The Watchtower Federal Prison

By Don Cooper

I decided to write this book for my four grandsons and for the children of St. Jude Hospital for children with childhood cancer.

Fifty percent of all monetary proceeds of all royalties paid to the author for this book will be gladly given to charity, to Marlo Thomas and St. Jude Hospital.

The remaining 50 percent will be equally divided between my four grandsons.

Thank you very much.

Billy the Bad, Bad Kid, a.k.a. Donnie Angel

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638811107

Don Cooper

Don Cooper is a retired dairy farmer who lives with his wife Ruth in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin.  They have six children, sixteen grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.  His first book, Dairy Farming: A Way of Life, tells about their struggles as dairy farmers and their faith in God that got them through.  His writings are dedicated to the glory of Jesus Christ and God’s true Word, the Holy Bible.  He has recorded two gospel CDs that are available on his website, www.fcgmusic.com.

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A Real Masterpiece

This book contains mature content and language which may not be suitable for children and minors. Read at your own discretion.

Donnie Angel

The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual event, person, place, or thing.

Prison gangs: the Bloods, the Crips, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Silent Brotherhood, the Aryan Circle, the Mexican Mafia, and the Arizona Syndicate.

Murders, suicide hangings, bloody stabbings behind razor-wire fences, slamming iron bars, and stone-wall prison escape.

A Bonnie and Clyde love story!

By Don Cooper

All young boys and young men, listen to my tale. Be good boys and not bad boys, or you will end up behind razor-wire fences and slamming iron bars, where you will become a slave and have to work for no pay behind stone walls.

My name’s Donnie, and I’m no angel!

The Watchtower Federal Prison

It’s 103 degrees in the shade and hot as hell. I’m standing down in a shallow, dried-up creek bottom on a federal prison in Arizona with twenty-five or thirty other convicts in the extreme heat.

The year is 1977. I’m twenty-two years old. I’ve been working on federal road gangs and chopping down trees in the forest now for almost two full years. I feel like an expert lumberjack. I’ve got blisters on top of blisters on both hands that are very painful.

I guess it’s like Lieutenant Baretta used to say on his television show, If you do the crime, you must do the time.

I was twenty-one years old when I drove up to this Watchtower Federal Prison. I found a very big scorpion earlier this morning in the bark of a big tree. I put the scorpion in my plastic cigarette case so I can smuggle him into the prison.

This prison is ran by all women, and they are not shy. My fall partner and road dog, Deadeye, and I were both sentenced to fifty years for trying to rob a bank in a small country town in Cushing, Arizona. The judge told us that we would have to serve twenty-five years before we would be eligible for parole.

My other two partners, Randy and Hector, were shot down and killed inside the bank. Hector went off and shot a bank teller when he didn’t up the money fast enough. I’m glad the bank teller didn’t die.

After Hector shot the bank teller, three bank guards ran out of one room, and three came out of another with guns blazing.

Then a cop car blocked my stolen getaway car in from the front, and another cop car blocked my rear end. Deadeye is lucky to be alive. He was ordered to throw down his sawed-off 12-gage shotgun and ordered to lie down on the sidewalk on his stomach. I was ordered to get out of the car, hands held high. We were handcuffed and taken to a large jail built like a big prison.

After we were sentenced, we were transferred to the Watchtower Federal Prison. We are pulling leaves, trash, and weeds out of a shallow creek with our large grubbing hoes when a loco Mexican standing next to me pulled a large cottonmouth water moccasin snake up out of the shallow creek.

I yelled at the loco, dumbass Mexican and told him to get that big snake away from me. The Mexican pulled the huge snake up the slop of the steep hill where my guard Mary and her sergeant were sitting on their horses.

The sergeant pulled her .45 caliber revolver out of its holster faster than lightning and was ready to shoot the big snake’s head off.

The huge cottonmouth water moccasin was full of small perch fish and catfish and was mad as hell at the crazy Mexican for taking it away from its meal. It was the biggest snake that I had ever seen.

The big snake stood up like a cobra snake. It was weaving its huge head full of venom back and forth, and it struck fast at the crazy Mexican’s face but missed by only inches.

The big snake stood back up and was weaving and zigging and zagging, and the crazy Mexican swung his sharp grubbing hoe at the snake’s head but missed by a foot.

The snake stood up again and was weaving and zigging and zagging, and it struck at the Mexican’s face again but missed a second time by only inches.

When the huge cottonmouth snake stood back up, the crazy Mexican swung his sharp grubbing hoe fast and hard and cut the snake’s head completely off.

Then when the Mexican got too close to Mary’s .45 revolver, she pull the gun out of its holster and was ready to shoot the Mexican, but her horse snapped his huge jaws and teeth twice and tried to bite the Mexican in his face.

Damn it, man!

I didn’t know that a horse could be trained to bite a human. It wasn’t the crazy Mexican’s day; he ran back down the slope of the hill with the rest of us convicts.

All of the loco Mexican’s buddies were patting him on his back saying, "Mano, mano, you got that snake."

When we were ordered to go back to work, I got as far away from the crazy Mexican as I could get.

All of a sudden, it started getting real dark, and I saw a couple of large black thunderclouds rolling in. And it started pouring down rain. Then I saw two large lightning bolts shoot across the dark clouds. And it started thundering real loud.

The convicts yelled, Shake it, Big Mama! which means, Come on down, rain!

Then the sergeant started waving her cowboy hat in the air and yelled, Stop working and line up in pairs, With our grubbing hoes across our shoulders. for our long walk back to the flatbed trailers that were pulled back to the back gate of the Watchtower Federal Prison by a John Deere tractor.

When we got to the flatbed trailers, I threw my grubbing hoe onto the last trailer with the axes. Then I jumped onto the next flatbed trailer as far away from the crazy Mexican that killed the big snake and his buddies as I could get.

I fired up a Marlboro cigarette.

Then the crazy Mexican yelled, Give me a cigarette, White Boy!

I told the Mexican, No, I only have one left.

Then the fool said, Let me see your cigarette case.

I told him to take a flying leap off a big cliff.

The loco Mexican asked me, What did you tell me, crazy White Boy?

I told him that I don’t repeat myself twice. Ask your compadres to translate to you what I said.

Then one of his buddies told him not to mess with that White boy. He’s twelve and zero. Twelve knockouts.

Then the Mexican said, Save me half of your cigarette.

I told him, No, I no save you jack shit. Quit begging.

Then the Mexican said, Puto pendaho, which means in English, dumbass punk.

I told the Mexican, "Okay, puto pendaho. I got something for your smart-ass mouth when we get back inside the prison."

I’m a White boy, but I’m as dark skinned as the Mexicans or the Blacks from working in the hot sun for two years.

I could see the other work detail squads putting their axes and grubbing hoes onto the last trailers and loading onto the other ten flatbed trailers.

We were all soaked, and the rain wasn’t letting up. I could see the high rider way off into the far distance by the edge of the forest through the rain that was still coming down hard. She rode a big black stallion with leather chaps, shiny spurs, and straw cowboy hat. She carried a Winchester rifle with a high-powered scope.

I still remember around a year ago when a young Mexican jumped off a flatbed