Irish Houdini conquers Alcatraz

It was July 1999 when myself and Dad decided to take the tour of Alcatraz prison, San Francisco.

True to legend, the boat ride to The Rock was distinctly choppy, raising the old questions about how the three men, who escaped in 1962, could have possibly made it to the mainland alive. The tour was headed by a frustrated stand-up comedian, who spent the duration of the boat ride repeating his joke that New York was full of Italians named Tony, simply because Italian immigrants in the 1920’s were required to wear badges that read ‘To NY’. I couldn’t tell what was more the cause for seasickness, him or the waves.

We arrived at the island soon after. It was the embodiment of bleakness—cold, blustery, practically treeless. Even the resident seagulls looked as though they were wondering why anyone would choose to disembark onto their downcast abode. We did as such, whereupon a subsequent guide bellowed at full American volume, ‘Welcome to The Rock! Those mugs might have slipped the net in ‘62, but you bums don’t stand a chance!’ I smiled politely in return as I walked past him, trying to dissuade the rising feeling of boredom that I felt on school excursions long ago.

With Dad at my side, we were led up the steep ramp from the harbor to the prison’s main entrance, where we were each given a cassette walkman with which to take the tour. I’d never taken an audio tour before, and as I put on the headphones, pressed play, and listened to the voiceover of ex-inmates commence, I felt as delighted as Benjamin Franklin with his infamous kite. Dad, known to root around with all things technology-related until those privy to the spectacle feel inclined to leave the room—bypassed the convenience of simply pressing the play button and proceeded to remove the cassette from the walkman, hold it up to the light and grumble that, ‘this bastard of a thing doesn’t work!’ With my eczema relapsing on cue, I decided, this time, not to be of assistance, but to push on independently with mind to meet up with him at the end of the tour. And so I did.

As a school kid that never enjoyed the everybody-behave,-listen,-and-stick-together nature of school excursions, I found the independence of taking the tour on my own exquisitely liberating.

At the centre of the prison, nicknamed “Broadway”, was the main prison hall—the grey ominous inner belly, constituted of stacked rows of cells where each night the prisoners would tuck themselves in with hearts full of broken dreams. Pouring into my ears were cell-by-cell descriptions from ex-inmates, talking of failed escape attempts, of the tears cried on New Year’s Eve when the wind would carry the far-off laughter from parties on the mainland, and of the dot-to-dot trail of the successful escapees of ‘62. With my love for the plight of Andy Dufresne hereby awoken, I couldn’t deny that I found the fugitive’s industriousness, their will-to-live being—to them—a higher authourity than that of their prison guards, and, ultimate victory, consummately satisfying. Recounted also, as I walked further along to the cafeteria—its entrance nicknamed “Times Square”—was the infamous dinner riot, when prisoners decided that 30 days in a row of pasta with no sauce, was 29 days too many. Al Capone, equally, was as great a focus on the tour as he was an alpha prisoner in his day.

After the cafeteria was the building that housed the solitary confinement cells. We were encouraged to enter one individually, to experience first-hand the desolation they specialised in.

I entered, warily, and with the darkness inside less like that of a forest at night, than that of a general anesthetic, I made awfully sure not to let the heavy door lock itself behind me. Its width was little more than an arm-span, and with my redundant eyes looking towards my ears, I clung to my in-ear ex-inmate as the only form of company on hand, as he explained—in an almost emotional voice—the lengths of time some of the less well-behaved prisoners spent in stir. He talked also of the things some would do to distract themselves from the mental torture; such as picking off a shirt button, throwing it on the floor, and spending the necessary time required to find it, before doing it all again. I was in there for a minute or less, before I felt a primal need to abort, but when I sneezed and in the deafening spray lost my bearings, I found the task of locating the door that bit more alarming.

