“I know, Oliver. I know. I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”
But worry was all he did until she returned the following Tuesday night fifteen balloons short but quick to say, “I'll have the rest next week for sure.”
Oliver sat at his new computer staring at her, wondering what the hell she thought she was doing. Her voice was deep and sultry now, and the inflections and tone of her words had changed so drastically he thought he was talking to a phone sex operator. The more she assured him she was fine, the more his worries gave way to his needs-below-the-belt. Why cast a pall now? Why diminish the scent of Chanel No. 19 that was wafting at him? Blunt the taste of her thighs awaiting his lips? Earlier that morning he had planned five or six ways to ease her mind in case Mr. Sommers happened to mention to her what had really happened to Victor. He didn't need to say a word. She was oblivious.
“I have a lot to tell you,” she said. “Would you put some coffee on? My mouth is so dry. Would you get me another glass of water?”
When he returned with the water, he poured her a cup and used the rest to make a half pot of coffee. He sat across from her and watched her. She faced him but Oliver couldn't tell where she was looking. She was wearing sunglasses. “Thank you.” She drank the water and then said, “Your essay is getting rave reviews. It really is. I've shared it with several colleagues in my department. And I sent copies to people I know in the English and criminal justice departments. Everyone I've talked to said they were shocked and appalled when they read your piece. I also shared it with a local journalist who is a very good friend of mine. Hope Best. You may have read some of her work in the Pittsburgher Magazine. Not long ago she did a story called “Libraries in the City.” The piece included part of an interview Hope did with your prison librarian. Did you happen to read her article?”
“I may have. I don't remember.”
“Well, I had lunch with Hope last week, and she told me she's just been assigned to do a full-length story on the University's program here at the prison. After I spent an hour telling her more about you, she now wants to focus the story around you. Isn't that wonderful?”
“Yeah. As long as she doesn't twist the facts. You know how reporters are.”
“No, no, no. It's not that kind of story, Oliver. Her slant's inspirational.”
For the first time that night, Oliver noticed she was wiping her nose every two or three minutes. “Do you have a cold?” Oliver asked.
“Why?”
“You keep wiping your nose.”
“It's the medication.”
“What medication?”
“For my back. When I met with Chicken Wing again, he still didn't have all of Champ's package together yet, but he sold me a few balloons for myself. They really do the trick.”
“You're kidding me!”
“Don't worry. I only take one every couple of days. I'm not going to depend on them every day.”
“I don't believe what I'm hearing, for Christ's sake! Do you know how easy it is to get hooked on that stuff?” Oliver's voice was loud and incredulous.
“Yes, and that's why I only do one every couple of days. I've had lower back pain off and on for several years now, and nothing I've tried has worked as well as this. I'd appreciate it if you'd give me credit for being adult and responsible enough not to do harm to myself, Oliver, for goodness sake.”
“Okay. You're right. Just be careful, man.”
“I know you're disappointed we didn't make love again tonight. Next time. I promise. Aren't you even a little excited about the news I brought you? You're going to be in the Pittsburgher, Oliver.”
“Yeah. I'm excited.”
“A story like this can give us the exposure we need to bring attention to your case and get you out of here.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course. Don't you?”
“I suppose it couldn't hurt.”
B.J. finished the water. The coffee aroma was now apparent and she was raking her nails back and forth over her forearms in anticipation. “I can't wait for you to meet Hope. She's a lovely person. Did I mention she was a social activist during the sixties? She was at Woodstock, Oliver.”
He poured coffee into her personal cup and handed it to her. She set the cup down and he wrapped a strand of her hair around his fingers. “How lovely is she?” He was teasing her now.
WHEN SHE DIDN'T SHOW at all the following week, Oliver was as humble as a monk. He opened the windows and breathed in the cool evening air. There was so much to do, papers to finish, books to read, lectures notes to decipher. She had gotten him a computer on loan from her department and he was anxious to master the statistical analysis software that came with it, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't concentrate. When he didn't hear from her by the end of the second week, he was disturbed and feeling totally abandoned, like an orphan. She could have called. She had to call Mr. Sommers sooner or later, didn't she? He imagined her getting hooked on H and humping that faculty member who had been trying to get inside her panties for years, or worse, doing it with Chicken Wing. Oliver pictured her completely uninhibited now, spreading her pussy department wide, and blaming him for turning her out.
