Story: Visiting Alcatraz with a return ticket

From the top of Lombard Street, it gleamed like a large golden ice-berg in the water. Little did I realize that afternoon that a day would come when I’d be at close quarters of its dank, dark interiors to hear cries of the prisoners and the stentorian bellows of burly grim-faced officials, file past the cold cell blocks and pushed close to the Electric Chair.

Last September, I was on a boat that pulled out from Pier 4 at Fisherman’s Wharf. Across, in the distance was the sun-drenched Alcatraz: the dread of America’s most dangerous criminals, a terrifying symbol of the impregnable fortress prison. As the engine spluttered to life and pulled away, the Transamerica pyramid and the grand structures of the Embarcadero started to recede. I was being taken away from a civilized life of fine wine, gorgeous women and my beloved San Francisco. Unlike arrivals of the past that landed in shackles and a cold sweat to be brutally strip searched by tough doctors and grim-faced jailors, and later had prison clothes thrown in their face, I suffered no such indignity.

To rub it in and give us treat of those fearful days, a bulky red-faced man in uniform, wielding a bull-horn — right out of Don Siegel’s nail-biter Escape from Alcatraz (1979), barked and went through the old drill. “Alcatraz was built to keep rotten eggs in one basket,” he began in a raspy voice, “I’ve been chosen to make sure the stink from that basket don’t escape. Got it, scum?” he said. In those 10 minutes I aged, maybe 20 years as the official ran a spiel on life in the penitentiary.

The mid-day sun was scorching. The assembled group stood mutely, taking it all in, nervously. There were some jokes. But not everyone was laughed at the Captain Bligh-like remarks. The ‘Warden’ continued reciting phrases straight from a prison handbook. That tough talk and the atmosphere made it difficult to control the mind.

On my right was a steep hill. At the end of it was the main cell-block. Prisoners’ yelling, cursing, chorus’ of swear words, officials shouting, berating, clanging off chains and metal clasps and cell doors creaking open and slamming shut came unbeckoned to me. This 22-acre ‘turtle-shaped’ rock is a hell-hole even when you are there on a tourist visa. So, how does one escape from there?

Legend has it that Alcatraz defied escape attempts. Yet three men, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, slipped out on June 12, 1962. They were the only ones to escape in 14 official attempts made in 29 years of the Federal Penitentiary history. They planned their get-away over months, meticulously. They used spoons to dig their way through moisture-damaged floors and walls. They crouched, crawled, and ran to avoid detection. They clambered up enlarged air ducts, to the top of the cellblock and down leaking sewerage pipes.

The noise of their scraping and drilling was masked by accordions during music hour. Finally they hit the numbingly cold water and clambered onto their roughly crafted escape raft made from raincoats. By dawn they disappeared. Without a trace.

Early next morning the alarm bells and sirens pierced the dark, dense fog, non-stop. Guards with their dogs ran and searched any which way. Searchlights swept the murky courtyard. For the dumbstruck prison officials, it took sometime to figure out that the lifelike heads and papier-mâché dummies on the cots were decoys. The clever ruse helped the trio to gain time and put off an early pursuit. Did they make it to land and freedom? No one knows for sure. But Escape Attempt No 13 succeeded.

Months later, Alcatraz historian Frank Heaney found that the relatives of the Anglin brothers had had mail from South America. From that brilliant strategist, the leader Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood in Escape) there was not a word. As a result, speculation was rife and the fate of the trio remains a mystery.

The $1 million reward remains unclaimed. Even as the story baffled Alcatraz officials and those heading prisons around the US, the general public was thrilled and delighted by the ingenuity and derring-do.

The award-winning audio cell house tour that I had on me (fare $16.50 adult including audio) has former inmates and guards ‘talk’, in a careful reconstruction of the happenings at Alcatraz. The commentary brilliantly evokes the dehumanizing routine of life on the Rock. Of the 1,545 men prisoners in Alcatraz, not all were as dangerous as Al “Scarface” Capone or Robert Stroud, ‘The Birdman of Alcatraz’ or George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

The average imprisonment time was 8-10 years. And yet, visitors get a sense of extreme isolation and despair by looking into the inmates’ cells and hearing their stories.

The humiliations and suffering in Alcatraz have been widely documented in print and celluloid. One lonely prisoner talks of how he was sustained by the sight of a woman making her way into the prison.

Another painfully describes the celebratory sounds of New Year's Eve hi-jinks in San Francisco waterfront that drifted into his cell. The girls laughter and screaming, upbeat, loud music, men having a rollicking time and such sounds ‘drove him nuts’.

The tour brought us to the main cellblock, where a barbershop and library once stood. The cells, with military-type beds and toilets, are stifling. And the isolation chambers, where inmates were locked behind two doors and deprived of sunlight, is intimidating.

At the best of times, the prison is not a welcoming place. At dusk it becomes even more foreboding. But there are takers for such tours. The special evening tours ($23.50) are obviously who like to mix some heebie-jeebies in their outing.

As can be expected Alcatraz offers much fodder for writers and movie-makers. The prison happenings: violent men lashing out wildly at anything and anyone, men plotting escapes, men seeing the futility of struggle and becoming depressed, and officials’ responses and their own problems, are captured in cinema and many books.

But a recent book that stands out is Jolene Babyak’s Breaking the Rock: The Great Escape from Alcatraz.

As a Warden’s daughter she spent considerable time on the Rock as a child. She outlines the Morris’ gang’s escape plans and meticulously documents other such happenings in her book. In 1963, when the penitentiary closed, the jailbirds were relocated in other institutions of the U.S. federal prison system.

Alcatraz has a huge bird population despite the large tourist crowd. To be sure, the island’s name is attributed to a bird. The Spaniard, Don Juan Manual Ayala referred to the place as La Isla de los Alcatrace or the ‘Island of Pelicans’.

Today Alcatraz is listed as a National Historic Landmark boasting of historic structures, natural features such as rock pools, seabird colonies, and spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the coastline. There is talk too, of the island being converted into a resort.

To explore the Rock as it is today, visitors have a wide range of facilities including a museum, multi-media presentations - virtual prison tours, films with historical footage, slide shows, sound clips, close-ups of infamous prisoners, and Alcatraz based movie posters.

After the visit, the mind bristled with the thoughts of ‘the claustrophobia, the suppression of joy, the barbarity of caged isolation cells, and the suffocating atrocities’. The fact that the electric chair was never used is small comfort.

As I walked towards the ferry, the sun bore down on me. I checked the wind-cheater for my return ticket stub. It wasn’t there. A cold sweat formed on my lower back. Then frantically I searched the jeans. When the hand came in contact with the stub, a cool breeze came my way and I breathed easily. Even as I went through the petit trauma, my mind – and heart – went out to those saps, the hundreds of unfortunate individuals who didn’t have this privilege.