Eureka Man: A Novel (4 page)

“Bell, you know damn well you can't see that
good,” said Oyster.

Bell, who had lost his left eye somewhere
along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, said, “I can see better than that
umpire. That man was out!”

Early, Oyster and Peabo joked with Bell, but
never argued with him. Not because they feared the five-one,
hundred and twenty pound white man, but, rather because of where he
had been. “La rue sans joie,” the Street Without Joy. Shortly after
arriving at Riverview four years ago, Bell had stood up at his
first lifers meeting to tell the members something about himself
and ended up taking them to the Phong Dien district of South
Vietnam, 1970, where his Third Battalion of the 187 Infantry had
gone to support a pacification program. La rue sans joie was where
Bell had lost his left eye while rescuing a seven-year-old girl
from a burning hamlet. When he described with piercing poignancy
how he had passed the little girl's body to the medic while her
skin remained in the crook of his arms and how, seconds later, a
mortar exploded five feet from where he stood on La rue sans joie,
Early knew by the way Bell had uttered those four French words, La
rue sans joie, that Bell was permanently astonished and in need of
a friend. That was four years ago and since then, Bell had been
spending every spring and summer evening watching softball games
and eating ice cream sandwiches with Early, Oyster, and Peabo on
the top row of the first base bleachers.

Bell stood and stretched between innings and
said, “This game reminds me of 'Casey at the Bat.'”

“Casey? Who the hell's Casey?” Oyster
asked.

“You never heard the poem, 'Casey at the
Bat'? It's famous. It's about a baseball team that was losing a big
game just like these guys are. 'The outlook wasn't brilliant for
the Mudville Nine that day.'”

“We don't read no poems where I come from,
Bell,” Oyster said.

The Lifers had the bases loaded for the
second time in the inning. Peabo bit into the fried onions on the
corner of his sandwich and nudged Bell who was already sniggering.
Oyster spit out a popcorn kernel and hollered for the umpire to
invoke the mercy rule. Early laid the newspaper in his lap to stare
at a prisoner who was standing near the right field fence. Early
couldn't see his face. All he could see was a tall lanky fellow,
wide at the shoulders, standing with his back to the game and
apparently gazing at Early's flowerbeds on the other side of the
fence. When he finally turned around, what Early saw was a young
man whose beauty bloomed along with the sweet Williams, morning
glories and chrysanthemums. “That's him,” Early said. “Remember
that boy we read about who killed a boy in reform school last
summer?”

“Used a baseball bat, didn't he?” said
Peabo.

“Yeah. We didn't want to bet on the outcome
because he was just a kid.”

“Don't say we!” Oyster said. “I wanted to
bet. He was a white boy and I said right from the start he'd get
off light because he was white.”

“Yeah, well, you were wrong,” Early said.
“They gave him life. I read about him in my neighbor's hometown
paper. That's him standing over there by the fence.” Early pointed
toward the first base foul line.

“He don't look like no killer to me,” said
Peabo.

“Looks more like a choir boy,” said
Oyster.

“Reminds me of Billy Budd,” said Early.

“Billy Budd? Who the hell's Billy Budd? He in
a poem too?”

“How do you know that's him?” asked
Peabo.

“Cause they put him in a cell right up the
tier from me when they brought him in two days ago. Read his door
tag. His name's Priddy-Oliver Priddy.”

“And lookie there!” said Oyster. “The booty
bandit's on him already!”

“If he only knew what we knew.”

“Yeah. He'd leave that Louisville slugger
alone.”

“You ain't never lied, Early.”

“Kill the umpire!” Bell yelled. “That man was
safe by a mile!”

No sooner did Bell protest another close call
at home plate then the controversy died and two hundred and fifty
pairs of eyes shifted to the new prisoner, Oliver Priddy. A
passerby stopped dead in his tracks to sing about what they were
looking at. “A fight! A fight! A nigger and a white! Look at that
nigger beat that white!”

Early flexed the newspaper in his fist while
he watched Winfield “Fat Daddy” Petaway knock Oliver to the ground,
then stroll away before the guard in the number one tower could
figure out what the commotion was all about. When Oliver got to his
feet, he headed behind the backstop and paused right in front of
the born-agains who were reciting Bible verses out loud. Early and
the others watched Tommy Lovechild ease up to Oliver. “Do you know
Jesus?” he asked. “Would you like to come and pray?”

