Anthony Brown
*Author's Note: The purpose
of my writing is not to indict, but to educate about prisons and
the lives of the imprisoned and their families by sharing the
first-hand experiences of myself and friends. Therefore, license
has been taken with specific details in order protect all involved.
The killing was real. So
are the nightmares.
He didn't know what
it was about the footsteps that woke him up, but Jimmy Lee Vaughn
snapped to awareness listening to their sound amongst the normal
subdued night noises.
Living in dormitory conditions,
with the entrance, stairs, shared showers, sinks and toilets at
one end of the huge room, prisoners moving around at night was
not unusual. There were 60–75 men
living on his floor, each with a bunk, locker, and writing desk
in a space separated and surrounded by a four-and-a-half foot
painted plywood partition, with either a swinging or a sliding
panel for a door.
The cubicles were all that
passed for privacy in the "E" Unit, one of two housing
blocks out of eleven with open dorms instead of cells at what
was then, in the late '70's, called the Federal Correctional Institution
at Lompoc, CA. "E" Unit housed all the prisoners participating
in a long-term substance abuse program.
Glancing at the illuminated
face of the clock, he saw that it wasn't Count time, but the footsteps
were moving closer, pausing every few seconds, and they were somehow
'wrong.' Movement in the half-light
caused him to look up just as the head and shoulders of a man
appeared over the cubicle wall, stopped so their own could peer
in at him, and then move on.
The head had a face belonging
to Mansfred "Kurt" Kurtizt, and seeing it now could
only mean that he'd thought of a solution to his problem.
In prison, problems were most often rooted in the perceived disrespect of one prisoner by another, an unpaid drug or gambling debt, the extortion of commissary, property, or, an unwanted homosexual advance, even rape.
But Jimmy Lee knew about
Kurt's problem, and it was quite different and unique, in a macabre
sort of way. Kurt was a South African
national serving a six-year NARA sentence for smuggling drugs
into the United States. His problem was
that South African authorities believed him to be a member of
a communist anti-Apartheid organization using drug smuggling profits
to help finance violent attacks against the government.
During his trial he had been
informed, in no uncertain terms, that upon his deportation back
to South Africa at the end of his sentence, he would be executed.
Although Kurt fully expected to be thoroughly interrogated (meaning
tortured) before he was killed, the burly, red-faced, Afrikaner
police official had colorfully described the hanging of his "kaffir-lovin'
ass" from the hatch of the plane the moment it touched home
soil.
Nobody, at least nobody that Jimmy knew, was certain if Kurt was actually a Communist or an anti-Apartheid activist.
Being seen as a race-traitor was no more popular in American prisons than in white-controlled South African streets, so it wasn't a topic that he would have discussed openly.
Kurt had peacefully and systematically
lost every day of his "good time" credits in order to
put off his release and deportation. Most
youthful offenders sentenced under the Narcotics and Rehabilitation
Act could have normally expected to serve two years inside the
joint and four on parole, the felony conviction having been expunged
from his record. But Kurt was serving
every single day of his six-year sentence; he had no more good
time to earn or lose, and he was getting short.
Looking over the partition and a couple cubicles down, he saw Kurt turn to look back at him, but without a pause he continued to move down the cubes, peering over and into each one.
Jimmy Lee wasn't sure what
he should do, if anything.... It wasn't a question of right or
wrong, but of consequences.
Interfere and he could get hurt or killed. Don't interfere and... his quandary was resolved when Kurt stopped in front of Robert Moore's cubicle and began sliding the plywood panel open.
Bobby was Jimmy Lee's homeboy,
a fellow Alaskan and contract state prisoner, exiled to the federal
system because Alaska had no prison facilities for long-term prisoners.
Without concern for noise, Jimmy Lee slid his door open, stepped out onto the walkway, and moved toward Kurt just as he pulled a long, fat-bladed shank from his belt.
Kurt stopped and turned to
face Jimmy Lee, setting his feet and moving the foot-long killing
tool down along his thigh in preparation, but he said nothing,
just watched as Jimmy Lee approached
.
Kurt stared at him for long seconds, then nodded his head once and, without a word, turned away to continue his search.
Jimmy Lee pulled the door
back across the entry to Bobby's cube and returned to his own
space, but he continued to watch Kurt over the partition to be
sure he didn't return.
Less than a minute later and four cubes further down, Kurt again slid open a door and this time moved inside.
Jimmy Lee sat down at the edge of his bunk, and his heart pounded and stomach twisted under the adrenaline onslaught, his ears functioning with a terrible clarity that made denying his imagination impossible.
He listened to the sounds
of Kurt dropping onto the back of his sleeping victim, the grunt
of startled response, the blade thudding again and again through
the wool blanket and struggling flesh, the fearful, half-smothered,
scream-turned-wail of understanding, the sound of Kurt's voice,
clear, calm, almost conversational in tone and volume:
"Just roll
with it, man. Just roll with it."
Poetry / Fiction / Non-Fiction