Early hesitated. “Listen. There's three things you don't ask another con. How long he's been down, what he's in for, and how much time he's doing. I've been here seventeen years if you really want to know. I'm still here because that fifteen years I mentioned is the average a lifer does before he gets a pardon. But averages don't apply to everyone. Now right now I've got to go check on the patients in the next room. I'll stop in and see you again tomorrow.”
As Early was turning to leave, Oliver said, “Hey, what's the other thing you wanted to say?”
“What?”
“You said a little while ago there were two things you wanted to tell me. What's the other thing?”
“You know that convict who wanted to be your friend?”
“Yeah. What about him?”
“His name is Winfield Petaway. They call him Fat Daddy. He's a notorious asshole bandit. He only messes with pretty white boys like you and he usually gets the ones he goes after. You should stay as far away from him as you can.”
“Hell, I'm not afraid!” Oliver said it as if Early was the culprit. “I killed one guy for trying that shit! I can do it again if I have to!” Oliver clutched the bed sheet in the fist of his good hand and laid back trembling. The tendons in his neck rippled.
Early waited patiently and then he said, “A man's got to do what he's got to do. All I'm telling you is watch your back. Now I'll see you later. I've got to go do my job.”
When Early was gone, Oliver laid his head back on the pillow and sighed heavily under the weight of memory and dread.
chapter three
THE TWO CELL BLOCKS at 100 Ohio River Boulevard were light years away from being those bastions of oppression they once were. Long gone from the hundred year old cells were the once standard Gideon Bibles and natural light only. Gone, too, was the mandatory dead silence. In the official records these blocks were named North and South, but for the past forty years the residents had called them by another name: Little St. Regis and Big St. Regis, respectively, so named, according to local folklore, after the sleazy but still popular St. Regis Hotel located two blocks up the street from the prison in Pittsburgh's Manchester section. Both of these cellblocks were five stories high and a little longer than a football field. The cells in the big St. Regis, however, were significantly larger than those in the little St. Regis, hence the name big St. Regis.
For a long time counselors and other administrators fought the movement to rename these cell blocks. They simply refused to answer any correspondence that referred to big or little St. Regis. Who did these convicts think they were, trying to personalize the names of the buildings in which they were assigned to live? But eventually, some warden or assistant warden rightly decided that the euphemisms were harmless and the names big and little St. Regis became a part of everyone's lexicon.
To keep track of the residents' whereabouts, officials had long ago assigned letters to the tiers and numbers on the doors. In the little St. Regis the five tiers that looked out over the Ohio River were labeled A through E from bottom to top; on the courtyard side, they were labeled F through J, top to bottom. On the big St. Regis the tiers on the courtyard side were labeled K through O, bottom to top, and on the riverside P through T, top to bottom.
The cells in these blocks called by any other name were still cells, so where was the harm in calling them a “hut” or a “house” or a “room” and changing the dècor? A cardboard box cut and assembled to specifications and painted candy-apple red or two-tone blue became a nifty medicine cabinet for the wall over the sink. Multicolored throw rugs sewn together made a cozy quilt; a bed frame raised vertically and draped with cloth made a convenient privacy panel; and a mattress rolled up in a ball and covered with a homemade afghan became a perfect couch (or love seat). Photos and calendars, posters and murals, on freshly painted walls softened the look and feel even more. A clothesline here, a makeshift hamper there. A plastic flowerpot or collection of rocks on the shelf. Bright lights when you needed them, shades when you didn't. Each morning you could smell the coffee brewing along the tiers and the stench of vomit in the back of them. If you could afford it, there were tailors for hire and cleaning service, too. On the riverside of both blocks the view through the curtains of glass was spectacular in the summer: speedboats and skiers bumping up and down the strong currents all day long; red and rust-brown coal barges moseying along five deep; scantily clad sunbathers sprawled out on the banks and always willing to flash their goods. At night the magnificent Gateway Clipper, lit up like a Christmas tree, with a live band playing Three Dog Night songs on the upper deck, floated down the river and back two or three times a night.
