Prison:: Life’S Follies

By James Lloyd

The book deals with some very serious events that I was a part of, starting almost immediately getting out of my two-week indoctrination period: from hands-on trips to lock up to deal with troublesome inmates to a life-or-death situation in the control room in my fourth month of my six-month probationary period, through a couple of riots that took place right after my probation was up, as well as a year or so down the line being the first officer at two murder scenes. There is basically no plot to it; it is a series of events that I went through in what seemed a quick succession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496970350

Book preview

cover.jpg

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 James Lloyd. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/18/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7034-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7035-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Incident At The Control Room, October 5, 1974

Control Room Incident, Narrative

They’re Beefin’ Me.

December 30Th Riot

December Riot Narrative

Race Riot And Deadlock

Aftermath

Aftermath Narrative

The Other Guard

The Other Guard Narrative

So Long Blackie

Hang On Blue

Blackie And Blue’s Narrative

Weaponry

Prison Humor

Tc’s Biggest Fight:

Heart Of A Lion

Promotion Party

The Renegade Egg

Mardi Gras

Narrative Of My Final Times As A Guard

Rainy Days

FOREWORD

The stories in this book are all based upon true accounts of situations I personally faced in an unusually short amount of time during my early years as a correctional officer at the state penitentiary. All names in this book have been changed.

I was just starting out on my first and only marriage and was in my 6th month of this marital bliss when I began my employment at the penitentiary. This was in early June of 1974, and I had no idea of what was coming at me in the first nine months of my employment. Let me also add the effects of the heavy burden that almost crumpled me under the mental weight that each event piled one on top another would bring. In those early years for a man to be accepted as a man, he wouldn’t be caught dead walking out of a mental health office. A place where he might be seeking professional help to unload the built up weight or mental burden, from some of the horrific events which were swimming around in his head. These memories taking jabs and stirring up his conscious fears. Seven years earlier in Viet Nam I learned to drown my fears and anything that might be menacing me in alcohol. At the penitentiary this was known as tavern therapy, and I of course just naturally fell into it, without at the time thinking just how deep I’d go and where it would take me. I want to dedicate this book to my wife of presently forty one years, for her strength and understanding.

Prison: Life’s Follies

by James Lloyd

INCIDENT AT THE CONTROL ROOM, OCTOBER 5, 1974

THE CONTROL ROOM–It was late Saturday afternoon, the early October sun was close to setting, and lunch relief’s were in full swing. I who was working Charley Wing, was waiting at the big sliding chain link gate in front of the Control Room’s giant shatterproof window to be electronically opened by the Control Room Sergeant. Instead of opening the gate for me to head to snack bar, the desk Sgt. called me up to the window and said quietly over the speaker that they were going to lock up Dave Enders in the Segregation Unit and wanted me in there to help out. The shift Lieutenant’s office was small. Lieutenant (Lt.) Johnson was seated at his desk and Lieutenant Esser was standing while leaning on a filing cabinet. Dave Enders was seated at the front side of the Lt’s desk across the small office floor from Bill Paris, President of the Biker’s Club to which Dave belonged.

Dave Enders was a transfer from San Quentin in California up here to this State Penitentiary. This transfer had taken place a few years before my starting to work as a correctional officer (CO). He had just received a major infraction, I’m not really sure what it was but a major infraction usually means a trip to lock up. He wasn’t really tall in stature, but he was very strong, very fast with a knife in his hand, and a cold blooded killer. I think between San Quentin and the state prison, he had around four or five kills to his credit. It was a known fact with the CO’s that he was an enforcer for the Biker’s Club, and a very dangerous guy. Dave lived in Charley Wing. He was a homosexual and in seriously incredible shape. Practically every Wednesday when the weather permitted he and a few other bikers would get permission to out count during the pre-dinner lock up at the bike club which was located about 100 feet from where the State Chain Bus arrived to drop off the new cons coming in. The main attraction of this was to see if they knew anybody returning to prison. It wasn’t past Dave to take this opportunity to check out any possibilities for, putting it bluntly, sexual purposes. He was also a heroin addict who was serving several life sentences; at this time of the 1970s, the death penalty had been abolished nationwide, so a life sentence basically meant nothing to him.

Sergeant James Douglas stood at doorway of the lieutenant’s office, leaning on an elbow in the door frame, and I was directly behind him, practically in his back pocket. After some talk Dave stood up and ran one hand through his hair.

Well, I’m not going to lock up, so let’s get it on. I heard him say.

With that Dave pulled out a 6 or 7 inch toad sticker (knife) and buried the blade about 4 inches into Sergeant Douglas’ armpit. When I saw him doubled over, I thought he was just hit really hard because I didn’t see the blade yet. I grabbed Sergeant Douglas and tossed him out of the way, knocking two officers down who were running down the short hallway toward the Lieutenant’s office to