Violation Presents: Ear Hustle

Hi folks, this is Beth from violation. I'm here to tell you about Ear Hustle. Ear Hustle shares stories about what life is really like in prison, both inside and after you get out. Hosts Nigel Poore and Erlon Woods launched Ear Hustle in 2017. When Erlon was incarcerated in California's San Quentin state prison in 2018, Erlon's sentence was commuted and he was released.

This is Anne Irwin, founder and director of Smart Justice, California. The following episode of Ear Hustle contains language and content that might not be suitable for all listeners. Discretion is advised.

You know, I'm really paranoid and I want to know what I'm going into and how I get out of there.

So as you were walking down here, like, what sort of stuff did you notice?

There ain't no trap. I don't see, you know, like a gang of officers waiting around this corner to gavel me up, or a gang of inmates over here to get me. Or that you do that, I do that naturally.

So you're constantly vigilant.

Yeah, you got to be constantly vigilant.

One thing I can say, Nige, is that a lot of cats that's been locked up a long time. You know, you definitely keep your head on a swivel.

Yeah, I mean, this is not the first guy we've spoken to that does this? Hey, when we go to a restaurant, you think about where you're going to sit.

Of course.

Yeah.

Because I'm thinking about the dude that's going to come in and rob it.

You're looking for that saber-toothed tiger?

Yes, I am.

So on the last episode, we talked about a bunch of guys like this, you know, the OGs who have been incarcerated for a long time. But this time, we're going to focus on just one, Sherry Walker.

When you look around this room, what do you think you notice about it? That I don't?

That I notice about it.

Yeah, that I wouldn't notice, because I'm not as vigilant as you are.

That if there was no other way out, I could climb out of here.

Do you feel safe in this room now?

Well, you know what, I'm going to say something, don't take this personally. But when he came in, I felt a lot less safer.

Who was he talking about?

It was just like some random person who walked through the room while we were doing the interview. I mean, Jerry didn't. He didn't really overly react, but you could see he noted it. You know, it was like, ooh, something in the room shifted.

Got you?

My environment changes, I change.

So do you think, because of how hypervigilant you are, you're a good read of character?

I read character pretty good.

What do you read about this, dude?

He got the openness in the face, exudes a lot of honesty, he don't even have to say nothing, He exudes a lot of honesty. And it's partially the way he walk. He don't walk like a convict, he walks more like a free person.

Interesting.

You, I've seen you a lot.

That's right, that's right.

You got it?

And oh, she runs, she runs the media. Oh man, she's going to want to talk to you, man. I don't want to talk to these people, man. I'm out of here so I take off.

But we won you over.

Yeah.

Typical OG doesn't want to say nothing to nobody.

Yeah, but in the end they come around.

Well, some of them good thing for us, this guy did. I'm Erlon Woods.

I'm Nigel poor. This is ear hustle from PRX's Radiotopia.

Nah, I don't think I knew him.

And I know you're a super observant guy, not much gets past you, but even you might not have noticed him.

Oh, he was one of them, low, low profile cats.

Exactly, he just doesn't take up a lot of space.

NEW YoRK You remember Jerry?

Yeah, he's always around, but you don't see him.

And it's not like, he's this little guy.

Nah, very tall black man, but he just blends in somehow. I don't know if he has a cloak of invisibility, something. The next thing, you know, I'm minding my own business and he's there.

I mean, he does not draw attention to himself.

Not at all.

Here's the one thing that I'm always trying to do, How would you put it? It's a collage, that whole wall is painted that way and you look at it and then a guy walks out of there. They blend it in.

Yeah, it's a camouflage, man.

I'm trying to get to that point at all times, that's my whole thing, is not to become noticed.

I think that's a great survival technique. If you're not there, then nobody's paying attention to you, then you don't get hurt.

I wouldn't mind if some of the younger guys at San Quentin learned that.

To roam or to disappear?

No, to not take up so much space.

Young people need attention, they're different.

They sure do.

