Americans struggle in a prison where everything has a price

 BEN FOX
 Associated Press

 TIJUANA, Mexico -- Just a few miles outside the United States, six American
 men live a world away.

 Crowded into a damp, stuffy and windowless cell, 10 by 18 feet, they pass around
 well-thumbed U.S. newspapers and wait for the weekly aid package that helps
 them survive in the Tijuana prison known as El Pueblito.

 They are among 60 inmates in La Mesa State Penitentiary who make up the
 largest population of Americans in any foreign prison.

 Their world is one of contradictions, where convicted drug dealers can easily get
 drugs, inmates add locks to their cells for safety, and not every prisoner is eager
 to get out.

 For many inmates it is a place where drugs, meals and shelter offer a better deal
 than the outside. ``You could open the gates tomorrow and they wouldn't leave,''
 says inmate David Nunoz of Los Angeles.

 Last month 61 Americans lived among the 5,000 inmates at El Pueblito.

 Restaurants and juice stands line concrete alleys. There's a small Roman
 Catholic church and a windowless garment factory where prisoners sit at sewing
 machines.

 At a booth, inmates line up to pass money through a small slit and receive heroin,
 cocaine and marijuana from anonymous suppliers.

 In a shanty town off the main yard, the families of dozens of Mexican inmates,
 some with small children, have set up permanent residence.

 ``It's like living in a bad neighborhood,'' Nunoz said.

 It is easy to disappear within the high walls of the noisy and chaotic prison. A
 26-year-old Tijuana woman accused of murdering her husband vanished two
 weeks ago.

 ``We can't say for sure whether she escaped,'' Warden Jesus Torres Espejo told
 the Tijuana newspaper Frontera. ``We're searching inside, but there are many
 corners where an inmate could hide.''

 Nunoz, 40, knows El Pueblito well. He's in the final months of a seven-year
 sentence for heroin possession.

 His status as a long-term resident allows him to walk through the narrow
 alleyways and corridors without being harassed. Inmates and guards, who have a
 minimal presence inside the prison, greet him as ``Scooby,'' his nickname.

 Other Americans, such as 47-year-old David Brisendine of San Diego, face a
 gauntlet of outstretched palms and demands for money.

 ``Hey, gimme some money,'' one man says in English to Brisendine, a lanky man
 who towers over many inmates, as he works his way through the crowded, gritty
 prison yard.

 But Brisendine, who is halfway through a sentence of two years and nine months
 for methamphetamine possession, keeps his eyes to the ground.

 ``I don't even really notice it anymore. Besides, I don't have any money left,'' he
 said.

 It is a common lament at La Mesa, where everything from a bunk to decent food
 has a price and anything, including a private room with cable television, is
 available for inmates with the means to pay for it.

 According to inmates interviewed during a recent visit, a one-time $50 payment to
 guards buys space in a cell, as opposed to a hallway. Seeing a visitor costs 15
 pesos, or about $1.50. Newcomers must pay $10 to get out of the daily work
 detail. Drinking water is 12 pesos, or about $1.20, for five gallons.

 It may not sound like much, but it's everything to prisoners with no income.

 A Guatemalan inmate, who asked that his name not be used, said prisoners are
 lucky if they get a free blanket.

 Many Mexican inmates get supplies from family and friends in Tijuana. The
 Americans, however, depend on David Walden, a San Diego minister who has
 brought in supplies for five years, and Sister Antonia Brenner, a Catholic nun who
 has been helping prisoners at La Mesa for more than two decades.

 Each week, Walden and other volunteers bring boxes of food, clothing and mail
 for the inmates. Nunoz escorts the visitors through the yard to make sure the
 supplies reach the Americans.

 ``The first time I came, I felt like I was walking onto the set of a movie,'' said
 Walden, 51. ``It was all just so unreal.''

 He prays with the inmates, tries to help them with their legal problems, and, for
 many, serves as their main contact with the outside world.

 Their experience isn't entirely foreign to Walden: A former financial advisor from
 Southern California, he was convicted of securities fraud in 1984 and sentenced to
 16 months in prison. Although the conviction was reversed, he served seven
 months.

 ``When you go to prison, everybody bails on you,'' said Walden, who often speaks
 of his experience in his sermons. ``That's why I can relate to these guys.''