Hombre del Silencio: The Prison Diary of Ramon Labanino [one of the Cuban 5 heroes] Part 6: Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases; Aggressive sexuality; Maggie; Boniato (Sweet potato); A chair out of place; Internal life of the mafias; A death threat

Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases

Another sensitive issue I had to face was the fact that in prisons there are many people with tuberculosis. There were also people with AIDS. Its contagion was high and frequent, mainly in drug addicts, since they shared the needles with which they injected the drug. This disease they tried to  keep secret, although one discovered the AIDS patients because they were given a very high dose of colored pills, reconstituents, vitamins, minerals, and heavy-duty dietary supplements.
Often some sick people sold the medicines to make money inside the prison.

But tuberculosis was more feared. It is a disease that is always very present in the prisons, and the prisoners are afraid of an outbreak. When they discover a sick person, they put him in isolation, they take him to a special area of the hospital, a cell for such cases, and they do not allow the sick person to be in contact with the prison population.

Aggressive sexuality

In U.S. prisons there are no conjugal visits. One of the things that dehumanizes the human being the most is that, men are put in a situation of total isolation, separated from the family, and without any kind of sexual relations, and that leads to many people having homosexual relations.

There are inmates who look very masculine, and right away they start homosexual couplings, the reality is that they are never going to have sex with women again. It is very difficult when you are sentenced to life in prison.

In the prisons where we lived, most of the prisoners had life sentences, some up to twelve lives, others five hundred years, they knew they would never see the street again, and then two things happened: The luckiest ones managed to have relations with female guards. It should be clarified that many officers fell in love with prisoners, provoked them sexually, or used them to fulfill certain sexual fantasies, for example, to see them naked. I knew of a case of an officer who fell in love with an inmate, and when he finished his sentence, she left her job in the prison and went with him. And the others are the homosexuals.
Another not so romantic example was the occasion when two young men, each twenty-five years old, tried to rape a female officer. They beat her severely, but she managed to escape, and ran screaming all bloody and battered toward the yard where I was. The guards immediately grabbed the boys, took them to the hole, and gave them a big beating. In prison they make life difficult for rapists or aggressors of guards. They punish them in the hole, put them in the worst jobs, and all the worst things they can think of.

Other daily scenes are sexual exhibitions, in very aggressive occasions, because when the prisoners see a pretty woman, sometimes they are not satisfied with just saying obscene words, but show her their sexual organs, and some even masturbate in front of them. Others dare to enter even the guards’ offices and force them to have sex. They become savages.

Maggie

A very colorful homosexual in Beaumont was Maggie. Puerto Rican, slim, more feminine than any woman, he even had a fine voice, but he was ugly.

One day the Cubans came to see me because there was going to be a tremendous fight with the Muslims. It happened that a Cuban had raped Maggie. I was resting, when suddenly about fifteen Cubans came into my cell armed with knives and said to me:

Boss, we have to go out, we are going to fight with the Muslims because they want to beat us up.

So what’s the problem, what happened, I asked.

Then they explain to me that there is a Cuban who raped Maggie.

Let’s make it clear that homosexuals also belong to the mafias. You can’t touch them, you can’t even look at them. Sometimes they lend them, rent them, that is to say, they prostitute them. It’s another way to make money. But you can’t go around raping homosexuals.

It turned out that Maggie was the private property of the head of the Muslims, a tall dark-haired man, very strong, who practiced a lot of sports, we played handball and chess together, so we were friends, an intelligent guy, with a very long sentence. The Muslims wanted to kill the Cuban for raping Maggie according to the prison honor code, and of course we Cubans would not allow them to kill one of our own, that would be a disgrace.

In prison, the psychology is as follows: even if you are not involved, if someone comes and hits one of your own, you can’t just stand there, you have to hit one of theirs, because otherwise you look like a coward, and if you look like a coward you get crushed. It’s complex, it’s not just that you’re getting hit, it’s much more than that.