We were next led out of the solitary cell building, through the prison exercise yard, and into the corridor of a smaller building where the tour concluded. Like cattle being driven into a shed, I watched the throng of nameless visitors take off their headphones and hand in their walkmans. I did the same, and figuring Dad would turn up sooner or later, I leaned against a nearby wall. But as the crowd thinned—and there was no Dad seen—I grew concerned.

I approached the tall security guard, standing in the corridor, and giving him a vague physical description, asked if he’d seen the old boy. With an air of concern less than heart-warming, he shrugged his shoulders and suggested I stand to the side. I did as ordered, and continued to chew my fingernails as the crowd withered down to the official wooden spoon taker, a short portly fellow, as much my father as my mother. Panic rose within me, and making the tour’s end worryingly official, the guard sectioned off the corridor with red cordoning rope, and hung off it a “do not enter” sign.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘my Dad is still on the tour!’

‘The last boat is leaving in twenty minutes, young man.’

‘Did you not hear me?’

‘I did, but it don’t change the fact none. You’d do well to make your way down to the harbour with these nice folk.’

Wondering if he had a certificate in unhelpfulness, I proceeded to walk away, but when the guard turned his attention to an old lady asking him a question, I quietly unclipped his rope and snuck back into the belly of the tour.

Inadvertently doing the tour backwards, I first walked through the prison exercise yard, but calling out to Dad was met with nothing but the sight and sounds of curious seagulls basking in the failing light.

Pressing onwards—in the nonsensical order of a frantic fox terrier checking its weemails in the park—I next made it back into the cafeteria, which apart from the ghosts of a thousand inmates passed, was utterly soulless. Everything about being in here felt wrong, and taking the advice of the goosebumps on my arms, I quickly kept on.

‘Dad?’ I yelled out as I walked briskly along the series of corridors in the Broadway prison hall. ‘Daaad?’ I yelled again, waiting for any potential unseen staff members to come out of the steelwork and reprimand me. But with the only response being the echo of my calls, neither him nor stranger was seen.

With about ten minutes left until the last boat, and knowing that with every footstep I was walking deeper into hot water if caught, I was split at seam with instinct to head for the harbour and duty to find Dad.

Getting angrier with him by the footstep—and further losing track of time—I wondered if the visual of seeing him rooting around with the walkman would be the last I’d ever see. But seeing in my mind, also, that of him locked in one of the solitary cells, I subscribed that blood was thicker than authority and pressed on to the building that housed them.

‘Dad?’ I hollered, closing its large main door when I entered. ‘Daaaaaaaaaaad!’ I squawked again, walking quickly along the row while trying each individual cell door. They were locked; making me wonder if behind one was he, laying in fetal position, or worse, playing the shirt button sanity game. The last cell door, however, was unlocked, and just for old time’s sake; I proceeded into the all-consuming darkness.

I stood there for a few seconds, allowing myself to feel the full force of the cell and Dad-stress combo, when a loud foghorn pierced the air. I could fair assume it was the last boat’s boarding call, or worse, departure call, and wondering if I was about to spend the night eating sauce-less pasta with ghosts, I proceeded to run towards the prison’s main entrance.

Struck by both the fresh air and the dark when I exited, I ran down the steep hill to the harbour. I arrived in a sweaty mess to see the loud guide from earlier pulling away a short walk-ramp from the pier to the boat, the boat idling in the bubbling foam from its engines.

‘Stop!’ I said.

He turned around and shook his head quietly to himself. ‘Hurry up kid! Are you insane?’

‘My Dad is somewhere on the island!’

‘What?’

‘My Dad! He never finished the tour! Can you help me find him?’

‘Kid, visitors, and even staff, are forbidden to stay on the island overnight!’

‘I get that, but he’s clearly lost, or worse has locked himself in one of the cells!’

‘And why would he do that?’

‘Because he’s Irish!’

‘Sounds like something an Italian would do.’

‘Can you help me or not?’

‘I’m sorry kid, but I have no choice but to order you to board this boat.’

‘But what about my Dad?’

Although his eyes offered traces of sympathy, he shook his head firmly. ‘It’s out of my hands, kid.’

