July 13, 2025

1. Welcome To Paradise

1. Welcome To Paradise

Beauregard "Beau" Thibodaux introduces us to the chaotic opening day of Alligator Alcatraz, a hastily-built detention facility in the Florida Everglades. When drainage systems fail and the intake building floods, Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick III and Deputy Warden Chet McKenzie scramble to maintain the illusion of competence while an eight-foot alligator supervises from the processing area. Enter Tommy Esperanza, a quiet maintenance worker who solves the flooding crisis with practical wisdom, earning his first glimpse of the facility's potential. Through Beau's wry Southern narration, we witness the collision between bureaucratic arrogance and swamp reality—and the beginning of an unlikely transformation.

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WEBVTT

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Calaruga Shark Media.

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I've been in a lot of places where people don't

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want to be county lock up in Baton Rouge that

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smelled like desperation, and Pine saw that federal facility up

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in Beaumont where the guards were meaner than the inmates

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and twice as stupid. Even did sometime in a parish

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jail where the cockroaches paid rent and the rats had

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voting rights. But I ain't never seen nothing quite like

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this place. They call Alligator Alcatraz course that ain't its

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real name. Real names something bureaucratic and forgettable. Dade call

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your Intensive Detention and Processing Facility or some such nonsense

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that sounds like it was named by a committee of

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lawyers who never seen the business end of a pair

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of handcuffs. But when you got gators swimming in the moat,

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they didn't mean to dig in water moccasins using the

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guard towers for sunbathing. Well, some names just stick, like

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Spanish moss on a cypress tree. The thing about this

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place is it was built by folks who never been

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anywhere more rural than a country club golf course. They

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figured they'd stick us out here in the middle of

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nowhere with some prehistoric reptiles for company, and that'd be

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the end of it. Problem solved, as they say in Washington.

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What they didn't figure on was that some of us

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been living with gaiters our whole lives. Hell. My granddaddy

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used to wrestle them for tourist money down in Huma,

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back when a dollar meant something and a man's word

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was worth more than a politician's promise. These boys from

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up north, they think an alligator is like a guard

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dog with bigger teeth in a worse attitude. Shows you

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how much they know about anything that matters. See, they

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got this idea that if you make a place miserable enough,

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uncomfortable enough, dangerous enough, folks will do anything to stay

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away from it. And maybe that works with some people.

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But what they don't understand is that some of us

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been miserable and uncomfortable our whole lives, and we learned

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something they never did, how to make the best of

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a bad situation. That's where this story really starts, not

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with the politicians making speeches or the bureaucrats cutting ribbons,

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but with a man named Thomas Esperanza, Tommy we called him.

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And if you think that name's too convenient for the

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story I'm telling. Well, sometimes life has a sense of

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humor darker than a Louisiana by you at midnight. This

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is episode one, Welcome to Paradise, July fifteenth, twenty twenty five.

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That's the day they opened this place for business, though

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business might be too generous a word for what they

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were trying to do. I was in the first batch

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of what they called residence, though I ain't never lived

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anywhere where residents had to ask permission to use the

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bathroom and got their mail read by strangers. Picture this

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a convoy of buses rolling through the Everglades at dawn,

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air conditioning, struggling against the Florida heat like a one

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legged cat in a sandbox. We're all pressed against the windows,

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trying to figure out where exactly they're taking us, when

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suddenly the road just ends, turns into a dirt track

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that winds through saw grass and cypress trees, passed warning

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signs about alligators that somebody clearly put up in a hurry,

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And then you see it rising out of the swamp

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like some fever dream of efficiency. This collection of prefab

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buildings and chain link fence guard towers that looked like

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they were assembled by people who'd never seen a guard

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tower except in movies, and enough razor wire to gift

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wrap the state capitol. But the thing that really caught

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your attention wasn't the buildings or the fences. It was

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the water. See, when they built this place, they figured

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swamp land was just like any other land, except wetter.

