Читать онлайн "Al Capone Shines My Shoes" - Choldenko Gennifer - RuLit

There were plenty of stories of Alcatraz children breaking the rules as well. As one boy who grew up on Alcatraz put it: “[I could] probably write several pages of things Phil Bergen [captain of the guards] caught me doing.” [6] Or as Chuck Stucker said: “Two-thirds of the island was restricted, what do you think a boy was going to do? Go to the places he’s not supposed to.” [7]

Still, there was a stiff penalty for misbehaving. As Bob Orr, who lived on the island from 1941 to 1956, said: “We couldn’t mess up, violate rules or we’d be asked to leave the island.”

Ed Faulk, a resident on the island in the thirties, told me about the day he came home from school to his father and three convicts sitting around his kitchen table. Sharon Haller said the parents of her friends in San Francisco sometimes would refuse to let their kids visit her on Alcatraz because they thought “we ate dinner with the convicts.” But they did not. Ed Faulk’s story is the only evidence I have found of the convicts sitting down at the same table with the civilians.

But for the guards-the fathers of the children who lived on the island-there was a terrifying side to life on the island. As one former resident described it: “The danger was there. Everyone knew. All you have to do is take the bone out of a T-bone steak and you’ve got an excellent weapon.” [8] During the escape attempt in 1946 known as the Battle of Alcatraz, two guards were killed-both family men.

And sometimes the convicts did know more about the families who lived on the island than they had any right to know. Chuck Stucker told me about his return to the island after having been gone for eight years. As soon as he got off the boat, one of the convicts on dock duty tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Are you Ed Stucker’s son? Tell your father hello. I always liked that man.” [9]

Perhaps the most peculiar fact of life on the island involved the convicts who worked in the warden’s home. “The wardens all employed exemplary prisoners known as ‘passmen’ to cook and clean at the residence, and every thirty minutes [10] these inmates would emerge onto the front porch, where they would stand until they had been counted by an officer who could see them through a prison administration window.” [11]

And yes, some of the wardens had school-age children living on the Rock. James A. Johnston, the first warden on Alcatraz, had a daughter named Barbara who described what happened when her mother, Ida Mae Johnston, came upon two passmen fighting in her kitchen. Apparently Ida shook her finger at the men and said: “You boys. You stop that right now.” And they did. [12]

Generally the passmen were selected because they had relatively short sentences, thus they were not considered flight risks. But there is evidence that more than one passman took advantage of his situation. A houseboy and a cook were said to have a still in the warden’s basement from which they made a home-brewed wine out of fermented fruit.

Bill Dolby, who lived on Alcatraz as a boy and had the job of delivering newspapers on the island, remembered his interactions with the warden’s passman Chief Wareagle. “Carrying the newspapers gave me access topside and to the lighthouse. Chief Wareagle met me every morning to take the paper and slip me some freshly made cookies or candy. After a while I told [the chief] not to do that any more because I didn’t want to get Dad in trouble… which was difficult to do since he made really good pralines.” [13]

Clifford Fish, a guard on Alcatraz for twenty-four years, talked about a passman named Montgomery who, because of his unique ability to come and go from the cell house, was asked to participate in the 1946 escape attempt. Montgomery decided against involvement because he “had too good of a job [on Alcatraz].” But neither did he forewarn guards of the impending escape because if he had, he would have been killed by the other convicts. [14]

The prison was, after all, a maximum security operation that housed some of “the world’s most dangerous criminals.” [15] You did not typically go directly to Alcatraz. “To qualify for a reservation at Alcatraz, the tough customers must have demonstrated their incorrigibility at the other prisons or… [be suspected] of running rackets or gangs from within prison walls.” [16] In 1935, you were sent to Alcatraz if you were a troublemaker at another prison or an “accomplished escape artist.” [17]

The reason Al Capone was moved from the Cook County facility in Illinois to Atlanta and then to Alcatraz was because he worked the prison system to his own advantage. In Cook County he was able to bribe, or “tip,” as he preferred to call it, the guards and live the high life behind bars. “It was said he convinced many guards to work for him, and his cell boasted expensive furnishings including personal bedding… [the cell was] carpeted, and he had a radio around which many of the guards would sit with him conversing and listening to their favorite serials.” [18] In fact, “a clue to his power [in prison] could be found in a recess carved in his tennis racket’s handle. He might have a couple of thousand dollars secreted there at any given time.” [19]

Warden Johnston described Capone this way: “He was suave and aggressive by turns, and it was apparent from the beginning that he was trying to show the other prisoners that he would find some way to get what he wanted inside, just as he had always got what he wanted when he was outside.” [20]

Capone’s challenge on Alcatraz was avoiding trouble from the other inmates. At one point Capone’s empire was worth $62 million [21] (more than $950 million in today’s dollars), and some inmates wanted him to bankroll their escape. “Upon arriving at the Island Al was approached… to advance $5000 to be used as an escape plan to hire a gun-boat.” [22] In 1936 a young punk named Jimmy Lucas stabbed Capone with a pair of barber scissors. Lucas’s motivation was simply to prove that he-not Capone-was the toughest guy on Alcatraz.

Capone, though a ruthless and vile human being, was not without his charming side. As Phyllis (Hess) Twinney, the daughter of the first doctor on Alcatraz, explained it to me: “Dad liked Al. But Dad was under no illusions about Al, who thought everyone was his servant.

“Even so, Al saved Dad’s life. Dad had to take visiting hours. The con ahead of Al came in and got really agitated. Every doctor had a little scalpel so he could lance something if needed. The guy went ballistic, grabbed up the scalpel, and came toward my father. Al heard the commotion. Al was very soft-footed for a big man, and he inched his way in, grabbed him from behind, and shook the scalpel out of his hand.” [23]

Although Warden Johnston tried to treat Capone as if he were no different from other convicts, in some small ways his infamy did penetrate the thick walls of Alcatraz. Many guards, as the story goes, gave Al their hats for him to dust off so they could brag, “Al Capone dusted off my hat.” [24] But so far as I know, Al Capone didn’t shine guards’ shoes. However, he did work at the shoe shop in his previous prison in Atlanta, so it is likely he was an accomplished shoe shiner.