Eureka Man: A Novel

by Patrick Middleton

  During her formal years of training to become a doctor of philosophy in education, she unfolded a great paradox of learning: Students are imaginative but lack experience; pedants are full of knowledge but have feeble imaginations. Rote learning had its purpose, but active interest was the key to engaging a student's imagination. Just as she knew that staring too long at the sun would make a person go blind, she knew there could be no mental development without interest. Interest was the sine qua non for attention and apprehension. Whether one endeavored to excite interest by means of birch rods, or coaxing it by the incitement of pleasurable activity, without interest there was no imagination, no progress.

  Her career was quite successful. Early on she achieved a lifetime of tenure by writing illuminating philosophical treaties on the organization of thought and the foundations of childhood education. Her most celebrated work, a tome on the role of classics in education, was translated into seven languages and won her international recognition. She loved her career and her life. Together she and her husband Stanley raised two wonderful sons, Malcolm and Cab. Both boys grew up to have successful careers and families of their own. Malcolm, now thirty-three, was a cabinetmaker; Cab, thirty, was a watercolorist. After twenty-two years of university life, she was still teaching her two graduate courses every semester, supervising young teachers in the local school districts, and advising a half-dozen graduate students each year. Her income was large, but she had no taste for luxury outside of fine clothes. Having never lost her drive to stay fit and look attractive, she worked out three days a week at the same health club she had belonged to for the past twenty years.

  Her life was an arabesque of harmony, complexity, and balanced proportion, except for one thing. The careful construction lacked physical love. She had no preference for celibacy but had succumbed to it after her second child was born. That was when her husband Stanley, world renowned for his wood sculptures, began devoting all of his waking hours to his art and career as a professor of fine arts at a competing university. Their marriage gradually dissolved into one of convenience. Even if they had not been Catholics and had believed in divorce, they would have stayed together for the sake of the boys and their own careers. As it turned out, separate bedrooms and separate social lives gave him the freedom he needed to be happy. She adapted and they eventually developed a unique friendship, one in which they talked and listened to each other, and went out for dinner together once or twice a year.

  After moving out of the master bedroom, Stanley had crawled back into the marriage bed at least once a month during the first year. As time went on he came less frequently until he didn't come at all. She had always enjoyed making love to him but the last half dozen times they did it she noticed he could not experience sustained erections and she began to wonder if she was the problem or maybe he had become a homosexual. In any case she was relieved when he stopped coming, for she had begun to abhor his flesh on hers. The sight of crust in the corner of his eyes, his earwax, his moles and blackheads, repelled her. Her attention therefore gradually settled on raising her sons, advancing her career and occasionally having a go at self-manipulation.

  She could not remember when her season of discontent began. Because she had not attended a conference or published a paper in years, some of her colleagues were whispering burnout. Others were saying her imagination had withered, and still others that she was resting on her laurels. Her closest friends, Alice Proctor and Shirley Knot, told her she simply needed a change of scenery. She still enjoyed teaching and she loved her students, but she longed for something more. Being highly acquainted with existential philosophy, she felt that finding the right cause would cure her of her ills. So when she heard about a bright and promising young prison scholar who was in need of an academic mentor, her interest was piqued. She thought it might be just the thing she needed to shake off her mid-life doldrums. She had watched The Birdman of Alcatraz more times than she could remember and had always been fascinated by the convict Robert Stroud. She had been more than a little curious about prison life. Over the years whenever she drove past the towering walls of Riverview Penitentiary on her way to one of the city schools where she supervised new teachers, she had felt the same chill and reverence she felt whenever she passed a church or cathedral. Her adrenaline rushed through her fine veins each time she fantasized about going inside. On her initial visit to the prison she was in awe of what she had found there: civility, respect, gratitude. And to witness such depth of commitment to post-secondary education inside a prison had far exceeded her expectations. Moreover, she was excited about the time she had spent getting acquainted with the handsome scholar.