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So they brought in these drainage contractors from up north

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who looked at the Everglades like it was a big

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bathtub that just needed the plug pulled. What they created

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instead was something like Venice, if Venice was designed by

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people who flunked geography and had never seen water that

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didn't come out of a faucet. These drainage ditches they

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dug turned into canals, and the canals filled up with

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every creature that had ever called the Everglades home. I'm

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talking alligators, snakes, turtles, birds, fish, and things I ain't

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got names for. The first bus driver took one look

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at this setup and said, y'all sure this is the

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right place, Like maybe there was another secret government facility

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in the middle of the swamp that was supposed to

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look like something other than a scout camp designed by

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people who'd never been camping. Now, while we're sitting on

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these buses trying to figure out if this is real

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life or some kind of elaborate practical joke. In the

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administrative building, and I use that term loosely, since it

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looked like a double wide trailer with delusions of grandeur.

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Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third was having what you might

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call a moment of realization. Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third. That's

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three generations of men who never worked a day in

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their lives, never got their hands dirty except maybe in

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a garden party, and somehow got put in charge of

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other people's lives. Daddy Fitzpatrick was a judge. Grand Daddy

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Fitzpatrick was a senator, and Little Buckley got this job

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the way most political appointees get their jobs, by knowing

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the right people and writing the right checks. He was

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standing in his office, which had the best air conditioning

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in the facility, naturally, looking out his window at the

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circus unfolding in his front yard, and what he saw

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was not the smooth, military style operation he'd been promised

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by the contractors and consultants who'd built this place. What

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he saw was chaos with a government contract. Three guard

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boats were stuck in the mud because nobody thought to

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check how deep these drainage canals actually were. A maintenance

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crew was trying to figure out why the electronic gate

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system kept opening and closing by itself. Turns out a

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family of raccoons had made a nest in the control box,

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and in the middle of what was supposed to be

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the secure parking area, an eight foot alligator was sunbathing

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on the hood of a patrol car like he owned

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the place, which, when you think about it, he probably did.

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But Buckley Fitzpatrick the Third didn't get where he was

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by admitting mistakes or acknowledging reality when it interfered with

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his plans. He got where he was by having conference

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calls with important people and using words like operational parameters

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and facility optimization. So when his phone rang and some

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deputy assistant under secretary from Washington wanted to as status report,

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Buckley straightened his tie, looked out at the disaster unfolding

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in front of him, and said, in his most confident voice,

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everything is proceeding according to plan. We're implementing dynamic security

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protocols and adaptive management strategies, which is political speak for

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I have no idea what's happening, but I'm going to

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act like I meant for it to happen this way. Meanwhile,

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down in the buses, we're getting our first look at

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the man who is going to change everything, though none

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of us knew it at the time. Tommy Esperanza was

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sitting about three rows back in the second bus, looking

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out the window at this whole mess, with the kind

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of expression you see on a mechanic's face when someone

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brings him a car that's been fixed by their brother

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in law. Not angry, not surprised, just calculating, like he

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was already figuring out how to make things work better.

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Tommy was what they call a maintenance worker, though that

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title don't really capture what he could do. See, Tommy

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had one of those minds that understood how things were

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supposed to fit together. Give him a broken engine and

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he'd have it purring. Show him a leaky roof and

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he'd find a way to fix it with whatever was

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lying around hand. Him a mess of bureaucratic incompetence, and well,

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we were about to find out what he could do

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with that he'd been picked up in one of those

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immigration sweeps they were doing working at a hotel in Miami,

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where he kept the air conditioning running, the elevators working,

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and the guests happy. Been there fifteen years, had a

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work permit, paid his taxes, minded his own business. But

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when they need bodies for their new detention center and

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the headlines are screaming about border security, well, paperwork has

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a way of getting overlooked. Tommy didn't say much on

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that bus ride. Hell, Tommy didn't say much period, but

