High Card Flies the Rapist

High Card Flies the Rapist

I named this "High Card Flies the Rapist" because I wanted to emphasize the constant state of knowing that at any second your world, your life, can change drastically, and you really have nothing to do with it. Sure you can go back and say if I hadn't done this or that I might not be in the position I'm in right now. The fact still remains that you are in jail. You didn't sit down one day and draw up the plans for you life and say that on such and such a day you would go spend a year or two in jail. You think of things you could have done to make it different, and you think of the things you will do differently if and when you get out.
The system is changing, but this is what actually happened in the early 70's. Today there are so many child molesters and rapists in the penal system that it no longer gets dealt with as much by the inmates themselves. There are, however, many hardened criminals doing long terms in prison that have wife and children on the outside. Anyone coming into the prison population with a rape or molestation charge is considered by these prisoners as the lowest scum on earth and deserving of any humiliation, degradation, beating, and most assuredly, death.
Here then is a true story. The names and places have been changed, but this is a first hand eye witness account by one of the principle players in this game of "justice" via the luck of the draw.

Chapter 1

The district attorney stood over his desk in front of the judge and shuffled through some papers. He didn't find anything, so he probably wasn't really looking for anything.
He looked very irritated as he addressed the judge.
"Your honor, the district attorneys office has no choice but to recommend to the court that the charges of attempted rape, and sexual assault be dismissed due to insufficient evidence against Mr. Mitchell."
At the table next to the District Attorney sat Leroy Mitchell and next to him sat his very overweight attorney. The obese attorney was grinning as he brushed dandruff off the left shoulder of his cheap polyester suit. He leaned back and shook his head slowly up and down. He had a repulsive, smug look on his chubby red face as he winked at his client, making him look even more repulsive.
In the back of the courtroom Christene sat stunned. She looked at her girlfriend Linda sitting next to her.
"What happened, Linda?"
"There letting him go, that's what's happening."
Christene just sat there staring at the judge. He seemed to be bored with the whole thing. She had not understood a thing that had just happened, only the fact that in less than five minutes, the man who had put her through the most terrifying thirty minutes of her life was going to walk out of the courtroom without even paying a fine. The will be no justice, no revenge, she thought to herself. Tears formed in her eyes, tears of anger and frustration.
Linda drove Christene back to her apartment in silence. Christene thought back to that night three months ago.
She had met Leroy at a supermarket a few months before. He was a balding man of about thirty six, stocky build and average looking. He had been very friendly and seemed to be the intellectual type.
Christene was twenty nine. She had lost her husband to a spoonful of heroin. Suicide with a needle. He was what you might call a Gucci heroin addict. He was from a wealthy family and therefore one of the few heroin addicts who could afford his poison.
At the time she met Leroy her husband had been dead about nine months, and she was just beginning to start to try and meet new people. She wasn't looking for heavy romance, she just wanted to be around nice people and begin a new life. So while talking about artichokes in California, standing in the vegetable section of the supermarket, Leroy had asked her out to dinner. She said no, but he continued to talk, made her laugh, and on the third try she had said yes to the dinner invitation.
It was a nice restaurant where they met that Friday evening. At dinner Leroy was able to draw her out in conversation and got her to open up a little about some of the tragedy with her dead husband. Leroy was very sympathetic and comforting. Christene was starved for a little comfort and understanding and unloaded a lot that had been on her mind since her husband died. Leroy made his play to get Christene home and in bed but she didn't want that kind of comfort just yet. Leroy was disappointed but did seem to understand and continued to see her and be kind to her.
A few weeks later, on their third dinner date, they were talking after dinner, drinking wine. As before, Leroy projected the kind comforting father image, offering several times to help any way he could if she needed anything at all. Christene, being an intelligent and observant person, began to get little hints that something wasn't quite right. She couldn't put her finger on it, just something that was beginning to make her a little suspicious of him, nothing, she thought, to fear.
Outside after dinner as Leroy was starting the car, he reached over to the back seat and got a bottle of wine and two glasses and put them on the seat between them.
"Just a little way up into those hills there is a little spot a short walk from the road where a creek flows into a small pond. There are huge boulders around and a nice flat spot of grass where we can sit and talk and sip some wine."
Christene was in a mood to talk, the place sounded very nice, so she agreed.
