Eureka Man: A Novel (2 page)

That night the Man came and interviewed each
boy one at a time and each said he didn't see a thing. At the
breakfast table the next morning, Mrs. Viola Plenty, the cottage
mom, said, “Okay! Since none of you saw what happened to Ron-Ron
last night you can all see the inside of this cottage for the next
thirty days! No movies, no canteen, and no playing ball! And during
your free time you can all strip, wax and shine every inch of floor
in this place! Any questions? Anybody want to hit me in the head
with a pool ball?”

They called her the crazy bitch with the
cock-teasing hug. One minute Mrs. Viola Plenty was consoling a boy
so close their groins kissed and the next she was beating him into
submission. Those who had known her closeness also knew her finest
feature, her chocolate- brown skin. Even those who had known her
wrath were wild about her smooth-as-velvet chocolate-brown skin and
her black corkscrews for hair and her thick, round hips. What kept
them at bay was her smile. More than flawless teeth, it was an
admonition, uninviting and un-amused.

Oliver listened to the stories the other boys
told about her and waited for confirmation of his own that she was
stone crazy. The proof came one Sunday afternoon when P-Rat smacked
Little Andy on the backside with a dishtowel. Mrs. Viola Plenty
dropped the number-ten can of green beans she was retrieving from
the pantry and smacked P-Rat across the back of his thighs with a
wiffleball bat.

“Do you want to be incorrigible forever?” she
said in outrage. “If you do you'd better find somewhere else to
practice!” She grabbed Little Andy by the scruff of the neck and
swung the bat at his ass as if she was hitting curve balls. Wham!
“Repeat after me!” Wham! “I will not horseplay when I'm supposed to
be drying dishes!” Wham!

After that Oliver took his time and got every
black mark and speck of food off every pot and pan put in front of
him. He would neither talk nor look at the other boys while he
worked. His scrutiny was solely for the grease and grime on the
pots and pans. So he was astonished when she slid up beside him in
his third week at the kitchen sink and said, “Priddy, come with
me!”

He followed her up two flights of steps to
her third floor apartment and on the way he wondered if she was
going to molest him or knock him into the next day for mistaking a
speck of food for a stain. But when they got inside her apartment
it wasn't like that. He surveyed the dirty laundry sleeping on the
lampshades and end tables, in the dusty corners and on the backs of
the sofa and love seat; the cups and saucers and crusty plates that
looked like abstract art strewn about the coffee table. He was
amazed by the filth and stench in the room but he knew better than
to show it.

“Priddy, I need someone to clean this place
up,” she said matter-of-factly. “Someone I can depend on. Can I
depend on you?”

“Yes, you can, Mrs. Plenty. I'm very
dependable, ma'am.”

“Good. You can start in the kitchen. Take
your time and do a good job. You don't have to clean everything up
in one afternoon. Save some for tomorrow. Here's a pack of
cigarettes and a book of matches. You'll have to return what you
don't smoke before you go downstairs for supper. I can't have
anyone accusing me of playing favorites. You understand, don't you,
Priddy?”

“Yes, ma'am, I do.”

“All right. Now there are sodas in the
refrigerator when you want one, but don't drink them all. Any
questions?”

“No ma'am, I'll just get started.”

“Good. I'll be around to check on you
later.”

When she was gone he opened the Kools and
took out five. He lit one and carefully stashed the other four down
his sock, making sure they were parallel to his leg so they didn't
snap in half. Though he had never smoked a cigarette a day in his
life before he arrived at the Valley Forge Training School for
Boys, he knew how to look cool doing it. He let the cigarette hang
from his mouth the way he'd seen James Cagney do it so many times
on the silver screen, turning his head sideways to keep the smoke
from getting in his eyes.

He opened the refrigerator door and took out
a grape Nehi. After gulping it down he washed every last dish in
the sink and on the counter tops. Then he gathered two stacks of
cups and saucers and plates from all over the living room and
washed them too. Later he cleaned the refrigerator and stove and
drank another grape Nehi. When it was time to leave, Mrs. Viola
Plenty revealed her perfect white teeth when she smiled and said,
“Very decent job, Priddy. I'll see you tomorrow.”

