Central Florida, September 1969
I had several more discussions with Inspector Ray Schmidt and Captain Roy Wilson, who emphasized that I should say only “Roy” or “Ray” during phone calls because all prison phone conversations are monitored. Accordingly, I memorized a dedicated number in the Intelligence Division used only by two cleared secretaries to answer incoming calls. Also committed to memory were certain codes for the status of things, both inside and outside prison. The secretary who answers the phone says “Hello.” After chatting for a minute, she passes me to Roy or Ray for a coded conversation. The (false) names of the two secretaries were on my list of approved contacts as friends.
The insertion began after Karen and I bought tickets to Orlando, and drove an hour east to Cocoa Beach for a vacation. The beach and oceanfront room proved wonderful, but our conversation and behavior were strained at times. We tried to enjoy the moment, but both of us were watching the calendar. No amount of denial allowed us to remove the sword of Damocles.
For the most part, we managed pretty well until the blacked-out sedan rode into view. Karen stiffened at the sight of the car and the two men in dark suits and sunglasses who got out. She gave me a long hug and kiss, and urged me to be careful.
I was ambivalent about doing this to her, and for what? More drug kingpins will replace these, assuming the plan is successful. If I am destined to die young, her loss is my fault. I volunteered and turned away to face the agents. Although clueless about what a convict was doing at a beach resort, they were good at following orders. Turn James Sixkiller and his folder over to the U.S. Marshals for a routine transfer from the Orlando Federal Court to Coleman Prison.
Karen returned to the room and made herself a cup of tea. Her trembling hands tried to put the cup back into the saucer. Jake was gone and so was the stiff upper lip, replaced by tears.
I had to be strong for Jake, she thought. He needs to face these unknown dangers without thinking I might not be able to handle the stress. Facing fear of the unknown is worse than fear of something tangible. I have no idea where he is going and what he will be doing. I hate to admit it, but I am also angry with Jake. He realized this was a major blow to us, and he did it anyway. I did not marry a soldier, and he presented me with a fait accompli. Maybe I’ll go to the library when I get home and review literature that addresses the lives of women married to cops and soldiers.
The Hole
Receiving and Discharge was the first stop for photos, fingerprints, and a written psychological evaluation to look for security-related problems. Later, guards would handcuff, shackle, and take me to the hole. What nothing can prepare you for was the sound. No other sound exists like a heavy prison door, made of casehardened steel, gathering momentum on its rails, and slamming against the wall and latching. The impact is so intense that, for a second or two, you can hear the high frequency harmonics from the steel as it recovers from an impact that vibrates your bones. It also does what no speech can do. You are inside and powerless; freedom is on the other side of that sound. I pushed from my mind Dante’s All hope abandon, ye who enter here! Only the Warden knows…
The hole, eight-by-ten feet, had four stacked bunks and three other inmates, eliminating the prospect of sleeping on the floor. No mail, one shower each week, bad food, one phone call every week, beds made prior to 8:00 a.m., and six “official” counts per day including one at 3:00 a.m. and one at 5:00 a.m. This was life for only a few days. My cellys seemed well-behaved, except for one Florida cracker named Bo. He didn’t like Indians and called me “nickel.” The other cellys were Reggie, a quiet, muscular young black man, and a Mexican farm laborer who spoke no English. I tried to follow the advice of Jerry. Exercise proved to be difficult, but possible. The sweltering heat and body odor made the sense of confinement overpowering. Sharing one toilet did not help. The noise in a prison during the day is nonstop and numbing: conversations; commentaries; insults; obscenities; and opinions are constantly ricocheting across and down corridors until quiet hours begin at 9:00 p.m.
Bo began decompensating from the stress after two days. He wasn’t sleeping and complained that somebody was inside his head telling him strange things; worse, he became angry and aggressive. He repeatedly shoved Reggie and me, and said we were out to get him. On the third day, he pushed Reggie and added, “Nigger, get out of my way.” Reggie decked him with a professional-looking straight left and a right hook, knocking him out and breaking his jaw.
The guards came, including one Latino to interpret and obtain statements. We told the same story. Gleeful screams from all sides shouted, “Fight in the hole!” The guards took Bo, conscious but incoherent, to the infirmary. They gave Reggie a shot, or a write-up for fighting, which was resolved in an interview with the lieutenant without any sanctions.
