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Merle Haggard (Pt. 1): A Christmas Robbery Leads To Hard Time at San Quentin · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:13
Speaker 1: Merle Haggard are insane. He turned twenty one in prison,
0:18
Speaker 1: not just any prison, but one of the most hardcore
0:21
Speaker 1: prisons in the country, San Quentin, and though he wasn't
0:25
Speaker 1: doing life without parole like the song says, he did
0:28
Speaker 1: serve an indefinite sentence of six months to fifteen years.
0:33
Speaker 1: He was what authorities called a repeat offender. He was
0:37
Speaker 1: arrested for riding trains, for skipping school, for stealing cars,
0:41
Speaker 1: for robbing a gas station, for attempting to knock over
0:44
Speaker 1: a restaurant on Christmas Eve. He was committed to juvenile halls,
0:49
Speaker 1: correctional facilities, and reform schools seventeen times, and every time
0:55
Speaker 1: he escaped. This all happened before Merle Haggard ever great music,
1:01
Speaker 1: music that many would consider the platonic ideal of country music.
1:05
Speaker 1: Music that went all the way to number one on
1:07
Speaker 1: the country charts thirty eight times. Unlike that clip I
1:11
Speaker 1: played for you at the top of the show. That
1:13
Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my
1:16
Speaker 1: melotron called Unpainted Maricopa MK one. I played you that
1:22
Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to April Love
1:26
Speaker 1: by Pat Boone, And why would I play you that
1:29
Speaker 1: specific slice of white buck clean cut cheese? Could I
1:32
Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
1:36
Speaker 1: America on December twenty fifth, nineteen fifty seven, And that
1:41
Speaker 1: was the day that Merle Haggard was arrested for the
1:43
Speaker 1: last time, then sent away to do the hardest time
1:47
Speaker 1: of his life on this episode, riding trains, skipping school,
1:53
Speaker 1: stealing cars, doing hard time. In country Music's repeat, Fender
1:58
Speaker 1: bru Haggard, I'm Jake Brennan and this this disgrace slam.
2:29
Speaker 1: He stood at the railroad tracks and waited for the
2:31
Speaker 1: next train. He listened for the lonesome whistle, the rumble
2:36
Speaker 1: of an engine, the high pitched squeal of steel on steel.
2:40
Speaker 1: He knew those sounds by heart. They were the sounds
2:43
Speaker 1: of escape, of freedom, sounds that took him far away
2:46
Speaker 1: from here, anywhere but here. When he was just a kid,
2:53
Speaker 1: before he ever stepped foot on a freight, he watched
2:55
Speaker 1: people climb aboard the Southern Pacific. He wondered what life
2:59
Speaker 1: would feel like to just go leave everything behind. He
3:03
Speaker 1: imagined it would be just like it was in the
3:05
Speaker 1: Jimmy Rogers songs. He imagined places miles and miles down
3:09
Speaker 1: the track. Places there weren't Oildale, this dirt poor help
3:13
Speaker 1: of dust bowl migrants, Oakie's and archies too broke to
3:17
Speaker 1: find refuge nearby Bakersfield. His father was one of those okies, proud, hardworking,
3:24
Speaker 1: a provider. But his father was dead. Merle Haggard was
3:28
Speaker 1: just nine when his daddy passed. His mama tried to
3:32
Speaker 1: raise him better, but well, with his daddy gone and all,
3:35
Speaker 1: she was busy working full time to make ends. Me
3:38
Speaker 1: Meurle felt like a loner, like he was in someone
3:41
Speaker 1: else's skin. Oildale meant nothing to him. He passed the
3:45
Speaker 1: time down at the train tracks, watching the box cars
3:48
Speaker 1: barrel by. He wrote his first box car at age eleven,
3:52
Speaker 1: took him all the way to Fresnow. That was a
3:54
Speaker 1: day for the books, not just because it was his
3:56
Speaker 1: first time hopping a free It was the first time
3:58
Speaker 1: Merreau Haggard wound up police custody, and it would be
4:02
Speaker 1: far from the last. He kept writing Amarilla vegas La.
4:08
Speaker 1: He left time and time again with nothing but a
4:10
Speaker 1: guitar on his back, and if leaving home at occasionally
4:13
Speaker 1: getting roughed up by the cops, tossed into the back
4:16
Speaker 1: of a patrol car, thrown into a jail cell. Any
4:18
Speaker 1: of that was better than the fucking school. Merle could handle.
4:22
Speaker 1: The cops. Cops were a temporary nuisance. Now the people.
4:26
Speaker 1: The cops handed him over to the teachers, the truant officers,
4:29
Speaker 1: his mama. They were persistent. They'd never let up. In turn,
4:34
Speaker 1: they made Merle Haggard persistent in his pursuit of freedom.
