139. Earning Freedom by Michael Santos
- Earning Freedom by Michael Santos
Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term
Chapter 11-2-Pod 139
Months 190-209
On my way to Colorado my plane lands at the Federal Transit Center in Oklahoma. Five years have passed since I was here last, but the process is familiar. I even recognize faces of staff members, like the Native American guard with the long braided ponytail.
Our procession of prisoners marches single file through an efficient processing system. We stand on milk crates in groups of seven. Guards sit behind us unfastening our leg irons while another row of guards stand in front of us unlocking our handcuffs, pulling them from the metal chain around our waists to free our bodies. Guards talk among themselves, ignoring the noise of banging metal as they unlock and drop our chains into boxes. When mine come off, I note that my hands are filthy with metallic grease from the chains I’ve gripped for the past 12 hours.
With the news of where I’m going, I don’t mind the annoyances. I’m on my way to camp, and for a long-term prisoner, that’s like going to Disneyland. Inmates in higher security prisons talk about going to lower-security prisons as much as they talk about release. Placement in a camp, we hear, is as easy as it gets for a prisoner. I’m still not convinced that the BOP hasn’t made some mistake, but since the mistake would be in my favor, I’m cool with it.
With a quick head count, I estimate that 200 prisoners flew into Oklahoma with me. As we sit in adjacent holding cells, I ignore the clamor and look around. I’m in the midst of convicted murderers, rapists, gang leaders, Mafia soldiers, and child molesters. Many serve life sentences, but with more than 16 years inside, and nearly 10 to go, my credentials in the society of felons is equivalent to a degree from Stanford or Harvard in the real world. I don’t want to talk with anyone. I don’t want to hear about what’s going on at other prisons, about rivalries between prison groups, about legislation pending in Congress to reform good-time allowances, or about restoration of parole. I want to make it through this final stop, to leave behind, once and for all, the hate-filled, intolerant prison populations to finish the last decade of my sentence among white collar offenders in a minimum-security camp.
“Name and number?” A friendly face in a prison guard’s uniform asks as I hand him the pile of forms I’ve completed. He’s got red hair, freckles, and Elvis style sideburns.
“Michael Santos. Number 16377-004.”
“Let’s see. Santos,” he looks down his list. “You’re going to Florence Camp. Think you can handle that?”
He smiles and I nod. My nerves settle as I hear a second source confirm where I’m going.
I join six other prisoners, catching the bedroll and dinner sack the guard tosses after calling my name. We follow another guard through steel gates, onto an elevator, and up to the floor of our housing unit. I listen as the guard recites the rules before giving us our assigned cell numbers.
“Lockdown is at nine, so it’s too late for you guys to shower or use the phone. Each cell has a panic button. Don’t push it except for a genuine emergency; otherwise you’ll get a shot. Listen for your name and cell number. Stand by your door. I’ll walk around the tier to let you in. Any questions?”
I carry my bedroll into the familiar, triangle-shaped, two- tiered shell, then climb the concrete-and-steel staircase and walk toward cell 624. My feet hurt in the navy canvas deck shoes.
I send up a silent prayer for God to stay with me, to get me through this last transition before I make it to the camp. When I reach my assigned cell door I look through the narrow window and swear under my breath. The prisoner inside looks as big as a Sasquatch. I can’t see his face, but he sits at the desk in boxers without a shirt. His back is huge, and his arms, covered in tribal tattoos, are as big as my thighs. He’s writing, gripping the pencil like it’s a spear in his clenched fist. His full head of hair is an unruly black mop. I pray with renewed earnestness for God to get me through this.
The guard comes to unlock the door, and I want to protest that I’m going to camp, that he should house me with some friendly tax evader. Instead, I remain silent. I pulled a 45-year sentence and I’m expected to handle this kind of situation.
Once the guard locks me inside the cell, the rancid body odor hits me, but I shake it off. My new cellmate turns, revealing an expressionless face from the islands. I greet him while spreading the thin sheets across the top mat then tying the corners in knots beneath the mat to hold the sheets in place.
“Where you goin’?” The giant man breaks his silence.
“Florence,” I say, deliberately leaving out the camp part. “I’ve been in for 16 years, finally making it out West,” I offer, unsolicited, to let him know that I’m not new to prison.
“Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been all over. Did about seven years in USP Atlanta. Spent time in McKean, Fairton, now I’m coming from Fort Dix.”
He spins around and looks at me with a broad smile on his face. “Dude, I know you! You’re Michael Santos.”
He stands to shake my hand, nearly jerking my arm out of its socket with his enthusiasm. “I’m going to Fort Dix. I was on your website every day Bro, reading all your articles on prison before I surrendered.”
I exhale and immediately relax. This man’s a friend, not someone I have to fear. He’s from Tonga, serving five years on an immigration violation. I stretch out on the top rack and answer his questions about life at Fort Dix.
*******
When the guards begin clicking the locks open at 6:00, I hop down from the rack. Tonga, my cellmate, is still sleeping. He’s so tall that his ankles and feet extend beyond the edge of the rack. I tap his shoulder to wake him and tell him that we have to go downstairs for breakfast trays. He grunts, his sour breath nearly knocking me over.
I eat my oatmeal, and then walk to the phones. When the call connects to Carole, I hear her crying as she accepts the charges.
“What’s wrong, Honey?”
“I have terrible news.”
“What is it, what’s wrong?”
“Carolyn called me. Bruce had a heart attack last night. He died, Michael.”
I’m standing at a phone bank, with prisoners all around me, and it takes a second for the news to settle with me. Bruce has been a part of my life since the earliest days of this sentence, when I was beginning my university studies inside the penitentiary’s walls in Atlanta. He visited me at least three times each year wherever I was held, and we spoke regularly over the phone, at least once each week for many years. I can’t believe he’s gone, that I’ll never see him again. But more than his death, I’m surprised at why the news is hitting Carole so hard.
“Honey, why are you so emotional? You barely knew him.”
“I’m sad because you loved him, and he meant so much to you.”
“Yes, he was a great friend to me, but I’ll be okay. It’s more important that I stay strong. That’s what he would’ve wanted. Instead of being sad at his passing, I’ll celebrate his life and all he’s done to make the world better. Please call Carolyn for me. Tell her how sorry I am and that I’ll write today.”
“That’s something she asked me on the phone. She wanted to know if you could send a remembrance before the funeral.”
“I’ll write it today and then I’ll read it over the phone the next time I call. Now don’t cry anymore. Bruce would say ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ and in his honor, that’s what we’re going to do.”
As I walk back to my cell, I realize that he has been with me for 14 years, treating me as if I were part of his family, working to educate me, to guide me. He defended me when necessary and smoothed the way wherever and whenever possible. With his death I’ve lost my first mentor, my dearest friend. I’ll do my best to express appreciation for him in a eulogy.
Bruce is the second close person to die since my imprisonment. My grandfather, Pat, having first forsaken me, forgave my behavior and spoke with me on the phone before his death in 1999. My father is confined to an Alzheimer’s home. I haven’t seen him since 1995, more than eight years ago, and I don’t think I’m in his memory anymore. He can’t travel, or even talk with me over the telephone. People I love are growing old and may die before my release. This reality starts to settle within, causing new heartache.
*******
We land in Colorado. As I hobble down the stairs from the belly of the plane, with leg irons digging into my ankles, I’m surprised by the climate. It’s seven in the morning on December 4, 2003, and I hear the pilot say the temperature is 40 degrees. I’m only wearing a t-shirt, khaki pants, and navy canvas deck shoes without socks, but I’m not cold. The dry air is still and the low sun shines through a cloudless blue sky.
Four silver prison buses idle on the tarmac. I count 12 vigilant guards standing in navy windbreakers wearing mirrored sunglasses, gripping assault rifles. The guard who waits at the bottom of the stairs wears plastic earmuffs over his head to block the noise from the screeching jet engines. He yells for my name and number, then checks his clipboard and directs me to join the line beside the last bus.
While standing in line, wrists cuffed to the chain around my waist, I study the faces of other prisoners as they walk down the stairs. I see Renegade, a prisoner who walked the yard with me in USP Atlanta. He’s bald, with a long goatee, and I notice that he’s added a few new tattoos to his neck and face. The guard directs him to the bus in front. I wonder where he’s going.
