Eureka Man: A Novel (32 page)

Two hours later, when the lights went out for
the evening, an idea came to him that he thought might ease his
suffering. He immediately picked up his pen and tablet and sat on
the floor near the cell door, where a shaft of moonlight slanted
through the bottom bars. There, he began to write the names of
every song he had ever heard and loved, beginning with the stacks
of 45s his mother played for him over and over on her phonograph
when he was a child. The pen, gripped tightly between his long
fingers, circled and swirled across the page with the intensity of
a man who knew something about self-soothing. Heartbreak Hotel. The
Great Pretender. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Fools Rush In. Please
Don't Ask Me to Be Lonely. There were hundreds of them. And each
title he wrote down was accompanied by one image or another: his
mother in the living room showing off a new dance step to him;
Ernie Boy the Second storming through the house leaving a trail of
blue smoke from the half-chewed cigar he kept in his mouth; Oliver
with his ear pressed against the phonograph speaker, his collie
Laddie curled up on the rug beside him. Some of these images
triggered his olfactory memory also, and he could, at that very
moment, smell his mother's perfume, Ernie Boy's pungent cigar smoke
and a pot of fresh kale wafting from the kitchen. When he had
exhausted these earliest memories, he moved on to his teenage years
and his mind was flooded with song titles from his own record
collection. Motown, Stax, Decca and Atlantic records. He had owned
just about every 45 hit those labels had ever produced. The list
went on for more than four pages, front and back, and when his
memory began to strain, he started a new page with a different
topic that at once spurred him on. He wrote the names of every girl
he had ever kissed, held hands with or loved. The list was long and
inspiring. In this solitary contemplation of his former life, he
stopped from time to time to recall the details of one girl's eyes,
the texture and color of another's hair and the unrestrained
passion of some of the older girls. He went through each year of
his life starting at the age of twelve, and with each year, the
list of girls grew as his need for love and physical intimacy
became like a bottomless pit. By the time he was finished writing
down the last two names, he was, at once, overcome with such
happiness that his confidence was restored, his grief displaced.
His self-inflicted torment had subsided. The gratitude he felt for
having discovered a way to ward off the most terrifying part of
solitary confinement-having nothing good to say to one's self and
losing all hope-was second only to the sheer joy he felt from
reliving those beautiful vivid memories again.

FOOTSTEPS, THEN A RAP, interrupted his high-end
reverie. Oliver looked up and thought he saw Mr. Sommers peering
through the bars on the cell door.

“Oliver.”

“Mr. Sommers?”

“How're you holding up, Oliver?” Mr. Sommers
asked. He had a gentle face altogether and a paternal demeanor.
“Well, you seem all right physically, at least. Except for that
look of desperation on your face, you don't look bad at all.”

“And you-all dressed up in a suit,” Oliver
said, having himself neither changed the jumpsuit they gave him to
wear two months ago nor shaved for two weeks. “Man, am I glad to
see you, Mr. Sommers.”

“Just so you know, I tried three times to get
in the Home Block to see you. They wouldn't let me in. I'm afraid
the Superintendent has it in for you, Oliver.”

“That's okay. You're here now. Thanks for
coming.” Oliver gestured for his boss to come closer. He lowered
his voice. “In the very back of the bottom drawer of my file
cabinet, there's a large, frayed manila envelope with Deputy
Maroney's signatures on the back. One for each month of this year.
He may not have read my essay, but he sure as hell approved it. I
need you to get that envelope and show it to the hearing
examiner.”

Mr. Sommers looked shocked, then sympathetic.
“I will if it's still there, Oliver.”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn't it be? The
riot didn't cause any fire or water damage to the school, did
it?”

“No. But security searched your desk and file
cabinet thoroughly the day after they locked you up.”

“Ah, Christ, Mr. Sommers. Did you see them
take anything away?”

“No, I didn't, Oliver. But then again, I
wasn't in the room when they were making their search.”

“What were they looking for, do you
know?”

“No idea. I don't think they knew either.”
They each paused in thought and then Mr. Sommers said, “You know, I
wondered about that. Didn't I drop that envelope off at the
Deputy's office for you several times?”

