Eureka Man: A Novel (14 page)

It was a little over a year later when the
blind prisoner tapped his way up the steps of the education
building and into the classroom where Oliver was explaining the
Pythagorean theorem to a group of GED students:

February 21, 1984. Today I finally met the
blind prisoner face to face. His name is Milo and he's from right
here on the North Side of the city. He came up to the school this
morning to inquire about a system of learning mathematics by finger
counting. I asked if he knew how to read Braille and if he had
enough books to read. He hesitated for a few seconds and then he
said, “I have a disease in my nervous system that causes my
fingertips to be numb, so I can't feel the Braille.” I can't even
begin to describe how sorry I felt for him when he told me this.
Wasn't it bad enough that the man was blind? Did he have to suffer
even more? I told him I would ask my boss if there was anything he
could do to help him with his needs. He seemed like an easygoing
fellow. After we got to talking, I found out he's an avid jazz fan.
I told him I'd look for him on the yard over the weekend so we
could talk more and listen to some of his jazz tapes on that giant
boom box he lugs around.

After that day Milo turned Oliver on to the
Jazz Crusaders and Oliver gave Milo his Jackie Wilson's Greatest
Hits tape to listen to. One day Oliver's boss, Mr. Lionel Sommers,
brought a woman from the Pennsylvania Society for the Blind to meet
and teach Milo how to calculate math on his fingers. A week later
the woman brought him stories and magazines on audio tapes and Milo
thanked her over and over. Then he thanked Mr. Sommers who later
thanked Oliver. “You're a real asset to this school, Oliver,” his
boss told him one morning as the sun glinted through the half-open
Venetian blinds. “You've become a fine teacher, too, and I think
it's time you had your own classroom. Why don't you move into the
learning skills center? You can set the room up for your high
school classes and you can clean out that storage closet in the
back of the room and use it for an office. How's that sound?”

“Man, you don't know how much I appreciate
that, Mr. Sommers,” Oliver exclaimed.

“Well, you've earned it, Oliver, and let me
tell you something else. A professor named Dr. B.J. Dallet is
coming to our graduation this spring. She's a good friend of mine.
I've told her all about your academic achievements and the great
progress you've made getting through to some of our most difficult
GED students. She's interested in talking with you about attending
graduate school. Now if you can get admitted into her program and
earn your Master's, I think you'll be in an excellent position to
go home one day. I'm not going to be working in this godforsaken
prison forever. A few more years and I'm out of here. You should be
finished earning your graduate degree by then. As long as I'm not
working for the DOC, I can attend your pardons hearing and speak on
your behalf if you'd like me to.”

Oliver was dumbfounded. “Are you serious? I'd
be grateful as hell, Mr. Sommers. That's how Garfield Gilly got
out. A retired police commissioner from his home town vouched for
him. I can't wait to tell my family.”

“Just make sure you keep doing the right
thing. Don't let me down.”

“I won't. Thanks, Mr. Sommers.” Oliver took
Mr. Sommers' hand and shook it jubilantly. “Hey, before I go,
there's a rumor going around that we're getting a new warden. Any
truth to it?”

“It's true. He's a troubleshooter from
central office. The deputy warden told us at yesterday's staff
meeting that a lot of changes are coming down the pike and they're
sending this guy down here to initiate them.”

“Changes? Like what?”

“For one thing, and you didn't hear this from
me, Oliver, they're talking about putting two men in a cell to help
relieve the overcrowding.”

“Two men living in one of these little ass
cages? They're out of their minds. These men aren't going to go for
that, Mr. Sommers.”

“What do you think they'll do?”

“I don't know.”

Mr. Sommers shook his head in frustration.
“In your opinion, Oliver, is Champ Burnett capable of keeping the
lifers under control?”

“Not all of them, he's not. He might be the
most respected guy in this prison, but that doesn't mean everyone
will listen to him. He wouldn't expect them to either. Not about
something like this.”

