Spine- .484 15.24cm X 22.

86cm

Historical Novel 80
Recollections

A Priest Behind Bars is an intriguing autobiographical novel by Fr. Marcelo Blázquez

Rodrigo, a Spanish Roman Catholic priest who spent over a quarter of a century in the
United States as a prison chaplain and counselor on “the inside”. He has worked in some of

a priest behind bars

the harshest maximum-security New York State correctional facilities, including Coxsackie,
Comstock, Hudson, Woodbourne, Sullivan, Sullivan Annex, and Ulster.
Each chapter is the story of an inmate as told from Blázquez’s point of view. He openly
criticizes the New York penal system and offers exclusive insight into its inner workings
as a first hand witness of the atrocities of prison life. He illustrates the path that led those
he counseled to jail in the first place, describes what really goes on within prison walls, and
even recounts the lives on “the outside” of those with whom he remained in contact after
their release from prison.
Blázquez brings the fascinating stories of New York inmates into the light. Through
his own eyes, he offers a unique perspective of the prisoners: the perception of them as
human beings whose worth goes beyond that of just being numbers in a penitentiary. He
sees the goodness and the potential for redemption in nearly all of them regardless of age,
race, upbringing, education, or even criminal background, from a Vietnam vet drug addict
with AIDS to a convicted rapist who nearly dies as the result of a self-imposed hunger
strike in defense of his religious convictions. Perhaps his most significant achievement was
that of inspiring an intransigent atheist to convert to Catholicism under his own initiative.
It is perhaps not a mere coincidence that Blázquez, like Miguel de Cervantes,
conceived his most celebrated work “behind bars”.

Marcelo Blázquez Rodrigo

Marcelo Blázquez Rodrigo was born on October 7 in Serradilla,
Caceres, Extremadura, Spain. He studied Humanities, Philosophy
and Theology at the Diocesan Seminary of Plasencia. He received his
diploma as an accomplished pianist and organist from the Conservatory
of Sacred Music in Madrid. He became an ordained priest in 1960
and served as both pastor and professor in his native province for 13
years.
Blázquez immigrated to the United States in 1973. He received
his PhD in Literature from the State University of New York in
Albany, achieving high honors with his doctoral thesis about Lope de Vega. He worked
for 26 years as a priest in high and medium-security prisons throughout New York. His
experiences “behind bars” are described in this book.
His previous publications include: Paintbrushes for Peace (1975), The Gatomaquia of
Lope de Vega (1995), The Harp Lady (1998), Pills for Thought (2006) and the original Spanish
version of A Priest Behind Bars (Pamplona, 2005).

ISBN 978-1-59835-084-5
51999

9 781598 350845

PriestBehindBars-FinalCover.indd1 1 5/7/09 9:53:54 AM

 Copyright ©2009 Marcelo Blázquez Rodrigo
All rights reserved.
www.cbhbooks.com

Original Translation: Liliana Paz, Zap & Go Corp.

Revised Translation: Heidie German, CBH Books

Managing Editors: Heidie German and Cliff Clark

Designer: Ricardo Potes

Published in the United States by CBH Books.

CBH Books is a division of Cambridge BrickHouse, Inc.

Cambridge BrickHouse, Inc.

60 Island Street
Lawrence, MA 01840
U.S.A.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system
without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number 2009922121

ISBN 978-1-59835-084-5
First Edition
Printed in Canada
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 Dedication

In memory of Don Manuel Alvar,

a great teacher and very dear friend

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface – The Spirit of a Free Man 9

Introduction 13

Perspective 17

Spanish Kings in Jail 27

“No Priests, Church, or God” 37

Death in Jail 47

20 Years Without Talking to His Mother 57

Riot 67

Hunger Strike 77

Luis Perez, “The Galician” 89

The Innocent 97

Heart 103

Omnia Vincit Amor 111

“The Box” 119

Spanglish, My Barrier 127

Degreeless Degrees 139

Visits 147

Chaplains 159

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 Security 173

The Wine and the Wineskin 183

Process and Complaints 187

The Unlucky Month 193

Does Freedom Exist? 201

Piggyback Proverbs 203

In Retrospect 209

Closer 219

To Jail! 225

On to Retirement 231

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 SPANISH KINGS IN JAIL

In Spain, in all of the official offices and organizations, as well

as at the embassies and consulates, the portraits of the monarchs can
be seen hanging on the walls. This is the recognized status quo and is
not unusual. The same occurs in other countries with their respective
Presidents or Heads of State.
What is unusual is for the portrait of the King and Queen of Spain
to be hanging in a prison cell in New York. This is surprising to say
the least.
One day, at the Woodbourne jail, while I was walking down
one of the units where sixty cells are lined up in a gallery of endless
bars, a prisoner approached me, and without further ado, he asked,
“Could you stop at my cell for a moment when you finish talking to
this inmate? I would like to talk to you in private. My cell number
is 27”.
“Of course!” I answered, “I will be with you right away”.
He was an inmate who had just arrived from another jail and
it was my first time meeting with him. As I entered his cell I was
surprised to see a large, brilliantly colored photograph of Don Juan
Carlos I and Doña Sophia, the King and Queen of Spain, hanging on
the wall above the headboard of his bed.
“Do you know who they are?” the prisoner inquired in an ironic
tone, yet with a benevolent smile.
“Of course!” I jubilantly replied. “But tell me, why do you have
that picture of the King and Queen of Spain here?” I asked with
intrigue.
“Because I am from Spain”, he said lowering his voice.
“You are Spanish?” I replied, taken aback.
“Yes, sir, a Spaniard like you. I found out that you are Spanish
and that is why I have called you. But please, speak quietly because
no one knows that I am from Spain. I have never told anyone. I’ve

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 told some people that I’m from Panama, others that I’m from the
Dominican Republic, and others that I’m from Puerto Rico. I have
yet to tell anyone that I am from Spain. You are the only one who
knows, because you are the first Spanish priest I have met in prison.”
Daniel Ramos had spent thirty-two years in prison without ever
telling anyone that he was from Spain.
We spoke at length while sitting on his hard, old bed. He began
recounting the most important features of his life. He concluded that
the following day he would visit me in my office.
Daniel Ramos’ story is one that evokes pain deep down in your
soul. It is the story of a life that provokes feelings of great pity and
sincere compassion. One is able to understand the way that life’s
circumstances go beyond all that is foreseeable. Circumstances that
make a person be what he or she is. Once again, Ortega and Gasset
were completely right in this categorical saying: “I am the sum of my
circumstances.” The circumstances of this Spaniard’s life sent chills
through my spine.
Why was Daniel Ramos in jail?
In order to answer this question, one must first know his past.
Daniel Ramos’ past is a very sad story indeed.
Daniel left Spain when he was seven years old. He arrived in
the United States with his mother and three older sisters. He thought
everything went well at the beginning, although he has a vague and
sketchy recollection of those beginnings. Everything changed two
years later. How or why it happened is unknown. The fact is that
when he turned nine years old a radical change took place in his life.
The four women who accompanied him vanished. Since then he has
not heard from his mother or three sisters. He does not know their
whereabouts. To this day he does not know whether they are alive or
dead. This is the great mystery that Daniel Ramos has been unable to
resolve in his forty-five years of life.
What happened? Why did they abandon him? Why hasn’t anyone
ever given him an explanation for the disappearance of his loved ones?
Daniel does not know. He lost track of them when he was nine years
old and has lived the rest of his life without being able to figure out
the mystery. In all truth, he is no longer interested in finding out. He

