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Seven Long Times
Thomas's classic prison memoir
- GenresTrue CrimeLiterature
188 pages, Paperback
First published October 21, 1975
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151 people want to read
About the author
Piri Thomas
15 books75 followersPiri Thomas (born Juan Pedro Tomas September 10, 1928 in Spanish Harlem in New York City) was a Puerto Rican-Cuban who was influential in the Nuyorican Movement as a writer and poet.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 28, 2013
Most of us came in as so-called criminals and will be going out monsters.
They'd made a living out of holding up bars. Take the cash and jewelry. Herd everybody into the bathroom, then push the jukebox or cigarette machine against the closed door.
Then it all went wrong.
Half the police force in plainclothes seemed to be the only customers. It was a crazy feeling. Screams of people drowning in fear and the roar of gunfire filled the smallness of the nightclub. I peered through the murkiness of red and blue lights trying to see my two partners, but they were lost somewhere in the stampede of customers who were trying to duck cops' and robbers' bullets. Part of me felt the fright of the customers, but I pressed the trigger of my gun to fire at the bullets that were coming at me from all directions. The bullets kept whizzing around me like angry bees until one caught me in the chest.
So begins the story of Juan Pedro Thomas' years spent in prison during the early fifties.
The bleeding-heart liberal in me is stunned by the rampant racism and treatment of non-white prisoners by a brutal squad of nearly all white guards.
Some cats were said to have hung themselves and others were allegedly hung by the guards. I never saw a guard hang a prisoner, but I sure as hell saw hacks playing bongo beats on a lot of guys' heads.
Thomas even has trouble obtaining a haircut from a prison barber whose scissors are for "white hair" only.
The mom-who-worries-every-time-her-kids-leave-the-house in me, feels differently. She wants to scream, "YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU FIRED A GUN INTO A BAR FILLED WITH PEOPLE! That means you are not a so-called criminal. You ARE a CRIMINAL, and you deserve whatever you get!"
Thomas' tendency to gloss over the severity of his crime was the only thing that annoyed me about this book. It also seems to me that his time inside was well spent. He was taught masonry, learned to play the guitar and got his high school diploma. I doubt those same years spent on the outside would have been used as productively.
By the end of the book, the liberal gal was back again, as Thomas brings up some excellent points during an imaginary letter he writes to the parole board:
Don't use these goddamn jailhouses for revenge 'cause a lot of us will wait patiently for our time to come, and go outside rehabilitated all right, but for the worst.
You ain't got a right to create time bombs in prison, and then turn us loose on the outside.
And he also got me with the Appendix:
If I had been a second-class citizen before I went to prison, and a third-class citizen in prison, I was a fourth-class citizen upon my release.
Whatever rehabilitation came to me, most of it came from other inmates and from myself.
I really don't know what reforms have taken place in the almost 60 years since Thomas served his sentence. I do know one thing that has not changed. If you're going to commit a crime in this country, make sure you're white and have wealthy parents.
They'd made a living out of holding up bars. Take the cash and jewelry. Herd everybody into the bathroom, then push the jukebox or cigarette machine against the closed door.
Then it all went wrong.
Half the police force in plainclothes seemed to be the only customers. It was a crazy feeling. Screams of people drowning in fear and the roar of gunfire filled the smallness of the nightclub. I peered through the murkiness of red and blue lights trying to see my two partners, but they were lost somewhere in the stampede of customers who were trying to duck cops' and robbers' bullets. Part of me felt the fright of the customers, but I pressed the trigger of my gun to fire at the bullets that were coming at me from all directions. The bullets kept whizzing around me like angry bees until one caught me in the chest.
So begins the story of Juan Pedro Thomas' years spent in prison during the early fifties.
The bleeding-heart liberal in me is stunned by the rampant racism and treatment of non-white prisoners by a brutal squad of nearly all white guards.
Some cats were said to have hung themselves and others were allegedly hung by the guards. I never saw a guard hang a prisoner, but I sure as hell saw hacks playing bongo beats on a lot of guys' heads.
Thomas even has trouble obtaining a haircut from a prison barber whose scissors are for "white hair" only.
The mom-who-worries-every-time-her-kids-leave-the-house in me, feels differently. She wants to scream, "YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU FIRED A GUN INTO A BAR FILLED WITH PEOPLE! That means you are not a so-called criminal. You ARE a CRIMINAL, and you deserve whatever you get!"
Thomas' tendency to gloss over the severity of his crime was the only thing that annoyed me about this book. It also seems to me that his time inside was well spent. He was taught masonry, learned to play the guitar and got his high school diploma. I doubt those same years spent on the outside would have been used as productively.
By the end of the book, the liberal gal was back again, as Thomas brings up some excellent points during an imaginary letter he writes to the parole board:
Don't use these goddamn jailhouses for revenge 'cause a lot of us will wait patiently for our time to come, and go outside rehabilitated all right, but for the worst.
You ain't got a right to create time bombs in prison, and then turn us loose on the outside.
And he also got me with the Appendix:
If I had been a second-class citizen before I went to prison, and a third-class citizen in prison, I was a fourth-class citizen upon my release.
Whatever rehabilitation came to me, most of it came from other inmates and from myself.
I really don't know what reforms have taken place in the almost 60 years since Thomas served his sentence. I do know one thing that has not changed. If you're going to commit a crime in this country, make sure you're white and have wealthy parents.
March 22, 2020
Another great book! It actually takes you behind prison walls.
February 27, 2023
excellent book
Currently reading
June 5, 2010i was currently rezadaing this book it got cornie it was talking bout something butt i forgot like i think it was i stoped at page 20 and then it started to get
August 23, 2010
Probably one of the earlier books on life in prisons. c 1974 Still heartbreaking.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews