Free Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade by Edward Bunker Page B

had slapped the stiff with a pistol
they had charged him with kidnap/robbery with intended violence. It was the
same offense that had gotten Caryl Chessman on Death Row. Even if a death
sentence was unlikely, a life sentence was not . . .
    "What's going to happen to him?" I asked.
    D'Arcy indicated that he had no idea. (A couple of
years later I would discover that Cicerone had plea-bargained to something else
where he served about three years in Soledad.)
    The front gate opened and Cicerone came down the tank
and into the cell. "Any tea left?"
    "Yeah. I saved you a cup. Gotta heat it."
    From elsewhere in the jail, through the walls came the
vibration of the gates as they slammed shut.
    A minute later, our deputy yelled, "Grab a hole A
one."
    The men on the runway headed for their cells. One of them
slopped at our gate. "Here," he said, handing me a folded note.
"Cook sent it."
    I opened the note, reading only a few words before I
threw it in the toilet. He would see me when the tank went to showers. D'Arcy
and Cicerone were looking at me with sympathy. "He's a sicko," D'Arcy
said.
    "Yeah." I half hoped that my cell partners
would help me even I though I knew it was unlikely. They had just met me. They
had their own very serious troubles. Their sympathy ended with sympathy, not
intervention. Besides, in the cage he who cannot stand alone must certainly
fall.
    "Fuck him," I said.
    "What're you gonna do?"
    "I'm not gonna let him fuck me . . . and I'm not
gonna run to the Man. When do we shower?"
    "Tomorrow."
    "He wants to see me in the shower."
    "Jesus."
    "Got any old blades and a toothbrush?"
    "In the milk
carton." Cicerone glanced over at a milk carton on the shelf at the rear.
It had one side cut away so it served as a knick-knack box as well. Old rusted
razor blades, pencil stubs, a toothbrush whose bristles had been used to clean
something besides teeth. Using the flame from half a book of matches, I set the
toothbrush on fire. When it was soft, I twisted off the bristles, lighted more
matches, and when it was burning and soft, blew out the matches and pushed half
a razor blade into the plastic, squeezing the plastic around it. I'd seen a
Chicano in juvenile hall open a guy's back from shoulder to hip with one slice.
A hundred and twenty-five stitches. As deadly weapons go, it wasn't much, but
it was the best I could devise under the circumstances. My cell partners
watched me with impassive faces. Only when Cicerone patted me on the back and
said, "You've got guts, youngster," did I know positively that they
were on my side.
    Despite total exhaustion, I found it hard to sleep
that first night in the county jail. High power was an outside tank. It had the
wall of bars, beyond which was the jailer's walkway — but then there were small
windows, through which came the sounds of the city at night, autos and
streetcars on Broadway ten floors below. The streetcars rang two bells before
moving from each stop. The sound stirred the same inchoate feelings as a train
whistle in the night. Why was I so different? Was I crazy? I didn't think so
despite my sometimes seemingly insane behavior. There seemed to be a
preordained chain of cause and effect. In the morning I planned to attack a
maniac who had killed at least seven times. What else could I do? Call out for
a deputy? Yes, they would protect me this time, but the stigma of cowardice and
being a stool pigeon, which is how my peers would see it, would haunt me
forever. It would invite open season on me. I did have one advantage: he would
never expect me to attack without warning, not the skinny little kid he saw. He
would assume his string of bodies would paralyze me.
    Despite
the storms in my mind, my exhaustion was so complete that I fell fast asleep.

 
    In the morning, before going to showers, we had to
strip our mattresses, fold up the covers and blankets and line up all our
personal property on the floor against the cell wall. We were only allowed to
wear underwear and