September 11, 1980, would be forever etched in Gary Evans’s mind as a day his life took a remarkable turn for the worse. After revoking his parole, he was sentenced for the second time in four years to another two-to four-year bid at Clinton Correctional, a prison that had already, in his mind, stripped him of over a year of his life, for second-degree possession of stolen property and first-degree escape.
On October 7, 1981, Evans spent his twenty-seventh birthday behind bars at Clinton. It was the third time in his young life he had celebrated his birthday while incarcerated. Once again, as he settled into a routine of being told what to wear, when to eat, sleep, shit and work, he started writing to Robbie.
For Robbie, the dysfunction she had grown up in as a child and the cold feelings she developed for her father as the years after his death passed were now nothing more than memories. She had set up a rather productive and healthy life for herself in Florida with her boyfriend and son, Devan. She was happy. Her only contact with family came in the form of letters from Gary and phone calls to Flora Mae once in a while. Over the years, Gary had taken a particular liking to his nephew, Devan, and talked about him as if he were his own child.
Between April 1981, seven months into his bid, and December 1981, he wrote Robbie about a half-dozen letters. For the most part, he talked about a new passion he had developed while in prison for making stained-glass-window portraits. I smeared my fingers with shit and drew pictures, he jokingly wrote. Then, more seriously, he explained in detail to Robbie how to take an everyday piece of glass and turn it into a “new art medium,” always reminding her that there was “money” to be made in doing it.
Prison life was rough for him this time around. He couldn’t “practice martial arts,” he said, because “stretching and kicking” weren’t allowed. In fact, at one time he had been locked down for two weeks for doing what he called “kung fu–looking” moves.
In some respects, the bigotry he had fostered throughout most of his young life began to dominate the tone of his letters.
I could trade three cartons of cigarettes ($15) and have a homo visit my cell for a few hours, but I’m not into that.
In the same letter: There’s a nigger fag all my friends are busting on me about, because he always says “hi” and goes wiggling by me when we’re lifting weights.
Throughout the letters, it was clear that the time was once again “doing” Evans.
I’ve gotten no mail at all! Doing ok…. I hate this place and wish I could go someplace nice.
Robbie wasn’t writing back to him on a regular basis. She would answer some of his letters, but not within the time-frame he would have liked. In just about every letter he wrote, he began by asking her why she wasn’t writing back.
The further into the bid he got, the more he began thinking about parole: In nine months I’ll see the parole board…and in 22 they have to let me go!! That’s in 684 days—I did 433 so far!!
Then, I’m wheeling, dealing and stealing anyway I can….
By November, now a year into his sentence, the regimented structure of prison life had taken its toll. His interaction with other inmates, the surroundings and being confined nearly twenty-four hours a day began to wear on him.
Robbie, in the few letters she had written, encouraged him to move to Florida when he was released. Start fresh. Begin a new life. She was family. He loved his nephew. Why not, Robbie kept insisting, move to Florida and start from scratch?
Just back from talking to [Devan], Evans wrote. The more I talk to you guys the better an idea it sounds to go there. I just hope they’ll parole me this coming spring…. Later, in the same letter, he added, Sometimes I feel like I’d just like to get a shotgun and payback about a dozen people, but I know I’d have to go back to living on the road.
There were certain people in Troy, he insisted, who had “rolled” over on him and traded information about crimes he had committed to save their own ass. Enemy number one was Michael Falco, he said, who, he believed, had given him up in trade for a lesser sentence.
I know if I end up staying in New York, I’m not hanging out with anybody. I’ll be thinking real hard if I feel I have to do something—it won’t be just any “random” quick-money thing. I can’t stand being in jail anymore. I’m falling apart physically & mentally….
And then came the most disturbing section of the letter: The Civil War against the niggers will be happening soon—and I’m going to be a hero in that. I’d like to have a place in New York for all of you guys to come because there’s bad odds in Florida.
Ending the letter with his standard phrase, write soon, he added, I just read that Florida is 8th city [sic] for crime, Miami first, West Palm Beach 3rd…full of niggers + spiks. I hope there’s places where they ain’t. And if I have to cut my hair for a job, that’s out!
Life for Gary Evans was about living under his rules. If whatever happened to him didn’t fall under a set of guidelines he had constructed, he blamed everyone but himself. In all the letters he had written to Robbie throughout his first year back behind bars, he never once took responsibility for any of the crimes he committed. It was always somebody else’s fault.