MINERAL, Mo. • The first thing you notice is the fence, with its razor-sharp wire weaving throughout the 20-foot-tall barrier in giant, jagged-edged spirals. If not for the disturbing utility of its purpose, the swirling circular patterns of the barbed-wire fence that surrounds the Potosi Correctional Center could almost pass for some sort of shimmering architectural accent.
But there is nothing beautiful about this place, nothing worthy of special adornments. And if you couldn't tell that upon approaching the two-lane country road that leads up to this grim fortress, you quickly understand what lies beyond the barbed-wired and stark gray stone walls by the signs that are posted all along the fence line:
"DANGER. Deadly High Voltage. Keep OUT."
If you think it's a disturbing place to visit, just imagine what it must be like to live here. Vaughn Alexander will tell you if you ask. Prisoner No. 1129517 looks you dead in the eyes and without flinching tells you this: "Being in here, this is not living, this is not a life. This is not suitable for human beings. This is an animal-like situation where they cage you, and even though you brought yourself here, there are things that happen in prison that people don't dare to understand."
Six years ago, the only numbers attached to Alexander's name were numbers of perfection. He was an undefeated (5-0 with four knockouts) promising young junior middleweight fighter who fight promoter Don King was already grooming for bigger and better things. Six years ago, he had already fought three times in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay and once at Madison Square Garden on championship cards of Cory Spinks, Roy Jones Jr. and Wladimir Klitschko.
Six years ago, he was the rising star in a North St. Louis family full of talented young boxers. Now he's six years into an 18-year sentence for armed robbery and assault on a St. Louis sheriff, while it's his baby brother Devon — 14 months his junior — who is an undefeated world champion getting ready to defend his junior welterweight crown on HBO tonight at the Scottrade Center 100 miles away.
Vaughn sits in a nondescript cinder block-walled interview room, slowly flipping the pages of the glossy fight program. Every time he sees a photo of baby brother, particularly the ones with the world championship belts draped over Devon's shoulder as he smiles for the camera, Vaughn Alexander taps the images repeatedly with his fingertips.
"I'm proud of him," Vaughn says.
He keeps grinning as he looks at the photos, chuckling softly while he speaks. "I'm so proud of him because this is what we've been working for man, and he's there."
He said "we," because the championship dream was always supposed to be a coordinated effort for the Alexander boys. They were supposed to arrive at the professional championship level together, just like they did when they were amateurs collecting Silver Gloves, Golden Gloves and Junior Olympic titles side by side.
But they are no longer running on parallel paths, and when you ask 24-year-old Vaughn the question that everyone wants to know — why Devon is the one on that glossy magazine cover and he's the one sitting inside a maximum security prison — he doesn't hesitate.
"Just tell them I went astray," he says. "Tell them I was trying to play both sides of the field. And what makes it worse is I knew better. I knew that I had this in my hand (points to fight program). I was moving up the ladder at the rate I was supposed to move at. But it all got shot down because I went astray."
It was December 2004 when Vaughn Alexander did something he still can't explain fully. Several months before he and Devon were slated to fight on the same June boxing card — and even though he says he had money in the bank and also had a regular job — Vaughn Alexander hatched an ill-fated get-rich-quick scheme. So he committed armed robbery, holding someone up at gunpoint. He thought he had committed the perfect crime until he got a phone call from his mother telling him the police were looking for him and he needed to turn himself in.
Ultimately, he turned himself in and signed a letter of confession. But to make matters worse, after pleading guilty to the robbery, he made another disastrous decision. It was June 2005, about the time he was scheduled to have his sixth pro fight. After he received his six-year sentence in downtown St. Louis, Alexander asked a deputy sheriff to go to the restroom. When the deputy took the handcuffs off, Alexander punched the officer and got into a struggle, and during the altercation the deputy's gun discharged. No one was injured, but Alexander escaped custody during the fight. He raced out of the restroom, down a flight of stairs and with police in pursuit reached the street before being subdued by two officers.
As a result of his botched escape attempt, Alexander's sentence was lengthened to 18 years and he was shipped off to maximum security in Potosi.
If he had not lost his mind in that restroom, Vaughn Alexander probably would be out of prison by now. So once again, I ask him what the heck he was thinking, and once again Vaughn Alexander looks in the air as if the answer is on the ceiling.
"I ask myself these questions every day," he says, "and the thing of it is, I can never come up with an answer. It's almost like it was destined for me to come to prison. I don't condone this, but … but …"
He shakes his head slowly then lets out an uncomfortable laugh. "I don't know, man, I just don't know … I mean it, I literally ask myself these questions every day because (Devon's success) makes me ask these questions. Everyone thought I was going to do it before Devon and I was on that track. I really was, and then I went astray. I guess you could say that it was greed in me. I'd never really been in trouble until this present thing."
And now Vaughn Alexander says the most sad, true and powerful words he's spoken all day. He starts to smile when he speaks, but ultimately his face frowns.
"It's a wonder," he says, "how one thought — just one thought — can trigger you to do something so out of your character and put you in a place like this."
A lot of men come into places like this and get lost, but Vaughn Alexander promises you he won't be one of those men.
"I want out now and when I do get out I won't be coming back," he says firmly. "I'm already preparing myself mentally with getting back in the ring by training every day. I mean I train all day, every day. My mind ain't never been in prison since I got here, never. I walk around here all day every day and I look at many guys who look so content with this prison life and this situation. They come out of their cells and run to the tables and play (card) games. … My life doesn't consist of that. My life consists of me being successful and people being proud of me again. I'm not a person that makes the same mistakes twice."
So he runs and he shadow boxes and he plays handball and he lifts weights and he dreams of a day when he can be back in the Marquette gym in St. Louis that still has his pictures on the wall. He dreams of getting his life back the same way former world champ Bernard Hopkins did when he came out of prison.
"When everyone in the prison talks to me about my brother, when they see him on TV or something, they all say, 'Aw man, that should have been you,'" says Vaughn Alexander. "And you know what I always say? I tell 'em, 'Nah, that shouldn't be me. I'm right where I am supposed to be right now and he's where he's supposed to be.'"
Then he taps on that photo of his little brother and he grins again.
"But when I do have my time again, I won't mess it up," he says. "Not again. Not ever again."
