The Dog Page #8

And he said, "I will never see

you again. It's not good for me.

"It won't help me. I have to leave,

start my own life as a real woman

and have nothing

to do with you."

And Ernie got up and left.

So on Saturday, April 26th,

I went to confession.

On Sunday, I went to communion.

Then after that,

I out my wrists

and sat on the toilet bowl

and cut my forearms,

like the Romans used to do,

and tried to bleed to death.

Instead, I became unconscious

and passed out.

And they took me to the

hospital and stitched me up.

Then they brought me back

to the prison on a Monday,

and they said I had to go

to be sentenced.

So they took me to

the Federal Court,

and I don't remember

what happened.

BIFULCO:

He was so out of it.

He was all bandaged up

and he was like this.

"Mr. Wojtowicz,"

Travia asked,

"do you have anything to say

before I pronounce sentence?"

And Wojtowicz says, "Love is

a very strange thing."

Wojtowicz began

in a low, even tone.

"Some feel it more

deeply than others do.

"I love my wife Carmen, my son, my

daughter, my mother, and I love Ernie.

"I love all of them.

"I know it was wrong

to rob the bank,

but what is money

compared to human life?"

I said, "Don't you

love your wife?"

He goes, "Yeah

I said, "Well, imagine your

wife is dying of cancer

"and you didn't have the money

and you needed $10,000,

"and you couldn't get it,

you tried everything to get it.

"You tried to borrow it, tried to

make deals, nothing worked out,

wouldn't you do something illegal to

get the $10,000 to save your wife?"

He said, "No.".

I said, "Well, then you don't

know anything about love.

"In fact, you don't f***ing love your

wife, because if you loved your wife,

"you would kill for her, you would

do anything for her to save her.

"So don't talk to me about love because

you don't love your f***ing wife.

You don't even know what

the f*** love is all about."

And then he sentenced me.

Terry yelled out in court, "Have

mercy on my son, Your Honor."

Like that, she was screaming, and he got

sentenced to Lewisburg Penitentiary.

I was like, "Wow, he's there forever now," and

that's all I thought. That's all I thought.

That was it.

[Static]

OK. we told Liz that John would

be speaking directly to her

from jail on today's show,

so let's hear

what he has to say.

This is to you, Liz.

Do you have any message you'd

like to give Liz today?

If you do, would you

like to do it right now?

Yeah.

PARR:
OK.

I love you a great deal,

and I did what I did

because I loved you

and I wanted you to be happy,

and I don't regret doing it

because it saved your life.

And all I want you to

do is to be happy.

And I know I don't see you, and

I know I don't hear from you,

but as long as you're happy,

that's all that counts

because I love you.

That's it.

Are you happy?

Not as happy as I would be

if he was out here.

PARR:
What was so

special about Ernie?

How did you fall in love

with him in the first place?

I don't know.

My wife, Carmen, always

asks me that question,

and I said, "I don't know."

Because if I knew why I loved him,

then maybe I could stop loving him,

but when you don't know

why you love somebody...

because he's lousy in bed.

Out of all the guys and girls I've been

to bed with, he's one of the worst.

Do you ever think of him

in that prison?

I mean, when you're getting

ready to go out at night,

do you ever think of John

being locked up in his cell?

There isn't a day that doesn't

pass that I don't think of John.

WOJTOWICZ, VOICE-OVER: When I got to Lewisburg,

they beat me up because they told me

I was in the big house now.

And I said, "it doesn't

look so big to me."

So they beat me some more,

and that's where I met George.

He was a jailhouse lawyer.

He did the legal work

that got my time cut.

He was also black and Irish.

MAN:
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania,

is a very rough, tough facility.

More than half the

inmates carried weapons,

and when I got to Lewisburg,

they were getting ready

to kill John.

WOJTOWICZ:
There was a time when they

were killing an inmate every month.

There were times when inmates were

being stabbed every day in the place.

When your door opened up

at 5:
00 or 6:00 in the morning,

you didn't know if they were

going to come in and beat you,

rape you, rob you, or whatever.

HEATH:
John

was very vulnerable.

Someone like myself, that

carried a knife all of the time,

they didn't bother because I was

considered a tough guy.

I was arrested for bank robbery,

kidnapping, the whole works.

Of course, John, he couldn't

associate with anyone

because of the fact that

they considered him gay.

He was gay.

They didn't like him.

They were making a movie about

him, so they were jealous of him.

They were just, "Oh,

let's do something to him.

Maybe we can get a name

for ourselves."

So he had to fend for himself.

WOJTOWICZ:
I was working

in the laundry, OK,

and I was raped by 3 guys

from Washington, D.C.

They hit me in the head

with a lead pipe, right,

knocked me out, and

they raped me repeatedly.

I still have dreams

to this day.

I woke up,

I was in the hospital.

They operated on me.

I was in tremendous pain.

Then they finally let me

back out into population.

HEATH:
I felt sorry

for John.

So when I took John under my

wing, they left him alone,

but they would nag at him

occasionally if I wasn't around.

I don't think that he

realized the consequences

of things that

he would do or say.

He didn't care about

what might occur.

He was just there

and not there mentally.

WOJTOWICZ, VOICE-OVER: The 7 years I was in

prison, I spent more time in segregation

than I did out in

actual population,

but I don't linger

on that too much.

My attitude is, I'm from the old

school and I'm old-fashioned Italian,

I'm a male chauvinist pig,

and I'm the f***ing boss,

and I run things.

You run the prison,

you do your thing.

I run me.

I do my thing.

You don't bug me.

I don't bug you.

You bug me, we have

a problem, and that's it.

HEATH:
He was bad.

John was, to me, a bad,

crazy individual,

but the thing I liked about

John... he had a lot of heart.

WOJTOWICZ:
George and I got married

in the prison yard in 1974.

I met him on July 16th, OK, and that's

also my wife Carmen's birthday,

my female wife, and I married

him 2 weeks later on the 31st.

HEATH:
I considered it a marriage

because John was on the marriage trail.

He loved to be married.

He had to have a wife.

So I became his third wife.

I've always been in the

gay life to some degree.

I had been in drag, I had been in shows, and

John immediately gravitated towards that.

His wife came up, and John would have me wave

out the window to her and stuff like that.

I don't know if he actually

described me as his new wife,

while she was coming up, but

she did come with the kids.

BIFULCO:
I considered him

my husband up until 1978.

He would send me flowers

from the prison,

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