Leroy parked the car in a turnout area on the side of the road and Christene could see the path leading up the hill and into the trees. They began walking and after a few minutes Christene began to realize that she may have just made a big mistake coming here. The path wound on up the side of the hill far ahead of them and there was no sign of a creek or big boulders.
"Just how far is this creek Leroy?"
"A little further." He said without looking at her.
The moon was bright and she could see his eyes. They had gotten wide and wild like an animals and he was breathing heavily. The kind voice had turned hard and sharp and mean. Christene all of a sudden knew for sure what was happening. What scared her most was the feeling that this man didn't want to just rape her, she sensed that he wanted more to kill her.
She stopped suddenly and tried to turn around but Leroy's strong arm tightened around her.
"I'd like to go back if you don't mind."
"Oh come on, it's just a bit further."
He wasn't asking her, he was telling her and she knew it. The path became very narrow and there was room for only one at a time. Leroy had grabbed her by the back of her dress near her neck and was leading her ahead of him. She tried to stop once again and he pushed harder keeping her going up the hill. There was nothing but trees and bushes now and Christene knew she was about to run out of time. If she was going to do anything she had better do it now. She was quick and resourceful and fortunately her mind did not fail her now at this crucial moment.
As they walked she quickly and cautiously began unbuttoning her dress, which buttoned all the way down the front. When the last button was undone she bolted forward into a run with everything she had, leaving Leroy holding her dress.
Wearing only sheer bikini panties she ran through the bushes and trees working her way around in a half circle trying to head back towards the road. She was terrified, she couldn't hear Leroy behind her and didn't stop to look, she didn't even feel the branches and brush scratching and cutting her arms and sides and legs.
Finally she broke through some bushes and found herself on pavement. As she was getting her bearings headlights caught her as a car came around a bend. Breaks squealed and she strained to see into the car. To her great relief the driver was an elderly man who began to get out of the car. Christene started crying, trying to cover herself as best as she could and began begging for help.
"There's a man after me. I think he's trying to kill me, please help me!"
The man took off the sweater he was wearing and helped Christene put it on as he walked her around to the passenger side and helped her into the car. Christene got in and curled up on the floor out of sight in a fetal position. The man drove to his home nearby and called the police. The mans wife gave her a pair of corduroy jeans and an old shirt to wear.
The police came and after hearing her story took her in the patrol car back to the spot where she and Leroy had parked. His car was gone but they stopped and got out to look around anyway. Christene pointed to the path they had walked up and as they were looking, Leroy pulled into the turn out area from the opposite direction, leaned out the window and said.
"I was only trying to help you Christene."
Christene had no idea what he was talking about, she only remembered thinking that he must be a very sick man.
He was arrested on the spot.

San Quintin 1963

Jim Benton came to my cell right before the six o'clock lock up.
"Hey Flowers, your new cellie, Mitchell."
"Yea, what about him"?
"Told you he was here for killing his brother in law."
"Yea."
"I'm afraid hes got short eyes buddy, raped and maimed his own fucking nice."
"No shit."
"Yea, looks like we'll be cutting for his ass pretty quick, but not right off, the sailor says were going to fuck with him for awhile first.
"See ya on the yard James"
"Yea, Thanks for the word Jim, I'll put him on the shine."
I knew my new cellie was in big trouble. The sailor was the head of the Aryan brotherhood in this prison, which is a powerful white group that is sort of like the mafia. This organization was formed inside prison, but over the last ten years has reached out to the streets. Membership is not gained as easy as your elks club initiation, in this club you have to kill someone, or at least stab someone in an attempt to kill someone, that someone in most all cases is either a snitch or a child molester or rapist. some gain entrance by just assisting in a hit. So the sailor had somewhere in the area of twenty killers at his disposal.
I didn't know what he had in mind for short eyes Mitchell, but I knew we weren't going to be giving him a house plant.
Leroy was in the infirmary getting a shot or something. When he came back to the cell he started to say something to me.
"Hey, short eyes, I said, for the rest of the time your in my house don't say anything to me, don't touch my stuff and don't get in my way, understand?" He said, "OK", looking scared and confused. He didn't know what short eyes meant, which basically boils down to a guy whos sexual eye only seems to twinkle for girls or boys five feet and under., but he'd find out what it meant soon enough. I do believe he realized at that moment that he had been exposed.