When another week rolled by and still no B.J., he thought maybe she had come to her senses and was getting help. He asked Dr. Garris if he had seen her in the halls, and sure enough, he had. She was fine. He thought of talking to Mr. Sommers, but he feared his full-blown angst would give him away. Now he was fuming. At her carelessness, her indifference, her total abandonment. Then he got desperate. In his heart, he knew she would come, sometime, and that she would have a lame excuse or no excuse at all; but she would come. The desperation came from the sense he had of her ruining everything, the love affair they had carved out of a city of stone walls and razor wire. And sheer boldness. What the world knew about what went on between the sheets in prison could be summed up in one breath: Bubbas and pretty Michaels. What went on between their sheets she had summed up as a Greek tragedy. His office, a niche in the city of Troy; she was Helen and he was Paris. The guards were the Greek soldiers turned loose from the great wooden horse in search of any and all Helens-teachers, guards, counselors, nurses, or college professors-who had the temerity to spread their wings for a low-life prisoner whose name could be Troy or Buckwheat for all they cared.
Suddenly, the open windows were not enough. He began to perspire in the new blue and yellow Pitt Panthers tee shirt she had smuggled in for him in the bottom of her tote bag. Anger ricocheted through him like a hollow point .22. He wanted it over--one way or the other. Over and done with so he could grieve once and for all, so he could flush this bitch out of his life completely. His longing, his craving for her had rendered him stupid.
On Tuesday morning of the fourth week, he found respite from his grief when Mr. Sommers escorted that journalist into his office. He recognized her the minute he looked up at her. “Hi, Mr. Priddy!” She didn't say the words, she sang them. Oliver smiled outright for the first time in three weeks. B.J. was right. Hope Best was lovely. She was wearing a sleeveless white linen blouse, an orange paisley peasant skirt and bright blue sandals. Her bare legs were tanned to the nines all the way to her coral-painted toenails. Her champagne colored hair was cut in a bob that shimmered each time she moved her head.
“Aren't you the same lady I saw a few months ago standing outside the library talking with our librarian?” Oliver asked, grinning as if he already knew the answer.
“I probably am,” she said.
“Yeah. I remember you. You were wearing a tie-dyed dress. But your hair was longer.”
She looked surprised. “It's only shorter now because of a little mishap involving Hubba-Bubba bubble gum.” She smiled widely. She had perfect teeth. “One of my nephews was giving me a hug when he decided to blow a bubble.” She held a layer of her hair in her hand. “I had to cut it to get all the gum out.”
“I see. Well, how are you, Miss Hope Best?”
“I'm fine, thank you, Mr. Oliver Pridd
y.” They both laughed like old friends. He battled his stare and lost every time.
For two hours they talked, laughed and traded anecdotes and by the time Mr. Sommers came to escort her back to the front gate, Oliver had taken a ton of mental notes. She's the nicest person, he thought. Attractive. Intelligent. At ease. She didn't look around the halls at the other prisoners, or jump at the shouting match two were having outside his classroom. She didn't seem to come with any agenda either, other than conversation. She knew more about Sly and the Family Stone than he did, and he thought he knew everything there was to know about his favorite group. It was her favorite group too, she said. They had been the first group to give her an interview at Woodstock. Every word Hope Best uttered was animated and full of wonder. He counted eleven different ways she tilted her head when she smiled, nine rings on her fingers, and not a wedding band among them, and two very thin blue veins showing on the side of her bare calf.
“When I return in a couple of weeks,” she said, “you'll have to give me all the meat and potatoes for my story, Oliver. I can't wait.”
“I'll give you whatever you need,” Oliver said. And he meant it.