My cell was filled with people. Outside sat the Muslims with the thermos jars where the prisoners keep their knives. When you see a group of people with thermoses there is going to be a fight, that is to attack someone.

Knives they make them in the prison of any wire, make punches or knives from the fence, look for a piece of metal and attach it with stones. Plastic coat hangers they melt and make daggers that are perfect. I once saw the edge of a steel bed chopped off with a nail clipper, the guy patiently made a knife. They make daggers of all kinds, and the other form of defense are locks inside a stocking. People invent. I never had a knife in my life.

But ending the story of Maggie’s rape:

The Cuban’s name was Joaquín, so I told everyone to come out and bring the rapist to me to talk to him. Joaquín entered the room, I could see that he was of low character, short, chubby, mule-like, and I began to talk to him, I asked him to explain to me what had happened.

The problem is that I’m a man and Maggie was teasing me, and I went to the room, gave him two cookies and raped him.

The guy was acting like a man according to his concepts. Those are the prison things I didn’t understand. So I said to him: Compadre, you’re crazy, look at the trouble we’re in now, what are you going to do?

No, forget about that, I am a man and I fuck.

There are things in prison, prison psychology things that you learn that work.

That’s why I told him: You asked me for permission to do that? What benefit do I get from this?

Those are things that touch nerves in prison. What benefit do I have and why do I have to cover your back now? Why do we Cubans have to defend you now if what you have done is an atrocity that we ourselves do not accept? That is not done.

No, but I’m a gambler,” he replied.

It’s not that you fuck, it’s that you have us involved in a big problem without eating or drinking it, to defend you, and we don’t get any benefit from anything.

Then I told him: Well, let’s leave it there, if you want to die there is no problem, let me go talk to the head of the Muslims. I went to the Muslims’ room, which had all their bodyguards outside, because as there was a fight, it was not possible to enter without permission. When I identified myself and asked to enter there was no problem, we were friends.

I arrive and tell him: Compadre, what’s up?

He raped and assaulted one of my soldiers, by our code he must be killed, he told me calmly. It was his soldier and it was his wife, and that could not be. The only way to solve it was death, and he told me that if we got involved they would kill us too. It was difficult, we had a long argument.

In these discussions one learns that no matter how complex the problem is, you have to look for the angle, which may be very small, but that is where the solution can be found. That is what the Commander taught us, no matter how difficult the situation is, there is a little crack through which you can slip, and that is what I did. My angle was friendship.

Look, we are friends, but if you attack us we will defend ourselves, you and I are friends, can you imagine if you stab me or I stab you, you are living in prison, if you kill someone here they will give you the death penalty.

That’s the other thing, because Texas has the death penalty, if you kill somebody, there are states that don’t have the death penalty, but Texas does, just like Florida.

So I argued to him that he didn’t need that, that it wasn’t worth it. That he should analyze it, because he was living in a quiet place where nobody would mess with him, that Muslims can’t go to any prison because they don’t accept them, they get beaten up. I told him to let the guy go to the hole and let the thing cool down.

So much I gave him that the Muslim chief said to me: The only solution is this, that he leaves right now for the hole, this very night, and you have to be the one to take him to see the guard, if it‘s not you, no deal, and if at dawn tomorrow, he’s inside the unit, we kill him, if you meddle, we kill you too.

That’s not a problem, I’m going to talk to the guy right now, I said calmly.

I was worried because at 9:45 the cells close. Then I go to see Joaquín: Compadre, the situation is this… I explain the deal and he, reluctant, answers me: Ah no, I can’t go to the hole. Because in prison, if you go to the hole, you are a coward too. If you go and tell a guard that you want to go to the hole and people find out, they call you a coward, it’s not that easy.
I told him then that he had not counted on me to do what I had done, and in the end I asked him: Do you want to die? Go to the hole, three months from now nobody will remember you. Save your life, three months from now you go to another prison, and you start again, because if you don’t, in a minute they will kill you.