You know what, you don't often meet people who have done that much time.

He is basically a walking encyclopedia of a prison experience.

He's an expert.

During your 46 years, what is the most unusual place you had to live?

Vackerville was.

What does that mean?

Okay, I'll explain that to you. Do you know what he means by? yeah?

Okay, Erlon, I know you weren't there. But at this moment in the interview, Jerry made this kind of hand gesture and I think it was dismissive.

Right, right.

And basically, he was saying that this particular prison, it was too soft for him.

Yeah, I mean, guys like Jerry, they're from a different time. When prison was really hard and nobody was talking about their feelings, they probably would have been victims if they talked about their feelings back in those days. I mean, shit, you've seen the movies?

But at this place, that was the kind of thing you had to do.

Within your first week, you have to get up and you tell your story.

Wait, what year was this?

This is 74.

I mean, I know these conversations, they're the kind of thing guys talk about in all of the various self-help groups that are very popular now.

Especially at San Quentin, where there's a real focus on reform and rehabilitation. But back when Jerry started out, prison was really stripped down.

I mean, guys didn't even have TVs in their cells back then.

And that's why a lot of those guys were scholars. They just read. It was cool to be smart. Back then, you know, there was nothing else to do.

What did you have in the cell then?

Nothing, one of them boxes over there.

He's pointing at, like, a two-by-three-foot box.

All your property would fit in there, and that's transcripts from your court and everything else.

Okay, so in your cell, there was.

Nothing books or you had a radio.

Okay.

And you had a speaker in there and you could turn it to A or B. And either have country, western or rock on one station, or rhythm and blues and something else on the other station.

And that's it. So you could only listen to stuff.

Yeah.

And then so you got state-issued clothes. What did you have for clothes? Tell me all the clothes that you owned.

You had two different types of clothes, you had khaki material clothing and you had denim, the denim you could only wear to a trade and to work sites. If you was going to go to the library, if you was going to go anyplace else visiting, you had to get into what they call polished cottons. You had a khaki-colored set of clothing, and you had a powdered blue khaki material set of clothing that you could wear on a visit.

You was wearing.

Five.

Five pants How many tops?

Five.

How many pairs of underwear?

Seven.

How many pairs of socks?

Seven, seven.

T-shirts.

Seven.

Shoes.

One.

That's all the clothes you had.

Yeah.

What I love about this is that Jerry Walker remembers all of this and it's like 40 years ago, he remembers all the details.

Yeah, I mean, what else does? He has to remember? You know what I'm saying? No, seriously. In prison. It's like, one thing, one thing that happens continuously, over and over and over and over, so you don't really forget it.

What was the food like in 74-before packages?

Oh man, they fed you good in the cellar, okay, you'd take a doggie bag to breakfast with you, to lunch with you, and to dinner with you. You know, you might only have half of your steak at dinner.

Steak.

Yeah, you didn't get hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner.

You got, like, real food that somebody was making from scratch.

Hot dogs, hamburgers and casseroles, was lunch meals, pork steak, pork chops, ribeye, round steak, chicken.

On the bone.

Yeah, on the bone, always on the bone. Yeah, not this stuff that they give you today.

So you weren't getting that processed food out the can and the salad out the bag?

Wow.

What about dessert?

Cakes, they had, bakery, you had bakery, butcher shop, vegetable preparing rooms. At every prison, it was like a lot of food.

Describe the CMC cells.

They're over-under. One cell's an upper bunk, the next cell's a lower bunk.

All right, Erlon, let's try to explain this succinctly, because you really need a diagram. Obviously we can't have a diagram here.

You know what it's like? It's almost like one cell is like an L, and then the other cell next to it is like a backward C.

It's like a bunk bed, but you're not in the same room. You're like, if you're on the bottom, you're in an L-cove. And if you look up, you see the cement or whatever of the other cell where they're sleeping.

It's more of metal, the whole wall is metal.

Regardless of the material, you can't see the person, but they are sleeping above you.

