Inmate 1577

58

June 10, 1962

Alcatraz

Walton MacNally stood at the bars as the correctional officer moved along the B-Block cell fronts, doing his morning count. MacNally was hoping this would be the last one he would have to endure, as all the pieces were in place and now it was a matter of days-today, tomorrow-it was a function of when they could break through the blower vent above B-block.

Once West had completed painting all the individual cells, he informed the cellhouse duty officer that he needed scaffolding to reach the expansive ceiling, which had begun peeling in the caustic sea air. Shortly thereafter, West was climbing the metal framework, which gave him an ideal look at the area above the third tier of the institution-and the ceiling above B-block, in particular. It was a gated, locked area that would require an officer to provide admittance each day. But once he scouted the mechanism in person, West described to MacNally the blower and attached ductwork.

MacNally then set out to secure the tools they would need to disassemble the pieces-which would give them access to the metal tunnel that led to the roof. It was a process that demanded patience and extreme care. One inmate known to trip the metal detector due to a plate in his skull was often used as a conduit to pass through small tools and hardware that would’ve otherwise set the snitch box in a tizzy. Over a period that spanned eleven months, piece by piece, they secured their stash.

Finally, with everything falling into place, West explained in March that in order to work atop the cellblock in the evenings, he would need to convince the officer in charge that it was necessary to hang tarps along the interior periphery of the caged area.

None of them thought that was possible-but somehow, the credibility West had built during the past year of providing trouble-free, quality, and dependable craftsmanship while painting the cellhouse won him the benefit of any doubt the penitentiary leadership may-and should-have had. The tarps were permitted and the men got to work.

Their efforts were assisted by Alcatraz’s music hour, a loosening of the once-stringent rules implemented by prior wardens charged with running the nation’s toughest federal penitentiary. Playing an instrument thus became a popular pastime on The Rock, with inmates of all skill levels taking up the challenge of making music. Some of it was downright awful-and for those who were good musicians, it did not matter-dozens of men simultaneously playing different songs on wind and string instruments in a cement-walled structure blended the good and bad into an echoing disharmony of cacophonous noise.

But for Morris, the Anglins, and MacNally working on top of the cell block with tools, prying, screwing, at times banging-that noise was like a world-class symphony; it was, in a sense, music to their ears.

By now, MacNally, Morris, and the Anglin brothers had all dug out the concrete around their cell vents and constructed faux grilles out of cigar box interiors and binder covers, slathered with mint green paint courtesy of West’s access to the A-Block storage area. They had also sculpted dummy masks from Portland cement powder, soap flakes, magazine pages, wire, and electrical tape.

Fellow inmate Leon Thompson taught Morris how to mix oil paints to create facial pigment tones, and Clarence Anglin had collected hair from the barber shop, where he worked on a daily basis. When inserted in bed, these surprisingly realistic masks, with the covers drawn up to the “chins,” gave the illusion the men were asleep during the night counts. As a result, MacNally, Morris, and the Anglin brothers had been able to work all hours of the night on top of the cellhouse, removing the blower mechanism.

Once done, however, they discovered yet another challenge: a steel grate with cross bars blocked the opening.

“Now what?” Morris asked. He swiped with a shirt sleeve at the perspiration that poured down his face. It was sweltering in the small space with the tarps blocking the airflow through the cellhouse.

MacNally peered up at the grille. “Take too long to cut through those bars. But look here.” He moved his body, careful not to fall off the disassembled blower housing he was perched on-and pointed. “Rivets along the edge. If we can get a flat slotted screwdriver in the opening, we can pry ’em off.”

Morris nodded. “I should be able to do that.”

“Get to work on that. I’m going back down to my cell.”

Morris and MacNally had made progress over the course of two nights, defeating several of the rivets with the screwdriver. It was difficult, painful work. Their wrists were sore but they had no complaints: their goal was now within reach.

Morris had also purchased a concertina-a bellows-type accordion-that he was certain they could use, at the water’s edge, to inflate the two rafts they had constructed.

Now, during the early morning hours of June 10th, nearly all their escape materials were assembled atop the cell block, beneath the blower vent, hidden by the tarps that were-miraculously-still permitted to hang from the ceiling.

MacNally and Morris returned to their cells, replaced the fake grilles, and crawled into bed.

Morris whispered to Anglin, who passed it on to his brother in the adjacent cell: “All set. Should have the thing out tomorrow night.”

