Eureka Man: A Novel

by Patrick Middleton

  When Oliver's friends and professors inquired about him two days after the riot had ended, I.M. White informed them that Oliver was under investigation for publishing and distributing an unauthorized document, and for possibly instigating the riot.

  “You don't go around telling a bunch of ignorant-ass ghetto niggahs that they may as well be dead because they're never going to see the streets again. Not in my prison you don't. That's what Priddy did. He poured gasoline on the fire.

  “I'm not new at this. Priddy's not the first slick white man I've come across in my career, either. I've been dealing with them ever since affirmative action came about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a racist by any means, and it make my skin crawl when these white boys call me one. Hell, I'm married to a white woman. This isn't about racism. This is about what happens when you educate one of these prisoners. They get a little knowledge and think they can be slick. I'm educated, too, I can read between the lines. I know what Priddy was doing when he capitalized and underlined those fifty-cent words. INSURRECTION, RANDOM SLAUGHTERING, ANARCHY. Instigating, that's what he was doing.

  “Now he has all these reporters and liberal educators sticking their noses in official business, and that's where I have to draw the line. I don't care how many phone calls they make or how many letters they write demanding to see this man, no one but his attorney will see him until this investigation is concluded.

  “I've got five dead officers and six dead prisoners on my hands and on top of that a prison to rebuild. This place is on lockdown and will stay that way until we get to the bottom of all this mess. And mark my words. If my hearing examiner finds Priddy guilty of instigating that riot, he can forget all about his little PhD pursuit, which, if you ask me, is a waste of everyone's time anyway in light of the fact that the pardon's door to freedom has been closed once and for all on these lifers. They have about as much chance of getting out of prison now as I do of becoming the next commissioner of corrections.”

  THAT PLACE IN THE PRISON where men's minds easily disconnected from their spirits did a flourishing business in the days following the riot. And although the riot was over, everyone knew the violence wasn't. The guards would have the final say. On the south side of the Home Block, fifth cell, second tier, Oliver looked up each time a triangle of guards swept past his cell carrying one of the rioters, shackled and hogtied. And each time he turned away, nauseated by the sounds of the guards' heavy boots and arrogant camaraderie and the metallic clanging of keys. When he heard a cell door open or close, he listened for the blows, the pounding of flesh, the wincing in pain. After he heard a tap on the wall late one morning, he thought he recognized the voice that called his name. “Oliver, you awake?”

  “Yeah. Who's that?”

  “Oyster Bey.”

  “Oyster? Man, I didn't see them bring you in.”

  “I came in early this morning. You were still asleep.”

  The moment he heard Oyster's voice, Oliver's spirits lifted. He hadn't spoken to a single soul in three days and he was thankful and relieved to hear a friend's voice. “What did they lock you up for, Oyster?”

  “Two rookies shook my cell down yesterday. One of 'em said the nail I pounded in my wall to hang my coat on fifteen damn years ago was a weapon. I'll be out of here as soon as I go to my hearing. What's the latest with you, Oliver?”

  “They charged me with instigating that riot. My hearing's in the morning.”

  Oyster's laugh was an explosion. “Those rotten crackers! We heard that but we didn't believe it was true. They were going around confiscating all the copies of your newsletter they could find. That was some funny shit you wrote, Ollie. Where'd you come up with that stuff?” Oyster's laugh was contagious.

  “In my head. What the hell happened out there, man?”

  “During the riot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “These young bucks tore the roof off the place, that's what happened. I guess you didn't hear. Bell's dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “He started the whole thing, Oliver. You know how little he was. He climbed the wall right underneath the number-one gun tower. That screw Mills had a heart attack while Hambone was feeding him. Bell grabbed the rope and shimmied up the wall. In less than twenty-four hours he killed three guards and wounded four others before one of them sharpshooters blew his head off two days ago.”

  “We could hear the gunfire, but we didn't know what was going on,” Oliver said. “So that was Bell, huh? My God.”