The next day he cleaned the living room and
helped her change the sheets on her queen-size bed. He stood on one
side and pulled down the sheet, making a neat hospital corner the
way his mother June had shown him when he had been old enough to
make his own bed. Mrs. Viola Plenty did the same on her side and
when she leaned over, he saw the curves of her chocolate-brown
breasts. Just before he stood and turned sideways to hide his
erection, she leaned against the dresser, shifted her weight and
stood on one foot scratching the back of her velvet calf with her
painted red toenail. It was a quiet and sensuous gesture that
filled him with excitement and gratitude. “How would you like to
work for me every day, Priddy?” she asked.

“That would be fine, Mrs. Plenty.”

“Good. From now on you'll be my helper. I
want you to report to work up here every morning after
breakfast.”

“Yes, ma'am! I'll be here on time too. I
guess I'll clean the bathroom now if that's all right.”

“Just be careful with my ceramic gee-gaws
over the toilet. My late husband Joe won those for me in Atlantic
City. Ever been to Atlantic City, Priddy?”

“No, ma'am, but I've been to Ocean City,
Maryland many times.”

“You have? Ever eat salt water taffy?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You like?”

“Yes, indeed, ma'am.”

“Well, I have three different flavors and
maybe I'll give you some after you clean the bathroom.”

“I'd really appreciate that, Mrs.
Plenty.”

Inside her bathroom, Oliver closed the door,
squeezed his groin and looked around the room for things that were
familiar to him. A box of Kotex. A jar of Pond's skin cream. A bra
and matching panties hanging in the shower. Lavender panties that
aroused him and made him recall the budding girls he had kissed and
fondled behind the school auditorium stage, in the aisles of the
public library and the back corners of the movie theater. He took
the lavender panties off the line and ran the bath water so she
wouldn't hear him. Then he placed the panties against his lips,
closed his eyes and pictured what he had just seen of Mrs. Viola
Plenty's chocolate-brown breasts. He was through before he breathed
her scent and when he ejaculated, he leaned against the door,
excited to giddiness, and muffled a grateful sigh.

Even though there was no rabbit's foot in his
pocket, he felt lucky every morning he walked into her apartment
and straightened out a knickknack or a doily. Scooping orange
marmalade right out of the jar with his fingers. Smuggling candy
bars, sodas and cigarettes downstairs to trade for other loot.
Listening to his favorite Sam Cooke records on her hi-fi. Not a bad
way to work off punishment. The sheer joy of smelling her perfume
and other feminine things made it all easy for him. And though she
didn't waste a lot of words because she didn't have many, there was
much small talk. About her dead husband Joe whose picture was on
every wall of her apartment, how wonderful he had been and how he
had died after having his throat slit in a Friday night crap game.
Also she told him about her twin sister who had died at birth so
that Mrs. Viola Plenty could live. Also she showed him photographs
of poor black children that made him homesick for some of his
childhood playmates. Also she taught him how to sew buttons on his
shirt and iron a stiff crease in his trousers.

The day he broke the cottage record for
scoring the highest on the high school equivalency examination, she
rewarded him with a phone call to his mother and a dozen lemon
cupcakes. He had been trying to reach his mother for three months
and this time she was home when he called. “It's about time we
heard from you!” his mother June said, pretending to be sarcastic.
“How are you getting along, son? When are you coming home?” He was
fine he told her, and he would be there in a few months. The last
thing she said before she said goodbye was, “Remember what you
promised me in that courtroom, Oliver. Take whatever you have
coming to you on the chin, son. Don't lose your temper.”

When he hung up the phone Mrs. Viola Plenty
said, “Tell me about your parents, Oliver.” He started off by
bragging that his mother was a horticulturist and the hippest woman
in the world. She used to have a drinking problem, but not anymore.
Now she devoted her time to the local historical society designing
flower gardens and leading tours around the estate of Dr. Samuel
Mudd, the man who had set the broken leg of the man who had
assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. “And you should see her
dance, Mrs. Plenty. She can sing and dance like you wouldn't
believe. As for my real father, his name was Ernie Boy and he left
us when I was five. Then we had a no-good stepfather whose name was
Ernie Boy also, so we called him Ernie Boy the Second. We, meaning
my older brother Skip and my older sister Anna. Anyway, to make a
long story short, Ernie Boy the Second liked to argue and fight all
the time. I could be sucking on a fireball and he would swear it
was a cherry bomb.”

