Eureka Man: A Novel

by Patrick Middleton

  Eureka Man

  A Novel

  Patrick Middleton

  ACER HILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 2014

  E U R E K A M A N is a work of fiction. Apart from the actual people, events and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Patrick Middleton

  Reader's Guide © 2014 Patrick Middleton

  Cover Art © Luis Suave Gonzalez

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Acer Hill Publishing Company

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING--

  --IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Eureka Man: a novel

  p. cm.

  Summary: “The story of a young man's journey through America's prison system and the irreversible choices he makes to survive”-Provided by publisher

  1. Prison culture-Fiction. 2. Criminal justice system-Fiction.

  3. Prison education-Fiction. 4. Hope-Fiction.

  5. Pittsburgh (PA)- Fiction. I. Title.

  Smashwords Edition

  License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  In memory of Michael and Huck

  “Come, let's away to prison,

  We two alone will sing like birds i' the' cage.

  When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down

  And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,

  And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

  At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

  Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too:

  Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out;

  And take upon the mystery of things,

  As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out,

  In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones

  That ebb and flow by th' moon.”

  King Lear

  chapter one

  OUT OF SIGHT of the judge, Oliver sighed and then trembled. Not so the deputy sheriffs flanking him could notice, but enough so his knees started to buckle halfway up the steps of the Valley Forge Training School for Boys. When he paused and glanced down at his shackles, both deputies held on to his elbows and told him to take his time. For the rest of the way up the steps he listened to the metallic clicking of the chains and there were no more outward signs of trembling.

  Nor when he entered the receiving room and saw thirteen pairs of eyes staring at him. While one deputy handed his commitment papers to the female clerk, the other removed his handcuffs and shackles, and Oliver shook the stiffness out of his wrists as he sized up the other boys. One wearing a blue knit watch-cap pulled down over his eyebrows glared at him and Oliver glared back. The clerk looked up from her paperwork and frowned at him. “Hey, you. Tall guy. Take a seat on the bench,” she said, cracking her chewing gum like a pro.

  Oliver licked his lips and shoved his hands down in the pockets of his blue jeans before he wedged himself between two boys who were sitting at the far end of the bench. Immediately he started pushing buttons inside his head until he found the one marked countenance. You fellows better leave me the hell alone! Don't start any trouble and there won't be any! I'm not afraid of you punks!

  For the next two hours he and the other new arrivals moved in and out of the barber's chair, the medical examiner's room, and the psychologist's office. When it was his turn, the psychologist asked him if he knew where he was, and Oliver said, “Yes, sir. Reform school. What kind of question is that?”

  “What day is this?”

  “Hey, man. I'm not crazy.”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “January 23rd, 1976.”

  The man nodded and in a pleasant, conversational tone, said, “Thank you. Now tell me what brought you here.”

  Oliver shifted his weight in the chair. “Robbery.”

  “Let me hear about it.”

  “Well, I was a long way from home and I needed gas money so I robbed this little country store. That's all there was to it.”

  “Did you have a gun?”

  “No, sir. I poked my finger out from inside my jacket like this.” He made a fist and then stuck out his index finger.

  “I see. You said you were a long way from home. Where's home?”

  “Southern Maryland. Know where that is?”

  “I'll ask the questions. What were you doing in Pennsylvania?”

  “Hell, I didn't even know I was in this damn state until a cop pulled me over.”

  “Watch your language, young man.” His admonition was clipped off by the slam of a door down the hall. “It says here you assaulted your stepfather hours before you were picked up on this robbery. You want to talk about that?”

  Oliver sat bolt upright, stiff. “Assault? That's a lie, man! He was the one doing the assaulting. He had my mother tied up and bent over the dumbwaiter in our dining room when I came in the door. And he had a handful of her hair wrapped around his goddamn fist! All I did was help her get away. I was defending her. Would you let a man do that to your mother?”

  “Again. I'll ask the questions. So what'd you do to him? Your stepfather.”

  “I broke a wicker chair over his back.”

  “I see. Now tell me. What was the last grade you completed in school?”

  “I'm in the twelfth grade. I'm supposed to graduate this spring, and the Mother Superior where I go to school said my SAT scores are high enough to get me into the college of my choice. I've got three scholarship offers already.”

  “Well, that's quite impressive. Have you thought about a career choice?”

  “Yes, I have. My Aunt Florence, she's an amateur genealogist, and she spent years tracing our family tree all the way back to the early 1800s. My ancestors have been cobblers, bricklayers, merchants, engineers, blacksmiths, nuns and you name it. Except for doctors. I'm going to be the first person in my family to become a doctor. I haven't decided what kind yet. I might be a heart surgeon or a pathologist, or maybe even a college professor.”