  During the pause in conversation they heard a prisoner screaming obscenities and then the responding blows followed by more obscenities. After a long lull, Oliver asked, “Early okay?”

  “Early's been in the hospital, Oliver. Gallstones. He was all right the last I knew.”

  “What about Peabo?”

  “Peabo's fine. Another long pause and Oyster continued. “I didn't leave my cell for three days, not until the fourth morning when Donnie Blossom brought me some coffee and told me the young bucks were about to throw in the towel. You shoulda seen what those boys did to Sergeant Dewey. They didn't hurt him too bad, mainly his pride. Made him piss his pants when they smacked him upside the head with that pistol they had. They told him to listen and remember everything they was saying. 'We ain't taking this shit no more. We ain't going back in time. You tell Uncle Tom that, Nigger Ned,' they said. 'You tell him we ain't never tucking our shirttails in, we ain't wearing our hats straight and we ain't never gonna be part of no standing counts. And as long as we ain't got nothin' more to lose, we gonna keep tearin' shit up every chance we get, even if we die doin it. You tell em that, Nigger Dewey.' Poor old Dewey just sat there shaking his head and stuttering like an idiot. Oliver, these young niggahs are a new breed. They ain't got the sense God gave a turnip. They don't care if they live or die. I guess they figure they going to die in here anyway. Sooner or later. Just like you and my sorry ass is.”

  “Yeah, that's the way it looks, Oyster. What about Champ and one-eyed Melvin? Are they all right?”

  “Oh, man. Listen, Oliver. Champ, just about his whole North Philly crew, Melvin, the Lynch twins, the Solomon brothers, LaMumba, Anwar Dukes, Charlie Redshaw, Milky Way, Popalou, Duck, Major Tillery, L'l Ali, Chief, that white boy they call Sonny Corleone, and a couple hundred more are either already shipped out or on their way out. They got so many locked up they using the bottom two tiers on both sides of the little St. Regis as the hole. Hell, they need cells over here in this Home Block so bad they let Fat Daddy out two months early.”

  “He was in the cell you're in,” said Oliver.

  “Who?”

  “Fat Daddy. He talked my head off for three days. I couldn't believe how civilized he was. Hey, how well do you know him, anyway?”

  “Oh, I've known Fat Daddy for about twenty years now. Why?”

  “Because I told him I needed to get an extremely important message out to my boss. He said he'd get it to him for me. So I wrote it down and fished it over to him to take out. I was just wondering how thorough he is.”

  “Oliver, he may be a crazy-ass pervert, but he's as thorough as they get when it comes to something like that. If he told you he would take care of something for you, you can bet he did it before he unpacked his belongings.”

  “I hope you're right, Oyster. Otherwise, my ass is up shit's creek tomorrow.”

  “No way in the world they can hold you responsible, Oliver. Stop worrying.”

  There was another long procession of silence between them before Oliver said, “Worrying's all I got right now, man.”

  WHEN OLIVER WALKED into the hearing room the next morning, he nodded to the stone-faced security captain before sitting in the chair directly in front of the hearing examiner. “Good morning, Mr. Priddy. My name is Arnold Jerry, and I'll be the decider-of-facts for these proceedings. Let the record reflect that Mr. Priddy is present, along with Captain Twyman and Ms. Jan Christopher, our in-house stenographer. Mr. Priddy, you have been charged with misconduct number 3
9987, inciting a riot and being in possession of an unauthorized document, namely the October newsletter containing an essay bearing your name as the author. I take it you acknowledge being the author of this essay, 'HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS'?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And you were the editor of this newsletter, The Wire? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pertaining to these two charges, Mr. Priddy, how do you wish to plead?”

  “Not guilty. I need my witness present. My boss, Mr. Sommers.”