MacNally checked his clock: it was 3:00am. He closed his eyes, thinking of the escape, of all the things he had missed during his incarceration: Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game; an astronaut orbited the Earth in a space capsule; and a massive wall was erected in Berlin, dividing the region and causing political and social upheaval. While he’d heard or read about each of them, he felt strangely detached, as if they were news items rather than historical events he had lived through.

Shortly before MacNally drifted off, his thoughts turned to Henry-which, above all, made him feel the most content. Everything else in life that he had missed certainly served as motivation to avoid imprisonment. But seeing-and holding-his son was a reason to risk his life breaking out.

The morning whistles blew, and MacNally dressed quickly. Despite being tired due to months of sleep deprivation while working nights atop the cellblock, he felt invigorated by the thought that in fourteen hours, he would crawl out of his cell through the wall vent, and never return.

Sunday morning breakfast went quickly, and as he walked into the recreation yard to relax, he took a long look at the city and Golden Gate Bridge. Though these sights normally brought sadness, today they infused him with energy. He would be amongst the masses in a matter of hours-in disguise and existing without money-but he would be free and on his way, somehow, to finding his son.

MacNally locked eyes with Morris, and then they headed toward each other to review the fine points of their plan one final time.

But as MacNally made his way toward the baseball diamond, he was shoved from behind as his ankle was hooked-and he went tumbling to the pavement. He quickly twisted his torso and saw a man he had seen around-Billy Duncan-a bitter, mean con who had a reputation for fighting. A baseball bat was dropped by MacNally’s right side as Duncan pulled out a shiv and stabbed it toward him.

MacNally grabbed the bat and swung from the ground, not going for the knife but for Duncan’s knees.

With a smack! across the bone, the big man crumpled, but not before lunging for MacNally and sticking the shiv into his thigh. MacNally cried out in pain and struggled to move-but the heavy Duncan had landed atop him and started beating him with his fist. On the second blow to MacNally’s face, his hearing became muffled with an intense ringing-and the heads and torsos of the surrounding inmates went blurry.

MacNally threw up his arms, blocking follow-on blows, but he was in no condition to hit back. His head slammed against fist and pavement until-

Whistles sounded, followed by

two gunshots

The nearby cons hit the ground as several officers ran toward MacNally and Duncan. When they arrived, MacNally’s jacket was soiled with spattered blood and his jeans were soaking in thick, oozing fluid from his thigh wound, where the sharpened-spoon-handle shiv was still protruding.

Duncan was pulled off MacNally and handcuffed by two guards. MacNally was lifted to his feet, searched for weapons, and then rushed to the hospital.

MACNALLY AWOKE VARIOUS TIMES, fading in and out before falling back asleep. At one point, he became aware of the fact that he was lying on a bed in a larger cell, a segregation unit in D-Block. He rotated his head to the right, saw the sun setting beyond the barred windows, then flittered off once again into a painkiller and concussion-induced slumber.

SHOUTING, OFF IN THE DISTANCE. His brain was slow to respond, and his eyes were shut. No-the people were not actually far away; as he regained consciousness, things became clearer. Voices were loud, urgent in their tone. Men were running-no, not men. Hacks.

Thumping overhead, coming closer…vibrating the penitentiary windows…then retreating. Helicopters.

MacNally lifted himself off the bed and a wave of dizziness struck him like a blow to the back of his head. He fell back toward the mattress, but threw out a hand to catch himself.

A sharp pain stabbed at his thigh-and his lips were swollen and cracked. And then he remembered. Billy Duncan. The fight. He was in Seg-he looked up at the windows and saw morning light.

The escape. No-please. No!

“They long gone,” a voice emanating from the adjacent cell said. “Left without you, asshole.”

He knew that voice.

“Duncannnn,” MacNally screamed, a guttural yell that carried the pain and sorrow of a man who had something of infinite value slip uncontrollably through his hands.

His chest was heaving, his body drenched in instant perspiration. He pulled himself erect, and he leaned forward into the wall of bars. He put his face up against the cold metal and forced his eyes to the extreme left, trying to see into Duncan’s cell.

The man was standing there. Laughing.

“Who did this to me?” MacNally asked. “You started that fight on purpose. To keep me from getting out of here. Was it Rucker? Rucker, you bastard. I’m gonna kill you!”

