Deadair I was, on my knoose and sliding into that Meurfitoi boite and all in chumananuts flat out, in them Muffet pads painting and limbed, mack smackissing, digmity gundamned, on my kneessence going, feeling amuffingly leicen actor do in that grhatt big groom, and on toward impled dees, up her damny dighs, intwil—:
I look up above the filleness on the wuzzing head of my Muffitoy, and no teases phew! please, a camera lansing me through the meroar in the whalle, and behind that lunse, an Oincidental, watching me cloak time througe this alicinium-pleated woundway loking-glaser.
I a stud bacon my knees as indiggernaut as only a nuggetman can. Hey! Man?
Hi, Chacaboy, come the voice from bierind the whaal.
I’m Joh N. Chill. You war Unicle Chylie, io poisesome. How is that spiled? With an athetical K. likein Klang, or an S. as in Cicciccicyfy? The later, E.S.I.C. now. I joust want to get that for the cantracks. Now holed that pause a minuet befure you gong ahead. I want to chick my scrutter and scrapesheet. Now first, not withstaunching virious misfirtions you know, our intourviewerror put on my disk, not five dayrs ago an addequite afeat sheet concurring in fervor of your waycent waverate compliant. We’ve hid a directave about the hindling of your busical problame. We have also hard the voicighs of the lawly and pawndroden upon you. We licen tearter craving of the moither with the beebee at her brust. And tiw you, lot me seth this: Burn off brawn spirit. Humbo yoursives befewre the rule conforting us. The promiss by the filmders of the flinders to the fryers in the furfled paintry, faithing the flogity phorse of the fjorgatan flies…
“Scats, why nt-we try twhyke up Mr. Charcarl’s Ken n curry him by dProfessay’s Lecturall?”
“He sure thave some Ting fo dDreamerboy.”
…the fortunes of the feasting fellowkyries, beckoning the the fenways of the fratiwtical fangents…
“DProfesso llgo-Ogotemmeli him, llgive him some Copticade, n unfrizz hHide. N I bet he llvstudy dhis Chapt’s Langleash too.”
“So you do’nthink he aSpilpigeon, Turb?”
“No. He just delairious. Might-he doeng aInknitiation. Hey, Chigro, walk up!”
…we heat the hook we hold entrussed as elf-relevant…
“Hey, Mr. Chalkhull, turn over n calm up. Cannt-you see no such Space z’dhat cdvhappen tshapen here. Not in dhis Whorld. Shake up n look at dCelestial-Grainery. You win New Afriquerque now, in aDizzyrt nummo dhan one mile Age from Dubwah City. Boss O’Din, Massa Tiwshirts, dheiRack, n dheiBoatormobile liftd only in Storeys. You drearmng about dim. Light up!”
“Hold on, Rabitt. He like tlook like he riffng out again. Mr. Cheegroar, lymph up!”
…No; for could we, we and you, ever run you so?…
“Do-I ear write which he sayd t’me, Rabbah?”
“I heard curwreckd from dBegendng, Totle.” !Kclilck! “Listen, you, dontslay down dhat Woord t’him o me o you. We mitt make you fly on Out again.”
…No; for be it be not?…
“Even-Eye feel mSelf getng mad, Rabbit. Mr. Chigroo. Careful. You say dhat t’dhem n you llcharge dPatter. But sigh it t’us n us llchange yPatent. You thank you hated bud wi Bo, Jay Chill n dMughitoy? We llsend you on a’reel Triavel dhi’Stem around. Nothing z’Rule’z dOnksowdentall, not by aPig’s Teeth! How ’d-you luck wi Odds o’one Andread t’one?”
“Dhem nt-Odds, Turtle; dhem Adds!”
…Nnnn…
“But he stall at it, Rub. We llhave tsend him back throuorht fo Lesson-thurtyone n make dOdds five two wender wi. Mr. Chigger, you vblunder, beeboy. You got aLearn whow you talkng n when tsay whit, man. What, man? No, man. Soaree! Yes sayd dIt t’me too thlow. Oilready I vbegin tshift m Voyace. But you llbob bub aGain. We cdntlet aHabbub dfifd on Fur ever, only fo waTerm aTime tpickcip dSpyrate by pinchng dSkein. In Side, out! Good-bye, man: Good-buy, man. Go odd-buy Man. Go Wood, buy Man. Gold buy Man. MAN!BE!GOLD!BE!
ALSO BY
WILLIAM MELVIN KELLEY
A DIFFERENT DRUMMER
June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publica-tion in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.
Fiction
DEM
Mitchell Pierce is a well-off New York ad executive whose marriage is falling apart. He no longer feels any passion for his pregnant wife, Tam, and even feels estranged from his toddler son, Jake. Trapped in an unrewarding and loveless life, domestic violence, though not in Mitchell’s character, is never very far away, either. Mitchell’s life will irrevoca-bly change one day, though, when a young man appears at his apartment door to pick up the family’s black maid, Opal, for a date. Cooley, it turns out, is not a stranger to the household. The twins that Tam is carrying are a result of superfecundation—the fertilization of two separate ova by two different males. So when one child is born black and the other white, Mitchell goes on a quest to find Cooley and make him take his baby. In the tradition of Brer Rabbit trickster tales, dem enacts a modern-day fable of turning the tables on the white oppressor and inverting the history of miscegenation and subjugation of African Americans.
Fiction
DANCERS ON THE SHORE
Dancers on the Shore is the first and only short story collec-tion by William Melvin Kelley and the source from which he drew inspiration for his subsequent novels. Originally pub-lished in 1964, this collection of sixteen stories includes two linked sets of stories about the Bedlow and Dunford fam-ilies. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families—their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love.
Fiction
A DROP OF PATIENCE
At the age of five, Ludlow Washington is given up by his parents to a brutal white-run state institution for blind African American children, where everyone is taught music—the only trade by which they are expected to make a living. Ludlow is a prodigy on the horn and at fifteen is “purchased” out of the Home by a bandleader in the fictive Southern town of New Marsails. By eighteen, he is mar-ried with a baby daughter, but as his reputation spreads, he seeks to grow musically, leaving his budding family for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in New York City. Ludlow’s career follows an arc toward collapse, a nervous break-down, recovery, a long-delayed public recognition, only for him to finally abandon the spotlight and return to his roots and find solace in the black church. A Drop of Patience stands apart as an exemplary parable of African American history, racial politics, and musical creative genius.
Fiction
ANCHOR BOOKS
Available wherever books are sold.
www.anchorbooks.com
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
Dunfords Travels Everywheres Page 17