Reggie and I talked a little the following day, while I kept to my script with few improvisations. He was doing twenty-to-life for kidnapping and raping a white woman, convicted by an all-white jury. He considered himself lucky. An old interracial union called the United Packinghouse Workers of America helped get him a good lawyer, based on his steady job in a packinghouse in Jacksonville and clean record. The woman had convictions for prostitution, and the alleged, so-called kidnapping consisted of Reggie driving her from a strip bar to his apartment for consensual sex. His hobby was amateur boxing in a nearby gym. Surprisingly, he was not bitter. “I’ll get out someday,” he said quietly, “instead of being fried in the chair.”
Transfer
After six days the guards finally came for me. Sweating and stinking, I wished Reggie good luck. After a pro forma interview to review paperwork, I was scheduled for a Mandatory Release rather than to a halfway house. Having lost my good time in El Reno, because of alleged participation in a prison riot, I had to serve most of the full sentence, which expired in less than three weeks, plus two years on parole. A photo I.D. to be carried at all times, a nine-digit code to access the phones, locker number and, most importantly, the cell assignment followed the interview. Laundry was next, where I received green shirts, pants, shoes, work boots, towels, washcloths, a pillow and pillowcase, sheets, and basic toiletries: plastic razors, toothpaste, and two rolls of toilet paper. Then, I was escorted to my housing unit and shown the bulletin board where mandatory appointments, or call outs, are listed for each inmate there. Usually, call outs are to see a doctor, visit a counselor, and so on. The guard asked me if I could read. After nodding my head, he gave me a set of rules and told me to study them carefully. For example, non-institutional clothing may be worn after 4:00 p.m., on weekends, in the recreation yard, and at breakfast and evening meals. Also detailed was the disciplinary process.
Cell Mates
Finally, he took me to my cell, where I met Jesus Ramirez. The guard gave us a brief, if somewhat awkward, introduction and locked the door. I remembered Jerry’s advice to defer to any prior cellmate, and he had probably enjoyed the short period with no celly.
His first question was blunt but not hostile, “Who’d you piss off to do so much time in El Reno?” I smiled while reminding myself he was enjoying the fact that he already knew I transferred from El Reno. Ramirez was in his early thirties, about five-foot-eight-inches, very muscular, a little darker than most Latinos, un Moreno, not unusual among Cubans. Lifting weights was almost an obsession with many inmates. It works off stress and makes them stronger both for self-protection and to cope with an environment that has stripped them of power.
“Let me think,” I said. “The Customs Service, Border Patrol, BNDD, FBI, and the FAA. I believe that’s all.”
It was his turn to smile faintly.
“We’ve got time,” always a bad prison joke. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’d been working with a Mexican drug and immigrant trafficker. All of the northern border states are lousy with airstrips a few miles inside Mexico. I got five-thousand dollars for each round trip.”
Ramirez shifted slightly on his bunk when I mentioned airstrips.
“Standard procedure was to climb to only three-hundred feet and cross the border in a remote area, steer for a nearby Texas airstrip, climb as if you were leaving the traffic pattern, and squawk 1200 for visual flight rules.” A frown told me he was not a pilot, and an indicator that I must explain further.
“Almost all aircraft have a transponder inside which lets air traffic controllers see you, but not talk to you. Codes other than 1200 are used for formal flight plans.”
“Why do you want them to see you at all?” A fair question.
“Because they can see what’s called a skin paint without the transponder; the flight may have come from the airport near the Texas border or, without a transponder, may have originated in Mexico. The idea is to obey the rules as much as possible in order not to attract attention. My destination was Lawton, Oklahoma, carrying three-hundred-fifty pounds of marijuana and two illegals. I made the required calls for an approaching aircraft and landed without incident. The general aviation section of smaller airports normally has some remote areas where you can offload, refuel, and file a false flight plan to return to a border airport. As I taxied around the corner, the whole world was waiting for me with guns and flashing lights.”
“How did they know?” asked Ramirez.
“A Border Patrol agent with field glasses wrote down my tail number as I crossed the border at three hundred feet – bad luck. Then he got a supervisor to call the FAA and put an electronic ‘V,’ for violator, tag on the plane. So, when I popped up near the Texas airport to look legit, the FAA tagged me. They can follow a ‘V’ across the country, and the pilot never knows it’s there.
“For that reason, some smugglers hop across the border and land on a dirt strip owned by a trafficker or cooperator. They may scare a few cows and piss off ranchers, but they’ll offload and be back in Mexico in three hours. Ranchers, however, have shot down a couple of these planes. Other ranchers will report a suspicious pattern to Border Patrol, who keeps the area under surveillance. At a real airport, for example, a truck driving away on a paved road looks normal, in contrast to a fast-moving dust cloud in south Texas.”