“Just about every month. And that's another
thing. On the day of my hearing, I asked that hearing examiner to
call you as one of my witnesses, but you weren't in the institution
that day. Then I asked for Deputy Maroney to be present and they
said he was gone, too.”

“He is gone. They called him to Central
Office a couple of days before you were locked up. He's being
groomed for a Superintendent's post. Listen, I'll go right now and
try to find that envelope. If it's still there, I'll make copies of
it before I turn it over to the hearing examiner. And I'll deliver
them to the security captain and the Superintendent himself. Why
didn't you write to me about this before now, Oliver? Maybe you
wouldn't still be in here.”

“I did. I wrote a note and gave it to a
fellow who got released from the Home Block a couple days before my
hearing. Neither of us knew then that the joint was still locked
down. I couldn't take the chance of sending you a note through
normal channels because I knew they were screening all my outgoing
mail.”

“I understand, now. I never thought of that.
Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I was wondering if you've heard from anyone
on my behalf?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. Dr. Dallet
called a couple of times and the dean phoned me last week. I've
also heard from several of your other professors. And that
journalist called three times wanting to know when she can resume
her interview. Lots of people care about you, Oliver.”

Mr. Sommers' words embarrassed Oliver a
little, but at that moment, nothing had ever been nicer to hear.
“That's sure soothing to know,” Oliver said, shaking his head in
the affirmative.

After his boss was gone, Oliver turned his
thoughts to B.J. Dallet. There was no danger of tears this time,
for his mind welcomed the diversion from his own self-inflicted
torment. He thought about the way she had looked the last time he
saw her. Scrutinizing her swollen eyes and sunken cheeks, watching
her scratch herself like a flea-bitten dog, had made him feel
helpless and responsible at the same time. He still didn't
understand what had driven her there. Was it simply her curiosity?
Or years of chronic physical pain? Or pent-up longing for something
more out of life? A combination of all three? He didn't know but he
wished with all his heart that she would hit rock bottom and get
the help she needed to make a full recovery.

Then, two weeks after Mr. Sommers had come to
see him, and on the same afternoon he heard a prisoner three doors
down singing, she wrote me a letter, said she couldn't live without
me no more, the guard stopped in front of his door. “Mail on the
bars!” Oliver jumped up and counted three pieces before he had them
in his hand. He dropped the tuition bill and magazine subscription
on the bed and ripped open the cream-colored envelope, his face
suddenly flushed, his heart pounding in his chest. Dear Oliver:
Questions about his well-being, answers about her own; sincere
regrets for the way things had turned out. Hang in there. Very
sincerely. And then the signer identified herself using her
official name, Dr. B.J. Dallet, University of Pittsburgh. He
slumped down on his bed on the verge of tears. He fingered the
letter, smelled her scent over and over and thought, he could no
more figure out now how to console the young lover abandoned by his
older mistress than he'd been able to figure out how to reconcile
being a convict guilty of starting a riot. But he tried. He told
himself, Why have regrets? Why stain the memories now that would
only make for more boils on the heart later? She had helped make
him a star, a celebrity in this prison and across the university.
She had told everyone she knew he was one special fellow, that he
had what it takes to make it. And he had! Thanks to her, he had
accomplished the impossible-a master's degree and a dissertation
away from a Ph.D.-and she had helped make it all happen. He
reminded himself now that hope had always run deep in his veins.
I've been through worse that this before, he told himself. I'll
find it again. I'll find a way. I'll find it-This will pass.

But it did not pass.

One cold morning he was startled by the sound
of an envelope falling off the bars of his cell door and onto the
cement floor. In-house mail, they called it. Inside the envelope
was a note from Mr. Sommers. Oliver's hope swirled and eddied
through him before he read the words: “Sorry, Oliver. No envelope
to be found. Will keep searching. May have another idea.”

Instead of believing that Mr. Sommers would
find a way for him to thrive again, Oliver knew it was over. His
failures were his, as was the bewildering injustice on which he was
impaled.

