1. Earning Freedom by Michael Santos

Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term

Chapter Eleven: 2003-2005

Months 190-209

Chapter Eleven: 2003-2005

Months 190-209

 

Officer Ruiz grips the handcuffs that secure my wrists behind my back as we walk across the lawn. He’s a rookie in his early 20s, slight, and wearing a uniform that looks two sizes too big for him.

The lieutenant’s office at Fort Dix is a single story, red brick building, only 20 yards away from the visiting room. Ruiz pulls open the heavy steel door and steers me inside the narrow corridor. We walk past an open office on the left and I see Lieutenant Nesbitt. He’s the embodiment of BOP cruelty, with his faded blue eyes and crooked nose, intoxicated by power.

“Lieutenant, I’ve got Inmate Santos,” Officer Ruiz’s polite voice cracks as he announces our arrival.

“I’ll get to him when I’m ready.” I hear the lieutenant call from the office. “Have him face the wall.”

“Yes sir.”

Ruiz leaves me with my toes touching the wall. While closing my eyes and resting my forehead against the cold concrete, I worry about Carole in the visiting room, knowing she must be frantic. Jingling keys that hang from the heavy black leather belts of the guards who cross the hallway a few feet away grate on my nerves. To the guards, a man facing the wall in restraints for hours at a time is no different from the red fire extinguisher beside me; they’re used to inanimate objects. I had hoped I’d never wear cuffs and chains again, but with nearly 10 years still to serve, that’s not realistic. I wonder if I’m here because of the books I wrote.

“Bring Inmate Santos in here,” the lieutenant finally calls out.

I feel a tug when the guard’s hand grips the chain on my cuffs to pull me back from the wall. As if I’m a four-legged animal on a leash, he steers me down the hall to the lieutenant’s office where Nesbitt is leaning back in his swivel chair behind a cluttered wooden desk.

“Well, Counselor. It seems we meet again.” His eyes drill into me. “Tell me what’s going on in my institution.”

I return his stare, opened face, and shrug my shoulders. “I don’t have anything to tell you, but I’d like to know why I’m here and why you terminated my visit.”

He scowls. “Have it your way,” he spins his chair away from me. “Lock him up.”

The guard turns me around and leads me through the front door, across a courtyard, and into the parking lot outside the prison gates where he unlocks the sliding door of a white van. I step in and sit on the black vinyl bench seat, pressing my knees against the steel mesh that separates the driver from his passengers. He drives across the parking lot and down the road to the entrance of Fort Dix West, the adjacent compound. I’m going to the Special Housing Unit (SHU), “the hole.”

Associate Warden Nuss, at McKean, was the last petty bureaucrat who ordered me locked in SHU, but that was only for one night, and it was for administrative reasons, when he was transferring me out seven years ago. I don’t know what put me in Lieutenant Nesbitt’s crosshairs, and the guards who process me refuse to give any information as they strip search and lock me in a single cell. I start to pace, coming up blank as I try to think of any possible reason that could justify this change.

I don’t have contraband in my cell, and I don’t have a single enemy. I wonder why Nesbitt would bother me, even though I know I may as well be wondering why a rattlesnake strikes.  It’s his nature.  Still, I don’t have any idea why I’m here.

My worries about Carole escalate, as I wonder how she’s handling this disruption. Guards took me away before her eyes and I know that she’s frightened for me. Being married to a prisoner means never taking tomorrow for granted. I hope she’s called Julie and Carol Zachary by now. They’ll help her get through this.

The light in my cell is always on. I lie on my stomach, crossing my arms to use as a pillow beneath my head on the gray vinyl mat. I try to sleep but a wicked anxiety prevents me from being able to relax. Several hours after midnight I give up on sleep and start exercising, doing pushups on the concrete floor. When my body heats up, I step out of my orange jumpsuit and continue in my boxers.

