Donald Henry Gaskins Jnr

Power Man

When Gaskins entered the South Carolina state prison in fall 1952, it struck him as the dreariest looking place on earth. There were new faces and new rules to memorize, but the reality of prison life remained unchanged. In place of dorms and Boss-Boys, the state pen had cell blocks and Power Men who took what they wanted by force. Gaskins went in expecting another round of gang-rapes, but instead he was ignored until the afternoon when a hulking con approached him on the yard and told him, You belong to Arthur.

Over the next six months, while Gaskins was sharing his cell with a brutal rapist, he realized that the only way to save himself was to become a Power Man. To that end, knowing it meant murder, Gaskins started looking for the biggest, toughest victim he could find. He chose Hazel Brazell, a con so vicious that no one on either side of the bars dared call him by his despised first name.

To ingratiate himself with Brazell, Gaskins used the same tactic he would employ with Rudolph Tyner, almost 30 years later. He brought gifts of food from the kitchen, becoming a fixture around Brazells cellblock, accepted as part of the crowd. On his fifth visit, Gaskins found Brazell on the toilet, only one guard stationed outside his cell. Striking swiftly, he cut Brazells throat with a stolen paring knife and warned the bodyguard to flee before guards arrived. I surprised myself at how calm I was, Gaskins later wrote in his autobiography, Final Truth. I didnt really feel nothing much at all.

He admitted killing Brazell in a fight and bargained a murder charge down to manslaughter, two-thirds of the nine-year sentence concurrent with his pre-existing term. I figured that was a damn fair deal, Gaskins said, considering I wouldnt never again have to be afraid of anybody in The Pen no matter how long I was there. He spent six months in solitary and emerged a Power Man in his own right, the Pee Wee nickname now a label of respect.

Gaskins cruised through his next two years of confinement, enjoying himself, but 1955 brought news that his wife had filed for divorce. Despondent, he hatched a plot to escape in a garbage drum, jumping from the truck along the highway to Florence. Stealing a car, he drove to Florida and rejoined the carnival at Lake Wales, meeting his next wife in the process. At 19, she was three years younger than Gaskins. Their marriage lasted all of two weeks, before he dropped her at her parents house and hit the road. They were never divorced, but that small technicality would not stop Gaskins from logging four more marriages over the next two decades.

His new love of the moment was Bettie Gates, a sideshow contortionist whose supple body proved irresistible. They left the show together, driving Pee Wees stolen car to Cookeville, Tennessee, where Gates claimed her brother was jailed pending trial on some undisclosed charge. On arrival, Gates confessed that she was wanted in five states on counts ranging from forgery to armed assault. Gaskins agreed to deliver bail money and a carton of cigarettes, then returned to find Gates and his car missing from their motel. He was awaiting her return when police came to arrest him, breaking the news that Betties brother -- in fact, her husband -- had escaped from jail using a razor hidden with the smokes.

Putnam Countys sheriff initially accepted Gaskinss tale of being duped, but the recovery of his stolen car and false I.D. saw Pee Wee held on a fugitive warrant from South Carolina. Before his return to the Palmetto State, he pulled three months in Tennessee for aiding an escape, plus six more for slashing another inmate during a brawl. Back at South Carolinas state pen, he spent a miserable time in solitary before FBI agents arrived to charge him with a federal Dyer Act violation, for driving a stolen car across state lines. Conviction on that charge earned him three years at the federal lockup in Atlanta, Georgia.

Gaskins later described that sentence as his college education in crime. His cellmates, whom he dubbed the Three Wise Men, were bodyguards for imprisoned Mafia prime minister Frank Costello, serving time for income tax evasion and casino skimming. Pee Wees reputation preceded him, and Costello dubbed him the little hatchet man, reportedly offering Gaskins work as contract muscle if he ever felt an urge to settle down.

The federal prison term was concurrent with Gaskinss remaining time in South Carolina, a favor from the court that left him eligible for parole in August 1961. Forgiving his escape, the state released him with a new suit, $20, and a bus ticket back to Florence.