4:38
Speaker 1: Why the hell would he sit and listen to a
4:40
Speaker 1: masth teacher drone on about A squared minus B squared
4:43
Speaker 1: equals whatever the fuck when he could be out here,
4:45
Speaker 1: really living. Merle Haggard wanted to be turned loose and
4:49
Speaker 1: set free. And it wasn't just school. It was Juvenile Hall,
4:53
Speaker 1: or the Fred c Nell's School for Boys, or the
4:55
Speaker 1: Preston School of Industry, any of those quote unquote institutes
4:59
Speaker 1: for low or education, as Merreau called on. These places
5:03
Speaker 1: had tried to hold him down and cure him of
5:04
Speaker 1: his restlessness. They were stasis, they were adults. They couldn't
5:08
Speaker 1: fucking wait to tell you don't do that. They were bullshit.
5:11
Speaker 1: So Merle Haggard escaped from every single one seventeen times.
5:15
Speaker 1: Seventeen times he broke out of whatever institution he was
5:18
Speaker 1: institutionalized in, and he was caught seventeen times and broke
5:21
Speaker 1: out again. No one was going to tell Merle Haggard
5:25
Speaker 1: he couldn't run free. Now it was nineteen fifty seven
5:29
Speaker 1: and he was twenty years old. He stared out at
5:31
Speaker 1: the empty train tracks, and though he was no longer
5:34
Speaker 1: a kid, he still wanted nothing more than to get
5:36
Speaker 1: on a freight and leave everything behind. There was just
5:40
Speaker 1: one problem. It was Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve meant that
5:44
Speaker 1: no trains were running. If there were no trains running,
5:47
Speaker 1: and then Merle Haggard couldn't get out of town. And
5:49
Speaker 1: if Merle Haggard couldn't get out of town, well, Merle
5:52
Speaker 1: Haggard was fucked. He was still drunk, so drunk that
5:57
Speaker 1: he felt like he was going to be sick. He
5:59
Speaker 1: doubled over in anticipation of spilling his guts all over
6:02
Speaker 1: the dirt ground. He thought about Leona, how he just
6:05
Speaker 1: left her in the car with the baby, took off
6:07
Speaker 1: on foot as soon as the patrol car rolled up
6:09
Speaker 1: behind them. He didn't even know why. Leona came with
6:12
Speaker 1: him in the first place. She was in one of
6:14
Speaker 1: those moods where she was busy hating his guts, not
6:17
Speaker 1: that he could blame her. His life as a struggling
6:21
Speaker 1: musician was constantly being overshadowed by his life as a
6:24
Speaker 1: struggling criminal. He couldn't stop doing dumb shit, stealing cars,
6:28
Speaker 1: stealing money, even sleeping around. The sleeping around and the
6:32
Speaker 1: stealing cars he did just to do, But the stealing
6:35
Speaker 1: money that was necessary because he and Leona were broke
6:39
Speaker 1: as shit with one baby and another baby on the way,
6:42
Speaker 1: and there were no good jobs for an honest man anymore.
6:45
Speaker 1: And Merle Haggard was an honest man. But you want
6:48
Speaker 1: to talk honesty, real honesty, A man's going to do
6:51
Speaker 1: what a man's going to do. To Merle Haggard, that
6:55
Speaker 1: was honesty. And so tonight Murrow and his buddy planned
6:59
Speaker 1: a break canto a restaurant after hours and take all
7:01
Speaker 1: the cash in the register. If Leona wanted to tag along,
7:04
Speaker 1: whatever he knew better than I argue with a pregnant woman,
7:07
Speaker 1: especially on Christmas Eve. Leona turned out to be the
7:12
Speaker 1: least of Merle's problems. He was so drunk that he
7:15
Speaker 1: thought it was later in the evening that it actually was.
7:17
Speaker 1: He thought the place was closed up and empty, and
7:19
Speaker 1: he realized his mistake after turning to pry open the
7:22
Speaker 1: back door with a crowbar. He struggled to jimmy the
7:24
Speaker 1: door free, and then suddenly the thing swung wide open,
7:27
Speaker 1: no thanks to Merle's drunk an effort. Standing before him
7:30
Speaker 1: was the owner of the Giant. Merle peeped inside. The
7:34
Speaker 1: place was packed. The owner laughed, why don't you boys
7:38
Speaker 1: try the front door like everyone else. Merle panicked and
7:42
Speaker 1: ran back to the car. He climbed in the driver's seat.
7:44
Speaker 1: His buddy jumped to the passenger seat. Leona was yelling
7:47
Speaker 1: from the back seat, and the baby was crying. The
7:50
Speaker 1: owner of the restaurant was on the phone of the cops.
7:52
Speaker 1: Merrell backed up quickly and then threw it into first.
7:55
Speaker 1: He slammed his boot down on the gas. The wheels
7:58
Speaker 1: kicked up dirt, and the car shot off into the night,
8:00
Speaker 1: leaving behind a plane of California dust. The cop hanging
8:03
Speaker 1: out a few blocks away saw a car fly by
8:05
Speaker 1: without its headlights on. He hit his bright as shit
8:08
Speaker 1: red lights and fired up the siren. Merle knew the
8:13
Speaker 1: police weren't going to arrest the pregnant woman and her child,
8:16
Speaker 1: but they'd throw the book at him if they caught him,
8:18
Speaker 1: and not just for attempting to break into a restaurant.
