1.
Sitting here in this damn single cell in the West Tower at the Lew—fuck this place. Sometimes when I feel like it I just piss on the floor. What difference does it make? Guards don’t give a damn. Been thinking about rubbing shit all over the walls past couple of days. That crazy? Fuck, probably it is. I’m so far beyond giving a damn right now. I rub my fingers through my curly black and silver beard, pulling on it a little. These jailhouse psych doctors don’t know a damn thing about being crazy. There is no such thing as being crazy, anyway. My damn head.
The man in the cell next to mine hasn’t showered in weeks. This is what real people smell like. Before Dial soap and Old Spice, Chanel No. 5, or running water. When she poured the pound of fragrant oil over Jesus’ perfect head, what was the perfect smell? This sick stench reeks and seeps through the cracks of my cell door, mingling with the scent of piss and orange peels. I don’t know how to tell this story, but I have to, don’t I? It’s not like I have a choice.
American Creamy (Part One) Description:
American Creamy is the first full-length novel written by Jonathan Spradlin. It is a work of literary fiction that encompasses many fields of interest and study as its dual stories wind in and through themselves and each other. It is a psychedelic, poetic, and musical novel, heavily influenced by the work of Charles Bukowski, James Joyce, Cormac McCarthy, Franz Kafka, and Ernest Hemingway in its tempered stream of consciousness style.
There are four distinct, sometimes overlapping timelines to be found in the stories. This is accomplished by Spradlin’s mode of delivery, which uses Ezekiel Thomas, or “Preacher Man” as the narrator, writing to the reader in a jailhouse notebook. His musings take him everywhere along the path of his own long life, especially pointing out the events that led to his several incarcerations, and what happened to him while incarcerated.
Preacher Man’s story takes the front seat in this, the first half of the novel. The reader also meets the other protagonist of American Creamy, Eben Thomas. The two meet just a few short weeks prior to the writing of the journal. Indeed, the meeting itself spurs the writing, as Preacher Man implies in the opening chapter. The two find themselves together in an eight man “tank” in what’s called a Behavioral Observation ward in the Dallas County Jail. Behavioral Observation is a very real place in Dallas County where inmates are placed who have some history of mental illness, but who are not psychotic or violent at the moment of triage.
Preacher Man, who is black, feels compelled to transcribe the younger white man Eben’s story. And indeed, it is strange and disturbing. We learn very early on that both men suffer from visual hallucinations. Preacher Man, who is no preacher, but rather was given the name by fellow prison inmates, many of whom felt strangely drawn to confess their stories, their crimes, to him, believes that his visions, the cream he calls them, are a spiritual blessing or curse. On the other hand, Eben, who suffers from very similar visions, believes that he is very much insane, and he takes strong narcotics, illegally, to settle them down. He thinks that in this way he will be able to function normally in society. It is up to the reader to decide if he is at all successful at attaining normalcy.
The stories are meticulously crafted, sometimes violent, often sexually charged, and while the stories themselves are always paramount, there is plenty of room for a little philosophical pedagogy and social critique to be embedded in the twin narratives. Spradlin, 39, is from Dallas, Texas, and much of the book is set there, though a large chunk of Eben’s story (in part two) is set in Page, Arizona. He writes a great deal about prison, and the darker side of human life. These are places that most of us do not wish to visit ourselves, though there is a great deal of interest in what goes on in prisons, courtrooms, drug dens, etc. Spradlin spent too much of his life treading those dark paths, as sometimes good men lose their way. He has returned, though not unscathed, and he seems to be on fire to share his lessons and experiences.
