Eureka Man: A Novel (25 page)

Who needed it? Here he was learning advanced
calculus, the laws of metaphysics and theories of information
processing, a year away from becoming the first member of his
family and the first prisoner in the world to earn a PhD, and they
wanted to burn down his classroom. It just didn't make sense. And
even worse than the thought of losing his classroom was the thought
of losing his lover, friend, mother, sister, and world class
mentor. There was no way he could afford to lose her. Not her.

He cocked his head when he saw Champ
approaching, and then separated himself from the others to talk to
him. They cleared their sinuses at the same time, and Oliver said,
“I got something for you, Champ. Meet me at my hut.”

Five minutes later they were having a
conversation that was better than Oliver imagined a conversation
could be. In the middle of it, he removed the poster of Otis
Redding at the Monterey Pop Festival from the back wall of his cell
and peeled off the hundred dollar bill he had taped to the back of
it. “Here's a brand new C-note Champ.” Champ smiled and looked at
Oliver while he folded the bill five different ways and then stuck
it down inside his sock.

Oliver continued, “Goddamn, I wish there was
a way to make that bastard disappear.” What he meant was, name your
price and make it happen! Champ said, “If you're serious that'll
cost you five hundred.”

Oliver's voice was hollow with wonder. “Five
hundred? Just to get him transferred?”

“You fucking right! That kind of move don't
come cheap! What you think, I'm going to chop him up and flush him
down the toilet for you? There's another man got to take care of
this. And he don't come cheap.”

Oliver was startled into a smile. “How long
would it take?”

“I don't know. I'll have to get back to you
on that.”

“All right, let's do it. Put the order in,
man.”

Phlegm and impatience mingled in Champ's
voice. “Hold up. You talk to her first. Make sure she's down with
it. Not unless you got five-hundred of your own money to
spend.”

“Look, she wants him gone as much as I do,
Champ. She'll pay the money as long as there's no violence. Five
hundred's nothing to her. She's brought this thing up a hundred
times, how she wished he would just disappear. If I tell her it's
going to cost five hundred dollars to get him transferred, she'll
bring five brand new C-notes in the next time she comes. I
guarantee it. You want the money up front?”

“Nah. I trust you. You know better than to
play with my money.”

Oliver hesitated and then said, “She won't
even let me hold her with this fucking guy around. He's got to go,
man.”

“All right. I heard you.” Champ looked
curiously at the calligraphy writing on the wall over Oliver's bed
before he said, “I want to ask you something.”

“What?”

“That meeting tonight. What'd you think?”

“Man, I don't know. I don't think they can
make that law retroactive.”

“I'm not talking about that. I'm talking
about how hyped up everybody got when we told them about all these
changes that are coming down.”

“Hell, everybody's frustrated, Champ,
including me. But what can we do about it?”

“Lot of people talking about making some
noise.”

“You can't blame them. They're making changes
so fast, it's like they're asking for trouble. I don't know what
good it's going to do to start a riot, though, if that's what
you're talking about.”

“Hey, don't put words in my mouth, Jack. I
didn't say nothing about no riot. What would you do if they had one
anyway, hide under the bed?” Champ giggled and Oliver smiled.

“No. But I'd get the hell out of the
way.”

“You wouldn't get involved?”

“For what? They wouldn't need me to help tear
shit up, that's for sure.”

“You're right. Keep your ass up in that
school. Speaking of school, I saw you doing your homework tonight
at that meeting.”

“Nah, man, I was taking notes for a piece of
satire I'm writing. About all this shit that's going on. I'm going
to enter it in a literary contest over at the University. It might
even get published.”

“Satire? What the fuck's that?”

“A literary technique. When you draw
attention to a serious problem by suggesting some crazy ass
solutions. And the beauty of it all is that the solutions aren't
meant to be taken literally, so you can more or less say whatever
you want to say.”

“That's good. That's what we need.”

“Yeah. I'll probably put it in the newsletter
too. I'll let you read it when I'm finished. You want to catch a
buzz while you're here?”

“Yeah.”

“Here. Light it up.”