“I’ll kill you before you kill me, you son of a bitch,” Rucker’s voice answered back. “Much as I’d like to take credit, wasn’t me.”

“I’ll find out the truth, Duncan, and then I’m gonna carve you up. Fucking pull your heart out of your chest. I will! I will kill you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Duncan said. “You’re all talk, MacNally. You ain’t got it in you.”

MacNally fell back onto his cot. The gash in his lip had reopened, and the stitches in his thigh were bleeding through his clothing. The pain, the swelling, the blood- He didn’t feel any of it. Instead, he put his hands to his face and wept, silently.

TWO HOURS LATER, THREE MEN appeared at his cell: Captain of the Guards William Anderson and two FBI agents. MacNally was led to the warden’s office, where he was placed in a chair and left in shackles.

“I’m extremely disappointed in you,” Associate-currently Acting-Warden Arthur Dollison said. He wore a bowtie and a charcoal wool suit, and sported a calm demeanor. “I thought you had made tremendous strides, a concerted effort to follow the institutional rules. You’ve been a good worker in Industries. But now I’m told you were one of the principal architects of the escape. And to think you were no doubt planning this when you sat before me in A-Block at your hearing…” He shook his head, sighed deeply, then took a seat behind his desk. “Deeply disappointed.”

“We know you were complicit in the escape,” one of the agents said. “We’re in the process of conducting a shakedown of the cellhouse and we just found the same kind of fake ventilation grille in your cell that we found in Morris’s and the Anglin brothers’ cells. We’re going to need the details. Everything you know. Whatever you tell us will be kept confidential, and you will not be identified as the source of information.”

“When did they leave?” MacNally asked, his gaze fixed on the warden’s desk.

Dollison glanced at the agents, then decided to answer. “Sometime during the night. In his interview this morning, inmate West told us the three men left their cells sometime around 8pm. But we’ve determined that they didn’t leave the cellhouse roof until 10:30.”

“West,” MacNally said. He leaned forward in his seat. “Didn’t he go with them?”

“He claimed that he couldn’t get out of his cell,” the agent said. “There was a hunk of cement he had a hard time removing. We checked the utility corridor, and confirmed a large chunk of concrete was lying just outside his cell. West stated he finally dislodged it around 1am, but by then Morris and the Anglins were gone.”

“So,” Dollison said, pinching the bridge of his narrow nose. “Now that we’ve answered your questions, it’s time you answered ours.”

MacNally looked at Dollison. “Warden. I’ll tell you everything I know. But in return, can you go easy on me on setting my time in the Treatment Unit?”

“You were fighting in the yard a couple days ago. You’re already likely to get a month just for that.”

“I was attacked,” MacNally said. “Just like last time.”

“That, sir, seems to happen to you a lot.”

“Mr. Dollison. I think one of the men who escaped got Billy Duncan to start that fight. Just so I wouldn’t be able to go with them.”

Dollison looked dubious, but nevertheless made a note on his pad. “We’ll look into that.”

“One other thing.” MacNally looked from Dollison to the FBI agent. “Did they make it?”

Dollison held MacNally’s gaze a long moment, then said, “They’re not on the island. Whether they made it to shore, we don’t know.”

IN THE ENSUING WEEKS, MACNALLY would learn that all three men had made it off The Rock, as Dollison had said. The remnants of their life jackets were located floating off a beach in the Marin headlands, three miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, along with one of the wooden paddles and two partially deflated life jackets, their canvas laces still tied-indicating they were discarded by the wearers; if they had failed while being worn, the preservers would still be attached to the bodies.

A waterproof wallet that Clarence Anglin had fashioned from raincoat material, containing a list of phone numbers and photos of relatives, was also found. MacNally laughed. Anglin had told his brother to construct two of them, one containing a number of pictures and an identical list of family contacts; he planned to drop the copy over the side of the raft to lead officials to conclude that they had drowned; the hope was that they would suspend their search. Morris had suggested they dump their life preservers when they made it ashore, lending credence to the authorities’ drowning theory, which he figured would inevitably develop.

Perhaps more importantly, MacNally also had determined that Billy Duncan had been working on Anglin’s behalf when he had him start the fight that put MacNally in the Hole. With Anglin long gone, Duncan no longer needed to hide his motives. He said that he had owed Anglin a favor dating back to their time while serving out robbery sentences at Raiford State Prison.