  “Well, it's good that you have such high ambitions. While you're here you can study for the high school equivalency examination. Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes, sir. When can I call my mother?”

  “In thirty days. Any other questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay. Tell the next boy to come in. And good luck to you, son.”

  After the last boy saw the doctor, Oliver counted thirteen heads in front of him as they marched out the back door of the administration building and onto the main grounds of the training school. The January wind stung his freshly shaved head during the long march across a parade field that was flanked by a row of white cottages three stories high on either side. When they stopped at the last cottage on the right, Oliver read the words on the brass plaque over the door: Welcome to DoRight Cottage. He followed the line to the basement where each boy was issued a set of bed linens, two towels and a washcloth, three pairs of khaki trousers and three shirts, socks, underwear, a cap, a pair of dress shoes and work boots, a navy pea coat, a toothbrush, a bar of soap, five postage stamps, four Buckhorns, and a small comb.

  While the boys were stowing their belongings in their assigned lockers, a short, squat
white woman appeared at the foot of the basement steps. She wore an oversized lime green dress, her hair was sparse and unruly and there was a mole on her chin the size of a lima bean. In her left hand she carried a black cane and when all but a few boys were staring at her, she rapped it against one of the wall lockers. Her face was void of friendliness. “Listen up, boys!” the woman bellowed. “I'm Mrs. Ronnie John, your cottage mom. During your stay in my cottage you will conduct yourselves like gentlemen at all times. That means no horse playing, no bullying and no fighting. If you misbehave you will not see the light of day for the rest of the time you are in my care. Any questions?”

  Later that night the door to Room 34 slammed shut and the trembling moved from Oliver's legs up through his chest. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the heavy black screen covering the window and then at the furnishings in the room. A toilet, sink, bed, desk and chair. He stood again and paced the length of the room several times before he stopped and stretched his arms out to measure the width of the room. Not even six feet. The revelation that the room was a prison cell stirred the butterflies in his stomach and when the trembling got worse, he laid on the bunk, covered his eyes with his arm and recalled something he had memorized in his eleventh grade logic class. A passage from the Red Queen's lecture to Alice: “Down here we got our act clean yesterday and we plan to start getting our act clean tomorrow. But we never clean up our act today.” The Red Queen's logic was all the inspiration he needed to clean up his own act right then and there. When he told himself they couldn't keep him past his eighteenth birthday and that day was only nine months and three days away, he sighed, then smiled, and there were no signs of trembling at all.

  With the bell at dawn he and the other thirteen new arrivals awoke to the feel of wool rags and wooden floor brushes, the smell of orange paste wax, and the sound of Mrs. Ronnie John's bellowing voice. “All right! Listen up, everybody! I said listen up! Don't make me have to say it again! You're going to need every bit of energy you can muster up this morning, so I would advise you to eat every morsel of food on your tray!”

  All morning, every morning for six weeks they paste waxed and polished the burnt-red cement floors until their knees opened like tomatoes. Mrs. Ronnie John walked behind them checking their work as they pushed and pulled the gray shine rags and wooden floor brushes over every inch of floor in DoRight Cottage. Oliver worked between two boys named Philly Dog and Funky Melvin, but not one spoke to the other while they worked. Their body language said it all: “Missed a spot; I got it.” “I need a break; can you help me?” “Heads up, here she comes.”

  Sitting side by side and rubbing the scabs on their knees one evening, Philly Dog said, “What you in for, Priddy?”

  Oliver glanced sideways and said, “A stupid ass robbery, man.”

  “Hey, I know that accent! You talk just like my cousins from Newport News, Virginia. You ain't from around here, are you?”

  “Nope. Other side of Baltimore. Southern Maryland.” He said it with pride. “Never been in Pennsylvania before in my life. I should have kept my ass below the Mason-Dixon Line.”

  “You got that right, my man.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Cause you don't know one motherfucker in this joint, do you?”

  “Nope. But what's that got to do with anything?”

  “Well, no offense, but you look like you should be in prep school instead of reform school.”

  “That's funny. That's real funny. I was in a prep school. Our Lady Star of the Sea. And guess what? Once the Mother Superior told me I should be in a reform school instead of a prep school.”

  “You're shitting me.”

  “No I'm not.”

  “That is funny, man.”

  “Yeah, but why did you say I should be in a prep school?”

  “Cause you look too fresh and clean to be in this place. Somebody's bound to try you.”

  SIX WEEKS and they were off their knees and on their way to another cottage on the rolling green hill. The frailest went to Mary Cullen Cottage, named after the widow of the late founder of the place. The most illiterate were sent to Woodcock Cottage where they received remedial instruction six hours a day. Oliver and his floor-shine companions were escorted straight to the Cottage of Hard Knocks. The night they arrived Oliver stood at a urinal conjuring up images of running water when a fight broke out behind him.