The next morning at yard call the sailor, and two of his lieutenants approached me as I was placing a bet of two cartoons of cigarettes on a horse called Lucky Joe running in the fifth race at Belmont. When the bookie I was placing the bet with saw the sailor he quickly departed.
The sailor seemed to make everyone nervous including me. He was a big man with tattoos all over his arms and neck. His eyes were a blank stare, they looked mean, at least that's what most of these idiots got from them, I personally thought he looked more stupid than mean. Like a man who didn't like or think to much about himself, that's why he put all that garbage on his neck and arms. Every mindless thing you could manage to think of was tattooed on that idiots body, guns, knives, dripping blood, some womans name, who was probably out screwing his best friend at this very moment, hard to spell words like, kill, death, fuck, suck, Mom. 45631, which I'm almost sure he knew by heart, because it had been his state number for twenty years. I cleverly decided to keep these observations to myself.
"Hey flowers, the sailor said, staring at me with those mindless eyes. "I hear your house has acquired an unexpected piece of shit."
"Yea, just heard about that."
"Why don't you get a pass to the library, say around one o'clock."
"I gather you're telling me you'd rather I wasn't in my house about then.?"
"Yea, Nothing personal Flowers, just want to have a talk with your short-eye'd cellie", I'll cover whatever you just bet with that slimy little bookmaker."
"That's all right sailor, you don't have to pay me, I don't care what you do to that sick mother fucker., I needed something to read anyway.
Him and his lieutenants slowly strolled off. I glanced towards the entrance to the main prison, Leroy sat down on a bench, and three guys immediately got up and left him sitting alone. It was obvious to me that the whole population knew about him by now. I shook my head and wondered if he had any idea just how bad things were about to get for him. I almost felt sorry for him, but all you have to do to cure yourself of that is to spend thirty seconds thinking about what had happened to a nine year old girl, and who knows how many others. Which I did think of, and in fact was cured of that ridiculous emotion in a matter of seconds.
After lunch I left Leroy, who was laying on his top bunk reading a magazine, to get my library pass. As I reached the spiral stair case leading down off the fifth tier, sailor and the same two guys who were with him earlier stepped up onto my tier. The sailor nodded to me as I passed. One of the other two guys, the biggest guy, had a tooth brush in his teeth handle first. He showed his teeth in what I assumed to be a smile, and winked at me. I didn't know what they were gong to do to old Leroy, but I was glad it wasn't me they were going to visit
When I got back to my cell about an hour later, Leroy was still laying on his bunk, the magazine was laying open on the floor. Leroy's face looked a whitish gray, and he was staring straight up at the ceiling, he was completely motionless.
I moved to the toilet to take a leak. There was a tooth brush floating in the commode, which was filled with piss. There was also some sort of foam, which I figured was from Leroy brushing his teeth.
"Hey, don't you know how to flush a toilet"? He didn't answer, just continued to stare at the ceiling.
I found out later that night from a tier trustee, that they had all three taken a leak, then made Leroy brush his teeth in the toilet, using the water in the toilet to rinse with. It made me sick to think about it, not as sick as old Leroy, who hadn't so much as moved a muscle in over three hours. He hadn't even gotten up to go to chow., of course I couldn't hardly blame him for not having much of an appetite.
I was awaken suddenly in the middle of the night by someone yelling, not unusual in a mad house like this, but this was someone yelling almost directly in my ear.
I sat up and found my cellie holding onto the bars of our cell door, yelling at the top of his lungs.
"They raped me, those bastards raped me, I'm going to kill all three of them, ya hear me, I'm gonna kill em!"
"Ah shut the fuck up sissy, and go to sleep, or I'll fuck you again myself in the morning", someone yelled from down the tier. Two or three guys started laughing
"Yea, I said, shut up and go back to your bunk.," "You got no witness to that, it's your word against theirs, all your going to do by snitching on them is to get killed sooner than you already are. He stared at me, his eyes were wild, but not from anger as much as from fear.
"Kill me, no one's going to kill me, I'm going to tell the guards what they did to me, they'll put me somewhere safe."
"Look stupid, the only safe place in this joint is on the other side of the wall, now shut up before I kill ya." I gave him a serious look which finally sent him back up to his bunk.
Our boy Leroy was having some real emotional problems, but once again I couldn't feel any pity for him, how was I to know how many children, or young women were out there having emotional problems over him. No, I said to myself, this ass hole is getting just what he gave, so fuck em., I went back to sleep.