8:21
Speaker 1: There was that gas station he knocked over a while back.
8:24
Speaker 1: They hadn't fingered him for it yet, but they would.
8:26
Speaker 1: And there was the hard time he just did nine
8:29
Speaker 1: long months in the Ventura County jail for grand theft auto.
8:33
Speaker 1: At some point the law was going to lock him
8:35
Speaker 1: up and throw away the key. Merle figured he could
8:37
Speaker 1: escape such a fate by doing what he always did, escape,
8:41
Speaker 1: So as soon as he saw those red lights behind him,
8:44
Speaker 1: Murrell hit the brakes, put it in park, opened the
8:46
Speaker 1: driver's side door, and ran. But now there was nowhere
8:51
Speaker 1: else to run to, no trains to hop, nothing to
8:54
Speaker 1: do but accept what he had coming. He turned around,
8:58
Speaker 1: the train tracks now at his back, and raised his
9:00
Speaker 1: hands in the air, and then he was taken to
9:02
Speaker 1: a place he knew all too well, a jail cell.
9:09
Speaker 1: The next morning, on Christmas Day, kids in Oildale and
9:12
Speaker 1: Bakersfield woke up to presence under their trees, just as
9:15
Speaker 1: they had expected. At the police station. However, cops found
9:20
Speaker 1: not that something had bent delivered, but that something was missing.
9:24
Speaker 1: The prison cell was empty, just like old Sandy Claus,
9:28
Speaker 1: and just like a train. Merle Haggard was gone. If
9:53
Speaker 1: he sat perfectly still, the irons clamped around his legs
9:57
Speaker 1: and his wrists would stop rubbing against his skin. It
10:00
Speaker 1: gave him a brief moment to close his eyes and
10:02
Speaker 1: pretend he wasn't here. Then the bus who'd hit a
10:05
Speaker 1: bump in the road to the guy who was shackled
10:07
Speaker 1: to would wiggle around, and he'd feel it again, cold
10:11
Speaker 1: steel biting into his ankles in his hands, and it
10:14
Speaker 1: wasn't just touching his physical body. The irons were clamped
10:18
Speaker 1: around his mind, and that was clamped tight. He knew
10:23
Speaker 1: he'd fucked up. He fucked up when he tried to
10:25
Speaker 1: break into that restaurant and again when he busted out
10:28
Speaker 1: of that Baker's Field jail cell on Christmas Day. In
10:31
Speaker 1: his defense, the cell door was wide open. He just
10:34
Speaker 1: walked out. He knew that didn't make it right, but
10:37
Speaker 1: it sure has hell made it hard not to do.
10:40
Speaker 1: The chief of police put out an apb Merle's picture
10:43
Speaker 1: was all over the news. He kept low and made
10:45
Speaker 1: his way to his older brother's house. He rang the doorbell.
10:48
Speaker 1: He could hear Carol's being sung inside. The door opened,
10:52
Speaker 1: and the warm smell of the holiday feast wafted out
10:55
Speaker 1: into the cold night. He looked up the deputy with
10:58
Speaker 1: a shotgun aimed at orl chest wished him a merry Christmas.
11:02
Speaker 1: A local judge didn't have to look at his rap
11:04
Speaker 1: sheet twice. Shit was as long as a California highway.
11:10
Speaker 1: Merle was persona non grata. There was only one place
11:13
Speaker 1: left for him to go. The drive up from Chino
11:17
Speaker 1: took hours. He could see San Quentin for miles there
11:21
Speaker 1: in the distance, a monster of lights and smoke that
11:24
Speaker 1: lurked in the january rain. At one point, the bus
11:28
Speaker 1: stopped for food, but he couldn't eat. His stomach was
11:31
Speaker 1: in knots. He was nine years old again, a boy
11:34
Speaker 1: without a daddy, a stranger in someone else's skin. Once
11:38
Speaker 1: inside the prison walls, the knots grew tighter. He was
11:41
Speaker 1: still living out those Jimmy Rodgers' songs, all right. But
11:44
Speaker 1: instead of waiting for a train, he had moved in
11:47
Speaker 1: the jailhouse now, and in the jailhouse the fear took hold.
11:52
Speaker 1: The fear took hold in the form of those invisible
11:54
Speaker 1: irons clamped around his mind. Even after the ones around
11:57
Speaker 1: his legs and hands were removed, they put him in
11:59
Speaker 1: an eye of five sell catcalls and whistles bounced off
12:03
Speaker 1: the walls. Blood curling screams of absolute terror echoed to
12:07
Speaker 1: the halls, and the screams of violent penetration and subhuman
12:11
Speaker 1: violation it began to shake them. No one was coming
12:14
Speaker 1: to help. He was on his own in every possible way.