Reluctantly, I boarded the boat, and stood pale on its stern side as its engines wound up and it slowly pulled away. In genuine disbelief, I watched The Rock shrink into the darkening horizon, all the while wondering if the disappearance of the old boy would become as infamous as the lads of ‘62. I wondered, also, if a league of armed police would resume looking for him at first light, and if he, like the Houdini hat trick, would ever be seen again.

But seen again he was, as still rooting around with the walkman—that he wasn’t, in fact, supposed to have pocketed—there he was standing on the mainland harbour pier. ‘Where the farck were you?’ he hollered as I disembarked.

‘Where was I? Where the farck were you! I nearly earned a night in there because of you!’

‘Well I’ve bloody well had chest pains because of you, ya prick!’

I shook my head, failing to understand how this was remotely my fault. ‘So are you conducting an autopsy on that thing?’

‘What?’

‘The walkman!’

‘Ah the batteries in the bastard mustn’t have been working properly..’

I took it off him, and pressed the play button, whereupon it ever so magically came to life.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘So did you even do the bloody tour? Or did you swim back?’

‘What?’

‘The tour?’

‘Nah, it was boring as bat shit. I felt like I was on school excursion.’

I exhaled heavily, having no choice but to submit to the notion of like father like son, and sensing as such, he waved his personal version of a white flag. ‘Well, we can have a blue, or a beer. Up to you.’

‘Fair dinkum, I’m gunna be grey before I’m 25. Let’s get a pint then.’

By David Kerrigan

 

Dog-Day Afternoon

I’ve always been sensitive to the breeds of dogs people acquire, wondering often if the paw fits the shoe.

Just last week this subject was awoken when the guy next door, someone who I’ve recently become friends with, yelled out over our back fence. ‘Hey man! Come check out my new dog!’ I stuck my head over; to be faced with the closest thing to a werewolf I’d seen this side of a Michael Jackson film clip.

‘We’ve named her Moon!’ he said.

The dog was a fully-grown German Shepherd Husky cross, was all white, and with one eye brown and the other icy blue, I felt the name Bowie would be a much better fit.

As someone with a fairly natural touch with dogs, I clicked and whistled as I stood gripped to the fence, but with her tail responding as enthusiastically as a pendulum clock without batteries, and her icy cold eyes looking at me as though she was willing a laser beam to fire out of them, I figured I’d not made her Christmas card list in any great hurry.

‘Ah man! I love this dog!’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I returned.

‘Hey man, we’ve got a bike riding event all day tomorrow, any chance you could come around, say mid afternoon, and let her into the yard for a potty break?’

‘Sure, ’ I said, very concerned by the prospect.

The next day came, to which early morning my wife planted it on me that, in my new car, we were taking our dogs Maggie and Newman to the Elgin Hogeye Festival.

‘In my car?’ I asked, the tension flooding in me.

‘Yes.’

‘As in my new car with new leather seats?’

‘Yes, ’ she replied in carbon copy tone, ‘is that a problem?’

‘Ahhhr… no, ’ I replied, swallowing my great displeasure.

Why I felt this way was simple. As a man whose history of cars was peppered with those barely higher in the car chain to those that end up on the scrap heap only months later, I was very tense at the thought of our four-legged darling’s nails potentially scratching, or even ripping, the leather seats in a car as nice as my new one.

‘They won’t scratch the seats, I promise!’ she said, but feeling history would be a better judge, I felt reassured little.

The Elgin Hogeye Festival came and went, and with the journeys to and fro filled with the sounds of Maggie and Newman whinging, farting, dribbling, jumping from the back seats to the front, and shaking off their coats as liberally as their little hearts desired, mine was a minefield of exacerbation.

We arrived back home at 3pm, and as I pulled into the driveway I remembered the promise I’d pledged to the neighbour. ‘I better let the white wolf into their yard. ’

It’s rare that I’m scared of a dog, I’ve grown up with dogs all my life, but as I turned the key, pushed the door slowly open, and the darkness of inside masked my eyes, I felt a great reservation to enter.