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 has lived without them when he needed them most and doesn’t need
them any longer. However, his life became marked by their absence.
The subject of his search could probably only be useful for a reality
show program.
At nine years old and after only two years of living in the United
States, Daniel Ramos lost his way. Alone and abandoned by his
family, he had to make his life on his own. He bounced between
foster homes. Escaping from a discipline that he didn’t easily agree
with, he abandoned the families that took him in. He could not stand
strict control at an age that awoke early to puberty. This rebellious
behavior led him to make the wrong friends who introduced him to
the easy world of robbery, drugs and crime. While immersed in the
world of crime, he was arrested and spent several years in juvenile
detention centers. Each time he was released, he went back down
the same path. He knew no other. Crime was his modus vivendi. He
never attended school. In reality, the streets had been his real school
and his only home.
What could be expected from a man who was a product of
this environment? The rest is nothing more than the logical result
of circumstances in which Daniel was used to doing things “his
way”. “His way” included successively drowning three people in
a bathtub so that he could rob their house without any witnesses.
He had accomplices, but everything was executed according to his
instructions since he was the gang leader. As a result of what he did,
he was now facing three consecutive twenty-five year sentences for
each offense. Good thing that at the time, the death penalty had not
been enforced yet in New York State. Thus he was spared the lethal
injection.
Despite this, there is something more curious and shocking about
Daniel Ramos’ life. He knows that he is Spanish because his mother
and sisters are from Spain and because they crossed the Atlantic from
Spain. He knows nothing else. He does not know what part of Spain
he is from. He does not know what region, city or town he was born in
or where he lived for the first seven years of his life. No one ever told
him and, if he was told, he has no recollection of it. This ignorance
about his hometown concerns and depresses him.

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 “I may be from Galicia or Andalusia or Madrid or any part of
Spain. I just don’t know,” says Danny with slight sadness.
Daniel Ramos speaks English very well and doesn’t speak Spanish
badly either, even though it is loaded with a strongly exaggerated and
phony Central American accent.
“During all of these years”, says the prisoner, “I have tried to
hide my true Spanish origin. I have disguised it for fear of being
discriminated against. I was alone among Hispanics of Latin
American origin. By talking like them, I could pass as Hispanic. I
was accepted by all of them and I avoided being discriminated against
by the Hispanics themselves.”
On a corkboard in my office I had posted a vast collection of
postcards from different regions of Spain. It made the office more
colorful and served as entertainment and admiration for the prisoners
that walked in. The display did not go unnoticed by Daniel Ramos.
He examined it carefully and showed his happiness.
“How beautiful Spain is!” It is the prettiest thing that I have ever
seen! Spain is the greatest country in the world!”
But Danny knew nothing about Spain. No history, no geography,
no traditions, no arts music, or literature. However, from that point on
he began to feel a great desire to learn about it.
Daniel Ramos began asking me for books about history,
geography, arts, music and traditions. He wanted to become
informed about everything as soon as possible; he wanted to
remember his past.
He soon caught up because he would eagerly devour everything
that I gave him and then would come and tell me everything he had
learned. Danny had happy memories. He also asked me for Spanish
music and I gave him over twenty-five cassettes of light music and
regional Spanish songs. Within a month Daniel Ramos was faithfully
singing along to all of the songs and couldn’t stop tapping rumbas and
clapping to flamenco music.
“I must be from Andalusia”, he exclaimed one day, “Because my
feet automatically start tapping by themselves to the rhythm of the
Sevillanas (a four-part popular dance which originated in Seville).
Danny would get excited about Spanish music. Shortly, all of

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 the prisoners knew that Dino, as he was known at the prison, was a
Spaniard. He had taken care of openly spreading it and was proud
of that. From then on he was no longer called “Dino”, but rather
“Spain”.
“Before I met you I had already started to feel a great desire to
learn about Spain”, Danny said one day. “One day, I saw the picture
of the King and Queen of Spain in a magazine; I cut it out, and hung
it on the wall of my cell. Other prisoners have big pictures of naked
women in their cells. I preferred to have the picture that symbolizes
Spain, the monarchs.”
Danny’s interest in getting to know Spain was increasing all the
time. He intensely enjoyed the time he would spend in my office
daily, always asking intelligent questions, becoming interested in past
issues and problems as if they were the nearest reality. The more he
learned about Spain, the more enthusiasm he felt for it. That far away
and yearned-for homeland was becoming more accessible and closer
to him, now more than ever.
“How beautiful Spain is! Spain is the greatest country in the
world”, he would exclaim with enthusiasm, each time he looked at the
postcards on the blackboard.
His devotion for Spain was such that one day, after he found
out that I would be leaving soon to spend my vacation in my
homeland, he approached me with a humble attitude to ask for a
favor. His request involved an exceedingly emotional tenderness.
I was speechless.
“I would like to ask you a favor if, of course, it is possible”, he
stated with an imploring tone.
“Tell me, Dino”, I expectantly answered.
“I would like you to bring back something from Spain for me that
would make me very happy.”
“What?” I indulgently asked.
“I would like you to bring me a Spanish flag like that one that you
have in your office, or even smaller. I would like to have a flag from
Spain”, he said, pointing to the object of his affection.
“You will have it”, I emphatically affirmed, “You will certainly
have it! Is that all you wanted?” I continued with relief.