  The second time she signed him up to be her protégé and then lectured him on etymology, semantics and rules of transformational grammar. After two hours she stopped and told him that a broad knowledge of the fine arts was also essential to a well-rounded education. They would therefore reserve the final hour of each class to discuss anything from current events to books, art, their personal lives and prison life, which she said she was very interested in learning about, that is, if he didn't mind sharing that part of his life with her. No, he didn't mind at all. She wanted to know how dangerous prison life really was and asked him not to spare a single detail. He didn't. He told her about the homicides and suicides, gang rapes and love affairs, and all about the underworld. In the middle of his story about an orderly named Handsome Johnny, they were interrupted by the same prisoner who had interrupted them the first time she visited. “Hello, Dr. Dallet. That's a beautiful blouse you're wearing.” Victor LeJeune stared at her long curvaceous legs.

  She recognized his ruddy face with the off kilter nose, but she couldn't remember his name quickly enough. “Thank you,” she said, smiling tentatively.

  “The boss just gave me the brochure you brought for me. Thanks. I have a couple of questions. I was wondering-”

  “Hey, you ever heard of knocking, Victor? We're having a meeting here,” Oliver said.

  Victor LeJeune's coils of curly black hair flew from his temples and his hostile black eyes remained focused on Dr. B.J. Dallet. He ignored Oliver completely and she could see from the change in his countenance that Oliver was angry. Victor stood directly in front of her and when she looked down at his shoes and glanced upwards, she saw a bulge in his groin and felt a strange fear, and another response that wasn't fear. Something more like repulsion. Because the front of his pants were stained in some areas and wet in others. And he stank. Really stank. Ripe. God, what a nasty smell! And he was practically right up in her face. He stood there with his hands in his front pockets fondling himself and staring at her like an animal. That was what repelled her.

  “I was wondering if you could give me about fifteen minutes of your time to explain some things to me,” he said.

  She shifted her body in the chair and pulled on the pink collar of her blouse. She tried to sound regretful when she answered. “I'm in the middle of working with Mr. Priddy, right now.”

  “It won't take long. Priddy, would you excuse us for a few minutes?” Victor started to sit down.

  Oliver got up suddenly and bolted toward the door. “Come here, man. Let me talk to you out in the hall. Right now!”

  Through the crack in the door she heard Oliver say, “Do you want all your teeth in your head? This ain't your gig, man! Now get the fuck out of here!”

  When he returned to the room his voice was soft, breathy and refined again. “I apologize if what just happened shocked you. He was way out of line barging in here like that.”

  “You didn't shock me, Oliver, but he is one strange character. Did you see the stains on his clothes? And the way he smelled, my God, I almost gagged.”

  “Personal hygiene is not a priority with guys like him.”

  “What is it with him anyway? I saw the way he jumped in front of you that night at graduation. Does he have a feud with you, or is he just naturally rude?”

  “To be honest, Doc, the guy has no manners.”<
br />
  “If you think he's going to cause problems, I can say something to Mr. Sommers if you'd like?”

  “Please don't. I can handle it.”

  “I know you can. I just don't want to see you get into any trouble,” she said, surprised at the steadiness of her voice and even more surprised with what she said.

  “You have to understand something, Doc. This isn't a college campus. This is a penitentiary. This is where the term con artist comes from. He's a prime example of one. Every time a pretty woman shows up, he comes around looking for a way in the door. But you don't have to worry. As long as you come here, I've got your back.”

  “I believe you wholeheartedly, Oliver. One of the first things Mr. Sommers told me was I can trust you and I do. I feel completely safe with you. I just don't want to see you do anything that might jeopardize your studies.”

  “I won't. I can assure you of that.”

  In her bed that night she tried to reconcile his outstanding refinement with the physical threat he had made to Victor LeJeune. Hadn't he just explained to her all about prison codes and turfs? Wasn't he just protecting his own interests and her at the same time? After all, she was his guest. She was surprised at herself. She seldom judged people. Victor LeJeune had violated one code or another, she was sure, and Oliver had merely put him in check. Strangely, she was both pleased and startled to know that what was so unique and green-eyed handsome was also volcanic.