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he was watching everything, watching how the guards moved, how

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the facility was laid out, where the problems were, and brother,

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there were problems. The first sign things weren't going to

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go smooth was when they tried to unload us. See,

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they had this elaborate receiving process all planned out. We

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were supposed to get off the buses in orderly, groups

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go through processing stations, get assigned to housing units, the

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whole nine yards. Very professional, very efficient, except they hadn't

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counted on the fact that their main processing building was

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currently under water. Turns out, when you dig drainage ditches

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without understanding how water actually works, sometimes the water decides

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to go places you didn't invite it. In this case,

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it decided to take a tour of the administrative complex,

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starting with the basement where they'd installed all their fancy

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computer equipment, and ending up in the main hallway where

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it was having a real good time splashing around. So

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here we are thirty seven confused prisoners on three buses,

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watching guards and knee high boots, waiting around what was

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supposed to be the most secure and efficient detention facility

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in the southeastern United States. And in the distance, that

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eight foot alligator is still sunbathing on the patrol car,

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occasionally opening one eye to see what all the fuss

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is about. The bus driver, a local boy who knew

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the Everglades like most people know their own backyard, was

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trying not to laugh. Y'all want me to wait, he

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asked the garden charge, because I got a feeling this

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might take a while. That's when Deputy Warden chet mackenzie

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made his entrance. Now, chet mackenzie was one of those

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men who read a lot of books about leadership and strategy,

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but never quite figured out the difference between reading about

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something and actually doing it. He had a degree in

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criminal justice from some college you never heard of, and

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a head full of theories about how prisons should be run.

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He also had a habit of quoting Soon Sue at

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inappropriate moments, which should have been the first warning sign

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that he didn't quite understand his situation. Check came splashing

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through the flooded hallway, wearing rubber boots that came up

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to his knees and carrying a clipboard in a plastic

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bag like he was conducting some kind of amphibious military operation.

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He'd been put in charge of intake procedures, and he

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was determined to follow protocol, even if protocol hadn't been

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designed with aquatic conditions in mind. Gentlemen, he announced to nobody,

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in particular, because the guards were all busy trying to

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figure out how to process prisoners in ankle deep water.

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We are implementing adaptive intake protocols. This is exactly the

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kind of dynamic environment that tests our operational flexibility, which

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was Chet's way of saying he had no idea what

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to do, but wasn't going to admit it. But here's

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where Tommy showed the first sign of what he was

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really made of. While the rest of us were sitting

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on those buses watching this comedy unfold. Tommy was looking

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at the problem different. He wasn't seeing chaos. He was

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seeing a puzzle that needed solving. He raised his hand, polite, patient,

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like he was in school, And when one of the

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guards noticed, Tommy said in English, so clear and unaccented.

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It surprised everybody. Excuse me, sir, but I think I

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see what's happening with your water problem. Now. Most of

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the guards figured we were all supposed to be non

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English speakers, or at least not smart enough to understand

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what was happening, and Tommy, being Tommy, had let them

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think that sometimes being underestimated is the best advantage you

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can have. The guard looked at him like a dog

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that had suddenly started reciting poetry. You speak English, yes, sir,

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Tommy said, And I think your drainage system is backing

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up because you got a blockage in the main culvert.

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See that water over there, how it's flowing the wrong direction.

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That means something stopped up downstream. Chet mackenzie came splashing over,

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still clutching his clipboard in its plastic bag. Are you

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some kind of engineer, he asked, Like the idea that

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a maintenance worker might understand waterflow was impossible to comprehend. No, sir,

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Tommy said, just worked with plumbing most of my life,

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and I seen this kind of backup before, which was

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Tommy being modest. What he'd actually seen was incompetent people

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trying to engineer their way out of problems they'd created

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by not understanding the basics of how water works. But

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Tommy was smart enough not to say that part out loud, Well,

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said Chet, trying to sound like he was still in charge.

