Eureka Man: A Novel

by Patrick Middleton

  She excused herself and clicked her high-heels all the way into Oliver's classroom. He was sitting at the table looking more beautiful than when he had stood in front of her the first time and she saw genius and mischief commingling in his face, more beautiful than that day in the classroom when his calf kissed hers for the first time, than when he had almost cried telling her about his mother June and how he had protected her. She wanted to sit in his lap and wrap her arms around him, but Chuckie Redshaw and Jimmy Rawls, two of Oliver's students, followed her into the room and sat down at the table, too, so she just walked over and shook Oliver's hand in a friendly, professional manner. He beamed at her with the same adoration as they did, but he did not compete. Chuckie and Jimmy sat back and enjoyed her presence. They looked at Oliver with awe and appraised her like she was a Corvette he had stolen.

  Oliver stood up to leave and B.J. picked up her bags to follow him. When Oliver said, “You fellows are going to have to excuse us. I have an essay I need Dr. Dallet to read,” Chuckie said, “Yeah, we were leaving anyway. We just wanted to say hello. Nice seeing you again, Dr. Dallet.” Chuckie and Jimmy breathed in her scent one last time before walking out the door.

  B.J. Dallet followed Oliver into his office and said, “Why didn't you tell me about what's going on with the lifers, Oliver?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Sommers said they've changed the entire pardons process making it almost impossible to get you out of here.”

  “That law they just passed isn't even legal. They can't make something like that retroactive. We've got lawyers from the ACLU on the case already. It's going to get overturned. Watch.”

  They were quiet for a moment, thinking about it. Then Oliver walked around the desk and pulled open the center drawer. She stood beside him and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Here's my essay,” Oliver said. “I'm dying for you to read it.”

  She sat at his desk reading his satire while he gazed out the window. After tweaking a sentence here, a phrase there, she said, “This is excellent, baby. I'm very proud of you, Oliver. I'll enter this in the literary contest and I also want a journalist I know to read it. Before I forget, put this away.” She unzipped a hidden pocket in her tote bag and pulled out a wad of bills and, curling them into his hand, asked if there was any word yet on you-know-who. He stroked her hand and, soaking in joy, folded the five C-notes she handed him into an envelope, then stashed it in the baseboard behind his desk. “Soon, baby. Real soon I've been told,” he said. She crossed her legs, swinging the top one, being girlish. She was being girlish for him.

  Across the hall, through the half open door, they could hear Victor LeJeune's high-pitched laugh. For the moment Oliver wished him happiness-something to assuage the unhappiness he would reap in the days to come, exchanging the prosperous ten year run he had had at Riverview for a whole new environment somewhere upstate. If revenge was a dish best served cold, Victor was about to be served up a frozen entrée. Oliver had never waited this long in his life to get even.

  _

  chapter fifteen

  BOLTS OF LIGHTNING LIT UP a purple and black sky and the rain fell like buckshot as residents poured out of the St. Regises, heading for the auditorium or the gymnasium or the second floor school building. Each time the thunder clapped and exploded, the prisoners picked up their pace, jumping over or dodging around the puddles and potholes in the pitch-black darkness. Interspersed among these pedestrians were Champ and six other men who were on their way to a clandestine meeting in the hospital basement. One by one they entered the lobby where Early Greer stood holding a mop in his hands. To the first man and the six who followed, Early nodded and said, “Down the stairwell. Last door on the right.”

  The air in the last room on the right was chilly and smelled like fresh rain and formaldehyde. The light bulbs overhead dimmed and flicked in sync with the thunderstorm outside. Each time the lights went off, the men could see dust particles dancing in the thin gray light that seeped through the opaque window overhead.

  Champ, who was the last of the secret seven to enter, closed the door behind him and settled himself in a chair in front of the white porcelain autopsy table. He looked around at the others: Luis “Suave” Rodriguez; James “LaMumba” Hutch; E.J. “Queenie” Jackson; Alex “Doza” Love; Jackie “Sonny Corleone” Boyd; and Leroy “Key-su” Hopkins.