But as soon as she was she gone, he buckled over with loneliness again. He was usually very good at hiding his emotions, even from himself, but this time was different. This time he made no attempt to disguise his pain. He slashed out at the ceramic knick-knack of Emmett Kelly that B.J. had brought him, hitting it with his closed fist and sending the famous clown flying across the room to smash against the wall. He sat back in his chair, stunned. He was a survivor, he knew that. He was as resilient as they came. He would not play the blame game. If it was over, it was over.
The night she finally brought him the closure he needed, she was wearing sunglasses again, and he asked her to take them off. When she did, he opened his mouth, his eyes were wide and blank, and a red river rose up his neck and into his cheeks. She looked like she hadn't slept in six months. “Here, Oliver. There are twenty balloons there.”
“You were only fifteen short.”
“Tell him the extras are interest he earned for waiting.” He searched her face for a sign, trying to feel, smell her mood. Did she have her panties on? That was the sign. If he knew that he would know whether she was planning to have sex, but he couldn't find out without touching her.
“We need to talk, Oliver,” she said. Though serious, she sounded maternal. She put on her sunglasses again, and now he couldn't tell whether she was looking at him or out the window.
“We can talk all you want, B.J.,” he said, “but we've got something to take care of first, don't we? Remember? Remember what you said the last time you were here?”
“I know what I promised you. I won't go back on my word, but a lot has happened and we need to talk.”
“We can talk.” He walked over to where she was standing and came up behind her. “But I've got to have you first.” He slid his arms around her waist and squeezed her, kissing and nibbling her neck until she responded with a slow writhing of her pelvis. After a few minutes, he broke away and she stood there swaying her shoulders to the Sam Cooke song playing on his cassette player. Oliver rolled out two rugs on the floor. Then he maneuvered her to her hands and knees. He pressed her head and shoulders gently downward. Her face was turned sideways onto a pillow he made out of his sweatshirt. Her hair flung out in all directions. He positioned himself behind her and watched her hips and buttocks rise to him. Sleek and round. She swayed to the music. As her body quickened, she never stopped crooning and swaying to the music. Not until he entered her, holding her hips so she couldn't get away, did she buck and moan with urgency.
Afterwards, they sat together in silence, one grateful as could be for their physical reunion and hopeful it wasn't the last, the other scratching and nodding in a drug-induced stupor. “You said we need to talk,” Oliver said at last. “Okay. Let's talk. What's on your mind, B.J.? You cutting me loose?”
chapter seventeen
AT 11 A.M. ON A dismal Friday morning in October, Hambone stood underneath the number one guard tower waiting to feed the old guard Mills who was lowering a galvanized bucket down to him. As the bucket reached eye-level, Hambone dropped two hot roast beef sandwiches, a banana and a carton of milk inside the bucket, then rapped his knuckles on the side to signal he was through. When the bucket didn't move, Hambone looked up just as Mills keeled over on the catwalk, violently clutching at his chest. Crazy Bell, who had been sitting alone in the bleachers, saw Mills, too, and sprung like a jack-in-the-box from the top bleacher. After shoving Hambone to the side, Bell grabbed the rope that was attached to the bucket and tugged on it to make sure it was secured tightly to the catwalk railing. Then he shimmied up the wall with the agility of an alley cat. When he reached the top, he ducked between the railing and snatched Mill's sidearm .38, then tossed it down to a young buck in the courtyard who caught it like a baseball and then ran off with his gang. With one horrendous kick, Bell sent the dead guard over the side. He didn't waste another second before he grabbed the automatic rifle that was leaning against the tower, aimed and shot the guard in the number-two tower right between the eyes. “VC that, motherfucker!” Bell cried. Then he shot the guard who was inspecting a delivery van at the rear gate. The bullet traveled right through the man's Adam's apple and exited the back of his neck. Bell finally barricaded himself inside the tower where he would stay for two more days taking pot shots at anything that moved in a uniform.
Only a few minutes after Bell declared war, Officer Wayne St. Pierre was leaving the hospital with a brand-new first-aid kit in his hand when an urgent cry came over the airways of every walkie-talkie in the prison: “Officer down in front of the dining hall! We need help over here!” Wayne St. Pierre rushed to the scene and almost instantly became the next officer down. As he fell to the ground, he saw the blur of a pipe, a chair leg, and five angry faces-black ones, brown ones, white ones.