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If you have suggestions for optimizing our drainage efficiency, I

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suppose we could consider them as part of our adaptive

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problem solving protocol. Tommy nodded politely. I'd need to take

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a look at where your outflow connects to the main canal.

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Probably just need to clear whatever's blocking it. And that's

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how Tommy Esperanza became the first prisoner in the history

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of Alligator Alcatraz to be let off the bus before processing,

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given a pair of waiters, and asked to fix the

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facility before he was officially admitted to it. Now, while

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Tommy was out there figuring out why half the detention

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00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:52.320
center was underwater, the rest of us got to witness

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what happens when bureaucratic confidence meets swamp reality. Warden Fitzpatrick

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had decided that the best way to handle this situation

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was to proceed as if everything was normal. In his mind,

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the flooding was just a minor technical difficulty, the kind

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00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:14.400
of thing that happens during the startup phase of any

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major operation. The important thing was to maintain the appearance

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00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:23.960
of control, especially since he had another conference call with

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00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:28.920
Washington scheduled for that afternoon, so he ordered the intake

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process to continue. Water or no water. We were going

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to be processed according to regulation, even if the regulations

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didn't quite cover aquatic detention procedures. Picture this, thirty seven

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00:17:44.599 --> 00:17:47.680
men standing in a line that snaked through ankle deep

247
00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:51.880
water while guards in rubber boots tried to take fingerprints

248
00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:57.920
with equipment that wasn't exactly designed for humid conditions. Every

249
00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:02.000
few minutes, someone would slip on the wet floor, or

250
00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:06.039
a piece of electronic equipment would start sparking, or one

251
00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:08.200
of the many creatures that had wandered in from the

252
00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:13.160
swamp would make an appearance. And through it all, chet

253
00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:16.000
mackenzie kept insisting this was all part of the plan

254
00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:24.440
adaptive processing. He'd announce whenever something went wrong, dynamic intake

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00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:28.799
protocols like saying the words made the chaos make sense.

256
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The highlight came when they tried to take our id photos.

257
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The camera was set up on a tripod in the

258
00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:40.279
main hallway, which was now serving as a shallow indoor river.

259
00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:45.880
The photographer, a contractor from Miami who clearly thought he

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00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:49.880
was just coming out for a quick government job, was

261
00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:53.160
standing knee deep in swamp water trying to get us

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00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:58.839
to look presentable for our official detention portraits. Next he'd

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00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:02.359
call out and someone would wade over to stand in

264
00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.319
front of the camera while various creatures swam around their ankles.

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It was like a very wet, very bureaucratic nature documentary.

266
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About half way through this process, that eight foot alligator

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00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:19.880
from the parking lot decided to come see what all

268
00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:23.640
the commotion was about. He came gliding through the front

269
00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.960
door like he owned the place, which honestly he probably did,

270
00:19:29.079 --> 00:19:34.039
and took up residence right next to the finger printing station. Now,

271
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:37.519
most folks would consider the presence of a large predator

272
00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:40.240
to be a reason to stop whatever they were doing

273
00:19:40.519 --> 00:19:45.680
and address the situation. But Chet mackenzie was determined to

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00:19:45.759 --> 00:19:53.920
maintain operational continuity minor wild life incursion. He announced like

275
00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:59.640
he was narrating a nature special. Continue processing. This is

276
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.640
exact actly the kind of environmental challenge that proves our

277
00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:08.240
adaptive capability. The alligator, who clearly had more sense than

278
00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.279
the people running the place, just lay there in the

279
00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:16.119
warm water, looking bored. Every now and then he'd open

280
00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:19.880
one eye to watch the proceedings like he was supervising

281
00:20:19.920 --> 00:20:24.759
our intake process. Which, come to think of it, he

282
00:20:24.839 --> 00:20:27.480
probably was doing a better job of than anyone with

283
00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:33.079
an official title. But here's the thing about bureaucrats, they