WHEN MARGE HURLEY FIRST
met Wayne St. Pierre
back in the tenth grade, she knew he was the one for her. From the
first day when he had teased her about her golden hair that was
softer than corn silk to his fingers, she knew they would be
together for a lifetime.

I'll bet that's one of those wigs, he'd
said.

Wrong, smart guy. It's the real deal, she'd
answered.

After they started dating, fell in love and
all but said they would stay together forever, he had teased her
about her tiny feet that always got cold even on the warmest summer
nights. Later he laughed at how funny her toes looked separated by
the white cotton she put between them when she painted her
nails.

She had been the perfect wife, the best
mother to their two boys, Spencer and Harold. She kept their
domestic affairs in order, paid the bills on time, got the boys to
scouts each week. And two or three times a month she hired a
babysitter to watch the boys while she and Wayne went out to dinner
or to see a movie. She had even overlooked the condoms she found
hidden in his wallet, and the pink lipstick on his work shirt
collar.

She recalled now what they had said to each
other that night the storm knocked the maple tree in their front
yard right out of its roots as they lay cuddled in a patchwork
quilt on the brass bed they had bought in the Amish countryside,
that no matter what hardships they endured, no matter how rough the
road got, they would stick it out, would always be together.

Marge knew they were anything but together
now. Every day since he had come home from the hospital a year ago,
he had been relying on one drug after another to maintain the
delicate balance of a man vacillating between suicidal despair and
homicidal rage. Weekly trips to the psychiatrist's office and daily
doses of prescription drugs to fight the pain and insomnia couldn't
hide his aggression or calm his nerves. Every day things had gotten
a little worse:

“It was barbaric what those prisoners did to
my Wayne. He was such a gentle and loving man before all this. He
never lost his temper. He never beat me or yelled at the kids. He
never used to swear. All he talks about now is the prison, the
riot, and those animals who assaulted him. It's been over a year
and you would think it would get a little easier, but it's only
gotten worse. I'd do anything to have the man I married back.

“It's the rage, you know? He's consumed by
it. I know it isn't his fault. The pain is so paralyzing at times
that he can't keep it to himself. But Wayne's obsession with what
happened doesn't just end with a lot of talk. He's as paranoid as
all outdoors. Every night he takes out his guns and cleans them in
the living room. He sleeps with a shotgun beside the bed, too, and
everywhere he goes he carries a pistol in his waistband. It scares
me to death. At first, I thought, Oh, it's okay. The guns make him
feel better. He'll never use them. Then one day last week we were
coming home from his weekly appointment with the psychiatrist when
we passed a van carrying prisoners on the highway. Wayne pulled out
his pistol, rolled down the window and came within a squeeze of the
trigger of shooting at the van. I was forced to pull the car over
to the side until he calmed down.

“He can't even hold a simple conversation
anymore without blowing up. He sees a young black man in the most
innocuous situation, a television commercial, say, or walking in
the mall, and he loses it. He curses and uses the N word over and
over. He even uses it in front of the children. The boys have
stopped having their friends over because they're afraid and
ashamed. Wayne yells at them sometimes for just being boys. They've
learned to stay away from him when the rage becomes more than they
can handle. Our younger boy went through a terrible period of
nightmares. He'd seen his father in the hospital. He'd seen what
those prisoners had done to him. Then he started waking up in the
middle of the night screaming and crying his little eyes out. The
older boy hasn't spoken to his father since he killed their
parakeet, Blue-Boy. Wayne strangled the poor little bird in a fit
of rage one evening after it landed on his shoulder.

“Yesterday, I came home from work, hung my
coat up and walked into the living room. Wayne was sitting in his
chair crying. When he saw me he stood up all of a sudden and
slapped me down again. All because I had bought a little
battery-operated vibrator for myself. At first, I didn't care that
he was impotent. It would go away eventually, I told myself. But it
hasn't and it's been a year. He hasn't touched me, except for that
one night when he was drunk; he thought he could keep it going long
enough to make me feel good. It didn't happen. To make matters
worse, he was so angry that he squeezed my breasts until they
turned black and blue.