The St. Regises had their own parties, too, year round. Shooting galleries and prayer meetings, card parlors and crap houses. You could smell perfume at one door and Jade East at the next one. If you were hungry you could find a sandwich shop or a grocery store that gave credit. It was all there. And the noise. The cacophony of sounds. Televisions blasting. Pimps and tricks fighting over prices. Dope addicts nodding to the wailing horn section of Tower of Power or the guitar riffs of Van Halen. Men crying, others laughing. Some crying and laughing at the same time. Razor blades were free, as were sheets to tie around your neck and if you were in a hurry, a dive off the fifth tier was only a few flights of stairs away. Like any sleazy hotel, the St. Regises had their share of crime, too: robbery, rape, homicides and insults. It was all there, beating like a pulse. If you paid attention to the way it breathed it wouldn't hurt you, but you had to remain circumspect and try to figure out everyone's angles long before they did, because anywhere you went in the St. Regises you could find trouble or be it. You could fight till you couldn't fight anymore and you could laugh out loud when you dodged the knife and die when you didn't.
FREE AT LAST from the redbrick Home Block, stronger and smarter than he was a hundred and eighty days ago, still afraid in a dangerous way, Oliver welcomed cell B-49, to get away from the sewer rats that scurried brazenly in broad daylight, not to mention the dark, then to get on with his life. When he walked into the cell, the first thing he did was pull the piece of cracked porcelain away from the base of the toilet and retrieve the ten-penny nail he had found in an alley on his first day at Riverview. Then he knocked on his neighbor's door and asked him if by any chance he had seen the louse who had fished his rugs from his cell. The neighbor, courteous and friendly, introduced himself and told Oliver he hadn't seen anyone lurking in the area. Then he offered Oliver two rugs of his own that were as good as new. The neighbor succeeded in befriending him.
His name was Albert DiNapoli, and having lived through twenty-two years of being called Parrot Nose, he had learned to kill the momentum by introducing himself that way. The self-deprecation worked every time. Apart from that one physical flaw, Albert was a handsome young man. He enjoyed being around Oliver and Oliver appreciated the older boy's friendship. Oliver wanted to know about the stacks of books in Albert's room and where he disappeared to every afternoon and evening. Albert wanted to know what reform school had been like and how he had just managed to spend six months in solitary confinement without losing his mind. They exchanged information like pickpocketing partners. Once, though, Albert asked Oliver why he had to kill that boy. Oliver didn't flinch, but told him matter-of-factly that the boy had crossed him something terrible, and left it at that. Albert said the boy surely must have because Oliver was a real decent fellow. Oliver nodded, pleased with the serious word Albert had used.
Having a pyramid of friends and connections, Albert called up a pretty girl named Penelope to visit Oliver. He showed Oliver how to smuggle contraband, and then had his connections supply Penelope with the contraband to bring him. Quaaludes and marijuana. Albert sold the pills and let Oliver keep some of the reefer. Later he vouched for Oliver before the Holy Name Society board that seldom admitted new members. Now Oliver and Penelope had four conjugal visits a year on the bathroom floor of the chapel. Oliver had been an altar boy in his youth so he agree
d to do his part and serve the four “family masses” the Society held each year. After the priest gave his blessing and disappeared into his office to watch Steelers' football, the prisoners and their guests had the run of the chapel. Two bathrooms and a storage room behind the altar were made sparkling clean on Saturday so they could be used as conjugal visiting rooms on Sunday.
Oliver almost put himself in the soup at his very first family mass when he and Penelope stayed in the room longer than their allotted time. The next man in line was a fellow who looked like James Dean but thought he was Sonny Corleone. He had a hair trigger temper and was known to end fights quickly. He got in Oliver's face and told him if he wasn't going to be a team player maybe he should think about joining the Protestants. Oliver apologized three times, and Albert intervened. After Albert offered the man some of his own time everything between them was smooth sailing.
To help him pass the time Albert gave Oliver a stack of books to read and after reading them, Oliver talked about Jay Gatsby as though he knew him personally. Then he went all over the prison looking for someone who reminded him of a character named Raskolnikov. Even more impressive to him was a book called The Mind and Its Control; he fell in love with words like serendipity, existentialism and osmosis.
