Early Greer, the head orderly and only horticulturist inside Riverview Penitentiary, was sitting in the top row of the Pittsburgh bleachers reading the Post Gazette and socializing with his friends, Peabo, Oyster and Bell. Early tapped his index finger against the front page and said, “Another niggah's on his way to jail. This guy caught his wife fucking a dog and shot her three times.”
Peabo didn't take his eyes off the batter, but said, “That's a crime of passion if ever there was one.”
“What about the dog?” Oyster asked. “He kill the dog too?”
“We betting or what, Peabo?” Early said.
“Read the details first.”
Early straightened out the paper and read the story. “'Forty-six year old Maurice Wiley from Bruston Hill in Homewood was arrested yesterday morning for killing his wife in their home at 461 Mayview Street. According to police, Wiley discovered his wife, forty-two year old Mabel Joyce Wiley, engaged in a sexual act with Wiley's American Bull Terrier and shot her once in the head and twice in the chest. Wiley is being held without bail in the Allegheny County Jail.'”
When it was apparent that Early was through, Peabo said, “That's a simple crime of passion.”
“Nah,” said Early. “Three shots was overkill, man. I say he gets life.”
“Life!” said Oyster. “For a crime of passion? Shouldn't no man get life for a crime of passion. That's what those crackers did to me.”
Bell looked at Oyster when Oyster uttered the word cracker.
“Okay, Early. Let's bet. How much?”
“The usual,” Early said. “Loser buys ice cream for a week.”
“You're on.”
“What about the dog?”
“What about the damn dog, Oyster?” said Early. “You're not making one bit of sense. It wasn't the dog's fault. A dog ain't got no sense.”
“Well, it'd have to go just the same. I wouldn't want no dog hanging around my house after it's been with my woman.”
Early pulled out a stack of three by five index cards from his shirt pocket and wrote Maurice Wiley's name on one and then recorded the bet Early and Peabo had just made. Ever since they had made a game out of betting on new arrestees, Early had been keeping stats on each one: name, age, race, type of crime and location, amount of bail, name of the judge, and any other relevant facts he could glean from the newspaper or the six o'clock news. Before laying down a bet, he usually studied his facts like a statistician, unless the bet was a sure thing. Maurice Wiley was a sure thing. Maurice Wiley had committed premeditated murder and Early was certain the man would receive nothing less than a life sentence.
A band of young bucks walking by the bleachers transfixed them for several seconds, as did Tommy Lovechild, a born-again pedophile who was sitting on the bottom bleacher handing out Jesus Saves tracts. “Give yourselves to Jesus, brothers, and you can enter the kingdom of heaven.” Two of the young bucks stared at Tommy, not sure if they wanted Jesus' kingdom or to knock the smirk off Tommy Lovechild's pitted white face. Tommy stared back and said, “You can curse me out, brothers, and you can beat me black and blue, but I'll love you just the same.” The taller of the two young bucks smacked Tommy's hat off his head and told him to shut the fuck up.
“That man's out!” cried Bell. The runner on third base tagged up and scored on a shallow fly ball to left-center. “He's out, ump!” Bell's protest was drowned out by the B&O railroad cars rattling along the banks of the Ohio River just beyond the prison wall.
“Bell, you know damn well you can't see that good,” said Oyster.
Bell, who had lost his left eye somewhere along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, said, “I can see better than that umpire. That man was out!”
Early, Oyster and Peabo joked with Bell, but never argued with him. Not because they feared the five-one, hundred and twenty pound white man, but, rather because of where he had been. “La rue sans joie,” the Street Without Joy. Shortly after arriving at Riverview four years ago, Bell had stood up at his first lifers meeting to tell the members something about himself and ended up taking them to the Phong Dien district of South Vietnam, 1970, where his Third Battalion of the 187 Infantry had gone to support a pacification program. La rue sans joie was where Bell had lost his left eye while rescuing a seven-year-old girl from a burning hamlet. When he described with piercing poignancy how he had passed the little girl's body to the medic while her skin remained in the crook of his arms and how, seconds later, a mortar exploded five feet from where he stood on La rue sans joie, Early knew by the way Bell had uttered those four French words, La rue sans joie, that Bell was permanently astonished and in need of a friend. That was four years ago and since then, Bell had been spending every spring and summer evening watching softball games and eating ice cream sandwiches with Early, Oyster, and Peabo on the top row of the first base bleachers.
Bell stood and stretched between innings and said, “This game reminds me of 'Casey at the Bat.'”
“Casey? Who the hell's Casey?” Oyster asked.
“You never heard the poem, 'Casey at the Bat'? It's famous. It's about a baseball team that was losing a big game just like these guys are. 'The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville Nine that day.'”
“We don't read no poems where I come from, Bell,” Oyster said.
The Lifers had the bases loaded for the second time in the inning. Peabo bit into the fried onions on the corner of his sandwich and nudged Bell who was already sniggering. Oyster spit out a popcorn kernel and hollered for the umpire to invoke the mercy rule. Early laid the newspaper in his lap to stare at a prisoner who was standing near the right field fence. Early couldn't see his face. All he could see was a tall lanky fellow, wide at the shoulders, standing with his back to the game and apparently gazing at Early's flowerbeds on the other side of the fence. When he finally turned around, what Early saw was a young man whose beauty bloomed along with the sweet Williams, morning glories and chrysanthemums. “That's him,” Early said. “Remember that boy we read about who killed a boy in reform school last summer?”