  “We all know why we're here, brothers,” Key-su said. “After everything's said and done, I believe there's only one real solution to this situation.” He paused and looked around the room at each man, and then said, “Whatever we decide to do, I hope we'll be in one accord. Now who wants to go first?”

  Suave, the undisputed leader of the Latino community, said, “Yo, every time one of my peoples steps on the sidewalk the po-leece is snatching us up, shaking us down, and confiscating our bandannas. We want to give them a reason to leave us the fuck alone.” Broad shouldered with short wavy black hair and a puffy, thick-lipped face plagued by fresh wet acne, Suave waved his pudgy hands in front of him. “We ready to tear the roof off this bitch, you hear me?”

  Doza went next. “Dig, man, I can relate to that. We asked that little security captain a hundred times to move all of my squad on one tier so we can be out of everyone's way, but he keeps splitting us up. He's got us spread out all over the block in cells next to niggahs they know we got issues with. Those punks just want to see something happen. They eggin' it on. Let's create some drama for they asses. We're tired of this shit.” The tall, lanky leader of the Bloods looked like a choir boy when he smiled at Key-su and said, “I'm through.”

  “What I have to say will be brief,” said the one they called Sonny Corleone. “Everybody's frustrated. Some of the white guys want to organize a demonstration. Whether it's a work stoppage or a food strike, I don't know. Some of them want to tear the place apart, too. They all agree we need to do something about all these changes they're making.”

  Key-su pulled on the sleeves of his orange and black windbreaker and then pointed to Queenie.

  At fifty-seven, Queenie was the oldest man in the room. He took out an index card from his inside jacket pocket, and said, “Key-su, you asked for some figures. I got most of them for you. Let's see. Last year thirteen men died in the hospital. Five from cancer, three from heart attacks, four from stab wounds and one died after a gall bladder operation. There were seven suicides in the prison and we've had two this year. The beatings in the Home Block, because they don't keep those kinds of records on paper, I couldn't get. What I can tell you is that medical responded to one hundred twenty-one incidents in the Home Block last year.”

  Queenie turned the card over and read silently until he found what he was looking for. “I almost forgot. Working in the major's office I'm always hearing something new. Well, I just heard when the clocks get moved ahead in the spring, visiting hours are going to be cut back from all day to three hours a day. Um-hm. It's true, baby,” he said to Doza, who twisted his face in disgust at the news.

  LaMumba played with a plait on the side of his head. When he spoke, his rich baritone reverberated in the room. “Evening, Brothers. I've been sitting here listening to your articulations, and I'm reminded of something a philosopher by the name of Aristotle once said about democracy. He said when you have a small number of very rich people, the poor people will use their democratic rights to take property away from the rich. This analogy is very fitting to the situation we presently find ourselves in, my brothers. You see, the guards and this administration are rich in power, but small in number. We prisoners are poor, but large in number. It's high time we exercise our democratic rights, Brothers! Now the fourth president of these United States, a man by the name of James Madison, once said that when a large part of the population suffers, it will sigh secretly for a more equal distribution of life's blessings. Suffering as we are from the oppressive boots on our necks, we must do more than talk and secretly sigh about our conditions. There is power in numbers, and we have them. We, being
the majority, need to use our powers to bring about reform.”

  LaMumba paused before he said, “All we need is a plan, Brothers. First, we need an approximation of how many young bucks, Puerto Rican, white, black and otherwise, we can depend on when the time comes. Then we need to decide when and how and what our demands will be. Do we kick it off on a weekday or weekend? Morning, afternoon or night? Do we take hostages and how many? And what about a leader? We need a strong leader and we need captains and-”

  “Whoa, whoa! Hold up!” Queenie said, looking stunned and animated. “Are you talking about what I think you're talking about?” He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Are you talking about a riot?”