The next morning Leroy boxed up his things in a shoe box.
"Going some where Leroy?"
"Yea, I'm going into protective custody as soon as I get a hold of a guard."
"Good", I said, meaning it. Just then sailor and his two boys showed up in front of our cell, they were all trustees and got out of there cells before us.
Sailor calmly explained to Leroy about the last three snitches who went to p. c. thinking they would be protected. All three were dead. The sailor scratched one of his profound tattoos, and said.,
"Ask your cellie, he'll tell ya." Then they slowly walked off. He looked at me still holding his shoe box and blankets.
"I'm afraid there telling you right, Leroy baby.", One of them they got by putting ground up glass in the guys food, Your only chance to live out the month is to keep your mouth shut, or keep it open, but not to talk with."
"What the hell do you mean he said eyes widening."
"You know what I mean."
"Never, I'll never do that, I'm a man."
"Not any more your not, if you ever were, plus they got a hold of your trial transcript, seems like you had some helpless kids mouth open for you, now it looks like your a helpless kid, hows it feel short eyes'"?
Leroy leaned against the wall, then slid down to a sitting position still holding his belongings. A guard stopped at our cell and looked down at Leroy.
"Going somewhere this morning Mr Mitchell"? he asked in a sarcastic tone. Leroy didn't answer he had gone back into a staring daze.
"No, I said, "he just had a rough night."
"Well he had better unpack, cause he's not going anywhere for thirteen or fourteen years. The guard laughed and went on down the tier.
Like us the guards knew what Leroy's charges where, and not unlike us had no sympathy for him. You see not all convicts and guards are heartless animals. Some of them have mothers, daughters and sisters, and like people on the outside don't want the sort of thing this animal did to happen to them. So the idea of eliminating them from the human race isn't that hard of a thought to cope with for guards or inmates. It does get a little harder for some of us if it is you who is personnel elected to do the eliminating. I knew I was a potential candidate for that election, but I hoped that I wouldn't win it. The thought of killing a man for whatever reason was still a little hard for me.
The tiers cell doors all swung open for breakfast. I stepped over Leroy then I waited at my cell driveway for the other Aryan Brotherhood members on my tier to all get to there driveways. In most prisons you have to travel in numbers of your own race for safety from the other races. So you wait until the designated white man gives the sign to move out, which is given only when every one is ready to move, then you quickly bunch together and move in a pack.
In prison language it's simply said, "Don't drive anywhere in this penitentiary unless your four or five deep in your own race. Leroy stayed in his cell, guess he still wasn't to hungry.

Three months later

It was a half hour after the evening lock up. I sat on my bunk and studied the racing form. Leroy was in what I now considered his fetus possession. He sat almost continuously where the corner of the cell wall met the cell door, curled up with his head between his legs and his blanket over his head.
The sailor came to our cell, reached through the bars and tapped Leroy lightly on the head.
"Leroy baby, I want you to meet my partner Danny, his wife was just killed in the yard last month, and he's feeling a little lonely, you take care of him for me, understand?"
The figure of a head rose slowly still under the blanket. then this whole ball moved in front of the bars. The blanket rose slowly, it was almost ghostly to watch.
All I could see of him was his hands when they appeared from under the blanket to grab the bars, and as he got to his knees I could see the bottoms of his shoes. The sailors companion moved to the front of the cell door and unzipped his pants. I wished they would move this poor bastard to someone elses house, this sort of thing had a way of ruining my evening.
Things like this went on for what seemed like months. One evening in between house calls, Leroy came out of his womb and sat on the end of his bunk. He had a big ball of tin foil, almost the size of a soft ball. I hadn't said two words to him in almost three months, but this had my curiosity.
"Hey, short eyes, what's that"? he looked up at me and said.,
"When I get this big enough I'm going to take it out to the yard and throw it at the wall."
"What for Leroy"?
"So I can leave here, he said very calmly, and very sure of himself.
"And how do you figure that Leroy"?
"It will make a hole in the wall for me to leave through"
"Oh--, good plan Leroy"
"Have you got any empty cigarette packs"?
"Sure Leroy, any thing to help a master escape plan". I handed him an empty pack. He quickly emptied it of its tin foil content. He then carefully wrapped it around his ever growing demolition ball. Yes it was clear that old Leroy's mind was just about gone. I sure wish they would kill him and get it over with. I hadn't stopped feeling sorry for his victims, but I had started to feel that enough was enough. I decided to talk to the sailor about it.