“Used a baseball bat, didn't he?” said Peabo.
“Yeah. We didn't want to bet on the outcome because he was just a kid.”
“Don't say we!” Oyster said. “I wanted to bet. He was a white boy and I said right from the start he'd get off light because he was white.”
“Yeah, well, you were wrong,” Early said. “They gave him life. I read about him in my neighbor's hometown paper. That's him standing over there by the fence.” Early pointed toward the first base foul line.
“He don't look like no killer to me,” said Peabo.
“Looks more like a choir boy,” said Oyster.
“Reminds me of Billy Budd,” said Early.
“Billy Budd? Who the hell's Billy Budd? He in a poem too?”
“How do you know that's him?” asked Peabo.
“Cause they put him in a cell right up the tier from me when they brought him in two days ago. Read his door tag. His name's Priddy-Oliver Priddy.”
“And lookie there!” said Oyster. “The booty bandit's on him already!”
“If he only knew what we knew.”
“Yeah. He'd leave that Louisville slugger alone.”
“You ain't never lied, Early.”
“Kill the umpire!” Bell yelled. “That man was safe by a mile!”
No sooner did Bell protest another close call at home plate then the controversy died and two hundred and fifty pairs of eyes shifted to the new prisoner, Oliver Priddy. A passerby stopped dead in his tracks to sing about what they were looking at. “A fight! A fight! A nigger and a white! Look at that nigger beat that white!”
Early flexed the newspaper in his fist while he watched Winfield “Fat Daddy” Petaway knock Oliver to the ground, then stroll away before the guard in the number one tower could figure out what the commotion was all about. When Oliver got to his feet, he headed behind the backstop and paused right in front of the born-agains who were reciting Bible verses out loud. Earl
y and the others watched Tommy Lovechild ease up to Oliver. “Do you know Jesus?” he asked. “Would you like to come and pray?”
The other born-agains gathered in a tight knot of seven on the bleachers and then separated into two lines of three with Deacon Bob up front. Then they jumped down and circled Oliver like a lynch mob.
Oliver reached for the hand that pressed into his shoulder. “Heal in the name of Jesus!” Tommy Lovechild prayed. But before he could say it again, Oliver grabbed his hand and bent it back until it folded like a hinge.
“Let go! Oh, God! Ple-e-e-ease let go!” Tommy cried before he fainted. It was only then that Oliver let go.
But the born-agains wouldn't leave well enough alone. The one called Swanee concentrated on Oliver's long sinewy arms while Deacon Bob tried to restrain him in a full Nelson. In one quick motion Oliver freed himself and found Bob's throat. It took several minutes for Swanee and the others to wrestle him to the ground where they laid hands on his prostrate body and began praying in tongues. Oliver struggled to get to his feet just as the goon squad turned the corner of the icehouse and trotted across the ball diamond.
“You men get back!” the fat sergeant shouted, waddling his tub of guts while he whirled a black baton over his head. “Get off that man!”
As quickly as the sergeant commanded, the born-agains dispersed and the guards beat down Oliver's flailing arms, handcuffed him and snatched him off the ground in one violent jerk. Even though the excitement was over, every prisoner on the yard watched in silence as the guards jacked Oliver up and carried him away to the redbrick Home Block.
The procession came down the first base line and Oliver swiveled his head toward the bleachers, apparently oblivious to the drip and slide of blood from his nose. “Hey, what the hell'd I do?” he asked. His voice was laden with incredulity.
NEAR THE REAR GATE, where the coal trucks, ambulance drivers and delivery vans rolled in, there was a two-story redbrick building with thick black screens and bars covering the windows. This building did not recede into its background of stonewall, nor harmonize with the white clapboard buildings in front of it-the Young Guns Boxing Gym, the Free Yourself Law Library and the prison chapel. Rather, it imposed itself on the eye of every passerby in a manner that was both irritating and depressing. Official visitors who toured the prison every spring and summer-doctors, judges, law students, clergymen and juvenile delinquents on a scared straight tour-wondered aloud why the building hadn't been torn down. Over the years different interest groups had come to use different euphemisms when referring to this dilapidation. The prison administrators referred to it as the Behavioral Adjustment Unit, whereas the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Prisoners called it the Solitary Confinement building. The guards and prisoners called it something else. They called it the Home Block. So named because it was home to the most incorrigible prisoners in Riverview Penitentiary. Home, also, to the sociopaths who turned the keys.
When Oliver was told to place his nose against the vestibule wall of the Home Block, he moved his head from side to side to think about it. The guards closed in before he made up his mind and a blue-eyed lieutenant slammed the end of his flashlight into Oliver's left kidney, causing his knees to buckle.
“You like to fight, boy? Stand up!”
Oliver stood as tall as his six three frame would let him. “That's the third time I've been knocked down today. What the hell'd I do?”
