During the four o’clock count, when inmates were locked in their cells, three guards escorted a tall, muscular black inmate from the Hole, across the yard into the penitentiary, and down center hall. Two guards were standing on each side of the prisoner holding him by the arms; the third walked behind them. As the group reached the rotunda, several guards talking there became quiet. The inmate’s head fell forward and flopped from side to side. A string of drool hung from his mouth.
One of the guards explained what was going on. The night before, the inmate had thrown his dinner tray at Ray Moore, the senior guard assigned to the Hole. That morning, he burned the mattress in his cell. When guards moved him to another cell in the Hole, he stripped and somehow set his own clothes on fire. Guards called one of the prison’s three psychologists, who examined the inmate, said he was clearly “mentally unstable,” and recommended that he be moved to the bureau’s psychiatric ward at the medical center in Springfield, Missouri. It was where all mentally disturbed convicts were housed. Just before the four o’clock count, a team of guards went into the inmate’s cell and held him down so a physician’s assistant could give him “the juice.” Most inmates feared this more than any other action. The first shot contained three hundred milligrams of the antipsychotic drug Thorazine, but that wasn’t enough to knock out the bulky convict. The second pop contained a slightly larger dose and it had done the trick.
“He ain’t feeling no pain now,” said James Luongo, one of the escorting guards, as he passed us in the rotunda.
“Hey, maybe I should get some juice,” another guard joked. “It looks like good shit.”
The convict was led outside into the afternoon sunshine and down the front steps of the prison, his feet dragging helplessly a step or two behind him. His eyes were open but unfocused. The guards lifted him into the backseat of a waiting van. His cuffed hands fell loosely into his lap, his head fell forward, and his mouth continued to drool.
“I hope he don’t shit his pants,” said one of the guards assigned to ride in the van with the prisoner to Springfield. “They sometimes do that, you know. They just lose it after they get the juice, and you have to ride all the way to Springfield smelling that shit.”
“At least he ain’t gonna cause us any trouble,” said another guard.
They all laughed.