284
00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:36.720
got a powerful talent for ignoring reality when it interferes

285
00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:41.880
with their schedules. So the processing continued, with guards stepping

286
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:45.240
carefully around our new supervisor while trying to pretend that

287
00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:49.119
having an apex predator in the intake area was just

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00:20:49.160 --> 00:20:53.519
another day at the office. That's when we heard Tommy's

289
00:20:53.559 --> 00:20:59.799
voice coming from somewhere outside. Found your problem, He called out,

290
00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.759
you all got about half a cypress tree blocking your

291
00:21:02.759 --> 00:21:08.359
main outflow pipe. Within about ten minutes, the water level

292
00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:14.160
started dropping, not fast, but steady, like someone had finally

293
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:16.720
found the drain plug in a very large bath tub,

294
00:21:18.359 --> 00:21:21.319
and as the water went down, you could see the

295
00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:24.839
relief on every official face in the building, except for

296
00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:27.319
Chet mac kenzie, who was still trying to make this

297
00:21:27.440 --> 00:21:33.200
look like part of his master plan. Excellent, he announced,

298
00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:40.000
drainage optimization complete. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our integrated

299
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.519
problem solving approach. The alligator looked at him like he

300
00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:46.839
was an idiot and slid back outside to find somewhere

301
00:21:46.839 --> 00:21:51.440
more sensible to spend his afternoon. About an hour later,

302
00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:55.519
Tommy came back inside, muddy up to his chest and

303
00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:59.359
carrying what looked like half a tree branch. That should

304
00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:02.039
take care of it, he said to the guard who'd

305
00:22:02.079 --> 00:22:05.359
been assigned to watch him. But y'all might want to

306
00:22:05.480 --> 00:22:09.000
check your other outflow points. This whole system's going to

307
00:22:09.079 --> 00:22:13.119
back up again if you get any significant rain. Chet

308
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:16.680
mackenzie came splashing over, still trying to look like he

309
00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:22.079
was in charge of the situation. Excellent work, he said,

310
00:22:22.519 --> 00:22:26.640
like he was giving Tommy a performance review. This kind

311
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.160
of initiative demonstrates exactly this sort of cooperative attitude we

312
00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:34.240
hope to foster in our resident population. Tommy just nodded

313
00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:39.400
politely and handed over the branch. This came from upstream,

314
00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:43.839
He said, y'all got trees falling across your drainage channels

315
00:22:43.839 --> 00:22:47.119
pretty regular, I'd guess might want to set up some

316
00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:51.599
kind of maintenance schedule, which was Tommy's polite way of

317
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:54.480
saying they'd built their facility in a swamp without thinking

318
00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:58.839
about what happens in swamps when it rains. But Tommy

319
00:22:58.920 --> 00:23:01.559
was already learning that you catch more flies with honey

320
00:23:01.599 --> 00:23:05.799
than you do with pointing out people's mistakes, especially when

321
00:23:05.799 --> 00:23:08.880
those people have the authority to make your life difficult.

322
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:21.039
By the time they got us all processed and assigned

323
00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:25.000
to housing units, it was past dinner time and the

324
00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.279
sun was starting to set over what had to be

325
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:31.079
the most unusual first day in the history of federal

326
00:23:31.079 --> 00:23:35.480
detention facilities. The housing units themselves were another adventure in

327
00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:40.480
optimistic engineering. They'd been designed by people who'd clearly never

328
00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:44.359
spend a night anywhere without central air conditioning and room service.

329
00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:49.799
Picture military style barracks, but built on platforms that were

330
00:23:49.839 --> 00:23:54.079
supposed to keep them above the water level, except nobody

331
00:23:54.079 --> 00:23:57.240
had figured out what the water level actually was during

332
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:01.519
different seasons and weather conditions. Some of the units were

333
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:05.680
sitting nice and dry on their platforms. Others were listing

334
00:24:05.759 --> 00:24:09.480
to one side like ships that had run aground, and

335
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:12.920
a few were partially submerged, with water lapping at the

336
00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:16.160
door steps, like the Everglades was politely knocking to be

337
00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:20.039
let in. Tommy and I ended up in the same

338
00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:24.319
unit building sea, which was one of the dry ones. Thankfully.

