Eureka Man: A Novel

E U R E K A M A N is a work of fiction. Apart from
the actual people, events and locales that figure in the narrative,
all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Patrick Middleton

Reader's Guide © 2014 Patrick Middleton

Cover Art © Luis Suave Gonzalez

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Acer Hill
Publishing Company

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING--

--IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Eureka Man: a novel

p. cm.

Summary: “The story of a young man's journey through
America's prison system and the irreversible choices he makes to
survive”-Provided by publisher

1. Prison culture-Fiction. 2. Criminal justice
system-Fiction.

3. Prison education-Fiction. 4. Hope-Fiction.

5. Pittsburgh (PA)- Fiction. I. Title.

Smashwords
Edition

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respecting the hard work of this author.

OUT OF SIGHT
of the judge, Oliver sighed and
then trembled. Not so the deputy sheriffs flanking him could
notice, but enough so his knees started to buckle halfway up the
steps of the Valley Forge Training School for Boys. When he paused
and glanced down at his shackles, both deputies held on to his
elbows and told him to take his time. For the rest of the way up
the steps he listened to the metallic clicking of the chains and
there were no more outward signs of trembling.

Nor when he entered the receiving room and
saw thirteen pairs of eyes staring at him. While one deputy handed
his commitment papers to the female clerk, the other removed his
handcuffs and shackles, and Oliver shook the stiffness out of his
wrists as he sized up the other boys. One wearing a blue knit
watch-cap pulled down over his eyebrows glared at him and Oliver
glared back. The clerk looked up from her paperwork and frowned at
him. “Hey, you. Tall guy. Take a seat on the bench,” she said,
cracking her chewing gum like a pro.

Oliver licked his lips and shoved his hands
down in the pockets of his blue jeans before he wedged himself
between two boys who were sitting at the far end of the bench.
Immediately he started pushing buttons inside his head until he
found the one marked countenance. You fellows better leave me the
hell alone! Don't start any trouble and there won't be any! I'm not
afraid of you punks!

For the next two hours he and the other new
arrivals moved in and out of the barber's chair, the medical
examiner's room, and the psychologist's office. When it was his
turn, the psychologist asked him if he knew where he was, and
Oliver said, “Yes, sir. Reform school. What kind of question is
that?”

“What day is this?”

“Hey, man. I'm not crazy.”

“Just answer the question, please.”

“January 23rd, 1976.”

The man nodded and in a pleasant,
conversational tone, said, “Thank you. Now tell me what brought you
here.”

Oliver shifted his weight in the chair.
“Robbery.”

“Let me hear about it.”

“Well, I was a long way from home and I
needed gas money so I robbed this little country store. That's all
there was to it.”

“Did you have a gun?”

“No, sir. I poked my finger out from inside
my jacket like this.” He made a fist and then stuck out his index
finger.

“I see. You said you were a long way from
home. Where's home?”

“Southern Maryland. Know where that is?”

“I'll ask the questions. What were you doing
in Pennsylvania?”

“Hell, I didn't even know I was in this damn
state until a cop pulled me over.”

“Watch your language, young man.” His
admonition was clipped off by the slam of a door down the hall. “It
says here you assaulted your stepfather hours before you were
picked up on this robbery. You want to talk about that?”

Oliver sat bolt upright, stiff. “Assault?
That's a lie, man! He was the one doing the assaulting. He had my
mother tied up and bent over the dumbwaiter in our dining room when
I came in the door. And he had a handful of her hair wrapped around
his goddamn fist! All I did was help her get away. I was defending
her. Would you let a man do that to your mother?”

“Again. I'll ask the questions. So what'd you
do to him? Your stepfather.”

“I broke a wicker chair over his back.”

“I see. Now tell me. What was the last grade
you completed in school?”

“I'm in the twelfth grade. I'm supposed to
graduate this spring, and the Mother Superior where I go to school
said my SAT scores are high enough to get me into the college of my
choice. I've got three scholarship offers already.”

“Well, that's quite impressive. Have you
thought about a career choice?”

“Yes, I have. My Aunt Florence, she's an
amateur genealogist, and she spent years tracing our family tree
all the way back to the early 1800s. My ancestors have been
cobblers, bricklayers, merchants, engineers, blacksmiths, nuns and
you name it. Except for doctors. I'm going to be the first person
in my family to become a doctor. I haven't decided what kind yet. I
might be a heart surgeon or a pathologist, or maybe even a college
professor.”

“Well, it's good that you have such high
ambitions. While you're here you can study for the high school
equivalency examination. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, sir. When can I call my mother?”

“In thirty days. Any other questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay. Tell the next boy to come in. And good
luck to you, son.”

After the last boy saw the doctor, Oliver
counted thirteen heads in front of him as they marched out the back
door of the administration building and onto the main grounds of
the training school. The January wind stung his freshly shaved head
during the long march across a parade field that was flanked by a
row of white cottages three stories high on either side. When they
stopped at the last cottage on the right, Oliver read the words on
the brass plaque over the door: Welcome to DoRight Cottage. He
followed the line to the basement where each boy was issued a set
of bed linens, two towels and a washcloth, three pairs of khaki
trousers and three shirts, socks, underwear, a cap, a pair of dress
shoes and work boots, a navy pea coat, a toothbrush, a bar of soap,
five postage stamps, four Buckhorns, and a small comb.