ON MONDAY MORNING
, pleased with his plans and
armed with a four-page draft of parodies and diatribes, Oliver
decided to check out the bakeshop before going to work. He turned
right instead of left at the intersection of Tom's Way and Turk's
Street and strolled past the chapel, the Young Guns Boxing Gym and
the Free Yourself Law Library. Three yardworkers were cleaning up
ice cream and candy wrappers along the sidewalks and between the
buildings, while a chapel worker stood on a ladder washing the
stained glass windows. Oliver watched a blood-red bird hop from
limb to limb in the pear tree behind the chapel. When it flew away
he looked up and saw a cloud ribbon swirling all the way across a
pastel blue sky. It was a sight to behold, he thought. As were the
clapboard buildings, the sidewalks that zigged and zagged, the
shrubs and manicured flower beds, and the early morning silhouette
of five boxers jogging around the courtyard. Why would anyone want
to disturb this view? Except for a crack here, a chink there,
everything in the prison was intact. There was no need to wonder if
taking a wrecking ball to the joint would be a mistake.

As he drew closer to the end of the street,
he could smell the aroma of freshly baked bread and sweet sticky
rolls in the breeze. When he arrived at the back door of the
bakery, he called for Hambone whose albinism caused him to squint
and blink perpetually as he opened the screen door and stared at
Oliver in the bright morning sunlight. Hambone handed Oliver a warm
bag of pastries, and Oliver dropped a fat joint into the palm of
Hambone's hand.

The rolls, smelling wonderfully, attracted
the cat that lived under the steps. The cat jumped onto the
landing, curled around Hambone's ankle and purred, though her eyes
remained alert to predators-human and otherwise.

“That's some good shit, Hambone,” Oliver
said, eyeing the tufts of white hair above Hambone's red eyes. “A
few tokes are all you need. See you around, my man.”

He walked back up the street with no name and
passed two storeroom workers who were unloading bags of potatoes
from a beat-up Ford delivery truck parked beside the chapel. He
always thought the chapel basement was a peculiar place for a
potato cellar, though he imagined it was cool and dry down there.
Over the years he had seen many shady characters coming and going
from the cellar whenever he passed by. He had heard many loose
stories about what went on down there, too-war stories; fist fights
and who was triumphant; talks of trysts, interrogations and
bondage. He pictured Fat Daddy pummeling some white boy on a stack
of potato sacks while the born-agains were upstairs practicing
“What A Friend We Have In Jesus” in flatted thirds and sevenths.
And how those brothers could sing. Now that he thought about it,
the born-agains could have been the source of inspiration for all
the nefarious activities that went on down there.

As he crossed Tom's Way, it and the side
streets seemed to him as busy and noisy as ever for a Monday
morning. Three of one-eyed Melvin's boys, five of Champ's, a couple
of Homewood old heads, and three MOVE members dawdled on the
corners, whispering among themselves. Oliver reassured himself with
more force than confidence that all was well. Nothing he could put
his fingernail under, just a gnawing sense of conspiracy. He had
seen violence, been a part of it, had watched it up close when it
was visited on others and felt it firsthand when it was visited on
him. Meaning, if it came down to a riot, he knew that bodies would
not just fall down, unmoving; they would be ripped apart, burned
and pierced by men who took pride in that kind of work.

Oliver saw Donnie Blossom waving at him as he
was coming up the walkway. “Hi, Oliver. Mind if I walk with
you?”

“Nope, I don't mind. Where are you
headed?”

“The Arts and Crafts shop. I'm glad I ran
into you. Those word problems are giving me a headache. I need some
more one-on-one tutoring.”

“I'd like to help you, Donnie, but today's
out of the question. I've got an essay to finish this morning and a
three-hour class this afternoon with Dr. Ray Garris, my psych
professor. If you want, you can stop by my hut after supper.”
Oliver liked Donnie, not because he was as beautiful and feminine
as it was possible for a young man to be, but because he was smart
and inquisitive; moreover, he wasn't obnoxious like the other
queens in the prison.

“I'll be there,” Donnie said. “You know, I
never did like math, Oliver.”