339
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:27.759
There were about fifteen of us all together, a mix

340
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:30.400
of folks who'd been swept up in the immigration raids

341
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:32.960
and a few others who'd found themselves on the wrong

342
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:37.599
side of federal law enforcement. As we were getting settled

343
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.359
in arranging our few belongings on metal cots that looked

344
00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:43.799
like they'd been ordered from the cheapest supplier the government

345
00:24:43.839 --> 00:24:50.759
could find, Tommy was doing what Tommy always did, looking around,

346
00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.839
figuring out how things worked, thinking about how they could

347
00:24:54.880 --> 00:25:01.640
work better. This place got potential, he said, quietly, like

348
00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:03.920
he was talking to himself more than the rest of us.

349
00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:08.519
Luis Morales, who'd been assigned the cot next to Tommy's,

350
00:25:09.160 --> 00:25:12.279
looked at him like he'd lost his mind. Louise had

351
00:25:12.319 --> 00:25:16.200
been a landscaper in Orlando, knew his way around outdoor work,

352
00:25:16.799 --> 00:25:18.960
and he could see all the problems that Tommy was

353
00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:26.000
apparently overlooking, potential for what Louise asked, getting eaten by alligators,

354
00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:32.359
drowning in our sleep, dying of mosquito bites. Tommy smiled

355
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:36.160
for the first time since I'd seen him. Potential for

356
00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:40.200
being something better than what it is. He said, this

357
00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:44.519
place was built wrong, but it wasn't built stupid, just

358
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:47.640
built by people who didn't understand what they were working with.

359
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:52.279
He pointed out the window toward the administrative building, where

360
00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:54.559
you could see lights on in the upper floors and

361
00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:59.279
the distant glow of computer screens. Those folks up there,

362
00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:03.279
they got good intentions. They just don't know how to

363
00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:08.480
live in a place like this, but we do. And

364
00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:11.799
that's when I started to understand what Tommy was really thinking.

365
00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:16.240
This wasn't going to be about escaping from alligator Alcatraz.

366
00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:19.799
This was going to be about making it into something

367
00:26:19.799 --> 00:26:29.119
worth staying for. That first night, lying on those government

368
00:26:29.160 --> 00:26:32.200
issue cots, listening to the sounds of the everglade settling

369
00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:35.640
in around us, I got to thinking about the difference

370
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:40.640
between smart and whys. Smart is what they teach you

371
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:46.119
in school, facts and figures, rules and regulations, theories about

372
00:26:46.119 --> 00:26:49.920
how things are supposed to work. And most of the

373
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:54.680
people running this place were smart. They had degrees and

374
00:26:54.720 --> 00:27:00.720
certifications and training in all the right things. But why different.

375
00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:05.559
Wise is understanding that just because something's supposed to work

376
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:10.640
a certain way doesn't mean it actually will. Wise is

377
00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:13.359
knowing when to follow the rules and when to work

378
00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:18.400
around them. Wise is seeing that sometimes the best solution

379
00:27:18.519 --> 00:27:22.599
to a problem isn't the official solution, it's the one

380
00:27:22.640 --> 00:27:28.680
that actually works. Tommy Esperanza was wise, and over the

381
00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:32.000
next few weeks that wisdom was going to turn Alligator

382
00:27:32.039 --> 00:27:36.200
Alcatraz from a bureaucratic disaster into something none of us

383
00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:40.480
had expected when we stepped off those buses. But I'm

384
00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:44.359
getting ahead of myself. That first night, all we knew

385
00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:46.279
was that we were stuck in the middle of a

