The next day he cleaned the living room and helped her change the sheets on her queen-size bed. He stood on one side and pulled down the sheet, making a neat hospital corner the way his mother June had shown him when he had been old enough to make his own bed. Mrs. Viola Plenty did the same on her side and when she leaned over, he saw the curves of her chocolate-brown breasts. Just before he stood and turned sideways to hide his erection, she leaned against the dresser, shifted her weight and stood on one foot scratching the back of her velvet calf with her painted red toenail. It was a quiet and sensuous gesture that filled him with excitement and gratitude. “How would you like to work for me every day, Priddy?” she asked.
“That would be fine, Mrs. Plenty.”
“Good. From now on you'll be my helper. I want you to report to work up here every morning after breakfast.”
“Yes, ma'am! I'll be here on time too. I guess I'll clean the bathroom now if that's all right.”
“Just be careful with my ceramic gee-gaws over the toilet. My late husband Joe won those for me in Atlantic City. Ever been to Atlantic City, Priddy?”
“No, ma'am, but I've been to Ocean City, Maryland many times.”
“You have? Ever eat salt water taffy?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“You like?”
“Yes, indeed, ma'am.”
“Well, I have three different flavors and maybe I'll give you some after you clean the bathroom.”
“I'd really appreciate that, Mrs. Plenty.”
Inside her bathroom, Oliver closed the door, squeezed his groin and looked around the room for things that were familiar to him. A box of Kotex. A jar of Pond's skin cream. A bra and matching panties hanging in the shower. Lavender panties that aroused him and made him recall the budding girls he had kissed and fondled behind the school auditorium stage, in the aisles of the public library and the back corners of the movie theater. He took the lavender panties off the line and ran the bath water so she wouldn't hear him. Then he placed the panties against his lips, closed his eyes and pictured what he had just seen of Mrs. Viola Plenty's chocolate-brown breasts. He was through before he breathed her scent and when he ejaculated, he leaned against the door, excited to giddiness, and muffled a grateful sigh.
Even though there was no rabbit's foot in his pocket, he felt lucky every morning he walked into her apartment and straightened out a knickknack or a doily. Scooping orange marmalade right out of the jar with his fingers. Smuggling candy bars, sodas and cigarettes downstairs to trade for other loot. Listening to his favorite Sam Cooke records on her hi-fi. Not a bad way to work off punishment. The sheer joy of smelling her perfume and other feminine things made it all easy for him. And though she didn't waste a lot of words because she didn't have many, there was much small talk. About her dead husband Joe whose picture was on every wall of her apartment, how wonderful he had been and how he had died after having his throat slit in a Friday night crap game. Also she told him about her twin sister who had died at birth so that Mrs. Viola Plenty could live. Also she showed him photographs of poor black children that made him homesick for some of his childhood playmates. Also she taught him how to sew buttons on his shirt and iron a stiff crease in his trousers.
The day he broke the cottage record for scoring the highest on the high school equivalency examination, she rewarded him with a phone call to his mother and a dozen lemon cupcakes. He had been trying to reach his mother for three months and this time she was home when he called. “It's about time we heard from you!” his mother June said, pretending to be sarcastic. “How are you getting along, son? When are you coming home?” He was fine he told her, and he would be there in a few months. The last thing she said before she said goodbye was, “Remember what you promised me in that courtroom, Oliver. Take whatever you have coming to you on the chin, son. Don't lose your temper.”
When he hung up the phone Mrs. Viola Plenty said, “Tell me about your parents, Oliver.” He started off by bragging that his mother was a horticulturist and the hippest woman in the world. She used to have a drinking problem, but not anymore. Now she devoted her time to the local historical society designing flower gardens and leading tours around the estate of Dr. Samuel Mudd, the man who had set the broken leg of the man who had assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. “And you should see her dance, Mrs. Plenty. She can sing and dance like you wouldn't believe. As for my real father, his name was Ernie Boy and he left us when I was five. Then we had a no-good stepfather whose name was Ernie Boy also, so we called him Ernie Boy the Second. We, meaning my older brother Skip and my older sister Anna. Anyway, to make a long story short, Ernie Boy the Second liked to argue and fight all the time. I could be sucking on a fireball and he would swear it was a cherry bomb.”