“Well,” he said. “You succeeded in pissing off just about everybody, but I don’t understand why the FBI had a dog in this fight.”
“The plane was stolen.”
This time Ramirez laughed aloud.
“Why aren’t you doing two-hundred years?”
“I had a good lawyer. He got a lot of the bullshit charges dismissed, even the airplane, in return for a plea to ‘smuggling with the intent to distribute.’ I would have been out by now except for the riot in El Reno. I was in the wrong place with a bad crowd, and they stripped me of all my good time. Quite a few of us were involved, and the warden and assistant regional director made the punishment decisions. If we were there, then we did something wrong. But I’m out of here in nineteen days.”
Even if it is ten years away, any inmate can tell you the exact time of his mandatory release and next parole-hearing date. Chalk marks on the wall.
“What’s your story?” I asked.
“Not as interesting as yours. I’m merely a drug smuggler who got busted in Miami with two keys of heroin.”
“I didn’t realize much heroin comes into Miami,” I said.
“It doesn’t. I was doing a favor for a friend of a friend. The dealer in Washington had excess and called my associate in Miami, who specializes in weed. ‘Can you find a buyer for these keys?’ he asked. While we’re not heroin dealers, we know who they are. Unfortunately, the one we approached had already been caught and flipped. After we consummated the deal, six or seven feds plus Miami narcs were all over us.”
“How much more time you got?”
“I look good for parole in eleven months. Been keeping my nose clean and head down. Problem is Parole Board decisions are hard to predict. They may give weight to my prison record and say, ‘He’s been a good boy here, time for release‘; or they may focus on my criminal history and say, ‘He’s a typical recidivist who should stay locked up.’”
Both of use remained quiet for a while, listening to the incessant sounds of a prison.
Ramirez broke the silence. “It’s almost time for the 4:00 p.m. stand-up count. After the count clears, we have twenty-two minutes for dinner followed by open movement and recreation until dark. I’m going to the Commissary, if you’re interested and have money. Remember not to talk when they come by.”
Prison is about structure and repetition, which makes it clear who is in charge of your life. We listened to the sound of two guards making their way down the corridor. As they passed by our cell, we stood by the bunks. Both looked inside, and moved on to the next cell. This process repeated itself until the count cleared and the cell doors opened simultaneously.
“After being in the hole for six days, I’m going out into the yard and get some exercise, maybe see if they have a sweat lodge.”
“I need my smokes,” responded Ramirez. “Do you want anything?”
“No thanks.”
Doing Time
I knew they had no sweat lodge. The Indians here had insisted on igneous rocks instead of river stones; many tribes insist on the spiritual tradition after dark, but the yard closes each day at dusk. Also, the tribal members couldn’t agree among themselves about its construction because of the different traditional cultures. In some prisons, the Indians had banded together to surmount these problems, but not in Coleman.
I needed to make my first phone call to the Intelligence Division. The prison allows fifteen minutes. Both prepaid and collect calls were permitted. For my short time, we agreed on collect.
“Hello.”
“Will you accept a call from James Sixkiller?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Go ahead, Sixkiller.”
“My first conversation with the real world. How are you, Fran?”
“Fine. How long were you in the hole?”
“Six days. No shower. Really ripe. Was dreaming about dancing with you.”
Laughter. Both of us were playing this by ear. Guards monitor all calls.
“I’m glad it was only a dream,” she said. “But keep up the good work.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve only got fifteen minutes. Is Roy or Ray around?”
“This is Roy. If you’re dreaming about me, we can cut this call short. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. My cellmate isn’t an asshole, a big plus. Some guy named Ramirez, a smuggler like me. Interesting story. Says he was importing and selling weed in Miami. His friend or partner in Miami has this buddy in D.C. who specializes in heroin but needed to dump two extra keys, kind of like car dealers who advertise overstocked, low price. Asked if he had a Miami contact who would buy it. Although he doesn’t deal heroin, the big shots are acquainted with each other. Problem for Ramirez was he approached a dealer who had been busted and flipped. No good deed goes unpunished, right?”
“James, not much time left. Do you still have your half-sister’s number? She might like to hear from you since you’re invading her space soon?”
“Yeah. I got it. Say hi to Ray for me. I get three hundred minutes a month, so staying in touch shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll call her tomorrow about this time, okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll call her and let her know this is a good time for you.”