And he now surmised that Anglin had been working with Harlan Rucker in setting him up for getting caught. Rucker had also done time at Raiford-but why Anglin had something against MacNally, he did not know.

As he gathered information, in a subsequent interview with the FBI agents, he learned that the second raft had never been completed-and that the raft they had found was only designed for three men, four if they sacrificed safety. The triangular design described by the agent conflicted with the style the men had discussed constructing; perhaps the Anglins and Morris had never intended to take him along. He might never know for sure, but it did not matter. His best guess said that the Anglin brothers and Frankie were free.

And MacNally was still behind bars.

He was released early from the Hole, for “good behavior,” he was told. After spending three months in segregation, leaving his cell only once a week for a visit to the yard and two showers a week, his only psychological escape was through reading. But it was not much solace to a man who sat in a cement room with only a 25-watt lightbulb and two enemies-that he knew of-close at hand.

He had withdrawn into himself, anger simmering like a frying burger left in a pan too long: well done, charred beyond recognition, and brittle to the touch.

MacNally was setting his new kit of supplies on the shelf when Clarence Carnes rolled the library cart up to his cell. He handed through a new Popular Mechanics issue, atop which was a postcard.

“What’s this?” MacNally asked as he took the magazine.

“Can you read that scrawl?” Carnes asked.

“Gone fishin’,” MacNally said. He looked up, his mouth agape. “Son of a bitch. The bastards made it.” It was their prearranged code phrase, a signal that one or more of them had reached land.

“Looks like it.”

Carnes slipped the postcard back in his pocket. “Except maybe Frankie. Word is a body was found floating off the island a week after the escape. Some freighter saw it and said it matched Frankie’s description, down to his clothes.”

MacNally sat down on his bed. “They fucked me over, Clarence.”

“I know that. And I also know they were cons, and cons do shit like that. You’re in goddamn prison, Mac. Accept it.”

“I’m here. I understand that. But I don’t accept it. Someday I’m gonna have my revenge.”

Carnes chuckled loudly. Too loudly. He stifled his outburst, glanced down Broadway, then said, “If it makes you feel better thinking like that, good for you. But you’re here for a long, long time.”

“Not if I can help it.”

Carnes eyed him, then looked off as an officer passed. When it was safe, he said in a low voice, “Don’t do anything stupid. If you drown, or get shot trying to get over the wall, it ain’t gonna do your boy any good, now, is it?”

“It’s not like I’m doing him any good being locked away in here.”

Carnes studied MacNally’s face, then nodded slowly. “You have any idea on how you’re gonna do it?”

The whistle blew, signaling the beginning of music hour.

“I had three months to think about it,” MacNally said. “If there’re two things I’ve got plenty of, it’s time and ideas.”

The sound of horns squealing and blowing echoed in the cavernous cellhouse. MacNally stood and moved close to the bars.

“I know a guy,” Carnes said. “I owe him for something. He’s got a big head start on planning something. And you know I’ve heard a lot of plans over the years. Had some myself, too. But this one…sounds like it could work.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“Always consider the other guy’s needs, Mac. He needs a partner. That’s his motivation. Till you get to the water’s edge, you’ll have value to him. I think you’ll be okay.”

“Name?”

“Reese Shoemacher. One of the negroes.”

“I don’t care if he’s purple, as long as he doesn’t screw me. What’s his plan?”

“He’s been assigned to the Culinary Unit for about a year now, so he spends a lot of time down in the kitchen basement. Mostly unsupervised time. Says he’s gonna go out the basement window. Been working on the bars for nine months with string, wax, and scouring powder-”

“A flexible file,” MacNally said. He nodded slowly. The scouring powder acts as an abrasive and when you wrap the cord around the bar, then keep pulling it back and forth, you cut through the steel.

“That’s the idea. Fills in the groove with soap and grease before he gets off his shift to hide it.”

“Why does he need a partner?”

“Most guys don’t escape alone; you need lookouts, help getting over fences, carrying your kit. Shoe was gonna go with another negro, Leonard Williams, but Williams’s supposedly got something else cookin’. I happen to know Shoe’s got a big hole in his plan-like what he’s gonna do once he gets in the water. And you’ve got experience with flotation devices.” Carnes grinned.

“Let him know I’m in.”

“I’ll bring you two together tomorrow, on the yard.” Carnes grabbed the handle of his cart, then winked at MacNally as he pushed off toward the next cell.