“That surprises me, as smart as you are.”

“Yeah, right. I'm doing twenty to forty for
two arsons. How smart is that?”

“I've always wondered what you did to end up
in here.”

“Now you know.”

“Never met an arsonist before.”

“I set my father's haberdashery on fire.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack, Oliver.”

“He must have pissed you off something
terrible,” Oliver said.

“Not really. I just got tired of the way he
treated me. His store was the only thing he ever cared about. His
tweeds and cashmeres and fifty dollar ties. One night I just got
fed up. I went in the place and doused the carpets with gasoline
from one end of the store to the other. Then I hid in the alley
across the street and watched it burn. It was the most exciting
thing I had ever done in my life. It really was.” They stopped in
the middle of Turk's Street and waited for a small red delivery
truck to come to a stop alongside the food storeroom. “I don't
suppose you've ever seen a mannequin catch fire and melt right down
to the floor. Well, there was this one in the front window modeling
a pair of red plaid pants and a ruby-red cardigan sweater. It
looked just like my father until the head melted. When I realized
it wasn't him, I got angry all over again. That's when I decided to
drive to my parents' house and set it on fire too. They got out. I
knew they would. Smoke detectors were everywhere in that
house.”

Dumbfounded, Oliver stared into Donnie's face
and was certain he saw orange and red flames engulfing the bluest
irises he had ever seen. “ You're not joking, are you?” Oliver
asked.

“I wouldn't joke about something like
that.”

“Sounds to me like you really like fire.”

“I like the smell of gasoline even better. Hi
octane. That's why I cut grass in this stupid prison all summer,
Oliver. I love smelling gasoline.”

Oliver stopped in front of the school door
and noticed a woman in a long loose tie-dye skirt standing outside
the library at the far end of Turk's Street where it intersected
with C.I. Lane. She was writing in a spiral notebook while Mr.
Mastros, the librarian, stood beside her talking. Each time the
woman looked down, she cocked her head to the side to keep her
shoulder length champagne blond hair from falling over her eyes.
Oliver was sure he had never seen this woman before; yet she looked
familiar.

A movement over his shoulder took his
attention, and as he turned, he glimpsed the backs of seven Muslims
as they turned into Stickup Alley. Before he pulled open the school
door, he turned to Donnie and said, “We've known each other for ten
years, and I didn't know anything about you until now. We've got to
talk more often, Donnie Boy.”

Fifteen minutes later, after he took two
sticky rolls for himself and distributed the rest among the staff,
Oliver sucked his teeth and pushed aside the books and papers on
his desk. He picked up his blue ceramic mug of steaming hot coffee
and took a sip before opening his loose-leaf notebook. Without
hesitation he scribbled in the margin of the first page:
“Capitalize and repeat key words often.” Then he wrote down the
title of his satirical essay at the top of the page:

HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS:

A MODEST PROPOSAL TO THE LIFE PRISONERS OF
PENNSYLVANIA ON THE PRACTICALITIES OF SELF-DELIVERANCE

He shuffled through the loose pages of his
draft and then reread the opening paragraph. After placing
quotation marks around two similes by two of his favorite poets,
Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, he started writing the final
draft of his essay:

“Surely by now all of you know that our well
of HOPE dried up 'like a raisin in the sun' last week when Governor
Tom Rigid signed House Bill 1725 into law. In sixty days the Board
of Pardons will be renamed the Board of Crime Victims' Advocates,
and any HOPE for future commutations or acts of clemency for LIFERS
will be long gone. The victims advocacy board will still hold
hearings for any LIFER who is gullible enough to pay the twenty
dollar application fee that guarantees the applicant fifteen
minutes of public humiliation, of being forced to sit and listen
while his crime is sensationalized again and again; of being
reminded that, despite the long passing of time, compassion and
mercy are no longer a part of this state's lexicon.

“So many Young Bucks have brought up the
question, then what is left but to grow old and die a burden to our
families and friends and ourselves? My reply to you, Brothers, is
that we must face our demise like dignified human beings. If we
must die here, let it not be like helpless, decrepit old men,
unless that is the way you choose to die.