“I read in your file that you assaulted him,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Yes, well, I was protecting my mother, Mrs. Plenty. See, things had been awfully bad at home for quite some time, so my brother Skip and I were living with our grandfather at the time. One afternoon I stopped in to check on my mother and Ernie Boy the Second was there. He had her tied up in the dining room with her clothes ripped off. He was lying on her back when I broke a chair over his back. I swear I would have killed that sucker if I had a gun, Mrs. Plenty.” As he was telling her these things she let her fingers fall on the back of his neck and so light was the touch that he let his head rest on her shoulder. He kept it there until she told him he'd have to be going downstairs soon and she had more work planned for him the next day.
If walking out of her apartment at four o'clock every afternoon was like coming off the lam, the rowdy boys in the basement lavatory were like the hounds that tracked him down. Every evening when he went there to shower or relieve himself, he thought the crisscross of tips and advice he heard sounded like a bunch of handicappers at a racetrack. Soap and water removed the ink marks from used postage stamps so you could use them again and a dab of toothpaste worked as well as a drop of glue for securing the stamp to another envelope. Covering glass with masking tape during a midnight burglary stopped the glass from shattering and cut down on the noise. Pressing a double-edge razor blade into the heated end of a toothbrush made a fine-ass weapon.
And spit worked as well as grease when there wasn't any grease. The same boy Oliver saw bawling his eyes out the day the barber plowed off his dreadlocks he saw on the shower floor one night giving pleasure to the biggest boy in the cottage. Oliver walked across the shower room as if the scene was something he'd seen a hundred times before. He took the corner shower and watched out of the corner of his eye as Jimmy Six spit into the palm of his hand, stroked himself with it and then lay on the boy's back. Oliver had heard stories about boys being sodomized, but he had never witnessed the act before. As he watched Jimmy Six thrust himself into the boy, he squeezed his own anus tighter than a vise. For a split second the two exchanged glares and Jimmy's cold grey eyes and feral grunts reminded Oliver of a junkyard dog he'd once fought off with a tire iron.
MRS. VIOLA PLENTY CONCEDED nothing but seemed uneasy at the choice of leaving her sofa where it was or going downstairs to find help moving it. When she said let's try one more time, Oliver was all nods and conciliatory grunts. The sofa weighed a ton and this time when she couldn't lift her end she went downstairs to find someone to help them. Minutes later she returned with Jimmy Six who was smiling like a mental patient. He picked up his end like he was picking up a sock.
“Over here against the wall, boys. Not too close. Don't scuff the paint.”
“How's that, Miss Plenty?” Jimmy Six asked.
“Okay, I guess. Now I'll have to figure out what to do about those circles on the carpet.”
“They'll go away in no time, Miss,” Jimmy Six said. “I used to work for a moving company. Have Priddy here go over them with the vacuum cleaner a few times and they'll disappear before you know it.”
“You think so, Jimmy?”
“I know so, Miss Plenty.”
“All r
ight. Would you like a couple of cigarettes for helping us?”
Jimmy Six blinked at the offer but didn't comment. He merely thanked her when she extended the two Kools to him.
“That's it, boys. Thanks a lot.”
Jimmy Six ambled silently behind Oliver all the way to the basement locker room. “Man, that was really something, Priddy.”
“What's that?”
“You know. Seeing how the other half lives around here.”
“Huh?”
“You know what I'm talking about. You got it made, don't you?”
Oliver made his voice pleasant, but he knew something was developing. “How do you figure?”
“Come on, you're up there all day with that crazy bitch and I know she gives you all kinds of fringe benefits. The way I see it you're either hand washing her nasty drawers or you've got your hands inside them. Which is it, Priddy? You tapping that?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I sound like I'm kidding?”
“That's real funny. First, she's not my type. Second, she's too old for me and third, she's crazy.”
“Not your type or not your gender?”
“What?”
“Maybe you don't like women. You walk on the wild side, Priddy?”
“Very funny.”
“Why aren't you laughing then?”
“Cut the shit, Jimmy.”
“OK, let's talk business.”
Oliver opened his locker and took out his soap dish, washcloth and towel. “What's on your mind?”
“What's on my mind is I want a piece of the action.”
“What action?”
