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IL
TRITACARNE - THE GRINDER
Excerpts selected by the translator Fiamma Lolli, and her
comments
SECTIONS
OF THIS PAGE:
THE GRINDER - PREFACE - CHAPTER
ONE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END - CHAPTER TWO: THE PRISON
INDUSTRY -
THE PLAN - THE LAST PARAGRAPH AND THE
LAST WORDS...
What
follows are an autobiography's selected passages.
The (Italian) dictionary says: "self - by oneself, for oneself", adding:
"first element." It goes on with: "biography - reconstruction
of a person's life events", and closes with: "pieces - violently torn
pieces; shreds, splinters; passages, excerpts".
I think such an explanation has never been so clear. Words such as "Violently
torn pieces" are the key points where Karl Guillen's writings are centered
upon, to rise and strike. Guillen talks about a violence permeating the whole
text, and soaking it with a matter affecting the reader. Yet he doesn't talk
violently, indeed he talks quietly and clearly. Guillen's main aim is not to
complain, but to make us know about a situation hard to accept, yet real, and
which cannot be ignored by a civilized society. Inmate # 77614 (he's neither
allowed to be called with his own name) tightly, deeply, clearly asks us to
pay attention and listen to him, because every word he writes is important,
to him and to those, he never forgets, suffering like him. Il
Tritacarne is an extraordinary and amazing witness, most of all if you think
about where, and how it was written. Its transaltion has been, and it is, a
challenge to those feeling like turning a blind eye, and a great lesson as well.
Hopefully I managed to pass this witness onto you.
Karl Louis Guillen begs you, me, not to let him down.
Fiamma Lolli
This is the poem which inspired
the title and opens the book.
The Grinder
It
is the blinding flash of the arrest,
like a lightning bolt that strikes
down the normality of everyday life.
It is the piercing of flesh and
mind as sharp spikes pull you into its
vast warehouses with rules, policies and
trials controlled by the power mongers.
It is the tearing of flesh, the execution
of innocence as the grinder grinds away
your life,
while black robes sit on high,
and cameras stare down, looking away from
the truth beyond the lies and misconstructions.
It is the justice system, the
prison industry, which makes man its product
and the enemy, as if another species
to be hated, to be ignored, to be
executed like some stranded animal
caught in the complicities of human behavior.
It is the bite upon one’s liberty,
the trough in which I am fed,
the 8 x 10 isolation cell I live in,
the media who won’t hear, or show any truth
which might portray the government as the monster
to be feared if not tamed.
It is the handcuffs every day,
the sunless days and moonless nights,
the inhumane existence,
the strangers probing me, searching me, daily,
the theft of evidence and witness lists,
the false accusations,
and the impending trial for which they,
the same who put an innocent man in prison,
now want to execute if found guilty.
It is the blind public,
listening and not looking,
hearing but not helping.
From
the preface:
This book is written as best as
I am allowed in the solitary conditions.
(...) Lastly, this book is just a portion of what I can remember. I have called
this work a “memoir”, although inappropriate, due to
my inability to research certain events more specifically. I apologize to anyone
for wrong dates, or wrong places. These constant lights and walls steal memories
and make mirages of certain incidents, but I have written
and rewritten to make this tale both entertaining
and understandable. I have but a little time left.
Enjoy.
From Chapter 1: THE BEGINNING OF THE
END
I
was snapped from my dream by turbulence. I heard the high revs from the trucks
motor, then we were moving backwards, and a
jolt. Not too hard, just a bump. Tires squealed as they bit into the asphalt.
It was then that I realized we were in a high-speed chase;
Red, white and blue lights flashing behind us, then all around us. I turned
to look at Rick, saw the maniacal look on his face, and put
on my seat-belt. I heard him laughing, then the sound of gun-fire, no it was
only our tire bursting as we went over the 60th Street
bridge, which was not finished. I looked outside, and down, realizing we were
riding on the re-bar of the bridge frame. The cement had yet to be poured. Below
there were cars traveling at high speed. The police had stopped chasing. The
truck came to a
stop about a hundred yards away from the bridge. I looked at Rick. He was digging
around in the back seat, got a pool cue, and
opened the drivers-side door.