It was already around nine o’clock. We went to his cell, collected his things, got to where the guard was and took him away. Everything calmed down. As a consequence of this event, every time there was a fight with a Cuban, they came looking for me, and fights like this were a daily occurrence.

Boniato (Sweet potato)

Boniato was a very famous guy, he worked in the dining room, he was a cubano, I personally disliked him, I didn’t like him, he wasn’t a positive guy, he was more of a negative guy.

One day the head of the Mexican Mafia calls me in the yard and says: “Medina, I have to talk to you. Look, tell the guy to go away because we are going to kill him tomorrow.” I asked him what the problem was. The problem is that the guy hands out the food, but when we Mexicans pass by, he serves us very little, and the skinniest chicken there is, the meat is full of fat, in short, and the Cubans, he takes care of them well.

Honestly speaking, he always gave me a good amount of food, and I was not friends with him. When the black Americans passed by he also threw good food, but he also did with the rest of the people, including the whites, but he was disrespectful to the Mexicans, one of them told him to give him more food, and he told him that if he wanted more he would have to pay for it.
And the thing was that if he wanted to sell food outside the dining room it was fine, because he made the effort to steal it, but the food that was in the dining room he had to serve it as it was. So the man told the people no, that if they wanted more food they had to pay for it, right there in the dining room line, that’s why he got into a fight. The Mexican also warned me that there was no way to solve the problem, that they were going to kill him because he did not respect anyone.

I’m on my way there right away to talk to him, and this conversation will never be forgotten. I was in the recreation area, I go up to him and tell him: Boniato, the Mexican mafia people say that if you don’t leave they will kill you. Solve that problem, talk to them.

Then the guy instead of explaining, turns to me and says: And who are you to tell me anything about them, if I am more of a friend to them than you, I am in the Mexicans’ corner. 

Entering a mafia is not that easy, they have to select you, and before entering you have to do services for them, for example, you have to steal butter from the kitchen, rice, beans, whatever they ask you to do. If one day they ask you to fight one of them, you have to do it, that’s to get in. “The corner” is the guy who helps the mafia, so that in the future he can get in to be part of the organization. He was the corner of three mafias, the Mexican, the Muslims, and I think the Italians, because he helped all three of them with things they asked him for.

And he told me: I am the corner of three mafias and you are nobody. Faced with such an answer I said to him: Don’t make a mistake with me, I only came here to save your life, don’t be questioning who I am. Ok, don’t look at me, but hey, no problem, my brother, I go and tell him to kill you, but analyze the situation and don’t disrespect me. If you don’t want to die tomorrow you can’t wake up here.

The next day Boniato woke up working in the kitchen, and right there he was attacked by several Mexicans, and because of this he was taken to the hole. I never heard from him again.

A chair out of place

Prison problems were sometimes over insignificant reasons. Sometimes the silliest things ended badly, and very ugly situations arose. One day, while I was writing a letter, two Cubans came to tell me about a problem with the whites. When I went out to see, the cause was the television set.

In the prison the televisions are only in the common area of the units, in this one there were eight, each set belongs to a mafia. It is the same in the dining room, even if the TV is by itself  and has empty chairs, you can not use it, or turn it on or off, or change the channel because it may be that from a cell, someone is watching it, and you do not realize it.

The brown Americans had two, one for music and one for sports, the Cubans shared a television set with the Mexicans. The Italians had theirs, and so each group had its own set.

Since it was a common space for so many people, the living space of each chair was marked on the floor with chalk, and that had to be respected. No one was allowed to go outside the marks. Prison rules.

The chairs where we were sitting were adjacent to those of the whites, and it turned out that new Cubans began to arrive, and they began to occupy the space of the whites. When the whites complained to them, the Cubans began to shout, and a fight broke out.

I come out of my cell and I see that tempers are running high, the two sides are about to fight each other with knives and sticks. I spoke to them and told them to give me some time to talk to the leader of the whites.