12:17
Speaker 1: Forget about lasting for the entirety of his indefinite sentence,
12:20
Speaker 1: a sentence of six months of fifteen years. What the
12:23
Speaker 1: hell was that all about? There was no way in
12:25
Speaker 1: hell he was going to get through one night in
12:27
Speaker 1: this place. But Merle Haggard had an upper hand inside
12:31
Speaker 1: sant Quentin that many of the other condemned men did not.
12:34
Speaker 1: He spent the majority of his teenage years locked up somewhere.
12:38
Speaker 1: He knew how to live on the inside. He also
12:40
Speaker 1: knew how to break on through to the outside, and
12:42
Speaker 1: so Merle Haggard did. In fact, turned twenty one in prison,
12:46
Speaker 1: but not before he found himself once again thinking about
12:49
Speaker 1: freedom and about escape. Sometimes escape was in a few
12:54
Speaker 1: chords on his Martin guitar. The guitar was the only
12:57
Speaker 1: thing he brought inside San Quentin, and then with good
12:59
Speaker 1: behavior came the chance to play it out in the yard.
13:02
Speaker 1: The music took him somewhere else, somewhere beyond the walls
13:05
Speaker 1: of the prison. It took him back to four years earlier,
13:08
Speaker 1: when he was just sixteen, holding an entirely different guitar
13:12
Speaker 1: in his hands, a guitar with an oversized Gibson J
13:15
Speaker 1: two hundred body, Bigsby neck, fender headstock, the pick guard
13:19
Speaker 1: with the name of its owner etched in gold. Lefty
13:22
Speaker 1: Frizelle's guitar was as unique as Lefty, not unlike Merle.
13:27
Speaker 1: Moreau could sing just like Lefty. It wasn't a parlor trick, though.
13:31
Speaker 1: It was pure talent, as pure as the sound of
13:33
Speaker 1: his voice. No bum notes, no flats, no sharps, just pure,
13:37
Speaker 1: just like Lefty. Merle wasn't supposed to meet Lefty that night,
13:41
Speaker 1: just watching perform at the Rainbow Gardens in Baker's Field,
13:45
Speaker 1: but his friend insisted they bust into Lefty's dressing room
13:47
Speaker 1: so that Moreau could impress the man with this impression
13:50
Speaker 1: Merle fully expected Lefty's entourage to kick their asses out
13:53
Speaker 1: the door and onto the street. But Lefty had a
13:55
Speaker 1: few pops in him, and he was curious. Go ahead, son,
13:58
Speaker 1: let's see what you got left. He liked it so
14:01
Speaker 1: much that he asked Merle to go up on stage
14:03
Speaker 1: right then in there and open his show. But Sam
14:06
Speaker 1: Quentin wasn't the Rainbow Gardens. Merle picked a grin for
14:10
Speaker 1: a few minutes in the yard before the party was over.
14:12
Speaker 1: He was a flight risk. Thus he was placed on
14:15
Speaker 1: what they called close custody. That meant back to your
14:18
Speaker 1: cell by four in the afternoon every day. That man
14:21
Speaker 1: shut the fuck up playing that guitar. That meant you
14:23
Speaker 1: didn't get to sit in with the prison band at
14:25
Speaker 1: the wardens show at night. With no music to take
14:29
Speaker 1: him out of his own mind, Murle was stuck fixating
14:32
Speaker 1: on his tiny cell and this fucked up existence. The
14:36
Speaker 1: roaches under your bunk and that rat shet in your food.
14:39
Speaker 1: The guys who got killed before your very eyes not
14:42
Speaker 1: killed the legal way either, not by the gas chamber,
14:44
Speaker 1: but by the hands of other inmates. They hit, they clawed,
14:48
Speaker 1: they stabbed, they bit. Some asshole got a shake shout
14:51
Speaker 1: into his chest because he said the wrong thing. The
14:53
Speaker 1: blood spurted like water from a kinked up garden hose.
14:56
Speaker 1: Someone else was scalded to death in the laundry room.
14:59
Speaker 1: Others just went crazy, like shitty Fred Name because he
15:02
Speaker 1: was literally covered in his own shit. Twenty four to seven.
15:06
Speaker 1: Murrell had something else all over him, a fungus multiplying
15:09
Speaker 1: on his fingers from working in the laundry room. It
15:12
Speaker 1: ate holes through his nails. It was fucking gross. He
15:17
Speaker 1: wanted nothing more than to get out. The fact that
15:20
Speaker 1: no one had escaped from San Quentin in thirteen years
15:23
Speaker 1: only made him want to do it more, and Rabbits
15:25
Speaker 1: plan seemed fool proof. Rabbit aka Jimmy Kendrick was doing
15:30
Speaker 1: time for robbery. He told Merle he was going to
15:33
Speaker 1: break out of the joint at a desk. It was huge,
15:36
Speaker 1: solid wood, heavy as a motherfucker who was built for
15:39
Speaker 1: a judge by the prison furniture factory. That was rich,
15:43
Speaker 1: and that night the truck was going to pick it
15:44
Speaker 1: up and drive it away. The desk was so heavy
15:47
Speaker 1: that no one was going to notice a couple hundred
15:49
Speaker 1: extra pounds inside. In fact, the desk was so big
15:53
Speaker 1: that two people could fit inside, seem like a shirt thing. Rabbit, however,
15:58
Speaker 1: wasn't so sure about Mrle getting involved. You're welcome to
16:01
Speaker 1: come with me, Rabbit told him. But I think he'd
16:03
Speaker 1: been making a huge mistake. Merle gave him a puzzled look. Look, man,
16:08
Speaker 1: I'm doing life without parole, Rabbit explained, there's no chance
16:11
Speaker 1: I'll ever get out of here. But you have a chance.
