Life on the Lam

Anybody who thrilled at Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen in Papillon will be riveted by Jim Dwyer’s account in this morning’s New York Times about Orlando Bouquete, who lived as a fugitive for more than a decade after escaping from a Florida prison where he was held on a conviction for a crime he did not commit. Dwyer notes a curious irony:

In “The Fugitive,” a movie starring Harrison Ford, an innocent man on his way to death row seizes a chance to run for his life. In the unyielding reality of prison, innocent people often do the precise opposite of running. They dig in their heels. Many go before parole boards and refuse to apologize for “their” crimes, unwilling to offer themselves as exemplars of how the penitentiary really is a place of penance. In Pyrrhic glory, these innocent people prolong their incarceration by refusing to fake remorse for things they did not do, while the guilty quickly learn that the carrot of parole awaits those who muster the necessary show of contrition.

No word on whether Bouquete ever saw The Fugitive or Papillon, but he did treasure a Spanish-language translation of the original Papillon, which he studied to good effect. Dwyer’s account of Bouquete’s escape and his life on the lam is a thriller, but he does concede:

Though Boquete’s escape was brave and harrowing, his flight does not particularly distinguish him. In the 1980s, the Florida prisons virtually leaked prisoners: 972 prisoners broke out the year Boquete ran, 1,234 the next year and 1,640 the year after. Most walked away from work crews. Prisoners also left in file cabinets, garbage trucks, dressed as women. From Glades, six murderers dug a tunnel from a chapel, a spectacular breakout that roused alarm and moved state officials to clamp down.