“Thanks, bye.”
“Less than three weeks. Stay tough.”
After getting out of the way of other prisoners who wanted to make calls, I went over the conversation in my head. The first call he made would not be to my FBI “half-sister,” but to Karen with an upbeat report, just short on details. “Not an asshole” means Ramirez was comfortable talking to me, including his criminal background. A bonus was the information that Marcus Sterling is cozy with a major D.C. heroin dealer. Ramirez was amiable, but I sensed he was being careful, maintaining his distance. The words of Jerry rang in my ears: Trust no one in prison. He would definitely talk to Sterling before approaching me. I reflected on the fact that bad things happen to bait.
Later, I walked out into the yard to look for a gathering of Indians. About six or seven stood together, talking, smoking, and joking. As I approached, one yelled out, “Hello, Sixkiller.” Several laughed.
“How did you get that name,” said one.
“I earned it,” I deadpanned.
There were no introductions made the way the white people do. They were passing the time telling raunchy, racist Indian jokes, and I just joined in.
“How do you kill a Lakota warrior,” said one, not waiting for a reply. “You catch him drinking water and slam the toilet seat on his neck.”
Contagious laughter was followed by other bad jokes. The most offensive jokes about a tribe usually come from a tribal member. I was certain that some were Miccosukee and Seminole, Florida tribes. Others had high plains and southwestern features. BOP tries to keep inmates within two hundred miles of their home. Accordingly, those from distant tribes were being punished. I listened and told a few jokes, trying to assess the cohesion of the group. If they had a sweat lodge, for example, their leaders would become apparent. They seemed content to pass the time. Finally, one asked me, “What are you in for?”
“Smuggling drugs.”
“Didn’t you know that is illegal?” said another to laughter.
The conversation turned to Indian country discussions and legal battles over tribal sovereignty issues, and grew more serious and bitter. The American Indian Movement had been founded only a year ago. All speculated what role it might play in the future. Many Indians are well-versed in Indian history and law. After all, whites wrote American history, which omits or glosses over the crimes committed by whites against Indians, especially in the hundred-year period from 1790 to 1890. My own parents, born in Oklahoma at the turn of the last century, were not U.S. citizens until enfranchised in 1924. They were only Indians without a vote and few rights. One older man, probably Kiowa, had memorized the most notorious words of the Supreme Court in a 1903 case. Indians are “an ignorant and dependent race that must be governed by the Christian people” of the United States.
At dusk, the yard began to close, and we trekked back to our units. One tall Indian in his thirties caught up to me and said, “I’m Jim Hightower. We know you’re short time, but there are more of us, and we’re here for you.”
“Thanks,” I replied. I was isolated and grateful for the offer of support, even if it was only companionship.
He accepted an invitation to head over to the gym with me, which consisted mostly of weights and minimal exercise equipment, treadmills and a couple of stationary bikes. I needed the exercise, not only because of the hole, but also because of the stress from the sense of walking on eggshells.
The gym crowd was tough. The skinheads and Chicanos were heavily tattooed, and some of the blacks were hulks. All moved carefully around each other to avoid conflicts. A guard entered and looked around repeatedly. It struck me as odd how a single shared interest forced them to get along, sometimes being polite to each other. Outside, organized crime groups of different ethnic backgrounds and former enemies occasionally sit down to make peace for money and a lower profile. Dead gang members in restaurants and streets draw a lot of law enforcement attention.
Hightower and I worked out in silence for more than an hour, always mindful of the clock. Recreational activities ended at 8:30 p.m. with the final institutional count at 9:00 p.m. Despite a few stares at the two Indians in the weight room, the workout was uneventful. We headed for the showers and began to talk. I asked him if he knew Ramirez.
“Yeah. He’s a loner, knows how to do time, and avoids the other Latinos for the most part. Rumor is that he has some bad-ass connections on the outside. Last year a Cuban was shanked by another Cuban, reportedly on orders from Ramirez.”
“What happened to cause Ramirez to put out a contract?”
“The dead Cuban liked to brag a lot about being a big shot in the Miami drug business. The grapevine says he started talking a lot about going back into business with Ramirez and his partners when he got out, and he had met a Colombian boss. Ramirez is keeping his head down and should be out in a year. He didn’t need this loudmouth.”
“What does a prison contract cost?” I asked.
“I hear about three-hundred dollars. Life is cheap here.”
“What happened to the killer?”