‘Moon?’ I asked, my calls met with perfect silence as I closed the door behind me.

I entered further.

‘Moon?’ I asked again.

I then heard a noise that could be aptly cast with many an unwanted image, heavy breathing in the dark.

The dog came into view. She was cowered in the far corner of the lounge, millimetre perfect as far away from me as she could manage. I took a step closer, to which doing her utmost to maximise our distance, she proceeded to run from this corner to that. I’d heard it said before, that the only dog to be scared of is the one that’s scared of you.

I opened the back door and walked away, with hope that the dog would go into the yard. She did exactly that and I followed and closed the door behind us.

Outside, she proceeded to do the same act as inside, running from this grassy corner to that. I lay down on the grass, hoping to diminish the threat and in turn her anxiety, but it worked little.

Maggie and Newman, aroused by their new four-legged neighbour, were barking in our yard next door and running up and down the length of the fence. Katie was in the yard with them. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

‘Yes, ’ I said, knowing her slightly superior skills with dogs could be useful at this time. A couple of minutes later the backdoor opened from inside and she joined us in the back yard.

‘This dog is having anything but a fucking toilet break, ’ I said, revealing my frustration.

‘Moon?’ she called.

The dog lay down on the grass, seeming instantly less stressed by the sound of a female voice. A couple of minutes later Katie was lying on the grass and freely patting her. I tried not to take it personally.

I went back inside to get the other dog, a little brown Fox Terrier by the name of Jessie. He was in a dog crate, and being less than an advocate, I quickly unlocked its door and out shot the dog.

Jessie, running around in circles, jumping up to lick my face, and then jumping back down to do it all again, was far more my sort of dog, one that was delighted to see me.

The four of us stayed in the yard for fifteen minutes or so, before the next logistical challenge presented itself. ‘How to get the white wolf back inside?’

Katie and I stood at the back door, heartily calling Moon toward us, but with the dog reprising her corner-to-corner dance, it was very apparent she was going nowhere that I was.

Katie came up with the idea that I should hide inside, and like a Border Collie with a stray sheep, she’d get behind the dog and round her towards the door.

I went back into the kitchen, and standing there in the dark, still trying to not take it personally, the dog came swanning in a few seconds later. I put Jessie back in his crate, and locked the door behind him. That is, I thought I did.

Now standing in the kitchen, Katie and I looked at each other, and knowing this exercise had been mostly useless, we walked towards the front door. She opened it and walked into the all consuming veil of daylight, and as I stood at the front door, exercising my compulsion to check repeatedly if I’d locked it properly, a great white streak whizzed past me. Moon had got out.

‘Fuck fuck fuck!’ yelled Katie.

‘Fuck fuck fuck!’ yelled I as I proceeded to chase the dog on foot.

‘Get the car!’ she yelled, thinking faster than I, and as I watched the dog bolting away up the street, I ran in the opposite direction back towards our house.

With my hands shaking so much I could barely get the key in the ignition, I managed to start the car, slam it in reverse, and line it up on the road. Moon, by now, was a white dot in the distance, and Katie, a few houses along, was running after her.

I caught up to Katie and she jumped in. ‘Did you close the front door of their house?’

‘I think I did!’

‘Think?’ she said, catching her breath.

‘Yes! I think!’ I said, doubt filling me as to whether I actually had, in turn filling me with a secondary doubt as to whether I’d done so with Jesse’s crate door. The thought of losing, or seeing killed on my account, my mate’s dog was a thought unbearable enough, let alone the thought for two of his dogs.

We caught up to the dog as it galloped like a horse up the street. We drove alongside it, and Katie, like a Halloween advocate; futilely waved a bag treats out the window.

‘Moon!’ she called in the gentlest voice she could muster in her anxious state. ‘Moon!’

‘I wouldn’t waste your breath!’