16:14
Speaker 1: Six months, fifteen years, who knows, But at some point
16:17
Speaker 1: you will get out and you can play guitar and sing.
16:20
Speaker 1: I can't do shit. Don't fuck this up. Merle. Haggard
16:26
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy being told what to do, even by hardened criminals,
16:30
Speaker 1: but Rabbit's words made him feel uneasy. Rabbit's perspective gave
16:34
Speaker 1: him pause. Suddenly, the sure thing felt like the wrong thing.
16:38
Speaker 1: Merle bailed at the last minute. Rabbit rode that desk
16:41
Speaker 1: out of San Quentin all on his own. A few
16:45
Speaker 1: weeks after his escape, Rabbit shot and killed a cop.
16:48
Speaker 1: He came back to San Quentin a dead man. Walking
16:52
Speaker 1: from the yard, Merle looked over towards the north block.
16:55
Speaker 1: Everyone in the yard was watching the chimney above Death
16:58
Speaker 1: Row coughed up grace. Small gray smoke meant that it
17:01
Speaker 1: was done, that the execution had been carried out. Rabbit's
17:07
Speaker 1: death weighed heavy on Merle's mind. That could have been him.
17:11
Speaker 1: He could have escaped with the rabbit. Maybe he would
17:13
Speaker 1: have been there when Rabbit shot that cop. Maybe he
17:15
Speaker 1: too would have been hauled back here and walked up
17:18
Speaker 1: to that same chamber, that same chair, waiting for that
17:21
Speaker 1: little sax Si, and I had to fall into the
17:23
Speaker 1: bucket of acid, and then the world would be gas
17:26
Speaker 1: and he'd never see anything again, let alone the outside.
17:31
Speaker 2: Naw.
17:32
Speaker 1: The only way out of this place was the legit
17:34
Speaker 1: way parole. But the parole board took one look at
17:40
Speaker 1: his inability to hold down a job inside the prison
17:43
Speaker 1: and decided that he wasn't taking his rehabilitation seriously enough.
17:47
Speaker 1: He was far from ready to walk out the front door.
17:50
Speaker 1: The more he thought about it, the more he wondered.
17:52
Speaker 1: Didn't even want to see what was waiting for him
17:54
Speaker 1: beyond that door. A daughter who would recognize him, a
17:57
Speaker 1: son he never met, and Leone pregnant once again, but
18:01
Speaker 1: not by Merle, by another man, another man sleeping in
18:06
Speaker 1: Merle's bed, wearing Merle's clothes, fucking Merle's wife, Merle's head, spawn,
18:13
Speaker 1: the prison, Leona, his children, They all gave up on him.
18:16
Speaker 1: What did it even matter? Fuck good behavior and a
18:19
Speaker 1: strong work ethic, and fuck taking the shit seriously. If
18:22
Speaker 1: he was going to be in here for the long haul,
18:24
Speaker 1: he might as well make it interesting, might as well
18:26
Speaker 1: get good and drunk too. He gathered orange peels and
18:30
Speaker 1: apple corus from the trash, mixed them together with some sugar, yeast,
18:34
Speaker 1: and water, and made well, I don't know what you'd
18:36
Speaker 1: call it. It wasn't beer, and it wasn't wine. It
18:38
Speaker 1: absolutely was some rancid yet potent swill made under extremely
18:42
Speaker 1: unsanitary conditions and served in empty milk curtains. And it
18:47
Speaker 1: fucked you. Uh fuck Merle up so good that he
18:50
Speaker 1: stumbled when he walked. The guards could smell him coming
18:53
Speaker 1: before they saw him, and when they did see him,
18:55
Speaker 1: when they saw dozens of prisoners suddenly drinking an unusual
18:58
Speaker 1: amount of milk, they knew exactly what was going on,
19:01
Speaker 1: and Merle Haggard knew exactly where he was going. Isolation.
19:10
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word. Years later,
19:22
Speaker 1: when Merle Haggard was busy sending thirty eight songs to
19:25
Speaker 1: the top of the country charts. Johnny Cash told him,
19:28
Speaker 1: hag you're the guy people think I am. Johnny Cash
19:32
Speaker 1: had that outlaw chic on lock. One of the most
19:35
Speaker 1: famous songs, fulsome Prison Blues, is about shooting a man
19:38
Speaker 1: in reno just to watch him die. But Johnny Cash
19:41
Speaker 1: didn't live the life of a criminal, not like Merle Haggard.