“At some point, they're probably going to be
calling Champ in to see if he'll help them keep the guys calm when
these new changes start taking place.”

“You mean there's more? What else are they
talking about?”

“Well, they're going to restrict varsity
sports teams from traveling every week, and they're talking about
doing away with the Christian family masses and cutting back on the
number of hours you men get for your organizations' annual picnics.
There's some other things too, but they're not finalized yet.”

“Like what, Mr. Sommers?”

“The DOC is asking the legislators for money
to build three new prisons. With this new governor backing them,
they'll no doubt get it too, I'm afraid. It's really a shame.
They've slashed my educational budget to hell.”

As Oliver twisted his face in disgust,
thunder shook the roof and was followed by the first spatters of
rain. The raindrops sounded hard, like someone flinging handfuls of
pebbles into a washtub. Prison could seem like a boring place,
about as dangerous as a maternity ward when everything was going
well. The days and weeks and months could pass without cause for
alarm, and then something like a memo could appear announcing the
slightest change and someone would go down with the speed of a
kamikaze pilot. The slightest change and someone reminded everyone
else just how dangerous prison really was.

But what worried Oliver more than the threat
of these new changes was how they appeared to be in sync with the
new wave of politicians who were getting elected all over the state
by running on a campaign that promised to get tough on crime and
criminals. Every night on the six o'clock news these politicians
were resounding the same theme: “It's time to lock 'em up and throw
away the key.”

WHEN IGNATIUS MELROSE WHITE showed up in the winter
of 1983 with a briefcase full of new policies, the lifers'
newsletter box swelled with complaints about the man and the
changes he was putting down. Formerly the warden at White Hill
Penitentiary, Ignatius Melrose White was now the new
“Superintendent” at Riverview. The title “warden” had outlived its
purpose and a new euphemism was now in place. The new warden's
stationery read, simply, Superintendent I.M. White. That was the
first change.

Second was the initiation of a noon count.
For a hundred years the prisoners had been counted at six in the
morning, four in the afternoon, and nine at night. In his first
month, I.M.White added a noon count to the other three and the
prisoners were infuriated. Another hour locked in their cells each
day was another hour of punishment. Another hour of recreation
lost. The prisoners filed their complaints to I.M. White and later
to his bosses in central office. This noon count, argued the
lifers' president, was nothing but a way to keep them locked down
an hour or two more each day. I.M. White responded by telling Champ
that times were changing and the men were going to have to get used
to the changes.

The third change was an attempt to begin a
mandatory standing count. The memo said that any prisoner who
wasn't standing by his door when the guard came around for each
count would be issued a disciplinary misconduct. The guards had
never complained before if a man was sitting on his bed or lying on
the floor during a count as long as he could be seen. Why make him
stand now? But the prisoners didn't go for this mandatory standing
count, and the guards never pressed the issue.

After that came a notice that the varsity
sports teams would no longer be traveling weekly to compete with
other prisons. Due to budget cuts and security concerns, the
softball, basketball, track and field and boxing teams would only
travel three times a year.

But the change that most infuriated everyone,
was having to stand in the rain, snow and bitter cold just to
receive clean linen. At six-thirty in the morning every Wednesday,
prisoners who wanted to exchange their sheets and towels for clean
ones would have to walk down Turk's Street and stand in line
outside the clothing exchange room until they made it to the door.
When Champ asked I.M. White what was wrong with having the linen
delivered to their cells the way it had always been done, the new
Superintendent told him the new procedure was more efficient for
the laundry workers. “Maybe so, but you're pissing off the whole
population,” Champ said.

I.M. White didn't feel the threat. “Well,
they'll just have to get used to it, Mr. Burnett. And, by the way,
I hope you're training hard for your upcoming fight. I'm betting on
you to win.”

“So am I,” Champ said, walking away and
spitting on the ground when he was six feet up the sidewalk from
the most arrogant black man he'd ever met.