The other born-agains gathered in a tight
knot of seven on the bleachers and then separated into two lines of
three with Deacon Bob up front. Then they jumped down and circled
Oliver like a lynch mob.

Oliver reached for the hand that pressed into
his shoulder. “Heal in the name of Jesus!” Tommy Lovechild prayed.
But before he could say it again, Oliver grabbed his hand and bent
it back until it folded like a hinge.

“Let go! Oh, God! Ple-e-e-ease let go!” Tommy
cried before he fainted. It was only then that Oliver let go.

But the born-agains wouldn't leave well
enough alone. The one called Swanee concentrated on Oliver's long
sinewy arms while Deacon Bob tried to restrain him in a full
Nelson. In one quick motion Oliver freed himself and found Bob's
throat. It took several minutes for Swanee and the others to
wrestle him to the ground where they laid hands on his prostrate
body and began praying in tongues. Oliver struggled to get to his
feet just as the goon squad turned the corner of the icehouse and
trotted across the ball diamond.

“You men get back!” the fat sergeant shouted,
waddling his tub of guts while he whirled a black baton over his
head. “Get off that man!”

As quickly as the sergeant commanded, the
born-agains dispersed and the guards beat down Oliver's flailing
arms, handcuffed him and snatched him off the ground in one violent
jerk. Even though the excitement was over, every prisoner on the
yard watched in silence as the guards jacked Oliver up and carried
him away to the redbrick Home Block.

The procession came down the first base line
and Oliver swiveled his head toward the bleachers, apparently
oblivious to the drip and slide of blood from his nose. “Hey, what
the hell'd I do?” he asked. His voice was laden with
incredulity.

NEAR THE REAR GATE, where the coal trucks, ambulance
drivers and delivery vans rolled in, there was a two-story redbrick
building with thick black screens and bars covering the windows.
This building did not recede into its background of stonewall, nor
harmonize with the white clapboard buildings in front of it-the
Young Guns Boxing Gym, the Free Yourself Law Library and the prison
chapel. Rather, it imposed itself on the eye of every passerby in a
manner that was both irritating and depressing. Official visitors
who toured the prison every spring and summer-doctors, judges, law
students, clergymen and juvenile delinquents on a scared straight
tour-wondered aloud why the building hadn't been torn down. Over
the years different interest groups had come to use different
euphemisms when referring to this dilapidation. The prison
administrators referred to it as the Behavioral Adjustment Unit,
whereas the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Prisoners called it the Solitary
Confinement building. The guards and prisoners called it something
else. They called it the Home Block. So named because it was home
to the most incorrigible prisoners in Riverview Penitentiary. Home,
also, to the sociopaths who turned the keys.

When Oliver was told to place his nose
against the vestibule wall of the Home Block, he moved his head
from side to side to think about it. The guards closed in before he
made up his mind and a blue-eyed lieutenant slammed the end of his
flashlight into Oliver's left kidney, causing his knees to
buckle.

“You like to fight, boy? Stand up!”

Oliver stood as tall as his six three frame
would let him. “That's the third time I've been knocked down today.
What the hell'd I do?”

“Shut up, boy! Speak when you're told to
speak! Now get naked, turn around and bend over.”

Oliver followed orders. When he bent over,
gas broke from his bowels and the stink knocked the guards back on
their heels. The mean-ass lieutenant with the blue eyes held his
breath and tried to grab Oliver by his elbow, but Oliver stood tall
and spun around to face the man. Just as he did a guard drove his
flashlight into Oliver's stomach, and made him lean forward. He
took a couple of deep breaths and stood tall again. “I've had
enough of this shit!” he said, and struck the lieutenant in the jaw
with a left hook.

But it was the only punch he got in. After
that it was as if all the bars and bricks and razor wire in the
building came down on him, the way they lit into him. Two held him
down while the blue eyed lieutenant punched him in the ribs. Then
the guards circled and kicked him until he spit blood and mucous at
them.