After all the remaining prisoners re-board the aircraft, the guards count those of us standing in lines beside the buses headed to Florence. Apparently, we’re all accounted for, as the guards start ordering us to step on board. Once we’re loaded the bus convoy begins rolling down the road toward the Florence Federal Correctional Complex.
As we reach the left turn lane on Highway 33, the buses zip by the guard’s shack to climb the winding and rolling hill that leads into the complex made up of four separate prisons. When our bus turns right into the long driveway of the medium-security FCI, the other buses continue up the road toward the higher-security prisons, including a high-security USP and the federal prison’s ADX unit, also known as the Supermax, a cage for human beings. On the left, close to the highway and not enclosed by a fence, I see what must be the camp. Men in green uniforms mingle in the center of the compound.
Our bus stops beneath a canopy and the double doors squeak open. The lead guard stands at the head of the bus holding a stack of yellow files. He’s a big man with a wad of chewing tobacco that makes his lower lip bulge. He spits brown tobacco juice into a clear plastic Coke bottle with rhythmic precision. When I hear him yell “Santos!” I shuffle forward so he can match my face to the mug shot on the file he holds. He spits into his bottle and then asks me to recite my registration number followed by my date of birth.
With his nod, I have permission to pass. When I step off the bus, I follow the other prisoners and we hobble through rows of armed guards in BOP uniforms. We continue into the foyer of the FCI. Our chains drag on the brown marble passageway making a scraping sound that disturbs the cathedral-like quiet.
We move outside, across a concrete walkway that cuts through reddish-orange gravel raked in neat rows. Another guard meets us, opening the steel door that leads into the Receiving and Discharge area. Before unlocking our chains and leg irons, a guard calls for quiet.
“Listen for your name. If you hear it, step to the front of the line,” the guard calls out.
“Roberts.”
“Thomas.”
“Williams.”
“And Santos.”
I join the others at the front.
“Okay,” the guard yells. “The rest of you, step into the holding tanks so my officers can unlock your chains. I want the four of you to follow me.”
We shuffle into a smaller cell and I reason that he must be separating those of us who’ve been assigned to the camp.
“Are you the same Santos who writes about prisons on the Web?” Williams asks me.
“That’s right.” I’ve never even seen the Internet but questions about my work give me a lift. “Did you find the information helpful?”
“More than helpful! I was worried to death about coming to prison. My lawyer didn’t know anything about what it was going to be like. Once I found your site and read about all that you’ve done in prison, I had more hope. My wife, too.”
“How do you write for the Internet from prison? Will we have computer access?” Roberts asks
“Prisoners can’t access the Internet or use any kind of technology. I write in longhand and then I mail my work home. My wife types it and posts it to the website she operates for me,” I explain.
“Your wife must be something special, staying with you all these years,” Thomas says. “I’ve only got 18 months, and my wife has already filed for divorce.”
“Prison is much harder on the family than it is on us,” I say to the men. “We can find activities to fill our time, even work toward goals that will improve our lives. Our families have to struggle with financial problems, loneliness, and the shame of our imprisonment.”
As we wait, we learn a bit more about each other. Thad Roberts interests me. He’s in his mid-20s, beginning a nine-year sentence for stealing moon rocks. His wavy brown hair frames a constantly curious expression on his face. The roots of crime began with his employment as a NASA intern. In a romantic gesture, he promised to give his girlfriend the moon, and he wasn’t speaking metaphorically. Thad’s employment gave him access to moon rocks that astronauts brought back, and he broke federal laws by taking a few. Although he delivered on his promise to give his girlfriend the moon, he made himself vulnerable to federal law enforcement authorities when he tried to profit by selling the moon rocks on eBay.
The guards bring us our intake forms. They snap our mug shots and take our fingerprints. We answer questions from the nurse, the psychologist, and a case manager. I’m still waiting for a shoe to drop, for someone to say there’s been a mistake, to tell me that I don’t qualify for camp placement.
A guard opens the door and issues red ID cards to Roberts, Williams, and Thomas.
“Santos,” he calls out as he looks my way.
“Yes?”
“Come with me.” This could be the shoe.