Every one of these changes led to a mound of
angry submissions to The Wire and while Oliver had been careful not
to publish a single one, when the prisoner whose sobriquet was the
“Greek” died in the license plate factory, he included a story
about the tragedy on the front page of the March '84 issue. The
author of the story had started out paying tribute to his friend
but ended up lambasting the Department of Corrections. No one but
the DOC was responsible for the three-inch thick bolt that came
loose from a high-speed machine and burrowed through the Greek's
forehead and into the back of his brain. The friend urged every
reader who knew the Greek to write a letter to his family and
encourage them to demand an investigation into the unsafe
conditions inside the plant. He ended his tribute with a promise to
write to the people at OSHA and demand an inspection of the prison
industries plant. It was this last pledge that had Oliver sitting
in the hot seat in the deputy superintendent's office.

“You lied to me, Priddy. Why'd you lie to
me?”

Oliver was clueless. “Lied about what, Deputy
Maroney?”

“When you started this newsletter project
four years ago, you told me you wouldn't piss me off. You remember
telling me that? You said, 'This newsletter will feature
informative and entertaining news.' That's what you said, Priddy.”
The deputy held a copy of the newsletter in his hand. “This article
on Jerry Coustopoulos's death is anything but informative and
entertaining! It's downright offensive and inflammatory!”

“It was supposed to be a tribute to the
Greek, sir. I guess I didn't read it close enough before it was
typed up. It won't happen again.”

Perpetually stooped and with the grace of a
wading stork, Deputy Maroney shook his crooked finger in the air.
“It won't happen again, Priddy, and here's why! From now on, I'm
going to review the contents of every newsletter before it's
distributed. I want a final draft of every issue on my desk by the
third Friday of each month. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Good. That's all. And Priddy?”

“Sir?”

“Keep up the good work.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

A week later, two Black Panthers in a former
life stood up at the lifers' monthly meeting and demanded to know
why their articles on I.M. White and his new policies had been left
out of the last two issues of The Wire. Brother Key-su swung his
dreadlocks over his shoulders and said it was time they fired the
editor and hired someone with a little backbone. The newsletter was
too soft and too pro-administration. Oliver got up and said,
“Anyone who wants my job can have it! But let me just tell you a
couple of things first. I got my ass chewed out last month for
printing that story on the Greek. Does anybody really think they're
going to let us print stories that criticize them and get everyone
hyped up? I'll gladly step aside if somebody thinks they can do a
better job.”

Champ, who was knocked-down tired from going
seven rounds in the gym that afternoon, recalled the information
Oliver's boss had shared with him and he, in turn, had shared with
Champ. Oliver's loyalty had given Champ time to think and
surreptitiously plan a strategy for confronting the issues the
prisoners were facing with this new administration. “Ain't nobody
replacing nobody,” said Champ. “I have the same concerns you two
Brothers have about all the shit that's going down. We got to talk
about it, but we got to find another way of doing it than through
that newsletter. Key-su, how about you and the other Brother seeing
me right after this meeting? All right. That's the end of that. Mr.
Secretary, what's the next item of business?”

THE APRIL, 1984, ISSUE
of The Wire paid homage
to the one hundred and forty-two graduates who were scheduled to
march down the aisle of the auditorium the first Saturday evening
in June, in that grand old tradition known as graduation:

Next month the auditorium at Riverview will
transform itself into hallowed grounds for one evening. One hundred
and forty-two graduates will march down the aisles to the tune of
“Pomp and Circumstance” and be awarded their just deserts for years
of hard work and dedication. Forty-nine will receive high school
diplomas while their homeroom teacher, Ms. Rhoda Cherry, will
receive a year's supply of aspirin to treat the chronic headaches
these brothers gave her. This year's class valedictorian is Junior
Thompson, who scored a whopping 257 on his exams. Junior, you're
the man! Junior will be starting classes this fall in the
University program. We wish him continued success!