127: Earning Freedom, by Michael Santos
I’m continuing to read from my book Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term. This is the second installment of chapter 7, covering months 93 through 95 of my confinement, in 1995.
* * * * * * *
In search of the associate warden, I walk to the chow hall during the noon meal and I see Nuss standing in line, looking like the Grim Reaper. Knowing that he can influence my transfer to low-security, I approach him.
“I spent the weekend reading through the Custody and Classification manual,” I tell him. “According to the formula in the policy statement, I calculate that I should be in a low-, not a medium-security prison. When my case manager comes in I’ll see what he thinks. If I’ve got a low-security rating, would you support my transfer?”
“Don’t you have 45 years?”
“Yes. But I’ve done eight years without any problems or disciplinary infractions.”
“But you led a criminal organization.” His knowledge of my case makes me wonder what he has against me.
“I don’t have a history of violence or weapons, and I’m within 18 years of my release.” I counter.
“When’s your release date?”
“August, 2013.”
He looks up, does the math in his head. “You’re just barely under 18 years, by three months.”
“Still, I’m under 18 years. That qualifies me for placement in a low-security prison. I’d like a transfer.”
“Where do you want to transfer?”
“Wherever I can complete my schooling. I’m from Seattle, but I don’t care where I serve my sentence. I just want to earn my degree and I might face fewer restrictions if I’m in a low.”
“Let’s see what your case manager says.”
A bit more optimistic, I walk to the serving line and notice pizza on the menu. It’s little more than tomato sauce and cheese melted over a cardboard-like crust, but I’ve grown to like it. The line server drops a postcard-size slice on my plastic tray. I fill a plastic cup with water from the beverage bar and weave my way through the crowd to an empty table.
A lieutenant with a lumberjack’s weathered face and a wad of chewing tobacco bulging in her lower lip walks toward where I’m sitting. We’ve never spoken before. “When you finish your lunch, come see me,” she barks, spitting tobacco juice into a foam cup she holds.
I haven’t taken a bite, but I’m curious about what she wants with me and I ask her what’s up.
“I’ll talk with you outside,” she says, as if challenging me.
“I can go now.”
“Come with me.”
With some apprehension over what she wants, I stand and follow her out of the chow hall, leaving my tray on the table. I can’t think of any reason why a lieutenant would want to talk with me. We leave through the glass door and she turns to the left.
“Put your hands up against the wall,” she orders as I step out of the chow hall.
“What?”
“You heard me,” the lieutenant orders. “Put your hands up on the wall.”
I can’t believe this, but I know that it doesn’t make any sense to resist or to ask for an explanation. I raise my arms and lean against the wall while she searches me, running her hands along my outstretched arms, my torso, and down my legs.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
I comply, and she snaps steel handcuffs around my wrists.
“Let’s go.” She grabs the short chain between the cuffs to guide me.
I’m silent as we walk across the compound and listen while she speaks through her radio. “I’ve got one en route to SHU.”
We reach the door to the Special Housing Unit, the jail within the prison, and a guard buzzes the lock. She escorts me inside, handing me to the guards stationed there. “Lock this one up. I’ll send the paperwork over later.”
“What’s he in for?” the SHU guard inquires, looking past me. To him I’m not human.
“Investigation. Nuss’s orders.”
“Got it.”
My mind spins. I’m not being charged with a disciplinary infraction, but I suspect this disturbance won’t look good on my petition for clemency. The strict rules in SHU will prohibit access to my books, and I know that an investigation can last years. Consistent with the administration’s you’ve got nothin’ comin’ attitude, Nuss wants to bury me in here, limiting my ability to communicate, to study, or earn a Ph.D.
After strip searching me the guard issues an orange jumpsuit with the letters SHU stamped on the back, a broken zipper on the front.
“It’s too big,” I tell him.
“That’s all we got. Let’s go.”