  “You indicated that on the hearing form. I called Mr. Sommers' office this morning at eight-thirty. His secretary informed me he would not be in the institution today. I take it you wanted your boss here as a character witness?”

  “There's more to it than that.”

  “I've read your jacket thoroughly, and I'm more than willing to stipulate into the record that you have made remarkable academic achievements over these past ten years, that you've been an asset to the prison's education department and have been a model prisoner as well. Other than attesting to these things, I can see no other reason why we would need to hear from Mr. Sommers.”

  Oliver's face went red with laughter, and then he turned to look at the Captain. “Hey, there's more to it than that. My boss can clear this whole thing up.”

  “And how's that?” the Captain asked, raising his thick black eyebrows.

  Oliver was almost compelled to tell them, but he didn't. He recalled Fat Daddy's admonition two days ago to keep his mouth shut unless he wanted to be the victim of a cover-up. “All I can say is that Mr. Sommers can clear this up,” Oliver repeated.

  The examiner looked intensely curious as he took a sip of black coffee from a tin cup before he stood and walked to a corner table to retrieve more documents. He was short, almost a dwarf. His Afro was neat, not ragged, and he wore silver around his neck, one matching stud in his ear. He sat down again and said, “Mr. Priddy, you have already acknowledged being the author of this essay, and there is nothing your supervisor or anyone else can say to negate that fact. So we are going to proceed with this hearing at this time.”

  “All right,” said Oliver, going red again. “What about Deputy Maroney? Call him in here.”

  “Deputy Maroney has been working in Central Office for the past two and a half weeks. I'm afraid he can't help you.”

  “A fucking kangaroo court,” Oliver muttered.

  The security captain stiffened. “What did you say, Priddy?”

  “You heard me, Captain. I said kangaroo court. That's all this is!”

  “Keep your opinions to yourself, Priddy,” the captain admonished. “Let that be a warning.”

  The examiner shifted his eyes from the Captain to Oliver while he took another swig of coffee. Then he said, “I'm going to begin by asking you what you meant in the very last words of your essay, when you wrote 'or does it explode?' ”

  “That line is an allusion, man.”

  “An illusion? You mean like a large mirror giving the illusion of more space in a small room?”

  “No. An allusion. That line came from a famous poem by Mr. Langston Hughes, called 'A Dream Deferred.'”

  “I see. That's real clever,” the hearing examiner said. “This situation reminds me of a legal case I read about in my second year of college in which the famous U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you cannot go around falsely shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre because it causes panic. One could make a good argument that your essay amounts to shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre.”

  Oliver sighed and shook his head from side to side. “Come on, man. You can't be serious.”

  The captain gestured with his hand and cut in before the examiner could go on. “I have just two questions for you, Priddy. Why did you emphasize words like insurrection and anarchy in big bold letters, and why did you wish the young bucks God's speed in their endeavors?”

  The captain leaned back in the chair with his hands clasped together and slowly rolled his thumbs in circles, obviously pleased with his questions.

  “The whole thing's a satire, man. It's not meant to be taken literally.”

  The hearing examiner said, “Well, do you agree, Mr. Priddy, that what you wrote was tantamount to telling your fellow lifers that their conditions are hopeless?”

  Oliver didn't hesitate. “No, I don't. If you're going to take what I said literally, my essay was about offering hope for the hopeless.”

  “But you don't believe that telling a man his life is doomed could be enough to incite that man to riot? You don't believe your modest proposal set these men off?”

  “That's a laugh.”

  “No one's laughing, Mr. Priddy, and I would advise you to take these proceedings a little more seriously. You're obviously a talented writer, but what you've written is highly offensive and highly inflammatory. Being a writer carries a certain responsibility with it. And as long as you are a prisoner of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you do not have the same First Amendment rights as people in free society have. Mr. Priddy, do you have anything else you'd like to say on your own behalf?”

  “I'm innocent, man.”