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 “No, Father, that’s not all. I would like something else. Something
that would fill all of my aspirations for now. If you could bring it to
me, it would be the height of my happiness.”
I was fearful that his request would exceed the limits of my
possibilities. I feared that for having agreed to his first request, now
he would shoot for something impossible or unfeasible. Nevertheless,
I asked with intrigue:
“What else would you like now?” I asked, not knowing the scope
of his new request.
“If it’s not too much trouble and if it’s possible, I would also like
you to bring me a handful of soil from Spain”.
“I promise, Dino. You will have it. I will bring you soil from
Spain.”
During my vacation in May 1998, as I was driving the road
from Caceres to Badajoz to visit my good friends Manuel Garcia
Carmona and Charo Castaño Caro, I stopped at the boundary of
the two Extremaduran provinces. Kneeling down over the dividing
line of the two provinces of Caceres and Badajoz, over the exact
boundary, I picked up a handful of soil that belonged to each of
the two provinces that form Extremadura. I mixed the dirt in a
plastic container. In a galley not like that of those Extremadurans,
heroes of the Conquest, but that of a 747, that Extremaduran soil
crossed the Atlantic to end up in the hands of that little Spanish
vagabond without a country who yearned for a fond memory of
his lost homeland.
Now Daniel Ramos, who had been abandoned by his family
at nine years old, the Spaniard who had never told the other
prisoners about his true origin during his long years of prison life,
the golden boy of an unknown, yet longed for homeland, could
finally have in his prison cell, a handful of soil from Spain. It
didn’t matter that it was not from his region of origin, a region that
was unknown. What was meaningful to him was that it was soil
from Spain; Spanish soil from Extremadura, the part of Spain that
during the times of conquest would send Spain to a New World:
A new continent which five centuries later displayed hostility and
cruelty to Daniel Ramos’ youthful dreams.

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 When I returned to work at the Woodbourne prison, and I gave
Danny what he had requested, his emotion was uncontrolled. He
kneeled down with a reverent attitude and kissed the flag and the soil,
as tears from an uncontrollable happiness streamed down his cheeks.
“Soil from Spain! Soil from Spain!” he would repeat nonstop.
“You couldn’t have given me a better gift! Thank you, Father, thank
you very much!”
That flag and handful of noble Iberian soil from the provinces of
Caceres and Badajoz had made Daniel Ramos return to his original
roots. They made the lost and anonymous Spaniard explode with
jubilation and shudder with emotion. Now, more than ever, after an
entirely unhappy life, he could finally identify with his homeland.
Daniel felt happy now.
In that humble prison cell in Woodbourne, New York, a new
Spanish ambassador now lived happily with his handful of Spanish
soil and his flag, governed by Don Juan Carlos I and Doña Sophia of
Spain. Daniel was now known as “Spain”, not Danny or Dino.
Daniel Ramos had become a true champion in defense of all that
was Spanish. He was now a Spaniard who had finally found himself,
after forty-five years of being lost in the jungle of a far away and
indifferent country that was sometimes friendly to the foreigner and
hostile at other times.
Daniel had the opportunity to educate himself in jail, an
opportunity that he had wasted when he was free on the streets. He
obtained his High School Diploma and now worked as a plumber.
Of all the plumbers in the prison, he was the best. Dino was always
entrusted with the most difficult jobs, because he was the only one
who knew how to do it with the perfection of a professional. Daniel
Ramos was an intelligent prisoner and good at his trade.
In addition to being an exceptional plumber, Dino was an
unusually talented painter. During his free time, he would keep
himself busy by doing drawings and portraits of the prisoners’
relatives that he then sold. It was his only means of income, since
he did not have anyone outside who would send him extra money
and he never had any visitors. The money he made from his
paintings gave him enough for his purchases at the prison store.

