Eureka Man: A Novel (15 page)

Another distinguished member of our GED
graduates is also our state heavyweight boxing champion and
president of the lifers' association, Brother Theodore “Champ”
Burnett. For six long years, Champ kept his tenacity to learn as
sharp as he keeps his punches. In addition to receiving his
well-earned diploma, Champ will be honored with “Student of the
Year” accolades. Congratulations, Champ!

Twelve proud barbers will march down the
aisle with undoubtedly the best shaped heads in the building. How
many of us guinea pigs paid the price for these brothers' success!
How many high fades went too high before Chinaman finally got it
right? And who among us isn't familiar with his favorite line: “Aw,
Brother, don't worry about it. It'll grow back”? You all deserve a
shout out. (Run those Kools in!)

The vocational school classes will send
fifty-six graduates down the aisle this year: seven welders, eleven
plumbers, fifteen auto mechanics, and twenty-three electronics
technicians. The most noteworthy member of this entire group is
Erie Sticks, who singlehandedly blew up more television sets and
radios while trying to repair them than all the students combined
in the history of the electronics class (and this statistic came
directly from his instructor!). I know you all remember Sticks's
patented line: 'The diodes must be bad!' Okay, Sticks! You've got
your props now, baby!

Last to march across the stage will be the
twenty-five new members of the University of Pittsburgh's alumni
association. Thirteen men will receive Bachelor of Science degrees,
and twelve, their Bachelor of Arts degrees. The valedictorian of
this distinguished class is Gordon Welch, who is graduating with a
3.91 grade point average. A sincere and hearty congratulations to
you, Brother Gordon! This year's keynote speaker will be Dr. B.J.
Dallet, from the University of Pittsburgh's School of
Education.

Expected to be in attendance are
Superintendent I.M. White, Deputy Maroney, the entire academic and
vocational staff, including tutors and janitors, various counselors
and clergy and a sea of University faculty members. Each graduate
will be permitted to have two visitors in attendance.

On behalf of the three prisoner
organizations, The Wire extends a warm and sincere congratulations
to all of the 1984 graduates. And to you graduates who are going
home soon, as the one and only Mr. Ray Charles would say, “Don't
you come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road,
Jack!”

ON THAT DAY IN JUNE, in typical June weather, warm
and bright, they swung open the auditorium doors, put away the
dominoes and card tables, and poured boiling water on the gray
cement floor. Scrubbed. Rinsed. Waxed. Folding chairs were brought
out for the occasion. Fifteen rows of fifteen chairs on each side
of the aisle. Color-coordinated pansies, impatiens, and petunias
lay in long wooden boxes, painted in the University's colors, blue
and yellow. Early placed the boxes across the front of the stage
and then dressed the front and sides of the podium with fresh
clematis vines. When he was finished, he arranged three dome-shaped
birdcages made of papier-mâché and pipe cleaners between the flower
boxes. Perched on a swing inside each cage was a perfectly sculpted
bright blue songbird. What was possible to say about that was
already in print on a banner being raised over the stage, a quote
from the poet Maya Angelou: “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

Early's helpers brought in more flowers
arranged in large plastic pots covered in blue and yellow foil.
Early arranged two pots on each window sill and one on each side of
the five double doors.

As James Brown's song, “I Don't Want Nobody
To Give Me Nothing/Open The Door And I'll Get It Myself,” piped
through the sound system, the workers danced up and down the aisles
while they transformed the building from a finger-popping,
dice-rolling, card-playing recreation gallery for thieves and
murderers to a hall worthy of receiving two hundred and fifty
distinguished guests and a hundred and forty-two convict graduates
singing “Ain't No Stopping Us Now” as they marched across the stage
to receive their diplomas.

Oliver stood outside the auditorium in
Stick-Up Alley helping Mr. Ocheltree, the academic counselor, line
up the graduates for the final walk-through. Whereas the morning
air had been cool and sharp, by mid-afternoon the edge had worn off
the sun and the day was blue and gold and exciting. As the
graduates' names were called in the order they would march into the
building, Oliver handed each one a slip of paper with a number
written on it. “Don't lose that paper, gentlemen!” Mr. Ocheltree
said. “You'll need it tonight in order to line up properly.”