‘What?’

‘The dog has only had that name for two days!’

‘So?’

‘So it doesn’t fucking know it! And just thinks you’re reading it its star sign!’

‘Moon! Moon!’

‘They should have called it Bowie anyway!’

A routine soon developed; we’d drive alongside the dog, calling its shiny new and entirely unfamiliar name, it would look at us like a pair of pricks, and turn around 180 degrees and run in the opposite direction. Bearing in mind that back at the house the dog had gone to every effort to keep as far away from me as possible, my hopes of calling it and it willingly jumping into the car, that, or me jumping out and like Usain Bolt simply outrunning it, were precisely 0%. Katie, however, seemed less deterred, and thus she called and thus she waved her bag of treats. ‘Moon! Moon!’

I could see in the dog’s eyes it had a plan, my suspicion being it wanted to get a bus to the airport and then a direct flight to neutral Switzerland or anywhere considered ‘not fucking here’.

My gravest concern however, as we continued driving alongside, was to keep her away from main roads and highways, as at this point, fortunately, we were tracking her through the relatively traffic-free streets of Brookfield Estates Pflugerville.

Often, like the Kelpie rounding the sheep, I’d cut the dog off by driving slightly ahead and pulling into the driveway of an adjacent house, causing her to about turn. It was a tiring routine, and if ever I felt worthy of an advanced driver’s certificate, it was on this day. This worked most of the time, and other times the dog would veer around the car – she once even went under it – but one time something happened that we didn’t foresee.

The dog entered a cul-de-sac, and at the house at its furthest end was a man standing in his driveway. The man seemed to catch on as to our situation, and I dreamt of the dog running into his garage and him being quick minded enough to lock her in. Instead, he wandered into his garage alone, and before the dog could get near, locked himself in.

Desperate for an ally, it was exceptionally disappointing, but at the same time a different man, in a small hatchback, pulled up to our car and stopped alongside us. The three of us hopped out of our cars, and the dog, as though gathering her thoughts as to what her next move would be, stopped dead.

The dog was at the cul-de-sac’s far end, but at the far end too was a vacant block of land. My heart rate increased as I realised it backed onto a creek, and that if the dog went that way there would be no way to further pursue her with the car.

And it was just at that second that she did exactly that.

The three of us ran towards her, and the dog, to our surprised, stopped at the block’s furthest end. Like a gift from the local council, it was sectioned off with a wire fence, and the dog, knowing she’d cornered herself, spun around hard. A glimmer of hope dawned as the three of us bore down on her, at which time she backed up and charged while making a growling noise not dissimilar to that of the t-rex in Jurassic park.

Only a year previous Katie had been badly bitten by our own dog when she tried to break her up from a fight – apparently you should hose them – and all I could think of, as the wolf charged, was a repeat of such injuries should we catch her. My concern was soon neutralised nevertheless, as the dog sidestepped us with the ease of Neo from the Matrix.

Catching our breath, we defaulted back to our cars, Katie and I in mine, and our nameless Good Samaritan following in his.

We exited the cul-de-sac to see Moon heading, to our dread, towards a highway. I accelerated hard towards her, noticing, in the mirror, that the whites of my eyes had turned pink from stress. I got in front of the dog and cut her off in a driveway again, resulting in turning her back towards the quieter streets. It was a good short-term solution at best, but it was then that the Good Samaritan, only trying to assist, got out of his car and frightened the dog back towards the highway.

I spun the car around and drove hard towards her again, realising that I was driving on a no-thru road, that, should the dog reach the highway before us, I would not be able to pursue her in the car. I was gaining, she was running, I was gaining, she was running, I was gaining, she was running and she reached the no-thru barrier and was gone from view.

Without word to Katie I stopped the car and proceeded on foot, my barefooted pseudo heroic attempt being the last bullet in the gun to save this dog from likely being killed on my account.

The dog was a white dot in the distance when I reached the highway, but she was running, luckily, on the footpath as opposed to contending with the fast-moving traffic on the road.