19:45
Speaker 1: Merle songs, both his originals and the ones he made
19:48
Speaker 1: his own, were all rooted in truth, a truth that
19:52
Speaker 1: he lived. Merle Haggard was authentic. Johnny Cash knew this.
19:57
Speaker 1: Merle didn't just sing about being a lonesome fugitive. He
20:00
Speaker 1: was a on some fugitive. His mama did try to
20:03
Speaker 1: raise him better. He did turn twenty one in prison. Okay,
20:07
Speaker 1: it wasn't doing life without parole, but that sounds a
20:09
Speaker 1: whole lot better as a lyric than doing an interminate
20:12
Speaker 1: sentences six months to fifteen years. And as yet another
20:16
Speaker 1: Merl song goes, he'd been everywhere he talked about. He
20:20
Speaker 1: did it all. He even got arrested inside prison. He
20:26
Speaker 1: woke up on a cold cement's lab. He tried to
20:28
Speaker 1: adjust his eyes to the darkness of the tiny room,
20:31
Speaker 1: but his eyes hurt like hell. His head was pounding,
20:35
Speaker 1: and that Prisonhoch may have gotten them good in the
20:37
Speaker 1: shit face, but left behind one hell of a hangover.
20:41
Speaker 1: He remembered hearing the sound of the thirty thirty cocky
20:44
Speaker 1: and then the guard yelling his name from up on
20:46
Speaker 1: the catwalk, but he didn't remember being brought down in
20:49
Speaker 1: here didn't matter. He knew where he was. Everyone on
20:52
Speaker 1: the inside knew about this place. They called it the shelf,
20:56
Speaker 1: the sixth floor of the North Block. Sometimes the guard
21:00
Speaker 1: brought him a mattress. Hours later another guard would come
21:02
Speaker 1: take it away. He didn't have a pillow, so he
21:05
Speaker 1: used the Bible that he found in the corner for
21:06
Speaker 1: a place to lay his head. Seven days of this,
21:10
Speaker 1: seven days of being stuck inside his own head. But
21:14
Speaker 1: Merle Haggard wasn't alone. He heard voices, voices that weren't
21:18
Speaker 1: his own. Sometimes they were muffled, and other times they
21:21
Speaker 1: were clear as a bell. Jesus, he was going insane.
21:25
Speaker 1: His own mind finally turned on him, just like the
21:28
Speaker 1: parole board and Leona and everyone else. He tried to
21:31
Speaker 1: think of nothing, not the ferment, that orange peels, on
21:34
Speaker 1: his wife, on a pair of some other girls tits,
21:36
Speaker 1: and definitely on a train. Just nothing, and that only
21:40
Speaker 1: made things worse. Though the voices got clearer. His eyes
21:44
Speaker 1: scanned the dark room and there was an air van
21:46
Speaker 1: on the wall. He scooted closer to it, and the
21:49
Speaker 1: voices got louder. Guess what, goddamn man, the first voice said.
21:55
Speaker 1: The second voice quickly answered, I can't guess what was it?
21:58
Speaker 1: I got a life insurance policy. Can you believe that?
22:02
Speaker 1: The men's laughter echoed inside the air vent one bone
22:05
Speaker 1: to five gallows humor. Merle didn't recognize the second voice,
22:12
Speaker 1: but he knew the first. Everyone on the inside knew
22:14
Speaker 1: that voice. Everyone on the outside too. That voice belonged
22:18
Speaker 1: to the most famous prisoner in America, Carol Chessman aka
22:23
Speaker 1: the Red Light Bandit. Sam Quentin's celebrity death row had
22:27
Speaker 1: made for nearly a decade. Now. He was facing the
22:30
Speaker 1: gas chamber for two counts of sexual as self committed
22:32
Speaker 1: during a crime screen. He said he was innocent. He
22:35
Speaker 1: fought his fate with appeal after appeal, close to fifteen total.
22:39
Speaker 1: Sometimes he was walked down to the chamber just minutes
22:42
Speaker 1: from death, when a call came through that he'd been
22:44
Speaker 1: given another stay of execution. Merle decided at last to
22:48
Speaker 1: speak up. He was going to go fucking crazy if
22:51
Speaker 1: he did not talk to someone else for seven days.
22:53
Speaker 1: Jasmine Carol Chessman acknowledged Merle's voice. How's your appeal going?
23:00
Speaker 1: Very well, Chessman answered, I just talked to my attorney.
23:03
Speaker 1: He isn't word at all. Chessman sounded so calm, so zen.
23:10
Speaker 1: The guy had to be off his nut. A place
23:12
Speaker 1: like Sant Quentin just didn't give up a guy like
23:14
Speaker 1: Carol Chessman. It didn't matter if he was guilty or not.