While the boys were stowing their belongings
in their assigned lockers, a short, squat white woman appeared at
the foot of the basement steps. She wore an oversized lime green
dress, her hair was sparse and unruly and there was a mole on her
chin the size of a lima bean. In her left hand she carried a black
cane and when all but a few boys were staring at her, she rapped it
against one of the wall lockers. Her face was void of friendliness.
“Listen up, boys!” the woman bellowed. “I'm Mrs. Ronnie John, your
cottage mom. During your stay in my cottage you will conduct
yourselves like gentlemen at all times. That means no horse
playing, no bullying and no fighting. If you misbehave you will not
see the light of day for the rest of the time you are in my care.
Any questions?”

Later that night the door to Room 34 slammed
shut and the trembling moved from Oliver's legs up through his
chest. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the heavy black
screen covering the window and then at the furnishings in the room.
A toilet, sink, bed, desk and chair. He stood again and paced the
length of the room several times before he stopped and stretched
his arms out to measure the width of the room. Not even six feet.
The revelation that the room was a prison cell stirred the
butterflies in his stomach and when the trembling got worse, he
laid on the bunk, covered his eyes with his arm and recalled
something he had memorized in his eleventh grade logic class. A
passage from the Red Queen's lecture to Alice: “Down here we got
our act clean yesterday and we plan to start getting our act clean
tomorrow. But we never clean up our act today.” The Red Queen's
logic was all the inspiration he needed to clean up his own act
right then and there. When he told himself they couldn't keep him
past his eighteenth birthday and that day was only nine months and
three days away, he sighed, then smiled, and there were no signs of
trembling at all.

With the bell at dawn he and the other
thirteen new arrivals awoke to the feel of wool rags and wooden
floor brushes, the smell of orange paste wax, and the sound of Mrs.
Ronnie John's bellowing voice. “All right! Listen up, everybody! I
said listen up! Don't make me have to say it again! You're going to
need every bit of energy you can muster up this morning, so I would
advise you to eat every morsel of food on your tray!”

All morning, every morning for six weeks they
paste waxed and polished the burnt-red cement floors until their
knees opened like tomatoes. Mrs. Ronnie John walked behind them
checking their work as they pushed and pulled the gray shine rags
and wooden floor brushes over every inch of floor in DoRight
Cottage. Oliver worked between two boys named Philly Dog and Funky
Melvin, but not one spoke to the other while they worked. Their
body language said it all: “Missed a spot; I got it.” “I need a
break; can you help me?” “Heads up, here she comes.”

Sitting side by side and rubbing the scabs on
their knees one evening, Philly Dog said, “What you in for,
Priddy?”

Oliver glanced sideways and said, “A stupid
ass robbery, man.”

“Hey, I know that accent! You talk just like
my cousins from Newport News, Virginia. You ain't from around here,
are you?”

“Nope. Other side of Baltimore. Southern
Maryland.” He said it with pride. “Never been in Pennsylvania
before in my life. I should have kept my ass below the Mason-Dixon
Line.”

“You got that right, my man.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Cause you don't know one motherfucker in
this joint, do you?”

“Nope. But what's that got to do with
anything?”

“Well, no offense, but you look like you
should be in prep school instead of reform school.”

“That's funny. That's real funny. I was in a
prep school. Our Lady Star of the Sea. And guess what? Once the
Mother Superior told me I should be in a reform school instead of a
prep school.”

“You're shitting me.”

“No I'm not.”

“That is funny, man.”

“Yeah, but why did you say I should be in a
prep school?”

“Cause you look too fresh and clean to be in
this place. Somebody's bound to try you.”

SIX WEEKS and they were off their knees and on their
way to another cottage on the rolling green hill. The frailest went
to Mary Cullen Cottage, named after the widow of the late founder
of the place. The most illiterate were sent to Woodcock Cottage
where they received remedial instruction six hours a day. Oliver
and his floor-shine companions were escorted straight to the
Cottage of Hard Knocks. The night they arrived Oliver stood at a
urinal conjuring up images of running water when a fight broke out
behind him.

“You ain't tough, nigger!”

“Lemme show you!”

In midstream Oliver heard the punches but
didn't turn around to see them. Hey, fellows! I don't mean to rain
on your parade but I gotta piss! He shook off the last drops and
turned around just in time to see blood spatter against the wall.
No one saw the pool ball until it rolled across the floor smeared
with the blood of the boy who said lemme show you. The boy was on
the floor looking up at the culprit. Six-four, two-forty, with a
hairy face molded in a scowl, the culprit looked more like a member
of the training school staff than a juvenile delinquent. Oliver had
been around bullies before but this fellow they called Jimmy Six
took the grand prize. The victim, a black boy who didn't weigh a
buck forty, was the one who should have rightfully had the pool
ball. He had a gash over his left eye and the blood pouring from it
ran right down into his eye.