  THE THIRD TIME she came he sat at the table across from her and tried to focus on the complex theories of psycholinguistics she was explaining with such intensity he couldn't help but be spellbound. When he wasn't gazing into irises so blue he thought they were heaven, he was watching the thirty-five ways she could smile. How was he supposed to think about morphemes and phonemes when her very presence was a study? It would take some getting used to. Thank God for the textbooks he could read later.

  True to her word, every week she lectured for the first two hours and then they spent the third hour rounding out his education and getting to know each other better. She brought him large picture books containing the works of Cezanne, Monet, van Gogh, Hopper, and her two favorite American painters, Wyeth and Bartolozzi. She taught him how to distinguish romanticism and realism, impressionism from postimpressionism. He was instantly affected by the intense moods of despair in van Gogh's self-portraits, so she used van Gogh's works to teach him about light, atmosphere, color, form and mood.

  In these sessions they talked about war and politics and he tried hard to impress her with his knowledge of past presidents, the civil rights movement and the two party system. She showed him the folly of seeing things in black and white. She was a Republican, so he was shocked to learn she supported Head Start and other entitlement programs. He thought only Democrats approved of entitlements. She was also against the death penalty and that, too, surprised him, for he believed that all Republicans were proponents of the death penalty. She had an abundance of patience with him and constantly challenged him to postpone arriving at conclusions until he had all the facts.

  A staunch ambassador of multicultural experiences, she often brought along her Chinese, African and Middle Eastern graduate students and he was always mindful of making a fine impression.

  Among other things, what he loved about the time they spent together was the way she blended art and books and theories right into conversations about their personal lives. One minute they were discussing the Bay of Pigs incident, and the next she was telling him about her husband Stanley. She wanted to know about Oliver's friendships, so he told her about Early and Champ the boxer and Albert DiNapoli who had remained a close and loyal friend even after being home for two years. He showed her pictures of his girlfriend Penelope who had recently moved out to California to attend graduate school at UCLA. Just as he was about to start bragging about his mother June he changed his mind and said, “Enough about me, what about you?” The contentment he drew from watching her reaction made him smile.

  “Well, I've been teaching at the University for the past twenty-plus years now, and I've been married for the past thirty-three years. My husband Stanley is a professor of fine arts at Carnegie Mellon. He's also quite a successful wood sculptor. I believe I already told you we have two sons, Malcolm, who's thirty-two, and Cab who's thirty. Malcolm is a highly successful cabinetmaker; Cab is a watercolorist. They're both great boys. I think you and Cab would get along well. As I mentioned to you before, he had an addiction to cocaine a couple of years ago and he almost lost everything. My husband and I found out about it on the opening night of one of his watercolor exhibitions when he showed up bug-eyed and talking a mile a minute. To make a long story short, his father took him aside and told him to wise up, and he eventually did but not before he overdosed twice, depleted all his savings and stole money out of my purse. But that's another story.”

  “We have time. Why don't you tell me about it,” Oliver suggested.

  “We do? Well, that's a relief. To begin with, he was still living at home at the time. I had been curious and concerned for a long time, as his mother, you know?” She lowered her voice as she remembered, and then continued. “I wanted to find out what was so alluring about this cocaine stuff. Of course, I had never taken anything stronger than an aspirin in my entire life. Now, I'd been to several parties back in the seventies where other artist friends of Stan's and professors I knew were snorting, is that the right word? Anyway, snorting cocaine right out in the open. But I didn't once entertain the notion of trying it myself. Not until I entered Cab's bedroom one morning and found his stash. The first thing I felt was shock. And then, strangely enough, I was excited and nervous at the same time. There I was squatting in his closet and staring into a sandwich baggie half-filled with white powder and thinking, I need to find out what this is all about. And I did. I took the bag downstairs and snorted a little pinch and then a bigger pinch and I kept right on going in a complete state of rapture. Later that day Cab went ballistic when he woke up and discovered his cocaine was missing. He came running downstairs and there I was cleaning the house from top to bottom in a complete frenzy. We argued for a while and he was so irate I thought he was going to hit me, but he didn't. Instead, he ran back upstairs and a few minutes later he ran back down again and stormed out the front door. Later, I discovered he had taken nine hundred dollars from my purse.”