I know I said an l and a C. turn the l backwards and then turn the C the right way, and that's how it's positioned.

I think the easiest thing to say is it's a bunk bed, but they are in different rooms.

Jigsaw.

Okay, also, I imagine it's like, if you ever slept on a train.

So you're not finished with this.

And then when they put a second person in that cell, they put a bed that folds up. You got to put it down for your cell to go to sleep, and once you put it down, it locks up the whole cell. There's no floor, no more, there's no floor.

And that's what's considered a king size.

A lower, lower.

We're on a lower lower, if he rolls over, we're in the bed together.

What do you mean, a lower, lower?

So the way the lower lower works, right, like this person is sleeping on the bottom here, and this bed that pulls up. It's like they're right in your face.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Right in each other's face, if you're in that kind of cell, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

I get it.

Cozy.

Yeah, you roll over and you can fall right into your bed, yeah, right into your bed. If he has to get up to use the restroom, he's got to step on you or move all the way to the end. I told him, we're not sleeping in here.

So you took shifts, you took turns sleeping during the day.

Yeah, during the day.

The idea of sleeping that close to a man was just too much to take, so you'd rather disrupt your whole sleeping pattern.

I think it was more just a perception of somebody walking by and seeing me.

That's what I mean, yeah, so because of that, you completely changed your sleeping pattern.

Yeah, change your sleeping patterns no matter where you are.

You know, Erlon, listening to this, what really strikes me is that Jerry is really good at adapting.

The word he keeps using is coping, and it's kind of his superpower.

And the best example of that might be pretty early on in his sentence. Jerry got in trouble and he was transferred to Pelican Bay. And put in this special unit for people who are separated from the general population.

Can you describe as if you're walking in for the first time? What does the unit look like?

When you come in the unit, you're kind of confused. It's like a maze in there, like you're just going around in circles and circles, and then you're in the unit. The cells are right there.

And what do you remember?

As soon as you step in, there's a toilet right there, about 10 feet to where the bunks are. The bunks are on the back of the cell, like, if I'm standing at the door of the cell, the bunks are on that wall right there. They're concrete with two slots that you put your property in.

And when you go in there, do you get a sense of the other people who have spent time in there? Can you tell other people have been in there?

Sometimes.

What gets left behind?

Markings.

Yeah.

That used to be a superstition. Don't put your name on the wall, or else you'll come back. Some guys that was their way of....

They exist.

They exist, yeah.

Did you ever write anything on the wall?

No, I told you, I'm superstitious, I guess.

No books.

No books.

What clothes do you have?

T-shirt, shorts.

Nothing in socks, no blues.

No.

And so how do you cope without books? Do you have writing paper pen? No, you can't write letters? No.

Probably first thing you're going to do is sleep, exercise, eat and sleep.

How did you know what time it was?

If you weren't tired enough to go to sleep, then it was exercise time. If they weren't feeding you, it was exercise time.

So when you ate, how was the food and how did they feed you?

I'm not a gourmet, so I eat food to live. I've always did that. tastes a lot of times don't even matter. I'm just eating to fight hunger and to nourish myself.

Are you actually underground?

No, it's not underground, but it feels like it because there's no Windows. If you're escorted someplace, you don't see no Windows. No, nothing.

What else?

White you start noticing all the white.

It's a solid metal door.

It's plexiglass over a thousand eyes, I call it.

Metal honeycombs.

Yeah.

So what happens to you when there's no sound? what changes for you?

I can't speak for everybody.

For you.

But for me, I just cope with it.

You say you didn't notice it at first. How did you start to notice? Wait, I'm not hearing anything.

Somebody came through the tray slot and the tray slot opened, and then the noise came in. You live by a freeway, I live by a freeway. Yeah, you live by a freeway when you open your door.

Yeah.

And then tweak that a little bit more to where. It's even quieter when the door isn't open, and it's louder when the door is open.