I dress in the baggy orange suit, and he then locks me back in cuffs before he leads me through the gates into the segregation tier. I’m puzzled by water I see flowing from under cell doors and flooding the tier walkway. The icy water quickly covers my institutional-issue plastic sandals, soaking my socks. As we walk by, prisoners kick their steel doors and slap hands against the glass windows. The noise is deafening.
One calls out. “Day got Santos!”
“Yo Dawg! What up? What day be done got you fo’?” One prisoner yells out, his face against the cutout window.
“What up Homie?” Another yells, slapping the steel door.
The prison lingo annoys me and at this moment I detest every aspect of institutional living.
I look straight ahead, trying to ignore the mayhem and prisoners who’ve been locked up since the riot, as I’m shivering from wet feet as we slosh through the flooded tier. Since I know the guard won’t issue me a dry pair of socks, I don’t bother asking.
The guard uses his heavy metal lock to tap against a cell door’s window. “Step to the back wall.” He orders to a prisoner inside.
“Come on boss, I’m in my rack.” I recognize Red’s voice coming from inside the cell.
“I said get up and step to the back of the cell. Stand against the wall.” Guards take the security precaution to prevent a prisoner in the SHU from attacking the incoming prisoner while he stands defenseless in handcuffs.
The guard unlocks the cell door and I step over the sheets placed to block water from flowing into the cell from the tier. The guard locks me inside and then unlocks a trap in the center of the door.
“Back up to the door so I can unlock your cuffs,” he tells me.
I squat and the guard holds my wrists through the door trap with one hand, using his other to turn the key. He slams the trap door shut and I hear his boots sloshing through the water as he walks down the tier.
“Hey Homie, what’s up?” Red greets me.
I express surprise at seeing him and ask how long he’s been locked in the SHU.
“Four months now, two to go.”
“Why? You just disappeared. I never heard why they nabbed you off the compound.”
Red was once assigned to a room on my tier, but guards came for him one night. They escorted him off the compound and I didn’t hear anything about what happened. Since it wasn’t my business, I didn’t ask. I’ve seen thousands of prisoners’ faces, and I’ve heard nearly as many stories, so I didn’t miss Red, just as I’m sure that no one’s missing me.
“Busted me on a three-way.”
“What?”
“A three-way.”
“What’s that?”
“I was on the phone with my ol’ lady and she conferenced me into another call with my homie.”
“A three way phone call? You’ve been in here four months because you made a three-way phone call?” I ask, incredulous.
“And I got two more months to go. Plus they done took my phone and visits away for a year. These sanctions ain’t no joke.”
“Did you appeal?”
Red shrugged. “What’s the point? Ain’t gonna change nothin’. I told the DHO that I got a baby girl, a family. Takin’ my phone and my visits was jus’ gonna drive ’em away.”
“What’d he say to that?” The Disciplinary Hearing Officer determines guilt on institutional rule violations and imposes sanctions.
“Fuck him! Said I should’a thought about my baby girl ’fore I done made the three-way phone call. How ’bout you? What’d they get you fo’?”
“Investigation,” I reply.
“You? What’re they investigatin’ you for? Too many books?”
“Something like that. I had a conversation with Nuss about my school last Thursday. Spoke with him again today, and here I am.”
“That’s all it takes. Fuckin’ Nazi!”
I climb up to the top rack, pull my wet socks off and hang them over the edge to dry. I lie down. The metal plank that serves as my bed pops from my weight while an overhead fluorescent light blinds my eyes and forced air from the vent blows my hair back.
“Is it always this cold in here?”
“Part ̓a the gig, Homie. I done tried to block the vent by pressin’ shit paper into the screen, but the fuckin’ jerk-off cop said he’d gimme a shot if I did it again.”
“What’s with all the water on the tier?” I ask.
“The homies keep floodin’ it, stuffin’ sheets in the toilet and hittin’ the flusher ’til the water floods the cell, spillin’ out onto the tier.”
“What’s the point?”
“Piss the guards off. They gotta mop it up.”
“Do you have anything to read?” I ask.
He shuffles around on the bunk beneath me and offers up three torn, stained Maxim magazines that don’t interest me.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Got a Bible.”