23:18
Speaker 1: He was there now, in the belly of the beast,
23:20
Speaker 1: inside a nine by five room on death row, just
23:24
Speaker 1: prolonging the inevitable. Merle Haggard could see the inevitable more
23:28
Speaker 1: clearly than ever before. It flashed before his eyes, not
23:32
Speaker 1: his life, at first his death. He thought about five, ten,
23:37
Speaker 1: fifteen more years inside Saint Quentin, if he ever made
23:40
Speaker 1: it that long, and he could catch the end of
23:42
Speaker 1: a sharp knife or a clenched fist, maybe worse. He
23:45
Speaker 1: saw his own body twitching on the floor of the
23:47
Speaker 1: mess hall, bleeding out from his head. He watched as
23:50
Speaker 1: a withered up shell of his former self wheezed out
23:52
Speaker 1: his final breath in the corner of the shelf. He
23:55
Speaker 1: heard the hiss of gas in the chambers. The bag
23:57
Speaker 1: of cyanide hit the acid. His eyeball started to swell
24:01
Speaker 1: until they were too big to fit in their sockets,
24:03
Speaker 1: and they just burst wide open. Merle shuddered. He didn't
24:07
Speaker 1: want to ever find out what any of that felt like.
24:09
Speaker 1: He didn't want to end up like Rabbit or like
24:11
Speaker 1: Carol Chessman. Chessman was eventually let inside San Quentin's infamous
24:18
Speaker 1: gas chamber one last time, and it never came out
24:22
Speaker 1: Once again. Merle and the others watched from the yard
24:25
Speaker 1: as gray smoke coughed out of the chimney above death row.
24:28
Speaker 1: He didn't let it get to him. In fact, he
24:31
Speaker 1: galvanized him. He was going to get out of San Quentin.
24:34
Speaker 1: It would be hard doing anything the honest way. It
24:37
Speaker 1: was hard, but it wasn't going out like Chessman. He
24:40
Speaker 1: took orders and did as he was told. That was
24:42
Speaker 1: some bullshit, for sure, but it was necessary. The prison
24:45
Speaker 1: textile factory was the hardest gig on the inside. So
24:48
Speaker 1: he had a focus, showed him he could do the work.
24:51
Speaker 1: He got good marks, his close custody designation was lifted,
24:55
Speaker 1: and soon he had more time with his guitar. He
24:57
Speaker 1: could play in the warden's band, becoming a model prisoner,
25:01
Speaker 1: a guy determined to make a second parole. He was
25:04
Speaker 1: living his truth. Anyone could see that, even Johnny Cash.
25:10
Speaker 1: But on New Year's Day of nineteen fifty nine, Johnny
25:13
Speaker 1: Cash didn't know Merle Haggard from a hole in one
25:15
Speaker 1: of San Quentin's walls. To Cash, Merle was just another
25:18
Speaker 1: criminal doing time, Another face and a sea of inmates
25:21
Speaker 1: gathered to listen to Johnny Cash and his band perform
25:24
Speaker 1: right there in prison. Merle Haggard, on the other hand,
25:27
Speaker 1: knew exactly who Johnny Cash was. Not the iconic country
25:30
Speaker 1: superstar that he would later become, and not the good
25:33
Speaker 1: samaritan who was making a habit of performing at prisons
25:35
Speaker 1: for a portion of the population that the rest of
25:37
Speaker 1: society ignored. Johnny Cash was a man who made Merle
25:41
Speaker 1: and every last prisoner in San Quentin forget where they
25:44
Speaker 1: were that day. Backed by the Tennessee Too Marshall grant
25:49
Speaker 1: On Das and Luther Perkins on guitar, along with his
25:52
Speaker 1: future wife June Carter. Johnny Cash made the walls of
25:55
Speaker 1: that place disappear. His baritone went into his microphone, and
25:58
Speaker 1: he came out of the speaker's in the room changed.
26:02
Speaker 1: San Quentin was no longer a prison. There were no
26:05
Speaker 1: blood curdling screams resonating through the hallways, no puffs of
26:08
Speaker 1: gray smoke rising from the chimney above death row. There
26:12
Speaker 1: was no death row. There was just music. And where
26:16
Speaker 1: there was music, there was escape. Merle Haggard sat up
26:20
Speaker 1: front and listened. He heard his escape plan. It was
26:23
Speaker 1: there and Johnny Cash's voice in the click clacking of
26:26
Speaker 1: Marshall Grant's stand up bass, It sounded like the trains
26:29
Speaker 1: used to listen to as a kid. Johnny Cash didn't
26:32
Speaker 1: know it, but at that moment he set Merul Haggard free.
