Let’s take a step back, do a little rewind even to examine how Craig got to that situation we talked about in the last chapter when he was leading the way on the yard.

To even be in that position called for him to possess two key elements: time and respect. Without those, there was no way he would have been able to speak for all the whites on the yard, whether when dealing with internal issues – many of which he and others let go by the wayside because they knew they were going to be replaced in a relatively short amount of time anyway – or dealing with the authorities.

First there’s time. When this took place, it was around 2000 and he had been in prison for about six years, almost one-third of his sentence and nearly at the start of the second leg of his journey. It was his fourth yard, having been moved from Florence to Tuscon to Yuma before ending up here in the bowels of Texas. He knew the system, knew how it worked and more importantly, how it didn’t work. He had been around long enough for others – higher-ups who truly wanted to be part of the decision-making process – to see him in the background and know that no matter what, he’d do what was best for the group, not just what was best for him. That right there might be the respect you were thinking of when I first mentioned it two paragraphs ago. But that’s not what I meant. That’s just being a leader, understanding how to think on your feet and guide people through a process, and in essence, taking them to a place where they can’t get on their own.

What I actually meant was the respect of his peer group. That one word, ‘peer’, plays a crucial role as we’ve talked about before, because not everyone inside is his peer. Only whites were his peers. No matter whether he had relationships that bordered on friendships with blacks, Mexicans, Asians or Native Americans, they did not count. The only interactions that counted were those with your own race, and by this point, he had earned the trust of the white hierarchy.

How’d that come about?

“Anyone can say anything, but action speaks louder than words. There’s not always a ready-made event happening where you can prove that what you’re saying is true. So you have to kinda lay low and be cool about it. Then when events happen that require you to step up, step up in support of your race, then you do.”

He said it takes a lot of reassuring the people in charge that if shit hits the fan, he’s down with whatever needs to be done. But in the meantime, during the day-to-day of his term, he’s going to do his own thing and not be a part of their establishment. Handling the situations that arise and remaining strong in the whites’ eyes while still being independent is a tricky and somewhat risky deal. He said it’s a slow process, which isn’t ideal considering the instant-gratification world we live in. People don’t like to wait, but as far as Craig could see, he had plenty of time to make it work.

The one thing he picked up early on was that if he wanted to be independent, he had to, as much as possible, avoid being asked to do a job. That’s not the side of the line he wanted to be on because then he’d owe them. That seems a bit twisted, or at least it did to me when he first talked about it. I thought, and maybe you would too, that if they asked him to do a job, then they’d owe him. You know, because he was helping them, pushing their cause or efforts forward. When a friend does a favor for you, you normally feel indebted and try to find a way to make up for it. Usually in the real world, we’d pay that person with something of worth, maybe money, maybe another item with intrinsic value. But in camp, the value system often ran counter-intuitive to what we’d see out here. By them asking Craig to do a job, yes, he is risking his privileges, risking being pushed back up to a Level 4 or 5 yard by carrying out their demands, but by their way of thinking about it, he was the one who would owe them because if he did this for them, he’d become one of them, fall squarely under their jurisdiction. That meant they’d protect him, they’d take care of him. And then they could ask for him to do something else, and he gets in deeper and deeper until he can’t step away from them at all and completely loses his own individualism and identity.

If he didn’t fully sign up with them, then how did the whites know he would be on their side when they needed him? How did they come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to fall in line every day for them, wasn’t going to fall on a sword for them, wouldn’t be someone they could turn to for any little errand, task or retaliation?

“There are a lot of subtle things, some in conversation, what you talk about, who you talk with, what you say, that makes a difference to them. For example, whether or not you use racial slurs. Millions in day-to-day life prove and show where they stand. The easiest way is if you’re lazy, if you want to do it, then it’s just, ‘Fuck all niggers and spicks.’ But for me, that’s not who I am. My thought was that you don’t have to be a racist to be supportive of your own race. So I’d get that questioning look of, ‘We know you’re obviously not a racist, so are you with us or are you not?’”

