Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood

by Danny Trejo, Donal Logue Narrated by Danny Trejo, Donal Logue

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The actor who made his name playing tough guys in movies actually had it rough growing up in an abusive household. Danny Trejo got in trouble with the law, did drugs and ultimately did hard time in San Quentin and Folsom prisons in California. Today, he is sober and drug-free, a foodie and a restauranteur. He gives back to the community and is beloved by all of Hollywood. It's a rags-to-riches story for a guy who is finally seeing some accolades for his film work.

In this “celebration of a life fully lived” (Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us), discover the full, fascinating, and inspirational true story of Danny Trejo's journey from crime, prison, addiction, and loss-it's “enough to make you believe in the possibility of a Hollywood ending” (The New York Times Book Review).

On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He's been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he's a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.

Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country's most notorious state prisons-including San Quentin and Folsom-from an early age, before starring in such modern classics as Heat, From Dusk till Dawn, and Machete. Now, in this funny, painful, and suspenseful memoir, Danny takes us through the incredible ups and downs of his life, including meeting one of the world's most notorious serial killers in prison and working with legends like Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro.

An honest, unflinching, and “inspirational study in the definition of character” (Kevin Smith, director and actor), Trejo reveals how he managed the horrors of prison, rebuilt himself after finding sobriety and spirituality in solitary confinement, and draws inspiration from the adrenaline-fueled robbing heists of his past for the film roles that made him a household name. He also shares the painful contradictions in his personal life. Although he speaks everywhere from prison yards to NPR about his past to inspire countless others on their own road to recovery and redemption, he struggles to help his children with their personal battles with addiction, and to build relationships that last.

Redemptive and painful, poignant and real, Trejo is a portrait of a magnificent life and an unforgettable and exceptional journey that proves “though we may fall down at some point in our lives, it's what we do when we stand back up that really counts” (Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker and producer).

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

If you don't recognize his name, chances are you'll recognize Danny Trejo's voice in the first few moments of this audiobook. An actor for decades, Trejo has appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows, often as the tough guy. But his story starts much earlier, when he was convicted for drug use and served hard time in San Quentin State Prison. His journey to sobriety, and Hollywood, is truly astounding. His voice, weathered, raspy, yet warm, captures all of it. Trejo never sugarcoats his life story. His audiobook is moving precisely because he is always straightforward and authentic. Throughout, Trejo often laughs at the fond memories he shares but is serious about his family and his work helping others. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 05/10/2021

Quintessential Hollywood bad guy Trejo delivers a powerful and expertly crafted memoir that is tougher, more frightening, and more memorable than any of his films. Born in Los Angeles in 1944, Trejo struggled with heroin addiction in his early 20s and was in and out of prison throughout the ’60s. His account of life in San Quentin and Folsom prisons, where “hopelessness is carved in men’s faces,” is unsparing in its depiction of violence. Trejo avoided the pitfalls of inmate life by becoming an excellent boxer and finding AA, and he eventually found work in films thanks to his “hard-looking” style: “I was cast as a convict (surprise).” Tracing his success as an actor, he shares fascinating behind-the-scenes views of working with stars such as Robert DeNiro, whose mobster acting was unmatched but who was “so patient” on the set of Heat. Even in recounting his rise to fame with films such as Machete, Trejo never veers from the story of how his hard work paid off by allowing him to support his family, overcome the “environment of toxic masculinity that I was raised in,” and “spread the message of recovery.” This page-turner will thrill the legend’s huge fan base. Agents: Gloria Hinojosa, Amsel, Eisenstadt, Frazier & Hinojosa; Albert Lee, United Talent Agency. (July)

Pete Davidson

Danny Trejo is an American Treasure. I’ve been a fan of his since I was 9 years old. He’s had one of the most legendary runs in Hollywood history in my opinion. If you’re a fan like I am this is definitely the book for you.

New York Times Book Review

A story with compassion and unsparing candor...its enough to make you believe in the possibility of a Hollywood ending.

Adrian McKinty

Danny Trejo’s unflinching, exquisitely written memoir Trejo unpacks his extraordinary journey from the hole at Folsom Prison and the notorious B Section at San Quentin to the dizzy heights of leading roles in Hollywood movies. As famous in Los Angeles for his work in addiction and recovery as for his acting, this is also a narrative of someone finding the path out of hell and helping others escape with him. Trejo tells his story with grace, humor, humility as well as a terrifying immediacy during the more violent portions of Trejo’s troubled early years. Add Danny Trejo’s name to those of Chester Himes, Nelson Algren, Malcolm X, and Jimmy Santiago Baca, men who served hard time and came out the other side to teach us about living life to the fullest in the now.