“What about my luggage?” I yelled.
“Better take something expensive!” Then he was gone.
(...) They wore black masks and black clothes. They drove vans, sports cars,
and family wagons. They had shotguns and machine
guns. The first move was a van crashing into the front of the Trans Am I was
driving. Shouts. A shotgun breaking through
the glass.
“Don’t you f—move! I blow your brains out !” someone shouted.
The door was yanked open, I was yanked out. Handcuffs were
placed on my wrists, and I was hog-tied. Someone placed a mask over my head,
I was lifted and carried somewhere, then thrown
into a van. I thought I was going to be killed and dumped somewhere. The bag
fell off of my head and I saw more guns, grenades, and some bullet proof vests.
I had yet to hear them say they were police, or feds, or anything.
Who were these masked people? I ask the question even now?
(...) Something was wrong. All the white inmates
were gone. I was returning to my cell in the county jail. The guards were gone.
I
heard “Soul Train” on the pod TV set. I felt someone behind me and
I moved instinctively. My legal papers scattered over the dirty
cement floor. I saw a dull flash, and saw a dark shape coming out of the shower
area. It was an inmate I had argued with before
about having the TV set up too loud. None of the other white dudes would say
anything, so it was up to me. He tried to spear me with the sharpened point
of the broom handle. I caught the tip in my chest, but it didn’t penetrate
deep. I grabbed it, snapped
it, and rushed this muscled gangster. I let the anger from another wrong verdict
flow through me, and I threw him around until I found myself on top of him.
I saw faces behind the doors, peering out from behind the large rectangular
windows. I knew that if I didn’t win it could be over. My Boys Ranch wrestling
training came to bear and I locked the would be assassin in a wrestling hold,
which kept him from moving his arms or from kicking. I started to choke him,
but stopped.
“Are you done f—ing around?” I asked. My lungs were on fire.
(...)
Answer, because if they can
fill a lockdown facility bed they get an extra ten to twenty-five thousand dollars
for it. There are men being locked away in dirty cells, being driven insane
by guards, cold, lights, and the taunting cackles of the truly mad. They have
tried this on me. Never mind the fact that the Russian KGB conducted torture
tests and found isolation to be one of the most damaging to a human mind, but
consider that it is the standard operating procedure at SMU I, and SMU II. I
have been in lockdown since 1993.
This is the corporation. Greed is its driving force. Money is its food. I have
become the product. Now I sit in this warehouse accused of a crime I didn’t
commit, while imprisoned for crimes that never happened. To receive justice
takes money. Money I do not yet have.
I must stop. They are coming again to burglarize my property
and search for my thoughts. (I must hide these pages. This happens a lot, especially
when they hear me typing too much.)
From
Chapter 2: THE PRISON INDUSTRY
The
Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC) employs more people, sucks more money
from taxpayers, than any other
government corporation in Arizona. Never mind the 400 million dollar budgets,
or 30 plus million dollar legislative allocations for
building new prisons, or the corruption of humanity itself, this is just the
tip of the cash cow. This is the big time. There are several
top dollar management executives, lawyers, wardens, political connections, and
“friends” of the prison who get multi-million dollar building and
other contracts, for much higher-than the going rate.
The Arizona governor, Fife Symington, is committing fraud type crimes to the
tune of tens of millions of dollars, while at the
same time signing special interest laws that take power away from judges, and
handing it to 24 year old state prosecutors just out of
law school, and who are hell bent on winning the next case, not justice.
Many laws, or bills, are lies meant to perpetuate the passing of another more
sinister law. I was eligible for clemency under a new
bill due to the extraordinary long sentences I had received compared to the
crimes I was convicted of. I met every criteria, and some,
but the governor appointed board of executive clemency was a sham. They turned
my application down without even a reason, like they did most, if not all, others.
