Eureka Man: A Novel (19 page)

Though he wouldn't take credit for the
buckwheat and clover patches that had been flourishing there for
years, he laid claim to them just the same. Early gave him tips on
mulching and showed him where to find soil so rich it made Early's
biennial foxgloves grow six feet high. Early even brought Johnny
jewel flowers and nasturtiums from his own garden and showed Johnny
how to replant them.

Handsome Johnny was completely content with
his multicolored poppies and peonies until the morning he visited
Early's flower beds that surrounded the prison chapel. He was
amazed at the sight of the orange wing butterflies etched with
black lace hovering in Early's pansies and violets. And why, he
wondered, why didn't those blues and viceroys flutter and feed in
his own buckwheat and clover patches? He was determined to import
those giant butterflies and hummingbirds from Early's garden to his
own, and he thought he knew just how to do it. Using his
connections, Handsome Johnny ordered up an array of exotic
plants.

But the plan was a disaster from the start.
Ignorant of certain horticulturally important specifications such
as light and temperature, Handsome Johnny failed to cultivate a
single new plant. He under watered the tropical slippers and over
watered the begonias. When the panda ginger, string-of-hearts, and
Jack-in-the-pulpit were almost parallel to the ground, Fat Daddy
helped him haul in wheelbarrow loads of the rich, black soil Early
swore by. In the end, though, only the peonies, pansies, poppies
and two rows of pink and lavender irises survived. Fat Daddy told
Johnny that the clay and rocks in the soil weren't his fault and
that the plants still standing and prospering were proof of
Johnny's green thumbs. Fat Daddy drew the line when Johnny asked
him to help him replace the dead verbena with radishes and peppers.
Fat Daddy had something else to do and told Johnny to let it
go.

FAT DADDY WAS TOO BUSY doubling his dedication to
being deviant. Every morning when the doors opened, he and Donnie
Blossom found a new place to link themselves together. Standing in
the one-man shower stall they moved to the frenzy of a brown-tail
moth beating its wings against a 60-watt light bulb. The flickering
light arched Fat Daddy's back; the water warmed Donnie's
tongue.

There was no way to mistake them if you knew
where they were. In the outdoor toilet stall Donnie rode up and
down on Fat Daddy's lap like he was riding a carousel. They did it
easy and sometimes rough. And they never stopped. Not for droves of
shit-dropping pigeons or heat hovering at 102 degrees. If you
happened to spot them curled up in the ivy during one of those
intermittent summer showers, you could see their bodies changing
hues. And they kept right on doing it in the pure summer rain.

Nothing could stop them. The born-agains
wanted to. Over and over Tommy Lovechild told Deacon Bob how they
looked and where to find them. They could have been, should have
been, a sideshow, a tourist attraction, he said, except they were
an embarrassment to decent Christians. A posse of born-agains
plotted to lay hands on them and pray in tongues. They started to
do it, but the movement died before they could go on their first
stakeout. The born-agains said their objections were not aimed at
sex at all, but at perversion. These two were as bad as Sodom.

Swanee said, “It's not like they're doing it
on the forty-yard line or on top of home plate. You have to go out
of your way to find them.”

The born-agains wanted to get rid of these
homosexual deviants, but they wanted them to be there too. Even a
bunch of repressed pedophiles, too scared to have wet dreams of
their own, knew they needed these two. Even if they never went near
them, they needed to know they were out there.

The one brave soul who did approach them
challenged Fat Daddy to give up his debauchery right in the middle
of the act. When he should have been attending a Wednesday night
prayer meeting, Barney Lee Russell III was pulling open Fat Daddy's
cell door and shouting, “Heal, in the name of Jesus!” Jolted and
buck naked, Fat Daddy rolled off Donny Blossom's back and ran into
so much resistance that he had to kill. Those who were there said
Barney Lee Russell III held his own until his body succumbed to
twenty-seven puncture wounds made by a finely honed welding
rod.

The other born-agains were standing on the
corner of the street with no name and Tom's Way when the gurney
carrying their brethren's body rolled by. Night school had just let
out and the students and their professors were being held up on the
other side of the intersection. “Everybody step back!” shouted
Tommy George, the schoolhouse guard.