27:00
Speaker 1: The door to the Big Baker's field House swung wide open,
27:03
Speaker 1: and Merle Haggard stood in the doorway, the low California
27:07
Speaker 1: desert at his back. He had to pinch himself as
27:10
Speaker 1: he crossed the threshold and stepped inside. He could hardly
27:13
Speaker 1: believe that this place belonged to him. It was a mansion,
27:17
Speaker 1: the fancy kind of home and the nice part of
27:18
Speaker 1: town his family never could have afforded back when Merle's
27:21
Speaker 1: a kid, back when okies weren't even welcome on this
27:23
Speaker 1: side of the tracks. Merle Haggard had three things on
27:27
Speaker 1: his side now, time, fame, and money. The money lined
27:32
Speaker 1: his pockets. The money kept rolling in, just like the
27:36
Speaker 1: Southern Pacific headed east. Merle didn't know what to do
27:39
Speaker 1: with himself. There was so much of it. Sometimes he
27:42
Speaker 1: looked in the mirror and didn't even recognize the guy
27:44
Speaker 1: looking back at him. Just four years earlier, in November
27:48
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty, he walked through an entirely different front door,
27:52
Speaker 1: though this time he was headed out and not in.
27:55
Speaker 1: He left San Quentin in the dust, paroled after two
27:58
Speaker 1: years and nine months that indefinite sentence on account of
28:01
Speaker 1: good behavior and a strong work ethic. Here in that
28:04
Speaker 1: parole the hard way, day after day in the textile factory.
28:09
Speaker 1: The work was tough, but with Carol Chessman's departure and
28:12
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash's arrival weighing heavy on his mind, he persevered.
28:16
Speaker 1: He was no longer a lonesome fugitive. He returned home
28:20
Speaker 1: and made an effort to work things out with Leona.
28:22
Speaker 1: In fact, she was pregnant again by Merle this time,
28:25
Speaker 1: but she never really forgave him for doing the things
28:27
Speaker 1: he did, for spending so much of their time together
28:30
Speaker 1: locked up somewhere. He'd even missed the birth of one
28:32
Speaker 1: of his children while he sat in the cell, And
28:35
Speaker 1: just because he was no longer in prison didn't mean
28:37
Speaker 1: Leona saw much more of him. Merle found work, honest work,
28:42
Speaker 1: playing for guys like Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart. Playing
28:45
Speaker 1: meant late nights out of the clubs in Bakersfield or
28:48
Speaker 1: even touring around California Nevada, while Leona was stuck at
28:51
Speaker 1: home playing a housewife. She knew what he did on
28:54
Speaker 1: those late nights and long drives. It was an escape
28:57
Speaker 1: in more ways than one, an escape from home and
29:00
Speaker 1: escape from her. Every time he came home, they fought.
29:04
Speaker 1: Leoner didn't give a shit about his sturdy voice, the
29:06
Speaker 1: one that rang pure as a bell and could mimic
29:08
Speaker 1: any of the greats, the one that blew away his
29:11
Speaker 1: hero left to Frizelle. To her, Merrell's authenticity was not
29:15
Speaker 1: a selling point, but instead a black mark on his name.
29:20
Speaker 1: Merle knew he could prove her wrong. He was going
29:22
Speaker 1: to make her a believer in him. First, he made
29:25
Speaker 1: Capital Records a believer. They made a bet on an
29:28
Speaker 1: ex Cohn when they signed Merle to a record deal,
29:31
Speaker 1: and the bet paid off huge. The money started rolling in.
29:35
Speaker 1: One of his first singles, sing a sad Song, went
29:38
Speaker 1: to number nineteen on the Billboard Country chart. My Friends
29:41
Speaker 1: Are Going to Be Strangers, released in November nineteen sixty four,
29:44
Speaker 1: went all the way to number ten. It was his
29:46
Speaker 1: latest hit that Merle was hoping to celebrate as he
29:48
Speaker 1: stepped inside his new Baker's Field home. But something wasn't right.
29:54
Speaker 1: He knew it before he even opened the door. His
29:57
Speaker 1: fifty seven Chevy was missing from the driveway, The lawn
30:01
Speaker 1: was covered in junk, papers and toys and debris were everywhere. Inside,
30:05
Speaker 1: the rank smell of ammonia hit his nose. Dirty diapers
30:09
Speaker 1: were splayed all over the floor, Cupboards were emptied to
30:12
Speaker 1: chairs were overturned, and trash was strewn on furniture and countertops.
30:16
Speaker 1: And Leona was gone, so were the kids. From outside,
30:22
Speaker 1: he heard the sound of a lonesome whistle, the clattering
30:24
Speaker 1: of box cars banging down the railroad tracks. He wondered
30:28
Speaker 1: where the freight was going. He no longer had the
30:30
Speaker 1: urge to run. He didn't do that anymore, hop trains,
30:34
Speaker 1: but he did move forward. Every day was a song,
30:38
Speaker 1: one that he wrote and another that he lived. There
30:42
Speaker 1: was no turning back, even if the road ahead was bumpy.
30:46
Speaker 1: Forward was the way through, the only way to be free.
30:51
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace Land.
31:05
Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
31:08
Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
31:12
Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
31:15
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Speaker 1: He's a bed well man.