A few months earlier they had granted me parole to the next sentence because
of my excellent behavior and productivity. But it’s funny how they would
rather a child molestor or rapist go free, instead of someone who’s never
harmed any person. So the crook
of a governor, who went into a prison in 1988 for a few days, was passing laws
which gave people more time in prison for a variety of
new crimes, half of which are not even crimes. In every
session some insecurity, some creative intuition, drives politicians to make
new laws prohibiting yet another activity. It starts here.
THE PLAN
Guns lay smoking in the desert
scrub. A sheriff lay dead. Wood shacks on the horizon marked the town of Phoenix,
Arizona.
“Welcome to Arizona, sheriff,” a man said. He spat dark brown tobacco
juice onto the sheriffs forehead, then his gaze landed on
the town.
All it took was one man. He appointed himself sheriff, and he was not your regular
gun fighter, he was smart. Next thing was
getting water to the city. Suddenly Phoenix was booming, then all of Arizona
was booming. A larger police force was needed.
God help you if you are poor like
me. May He doubly help you if you are also from out of town, like me. You can
get lucky and get
appointed a young attorney who has yet to be pounded down by the effects of
the system, its vile corruption and lack of humanity. This system which still
clings like rotting flesh to the bones of law, who’s marrow has been fouled
and corrupted by special interests,
and bribery of public officials.
My mother and Dolly paid five thousand dollars for the attorney that represented
me in my 18.75 year case. It was not enough.
(...) I see State officials gunning
down inmates for no reason, killing innocent men in gas chambers, or locking
away innocent men whose voice has been lost only because they do not have the
money to speak, or by that stigma of being a convict and therefore a liar. Even
when that voice attempts to be heard it is more likely than not shut down. I
have had my typewriter seized for a year and a half, and my writing hand busted,
within the last three years, by the present administration. Even now I wonder
how much they will let me write, or if this will get out.
The corporation exists. Doubt me not. Men are being put to death, as well as
women, for public relations and propaganda. This
is why Arizona quickly changed from lethal gas to lethal injections.
When the Attorney General, Grant Woods, came out of the last gas chamber execution
he accidentally told someone that the gas
chamber took too long and was too gruesome. It got out to the media, then to
the public, and soon the public was against the death penalty. Only for a moment
though. Arizona quickly built a makeshift execution chamber in the old “death
house”, using the gas chamber itself, so the next executions could be more
“civilised”.
I have seen nothing get done as fast as they built that new lethal injection
set-up.
(...) You may not have felt the
threat, or restrictions on freedoms, until this decade. Smoking bans, fines,
mandatory sentencing, higher fees, taxes, and tariffs on certain products that
are not controlled by the “corporation”. Lately we have heard talk
of martial law, curfews, putting people in jail for something a pet has done,
or something their children have done.
Some reason to stuff more people into the grinder. The rules and laws are tightening
around the neck of the sleeping public, like
sheep unaware of the butcher blade over the next hill.
I watch from the inside. I see it coming. Not like a prophecy but like the evolution
of principle and effects.
(...) “What’s the deal
with the strip search if you are just picking up laundry?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it! Lift your nuts, all right, bend over and spread’em.
Cough! Okay, turn around, lift your arms. Let me see the
bottoms of your feet. Put your boxers on and back towards the door.”
I backed up towards a food trap. It’s a small 6 by 20 inch slot where they
slide food into my cell, and also where I am cuffed
before they let me out of the cell. I felt the steel bracelets clamp down tight
around my wrists. I tried to straighten up because the
trap is low and I am tall. The officer behind me tugged on the links between
the handcuffs, forcing my forearms up against the
metal edge of the trap as the door opened. The officer yanked on my wrists again,
hard enough for the door to stop opening as the
edge of the trap ground into my flesh.
“Push forward!” the officer yelled, while pulling me backward so I
could not.
