Plainfield is a small town bordered by a river on one side. Thinking I might be seen if I used the bridge, I decided to swim the river. When I was about halfway across, I could see people on the bank. I turned around and started swimming the other way, only to see more people on the other bank. They were guards and inmates from the school (trusted inmates helped catch other inmate runaways). My heart sunk—I didn’t know what to do. It seemed senseless at that point, but I turned downstream and tried to out-swim all the people on the riverbank. Finally a couple of them dove in the river and dragged me ashore. Grinning with his tobacco-stained teeth, Mr. Fields was there to pull me up the bank.
Back at the school, a guard gave me thirty lashes with the escape strap. The escape strap was longer and thinner than the strap used by Clark. It cut a lot more and brought blood instantly. That lashing put me in bed for several days, and it was a couple of weeks before I could walk without wanting to lie down and cry.
That escape attempt got me out of the dairy cottage and away from Fields. But, fuck, I’d already been pegged as a guy to watch and the move was almost like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I was put in a cottage that was run by a Mr. Carr. Carr was an ex-marine, a big son-of-a-bitch whose favorite thing was to run a “jaw-line.” He had a couple different versions of his jaw-line. One was to make two lines out of all the inmates in the cottage. The lines were about four feet apart, good swinging distance. The sucker being punished ran between the lines, while the others swung at him with closed fists. If one of the blows knocked him off his feet, he had to get up and try to get through again. If Carr thought someone wasn’t putting enough force into his punches, that guy would have to run the line.
Carr’s other “jaw-line” held more personal satisfaction for him. He’d place you about twenty or twenty-five feet from him, double up his fist, hold his arm at your jaw level, and then say “run.” You had to charge into that fist. If he felt you hadn’t charged at full speed, he would make you do it again and again until he was satisfied. If the blows were severe enough to require medical attention—broken nose, cut lip or damaged eye—he would give you a pass to the infirmary listing the cause of injury as “slipped in the shower” or “fell while horse-playing.” Carr was another guy like Fields. He’d turn his back while some of his snitching pets would try to fuck someone.
I was at the Indiana School for Boys for over three years and the only good thing I can say about it is that it had an impressive front lawn. From town it looked like a small university. But while proud parents bragged of their child’s good behavior and scholastic accomplishments, I was busy watching my back and taking the shit those guards dished out. At an age when most kids are going to nice schools, living with their parents and learning all about the better things in life, I was cleaning silage and tobacco juice out of my ass, recuperating from the wounds of a leather strap and learning to hate the world and everyone in it.
When I was sixteen, I finally made a successful escape with two other inmates. The day we left, I had no more promise of going home through proper channels than I’d had three years earlier on the day I arrived. Release was obtained through merit or a court order. Mom never sought a court order, and my escape attempts and other infractions put me on the minus side of the merit system.
When my escape partners and I got away from the institution, we stole a car and headed toward California. Along the way we stole other vehicles and abandoned them, as we needed. For gas and food money, we burglarized grocery stores and service stations. We made it as far as Utah where we were arrested for being in a stolen car. Since the car had been driven across state lines, we were turned over to the federal authorities and prosecuted under the Dyer Act. In March 1951 I was sentenced to the National Training School for Boys in Washington, DC. I’d had two weeks of freedom. I knew the new offenses meant a lot more time in jail but I didn’t care. I was out of the Indiana School for Boys.
The difference between a federal reformatory and a state reformatory is about like the difference between night and day. On a federal level, there seems to be more concern about how you got there and what it will take to straighten out your life. At the state level—at least during my confinement—the idea was to punish the shit out of you and make you sorry you were ever born.
Even the federal inmates are of a higher caliber, a “class” group instead of the derelicts found in state joints. But guys being guys, immature, trying to prove their manhood, they still create problems for themselves. In retrospect, I have to say I have always been guiltier than most in trying to prove myself. I wanted to be one of the “in crowd” at any cost. The “in crowd” in a youth-filled institution is mostly based on physical strength—the tough guy has all the respect in the joint.
Not being a big guy, I could never impress anyone with a display of physical strength. But at sixteen, with almost five years of jail time behind me, I had all the cunning and knowledge needed to maneuver myself around any situation I didn’t want to be involved in. Trouble was, I always wanted to be part of the power. So what I lacked in size, I made up for in daring. I was game for anything and saw everything that went on. I knew where all the knives were, how to score contraband, who the under-cover punks were, who to trust and who not to trust. I was smart enough not to step on the toes of anyone who might bite me.
It was important to me to hang around with the guys who had been successful and enjoyed luxuries on the outside. Their conversation was like a school for me. I was a good listener. I realized a lot of their talk was filled with exaggeration or fantasy, but they were still talking about a world I had never known. Cars, girls, school dances, parties, nice clothes and being able to come and go as they pleased. I built an imaginary world of my own from their conversations. I envied every guy who had had a pleasant experience on the outside, and tried in my imagination to substitute myself for them when they talked about it. I envied their letters and pictures from wives and girlfriends. I enjoyed sharing their plans for release and the promises of good things from their parents and friends when they got home. At the same time, I was aware that I could not relate a single moment of similar joys and dreams, unless of course I counted that day when I was eight years old and my mother took me in her arms—the day she returned home from prison.
Those were my smothered feelings. On the outside I projected arrogance and disdain for rules and regulations. I strove to prove myself to the others to be a person who had experienced everything, was afraid of nothing and could get by with anything. For a while I would actually believe I really didn’t care about all that I’d missed. But then in a moment of reality, I’d be aware of never having kissed a girl. I was in reform school before I’d reached puberty. The only climax I’d ever had was from jacking-off or sticking some punk in the butt. Having a wet dream wasn’t even possible for me; I’d never had the real thing so I had to finish any dream I started by hand. Still, between the stories of others and my own imagination, I had strong sexual urges, urges that got me in trouble several times. A prison psychiatrist labeled me as having homosexual tendencies. So I was supposed to be some kind of a freak. But, hey, I just went for sex the only way it had ever been taught to me. I didn’t have any respect for a joint punk then and I don’t now.
A lot of stories go around about forced sodomy and oral copulation in prisons and reform schools. There is some of it happening; I mean, out-and-out rape. I experienced it and I’m still ashamed to cop to it. Most of the sex is by mutual agreement, but however it comes down, those things are printed in a convict’s prison record and are with him for the rest of his life. I lost a possible parole date once by getting involved with a punk. I was accused of holding a razor blade to the kid’s throat while I screwed him in the ass. Truth was, the guy was an undercover queer and wanted a dick in his ass, and I didn’t mind doing it to him. We both agreed that if we got caught, he could say I forced him. We got caught. I was not only listed as a homosexual, but one with assaultive tendencies. That kid knew I didn’t force him, and I knew it, but I got