“I thought you liked to fight, boy! Why
aren't you fighting?”

“Fuck you, man!” Oliver cried.

Under the gallery gate a sewer rat moved its
tail and whiskers as it waited to taste the blood that flowed from
Oliver's nose for the third time that day.

“Who am I, boy? Who am I!” the lieutenant
demanded. Oliver tried to get to his feet but the lieutenant shoved
him back down so hard his right arm snapped. When he tried to get
up again, Lieutenant Blue Eyes planted his boot between Oliver's
bare buttocks and held him down. “I'm the Man, you young punk!
That's who I am!”

WHEN HE OPENED his eyes two days later, he was
propped up in a bed in the prison hospital, his right arm sealed in
Plaster of Paris. Before him on a tray was another tray divided
into four compartments. In one compartment was a slice of ham, in
another, black eyed peas, in another sweet potatoes, and in the
smallest one, tapioca. Oliver stared at the soft colors. As he
reached for the spoon, he winced at the pain in his arm.

“Use your other arm.”

Cautious and wide-eyed, Oliver turned his
head a little to the left and saw a brown-skinned man dressed in an
apple green uniform standing there. The man's silver, wooly hair
was parted high on the left side.

“We're not going to have any trouble today,
are we, Priddy?”

Oliver looked up and down the man's uniform
and then at the janitor who was pouring Lysol into a bucket in the
middle of the ward. He could smell the strong antiseptic just
before the stench of vomit from a patient two beds over became a
reeking fog. He laid his head back on the pillow and tried not to
breathe through his nose while he stared at the man in the apple
green uniform.

“I'm not a doctor if that's what you're
thinking,” the man said. “The name's Early Greer and I'm a convict
just like you. I hope you're not going to give me a hard time like
you did yesterday. Because if you do, I'm telling you right now
you're in for an ass-whipping.”

Oliver looked confused. “What the hell did I
do?”

“You don't remember? You overturned the
breakfast tray and then you tried to knock me into the hall.”

“Somebody kicked the shit out of me,
man.”

“That was three days ago.”

“I thought I was dead.”

“You're not dead.”

Sweat slid from Oliver's armpits and down his
sides. With extreme care Early lifted Oliver's broken arm and wiped
the sweat away with a sponge. Then he picked up the spoon and
placed it in Oliver's good hand. He hadn't eaten in two days and
his appetite was ferocious even with the malodorous emanations in
the room. As he fed himself with the large spoon, he concentrated
on the pink and green of the ham, the dead eyes of the black-eyed
peas, the orange ovals of the sweet potatoes and the creamy lumps
of tapioca until they were all consumed.

“Those guards kicked the shit out of me,
man.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What did you do to piss them off?”

“Hell, they started it. The tall lieutenant
with the blue eyes. Know who I'm talking about?”

“I know him well. Lieutenant Blue Eyes. He's
a real bastard.”

“Well, he pushed me into the wall and then
shoved his flashlight into my back. Then he started yelling like a
goddamn maniac. 'You think you're tough? You think you're tough?
This is my jail, boy!' I didn't say a word. Not one goddamn word,
Mr. Greyer.”

“Greer. Early Greer. And you better learn
something quick.”

“Like what?”

“You can't beat them, son. They'll win every
time. I know cause I used to fight them all the time.”

“Yeah, but a guy's got to defend himself,
doesn't he? I wasn't doing anything but minding my business. First
this goddamn freak asked me if I wanted to be his friend. I told
him to go find someone else to play with and he sucker-punched me.
Then this other weirdo started touching me and asking me if I
wanted to pray with him. All I did was make him take his hand off
me. Then all his buddies jumped me. What was I supposed to do?”

“I've got two things to say to you, young
buck. You've got a lot of time to do-”

“Hey, how do you know that?”

“Read about you in the newspaper. You killed
a boy in reform school. So the paper said.”

Oliver's face was knocked clean of meanness
when he looked Early in the eyes. “The judge gave me life, Mr.
Early. I can't imagine staying in here the rest of my life.”

“You won't be here the rest of your life. Not
unless you screw up some more.”

“What do you mean? The judge gave me
life.”