“I’ll take it.”
* * * * * * *
The continuous glare of fluorescent light in the windowless room causes me to lose sense of time. Red doesn’t have any postage stamps so I won’t be able to write anyone about this latest development until next week, when I’ll be allowed to submit a commissary order. Reading the Book of Job lessens my anxieties and I drift into sleep.
“Santos!” A guard yells and kicks the steel door twice with his boot, waking me.
I sit up. “What?”
“Roll up!”
We converse by shouting through the locked steel door.
“Am I going back to the compound?”
“Roll up for transfer. You’re outta here.”
“What?” I’m groggy from sleep deprivation, but I can’t believe what he’s telling me. “Where’m I going?”
“Just get dressed. Wake your cellie up. Tell him to stand against the wall so I can cuff you.”
My immediate thoughts concern my school responsibilities. I wonder what is going to happen to the books I left behind in my locker before I went to lunch yesterday. The university library holds me accountable for those books and I have many. Guards resent packing personal property of prisoners transferred to the SHU or off the compound. They frequently “lose” heavy items and I know it’s unlikely I’ll ever see those books again.
The guard doesn’t give me time to worry about what I’m leaving behind. He taps his key against the window.
“Get movin’! Now! Wake your cellie up.”
I jump down from the top bunk and pull on my damp socks, slipping my feet into the plastic sandals before backing up to the steel door. My roommate, Red, has moved from his bed and now stands with his nose against the far wall, hands behind his back. I squat and the guard snaps the cold metal bracelets around my wrists.
“Take care, Red.”
“Be cool, Bro.”
I back out of the cell with the guard’s grip on my handcuffs. We walk down the tier and I’m processed out, chained up, and marched outside with 20 other prisoners. Our traveling clothes are nothing more than khaki trousers, t-shirts, and blue canvas deck shoes despite the late November cold. We trudge through the snow, flanked by guards bundled into blue winter parkas, black leather gloves, and wool caps.
The guard in front unlocks the final gate and I follow the procession onto the bus, drop into a seat, and begin to thaw, grateful for the heat pumping through the vent beside me. Even though it’s dark outside I peer through the window at FCI McKean, knowing it’s the last time I’ll see this prison that has held me for 18 months.
The two-lane road winds through pristine, snow blanketed forests, but my mind isn’t on the beautiful scenery. I’m bracing myself for the worst-case scenario, wondering why Nuss felt compelled to transfer me in this hasty manner. He seems to resent my education and that I’ve earned my degrees while in prison, as if somehow I’d put one over on the system. The way he had the lieutenant lock me up during lunch yesterday was a clear message that he positively didn’t want me making the case for a reclassification to low security. He wants me gone, and this intentionally abrupt transfer doesn’t bode well for me.
On the Interstate, I see overhead road signs with names I don’t recognize. They zip past my window as the bus rolls on. It’s overcast and cold, so I press against the heater vent, trying to relax and rest, deluding myself with the mantra that one prison is the same as the next and that I can make it anywhere.
After several hours pass, we pull into the Federal Correctional Complex at Allenwood, Pennsylvania, dropping some prisoners off at the low-security correctional institution. When my name’s not called, my anxiety increases. The bus drives on, leaving Allenwood behind and passing through other small towns. Storefront signs advertise the businesses in downtown Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, a prison town, and giving me some insight on where we’re going. The bus winds along the serpentine drive leading into USP Lewisburg. I see gun towers, razor-wire topped fences, and the high stone wall that looms in front of me. I sense that I’m about to be locked inside another high-security penitentiary.
Even though I know a hundred prisoners inside the Lewisburg walls who were once with me in Atlanta, I can’t believe I’m back at a high-security USP. I breathe in slowly to steady myself for the tension that is coming, not wanting to go through this again.
The first gate rolls open and the bus inches its way inside, stopping in front of the second gate. Guards step out to check their firearms and exchange paperwork. Then the second gate rolls open and our driver pulls us inside the walls of USP Lewisburg.