On the yard the following day I did talk to him.
"Hey sailor, Can't we get on with it with this short eyed son of a bitch"?
"I mean, You cats don't have to live in the same house with him.
The guys out of his mind anyway, plans to bust out by throwing a wad of tin foil at the east wall."
"Yea, Well everyone's tired of his ass anyway, we'll play for him tonight."
That night myself and five other brotherhood members crowed into Tommy Detoys house. The sailor took out a new deck of cards, shuffled them then threw them on the bottom bunk. he then scattered them around real good.
My heart was pounding, this was the third time I had done this, but so far I had been lucky, of course you couldn't let on that you were anything but thoroughly disappointed that you had lost. In the past I had snapped my fingers in disgust at drawing a three or a five, knowing I was out of it because the guy before me had drawn a ten, inwardly being totally relieved, which I'm quite sure half these other ass holes were about drawing out of it.
This time I had been chosen to draw first, and this time I drew a ten. My chances of losing were still good, all one of the other five had to do was draw a jack or better and I'd be off the hook again.
The next draw was a six, my heart pounded a little harder in my chest. The next man drew an eight, and stole my phony " dam, with a finger snap.
The next two guys both drew deuces. I couldn't believe it. The sailor was next. He looked at me.
"Leaves you and me James, Don't it'?
"Yea, I said trying to stay cool." I wanted to tell the tattooed son of a bitch to hurry up and draw, but I didn't. Finally he reached down and flipped over a card without picking it up. It was as five.
"Well kiddies, looks like James finally won one, also looks like a moment of truth coming up."
By him saying that, It wasn't hard for me to realize that no one had bought my earlier acts of damn, shit, and son of a bitch I missed out again.
"Your the one who wanted to get on with it James, so get on with it."
"Yea, why not I said, swallowing hard to try to return my heart to its proper location. I walked out of Tommys cell and down the tier towards mine and Leroy's. I was scared, everything was echoing around me. I felt like I had just entered into a fantasy, but I couldn't turn back, if I didn't go through with it, then I would end up with the same fate as Leroy. I quickly decided to just do it and get it over with.
When I got to the front of our house I realized that Leroy had done us both an almost merciful act, he had gone into his sitting position and covered himself with his blanket.
I knelt down and softly said to him.
"Leroy, I've got someone in the next cell I want you to take care of, but he don't want to have to look at you, so leave your blanket over you like it is and I'll help you over there." A low beaten voice came from under the blanket.
"Do I have to"?
"Yes Leroy, then no one else will ever brother you again."
"You promise"?
"Yes Leroy, I promise that this will be the last night anyone will brother you."
"O. K.", he said with a voice that over the months had gone from a mans to that of a scared timid childs.
I helped him up and slowly walked him out of the cell, checking with the look-outs, or points as there called there., who were stationed at both entrances to the tier. I got an OK nod from them both, then walked Leroy down the tier at a slight angle so he wouldn't notice his actual direction. I stopped next to the safety railings., which came up to the average mans chest.
"wait right here for a second Leroy, I got to tell him to go easy on ya."
"Thanks James, replyed a meek voice from under the blanket." I then squatted down behind him, putting both my hands under his ass then plunged upward sending Leroy into a dive. Somehow the blanket stayed on him, and for a few seconds it looked like he was actually going to fly. He didn't even scream, I think maybe he welcomed the flight.
Thirty second after I heard him hit the concrete below whistles started blowing and the PA system was yelling,"lock down ,everyone lock down, to your cells, lock down."
A kite came to me the next day, (a kite is a prison term for a note) The kite read.
"Orville Wright isn't dead. My heart sank. Hell, I only had a couple more years to do, now it looked like I'd never get out of here.
A few days later we were taken off lock down. I found the sailor on the first yard call. The sailor looked at me blankly and said,
"He was in a coma, but he;s been out of it for eighteen hours, don't know why he hasn't snitched on you, I don't know how we can get to him now, he's under under the gun twenty four hours a day. All I can say is we'll try.
Three days later word came that Leroy had crammed a ball of tin foil down his throat with the end of a toilet plunger while he was in the hospital bathroom, and had managed to finish himself off. I couldn't understand it,or maybe I could. I also couldn't help but think that Leroy's ball had worked, it did get him out.