  The examiner scoured through Oliver's essay one last time, wrinkling his forehead and eyebrows each time he read something that offended him. When he was finished writing, he flicked his pen back and forth several times before dropping it on the table.

  “This is not a court of law, Mr. Priddy, but if it were, I would still find beyond a reasonable doubt-we call it a preponderance of evidence-that your essay inflamed the hearts and minds of those men who participated in the riot. I therefore find you guilty of this Class 1, Category A misconduct. Your punitive sanction will be eighteen months in the Disciplinary Housing Unit. You have thirty days to appeal this decision to the Superintendent. Good luck to you, Mr. Priddy.”

  A MONTH TO THE DAY of his hearing, Oliver and the rest of the prisoners confined inside the Home Block were moved to the bottom tiers of the little St. Regis. During the riot the prisoners had broken every windowpane in the cellblock. Now the cold December days were not warmed much by the installation of new panes. There was no notable difference between the thin, noisy air inside the cellblock and the air outside. Oliver stood by the door of his cell watching the prisoners who were being escorted from the lockup tiers and those being led towards them. Not one seemed interested in departure or arrival since the entire prison was a Home Block anyway.

  When he discovered on that first day that the St. Regises had not been reopened since the riot, that every man in the joint was locked in a cell somewhere, he stopped feeling betrayed by Fat Daddy. Thinking of his predicament and Fat Daddy's efforts to help him, he sighed heavily, but there was no point in just sitting there moping. First, he sent an official request to his boss letting him know he'd been moved to the little St. Regis and needed to see him as soon as possible. Then while he waited and prayed his request would reach its destination, he turned his thoughts to how he would spend, and not just deposit, his time in solitary confinement. What to do for the next hour, then the next. It took forty-five minutes to clean the floor and all four walls with a wet rag. Writing letters, two hours. Ninety minutes of reading, another hour taking notes.

  Contrary to popular belief, planning was everything. Gauge the hours. Recognize yourself. You're all you have.

  But after a week of trying that routine, his thoughts failed him-he couldn't write a sentence that made sense, he couldn't comprehend what he read and he lost his drive to exercise.

  As the days passed, he could hear the swelling and straining of a yellow diesel caterpillar that had come to make way for two new high-rise cell blocks in the middle of the yard. He listened as it demolished the Young Guns Boxing Gym, the Free-Yourself Law Library, the hundred-year-old chapel and the redbrick Home Block. In all that destruction he knew that the magnificent old oak tree had been torn from its roots, too, along with Early's flowerbeds and shrubs. Hearing all the devastation going on
outside only added to his suffering. All he could tell himself was that his stretch of good fortune was over. His self-created world of hope was gone. The prison he had for ten years called his university had finally been ruined and in the process had capsized his world and broken him. He found little consolation in knowing that, in this oppressive place ruled by men whose power to control was out of control, he had at least felt and heard about the esprit de corps of his fellow prisoners.

  More and more he did not know how he was going to get from one minute to the next. He felt as though his mind was slipping away, he was terrified. One morning he called out to Oyster, but Oyster was gone. Alone, without witness, he let go of his logic, his reason, and soon all the voices in his mind were rehearsing to themselves every pathological theme of literature he had ever come across: betrayal, cruelty, injustice, loss, vengeance, dishonor and grief. All hope had abandoned him. What's the use? Your life is over! You're going to die in this prison cell, hopeless and alone, he told himself.

  Every day he fought these voices in his head while the prisoners around him immersed themselves in conversations about murder and suicide. One morning the man on his left called out his name and Oliver shrieked for all the prisoners to hear, like a child might if his mother had been snatched away from him forever.

  “Priddy, I know you can hear me,” his neighbor said. “That essay you wrote was pretty tough. I ain't ashamed to tell you I almost took my own life once. Went so far as to dump four bags of the most potent smack in the city into a spoon and cook it up.” The neighbor on the other side said, “Well, you obviously didn't go through with it. What happened? You chicken out?”