Oliver noted the irony of standing in
Stick-Up Alley with some of the same prisoners who had contributed
to its name. Situated between the auditorium and the commissary
building, Stick-Up Alley was the home of more strong-arm robberies
than anywhere else in the prison. Today it was part of hallowed
ground; on Monday morning it would return to being a danger zone
for new arrivals coming from the canteen for the first time with
bags full of groceries and cigarettes. Those with their mind on
court dates and home would be candidates for a strong-arm robbery.
Oliver recalled the first time he had walked out of the canteen
building and down this alley with two grocery bags in the crook of
one arm, a ten-penny nail held tightly in his free hand and a
deadly glare in his eyes. He had certainly come a long way since
then, he thought, as he smelled the hibiscus riding on the breeze
through the open side-door of the auditorium. Though he was mindful
that the environment he thought of as a college campus was still a
hundred year old prison filled with dangerous men, it was a
distinction without a difference, for beauty, harmony, color and
fragrance were all around him.

And magic too, he hoped. Tonight, he would
have the keynote speaker, Dr. B.J. Dallet, all to himself after the
ceremony. A month ago she had sent him a handwritten note on
cream-colored stationery offering him the chance of a lifetime:

Dear Mr. Priddy,

It is difficult enough under normal
circumstances to earn a C.S. Award; you have done it under the most
trying conditions. Congratulations!

Mr. Sommers has shared with me your interest
in our School of Education's Master's program. I look forward to
meeting and talking with you about this at next month's
graduation.

Best wishes,

B.J. Dallet

If you were a prisoner who had just received
a note on cream-colored stationery offering hope and upward
mobility-well, then you taped it to the wall, telephoned all the
people you loved and planned to make the impression of a lifetime.
It was the most hope-filled day of his prison life the day
Professor B.J. Dallet recognized his scholarship on a cream-colored
note with a light fragrance. More than anything in the world, he
needed this rara avis, as rare as tamarind rinds on a prison yard,
for only two prisoners before him had ever attended graduate
school, and that was because, one, most were as indigent as the
homeless and, two, the discerning eye of graduate school professors
didn't usually extend beyond the main campus. Though Senator
Claiborne Pell's grant did not cover tuition fees for graduate
school, with his Chancellor's Scholarship and his mother June's
resources he had the financial part in tow. What he needed now was
a humanitarian in need of a protege and by the end of the night he
hoped to have her.

He had learned from his grandfather, Ernest
Priddy, Sr., how to shake hands with just the right firmness and
how to stand as straight as a plumb line. His grandfather had
taught him many things. Work, save and study hard. Say grace and be
it. Don't chomp into your food or the reputation of your friends.
Laugh at the things that are funny and those meant to be. Look the
devil in the eyes, and others, too.

He had another gift he didn't inherit from
his grandfather. The charm of a lady's man. Six three and lean,
with wide shoulders and thick brown hair perpetually in his face, a
quick, contagious smile, and large green eyes, he was what women
called a beauty. Tonight he would wear his new light blue button
down dress shirt, tan slacks, and Weejun penny loafers, and hope
that in his finely pressed collegiate clothes she would see not a
murderer-man or a prisoner-therefore-con-man, but a
where-did-he-go-wrong, man, and all-he-needs-is-a-chance, man.

HE HEARD HER high heels clicking across the tiles in
the main corridor, heard her say, “Yes, this is my first time
here.” He didn't turn around to look. He pulled the next cap and
gown off the rack and shouted over the crisscross of conversations
going on around him. “107…108!”

“Yo, Butch. I never thought I'd see the day
you'd be wearing a gown.”

“Hey. Watch it, fella.”

“Come here, homeboy. You look like a real
scholar. Your momma's going to be proud of you tonight.”

“Yeah, yours too.”

“Fix your hat, Leroy.”

“It's not a hat, it's a cap.”

“Whatever you call it, you can't wear it
cocked all to the side like that.”

“Who says?”

“I say!” Ms. Rhoda Cherry shouted. “Now
straighten that cap out! You're not going to be a jitterbug
tonight, young man. That's the way. Thank you.”