Sometime after dawn the square trap in my cell door opens and an orderly slides in breakfast on a plastic brown tray. It’s a bowl of unappealing hot cereal and a red apple. I push the button on the aluminum sink and rinse the apple in cold water that arcs from the faucet, then bite into the crispy red skin of the fruit. It’s fresh and I savor it as sweet juice shoots through my mouth. I eat the entire apple to its core and wish I had another, but this is it until lunch.

When the guard returns for the tray, he looks through the square window of the cell and sees me in my boxers doing pushups on the floor.

“What’re you doing in the hole?” It’s Officer Flores asking. I know him from when he worked in the Fort Dix housing units. He’s a friendly man in his 40s, with kind brown eyes and compassion.

“No one’s told me anything.” I step to speak through the crack of the door, brushing away beads of sweat that ooze from my forehead.

Officer Flores points to his ears and shakes his head, then steps closer to the door. “Speak into the door frame. I can’t hear you,” he tells me.

“I said no one has told me anything. Lieutenant Nesbitt terminated my visit yesterday and locked me in here.”

“After I collect the breakfast trays, I’ll see what I can find out. You didn’t get a shot did you?”

I shrug. “I wouldn’t know.  No one has passed me any paperwork.”

Officer Flores nods, and then comes into the doorframe again. “We’re not allowed to read your website anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I used to read it every day at work, but now the BOP server blocks it.”

“Do you think that’s why I’m here?”

“Let me check. I’ll be back. Do you need anything?”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate a pencil and some paper, and a Bible if you’ve got one.”
I resume my pushups, grateful for Officer Flores’s kindness. If he can tell me what’s going on, I’ll figure out how to respond.

I squeeze two more sets of pushups in before I hear Officer Flores tapping the window of my cell door with his knuckle. I stand and walk closer. “You’re on the transfer list. I’ve got to take you out.”

“What? Transferred? Where am I going?”

“I don’t have access to that information. I’ve got orders to take you out.”

“When?”

“Right now. Roll up your stuff.”

I shake my head, bothered that the complications of my life will disrupt Carole and Nichole’s life yet again. Disheartened, I pull the sheets and blankets from the mat and bundle them into a ball.  Then I step into the orange jumpsuit and back up against the door. Officer Flores unlocks the trap and I push my hands through the slot. I hear the metal click, as he cuffs my wrists, gently, leaving room for them to swivel. I appreciate this small act of kindness. With both hands I grab the bedding bundle while he unlocks and opens the steel door.

“You didn’t know anything about a transfer?” he asks.

I shrug and shake my head. “I got married last June. My wife has just settled into this community. This transfer will devastate her.”

Stepping out of the cell, I walk with him to the desk where he hands me off to a large guard I don’t recognize. In front of both officers I dress out, exchanging my orange jumpsuit for traveling khakis. I nod to Officer Flores as his colleague steers me down a maze of corridors, then to another holding cell where I’m locked in with 17 boisterous prisoners. We’re all “on the chain,” scheduled for movement to some other prison.

The sound of waist chains, leg irons, and handcuffs dropping on the concrete floor nauseates me. I’ve heard it so many times over the years and I never get used to it.

My mood turns dark with sadness. I’ve adjusted to the institutionalized schedule at Fort Dix through my writing, my exercise, and my friendships. I married Carole here, and since last January I’ve spent 30 hours each month holding her soft hands in the visiting room. With those comforts gone, I sit against the wall and question what the next phase of this journey will bring.

A guard unlocks the door and calls me out first, bringing incontrovertible proof that I’m starting over, off to another prison.

“So you’re the one who’s causing all the trouble here.” I’ve never seen this guard in my life, though he looks like a copy of all the others. I don’t know why he’s talking to me, but I try to ignore his unsettling comment, staring ahead, ignoring the queasiness in my stomach as he tugs on my restraints to ensure that I’m fully locked in.

“Nothing to say?” He’s much taller than I am, and much wider. His size, coupled with a dark complexion and five o’clock shadow, give him a menacing look. I’d like him to shut his mouth and move on to belittle the next prisoner, but instead he spits a stream of brown tobacco juice into his white foam cup and glares at me.