The chief of the whites was a young boy, also a good chess player, a very good person, and nice, but rather violent. He knew martial arts and liked to fight. So I went over there, knocked on the door, and told him I wanted to talk to him. We had a very good friendship, because of our similar tastes in recreation, and he was respectful. When I arrived I explained to him what was going on, then he told me that he was going to show me, he stood up and spoke: Look what the Cubans are doing. There was a line painted on the floor, and he indicates to me: The Cubans are moving backwards, and they are also very noisy, and they are tilting the chairs backwards.

It is true that if you lean back you are stealing space from the other person. And the Cubans almost always tilted the chair. All that nonsense was grounds for a fight. I explained that now there were more Cubans, and we had to give a little more space. Well, in the end we reached an agreement that the line should be moved back a little bit.

In the United States this is very interesting, because people live very much the symbolism, for example, if there are two warriors who are about to fight, but they shake hands, peace was made, and everything is calm. We finished talking, we shook hands, and the people calmed down. I went down and explained to them how they had to put the chairs and that was it. The problem is knowing how to talk, if you don’t know how to talk, if you don’t know how to behave, the problems end up in an argument, and that is what happens many times.

Internal life of the mafias

From what I understand, the mafia bosses have military ranks, they come from the street with their legend. I knew that Mexicans have tattoos that identify the bosses, very typical of them, something like a crossed hand. If one who is not a boss gets it tattooed, they order him to be killed.
The one who comes from the street with a history is by right the boss. The big boss is the one who was the big boss in the street, and if not, among those in prison, the one with the longest track record, the one with the longest history, is appointed. The structure of a mafia is military. They have the boss, the soldiers, who are the ones who kill, who rob, the treasurer. All this forms a structure, and each member has to contribute ten dollars every month, how, I don’t know, but you have to contribute, because with that money the mafia maintains itself. They have parties, meals, different activities, they buy things, and if a new member arrives with that fund they buy him clothes, shoes, food, everything. And that is why they invent things to sell, drugs, cards. There are those who make Christmas cards and sell them, and make money. They invent, they sell wine, they have to do something, and they are always playing sports to be in shape for the fights, because as political groups the mafias have to be ready for combat.

A death threat

While I was in the penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas, a Cuban told me that there was a certain Miguel, who told several inmates that “spies had to be killed,” referring to me. It was serious news and it was necessary to act quickly, not only because of the danger but also because the idea could be to seek support and involve more people.

I found out who he was, and he turned out to be a Cuban who worked in the library, had a bad temper and hated everything that had to do with Cuba, the revolution, and Fidel. I had met him before and we just exchanged greetings. He was in his forties, thin, rather short, and thought he was upper class, generally shunned by most, didn’t have many friends. I learned his work schedule and went there to find a moment when he was alone and not many people could see us. Exactly two days later, I found the right moment and approached him. We were in a small office full of books that limited visibility, I went in, closed the door, and approached him.

“Hey, Miguel, how are you’?” he looked at me calmly, without being startled. He even shook my hand. “It seems you don’t like spies, since you said something about killing them or something like that. He replied, “No, boy, nothing like that… I mean, how gossipy the people here are, I was referring to the snitches in this prison, the ones who throw the others out to pass time”. Well, I was thinking that if you have something against me, here I am to clear everything up and solve the problem.

No, you have nothing to do with it. You know that I don’t like politics, or communists, or anything to do with Fidel; but you are a serious and respectful man and that’s how we can treat each other, without ever having to talk about economics or politics or anything like that”. “That’s the way it is, all right; but you know that, if someday you have something to say to me, say it to me face to face, just you and me and no one else, then we remain as respectful as ever.” “Of course, no problem, my brother.” We shook hands and I left. About six months after this conversation, we found out that Miguel had gone to court in Miami because he would be one of the “snitches” who would testify against a drug and murder network in South Florida, thus removing the life sentence he had for a reduction to twenty-five years.