Early on, Craig was tested in a very specific way. It was within the first month of starting his sentence, which is when you feel really naked. You only have what the state gave you. And obviously everything you are wearing is brand new. The new guy is truly seen as the new guy, with his new boots, his new shirt, new everything that’s handed to him and nothing that he’s earned on his own inside. He pretty much stands out like a sore thumb where ever he goes until life starts to settle in, he starts to learn his way around and even gets to know some people in his run.

It was on the rec field that this first test occurred. At the time, one of the shot-callers was out there, the typical guy you’d picture in a movie: Nazi tattoo-bound, long-haired blonde dude. Hard, blue eyes. Tall. Completely yoked out from lifting weights and working out incessantly – a construct of prison that plays perfectly to his benefit. He was wearing leather work gloves, the kind Craig said you’d get a Farm & Fleet back home. Except that by camp policy, inmates are not allowed to have those because you can use them to handle razor wire which in turn is something you’d have to do if you wanted to try to escape. But there he was. Adolf Von Bigmuscles working out with a pair of those gloves on the rec field. It told Craig immediately, even though he’d only been inside for a blink of an eye, that this guy is someone who gets special consideration from the administration. He’s someone pretty important in his circle.

Craig wasn’t anyone important. But he wasn’t just new, he was unknown. As it happened, he was hanging out with some of the guys he had started to get to know in his run, playing volleyball while Adolf and his group lifted weights on their own. It was hot, as is always the case in Arizona. Craig stopped to get a drink of water and there weren’t any cups, just a 10-gallon Igloo water jug. Without his shirt on, it was almost blinding how pale he was, having been inside for 3 months in county lockup before getting to his permanent residence. The sun beat down and he was standing there deciding how he was going to get his thirst quenched. Because he was so new to this area, he hadn’t even been to the commissary to buy his own glass. It was then that this buff dude and his cronies come to get a drink, too. Unlike Craig, who was about to put water into the jug lid and drink from it, these guys had brought their own cups onto the yard. So they got their water first.

Then, right as Craig got the lid to his mouth and started lapping in the water, the head guy walks by and pats Craig on the stomach. He says, “Casper, you need more sun.” It wasn’t said in a friendly, getting-to-know you manner but a much, much more intimidating tone. Craig’s hands were up, holding the lid. He was drinking when Brutus Beefcake taps him in the mid-section. He was totally exposed.

So, what do you? How do you react? Those weren’t questions Craig posed to me as we talked on the phone, but ones that he thought to himself in the moment as if it was an out-of-body experience. He also remembers thinking that it was scary as hell. There were six guys not including the big head honcho. He thought maybe he could take one, but against that whole group, he put it succinctly: “I’m fucked.”

Luckily, Craig knew it was coming at some point. So, he gets done drinking, the yoked dude keeps walking, and that whole group loped back to where they were working out in the other area. Once the head guy got about 10-15 paces away though, he turned back just enough to look over his shoulder and check out Craig from the corner of his eye, seeing what he was doing. Craig was still standing there, water jug lid in the air, staring back at him. Not staring him down, not glaring, nothing that could be construed in a challenging way. But he wasn’t cowering either, not running away. At that, the shot-caller gave a head nod in Craig’s direction, signifying he was OK, they were cool.

“That little scenario actually meant something to him. It was like, I would not back down from a situation but wasn’t going to escalate it either. I’m not looking to impress or be one of his cronies, but I didn’t want to be seen as weak or as a tag along, just hanging with the cool guy. That right there was the start to establishing me being independent but upstanding in their eyes; that if anything happens, they’re thinking, ‘We know we can count on you.’

“But that situation was very scary.”

That wasn’t the only time he’d have to fend for himself. You would normally think it was only the other prisoners that he’d have to worry about or stand up against, but there was another, equally formidable obstacle that took some appropriate countermeasures to keep off his back: the administration.