386
00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:50.079
swamp with a bunch of confused officials who thought they

387
00:27:50.079 --> 00:27:53.880
were running a high security detention facility but were actually

388
00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:57.640
running something closer to an outdoor adventure program for people

389
00:27:57.640 --> 00:28:02.640
who'd never asked to go camping. Outside our windows, we

390
00:28:02.680 --> 00:28:06.480
could hear the sounds of the everglades, alligators calling to

391
00:28:06.519 --> 00:28:10.480
each other across the water, birds settling in for the night,

392
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:15.599
fish jumping in the canals, and somewhere in the distance

393
00:28:16.200 --> 00:28:19.119
the hum of generators keeping the air conditioning running. In

394
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:24.200
the administrative building, Tommy was lying on his cot, hands

395
00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:26.880
behind his head, looking up at the ceiling like he

396
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.640
was reading blueprints that only he could see. Y'all ever

397
00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:33.640
think about why they really built this place out here?

398
00:28:34.839 --> 00:28:38.920
He asked the room in general. Luish, who was still

399
00:28:38.920 --> 00:28:41.400
convinced we were all going to die of snake bites

400
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:46.200
or government and competence, grunted from his cot to make

401
00:28:46.279 --> 00:28:52.720
us miserable, maybe, Tommy said, Or maybe because they figured

402
00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:55.039
nobody would want to escape from a place like this.

403
00:28:56.440 --> 00:29:00.240
Too dangerous, too remote, too many things that can kill you.

404
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:05.440
He paused, listening to something moving around outside in the water.

405
00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:11.720
But what if that's exactly what makes it perfect? And

406
00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:15.200
that's when I knew that Tommy Esperanza wasn't just planning

407
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:19.720
to survive Alligator Alcatraz. He was planning to transform it.

408
00:29:21.119 --> 00:29:23.920
Course none of us knew then just how wild that

409
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:30.160
transformation was going to be, But that's a story for

410
00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:34.200
another day. For now, all you need to know is this,

411
00:29:35.720 --> 00:29:39.720
Sometimes the best escapes don't involve tunnels or rope ladders

412
00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:44.200
or midnight flights to freedom. Sometimes the best escape is

413
00:29:44.240 --> 00:29:47.799
turning your prison into your home, and your captors into

414
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:53.160
your students. And sometimes, if you're very lucky and very

415
00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:57.640
patient and very wise, you get to watch powerful people

416
00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:00.880
take credit for your work while completely missing the point

417
00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:06.039
of what you've actually accomplished. Tommy Esperanza understood that from

418
00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:11.279
day one, the rest of us, well, we were about

419
00:30:11.319 --> 00:30:14.079
to get an education in the fine art of making

420
00:30:14.119 --> 00:30:19.839
the best of a bad situation. And trust me, in

421
00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:24.119
a place like Alligator Alcatraz, that education was going to

422
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:26.960
be more valuable than any diploma you could hang on

423
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.359
a wall, assuming you could find a wall that wasn't underwater.

424
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:41.279
Of course, next time, I'll tell you about the committee,

425
00:30:42.839 --> 00:30:45.680
not the official committee that the administration set up to

426
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:50.279
solve their problems, but the real committee that actually did

427
00:30:50.359 --> 00:30:54.720
solve them, and how Tommy learned that sometimes the best

428
00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:57.680
way to fix a broken system is to let the

429
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:00.920
people in charge think it was their idea all along.

430
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:07.680
But for tonight, that's enough. The gators are calling the

431
00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:12.440
waters lapping at the foundations, and somewhere in the administrative building,

432
00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:17.960
Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick third is probably on another conference call

433
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:25.400
explaining to Washington how everything is proceeding according to plan. Then,

434
00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:29.279
you know what, for the first time since he took

435
00:31:29.319 --> 00:31:33.359
this job, he might actually be telling the truth. He

436
00:31:33.480 --> 00:31:34.480
just doesn't know it yet