I went to the hole in 2012 for eight months. Once I got books and writing paper, I actually liked the hoax. I like to read and I like to be by myself. And it just allowed me to write really good letters I could write when I didn't have the time to do in population.

I didn't have paper.

It was nerve wracking once. I got acclimated and learned how to make a fishing line, and got in the swing of things and learned how to trade books with other people. And got cool on a tear. It was easy, I liked it after that, but you can't fish, you got the rubber thing blocking.

That's going to last.

For what a day, two bird baths and it's gone. But let me get to the point, like, So what changed when you came out? what changed about you?

You mean, what changes it made on me?

Yeah, how did it affect you?

It didn't, it didn't really affect me. She ain't supposed to be there for five days.

Yeah, but you were there for 90.

Yeah, maybe you can't remember, but I think what we're pressing you on is, how did, what did it do to you? Like, Okay, I hear you slept, you ate, you exercised.

Yeah.

And then what else?

You exercise again.

Like, what?

Friends, family, music, things you want to do, things you, you know.

So it sounds like what you're saying is you create, you create a strong mental life.

Yeah.

And you relive things over and over, okay?

You didn't worry about it.

ErLeNd You know what really blows my mind here?

What's that?

That he had the restraint to not ask when he was getting out like that. It's so hard to get. If you haven't had this experience, it's really hard to get your mind around that. Because the only thing I could imagine is being obsessed with, When is this over? when is this over? when is this over?

Do you think he gave up?

No, I think it's a kind of a power of will.

Yeah, I mean, you know, either you have it or you don't.

Could you have done that, Erlend?

Hell, no, after five days, maybe four and a half, I'd have been banging on the door, hey.

Let me out.

Let me out.

Yeah.

Let me hop out this motherfucker.

We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back.

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It's Madeline Barron from In the Dark. I spent the past four years investigating a crime.

When you're driving down this road, I might plan on killing somebody.

A four-year investigation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents, all in an effort to see what the U.

I don't have any opinion on that.

Season three of In the Dark is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, host of On Point. At a time when the world is more complex than ever, On Point's daily deep dive conversation takes the time to make the world more intelligible. From the state of democracy to how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live and work, to the wonders of the natural world, one topic each day, one rich and nuanced exploration.

And what was the most surprising thing that happened to you while you were in there?

That I didn't start screaming like everybody else.

So you walked in and walked out the same.

No, you never walk in nothing, how can you? no, you don't walk in and walk out the same? I have a lot of stuff that I hide, my paranoia is a lot more.

Hey, you know, maybe at first, Jerry's self-reliance was like, you know, a strategy or a tool of survival, but now I don't think he could be any other way.

I know, I mean, it's just like part of who he is now. And sitting with him, you know, you realize that he just doesn't need anybody or really anything.

Self-sufficient?

Me and my brother Robert, he's four years older than me, we're totally opposites, you know what I mean? He's worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles for 40, 45 years. Wherever I go, I'll call.

I can't remember what the exact word was, but you kind of said like, you don't need much. For example, when New York was talking about the soap, he's like, that's not enough soap, and you said, No, it's plenty of soap. So you have a very different view of what enough is, so do you think your view of what is enough is different than a lot of people's?

No, I don't, I don't need a lot.

Yeah, so what do you need? what do you need?

The one thing I'm not going to get.

Yeah.

I'm not talking about just letting me out to where I could go to a factory and where No. The freedom, where I could get out and I could live off the land, where I go fishing, getting food, finding a place to sleep. You know this, and even in here, it don't seem it, but yeah, that's what I'm doing.

What do I need to know about you to know you?

I would like to be honest, and I want to be as honest as I can be with whoever I'm talking to at that present moment. You know what I mean? But the closer you get to society and established rules, the more I pull away.

Jerry said There was this other thing that he learned to do while he was in Pelican Bay. Do you remember when he said he'd think about those memories and push endorphins? That made him happy? So there was this whole soundtrack that would go through his mind to accompany these memories. You know, like, like, like, he would score them.