Booklist

"This gripping autobiography recounts a flawed hero’s journey as Trejo digs his way out of tragedy, temptation, and the toxic masculinity of his youth. Trejo's true power far exceeds that of his tough-guys roles.

Francisco Cantú

I’ve long recognized Danny Trejo as an American icon. But what I didn’t know is that he’s also one hell of a storyteller. Brimming with heart and generosity, wicked humor and hard-won wisdom, Trejo reaches across generations, cultures, and borders to leave readers with a righteous, inspirational high.

Taylor Hackford

I was incredibly fortunate to shoot Blood-In, Blood-Out inside San Quentin, The Big House. We had 300 active inmates working every day as extras next to the eleven actors I’d cast for the main roles. Danny Trejo was a graduate of ‘Q,’ so in addition to playing Geronimo in the film, he served as my unofficial prison advisor—he knew the territory intimately. We shot in Cell Block ‘C,’ on Tier 5, in the actual cell where Danny had spent two years of his life. It wasn’t just that Trejo was the real deal—he turned out to be a terrific actor.

Robert Rodriguez

From ex-con to icon. Danny’s incredible life story shows that even though we may fall down at some point in our lives, it’s what we do when we stand back up that really counts.

Walter Kirn

This is more, much more, than a celebrity memoir. It’s a gutsy, wrenching, inspiring account of personal redemption and one man’s discovery of a higher purpose, written as though Trejo’s life depended on it. And once you read his story, you’ll know that it does.

Eric Garcetti

Trejo is a story of survival, of power, of transformation, and ultimately, of love. Hollywood couldn’t have written a script this dramatic—this is the real-life rebirth of a man who wrote his own story in life and now finally shares it with us.

Shelf Awareness - Michelle Anya Anjirbag

"A brutally candid account of intergenerational struggles with violence, incarceration, addiction and toxic masculinity and, most importantly, how these cycles might be broken."

Kevin Smith

Trejo’s tale, as told by Logue, is an inspirational study in the definition of character. Danny’s journey of recovery and self-discovery is like a road map to those of us who are still struggling to figure ourselves out. This needs to become a movie, but who but Danny could play The Trejo?

Reyna Grande

Trejo is a celebration of a life fully lived. With brutal honesty, Danny Trejo shares his troubled past and journey to becoming the person he was meant to be. Beyond the ‘tough guy’ persona we've come to know on film is a man who cares deeply about his family, his friends, his Latino community, and beyond. Trejo shows us that we can turn our lives around, rewrite our most difficult moments into proud accomplishments, and transform our deepest pain into our greatest joy.

Francisco Cantú

I’ve long recognized Danny Trejo as an American icon. But what I didn’t know is that he’s also one hell of a storyteller. Brimming with heart and generosity, wicked humor and hard-won wisdom, Trejo reaches across generations, cultures, and borders to leave readers with a righteous, inspirational high.

Library Journal

★ 06/01/2021

In this inspiring, engaging memoir, actor Trejo chronicles his experiences with addiction, prison, violence, and loss, and his journey from construction worker at L.A.'s famous Cinerama Dome, to eventual star of the movies that played there. With help from fellow actor Logue, Trejo tells his story with honesty. He says he used and sold heroin, and landed in prison in the '60s. During the 1968 Cinco de Mayo riots at California's Soledad State Prison, Trejo threw a rock that hit a prison guard, and found himself staring down a possible execution. The charges were dropped on a technicality, but the incident set him on a new path. Trejo found his faith, became sober, and started helping others, eventually becoming the movie star he is today, with more than 400 movies under his belt. By turns cautionary, curious, and celebratory, Trejo's stories flow smoothly, and he takes a no-nonsense approach as he looks back on his life, including his regrets. VERDICT A fantastic memoir that readers won't be able to put down.—Traci Glass, Lincoln City Libraries, NE

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

If you don't recognize his name, chances are you'll recognize Danny Trejo's voice in the first few moments of this audiobook. An actor for decades, Trejo has appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows, often as the tough guy. But his story starts much earlier, when he was convicted for drug use and served hard time in San Quentin State Prison. His journey to sobriety, and Hollywood, is truly astounding. His voice, weathered, raspy, yet warm, captures all of it. Trejo never sugarcoats his life story. His audiobook is moving precisely because he is always straightforward and authentic. Throughout, Trejo often laughs at the fond memories he shares but is serious about his family and his work helping others. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2021-05-04
An actor’s noteworthy journey from convict to Hollywood celebrity.