Dr. B.J. Dallet dropped her books and gasped
at the sight of blood dripping from the gurney as it passed by.
Twenty feet behind the trail of blood, two guards had Fat Daddy
handcuffed and jacked up between them. Every few feet his bare feet
touched the blacktop long enough for the guards to jack him back up
while he pedaled his skinny ashen legs faster and faster.

Passing by the professors and students, Fat
Daddy turned his head in their direction and twisted his face into
a monstrous grin. Everyone on the corner could hear Dr. B.J. Dallet
exclaim, “What in the world happened? And why does that man look so
evil?”

Oliver's green eyes glinted with disgust.
“Because he is,” he said. “As evil as they come.”

AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME the coroner's van showed up
the next morning for Barney Russell's dead body, every booty bandit
in the little St. Regis appeared at Donnie Blossom's door to lay
claim to him. Donnie looked repeatedly at the players and then told
them he already had a new home. One squeezed Donnie's ass as he
went by. Another didn't believe him and said he'd be back for him
later that night. Donnie walked out of the little St. Regis and
through the doors of the big St. Regis. The empty cell on Champ's
right was clean and ready for him when he arrived.

Three weeks later, he was shelling pistachios
and popping them into his mouth when the Home Block janitor
appeared at his door with a written message from Fat Daddy. The
message read, “I'll see you in five years and nine months. You
better stay true.”

Donnie belched, softly, purringly,
amusingly.

WAYNE ST. PIERRE TURNED the
keys to the front
gate of Riverview Penitentiary as if he owned the locks. A third
generation turnkey, he loved his job and took great pride in seeing
to it that no visitor, official or otherwise, got inside the front
door of the prison after two o'clock in the afternoon, Monday
through Friday, without his scrutiny.

There were certain things about his job that
irked Wayne St. Pierre more than others, like when black men showed
up at his gate to visit other black men. In some form or fashion he
was sure a conspiracy was in play. A drug transaction, a robbery or
burglary plot, or just more conversation about how the white man
ain't right, never was and never will be. For these visitors he
gave extra scrutiny, turning up the sensitivity scale on the metal
detector, double-checking identification cards.

Black women-mothers, wives, sisters,
daughters-stood a better chance of obtaining a morsel of humanity
from Wayne St. Pierre, but that was only because he was a natural
born skirt-chaser and didn't discriminate when it came to the color
of the skin. He had been staring into the eyes of female visitors
for so long that he could spot the broken ones without a second
look. The desperation came off them like a morning fog, a
desperation you could almost touch. And he often did. They didn't
have to turn their heads to know his eyes were searching for
cleavage or that his fingers were drumming the scars on the
hundred-year old oak counter, all the while anticipating the
opening of buttons, clasps and zippers. His aftershave told it all.
And to those he thought were desperate enough, he would whisper,
“Nice tits,” “Sweet ass,” “Fine girl,” “What do you say?” More
understanding than a regular John. He got his sex from the crying
ones. Who needed a white man wearing a correctional uniform with a
black tie pointing down to something that couldn't please a house
cat, but for his few dollars.

Working six to two overtime one overcast
Saturday in June, he honed in on a high-yellow woman in her
thirties as she sat in the waiting room holding her three-year-old
son and dabbing her sleeve at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
She was slender, with prominent cheekbones, and she was put
together. She had a bad bruise, as deep as a burgundy wine stain,
on her left cheek. The bruise excited Wayne St. Pierre.

“Excuse me, ma'am. Are you all right?”

The child slid off her lap and Wayne St.
Pierre's eyes followed the woman's smooth yellow thighs all the way
up to the hem of her short black skirt. “Is there something I can
help you with?” he asked her, offering a paper towel.

“Thank you,” she said. “I'll be all right.”
She said it with confidence, but then she lowered her head and
cried some more.

Wayne St. Pierre said, “That's a terrible
bruise, ma'am. It looks fresh.”

She nodded and looked at her son. “Ray-Ray
hit Mommy with a belt buckle, didn't he?” She glanced at Wayne St.
Pierre, held back her tears. “He... He slapped Johnny Boy's son
here with a belt buckle, too. Look.” She snatched her son between
her legs and yanked his shirt up. The welts were fresh on his
back.