When each prisoner is chained and secured, the guards lead us outside in a line. The sun is rising, but it’s a cold November morning, and without a jacket I shiver in line, waiting for the guard with the files to call my name.

“Santos!” I step forward when he yells for me. I recite my registration number and submit to yet another yank on my restraints as guards make their final check. The leg irons are heavy. Only a few links hang between my ankles so I have to carefully climb the stairs onto the bus. I drop into an empty bench seat, taking a final look through the metal mesh at Fort Dix.

My chest tightens as sadness washes over me. It hasn’t even been a day and I already miss Carole.

As we cross a bridge into Philadelphia my stomach lurches when I see the federal courthouse. It bothers me as I contemplate the possibility of going back to court, wondering whether some unknown entity is setting me up. I’ve been in prison too long to have any business with the court, and I’m overcome with anxiety that some guard might be framing me for new criminal charges, wanting to discredit what I write about prisons.

The bus parks in a garage beneath the courthouse, and I hear that a federal detention center exists above the courthouse. I follow the procession into a new holding cell and, after guards remove my chains, I sit on the floor. The concrete makes my butt sore, so I sit on my hands and lean my back against the wall.

A guard tosses brown sack lunches through the bars. I catch mine and look inside. Uncertainty about what’s going on robs my appetite, but since I don’t know when the next meal might come, I pull out the sandwich and remove the clear plastic wrap. I savor the food, still hungry after I swallow the last bite.

Prisoners are called out, one after another, until I’m left with one other man to wait. Dinner is a repeat of lunch, with the stale white bread tasting even better the second time. I wonder how much longer I’ll have to wait, and when I’m the last man in the cell, I start to pace.

“Santos,” an obese guard calls my name as she unlocks the gate. She leads me through a bright corridor and directs me into an office. A sandy-haired man in his mid-fifties greets me with a smile from his swivel chair behind the desk. I can’t place him, but he’s familiar, and I know that he must’ve worked in some prison where I’ve been held before.

“I saw ‘Santos’ on the file and I was wondering whether it was you,” he tells me as he spins around in his chair. “How’ve you been?”

The black nametag pinned above the pocket of his shirt reads “Carter.” I remember him as a guard from McKean.

“Fine, until yesterday,” I answer.

“No one told you about this transfer?”

“I didn’t know anything when the lieutenant locked me in the hole, and I still don’t,” I repeat for what feels like the umpteenth time. My head aches.

“Let’s see where you’re going. Give me your number.”

I recite my registration number and listen as he types it into his computer, staring at the screen.

“You’re going to FLF SCP,” he reads the abbreviated designation. “It’s a camp.”

“What? Are you sure?” My anxiety turns to elation and I exhale with relief, smiling. “I’m going to a camp?”

“Yes, in Florence, Colorado. I’m surprised no one told you. It’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s so good I can’t believe it. I’ve been in turmoil for the past 24 hours. This is incredible news. I can’t wait to tell my wife, I’m sure she’s going crazy with worry.”

“The airlift usually leaves on Mondays, so you’ll stay here through the rest of the week and the weekend,” he tells me. “But you’ll be flying west soon.”

*******

It’s Sunday morning and I’m exercising in the housing unit at the Philadelphia Detention Center when a guard approaches me. “Are you Santos?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

I follow him as he walks into the guards’ station where he sits in the chair behind the metal desk.

“Close the door,” he tells me, and when I do, the noise from the housing unit is silenced. “Are you married?” He glares and judges me.

“Yes.”

“What’s your wife’s name?”

“Carole Santos.”

He scratches his chin and stares at me. “What’s she doing at my institution?”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a woman outside claiming to be your wife, trying to talk her way into visiting.”

I shrug. “So what’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? You haven’t been here long enough to have a visiting list approved.”

“I’ve been here for six days. I gave the counselor my wife’s name the night I was processed in.”

“Visitors aren’t authorized on the premises until staff approves them. She’s not getting in.”

“Then don’t let her in,” I shrug, “but deal with the consequences that will follow.”

“What consequences,” he asks.