“Nothing. Latinos encircled the victim. None of them saw anything. Be careful with your cell mate.” Advice I intended to heed.
Ramirez and I stood by our bunks waiting for the final count at 9:00 p.m.
“Are you still working as a grounds orderly?” he asked. All inmates are required to work at some job.
“Yeah. The unit manager told me I had too little time left to train for a new assignment.”
“We call your job ‘picking up cigarette butts and polishing rocks.’”
I laughed. “That pretty much describes it.”
“The laundry isn’t bad. I could have asked for something else, but my priority is not to make any waves. Here they come.”
After the guards passed, I sensed the end of our conversation and climbed into my bunk with a book. I had already called Jamie, my “half-sister.” She was either a good actress or truly amiable, maybe both. We had a foolish conversation about nothing much. She warned me not to expect my “new wife” to do any home cooking. Food often arrived in white boxes with Chinese letters. I was looking forward to meeting her and getting out of prison.
Days passed under the rigid structure of prison life. Breakfast begins at 6:00 a.m. All meals revolve around rotations based on your unit. Sick call at 6:30 a.m.; work at 7:30 a.m.; lunch rotations begin at 10:30 a.m.; work resumes at 12:30 p.m.; the commissary closes at 3:00 p.m.; yard recall at 3:30 p.m. for the 4:00 p.m. stand-up count; commissary reopens and evening meal rotations begin; pill line at 7:45 p.m.; recreation recall at 8:30 p.m.; final institutional count at 9:00 p.m. The routine has a numbing effect, leaving no doubt about who controls your life.
In one of my conversations with Roy, I found a way to mention “Colombia” as a tourist destination for surfers. Despite the discovery of the “pregnant” women method, Intelligence was not sure if the current influx of cocaine was from the same group using new methods. If I developed information on which one of four Latin American countries was the original source, not leaf but product, I was to mention the country in an innocuous context. Possibilities included one of the Andean countries through Mexico, direct to Colombia, or refined in Colombia. Claiming to be a big deal was not the real reason for shanking the Cuban. Rather, he linked Ramirez and a Colombian boss in the same sentence.
After about ten days, Roy asked me if I had seen any interesting birds while out in the yard, a code for anything from Ramirez about working with somebody outside, no matter how indirect. I joked that scarecrows with machine guns staffed the towers. An awkward silence followed. Both of us understood the odds of a contact would decrease after my fast-approaching release date.
Ramirez and I were standing by our bunks for the 9 p.m. institutional count, a ritual now too familiar. After the guards were well along the corridor, I was looking through my books when Ramirez said, “Got a minute?”
“Maybe two or three,” I replied.
“One of everybody’s parole conditions is to seek and obtain lawful employment. I was just curious if you had anything lined up?”
I surprised myself at being so casual, since I knew that something was coming. “Nothing really. I’m going to live with my half-sister for free until I get work.”
“Very generous of her. What does she do?”
“An interior decorator. Not exactly my field. I still have a valid Airframe and Power Plant license, so I can repair planes, but not fly them. They took my commercial license.”
“What kind of planes have you flown? Is that the right question?”
“I had single and multi-engine land certificates. I’ve flown just about all of the single engine planes out there.”
“I have a friend,” began Ramirez, “who is looking for an agricultural pilot. It pays extremely well for Ag flying. If you’re interested, he can contact you at your sister’s house next week. He knows you’ve lost your license, but respects your experience.”
“Flying again. That would be fantastic. But I still need legit work.”
“We know. So, he can set you up as a mechanic at a small airfield near Miami, and you can pay your sister instead of freeloading.”
We both smiled at the mutual arrangement. I was filled with joy and fear at the same time. I had to put the thought that this scumbag was doing me a favor out of my head, although in some ways he was. The investigation can proceed to the next level with a tighter focus. The next day I told Roy that I had seen a red-shouldered hawk from the yard.
I had gone through most of the pre-release motions. I met my parole officer (an FBI agent familiar with the situation and able to cover for me on required reports). And I met with the occupational counselor regarding employment. Both agreed that working as an aircraft mechanic would be feasible and help prevent my recidivism and a life of cycling in and out of jails. Of course, my half-sister would help provide a stable home environment off the streets. I said goodbye to Hightower and my Indian friends, and I gave Ramirez a sheet of paper with my sister’s phone, name, and address. Although he took the paper gracefully, I was certain he already knew that much and more.
As the prison door slammed shut behind me, I noticed that this time, the sound was beautiful.