One morning Albert brought him to the education department and Oliver ended up showing the most dangerous criminal in the state how to solve an algebraic equation. Before he even got to the school, though, he was mesmerized by the street that led them there. Turk's Street, named after the sergeant who directed traffic there every weekday morning and afternoon, was a planet away from being just a drive-thru on the prison's campus. Two lanes wide and a city block long, it beat to life every day from seven in the morning until eight forty-five at night. With brick buildings two stories high on both sides of the street, delivery vans and trucks coming and going all day long, along with secretaries, teachers, college professors and their students; the sweet smell of diesel fumes, fruit, potatoes and hind quarters of beef; conversations, friendly and otherwise, between prisoners making their way to the ice house, butcher shop, food storeroom, dry cleaners, clothing exchange, arts and crafts shop, barber school, license plate factory, paint-electric-plumbing-and-carpenter shops and the education building, there were no signs of restraint-no barbed wire, no gun towers, and no thirty-foot wall-on this street.
When Oliver strolled down Turk's Street for the first time, he knew his burden had just been lightened and there was good reason for rising up in the morning. As he waited for Albert to square it with the guard so he could enter the building without a pass, he memorized the words on a wooden plaque over the entrance to the stairway: Free Knowledge-Bring Your Own Container. At the top of the stairs a lobby that opened up and shot the length of the academic section was bustling with business. Some prisoners were holding forms and standing in line, others stood around talking with young ladies and men dressed in Ivy League suits. Albert picked up a set of forms from a table and got in line. While Oliver waited for him beside the bulletin board, a round, rosy-cheeked man asked him if he was there to register for college. The man wore a name-tag attached to the lapel of his tweed jacket. Dr. Fiore Puglia, University of Pittsburgh. The doctor smiled at Oliver when Oliver told him he was just waiting for a friend. Oliver appreciated the man's kindness. As he continued observing the friendly atmosphere in the place, he noticed the mural of Rodin's The Thinker on one of the walls above his head. Oliver was in awe of the pose.
As he stood there taking it all in, a second man walked up to him and asked him if he was there to apply for the janitor's job and just like that, Oliver said yes. The man told him to wait in classroom number one and he would be with him shortly. Oliver backtracked until he found the room. A black prisoner and a white prisoner were working on a math problem when he entered and took a seat in the back. The black prisoner wore a black satin jacket with the words Pittsburgh Boxing Team inscribed in big gold letters on the back. When he looked over his shoulder at Oliver, he reminded Oliver of Joe Frazier. The other prisoner wrote a problem on the board. 4x -3 =9. Joe Frazier said, “Go slow, man. I've got to write this shit down.”
“All right, Champ. Let's add three to the minus three and three to the nine, now we have 4x=12. Remember. Adding the three to the minus three cancels it out, and adding three to the nine gives us twelve. Now you just ask what number times four gives you twelve.”
Champ sighed. “Come on, man. Three. What's so hard about that?”
“That's all there is to it,” said the tutor.
After he noted Joe Frazier's other name was Champ, Oliver said, “'Scuse me,” and he said it like he was apologizing. “I don't mean to butt in, but if you're going to learn algebra, you don't want to start off on the wrong foot. It gets harder as you go along. You've got to know the right way to solve for any unknown. That last step he gave you was wrong, big man.”
“What are you talking about? Four times three is twelve, dummy,” said Champ.
“Right. But it's the way you got to the three that's going to screw you up later.”
“Show me, white boy.”
Oliver hesitated until the tutor waved the piece of chalk in the air. “Yeah, show us please,” he said. “I just started tutoring and math's not my forte.”
Oliver walked to the board and took the piece of chalk. “Okay. Four x equals twelve, you're good up to there. Four x means four times x, right? Now we want to get rid of the four so we have to do the opposite of the sign. Always do the opposite of the sign. The opposite of multiplication is division. Divide four by four and that gets rid of the four, leaving only x. What you do to one side of the equation you have to do to the other side too, right? Twelve divided by four equals three. So x=3.”