Jimmy Six sighed as if his patience was being tried. “You think I'm stupid, Priddy? I see you passing off cigarettes to that nigger Philly Dog almost every day and I know he trades them off for cupcakes and postage stamps and all kinds of other shit for you. I know everything that goes on around here. You're pretty fucking slick. I've got to give you that. But dig this. I've got a real bad nicotine Jones, and four Buckhorns a day ain't getting it. You're gonna cut me in on your little racket and that's all there is to it.”
Oliver smiled and so did Jimmy Six. “Wait a minute, I get a few extra cigarettes and you think I'm supposed to cut you in, is that it?”
“Not exactly. See, it ain't what I think, it's what I want, and what I want is four Kools every day starting tomorrow.”
Oliver slung the towel over his shoulder. “I'm not giving you shit, Jimmy.”
“Listen, Priddy, you're a real smooth dude, and you're probably real tough, I don't know. But I want to show you something. Come here for a minute.”
“Look, I'm going to wash up, man.” He was decisive, too, and he was proud of the arrogance in his voice.
“No, no, you have to see this now. It won't take a minute.” Oliver sighed and followed Jimmy Six to his locker. Jimmy opened the door and pointed. “Look at that.”
In what seemed to him like a nonchalant and slow motion, Oliver looked inside Jimmy Six's locker and saw a men's magazine sitting on top of a bag of Oreos. Black Amazons. “OK, so what? You've got a smut magazine. Congratulations.”
Jimmy Six smirked. “Look at the address label, dumb ass.”
After Oliver had time to read Joe Plenty's name, Jimmy Six lowered his voice. “Now if you don't want that magazine to wind up in your black mammy's hands you'll do what I tell you. Starting with four cigarettes a day.” Jimmy Six slammed his locker. “And I already know that you stole more than just this one cause I saw your nigger buddy with two other ones last night when he rented this one to me. You're slick, Priddy. Real goddamn slick. I'm looking forward to being your partner.”
Oliver smiled but he was not amused. “Are you kidding? I'm not going to be your fucking partner. No goddamn way. Go ahead and show her the magazine. That's the same as being a rat, Jimmy. If you want to be labeled a rat, go ahead and give it to her. I don't give a fuck.”
“Who you calling a rat?”
“You're standing here trying to blackmail me, Jimmy. That's some jive shit. I'll take an ass whipping before I let somebody blackmail me.”
Oliver sensed the blow was coming a split second too late. Just as he was backing up, Jimmy Six punched him in the center of his chest and knocked him to the floor. He got up quickly and backed up to give himself more room. The ebony handle of the knife glittered in his hand.
Jimmy Six laughed when he saw it. “Well, I'll be goddamn! There's only one place you could have gotten a switchblade in this joint. First you stole Mr. Plenty's woman, then you stole his smut magazines, and now you've stolen his knife. I like you, Priddy, I really do. You've got balls, kid.”
Oliver smiled. “That's right, Jimmy. And if you put your hands on me again, I'm gonna cut your fucking throat.”
The other boys were forming a circle around them now. Jimmy Six pulled his sweatshirt off and wrapped it around his left fist while the boys jeered and shouted.
“It's on now!”
“Give 'em room to swing!”
“Stick him! Stick him, Priddy. Stick that big motherfucker!”
The shouts provided enough curiosity for the Man to push through the circle and interrupt what was about to get good.
“All right, all right! That's enough of this.”
Oliver put the knife away as fast as he'd brought it out.
“You two boys cool it. We're not going to have any fighting in here. Priddy, you go in the television room. Six, you stay in here.”
Everywhere he went for the next three days, Oliver listened to the two/two beat of his own footsteps while he gripped the switchblade inside the front pocket of his pants. Each time he and Jimmy Six crossed paths, he held his finger on the button and waited. On the fourth day, when there were no more signs of hostility in Jimmy's demeanor, Oliver returned the switchblade to the back of Mrs. Viola Plenty's utensil drawer where he had found it. Confident for having stood up to the biggest bully he had ever known and won, and sixty-two days away from gaining his freedom, he stepped into the shower room and was immediately blindsided by a haymaker that knocked him to the floor and almost into a coma. He tried to call out who was the coward cocksucker, but the only syllable he could utter was cow. Dazed and dizzy, he swiveled his head in Jimmy Six's direction, squinting through watery eyes and white sparks as he attempted to push himself up.
