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I, Pterodactyl by James Hall The old timers used to say, "San Quentin never changes." What a lie. Click to read Essay Profile of Author Bio of Author from ETG Essay, Late-breaking Developments Author's Comment on the ETG Experience Updated Bio Click to Purchase Send email to the author (The copyright on this essay is held by the author.  For permission to duplicate: copyright@cunepress.com)

I, Pterodactyl
I’ve worked at San Quentin prison for twelve years. I never really wanted to work here. Like most guards, I just needed the money.

The old timers used to say, "San Quentin never changes." What a lie. The history of San Quentin is nothing but change. At times, a day feels like a month. A month feels like a career. The tall yellow walls may still look the same. And the massive six-story housing units that look out over San Francisco Bay haven’t changed too much. But the way the place is run—the feeling once you’ve gone through all five security gates and are inside the main walls—that’s changed.

Some old guards saw it coming. I remember one sergeant saying, "We’re all becoming a bunch of clerk-typists." Maybe he was right. Personally, I’d rather type than fight. Maybe that’s why I’m still around. The prison guards are gone. We’re all "correctional officers" now. Well-groomed, bright-eyed, and surprisingly literate professionals. This fact hit home, again, the last time I visited Donner Section.

Donner Section is one of four housing units that make up San Quentin’s South Block. It’s easy to find. After being admitted through the pedestrian sallyport gates, just walk across the plaza, take a left at the adjustment center, continue the full length of the upper yard, take a right to the South Block rotunda, turn left, and you’re there.

Contrary to current etiquette, I banged my old, unpolished black boot hard against the steel door a couple of times. Habit. Used to be, you’d kick the door and wait. Eventually some brute of a prison guard with two days’ growth would sneer at you through the scratched-up Plexiglas. His reason for peering out before opening the door was security, of course. But he was also checking to see if you were somebody important—somebody whose presence might be vital intelligence to the other apes in the unit.

That day I heard the jingling of keys almost immediately. A couple seconds later the lock clicked and the door slowly swung out. Before me stood a smiling, five-foot-two-inch, 100 pound correctional officer. She was adorable. I knew the inmates thought so too. In the 1980s we shared an in-house joke that San Quentin recruited its guards outside liquor stores. Not this one. A modeling agency maybe. Or a pageant. But I suppressed my urge to gawk, managed a weak smile, and lumbered past. I felt young and nimble, like a triceratops.

Donner Section. My old proving ground. The place was immaculate. Quiet. Climate-controlled. And Broadway—the main floor of the building—was spotless. Only thing it lacked was some damn ferns.

The cute, young correctional officer walked up next to me and asked a question. But I continued to stare down the long, narrow housing unit: a cement shoe box set on one side. On the left, five stories of empty space rose above Broadway. The gunwalk jutted out from the wall and ran the length of the unit, slicing into the space at the third story. On the right, five tiers of fifty cages faced out, toward the void and the gunwalk.

I remembered standing there twelve years ago, gazing upon a preview of hell. The stench of gutters clogged with rotting food and standing water slowly replaced the fresh air in my lungs. Broadway was buried under six inches of trash—thrown from the tiers. The din of blaring radios, TVs, and grown men yelling to each other from inside their locked houses engulfed normal conversation. Waterfalls caused by convicts flooding their cells cascaded from the higher tiers down onto the lower tiers and eventually onto Broadway, soaking the trash. And the haze of smoke from small, smoldering fires blurred the entire scene, making it ghostly and strangely appealing.

The young woman next to me saw none of it, and probably felt none of my apprehension, no urge to look behind her. A few men in clean blue shirts and jeans pushed brooms and walked calmly in and out of their cells on the first tier.

In 1984, we had gangs on every tier. Whites on five, Mexican mafia on four, Nuestra Familia on three, and Crips on two. The inmates were supposedly locked up, but it didn’t matter. They made knives, spears, zip guns, and match bombs. And if they ran out of weapons, they hurled piss or boiling water.

But the truth is, a lot of the time, it struck me as a giant party. I remember once, while sweeping the trash on Broadway, an inmate yelled, "Man, you like this shit, don’t you?" It seemed ridiculous, but I did like it. I liked pushing a broom to Tower of Power. I liked feeding the white boys dinner to Led Zeppelin. I liked hearing every northern Mexican crank up his box for "96 Tears." And I liked laughing with the other long-haired scraggly guards about some off-the-wall thing that this inmate said or that officer did. This was "the hole." Conformity to the rules and the assumptions of the department stopped at that big steel door.

But then one of the gangs went too far. They speared a sergeant in the chest. Killed him. Just like a damn Tarzan movie. Overnight, things began to change. Money poured into the system. The gang bangers were split up and shipped out to modern prisons. The crazy old guards who couldn’t conform were driven out. And the result was before us. Antiseptic. Orderly. Quiet. Everything in compliance to a rule. Every cop out of the same cookie cutter.

I looked again at the young woman. She was earnest, optimistic, eager to do the right thing. I wondered, "Did I look that way when I drove up to the big house?" And then I thought to myself, "Old man—just keep it inside."

Profile
I got to know James Hall at Dominican College, a venerable Catholic institution in San Rafael. He was the quiet type—or so I thought. It was the first night of our second semester and those of us in a business class had just been divided into groups of four for a project.

I was in Jim’s group, along with my aunt and a beefy weight lifter. At the ten-minute break, Jim looked our way and said, "How about some coffee?"

"Sure," I said.

"In ten minutes?" My aunt was concerned, but followed us out to Jim’s van—dark-tinted windows, black bumpers, gray carpet—more like Darth Vader burning up Hollywood and Vine, than Jim’s persona in class.

Jim’s driving reinforced the image. After he ran the first red light, my aunt turned her swivel chair so it faced backwards. I prayed she wouldn’t have a heart attack. The weight lifter gripped the dash. We forgot about the project.

For me, I didn’t mind—this escapade felt like we were back in high school cutting class. And Jim was more animated than I had ever seen him. When he screeched to a halt in front of the Royal Grounds—the local java hangout—he actually spoke. "Give me a Double Depth Charger," he said. I ordered herbal tea. The weight lifter went for a latte. My aunt asked for the bathroom.

Inside of ten minutes, we were sitting back in class. I glanced at Jim, and he looked as quiet and unobtrusive as ever. The only clue to the other side of his persona was that steaming Depth Charge on his desk.

—Sabrina Smith

Bio
James Hall
Place of residence: Forest Knolls, Marin County, California.
Birthplace: Portland, Maine.
Grew up in: Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
Day job: Correctional officer, San Quentin State Prison.
Education: B.S. in business administration, Dominican College.
Current project: Applying to graduate school in law or creative writing.
Favorite book: Trinity by Leon Uris.
Belief: In flux.
Cravings: Beer, recognition, laughter.
Interest: Great sots of the twentieth century.

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