WE'RE OUTTA HERE(Michael D. Warner) WE'RE OUTTA HERE

By Michael D. Warner Copyright 2013 by Michael D. Warner all rights reserved.

The new inmate, a slender, medium height thinly bearded blonde haired man of twenty-two, stood gawking at three other working inmates. The mid-afternoon (1978) Summer sun was in his eyes and he squinted as he watched one man sawing heartily on a stiff piece of half-inch thick plywood using what appeared to be a homemade blade.

The inmate sawing was on hands and knees shoving mightily back and forth with the makeshift tool. Even so, the new guy could see he was over six feet tall, black haired, heavily bearded and extremely muscular.

Having yet to be assigned a work detail, the new man was killing time, having wandered close to the loading dock of the food service building. The two other men were busy doing lookout work (called “jiggering”). In other words, two men were watching out for a stray “hack” (prison guard) to be sure the guy sawing corners from the plywood laying flat on the loading dock wouldn’t get caught at it.

“Hey you,” the lookout closest to him ordered. “Get your ass away from this dock and outta here somewhere. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to crack you.” The man shouting at him was short, heavy set, black haired and was gesturing with his fist and thumb, indicating the direction in which to move. He wore a mean scowl on his face.

The new guy shrugged and wandered away from the building, wondering what the hell was going on. “Hey,” he reminded himself, “sometimes it’s better not to know nothing about nothing.” He would simply do his time and try to keep safe while doing it. No need to rattle other inmates. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That was his motto while incarcerated.

Cardboard boxes were broken down and flattened out on the loading dock. Several of the flattened boxes were strewn on top of the large rectangular piece of plywood. Should a hack show up, it would be a quick and easy job to slide a piece of the cardboard over the exposed corner of the plywood.

Why had they been sawing the corners of that sheet? he wondered.

The three men had convinced two prison inmates who worked as carpenters to tote the sheet of plywood over to the food service loading dock. No one would pay much attention as prisoners were often seen carrying cement blocks and other building materials as they made repairs or built up new prison structures.

Why would the carpenter inmates carry out the request? Well, either of two successful ploys: A bodily harm threat or more likely a bribe. The bribe would be a couple of "pen" joints, marijuana cigarettes rolled tightly to a very small diameter. "Pen" may have stood for "penitentiary" or perhaps it stood for "hat pin" in size.

The new man continued walking away from the dock and never saw the rear entrance door suddenly pushed open. Just as quick the cardboard was shoved over the exposed plywood.

The hack standing there pointed to the three. “You men get ready to unload a trailer. It’s at the gate right now and he’s running late.”

“Right, Boss!” they replied pretty much in unison. “We got it.”

The hack moved back inside. The spring-loaded door slammed shut behind him.

The truck would not be delayed long coming through the gate. The officer on duty there would have the trailer doors opened, take a quick glance at the stacks of closely packed cardboard boxes, then tell the driver he could pass.

Upon leaving, the trailer would be inspected again, its doors opened and the officer looking in to see that no one was hiding in the now-empty trailer. Only a minute or so would be required for this routine ceremony at the gate.

“Okay,” the ring-leader said. “When we get all the way to the back we gotta get one last measurement.” He puffed his cheeks and blew out. “This s.o.b. has got to fit perfect or we’re cooked.” He glared at the other two. “You got that?” He demanded.

Two minutes later, the truck driver swung his full trailer in an arc and began backing to the loading dock. When he stopped, the floor of the trailer was aligned perfectly with the edge of the dock.

“Nice job!” shouted the ring-leader inmate.

The driver clamped tightly on the cigar protruding from the corner of his mouth, ignoring the comment as he pushed his way through the heavy door. He grasped a paper cluttered clipboard in his left hand.

“Let’s get this stuff unloaded,” the ring-leader ordered. He lowered his voice. “Hurry, so we’ll have enough time to get to the front wall and measure it.”

The three men worked swiftly, piling boxes onto a set of hand trucks then rolling them inside the kitchen store room. After one and one-half hours had passed, the truck stood empty except for a couple boxes intentionally left at the far end of the trailer up front.

The ring-leader was there carefully stretching his six-foot frame in both directions and memorizing the distance where his hands reached in length and breadth.

“What’s taking so long?” shouted the hack who had reappeared on the dock, now peering into the dark vastness of the forty foot long full trailer.

“Just two more, Boss,” came the reply from deep inside the trailer, “and we’re done.”

“Well, get a move on.”

The hack reentered the building. The ring-leader started counting seconds. He had counted out five and one-half minutes before the door swung open again and the driver reappeared, scowling at the paperwork on his clipboard as he moved to close the rear trailer doors.

The driver went down three steps from the dock to the pavement and made his way to the front of his cab, swung up on the wide step, jerked opened the door then slid into the driver’s seat. One minute later, the big truck began pulling away from the dock toward the gate and the awaiting exit inspection by the officer there.

The truck would make a delivery to this federal prison twice per week. Whoever the company was, they had been the low bidder on the contract and they would maintain their schedule. More than once the truck had arrived with only half a load, but it had arrived on schedule as per the contract.

“Just over five minutes,” the ring-leader mused. “That's longer than usual. Maybe some of the paperwork was screwed up? Maybe he was just in there shooting the breeze or somethin'?" He frowned. "We gotta do it in about one minute, that's all. Otherwise, they could be right on us, catch us dragging that panel ..and we're screwed."

Inmates incarcerated in federal prison wore cast off U.S. Air Force khaki pants and shirts and boots, so there were no striped prison pants nor shirts, nor any clothing particularly identifiable with incarceration. However, the locals, the people living in the community where the prison was located, were fully aware of the inmate's appearance. The minimum security camp located just outside the high-security class-five main prison had inmates working outside, riding on garbage trucks, doing trash pick-up details and etc, all visible during the daily work week.

The contract hauler for food service was based several towns away from the prison. No one there would give much more than a passing glance to someone so garbed.

The weekend passed, On Tuesday the scheduled food delivery arrived. Normal procedure, as the truck was inspected on the way in with its load of cardboard boxes, then waved through the gate. The same driver as from the previous week's delivery again skillfully backed his long trailer to perfect alignment with the food service loading dock.

The three inmates assigned to unloading and storing the incoming shipment began hefting the boxes, stacking them on the hand trucks, rolling them inside to the storeroom. An hour passed as they worked their way nearly to the front of the long trailer. As usual, the hack stuck his head through the doorway and ordered, "Let's get a move on, men."

"When we're done," called out the ring-leader, "do you want all this cardboard hauled to the dumpster? It's starting to pile up again."

The dumpster was around to the side of the building out of direct sight from the loading dock.

The hack stared for a moment at the mess laying about on the dock. "Yeah, go ahead and get rid of it," he answered. "Then, you can work inside and sweep up before we knock off."

Inside, the wall-mounted clock read one-fifteen. In keeping with standard federal prison counting procedures which counted inmates six times each twenty-four hours, the next scheduled count of the prison inmates would not occur until four o'clock,

The food service hack reentered the building. The door slammed shut. The three inmates quickly wrestled the four by eight foot panel of plywood into the trailer, pulling it by the three curved blocks they had nailed to the underside behind them all the way to the forward bulkhead where they tugged it into position, crouching, squeezing themselves between the plywood and the front wall of the trailer.

The finishing touch on the plywood was to paint it with flat black paint smuggled from the prison's paint shop. A casual glance from the rear door area into the darkness would hardly notice the forward wall appearing distorted.

The men waited for what seemed an interminable time, sweating profusely, scarcely daring to breathe. Suddenly, they heard the rear doors slam shut and the twist locks fall into place. Less than a minute later the big engine vibrated into life. They felt the truck lurch forward.

They breathed a collective sigh of relief. "Keep still!" cautioned the ring-leader. "We're gonna be at the gate in about two minutes."

They swayed against the bulkhead as the driver applied braking to stop at the gate. "Ssshh!" warned the ring-leader. "Here it comes!"

As the doors opened, light streamed so dimly over their position they could hardly discern it. Each held his breath. They overheard muffled voices in the distance. Suddenly, the doors slammed shut and the locks rattled into place. Less than a minute later, they felt the truck move, slowly at first then faster and faster. They felt the driver changing gears as the noise level increased.

Luckily for the escapees, the trailer lot at the trucking company's base had a procedure of leaving the trailer doors open for airing out, particularly after hauling produce. The trailer lot runabout-person simply opened the doors then moved on to other duties.

- THE END -

Epilogue:

This author has no knowledge of the final destiny of these escapees. It took prison officials some length of time to figure out just what occurred, because the truck would have been inspected upon leaving the prison compound.

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