  “You ain't tough, nigger!”

  “Lemme show you!”

  In midstream Oliver heard the punches but didn't turn around to see them. Hey, fellows! I don't mean to rain on your parade but I gotta piss! He shook off the last drops and turned around just in time to see blood spatter against the wall. No one saw the pool ball until it rolled across the floor smeared with the blood of the boy who said lemme show you. The boy was on the floor looking up at the culprit. Six-four, two-forty, with a hairy face molded in a scowl, the culprit looked more like a member of the training school staff than a juvenile delinquent. Oliver had been around bullies before but this fellow they called Jimmy Six took the grand prize. The victim, a black boy who didn't weigh a buck forty, was the one who should have rightfully had the pool ball. He had a gash over his left eye and the blood pouring from it ran right down into his eye.

  That night the Man came and interviewed each boy one at a time and each said he didn't see a thing. At the breakfast table the next morning, Mrs. Viola Plenty, the cottage mom, said, “Okay! Since none of you saw what happened to Ron-Ron last night you can all see the inside of this cottage for the next thirty days! No movies, no canteen, and no playing ball! And during your free time you can all strip, wax and shine every inch of floor in this place! Any questions? Anybody want to hit me in the head with a pool ball?”

  They called her the crazy bitch with the cock-teasing hug. One minute Mrs. Viola Plenty was consoling a boy so close their groins kissed and the next she was beating him into submission. Those who had known her closeness also knew her finest feature, her chocolate- brown skin. Even those who had known her wrath were wild about her smooth-as-velvet chocolate-brown skin and her black corkscrews for hair and her thick, round hips. What kept them at bay was her smile. More than flawless teeth, it was an admonition, uninviting and un-amused.

  Oliver listened to the stories the other boys told about her and waited for confirmation of his own that she was stone crazy. The proof came one Sunday afternoon when P-Rat smacked Little Andy on the backside with a dishtowel. Mrs. Viola Plenty dropped the number-ten can of green beans she was retrieving from the pantry and smacked P-Rat across the back of his thighs with a wiffleball bat.

  “Do you want to be incorrigible forever?” she said in outrage. “If you do you'd better find somewhere else to practice!” She grabbed Little Andy by the scruff of the neck and swung the bat at his ass as if she was hitting curve balls. Wham! “Repeat after me!” Wham! “I will not horseplay when I'm supposed to be drying dishes!” Wham!

  After that Oliver took his time and got every black mark and speck of food off every pot and pan put in front of him. He would neither talk nor look at the other boys while he worked. His scrutiny was solely for the grease and grime on the pots and pans. So he was astonished when she slid up beside him in his third week at the kitchen sink and said, “Priddy, come with me!”

  He followed her up two flights of steps to her third floor apartment and on the way he wondered if she was going to molest him or knock him into the next day for mistaking a speck of food for a stain. But when they got inside her apartment it wasn't like that. He surveyed the dirty laundry sleeping on the lampshades and end tables, in the dusty corners and on the backs of the sofa and love seat; the cups and saucers and crusty plates that looked like abstract art strewn about the coffee table. He was amazed by the filth and stench in the room but he knew better than to show it.

  “Priddy, I need someone to clean this place up,” she said matter-of-factly. “Someone I can depend on. Can I depend on you?”

  “Yes, you can, M
rs. Plenty. I'm very dependable, ma'am.”

  “Good. You can start in the kitchen. Take your time and do a good job. You don't have to clean everything up in one afternoon. Save some for tomorrow. Here's a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. You'll have to return what you don't smoke before you go downstairs for supper. I can't have anyone accusing me of playing favorites. You understand, don't you, Priddy?”

  “Yes, ma'am, I do.”

  “All right. Now there are sodas in the refrigerator when you want one, but don't drink them all. Any questions?”

  “No ma'am, I'll just get started.”

  “Good. I'll be around to check on you later.”

  When she was gone he opened the Kools and took out five. He lit one and carefully stashed the other four down his sock, making sure they were parallel to his leg so they didn't snap in half. Though he had never smoked a cigarette a day in his life before he arrived at the Valley Forge Training School for Boys, he knew how to look cool doing it. He let the cigarette hang from his mouth the way he'd seen James Cagney do it so many times on the silver screen, turning his head sideways to keep the smoke from getting in his eyes.

  He opened the refrigerator door and took out a grape Nehi. After gulping it down he washed every last dish in the sink and on the counter tops. Then he gathered two stacks of cups and saucers and plates from all over the living room and washed them too. Later he cleaned the refrigerator and stove and drank another grape Nehi. When it was time to leave, Mrs. Viola Plenty revealed her perfect white teeth when she smiled and said, “Very decent job, Priddy. I'll see you tomorrow.”