  LaMumba rolled his eyes, displaying incredulity.

  Key-su said, “Let the brother finish.”

  “Yeah, but...all right. Go ahead.”

  LaMumba's voice was low and polite without any hint of impatience. “That's exactly what I'm talking about, Brother. And if it will ease your mind, I have read everything that's ever been written on the Attica riot. I know exactly what those brothers did wrong and what they did right. We will not repeat their mistakes.”

  LaMumba looked at Key-su who gave him a sign.

  “We already have a thorough plan to make them meet some of our demands without any of us getting killed,” he said at last. “Now what's on you mind, Queenie?”

  Clean-cut and black as polished ebony, Queenie touched his throat. “Okay. Whatever happened to diplomacy?” he asked with a mock frown. “I mean, a riot's rather extreme, wouldn't you say? I was thinking more on the lines of a work strike or a sit-in or something. Maybe we could get the workers in the license plate factory to shut the place down. That in itself would get the public's attention, not to mention the people in the state capitol. Look at all the bonuses and overtime those guys are getting. That should tell you something! License plates are in demand, honey!”

  Key-su looked at LaMumba, gave him another sign and said, “Let me respond to that. The bonuses and overtime are the very reasons those bootlickin' niggahs, 'scuse me, those brothers, will never go on strike, Queenie. The reality of the situation is that eighty percent of them have fifteen to twenty years or more in, and they're not thinking of rocking no boat that's going to leave them without a job. All they want is a motherfuckin' bag of commissary every week and their evening sit-coms. Now I agree with you, if it could be done, it could be effective. But I guarantee you that the minute one of us, or anyone else, approaches one of those workers in an effort to tally up the yeas and nays, that person's going to wind up in the Home Block and on the next transfer bus. Now who here would like to head up that census taking?”

  For several seconds the room was as quiet as sleep. Then the thunder crashed and boomed and the room went dark again. When the lights came back on a minute later, four of the seven had their backs to the wall.

  Suave shuffled to the center of the room. “Ain't every Latino niggah thorough, but I got forty who are.”

  “And I got a good thirty-five raw and ready young niggahs I can count on in a heartbeat,” said Doza.

  “The problem with so many of the white guys,” Sonny Corleone said, “is a lot of them aren't doing much time and don't want to get caught up in a full scale brawl. They're not going to mess up their chances at parole. That's not saying I don't know some men who'll get down, because I do. But I got to know what the deal is before I go approaching any of them about something like this.”

  Champ said, “There's a good four or five hundred soldiers from Philly and Pittsburgh in this joint who'll go off in a second.”

  “We need to make some decisions and fast,” Key-su said. “First, we need to appoint a leader. Then we need to decide if that leader is also going to serve as our spokesman when the time comes. Will he have full say on tactical procedures? On the timeline? Designating captains? Assigning duties, etcetera?”

  Key-su was so overwhelmed with conviction that he could not speak calmly of these things until the matter was official. He paced the middle of the floor while the others sat in silence letting the minutes tick by. Long before Early knocked on the door and said they had ten minutes before the guard would be making his rounds and locking the stairwell, Champ urged Key-su to say what he could not: that not only had the leader been selected. He was the one.

  But he knew. He had to know.

  THE NEXT MORNING at breakfast-grapefruit sections, scrambled eggs, toast, jelly, apple juice-Champ walked down the right aisle instead of the left and sat at a table with two white men, one hollering, “Dude, you were awesome in your last fight! Thought you were going to kill that guy.” The other saying, “What do you mean, Larry? You bet on the Italian Stallion.”

  “Phil, don't belittle me in front of the Champ,” Larry said.

  Champ buttered his toast and said, “You two heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  Champ lowered his voice. “Something about a work strike? Everybody's talking about it.”

  “We're pushing for a sit-in, Champ.”

  “At least you're not talking about a full scale riot. Don't need something like that.”

