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8 ISOL ATION In isolation, you were locked up all the time and fed in your cell. On Tuesdays we were allowed to go to a small exercise yard for about an hour. This was all the outside activity we saw during the entire week. D block, the isolation block, is made up of three tiers, each holding fifteen cells. The general policy at Alcatraz was that between forty and fifty men were to always be locked up in isolation, about a fifth of the total population.The cells in isolation are like the cells in the general population, but they face a wall of windows that look out over the recreation yard. Sometimes the guards would open those windows and let the freezing ocean air into the whole of D block. At the end of the bottom tier were the six cells that make up the ‘‘dark’’ hole. In the dark hole, the cells were designed to cut off all light and sound so that it was impossible to determine whether it was day or night. In addition to the regular cell bars at the front of the cell, there was a thick wire mesh across the bars and also a four-inch-thick solid-steel door. It was this door that closed out all light, all noise, all connection with the world. The cells were made completely of steel. The ceiling and the floor as well as the walls were welded sheets of metal. This made these cells especially cold, a situation made worse because we were often dressed only in shorts and had to sit on the floor. There were no bunks or mattresses to rest on in the dark hole. At night, around eight, a guard would come by and give you two blankets, one to sleep on and one to cover yourself with. Around six in the morning he would come back and retrieve them. The guards collected and counted the blankets, and you had to go without any warmth throughout the day. The coming and going of the guards was the only way to tell day from night. To make things more unbearable, the cell had no sink or toilet, only an eight-inch hole in the concrete floor where the toilet would normally have been installed. At supper we were fed two slices of bread and some ground-up vegetables in a small cup, and that was our entire ration of food for the day. The living conditions in the open cells were quite a bit better than those in the dark hole, for the cells were equipped with a toilet, a wash basin, and a bunk. The prisoners were also able to see if it was daytime or night because they faced the large, barred windows framing the San Francisco waterfront and the city skyline just beyond. The men could pass the time talking to one another all day and night, which made living in the open cells more tolerable. The men in isolation didn’t have to worry about obeying the silent system, since they were already in the hole. At night, it was beautiful to see the city’s lights shining across the bay and shimmering on the water, but it also made us more keenly aware of our own miserable surroundings. Robert Stroud, the ‘‘Birdman of Alcatraz,’’ endured the cruelty of that beautiful panorama for nearly fifteen years while he was locked up in D block. Bob Stroud was in isolation the entire time hewas in Alcatraz. Counting the time he served at Leavenworth and at Alcatraz, Stroud remained in isolation for almost fifty years. This punishment was the result of a dirty trick the authorities played on him. Stroud had been a barber in Alaska before winding up in Leavenworth for a murder conviction. At Leavenworth, one of the guards was constantly annoying and antagonizing Stroud. He would bother him and belittle him at every opportunity. In the dining room one day, this guard walked over to the table where Stroud was eating. He stood over the end of the table and then made an obscene pantomime , acting as if he were lifting his two huge balls and dropping them on the table next to Stroud’s food. By this time Stroud was fed up with the guy giving him such a bad time at every turn. Grabbing a regular butter knife, Stroud leaped up and stabbed the guard numerous times in stomach. In his rage, he killed...

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