The rioters snatched Wayne St. Pierre's ring of keys from his fingertips as they dragged his body down the street with no name and through the sweet peas and clover that grew around the forsythia bushes on the side of the prison chapel. When they reached the sports equipment shed behind the chapel, the enraged prisoners hauled him inside and tore off his clothes. “Break this stick off in his ass!” shouted one man. “Let's kill the cockroach!” added another. One prisoner pushed his knee into the back of Wayne St. Pierre's neck, another held down his legs, and a third one sodomized him with a broom stick until he finally passed out. Before the prisoners left, they kicked him in the face and beat his body thoroughly with a lead pipe and a chair leg. Wayne St. Pierre lay on the floor twitching lightly among the smashed bags of lime, his face a mask of meat and agony so fierce that for months afterwards the people who rescued him would shake their heads in disbelief at the memory of what he had looked like.
Inside the cellblocks the riot spread down the tiers like a brush fire. Prisoners, armed and unarmed, bit their lips, snarled their teeth and turned on their keepers like dogs that had been kicked once too many times. Some prisoners were armed with knives, cans of lye soap and shards of glass slicing through the riotous mob, picking out the uniformed culprits and choosing the spot to abuse their flesh. Two of the most sadistic guards on duty were hung by their wrists side by side, in the shower pit of the big St. Regis. Two others were chased all the way up to the fifth tier and given a choice of jumping off or being torn apart by the pack of salivating young dogs. One leaped, the other was beaten senseless.
The riot continued for three days and three nights and so many guards, pedophiles and snitches were maimed that the authorities could not keep the numbers straight. On the morning of the fourth day, after the rioters had lost their muse, had done all they could to show their keepers what it felt like to lose all hope, they surrendered to the national guardsmen who were standing in wait at the front gate.
Within hours, the worst of the militant rioters were handcuffed, shackled and loaded on a bus headed t
o an underground prison in Illinois. Another six were carried through the rear gate, stacked three high in the back of a coroner's van.
A SATIRICAL ESSAY in the lifers' newsletter was, according to the authorities, what had incited the prisoners to riot. Five days before they had marched through the joint advertising their rage over the loss of their last rights and amenities, Oliver's essay, HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS, had appeared on the front page of the October issue of The Wire. By noon of the same day, Superintendent I.M. White had read it and turned three shades darker than mud before he instructed his secretary to find out who in his administration was responsible for approving the publication and distribution of the newsletter. What made I.M. White's skin itch so deep below the surface that he couldn't scratch it was something he thought he had read between the lines of Oliver's essay: Listen to me, Brothers! We may as well tear the entrails right out of the belly of this prison because every lifer in this state is a walking dead man anyway! Late that afternoon, after his assistant reported that she couldn't determine who, if anyone, had approved publication of the offending newsletter, I.M. White ordered his security lieutenant to immediately escort Oliver to the redbrick Home Block.
This wasn't the first time Oliver had given I.M. White that deep-down-worse-than-poison-ivy itch. Six months after he had taken over as warden at Riverview and begun to strip away one amenity after another, I.M. White had become the target of Oliver's diatribe against African-American professionals who say and do whatever they need to say and do in order to gain the white man's graces. Oliver's biting satire, “Uncle Tom's Cabin of Step-And-Fetch-It Politicians”, had ultimately blamed the new snoop-doggie-gangsta-rap culture not on white racism, but on black conservatives like I.M. White himself. On that occasion I.M. White had refused to address the notion that he was indeed a bojangles, ass-kissing negro, a race traitor, and that the term Black Republican should be deemed an oxymoron. I.M. White was far too dignified to respond to the bombastic rants of a white man who didn't have a clue what it was like to be a black man struggling to get ahead in racist America. This time was different, though. This time it wasn't personal, it was business-a matter of dealing with what he perceived to be a major threat to the safety and orderly running of his well-oiled maximum security prison.
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