The following is reprinted from the San Quentin News, July 23, 1971. “Bastille by the Bay,” by J. Pence Wagner.
The crash of the porcelain wash basin reverberates throughout the tiers and the yells and screams deafen a man. A few minutes ago the guards led a youngster by with the blood dripping from his wrists; a guy on the next tier up has his bunk off the wall and is wearing himself out by crashing it into the door; the guy two cells down has just thrown his fluorescent light tube out onto the tier; this is “B” Section, San Quentin Prison on a rather normal evening.
I had the acute displeasure of spending five days there among the delinquent segment of our population, or at least that’s what they’re supposed to be. I’ve been in a few county jails, and a few “joints” in my day, but this one has to take the prize of being “the end of the road.”
If you like your mail late, your meals cold, and the medical officer making his walk through every morning; if you like the solitude of madness; if you like the filth and noise, constant, endless noise; if you really want to see for yourself man’s inhumanity to man, then spend a few days in “B” Section!
To fill you in on my absence, and to squash any rumors that might have sprung up, I was in “B” Section (suspected) of editing an underground newspaper. I didn’t, and am back at my desk, much wiser, and a little more aware of what’s going on around me.
Last week Phil Clark wrote about men in blue walking in circles. As I read his words, I thought about the men who walk the circle of a cell, and who for reasons of his own choice to “do their own thing” no matter what the consequences. The men whose lives revolve around a core of hate, resentment, and bitterness.
I wonder how you reach a man who has made a wall of hate his defense to the world? I wonder how you tell a man who is locked in a cell 24 hours a day, and make him realize the door will open to him one day, and he’ll be a part of society again? How do you convince a man, that no matter what he’s done, there is something for him someplace in the world? How do you convince a man that even though he is locked away from life, the sun, and even the sound of laughter, real laughter, that there is a place in the world for him?
How can you take a man who has spent a lifetime being a rebel, an outlaw, and teach him to adjust to society’s way of thinking? Do you do it by locking him away from the main population of one of the reputed heavier prisons in the system? I think there has to be an answer someplace, and the answer will come from the men themselves. I didn’t like it one bit in that place over there, and there are those of you reading this who’ve been there that will agree with me. It’s beyond me to think of an answer, but there must be some solution.
The experience was very much like that of being in the county jail. Most guys when they go to jail aren’t prepared for it. No lawyer. No bail money. No way of knowing what’s going to happen next. “B” Section is like that. Or at least it was like that to me. I sat there under investigation for a charge that could have very well been true. There was a justification on the part of staff because I am a writer, and I do know a little bit about the working end of a newspaper, and I know a little bit about editing and layout work.
I asserted my innocence, and after a complete investigation I was freed. But the fact remains that it happened. It could happen to any of us at any time. I think we have to be prepared to meet these “crises” now, because from experience they are bound to happen from time to time in the free world.
One thing I’ve learned from it all: if you’re telling the truth, and you’re right, no matter what happens to you, you’re bound to come out of it all right. I honestly believe that, even though my faith was a bit shaken up for a while.
I hope I never have to go back to “B” Section again for any reason, and I hope some day there will be no more “B” Sections. But I think it’s up to us, the men in blue, to find an alternative to these places. Until we do, they will exist, and men will continue to vent their frustrations, their anger, their futility, and their hopelessness against the walls, the basins, windows, light bulbs, and their own bodies.
Peace!