“Ah, jeez,” said Wayne St. Pierre.

“We're going to show your daddy as soon as we
get inside what that no-good Ray-Ray did to you, aren't we, Ty?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders.

“I'm sorry, ma'am. Ray-Ray's the man you live
with?”

She nodded and then said, “Not anymore. I'm
leaving him. He took my money. I … I got but two dollars to buy
Johnny Boy a soda and a bag of potato chips, and a bus pass to get
across town with. That bad ass Ray-Ray took my money.”

Wayne St. Pierre looked down at the sign-in
sheet, then up at the clock, then at her. “Jasmine? Jasmine Teal?
That's a pretty name.” He lowered his voice. “My name's Wayne,
Jasmine, and this shift I'm working ends in an hour and a half. If
you're out front on the Ohio River Boulevard when I'm leaving work,
I'll be more than happy to drive you across town and buy you some
groceries.”

Jasmine Teal dabbed away at her tears.

The child watched him as he looked around the
room and then took out his wallet and removed a bill.

“Here's five dollars. Get you and your Johnny
Boy and son here a sandwich when you get inside. Now mind you, I
could lose my job for helping you so it's best you don't tell
anyone.”

She took the five dollar bill and looked him
up and down. He was a tall, heavily built man in his forties, with
thinning gray hair and a tanned face scored with lines. He would be
considered attractive even with the wrinkles and extra pounds.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “That's very kind of you.” She smiled.
Her teeth were white and straight.

“Call me Wayne,” he said. “We know each other
now.”

The top button of her blouse had come undone
and she leaned forward, crossing her legs slowly.

Later that afternoon, while the child soared
higher and higher in a park swing, Wayne St. Pierre locked Jasmine
Teal's leg around his waist, leaned her against a great white oak
tree and entered her. When he was finished, he let go of her
breasts at the same time the child let go of the swing and shouted,
“Whee! I'm flying!” The boy smacked into the tree twenty feet above
the ground and dropped like a duck riddled with buckshot.

Jasmine Teal dropped her leg to the ground,
sighed and walked around the tree where her child lay unconscious
and bleeding profusely from his nose and ears. There was a six-inch
gash across his forehead. Wayne St. Pierre came to look, too, and
frowned when Jasmine fainted in his arms. He threw her over his
shoulder and carried her to the bed of his navy blue Chevy pickup.
Then he retrieved the child and laid him at her side.

By the time the truck screeched to a halt in
front of the emergency room of the Allegheny General Hospital,
Jasmine Teal had revived herself and was cradling her child in her
blood soaked arms. She handed the boy to Wayne St. Pierre and
jumped over the tailgate. He handed the child back to her. “I'll be
waiting for you.”

He waited impatiently in the cab of his truck
and when mother and child didn't return after two hours, he hauled
the bag of groceries through the emergency room door and inquired
about them. A tired looking nurse directed him to the elevator,
fourth floor, room two twenty-two.

Jasmine Teal was sitting beside the bed with
her eyes closed, her small hands folded in prayer. The room was
cold and the low light made it difficult for Wayne St. Pierre to
see. After he blinked and squinted several times, he peered through
the transparent walls of the oxygen tent and gasped at what he saw.
The child's head, wrapped in a mile of gauze, was the size of a
basketball. He looked away and cleared his throat. He shifted the
load in his arms and the crinkling of the paper bag startled her.
When she looked up, he said, “I brought your groceries. I can't
stay. I have to go. I'm really sorry. I have to go now.”

She stared at him through a curtain of
tears.

“I'd really like to see you again,” he
said.

With red-eyed rage, the woman screamed, “Get
out! Get out, you!”

He walked out of the room. A nurse entered
the elevator ahead of him. Her countenance was soft and
sympathetic, his was shock. When the door closed he looked up at
the ceiling, then at the nurse. “She could have thanked me for the
groceries,” he said.

B.J. DALLET HAD BEEN AROUND enough snakes in her life
to know what kind Wayne St. Pierre was. She knew because every time
he had made a pass at her, he gave himself away. His rattlers were
anything but subtle.