As one of the most easily recognizable cinematic bad guys, Trejo (b. 1944) has made a career of being mauled and maimed across dozens of films, from Desperado to Con Air to Grindhouse to Machete. As the author shows, his real life has been as tumultuous and eventful as any action story. Raised in a large Mexican American family oozing with “macho Chicanismo,” Trejo fell under the influence of Uncle Gilbert, who mentored him in life on the streets. Gilbert taught him how to rob, box, take drugs, and pass a prison sentence. Trejo was 12 when he first tried heroin, and his battle with addiction would land him in one correctional facility after another until he eventually found himself in some of California’s most infamous prisons. From the darkest depths of incarceration, Trejo made a commitment to sobriety and began living by a mantra of service, which showed him that “everything good that’s ever happened in my life has come as the direct result of helping someone else and not expecting anything in return.” Unwavering in his pledge to remain clean and help others do the same, Trejo continues to battle with lingering challenges involving his roles as a devoted husband and loving father. The author chronicles his battles with personal demons alongside his spectacular rise to stardom and impressive success in the entertainment industry and with a Trejo’s Tacos and Trejo’s Coffee & Donuts in LA. Throughout, the author expresses himself in an informal yet consistently thoughtful manner. In the collaborator’s note, co-author and fellow actor Logue writes, “Nearly everything he said was gold: wise, funny, pithy, at times, clairvoyant. I gained more insight on life in those first few days…with Danny than I had in my previous thirty-two years.”

A raw and deeply engrossing salvation story.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172719745
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	460,965

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Soledad: 1968

1968

I felt like shit. I was high on heroin, pruno, reds, and whiskey.

I was three years into a ten-year stretch, which for a Mexican was more likely to be a twenty-year stretch, a life stretch, a death stretch.

I always figured I’d die in prison.

It was Cinco de Mayo 1968, in Soledad State Prison. To Mexicans, real Mexicans, Corazón Mexicans, Cinco de Mayo doesn’t mean the Mexican day of independence (it’s not); it doesn’t signify the day the Mexicans defeated the French at Puebla; it doesn’t even mean the fifth of May. Cinco de Mayo means “Get bail money ready.”

I was already inside, so no need for bail.

Mexicans had been planning a un chingón volar for weeks. Since I was running the gym next to the loading docks, I got my hands on all the contraband coming in: cigarettes, speed, heroin, even women’s underwear and makeup (if that was your thing). As long as you could pay for it, I could get it.

I ran the heroin bag, so I was well stocked. I also had hundreds of pills I collected from inmates who saved their meds and used them to pay gambling debts, traded them for contraband, or needed protection. I had a few pints of whiskey, two ounces of weed, and the batches of pruno we’d been making for weeks. A connect in the kitchen got us the raisins, oranges, sugar, and yeast to mix it with. We’d pour it into garbage bags, twist them tight, wrap them in T-shirts, and stash them in the heating vents. When it was ready, we’d strain it through tube socks.

We started early the day before and went all night. That next morning, I was settling in when the Captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker. He announced we were having an outside activity that day: a local junior college baseball team would be playing a team of inmates in an exhibition game.

Bringing a group of civilians into a California prison on Cinco de Mayo is the stupidest fucking thing on earth you could do; over half the prison was already wasted. Plus, whenever there’s an outside activity it means extra guards, extra security, extra guns, extra everything.

After the announcement about the Cinco de Mayo ball game, we were ordered out of our cells. On the Yard, I held my face to the sun for a minute to let it touch me, but when I closed my eyes, I felt queasy. The pruno wasn’t sitting right. I took a spot on the bleachers along the third base line with Ray Pacheco and Henry Quijada, two old crime partners from my juvie days. Ray was incredibly strong, a hell of an athlete. We knew each other from when we played football in the street when we were thirteen, before Ray joined the White Fence gang. Henry was a tall, thin kid from Azusa. They were both housed in Ranier, another section within the prison.