The medieval buildings feature heavy blocks of red brick and gothic turrets reminiscent of a monastery. But black iron bars over all the windows make clear that this isn’t a monastery. As the tires crunch over gravel leading to the prisoners’ entrance, I ready and steady myself, clenching my jaw and tightening my fists, pumping blood into my arms and chest to psyche myself up for the aggravations to come.
Once the bus stops, the driver pulls a lever opening the door and we all file out. Guards in BOP uniforms gripping assault rifles stand outside. They order us into a line alongside the bus. I’m shivering, cold, and aggravated as the guards count us, matching our faces to mug shots on their files. Taunts from prisoners we can’t see echo from inside the buildings.
“You’s up in Lewisburg now!”
“Too late to get scared!”
“Daddy got just wha’choo need!”
“You gonna be mine tonight bitch!”
The guards march us forward to a flight of stairs and we descend into a basement that feels more like a dungeon. I’m looking for the sign from Danté’s Divine Comedy when he descends into hell: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” The iron door swings open into a heated waiting room and we crowd in to stand in place while guards unchain our ankles and wrists.
I crouch near a radiator to let it warm me and I look around. I came into prison with a few pimples on my face, now, eight years later, I’m no longer the youngest man in the room but I haven’t yet gotten used to this. I’ll never grow used to it.
Every man in this room was with me at McKean, but I don’t really know anyone. I watch their lips move with nervous chatter but recede into a space in my mind. Okay. I’ve been here before. One penitentiary is the same as another. I’ll find my way again. Familiar faces will tell me what I need to know about Lewisburg and I’ll master it.
A guard comes through to hand us each a brown sack lunch, snapping me out of my thoughts. I dig inside and find white bread, cheese, bologna, crackers, a red apple, and a carton of milk, all of which I inhale.
The guards begin calling us one at a time. I’m ready.
“Santos?”
I stand, tossing my crumpled bag into the corner trash, and I step toward the guard.
“Number 16377-004,” I answer him with my registration number.
“Let’s go.”
Moving from one room to another without cuffs or shackles, I’m processed in, my heart pounding. Every prison has the same routine of fingerprinting, mug shots, and strip searches. A plain round clock hangs on the wall right beneath the side-by-side pictures of President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, and BOP Director Kathy Hawk. The apathetic guard orders me to strip naked so he can inspect me for contraband.
“Hands up.”
“Open your mouth.”
“Run your fingers through your hair.”
“Let me see your ears.”
“Lift ’em.”
“Turn around.”
“Let me see the bottoms of your feet.”
“Bend over.”
“Spread ’em.”
I smirk, knowing that I’ve just mooned portraits of our president, attorney general, and the director of our prison system. The guard tosses me an orange jump suit, underwear, and plastic sandals. I dress and move on to the next station, where the nurse reviews forms I hand her. Finally I step into another office where the case manager sits at a metal desk reviewing files.
“Name?” The tortoiseshell glasses sit at the bottom of his nose, and rather than lifting his head to acknowledge me, his bloodshot eyes look over the top of his frames.
“Michael Santos,” I answer him.
“Number?” He inquires.
“16377-004.”
“You know where you’re going?”
I nod, then make a request. “If I could, I’d like to go to J-unit. I was with some guys in Atlanta who are assigned to that unit and I’d like to see them again.”
“What’re you talking about?” the case manager asks, finally lifting his head.
“J-unit,” I say. “I’d like you to assign me to J-Unit.”
“You mean here?”
I shrug, not following his question.
“You’re not stayin’ here. You’re going to Fairton.”
“The medium?” I ask about the security level at the Fairton prison.
“You’re a medium, right?”
I smile as tension drains from my mind and body. Ever since the guards called me out of the cell early this morning I was convinced that Nuss had finagled some paperwork to boost my security level and place me back in a penitentiary. With the news that I’m en route to another Federal Correctional Institution, I exhale with relief, as I didn’t want to endure another USP battle zone.