I follow him through a hallway to a counter where a tall man in a dark blue suit and light blue tie stands beside a well-dressed woman with black hair and glasses. She holds a file with my picture on the cover.
“How much time are you serving?” she asks me.
“45 years.”
“And you’re going to the camp?” The uniformed guard interrupts while the man in the suit observes.
“I’m an old-law prisoner,” I explain. “With my sentence, I earn more good time than the new-law prisoners. I only serve 26 years total, and I’ve already served more than 16 years. I have fewer than 10 years to go until release and I don’t have any disciplinary problems or a history of violence.”
The woman looks up at the man in the suit, hands him my file, and he flips through the pages.
“You’re not going to run if I put you in the camp, right?” the man in the suit asks.
“No sir.” He nods his head and shrugs. “Everything’s in order.”
The guard gives me my red ID card and tells me to wait. He calls the other three camp prisoners, and then he leads us out of the building, instructing us to grab a bedroll.
I can’t believe this is really happening. Without chains or restraints of any kind, I walk through the lobby and open the glass doors. For the first time since 1987, neither walls nor barbed wire confine me. I see the highway to my left. The guard points to the camp, across the FCC road, about a half-mile away, and he tells us to walk over. I’m gripped with apprehension that someone will call me back, but I keep walking, not looking back.
*******
The camp holds 500 prisoners, none with documented histories of violence and all with release dates within 10 years. I’m assigned to a housing unit wing with 31 other men and we sleep in two-man cubicles.
“Did you just get here?” I ask a clean-cut man who stands beside me near the unit’s laundry room.
“How can you tell?” he responds.
I point to his feet. “The blue canvas shoes, they’re standard issue for all new prisoners. You’ll be able to buy a decent pair of tennis shoes or boots as soon as the staff activates your commissary account.”
He nods his head. “I’m Eric. I got here two days ago.”
“Michael. I got here this morning.”
Eric is a businessman from Vail who’s serving a five-month sentence for a tax dispute.
“Some of the guys are going to be here for years.” I chuckle and we become friends.
Counselor Butler assigns Eric and me to work in the laundry at the Supermax. We wake early to board a bus that drives us over the hill, past the walls that enclose the USP complex, to the back gate of the Supermax. I count eight towers where guards stand post with machine guns. It’s a concrete structure, partially underground, where prisoners live in near total isolation.
As one of five prisoners assigned to the laundry, I work at the sewing machine, mending clothes for prisoners in the Supermax, including the Unabomber, the man who attempted to blow up the World Trade Center in the early 1990s, and Terry Nichols, an accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing with Timothy McVeigh. On the roster, I also see names of gang members I once knew at USP Atlanta. I wonder if Renegade, the prisoner I saw stepping off the plane when I arrived in Colorado, is here.
*******
Carole and Nichole move from New Jersey to Colorado in mid-January. They arrive for our first family visit at Florence on Friday, January 23, 2004.
Carole and Nichole have made three moves during the past 18 months, which demonstrates her commitment to nurturing our marriage. She is determined to live near the prison that confines me, and with that principle in mind, we contemplate a new career for her, something that will allow her to earn a livable wage regardless of where prison administrators place me.
“I’ve been looking at different options,” she tells me. “The only career I’ve found where I can work anywhere and earn a decent living is nursing. I’d have to return to school full-time, taking all the prerequisites in math, science, and English, followed by two years of nursing school. But with a nursing license, I could always find a job, regardless of where they moved you.”
“Let’s do it. We’ll use our savings and income from my writing to get you through nursing school. And I’ll write another book to generate more resources. We’ll use all the money that comes into our household to support you.”
Nichole is 12, finishing sixth grade, but we include her in the decisions we’re making. It’s our way of working to educate her from inside prison visiting rooms.
“Tell me about your new school,” I ask her.
“It’s like New Jersey. I’ve made a few friends and everyone’s excited about starting junior high next year.”
“When we were in junior high, your mom and I already knew each other.”
“That’s totally weird,” Nichole says.
“Maybe you’re going to school with your future husband,” Carole teases.
“No way.”
“You never know,” Carole smiles.
“Keep up your good work, Nichole. Your mom and I are proud of you. If you study hard through school, you’ll prepare for many opportunities that will open for you as you grow older.”