I must admit arriving at California Medical Facility Vacaville (CMF) was an answered prayer for me. Since I’d already done time here from 1985 to ‘87, I felt like the Vacaville of old was far better than the Death Row of today. In many ways, I was right, but even so, much of CMF has changed. Back in the day, I was housed in P2, but now I’m across the hall in N2. I can look across the hall and see all the doors open over in P2 with no people living there. To my left, there was a giant dorm with new arrival inmates living there on bunk beds. Now, there’s an area for C.O.’s to stop people going and coming. Behind him, there’s a long hallway with two wings. One’s an office with several interview rooms and varied classrooms, while the other has at least a dozen different rooms for you name it. Everything from hobbies to watching movies. It looks like it’s been there forever, but I’m sure there was a wall there blocking the back of the dorm.
Half of Vacaville was a reception center for new arrivals. The V, T, U, and W wings were on that side, while N, P, J, and M were mainline. Both sides had their own giant yards. Now, not everyone is allowed to go on the big yards. Some of us have yards between our buildings. My yard is between N and M. Far smaller than the big yards, but it would take about five East Block yards at San Quentin to make one of the small yards here. Plus, the yards at S.Q might have between eighty and one hundred people on each. The most people I’ve seen on the yards here are about fifteen. Still, several people here are considered program failures for one reason or another. I work hard not to get pulled into other people’s dramas. So far, so good.
Sometime between 1987 and now, someone decided to chop Vacaville into different sections like a pizza. Back in the day, we could go anywhere and visit other sections and wings. Even go into other cells and kick it. Now, we can’t even go into other cells on our own wings. Unlocks every half hour drive me crazy, even for showers or just to get out of our cells. It’s far better than the East Block at SQ but vastly different than the CMF I remember.
I do enjoy the groups and am also in the Computer Related Technology Class I literally dreamed about before California even talked about ending Death Row. Since I’ve been incarcerated on this beef since July 1993, I never got the chance to learn about computers. But I’ve always thought computers are the wave of the future, at least since I saw the first Terminator, which made perfect sense to me. We all might agree that mankind is the biggest problem here on Earth, which includes me, of course.
There are also dorms behind the yard on our side. I’m told there are people there with LWOPs who have release dates. It’s interesting when you think about it. Life goes on. Last week, I took four tests and scored decent marks. I must not have been alone. Our teacher gave us all a week off.
Living around people with release dates is kind of strange. Several of them act like they don’t care about getting out. They don’t really recognize the blessings they have. At the same time, Lifers here can see themselves free any day. I tend to focus more on dealing with whatever’s in front of me daily. There was so much hatred surrounding this case I can only look down the road one day at a time. At one point, I was the poster child for Three Strikes and You’re Out! I was on the local news 566 times because of a change in venue exports. Fortunately, I didn’t get the feedback the state wanted, so they turned their attention to the Polly Klaas killer. Strange when you think about it. They gave me a robbery-murder sentence where a money-carrier was shot one time and died on the spot—a special circumstance murder which carries life or death. Three strikes was about twenty-five to life.
There is hope for many people here. I tend to live in the now and do the best I can. So many people I’ve known have died, and I tend to enjoy life one day at a time. One thing I can say is that even though Vacaville has changed in many ways, it’s still far better than East Block. Hands down!
If I had a Genie with three or three hundred wishes, none of them would find me back on East Block at San Quentin”s Death Row. The fear and PTSD runs deep.
Still, the reality of my personal situation is that this system could drive over my appeal, take me back to San Quentin, or bring the execution chamber to CMF and execute me. As long as my status is death, that reality will be lurking somewhere in the back of my mind. But then again, every living thing on the face of this Earth must also suffer a taste of death. The sad commentary is that most people living free with busy lives don’t think about death until they’re eye to eye with it. But that date is far more certain than the state executing me. In fact, even those powerful people who manufactured this case and covered up the evidence will have a taste of death when the Soul comes up to their throat. Hopefully, the Most High is just.