  “That's a heck of a story. So did you find out what the hype was all about?” Oliver asked.

  “Oh God, Oliver. It was sheer nirvana. The most blissful experience I've ever had. Not to mention the fact that I've had chronic back pain for years, and that cocaine obliterated any hint of pain for two days. But I'll tell you the God's honest truth, Oliver. It scared the heebie-jeebies out of me.”

  “It did? Why?”

  “Because every time I took some I wanted to do a little more. And I did, that is, until it was all gone. The euphoria was … well, have you ever tried it?”

  “Can't say that I have.”

  “Well, it's like this, Oliver. Once you start, you don't want to stop, you know? It was better than sex.”

  Oliver's jaw dropped to his chest. “Nothing in this world's better than sex.” He smiled and stared into her baby blues. She blushed and grinned. He could have watched her all day.

  “Okay. Maybe I'm exaggerating. It's just that it's been so long.”

  “What has?”

  “Well, that's another story, too.”

  chapter nine

  THE AIR WAS SO CHARGED with astonishment the blackbirds came to see. At one o'clock in the afternoon a platoon of blackbirds circled the hospital sun deck three times before disappearing over the wall. The nurses and orderlies came out to look, too, but didn't stay. Handsome Johnny sat in his wheelchair but never looked up. Fat Daddy stared at him, oblivious to everything except the summer of 1978 when they took Handsome Johnny away. And though he could never mistake that face for another's, Fat Daddy asked, “That you, Handsome Johnny?”

  Johnny's f
ace was slow to form a smile and when he spoke his tongue was thick and heavy. “Whooo…you…think?” Though Handsome Johnny's words came out heavy and slow, Fat Daddy thought he recognized the sarcasm and was glad.

  “How you been, Johnny?”

  Handsome Johnny rolled his head in figure eights and said, “Goood…Fa-Fat…Da-a-ddy.” He stood slowly, shuffled over to the rail and looked down into the flower beds.

  In his eight years as a hospital janitor, Fat Daddy had been around enough mental patients to recognize the Thorazine shuffle.” They got you on that zombie juice, Johnny? They got you on that shit, man?” Fat Daddy walked over and stood beside his old friend and business partner.

  Johnny's lower lip slid to one side and slowly over his upper lip. He looked at Fat Daddy with limp, pitiful eyes, looked away and back again.

  Fat Daddy looked back at him, slowly. The last good memory he had of Handsome Johnny was when he'd shown up at Fat Daddy's favorite crime scene seven years ago with the prettiest nineteen-year old white boy Fat Daddy had ever seen. Posing as a hospital pass runner for the tenth time, Handsome Johnny had escorted the blue-eyed boy across the hospital lobby to the abandoned basement where Fat Daddy, dressed in a dirty white doctor's smock, complete with a broken stethoscope draped around his neck, waited to play doctor. “You Mr. Blossom?” he had asked the boy.

  “Yes, I am, Doctor,” Donnie Blossom said.

  “You got to have a physical. Go behind that screen and get undressed, then sit up on this table.”

  Donnie Blossom had followed Fat Daddy's instructions to a tee. When he came from behind the screen, he was shivering and his milk-white skin was covered with goose bumps. He sat on the table, hiding his privates with his hands. Fat Daddy took the broken stethoscope and pretended to listen to his breathing while Handsome Johnny guarded the door. After a minute or so, Fat Daddy said, “Now stand up and bend over. I got to check your anal cavity.”