  “Nah. Things aren't that bad around here.”

  Champ raked his scrambled eggs with his fork and said, “Not yet anyway. What you guys think about them freezing our pay?”

  “Come on, man! Where'd you hear that?”

  “Got it from a good source.”

  “I'm stuck at twenty-two cents an hour,” Dubois Phil said. “What about you, Champ?”

  “Thirty-two.” Champ drank the last of his apple juice. “Hey, listen, I don't know who's in charge of organizing this little sit-in of yours, but I want you to know I support you guys.”

  Two weeks later Champ's propaganda proved to be a half-truth. The administration wasn't freezing pay raises; they were merely slashing pay hours from eight a day to six.

  “See! They knew better than to freeze our pay!” one man said.

  “We ain't never worked eight hours a day anyway,” said another.

  When the same rumor mill whipped up details about a full-scale riot going down, panic and bravado festered like a boil all over the prison. Weeks of conversations and debates on the yard, in the gym, at the dinner table, and in the classrooms and church pews, turned into signs of ill omen.

  Someone said to a friend, “Whatever happens, we're sticking together.”

  And the friend answered, “I've got your back and you've got mine.”

  A sugar daddy said to his trick, “Let's do it in broad day light while they're busy protesting, 'stead of at night.”

  And his trick said, “Okay but make sure you got something sweet for me afterwards. I ain't 'bout to miss a good protest and go hungry too.”

  Then the born-agains took it up, saying the same people who had insisted it was a no-win situation were now the ones advocating fire and brimstone. “May as well go with the flow and save Jesus the trouble,” said Deacon Bob.

  In the end, Dubois Phil, a hillbilly with a loud and distinct voice, agreed to be their spokesman. The first thing he did was shave his shaggy beard down and cut four inches off his ponytail so he would look presentable when the time came. Barely literate, he struggled to recite their list of demands. When a black scholar from Lancaster named Cold Duck offered to be Phil's partner, Phil said, “Gawd, yeah! How bout you read the demands to me and I'll say them out loud.”

  Cold Duck spent the next three days clarifying and organizing their list of demands while Dubois Phil spread the word about the date, time and location of the event.

  On the morning it was to go down, the sun popped in and out of the clouds like a warning sign. After breakfast, the prisoners returned to their cells and arranged their belongings until the work-line bell sounded. Then, three hundred strong crammed themselves into the canteen yard. They brought books, magazines, radios, guitars, breakfast rolls, coffee, chessboards, toilet paper, pinochle decks, crossword puzzles, writing tablets and rugs to sit on. Two
brought signs: One read “Woodstock!,” the other, “Attica!”

  Cold Duck saw the Attica sign and pointed to the owner. “Are you crazy? You trying to start a riot? Get that thing down!” Several in the crowd thought the sign was right on time. Those who had to be talked into coming were about to leave until they saw the sign disappear.

  Kitchen and laundry workers, gym rats, barbers, students and a handful from the maintenance shops came in enough abundance to effectively shut down their respective job sites. The secret seven, who had spread encouragement like a farmer spreading seeds, stayed away.

  Cold Duck and Dubois Phil distributed copies of their list of demands to the demonstrators who were sitting peacefully, enjoying the vibes, listening to music, waiting.

  Someone in the middle of the crowd yelled, “What do we want!” The crowd answered, “Change!”

  Then: “When do we want it!”

  “Now!”

  The first question was repeated from a chorus and answered by the masses:

  “What do we want?”

  “Change!”

  “When do we want it?”

  “Now!”

  After that novelty wore off the demonstrators went back to entertaining themselves. At half past nine a dozen guards gathered around the perimeter of the canteen yard fence, smoking cigarettes, squinting, and talking quietly among themselves. When a crapshooter pulled a knife in the corner of the yard, then stood and shouted, “You cheatin' ass niggah!” the guards turned away as though they hadn't seen the glint of the blade.