“I read in your file that you assaulted him,”
she said. “Is that true?”

“Yes, well, I was protecting my mother, Mrs.
Plenty. See, things had been awfully bad at home for quite some
time, so my brother Skip and I were living with our grandfather at
the time. One afternoon I stopped in to check on my mother and
Ernie Boy the Second was there. He had her tied up in the dining
room with her clothes ripped off. He was lying on her back when I
broke a chair over his back. I swear I would have killed that
sucker if I had a gun, Mrs. Plenty.” As he was telling her these
things she let her fingers fall on the back of his neck and so
light was the touch that he let his head rest on her shoulder. He
kept it there until she told him he'd have to be going downstairs
soon and she had more work planned for him the next day.

If walking out of her apartment at four
o'clock every afternoon was like coming off the lam, the rowdy boys
in the basement lavatory were like the hounds that tracked him
down. Every evening when he went there to shower or relieve
himself, he thought the crisscross of tips and advice he heard
sounded like a bunch of handicappers at a racetrack. Soap and water
removed the ink marks from used postage stamps so you could use
them again and a dab of toothpaste worked as well as a drop of glue
for securing the stamp to another envelope. Covering glass with
masking tape during a midnight burglary stopped the glass from
shattering and cut down on the noise. Pressing a double-edge razor
blade into the heated end of a toothbrush made a fine-ass
weapon.

And spit worked as well as grease when there
wasn't any grease. The same boy Oliver saw bawling his eyes out the
day the barber plowed off his dreadlocks he saw on the shower floor
one night giving pleasure to the biggest boy in the cottage. Oliver
walked across the shower room as if the scene was something he'd
seen a hundred times before. He took the corner shower and watched
out of the corner of his eye as Jimmy Six spit into the palm of his
hand, stroked himself with it and then lay on the boy's back.
Oliver had heard stories about boys being sodomized, but he had
never witnessed the act before. As he watched Jimmy Six thrust
himself into the boy, he squeezed his own anus tighter than a vise.
For a split second the two exchanged glares and Jimmy's cold grey
eyes and feral grunts reminded Oliver of a junkyard dog he'd once
fought off with a tire iron.

MRS. VIOLA PLENTY CONCEDED nothing but seemed uneasy
at the choice of leaving her sofa where it was or going downstairs
to find help moving it. When she said let's try one more time,
Oliver was all nods and conciliatory grunts. The sofa weighed a ton
and this time when she couldn't lift her end she went downstairs to
find someone to help them. Minutes later she returned with Jimmy
Six who was smiling like a mental patient. He picked up his end
like he was picking up a sock.

“Over here against the wall, boys. Not too
close. Don't scuff the paint.”

“How's that, Miss Plenty?” Jimmy Six
asked.

“Okay, I guess. Now I'll have to figure out
what to do about those circles on the carpet.”

“They'll go away in no time, Miss,” Jimmy Six
said. “I used to work for a moving company. Have Priddy here go
over them with the vacuum cleaner a few times and they'll disappear
before you know it.”

“You think so, Jimmy?”

“I know so, Miss Plenty.”

“All right. Would you like a couple of
cigarettes for helping us?”

Jimmy Six blinked at the offer but didn't
comment. He merely thanked her when she extended the two Kools to
him.

“That's it, boys. Thanks a lot.”

Jimmy Six ambled silently behind Oliver all
the way to the basement locker room. “Man, that was really
something, Priddy.”

“What's that?”

“You know. Seeing how the other half lives
around here.”

“Huh?”

“You know what I'm talking about. You got it
made, don't you?”

Oliver made his voice pleasant, but he knew
something was developing. “How do you figure?”

“Come on, you're up there all day with that
crazy bitch and I know she gives you all kinds of fringe benefits.
The way I see it you're either hand washing her nasty drawers or
you've got your hands inside them. Which is it, Priddy? You tapping
that?”