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 Nevertheless, he did not limit himself to copying reality. Dino
had a huge creative spirit. He would always add something of his
own to every picture. Dino invented his own reality, proof of his
fine creative ingenuity.
Daniel Ramos spent two years at Woodbourne. He showed interest
in being transferred to another prison that was in need of qualified
plumbers to perform certain specific jobs for New York State. Daniel
was the most competent worker in that specialty so it was not difficult
to get the transfer that he wanted. Before leaving Woodbourne, he
told me:
“I will be transferred to another prison soon. I am very
grateful to you. You have helped me very much. You have helped
me identify myself with Spain; you have made me discover that
I can have hope for the future. Now I am convinced that I can
change my life. I would like to do something as a token of my
gratitude. I am going to draw a picture for you so that you can
always remember me.”
He wanted to vividly show me his drawing skills. He certainly
achieved them. Right there, on a blank sheet of paper, in little
time he reproduced the picture of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
that was hanging from the door of my office. It was behind him
but that did not stop him. By turning his head from time to time,
Dino was able to reproduce the famous Picasso picture accurately
and with incredible ease. Dino handled the pencil with incredible
skill.
A few days later, he was giving me a full color reproduction of an
open Bible that read as follows on the right hand page:

CHRIST HAS DIED.

CHRIST IS RISEN.
CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN.

On the left hand side of the open Bible, there was a Greek cross,
with wavy borders and two hands joined in prayer. Over the Bible and
in the center, was the outstanding figure of Jesus. To the right was the
silhouette of the three Calvary crosses with three executed victims.

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 On the opposite side was the Immaculate figure. On the lower left
corner was the flag of Spain.
When he gave me the picture, Dino explained the use of the colors
to me. He did it in a poetic and moving way:

On the painting I put blood.

On land I put sand.
And at sea, I put tears.

It was the synopsis of his life. Dino had spilled lots of blood
in the cruel battle that he fought to rid himself of his demons, in
such a complex and difficult plot that his nomadic and aimless
existence had been, because of his loneliness, abandonment and
crime. In the dark night of his life, Daniel finally saw a shining
ray of hope.
Daniel Ramos left Woodbourne with a single sadness. That
sadness was not having been able to achieve the dream that he had
been hoping for – to paint the windows of the Our Lady of the Hill
Catholic Chapel. However, the refurbishment that was taking place
had not ended when he was transferred.
Dino’s greatest dream when he is released from prison is to be
able to return to Spain. He wants to feel the Spanish soil under his
feet, the land that he left in 1961, when he was only six years old. The
land that, because of life’s ups and downs, he had to abandon at such
a young age and later suffer abandonment by his family. Now, this
telluric sense had returned to him the happiness of feeling Spanish,
more Spanish than ever. A Spanish flag, a handful of Spanish soil, and
the pictures of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sophia, had managed to
achieve the miracle.
I also felt happy for having served as a bridge between the two
banks of the Atlantic, for having been able to lend a hand to a fellow
countryman thrown into the void after an unsuccessful life and
stranded, during the thirty-two best years of his life, in the prison cells
of New York.
Daniel Ramos, a.k.a. “Danny”, “Dino” or “Spain”, could recite
some of Lope de Vega’s “Soliloquy”:

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 Poor carriage of mine,
Between broken crags.
Without sails, no sailing,
And alone among the waves.

Oh poor boat
That drowns in tears!
Remain on the sand,
Useless escorts,
Because sails are not necessary
When there’s no return to goodness.

The shipwrecked person had been saved from sinking and was
back on course to the port of his homeland where a light of hope
shines in his redeemed heart.

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