Oliver handed out the last cap and gown and
turned around, adjusting his eyes to the crowd. He looked over the
prisoners and saw bits of Professor B.J. Dallet. Wide, watching
eyes. Her smile. The other prisoners were checking her out, too.
Mr. Sommers waved his hand. “Can you come here for a second,
Oliver?”

He took a deep breath, smiling nervously,
then walked across the room. As he approached her, he thought she
was the tallest woman he had ever seen. Not quite his height in
black pumps and high heels. She wore a royal blue suit with gold
buttons. Her straight blond hair was pulled back and held together
with a black ribbon. She had aqua blue eyes that were wise and
familiar. She looked the way he imagined she would. Haute couture.
Like one of June's girlfriends. A woman's woman, a man's woman.

“Oliver, this is Dr. B.J. Dallet. B.J., this
is our scholar, Oliver Priddy.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Oliver,” she
said, extending her hand and a firm grip. Her smile was full and
confident.

“Likewise, Dr. Dallet,” said Oliver.

“Mr. Sommers has told me a lot about you,”
she said.

“All good, I hope.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Oliver, make sure you get with Dr. Dallet
right after the ceremony. We're going to head over to the
auditorium now,” Mr. Sommers said.

“I will. I'll be waiting for you when you
come off the stage, Dr. Dallet.”

Dr. Dallet said, “I'll be looking for you,
Oliver.”

Twilight distilled blue into purple and
reduced purple to crimson by the time all the proud and giddy
graduates were lined up in Stick-Up Alley. Oliver stood at the end
of the procession humming a song his brother Skip had hipped him to
in high school. An R&B version of “Some Enchanted Evening,” in
four-part harmony. He hummed the tune in his head until he heard
the swell of “Pomp and Circumstance” echoing through the alley.
Then the procession started moving forward. Oliver walked behind
the last graduate in line and when he entered the auditorium he
closed the double doors behind him. The room was a sea of
teary-eyed mothers. A grandfather leaning on a cane. A nun smiling
solemnly. Siblings. Wives. Professors. Clergy. The top brass of the
administration. They were all there. Oliver stood in the back row
with his fellow school workers. Father Kelly Reese said a prayer
and then everyone sat in unison.

Mr. Sommers' opening remarks chimed with
paternal salutations. When he introduced Junior Thompson, Mr.
Sommers embraced Junior before taking a seat behind the podium.

Junior, tall, dark and sharp-looking, paused
and stared at his mother and sister who were sitting in the middle
of the audience. First, he thanked his teacher, Ms. Rhoda Cherry,
for her patience and endurance and for believing in him. Then he
told a love story about a mother and older sister who had toiled
all their lives to keep their family together and fed through the
worst of times. Homeless twice, they had found shelter in the back
of a car one night, and an abandoned building the next. Subsidy
housing had worked until the building's structure was found to be
on the verge of collapse, and he and his mother, grandmother and
three siblings were homeless once again. This time his older sister
Jackie quit school-she was in the eleventh grade-to take a full
time job in a supermarket. Her selfless act had not only led to
keeping the family together and in a decent home, but had enabled
their mother to quit one of her three jobs. As tears flowed among
the mothers in the audience, he went on about how his father had
come and gone over the years like a midnight burglar. How he had
rocked in their mother's cradle and left with the rent money so
many times the children thought he was the landlord. He paused
again and looked across the audience. His mother Val and sister
Jackie were here tonight, he said, and he wanted to thank them for
loving and encouraging him every day of his life. He thanked them
and they wept openly, as did his teacher, Rhoda Cherry, and every
other woman in the building.

A standing ovation for Junior.

Rhoda Cherry, toothpick thin and as cute as a
mannequin, stood at the podium, drying her eyes and smiling. When
she was finally composed, she thanked Junior for thanking her and
said it was now her pleasure to introduce a man who had come to
Riverview several years ago fresh off the streets of Philadelphia
with all the potential in the world to succeed at whatever he set
his mind to. And succeed he had. Eight years ago he had captured
the Tri-State amateur heavyweight boxing title and still held it.
At the same time, he had been the most tenacious student in her
classroom, never giving up after failing the high school
equivalency examination by only a couple of points each of the four
years he had taken the test before he passed it. She was moved to
tears again as she called Theodore “Champ” Burnett, Student of the
Year, to the podium.