Born to Lose by James G. Hollock

supplies—there weren’t even enough towels or sheets—shortened tempers and aggravated racial discord. Disturbances were frequent.
    â€œAll my days were busy,” Robinson later recalled,
    but sometimes at night I’d walk around and talk to this prisoner or that. I always found the later the hour, the more relaxed the conversation. By reviewing rosters, I knew Hoss had been in the jail since April. I assumed it was for more car thefts or maybe a fight. It wasn’t for a few weeks after his arrival that I saw him in passing. I called him “Stasiu,” his nickname in Polish for Stanislaw, and asked how he was getting on. Alluding to the crowded conditions, Hoss gave me a smile and said, “You got quite a mess on your hands. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Take care of all these other whiners and crybabies.” That’s the Hoss I knew then. Sort of a stand-up guy, making do on his own and never making ridiculous requests like you got all the time from the majority of inmates.
    It must have been another week or two before I had occasion to talk with Hoss, late one night, in his cell. It was July 20. I remember this because NeilArmstrong landed on the moon. Everyone was transfixed by this moment in history. We all watched TV and saw people the world over going nuts, kissing, hugging, popping champagne bottles and joking Armstrong would come back to report the moon really was made of green cheese. Hoss said to me, “Well, if you bastards ever build a prison on the moon, I volunteer to go.” I said I’d sign him up first thing in the morning, and we both laughed.
    Hoss was in a cell by himself. How he wasn’t doubled-up at least, I don’t know, for we truly were always scrambling for cell space, but I know as a general rule we wouldn’t cell together whites and negroes, or blacks as they then wanted to be called. Anyhow, I was surprised to learn that Hoss was convicted of rape and could get some serious time.
    Hoss sat on his bunk wearing prison-issue pants and a strapped undershirt which left exposed two tattoos. The one on his left forearm read, “Born to Lose,” while on his upper right arm was etched a heart with ribbon. Inside the heart was inscribed “Diane,” the name of Hoss’s wife. Hoss told Robinson about the “trumped-up case.” Robinson, who’d heard ten thousand sorry tales of innocence throughout his career, listened as Hoss gave his version of that Good Friday night with that wild teen girl out for vengeance … “an’ I already got an appeal in the works.”
    Robinson made to leave. “Okay, Stasiu, hang in there and good luck. Let me know what’s new.”
    The next day there was yet another disturbance in the jail, not too serious but one more disruption on top of the others that were occurring with worrisome regularity. Robinson again approached the prison board requesting relief for the jail’s bulging population. This time, the board agreed that the situation had become untenable and approved a transfer of three hundred inmates to the Allegheny County Workhouse, half empty at the time. Robinson wasted no time in directing his staff to provide him with a list of inmates good to ship out. Noted in the long columns of names submitted was Stanley Hoss. When he learned of his impending transfer, Hoss was gleeful, for he had already made his ever-fateful decision to escape.
    . . .
    Since the bold breakout by Richard Mayberry and his companions, security at the jail had tightened up considerably. Hoss’s plan, now fomenting, would have a vastly greater chance of success once he got to the Allegheny County Workhouse, which was maintained and serviceable but, after one hundred years, deteriorating or, as Hoss appraised it, “soft.”
    Nine miles up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh, the sprawling workhouse had originally been named the Workhouse and Inebriate Asylum. With its