I watched these men scheme. For three months I felt sharpened spoons digging through me. There were crude papier-mâché heads made of soap, paper, and remnants of haircuts from the barber shop hidden on top of the cellblock. Raincoats and rubber cement were stowed away in a dark corner covered in spider webs. Stolen raincoats were stockpiled with thread to build a makeshift raft. The entire stratagem was so meticulously planned, but I wondered how they would ever survive. It was June 11, 1962. Allen West pulled on the ventilator grate that covered an air vent that goes through me. He tugged at leftover cement that he didn’t chip away from the hole, beads of sweat trickling down his red and angered face. He planned to punch through the small piece of wall, only to find that I had a
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I prayed that he found the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris. He certainly wasn’t a good man, but he did not deserve to be in a prison as horrific as Alcatraz. Clobbering footsteps quickly grew close to me. Allen West had returned, and I knew immediately that the other prisoners had abandoned him. Sullen and defeated, West returned to his cot to retire for the night. When West woke up the next morning, he was asked to answer questions about the prisoners who had escaped. Crediting himself as the mastermind behind the escape plan, I heard West describe the precise details of the scheme. Something about a plea bargain may have appealed to him. Now tourists gaze in awe at the papier-mâché heads that still sit in adjacent cells. The hole that in me attracts eager students delighted to learn more about the “Great Escape from Alcatraz.” I try to pick up on whatever I can hear them say because the spaces in my recollection of the story are growing. Tour guides have given me a lot of information even decades after the escape, though. No one knows what happened to Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin, not even the wall in
I prayed that he found the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris. He certainly wasn’t a good man, but he did not deserve to be in a prison as horrific as Alcatraz. Clobbering footsteps quickly grew close to me. Allen West had returned, and I knew immediately that the other prisoners had abandoned him. Sullen and defeated, West returned to his cot to retire for the night. When West woke up the next morning, he was asked to answer questions about the prisoners who had escaped. Crediting himself as the mastermind behind the escape plan, I heard West describe the precise details of the scheme. Something about a plea bargain may have appealed to him. Now tourists gaze in awe at the papier-mâché heads that still sit in adjacent cells. The hole that in me attracts eager students delighted to learn more about the “Great Escape from Alcatraz.” I try to pick up on whatever I can hear them say because the spaces in my recollection of the story are growing. Tour guides have given me a lot of information even decades after the escape, though. No one knows what happened to Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin, not even the wall in