“Damn! You know your shit, white boy. I got that! You going to be my new math tutor. You work up here?”
“Not yet. I'm hoping to get hired as a janitor.”
“A janitor? You don't want to be no janitor. Tell that man you want to be a tutor.”
“Okay, I will.”
There were no tutor positions available but he got the janitor's job and met the head janitor Melvin who wore a baby Afro, had one eye and used the word Jim in almost every sentence. Oliver liked Melvin from the start. His attitude and the hitch in his giddy-up reminded Oliver of his old reform school friend, Philly Dog.
“Ever done any janitorial work before, Jim?”
“Yeah. And I once took a class on maintaining tile, terrazzo and wood floors.”
“That's real funny, Jim.”
Oliver was serious.
“All right. Check this out. I clean the classrooms and offices. You got the stairwell and the main corridor and hall, and the rest rooms. You set your own hours and you can come and go as you please. Just make sure your areas are good and clean every morning.” He grabbed a pack of Pall Malls that were pushing out of his shirt pocket and lit one. “You smoke, Jim?”
“No, thanks. I'm getting ready to go into training.”
Melvin stared at Oliver as if this was another joke, and then he went on. “Now dig this. There's all kinds of advantages to working up here. You can hang out all day, come up at night and find an empty room, write letters or listen to your radio, and there's always some fine-looking bitches walking around up here from the university, too. But dig this. There can be disadvantages, too, if you step on my toes. Don't make no wine up here. It brings too much heat. And stay away from Gloria. She's the secretary. If you stash a shank or any drugs around here, make sure the shit's in a good spot so the search boys don't find them. We don't need no heat up here, Jim. You got any questions?”
“I can't think of any right now, Melvin, but I'm sure I might once I get started.”
“Dig. Just holler when you need to know something, Jim. Now I'm out of here.”
THE SAME DAY Oliver started his life as a janitor in the halls of higher learning, he walked into the Young Guns Boxing Gym, a whitewashed clapboard building that leaned fifty feet in fron
t of the Home Block, and told the civilian trainer he wanted to join the team. Moose Godfrey scratched his beard and chewed on a raggedy cigar while he studied Oliver up and down, apparently looking for a sign that he was just kidding around or on medication, or both.
“You do? A clean-cut kid like you? You ever been in a fight before?”
“Yeah. Lots of them.”
“You don't look like you have. Can you fight?”
“I'm pretty good.”
“Oh yeah? Well, white boys don't usually last long in my gym, but you're welcome to stay and work out with the team and we'll go from there. What's your name?”
“Priddy. Oliver Priddy.”
“Wait here, Priddy.”
Oliver looked the place over while he waited. A ring in the center of the room and an office and shower room in the back were all there was to it. The fractured walls were stained with blood, sweat and nicotine. One old hurricane fan leaning in the corner rattled in rhythm with the jump ropers. The room was as hot as the inside of a Pittsburgh steel mill.
Two boxers were stepping into the ring to spar when the head trainer shuffled out of the office with another old man in tow. “This here's Mr. Palmer,” Moose Godfrey said, snatching the red-plaid porkpie hat off his large wooly head. “He'll be your trainer. What'd you say your name was?”
“Oliver Priddy. P-r-i-d-d-y.”
“He's all yours, Luther.”
The old trainer led Oliver to the side of the gym and got him ready to work out on the heavy bag. When his turn came he threw jabs, right crosses and hooks nonstop up and down the bag for five minutes. Luther told him that was enough for the first day; he had seen what he wanted to see and told Oliver he had natural punching ability. They moved to the speed bag and after Luther demonstrated the proper technique, it only took Oliver a few minutes to get his timing down and a steady rhythm going. When he finished jumping rope, Luther told him to go to the mat in the corner and do two hundred and fifty sit-ups and that would be all for his first day. “I almost forgot,” said Luther, wiping the sweat from his coal black face. “Make sure you're on the yard no later than seven o'clock tomorrow morning to start your road work.”
Eureka Man: A Novel Page 4