LOS ANGELES – Arrested for marijuana possession in 1970, Marquette University student Billy Hayes spent five years in a Turkish prison before a daring escape that brought him back to the U.S. and made him a celebrity.
His story was chronicled in his autobiography, which was turned into the Oscar-winning movie “Midnight Express,” directed by Alan Parker and starring Brad Davis and John Hurt.
Hayes tells his story in his one-man show, “Riding the Midnight Express,” which he will perform at L.A.’s Blank Theater on August 5 and 12. Later this month he’ll take it to Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it will run August 23-25.
Here, he talks to ARTINFO about his daring escape, murder, suicide, and lessons learned.
How does the movie differ from what really happened?
There are many major differences between my story and the film. Some of the major ones, of course, are the escape itself. In the movie “Midnight Express,” [it] was almost like an afterthought. I actually got transferred after more than four years in the Istanbul prison and with several aborted escape attempts, one of which cost my oldest friend in the world his life, who came to help me escape. I got myself transferred to Imrali Island prison out in the Sea of Marmara. I was able to escape off the island in a little rowboat one stormy night and rowed to the mainland of Asia Minor and went through Turkey for three days dying my hair, and I eventually made it to Edirne and swam across the Maritza River.
You were originally sentenced to four years, but that turned into life in prison.
Fifty-four days before I was supposed to go free. The American Council shows up for an unexpected visit — “Yay! The Turks are letting me out early!” And then as soon as I see his face, I know it’s bad news — somebody home is hurt or sick. For me, I’m out of here in 54 days. But then they said the high court in Ankara had rejected my original four-year two-month sentence and I’m going to be retried and I will be resentenced to life in prison.
Did you consider suicide at that point?
I actually looked very seriously at suicide once. A lot of guys kill themselves in jail. Actually a lot try, a few do, but a lot try. You break a window, take a chunk of glass, and they start cutting up their arms. If you really want to kill yourself, there’s a vein right on the inside of your wrist. Cut that and you’ll do it. I looked at it and I really thought about it ’cause it was a way out.
What’s the worst part of prison?
Friends who have been in Vietnam agree with my description of jail as long periods of endless fucking boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror, then back to the boredom again. The boredom is the hard part.
And you almost killed someone?
I actually tried — how weird is it to say this now — I actually tried to kill this guy. He had gotten a friend of mine beaten real bad and he was just a very amoral individual. I attacked him but the guards broke it off, luckily for both of us, I guess, pulled me off. I was just trying to choke him to death.
What will we see in “Riding the Midnight Express”?
I had actually made three trips to Turkey smuggling marijuana, hash, prior to getting arrested. I just couldn’t say this when I first came home due to the legal jeopardy it could put me in. Once I was arrested, the rest of the story is what “Riding the Midnight Express” is talking about, the bizarre transition between becoming a mini celebrity and having a film open at the Cannes Film Festival all for being an escaped convict drug smuggler. Not the proudest incident in my life.
And it changed your life.
Strangely enough, getting arrested and imprisoned for life in Turkey was the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to me. I learned a lot of stuff in prison that I needed to learn. I was 23 and running wild, following my dick around the world, no responsibility, not thinking about anybody but my selfish self. And suddenly the world collapsed on me and one of the things I realized is actions have consequences. Suddenly I realized that not only have I fucked up my own life, but my parents have to deal with this. My mother has to deal with this every night and go to sleep with pain in her heart because of her son, who’s so far away. I needed to learn a lot of things and prison was my way of learning about them.
What did you learn?
Life was so easy for me. I’m an American. Right there that makes life easier for me no matter how bad things are. I was from a middle-class family. Everything was easy. I got good grades in school. I was on the sports team. I got all the girls. Not a problem. Suddenly everything changed and I had to change. Change reveals things, strengths, weaknesses that you don’t know about. Eventually I learned what was important. What I wanted to live for and what I’m literally willing to die for.