Yeah, I can imagine that.

When I was in the unit, sometimes I found myself singing or humming. It's distraction.

Well, that surprised me.

What?

Abba.

I like, that's a good group.

Just didn't expect it.

I listened to Grateful Dead, listened to Santana.

You know, I'm going to ask you to sing something.

I can't sing.

You did it in the vacuum, just pretend you're in the vacuum.

That's to myself.

Well, just pretend you're in the vacuum.

Okay, I'll do one.

And that's kind of where we left it with Jerry.

Then the pandemic happened, it ended up being three long years before we caught up with Jerry Walker again.

Well, maybe then I'll start.

We asked Jerry to come back down to the media lab to talk with us, and we pretty much picked up the conversation right about where we left off.

So in our interview, you talked about what real freedom means to you, and for you, real freedom would just be to sleep wherever you wanted to sleep. Fish and eat whenever you wanted to eat. Do you remember that?

Yeah, if I was able to, I would like to.

Jerry sounded like the oomph got knocked up out of him.

Oh, Erlon, it was kind of a shock. I mean, he was diminished, it was tough, I mean, he'd gotten Covid and it really took a toll on him.

Yeah, I think it did a number on the older crowd.

Yeah.

I couldn't run to that wall, I can't run from a dog, I couldn't fight him off.

So are you saying it's better for you to be in here?

I don't know. It's never better for you to be in here, not with the type of stuff that goes on. It's hard for me to move, you know, I barely get through each day.

Oh boy, and you walked all the way down here.

Yeah.

You sang for me last time, and I was hoping you'd sing a little bit more of Slipping into darkness. For me, it was so good.

No, well, now I'd have to ask for royalties because I'll give you royalties, because, you know, the first time was for free now since you—.

Because I want it so much, you're going to charge me. Yeah, oh, you're hard, you're a hard man.

Ain't that what everybody else do in this world?

Just a couple lines.

Oh man, I don't know why you're putting pressure on me.

Because you have such a good voice.

No, I don't have no voice.

Yes, you do. I remembered your voice more than I remembered your face.

Let me see.

So Nigel, could you imagine doing 46 years in prison?

My immediate answer would be No, I don't think I could. But there's some situations where you absolutely couldn't know until you're in it. Me sitting across from you in a studio right now. No, I don't think I have that will.

It's a long time, you know, it's a long time.

Well, I don't know when we're going to see Jerry again, but I definitely want to catch up with him.

I like when these old cats get on the mic, they give us something that we don't usually get.

I know, I mean, their memory is, I don't know. It's a museum in a way, it's a museum in the history of a prison.

Definitely, and we did make a record of him.

I got to introduce you next time we go in.

Please do looking forward to it.

Ear Hustle is produced by Me, Nigel Poore, Erlon Woods, Amy Standen and Bruce Wallace, along with Niroli Price and Rahsaan New York-Thomas.

With help from Tony Tafoya and Rashid Zineman, this episode was sound designed and engineered by me Erlon Woods, with help from Fernando Arruda.

It features music by Antoine Williams, Erlon Woods, Rashid Zineman and David Jossie.

Amy Standen edits the show, Shubnam Sigmund is the managing producer and Bruce Wallace is our executive producer.

Thanks to acting Warden, Oak Smith. And as you know, every episode of Ear Hustle has to be approved by this woman here.

I am Lieutenant G.

The public information officer here at San Quentin State Prison.

And I approve this episode.

This episode was made possible by the Just Trust, working to amplify the voices, vision, and power of communities that are transforming the justice system.

Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter, The Lowdown, where you can learn more about each episode and find out what the Ear Hustle team is up to. Please subscribe at Earhustlesq..com slash newsletter. You can also find the show on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Ear Hustle SQ.

Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported podcasts. Discover Audio with Vision at Radiotopia..FM. I'm Erlon Woods.

I'm Nigel poor, thanks for listening.

Jigsaw.