“Where's that blade now, Priddy boy? You were gonna stick me the other day, weren't you? Weren't you, punk?”
Jimmy Six banged Oliver's head off the concrete floor twice and then turned him over on his stomach and yanked off his boxers. Oliver tried again to get on his feet, but Jimmy kicked him in the ribs and then slammed his boot into the side of Oliver's head. With the last blow he lost consciousness.
What came to him when he came to a couple of minutes later, what rose above the bells and flashing sparks in his head, were vials of battery acid, switchblades and baseball bats. Slowly, gradually, he sat up, his arms around his knees, staring through the slits of his swollen eyes as though he were in a movie. His lip was split in three places and he thought his cheekbone was broken, and though both his hands were soaked with the blood pouring from his nose, a little still trickled down.
He got to his feet and staggered along the wall until he reached the corner shower. After he retched and vomited up nothing, he turned on the nozzle, lifted his hands to shield his eyes from the sting and saw rivulets of shit and blood flowing over his ankles, turning into mud. He squatted in the muddy water, peed in it. He waited and he killed. The vandals who had stolen the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign; the judge who had sent him there; and Ernie Boy the Second for what he had done to his mother. After he washed himself a hundred times, he walked out of the room, still panting. Four of Jimmy Six's boys were standing in the hall staring at his nakedness as he walked past them and into the equipment room at the end of the hall. Their eyes were wide but noncommittal when he walked back out of the room with a Louisville Slugger leaning against his shoulder. A tear
was trapped in the corner of one eye as he walked past the four boys and through the door. Jimmy Six was reaching for the baby powder in the back of his locker when Oliver raised the bat over his head. He did not ponder the force or angle of the blow, but merely followed in its wake.
HE FELT THE NIGHT watchman's long, cold fingers thrust between his shirt and his belt. Beneath his feet he could feel the winding steel of the staircase to the basement of the solitary confinement cottage, could smell the moldy, stale air. At the threshold of the cell door, he placed his hand on his chest and turned slowly to the night watchman, his face a pious oval in the shadows. The night watchman's mouth was open and he closed it before saying, in a voice made paternal by experience, “Let me give you some advice, young man. When you get to the penitentiary, keep your head up and lose that fear in your eyes.” The man gently placed one of his large hands on Oliver's shoulder. “Step in, son,” he added softly.
The door slammed behind Oliver and his chest rose and fell, rose and fell under his hand.
chapter two
RIVERVIEW PENITENTIARY'S FIRST annual Memorial Day fast-pitch softball game between the Vanguard Jaycees and the Pennsylvania Lifers Association had been brazenly advertised as the “Mother of All Softball Games.” This was because it was known that the Lifers Association's new pitcher, Calvin Africa, had once pitched a one-hit shutout against the internationally famous King and His Traveling All-stars. According to the bold print on the bulletin board flyers, Calvin would pitch to every Vanguard batter from behind second base while wearing a blindfold.
The game drew a bigger crowd than the donkey softball exhibition between the guards and the Jaycees had two years earlier. Packed in the bleachers on the first base side of the infield was a mural of black and white faces belonging to the prisoners from Homewood, the Hill District and other ethnically mixed Pittsburgh neighborhoods. On the third base side was the entire entourage of North Philly prisoners who had shown up on the breeziest, sunniest day of 1977 just to keep an eye on their downtown rivals who were sitting in the shade fifty feet away down the left-field sideline. After eyeing their foes back, the South Philly gang seemed convinced that the sky-blue hue of the sky would keep the blood-red red of the Norris Street, Oxford Street and Diamond Street boys content for at least a day. Pigeons that had escaped the city streets and pebbled sidewalks agreed and found refuge on the rooftops of the hundred year old clapboard buildings beyond the outfield fence--the prison chapel, the Young Guns Boxing Gym, and the Free Yourself Law Library. Even the thirty or forty rednecks and born-agains sitting behind home plate felt safe enough to cheer for their team, the all-white Vanguard Jaycees, and wave their homemade banners while the sandwich peddlers, clothing merchants and queens walked by.
Eureka Man: A Novel Page 2