We settled in to watch the game between the junior college and a team of inmates. I took in the fact there was no fence—only ten feet of air separated us from the junior college kids. We watched the teams warm up. A big, Mickey Mantle–looking white kid was playing third base. I remember thinking that he’d be a highly prized punk inside.

He was chomping on a big wad of gum.

Ray turned to me and said, “Man, I wish I had some chicle.”

Gum was special. We couldn’t get gum in prison. We certainly couldn’t get the sugary kind the college kid was chomping on.

Ray turned into a child. “I want gum.”

Ray’d come to Soledad from Atascadero, a full lockdown mental facility. Ray had brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. He didn’t just murder them—the court found there were “special circumstances.” I don’t remember the particulars, but they were bad—the-kind-you-read-about-in-the-newspaper bad, the-recoil-in-shock kind of bad. To old-school Mexicans like Ray, there was no such thing as an ex-girlfriend—once you were his, you were his forever. The crime was so vicious, the court figured no one in their right mind could have done it, so he was found “guilty but insane.” In exchange for years of electroshock therapy and medical experiments, Ray got a reduced sentence of seven years.

The treatments only made him worse.

Back in Central, sometimes I’d sneak behind Ray and make zzzzhhhhhh sounds like he was being electrocuted to fuck with him. Normally he didn’t mind, but when I did it to him that morning, it was clear he wasn’t in the mood for fucking around.

The game started. I was exhausted. I felt like shit from the wine, weed, pills, and whiskey. The sun, which for a few seconds was comforting, felt like a magnifying glass aimed at my forehead. Everyone in my area was drunk, high, uncomfortable. I could feel something simmering. I recognized it; it was the desire for violence. Aggression and fear among the inmates released pheromones. Once they’re out, they’re out, and the air at that moment was full of them.

In the second inning, Ray yelled at the third baseman, “¡Dame chicle, pinchi güero!”

The kid pretended not to hear. He just pounded his fist into his mitt and kept chomping away. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. He was like a cow chewing cud.

“You heard me, bitch! Throw me some gum!”

The kid didn’t turn. He just stared forward, pounding his fist into his mitt and chomping his gum. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, “We’re not supposed to talk to you guys.”

“What?”

“We were told not to talk to the inmates.”

Chomp. Chomp.

With every chomp, Ray got crazier. A switch flipped behind his eyes. He was like a great white shark with its eyes rolled back. He was grinding his teeth and clenching his jaw like he was fighting demons. He was back chewing leather strips with hundreds of volts of electricity blasting through him, back in a straitjacket he’d worn for four months.

Ray was gone.

“Fuck you, bitch. We ain’t good enough to talk to?”

“We were told not to interact with you.”

I knew it was useless, but I tried to calm Ray. I told him every kind of bullshit I could think of.

“Don’t fuck with that kid, holmes, he knows karate,” I said. And: “They got a special sniper guarding that dude.”

I should have known better. Telling a loaded killer they can’t fuck with someone is a direct invitation to fuck with them.

The third baseman was scared shitless. Every inning, he drifted farther from third base and closer to second. It got to the point where the third baseman, the shortstop, and the second baseman were standing next to each other in the middle of the infield. None of them wanted to be there. They wanted to be with their girlfriends, driving their trucks, drinking beer, listening to country music on some canal bank, anywhere other than playing baseball with a bunch of thieves and killers in a prison. Whatever worst-case scenario they might have been briefed about concerning visiting a high-security prison was going down in real time—especially for the third baseman, who was getting shit from a stone-cold killer no more than twenty feet away.

I had to piss. I was afraid to leave Ray, but I was going to piss my pants. I told Ray to come with me, but he said no, he wanted to stay with Henry. I jammed to the bathroom, doing the weird hop-skip thing you do when you have to piss but can’t fully run. Standing at the urinal, I cussed myself for how much I had to pee. It felt like I had a gallon in my bladder. I was nauseous. The crowd outside sounded eerie. The air had changed. Things were electric.

I was hurrying back to the field when I saw Ray fly out of the stands and punch the third baseman in the face. At that moment, everything exploded. The only thing I can compare it to is when the baboons went crazy on Damien in the safari adventure park in The Omen, or when every dog in a dog park gets in a fight. In an instant a thousand animals were fighting for their lives.

I’d been locked up, in and out but mostly in, since 1956. In those twelve years, I put to use everything I learned from my uncle Gilbert about being incarcerated. The first time I got taken to Eastlake Juvenile Hall, I remember saying to myself, What did Gilbert teach me?