The officers, anyone within an authoritative role, can too often be corrupted by power. Even the good ones, from time to time, can fall into the power trap, use their wide-ranging control to either raise themselves up, or more likely in this case, push others down. Because of that, it became imperative that some pushing back needed to happen on Craig’s end. He said it wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but you couldn’t let it pass when the opportunity presented itself. It was needed to keep the balance of power – which the officers held – in check so that things didn’t blow out into a yard-wide issue.

It was interesting though because, by having to push back on the authorities occasionally, it benefited Craig in an unintended way: it gave him a bit more credibility within the inmate community.

How so?

According to Craig, one thing he had going against him from the outset was the fact that many prisoners didn’t think he looked like what his crime said he was. Taking a glance at him among a group of 10 others in camp, many if not most people wouldn’t pick him out as the one with an 18-year sentence for second-degree murder. That in itself presented a problem as the inmates became suspicious of Craig being a plant. They were worried he was an undercover agent of the administration because, from time to time, the administration would actually do that. They’d put someone in undercover to try to gain information, whether for internal needs like stopping a drug ring in the camp, or for gaining information for an outside investigation.

All too often, especially early on at a new camp, they’d look at Craig and say, “You’re not a killer. We know what a killer looks like and you don’t look like one. You look like a cop.” That’d be a bit chilling if you’re on Craig’s side, knowing there’s a chance the whole place could see you as a threat.

Luckily, there was a remedy available to Craig that helped calm inmates’ potential fears.

As we just noted, there often arise times where corrections officers became questioning, pushy, authoritarian. They’d treat an inmate in a certain way or say something in a specific manner that the typical reaction would be for the prisoner to go off on them. It was usually a big screaming, name-calling, wailing session, although sometimes it could get a little physical. That typically wouldn’t end well for the inmate, but it just depended on the depth of the confrontation. Some situations may be a personal affront and not pushing past an unwritten inmate rule, and yet that’s still as offensive – and in need of a response – when it happens.

The thing is, Craig wouldn’t always respond the way most inmates expected.

They were leery of him, the fact he didn’t seem the part, so they were always watching early on before he had gained their trust. They’d see how he handled himself around his cellie, other people on the run, but they were hawkish in their viewing of his officer interactions. So, he’d mix it up on them. It didn’t happen every day, but when something did pop up with an officer that most inmates would go ballistic about, Craig wouldn’t. He’d want to, but instead, he’d hold his tongue, restrain himself and make it seem like nothing happened. Just blow it off, something other inmates couldn’t seem to fathom considering their comments after the incident. “Dude, what the fuck? Everyone goes off when this happens, but you do not? Are you weak? What the fuck?”

They saw him do this quite a bit early on, until one day, he turned the other cheek.

Not long after a couple incidents that he let slide, another issue arose with an officer, but something much less, completely minor. An odd incident, one where most inmates might let it go. Craig had thought this out some and decided that he shouldn’t let it be. Instead, he’d turn things upside down. Since he was getting probed about being a plant, a cop undercover, he thought it’d be good to tweak the inmates about their own prejudices. He knew when this situation came up that it likely would be something he’d find personally offensive but within prison society, they don’t.

So, when a little non-issue popped up, he went completely bonkers about it. It was easy for him to abhor what the officers did and said and therefore go off about it; yet, he also knew everyone else thought it was something they’d let slide, and then it’d make them wonder why he didn’t let it pass.

Now they’ve seen him let a big issue go under the bridge without recourse, and seen him lose his goddamn mind about an inoffensive slight that makes no sense within the prisoner mindset. Thus his full plan: to make them think this guy is really fucking nuts. That he does have a little streak of being crazy. It was to make them take note. And keep some lingering doubt around.

“It’s just part of a bluff. It plays into the idea that, ‘I don’t really want to slip up around him because I’ll find out what he kills people for. He’s hard to read. He may go off when I’m not thinking he’ll go off, or go off on things I’d never think about. Maybe he does just kill people just because.’

“There’s a fine line in there, getting people to think you’re crazy. It’s a nice bluff . . . as long as people don’t call you on it.”