“Yes, I did, brother man.”
A prisoner two doors down said, “Having a change of mind don't mean he chickened out. Some people might call following through with it chickening out on life. Some might say it took a lot of courage not to follow through. This may be prison, but we're still alive.”
They continued on tediously in this vein more or less for the rest of the day and others within hearing distance of the conversation joined in. An intellectual named Minarik said, “The whole act of taking your own life is the one sole thing a man can control in his life. He writes the play, he inhabits it and he enacts it. He stages everything-just the way he'll be found and how.”
Believing that the nightmare he was living was the only reality there was, Oliver laid down on his side with his face on his hands, closed his eyes and pictured a parade of prisoners returning to their cells from the commissary and tearing open their newly purchased Euthanasia kits.
“Slide this deep inside my vagina, Oliver.” He imagined Donnie Blossom speaking those words as he took off his clothes and picked up the deadly nine-inch vibrator. He imagined Donnie lying on his stomach and posing salaciously as he cried out, “Do me, Oliver. Do me. I want you before I die.”
“Why me?”
“Don't you know, Oliver? I have always loved you. Don't you know that by now?”
He imagined himself saying, “You know I don't swing that way.”
“Then put this inside me,” he imagined Donnie replying. “I want to die happy, Oliver.”
“Don't we all?” Short of breath and dry-mouthed, Oliver blinked that image and conversation away for another one: Geppy, a vicious dope addict, squatting in the corner, a shoelace tied tightly around his bicep. “Get your own, Priddy! Ain't enough here for you!” He imagined Geppy saying this while injecting the massive air bubble into his thin blue vein. And after he pictured a schizophrenic prisoner he knew hanging from the ceiling light fixture with a designer noose around his neck, he cried out, “Fellows, this was all supposed to be humorous! A joke! I never meant for you all to take me serious! It was satire, a stupid literary technique. I learned it in school, for Christsake! I was just trying to be witty, man!”
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.
chapter eighteen
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.
“I'm still young and pretty and I have needs, too. My body's still alive. One day I saw a mail order advertisement in one of Wayne's magazines. There was absolutely nothing dirty about buying a vibrator. I once heard Dr. Ruth talking about it on Oprah. She said it was healthy for a man or woman to pleasure themselves when their spouse was unable to perform sexually. Wasn't it better than having an affair? I thought so. Well, a week ago Wayne was snooping through my things wh
en he found my green vibrator in the bottom drawer of my dresser. He came into the kitchen, threw it in a paper bag and smashed it to smithereens with a ball peen hammer. Here's your goddam sex toy, Marge! You're so disgusting! he screamed, and right in front of the boys. Then he slapped me so hard blood squirted out my nose.
“You'd think it would get a little easier with each day. But it only gets harder and lonelier. I cry all the time now. I've had two nervous breakdowns, and now I'm taking three kinds of pills a day myself. Probably will be for a long time. I never had to be strong before. I just never had to be strong.”
WHEN WAYNE ST. PIERRE TRIES to remember the way it was when he and Marge and their two boys were a family, almost nothing comes to mind. He recalls dates and events and activities, but he can't for the life of him catch what it felt like. He can say, “I loved them so much,” but he cannot retrieve that love. In his mind he can replay the scenes of intimacy, fatherly tenderness, and family devotion, but they are drained of everything but the words to say them in. All he can do is sit in his chair remembering every detail of his ordeal again and again, not just because the wounds won't scab over, but because the memory is all there is to feel:
“I don't know what started that riot, or why it started. The fellows I work with said it started because those animals didn't have anything better to do. That's just what they are, too, a bunch of animals. There was a time when I didn't think this way, but I know better now.
“That Friday morning, I went to work just like any other morning. I knew it was going to be a busy day. Fridays always were. Visitors coming and going all day, off-duty officers stopping by to pick up their paychecks or to get a dollar haircut. Fridays were downright hectic. Anyway, somewhere around ten o'clock that morning, I went on my lunch break but instead of eating, I went over to the hospital to see a friend of mine who happens to be the head nurse. While I was there, Betty, that's her name, she gave me a new first-aid kit for the front gate area after massaging a kink out of my neck. All I remember right after that was coming out of the hospital and hearing the call over my walkie-talkie that an officer was down and needed help. I immediately rushed to the scene to render assistance. That's about the last thing I remember.
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