To stick with the Mexicans, first off. Secondly, find three or four specific homies who’d always have my back. Gilbert told me I’d develop instincts I never knew I had. I’d learn to master how to go to sleep in a chaotic tier full of people screaming and running around and learn to spring awake in an instant if someone stopped even for a moment in front of my cell. He taught me if someone was looking at me for just a second too long I’d have to respond with “What the fuck do you want?” Only six years older, Gilbert was my mentor. He ran every joint he’d been in. He taught me how to deal, steal, intimidate, how to spot weakness, when it was best to terrify, and when it was right to comfort. He taught me never to bully people weaker than me, but if I had to fight, the goal was to win.

The first time I got hauled off to a police station, I was ten. By twelve, I was a regular at juvenile hall. My parents sent me to live with relatives in Texas for a while to avoid getting locked up after I kicked some kid’s ass for squirting ink on me in art class. But at that point I was incorrigible. My stay in Texas didn’t last long. Even though my aunt Margaret and my uncle Rudy Cantú’s place was deep in the sticks, miles outside of San Antonio, I still found my way to the hopping night scene in La Colonia. My aunt and uncle, who were proper, religious people, realized they couldn’t control me, so they sent me back to Los Angeles.

I wasn’t scared of being busted, I wasn’t scared of being locked up, and when a kid loses fear of consequences, that’s when society has lost them. Halfway through tenth grade, I was sent to North Hollywood High School, my fifth school in a year. I’d been kicked out of four others for fighting. I had caused excitement in the last three because, as the only Mexican, I was a novelty. Not only was I Latino, I wore yellow-and-white Sir Guy shirts with matching vests and pleated khakis. If I wore Levi’s, they were ironed with Folsom cuffs. I was sharp, I was clean. I stood out. At North Hollywood, Barbara D., a beautiful Italian girl who was the homecoming queen, loved me. I loved her back. One day, she saw me sitting on a bench in the quad and looked alarmed.

“You can’t sit there, Danny, that’s the Caballeros’ bench.” I thought, What the fuck? They got a bench? For that matter, who the fuck are the Caballeros, and why would they call themselves a Spanish name?

A big, goofy white dude and a smaller guy walked up. The big guy got puffy. He said, “Are you going to get off the Caballeros’ bench, or am I going to have to take you off?”

If he’d just said, “That’s the Caballeros’ bench,” I might have gotten up and left. But because he challenged me, I stood on the bench and kicked him in the throat.

“Take me off this bench now, bitch.”

The guy started choking. Then the little one said the magic words: “Just wait till after school, beaner.”

Big mistake. The trigger wasn’t beaner. It was the “wait till after school” part. Normal high schoolers are worried about getting in trouble, real trouble. I didn’t have that problem. I was the kind of Mexican who couldn’t wait until after school. The whole day, my rage kept growing. The final bell couldn’t come fast enough. I positioned myself outside the school gates. The throat-kick guy and five of his Caballero friends showed up with the whole school behind them, ready for the show. This was good. I was ready to introduce them to a level of violence that wasn’t even on their radar.

It was like a scene of out the movie Grease, except they were stuck in PG mode, and I was rated X. As soon as the leader opened his mouth, I grabbed him by his neck and took a chunk out of his face with my teeth. People gasped. I saw two girls cover their faces. No one in North Hollywood High School was ready for me. That Caballero certainly wasn’t.

While the guy flailed around, screaming, I jammed to Leonard’s Burger Shop across the street, jumped the counter, grabbed a cleaver, and ran back out on the street. I was going to take out the whole school if I had to. Leonard came running out of the restaurant with a cleaver of his own and took up a spot beside me. I faced off against a ring of what seemed like every kid at North Hollywood High. No one dared take a step toward me. That’s the power of crazy, that’s the power of being willing to go to a place unimaginable to your foes. But that kind of power comes with a cost—by exercising it, you reveal to the world the only place you belong is a state penitentiary.

I took what Gilbert taught me to heart. I didn’t fight to gain respect. I fought to win. I took a sick pleasure in it. I respected people who showed me respect, but if they didn’t, I wanted whoever fucked with me to wake up years in the future, when they were old and walking with a cane, to look at their faces in the mirror, see the deep, ugly scars, and remember the huge mistake they made one afternoon long ago when they messed with Danny Trejo.