“With all due respect, you’re not in a position to deny her. BOP policy permits immediate family to visit. She was on my visiting list at Fort Dix, and unless you want to respond to an administrative remedy complaint about why you’re disregarding BOP policy, I suggest you let me talk to the decision maker.”

“What’re you, a lawyer, somebody important or something?”

“I’ve been in prison since 1987, and if you read my file you’ll find that I know my way around this system. I’m not new at this.”

“Step outside,” he commands.  “We’ll see how sharp you are when the lieutenant comes.”

Through the office window I watch as he picks up the telephone receiver, pushes three buttons, and has a brief conversation before setting the phone down. He writes on a pad, then walks out of the office and locks the door behind him.

“Got your ID?” he asks, sounding annoyed.

“Yes.”

“Let’s go,” he snaps.

He leads me from the housing unit into a lobby area, and then onto the elevator.

“Step to the back and face the wall,” he directs me, pushing the ground floor button.

As the elevator starts to drop, my heart beats faster. I’m eager to hold my wife again, eager to share the news that I’m being transferred to camp.

After submitting to a quick strip search in the holding room I’m back in my green jumpsuit and hurrying through the door to the visiting room. Families sit across from each other, talking in hushed tones. It resembles any other visiting room, but it’s much quieter than Fort Dix.

The guard at the desk recites the rules to me. I give him my ID card then search the room for Carole. I see her standing in her long navy wool coat, smiling and waiting for me.

“I’ve missed you so much.” She walks forward to embrace me. Her kiss rejuvenates me, like succulent fruit after a 10-mile run on a sunny day.

“We only have an hour to visit because there’s a line of people around the block and they’re all waiting to get in. You have to sit across from me. We can’t hold hands, and you have to raise your hand for permission to use the bathroom.” Carole rattles off the rules as we sit facing each other.

“Wow!” I’m impressed with her command of the situation.  “Okay, Honey. Let’s make the most of the time we have.” I’m laughing, happy to see her and relieved that she sounds strong and confident. “How did you know to come here and how did you talk your way in?”

“I’ve been following you on the BOP website. Once I knew you were in Philadelphia, I started calling and found out your housing unit is allowed to visit on Sundays. I brought the policy statement and a notarized copy of our marriage certificate with my identification. At first the guard wasn’t going to let me in, but I showed him the policy statement and asked to see the officer in charge. He verified my date of birth, then let me in.”

“You’re incredible. Will you love me this much when my sentence ends?”

“Forever.”

“That’s good to hear.  I thought you might just want to be a prison wife.”

“Ha, ha,” she smirks.

“Did you receive my letter explaining everything that happened?”

“I already knew. What do you think I’ve been doing since you vanished from our visit?”

“Tell me everything,” I say.

“I was crazy with worry when you didn’t come back. And then Officer Ruiz told me I had to leave, that our visit had been terminated. I drove home and started calling the prison right away, leaving messages with everyone I could think of. Your former unit manager, Mr. Jones, finally called me the next morning and said that he submitted you for transfer to a camp. I was instantly relieved and thrilled at the same time. We’re moving to Colorado!”

“Slow down, Honey,” I caution her. “You just passed your exam to sell real estate here. Don’t you think you should get your license and sell a few houses, replenish our savings?”

“Honey, I’m not staying in New Jersey if you’re living in Colorado.”

“Let’s think this through, honey.  I love you and of course I want you with me. But let me get there and see how things look. We shouldn’t make snap decisions, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ve already checked. I know exactly where you’re going. Apartments cost about the same out there as they cost here.”

“What about a job? You spent all this time and money to get your New Jersey real estate license. Don’t you think you should at least try to make some money before we take on the cost of another cross-country move?”

“Hey, we always said our marriage would come first. I need to be where you are, and we need to visit whenever we’re able to. That’s what we promised each other.”

“Okay, okay,” I acquiesce. I’m pleased with her devotion, but worried about our finances. “We’ll discuss it more when I’m there. But do some more research and see what you can learn about the local job market. We’ll work something out.”