much there."

  "Then let me make it even clearer," Reineke continued. "There are six hundred of you, three thousand of us. More than a thousand of us have seen combat during the Events or against the Chinese. We can make knives as good as yours but we can also kill with our bare hands if we have to.

  "We're offering you a choice: war or alliance. If you want war, we'll start today and we won't stop until you're on our knees. If you agree to be our allies, we’ll expect you to side with us against the bosses each and every time. And your men won't be permitted to work as stoolies or warders or accept any special privileges without my express permission. It's as simple as that: war or alliance. What will it be?"

  Brancato looked at Skinner and then at Ramon and Jabril and was silent for nearly half a minute before he replied.

  "Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding here. My men are no friends of the bosses, believe me. The way I see it, it's a very natural thing for my men to work with yours. No, we’re definitely with you guys. Count us in."

  CHAPTER 23

  "Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another."

  —Mao Zedong

  SUNDAY, MAY 19

  DAY 1

  To nearly everyone's surprise, nearly three weeks after the May Day truce between politicals and thieves in Division 3, the peace was still intact. In every barracks, the criminals obeyed Brancato’s command to refrain from their usual habits of extorting our food, stealing our pitiful belongings, bullying us around, picking fights, raping the weak, and colluding with guards and warders to subvert our rules. At the same time, the Wart and his minions were perplexed by the thieves' refusal to accept positions as warders, foremen, kitchen workers, and orderlies.

  At the worksites, the thieves cast aside their usual disdain for manual labor and pitched in as best they could despite their poor work habits and shortage of useful skills. Even the incorrigible slackers showed marked improvement after having their rations docked. And the stool pigeons among them came to have second thoughts about being seen with security officers when two of their number were found hanged outside the mess hall on their second Saturday in Kamas.

  The criminals became acutely aware of their numerical inferiority and stayed close to their fellow thieves at worksites, barracks, mess halls, and latrines. Observing their leaders meeting daily with leaders of the politicals, they were cautious not to do anything that might provoke a confrontation. Some whispered that a faction of malcontents was coalescing under Randy Skinner with the aim of ousting Brancato and renegotiating the truce with the politicals; however, most saw this as a move that could only lead to disaster for Skinner and his followers.

  The younger thieves seemed to have the most difficult time observing the truce and playing the role of dutiful camp citizens. They expressed their high level of nervous energy and lack of self–control daily through stunts, pranks, and silly antics directed primarily at the warders and guards, since politicals were off limits. The juvenile thieves, or vandals, as we called them, amused themselves by hooting, whistling, heckling, snatching warders' caps, hiding during roll call, climbing the high wall separating divisions 2 and 3, shooting out floodlights with slingshots and even teasing the sharpshooters in their watchtowers. They badgered the guards and warders incessantly to give them a peek at the women in Division 1 and would have clambered over the wall to see for themselves had armed sentries in the Service Yard not stood in their way.

  The second Sunday after the thieves' arrival was heavily overcast with a bitter and penetrating wind. Division 3 was characteristically quiet before lunch. Most of us, politicals and thieves alike, had gone back to our bunks to sleep after breakfast. When I joined Ralph Knopfler, Jerry Lee, and Brian Gaffney in the mess hall for lunch, I discerned at once that they were discussing how long it would take for the truce between politicals and criminals to collapse.

  "It goes against nature," I heard Knopfler remark as I took my seat and stirred my oatmeal. "Politicals and criminals are like oil
and water. The bosses brought in the thieves for only one reason: to torment us. Sooner or later they'll find a way to drive a wedge between us and we'll be at war."

  "Ralph has it right," Gaffney added. "The Unionists have always had a soft spot for criminals. No matter how bad the crime, they get plea bargains and paroles while we get shot or sent to the mines. I can understand why the Unionists hate politicals but I've never quite understood why they're so fond of the thieves."

  "It's a class thing, like the ant and the grasshopper," Jerry Lee suggested. "The Unionists identify with the grasshopper. They sing and dance all summer long and then, come winter, they hate being lectured about thrift and hard work by the damned ants who’ve stored up all the grain. A Unionist will always sympathize with the bum, the blowhard, and the black sheep and blame all his troubles on the mean, humorless uncaring ant. Remember how the Events started? Doesn't it all come down to the President–for–Life deciding to rob the greedy Rocky Mountain ants to care for his beloved California grasshoppers?"

  "That may be so," Gaffney responded. "But from what I've seen, the criminals aren't nearly as fond of the Unionists as bosses as the bosses are of them. They hate all the high–sounding speeches about rehabilitation and class unity. It’s their nature to bite the hand that feeds them."

  "Frankly, I think the Warden made a colossal mistake in bringing the thieves here," Knopfler concluded. "Once they came, it was inevitable that we would offer them a choice between war and alliance; that they would choose alliance; and that the alliance would turn the thieves back against the bosses. The only question is how long before the bosses catch on."

  After lunch, I returned to the barracks for more sleep. For me, no amount of slumber was enough, given the long workdays. I had slept soundly for several hours when loud hoots and whistles outside awakened me. Then I heard shouts and cheers and noticed that the barracks had emptied.