When a riot goes down, everybody knows what to do: survive and go after your enemies. Mexicans jumped Blacks; whites stood back-to-back, squaring off, trying to fight a path back to their own; Blacks were swinging on whites and Mexicans. Aryans, Blacks, Mexicans, all executing hit orders that had been in the pipeline for months. I was dropping motherfuckers. I’d throw a left, bam. A right, bam. A left, right, left, right. I had no fear. There was no time for that. If fear ever creeped in, I turned it to rage immediately. It was adrenaline-fueled. If a child’s trapped under a car and his mother’s stuck in fear, the kid’s screwed; if she turns it to rage, she lifts that car.

I had car-lifting strength. Mack Truck–lifting strength.

In my periphery, I saw sissies running for safety at the edge of the Yard. I don’t mean sissy as a derogatory term, because it isn’t in the pen. We shared time with everyone and everyone had value. The homosexuals pooled money, kept their books stacked, paid for protection, looked after the homosexual guys coming in, and had all the intel. Taking care of gay inmates meant a hundred eyes had your back. Baseball players swung bats to keep inmates from killing them. Dudes threw trash cans, rocks, whatever they could grab. I remember having a rock or a chunk of concrete, but it’s a blur.

The noise was inhuman.

I was back-to-back with Ray, slugging it out with anyone who rolled up, when I saw Captain Rogers, one of the head bulls, pointing at us. He was signaling the gun tower to shoot. Ray and I took off, swerving in different directions. Like a couple of rodeo clowns, we ended up running into each other, knocking each other down.

Flat on the ground, facedown, we laced our fingers behind the backs of our heads. Ray turned into a little kid again. He was terrified.

“Danny, don’t let them hurt me.”

Captain Rogers ran up and said, “Trejo, did you get him?” I guessed he was asking if I took Ray out to stop him from running. I didn’t know how to answer, so I said, “Yeah.”

The guards pulled us to our feet and hauled us off.

Out of the over one thousand prisoners involved in the riot that day, they singled out only Henry, Ray, and me. It was alleged that I threw the rock that hit a guard named Lieutenant Gibbons in the head. Everyone saw Ray assault a free person. Henry was charged with kicking Coach Stalmeyer in the testicles and causing them to rupture. All capital crimes.

We were looking at the death penalty.

What can change in an instant? Todo.

It wasn’t totally a surprise. Whether it was juvie, camp, Tracy, YTS, Wayside, Chino, Vacaville, San Quentin, Folsom, anywhere I’d been locked up, I never expected I’d get out alive. I knew I’d be in prison until I was dead. I just didn’t know when, how, or where.

I guessed it was there. Soledad.

Most teachers I had said, “He has real potential.” Or more precisely, they’d say, “He has enormous potential if he would just change.” Even parole officers said I had incredible potential.

In the hole, I thought, What the fuck is potential?

Just when I had things going right in Soledad, everything changed. I was going to die and it was going to be the gas chamber. That it was in the hands of the state was something I couldn’t wrap my mind around. I knew I was a fighter and could go out fighting, but when they walked me to my death, how would I act?

Would I be brave?

Henry yelled from down the hall, “They’re going to top us, Danny! They’re going to kill us good!”

There’s a movie from the 1930s called Angels with Dirty Faces. James Cagney plays Rocky, a straight-up gangster who gets involved in a shoot-out with the police. When he’s surrounded, he yells, “Come and get me, coppers!”

After he’s arrested, his crew in the neighborhood says, “He’s going to spit in those coppers’ eyes!”

But when Rocky’s sentenced to death, he cries like a bitch. On the way to the electric chair he weeps and begs for mercy. The next day, his gang reads in the newspaper that he died a yellow-bellied coward.

The message to me was clear: Don’t be a bitch when you die.

Just a year later, George Jackson would write about the O Wing in Soledad: “The strongest hold out for no more than a couple of weeks... When a white con leaves here, he’s ruined for life. No black leaves Max Row walking.” But O Wing wasn’t even the max, not close, certainly not in terms of punishment and degradation. X Wing was, and X Wing was where Henry, Ray, and I were. O Wing, comparatively, was a cakewalk, and we dreamed of going there someday. I sat on the naked iron bed. I was sick, detoxing off pills and alcohol. I was freezing. On the wall across from me, someone had written Fuck God in shit.

I said, “God, if You’re there, me, Henry, and Ray will be alright. If You’re not, we’re fucked.”

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