I ran, I ran, and I ran some more, calling upon all traces of running bravado that I may or may not have acquired in my long distance running days. But louder than these voices were those of their predecessor, the skinny asthmatic kid that couldn’t so much as fart without needing to replace it with a puff from his ventolin puffer. I realised too, though, as I contended with bare feet and imploding lungs, that as much as pain and fatigue was my enemy, that of the dogs was my ally, for I could see, up ahead, the dog’s tongue hanging out of her mouth at a record length. And with each millimetre I was bequeathed a thousand miles of hope that I just might catch her.

However faint, I was gaining, and the dog, distracted by noise and streaming cars, seemed oblivious to my presence. The white dot grew bigger into view, and I tried to soften my footsteps so as to keep her unaware. Hope grew as I gained further and I dared to imagine the valour I’d feel if my efforts were fruitful, but it was then the dog turned her head and having seen me shot forward like a motorbike changing gear.

Contending with the desire to abort mission, this pursuit felt like the very definition of futility, but as we tracked forward I remembered that only a mile ahead was the interstate, a sure death trap for the dog and/or those that would be involved in the pile up she could cause.

The highway curved uphill, and I could see people in their cars transfixed by the spectacle – some even pulling over to have a look, resulting in the traffic slowing down, in turn giving me the idea to straighten my line to the dog and run barefooted on the road. The dog, oblivious, continued the long way on the footpath, and her tongue, my pink glimmer of hope, continued to grow in length as I gained inch by inch.

Within minutes she was just a few car lengths ahead, and I veered back onto the footpath to align myself with her. I ran, she ran, I ran, she ran. I was almost upon her. I ran, she ran, I ran, she ran. I reached out my hand, but like that of Gollum almost upon the ring, it quivered to the extent that it near thwarted by balance. I panted heavy, and the dog, hearing my struggle, turned her head again then accelerated and was gone.

I stopped in a heap as I watched her gallop away, grappling with the strangle of defeat and wondering how I would break the news to my mate. The dog became a white dot again; yet somewhere amongst my anguish I questioned why my will to detain her should outweigh her own to be free from a life in captivity. The thought gave me a trace of comfort, and encouraged my resolve to man up and accept the consequences, but it was then that I remembered the interstate up ahead.

With my compassion vanished by the thought, I proceeded to run again, fuelled as much by fresh anger as by the small running break. The white dot grew once more, and I cared not how much noise I made this time. The dog turned and noticed, but as though already in top gear she seemed unable to accelerate further. I yelled hard, returning a meek imitation of the t-rex growl, to which to my perfect surprise she did something I wasn’t expecting. She stopped.

I stopped as well, frozen with disbelief as I stood just a few yards from her. Facing me off, her dripping tongue hung at record length, and I knew that at any second the chase would resume, but it was then that a man, the heir to the Good Samaritan throne, jumped out of his car to assist.

Perhaps it was from the threat of our combined presence, but as defeat dawned in the beast’s eyes she proceeded to piss herself like a draught horse, and I lunged and – ‘bang!’ – the scruff of her neck was in my hands. Although I’d previously had concerns of her biting Katie, as I held the dog’s face to mine I simply didn’t care what the result.

I might have turned 40 just days earlier, but I cried like a 7 year old as Katie pulled up in the car.

‘Put up all the windows and I’ll lift her into the back!’ I said.

‘What about her ripping the seats?’

‘I don’t care!’ I said, not giving three, two, nor a solitary fuck if she torn them to kingdom come.

Fifteen minutes later the three of us, Moon and I both with bloodied feet and Katie with her bag of treats, were lying in the neighbour’s backyard, catching our breath. Fortunately I had shut the front door on the way out, and Jesse the little brown Fox Terrier was still on site. The neighbour text me as we lay there – ‘Hey man, we’re on our way home, did you let them out?’

‘I sure did.’

By David Kerrigan