“Shut up, boy! Speak when you're told to speak! Now get naked, turn around and bend over.”
Oliver followed orders. When he bent over, gas broke from his bowels and the stink knocked the guards back on their heels. The mean-ass lieutenant with the blue eyes held his breath and tried to grab Oliver by his elbow, but Oliver stood tall and spun around to face the man. Just as he did a guard drove his flashlight into Oliver's stomach, and made him lean forward. He took a couple of deep breaths and stood tall again. “I've had enough of this shit!” he said, and struck the lieutenant in the jaw with a left hook.
But it was the only punch he got in. After that it was as if all the bars and bricks and razor wire in the building came down on him, the way they lit into him. Two held him down while the blue eyed lieutenant punched him in the ribs. Then the guards circled and kicked him until he spit blood and mucous at them.
“I thought you liked to fight, boy! Why aren't you fighting?”
“Fuck you, man!” Oliver cried.
Under the gallery gate a sewer rat moved its tail and whiskers as it waited to taste the blood that flowed from Oliver's nose for the third time that day.
“Who am I, boy? Who am I!” the lieutenant demanded. Oliver tried to get to his feet but the lieutenant shoved him back down so hard his right arm snapped. When he tried to get up again, Lieutenant Blue Eyes planted his boot between Oliver's bare buttocks and held him down. “I'm the Man, you young punk! That's who I am!”
WHEN HE OPENED his eyes two days later, he was propped up in a bed in the prison hospital, his right arm sealed in Plaster of Paris. Before him on a tray was another tray divided into four compartments. In one compartment was a slice of ham, in another, black eyed peas, in another sweet potatoes, and in the smallest one, tapioca. Oliver stared at the soft colors. As he reached for the spoon, he winced at the pain in his arm.
“Use your other arm.”
Cautious and wide-eyed, Oliver turned his head a little to the left and saw a brown-skinned man dressed in an apple green uniform standing there. The man's silver, wooly hair was parted high on the left side.
“We're not going to have any trouble today, are we, Priddy?”
Oliver looked up and down the man's uniform and then at the janitor who was pouring Lysol into a bucket in the middle of the ward. He could smell the strong antiseptic just before the stench of vomit from a patient two beds over became a reeking fog. He laid his head back on the pillow and tried not to breathe through his nose while he stared at the man in the apple green uniform.
“I'm not a doctor if that's what you're thinking,” the man said. “The name's Early Greer and I'm a convict just like you. I hope you're not going to give me a hard time like you did yesterday. Because if you do, I'm telling you right now you're in for an ass-whipping.”
Oliver looked confused. “What the hell did I do?”
“You don't remember? You overturned the breakfast tray and then you tried to knock me into the hall.”
“Somebody kicked the shit out of me, man.”
“That was three days ago.”
“I thought I was dead.”
“You're not dead.”
Sweat slid from Oliver's armpits and down his sides. With extreme care Early lifted Oliver's broken arm and wiped the sweat away with a sponge. Then he picked up the spoon and placed it in Oliver's good hand. He hadn't eaten in two days and his appetite was ferocious even with the malodorous emanations in the room. As he fed himself with the large spoon, he concentrated on the pink and green of the ham, the dead eyes of the black-eyed peas, the orange ovals of the sweet potatoes and the creamy lumps of tapioca until they were all consumed.
“Those guards kicked the shit out of me, man.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What did you do to piss them off?”
“Hell, they started it. The tall lieutenant with the blue eyes. Know who I'm talking about?”
“I know him well. Lieutenant Blue Eyes. He's a real bastard.”
“Well, he pushed me into the wall and then shoved his flashlight into my back. Then he started yelling like a goddamn maniac. 'You think you're tough? You think you're tough? This is my jail, boy!' I didn't say a word. Not one goddamn word, Mr. Greyer.”
“Greer. Early Greer. And you better learn something quick.”
“Like what?”
“You can't beat them, son. They'll win every time. I know cause I used to fight them all the time.”
“Yeah, but a guy's got to defend himself, doesn't he? I wasn't doing an
ything but minding my business. First this goddamn freak asked me if I wanted to be his friend. I told him to go find someone else to play with and he sucker-punched me. Then this other weirdo started touching me and asking me if I wanted to pray with him. All I did was make him take his hand off me. Then all his buddies jumped me. What was I supposed to do?”
“I've got two things to say to you, young buck. You've got a lot of time to do-”
“Hey, how do you know that?”
“Read about you in the newspaper. You killed a boy in reform school. So the paper said.”
Oliver's face was knocked clean of meanness when he looked Early in the eyes. “The judge gave me life, Mr. Early. I can't imagine staying in here the rest of my life.”
“You won't be here the rest of your life. Not unless you screw up some more.”
“What do you mean? The judge gave me life.”
“You can get out in fifteen. All you have to do is stay out of trouble and do something with your time. Go to school, learn a trade.”
Oliver sat up, excited. “I might take up boxing.”
“What? A clean-cut kid like you? You don't look like a boxer. Go to school and learn something.”
“Wait a minute. You said you can get out in fifteen years. How long have you been in this place?”
Eureka Man: A Novel Page 3