The door slid open. I was pulled backwards three meters against the top run
rail. My cell was on the top tier.
(...) I was jerked to my feet. Mow
my feet were bound by the shackles, with only 15 inches of chain in between.
Again they
“hobbled” me, bending me over and applying their weight on me while
forcing my arms up. My lungs were on fire. I knew I had
two hundred yards to go. Sweat poured off of my body. I smelled bread baking.
I heard a womans voice say, “Oh, not Guillen.” This
brought an inward smile. At the same time it was humiliating and embarrassing.
My legs were cramping, and my knees were buckling with every step. I put one
foot forward only to be jerked to a stop by the 15 inch chain, which cut into
my flesh. They pushed forward, faster then I could walk, forcing steps too long
for the shackle chain. I could hear my own wheezing. I knew if I did not keep
walking and fell they might start kicking me, or worse, gas me and kill me by
asphyxiation.
(...) I felt a irritating trickle on my shins, and looked. My knees and ankles
were bleeding as well. My right hand was numb. The thumb hurt. My upper back
was aching, and somewhere in my chest there was a dull ache that penetrated
every fiber of my body, like something had been knocked off kilter.
I noticed the feces encrusted walls, which were mere inches from my body. I
was in a 3 foot square box, with a low ceiling. The
asthma attack that had threatened me was fading away slowly.
One of the human officers came and got me out of that cell, and put me in a
“normal” cell. I was now in the Violence Control
Unit, or VCU, for talking. I would be here for months in the cold, lonely, maddening
isolation.
(...) I have not hugged my grandparents,
or my mother, for 5 years. I have not had any human contact for just as long.
This is the
corporation, the system, the grinder. I have been deemed “worst of the
worst”, though I have never assaulted anyone, or participated
in riots, or attempted to escape. I have been sent to a hell created by man,
where I may never leave.
I must go. I feel them nearby, stalking, listening to my
typewriter, hoping to catch me unaware. I hear the door opening,
and guards chattering like rats.
I must go. The devils approach . . .
And now the last
paragraph, and the poem closing the book.
Should
you hear about an execution of a man named Karl Louis Guillen, and the media
says that no last words were spoken,
I leave them here now. Hear them as if from parched lips, from a man, six feet
two inches tall, brown hair and light brown eyes,
pale skin from years in isolation, clear complexion, and some say handsome.
See the cross-shaped table, thick leather straps tight
against muscled flesh, intravenous tubes to the arms, needles
disappearing under bandages into virgin inner elbows.
Read them aloud so you can hear me. I have a normal voice, just like any other
human male, maybe a little deeper, but otherwise
normal. Hear me now.
“Last Words . . .”
Today I shall bid you good-bye,
fret not, I am one of many slated to die.
But shed a tear at my murdered passing,
for I am no animal in some midnight gassing.
Through the years they have tried to keep me down,
in dark holes and bloodied corners I was alone.
In the constant walls my thoughts would drown,
as I tried to swim through memories of home.
I have overcome this hell, only because
those attentive and caring few who cared to fight.
They are here with me today, the “thanks” must pause,
for now I must walk towards the light.
I hear laughter echoing in the Golden Hall.
The next steps I must go alone,
I promise to keep you remembered in my soul.
Feel this truth in the winds above Rome.
But my eclectic inner-self still yearns to fight,
to continue the battle without hands, feet or breath,
I am a walking contradiction in the dark days and nights,
for I still fight beyond my crucified death.
I shall spend the mornings waiting for you
In pillowy clouds of ivory smoke I’ll stay.
Look yonder, o’er stars, past the sky blue,
I sit patiently in the Glory of God, knowing our fate,
“Over here,” it’s just the breeze? “Look for me,
with pen and paper, smiling, just past Heaven’s gate . . .”
Karl’s last words,
(If the government has executed this man)
We close this
underpage with the very last lines that Karl definitively sealed The Grinder.
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