by Ishmael Reed
“I figured it was you. I’m glad you could get here so soon. I feel better already.”
“I hope I can help, Wolf. I’m sorry about your father. He was a great man. It was amazing that he could do the Work he did in such a stifling atmosphere as you have out here.”
“Sometimes I think you easterners are all alike, LaBas.”
“I don’t follow.”
“It seems stifling, but the sun can often be just as stimulating as the coldness and the snow of the east.”
“Maybe you’re right.” They headed out of the door after LaBas had picked up his bags.
As they left, LaBas saw what he took to be two beggars standing in front of the airport doors, badgering and taunting passers-by; LaBas couldn’t stand proselytizers. They were rude to be beggars, LaBas thought. Snappy. In New York the panhandlers had developed begging into an art form: “Can you lend me fifty cents? I just killed my mother-in-law and don’t want to repair the axe.” Wit. But beggars with no art must be something else. He mentioned them to Wolf. “Those men won’t collect a dime if they keep harassing passers-by like this.”
“Those are Moochers, followers of my sister Minnie. They’ve tried to get into our Business. They hate the fact that we’re selective; and they hate industry. It’s an old old conflict.”
“Yes, I know.” Another Minnie? What a coincidence! I can do my research and work on a case too. “What progress has been made in capturing Ed’s killers?”
“None. They’ve disappeared.”
“Phantoms again. You could call it crowd delusions and the black man,” LaBas said. “They pop up so often in American history.”
He remembered when John Kennedy was shot. “Two black men running from the scene” was the first report. When George Wallace was shot. “Two black men running from the scene.” He wondered was this a real murder or just a case of “two black men running from the scene.”
Wolf introduced the chauffeur to LaBas. Amos Jones was the head of the fleet of small cars Gumbo Works used to pick up customers, a custom Solid Gumbo Works picked up from Kiehl Pharmacy, Inc., 109 Third Avenue, in New York. Some of the customers were infirm or violent; they were afflicted with the disease of Louisiana Red which sometimes caused them to fly off the handle. Others wanted to keep their identity secret. LaBas believed in masks. Amos introduced himself, and LaBas returned the greeting. Amos was a pro. LaBas liked pros. While his colleagues wanted to mooch and ended up riffraff, Amos Jones was providing his family with an education, reading his daughter Xmas stories. No matter how the professional rivals and industrial spies and unchecked criminal element referred to, euphemistically, as organized crime sought to block him, Amos got the customers to the Gumbo and the Gumbo through.
Wolf and LaBas were in the back seat on the way to an inspection tour of the G.W.
“According to my instructions, Wolf, I am supposed to check your Business and weed out the industrial spies, and if it turns out that they are responsible for your dad’s death, then they will be punished; if not by me, then the old Company.”
“I appreciate that, LaBas. Dad always spoke highly of you; he said you were the leading Business troubleshooter in the country and if there were some bad spirits in the Gumbo, you would certainly X them out. By the way, I think you’ll need this.”
Wolf showed LaBas a pistol.
“A Saturday Night Special?”
“You need it out here. Lots of niggers from Texas and Louisiana. Get hateful real quick.”
“Thanks, Wolf, but I think I can get by without it.”
CHAPTER 10
Berkeley’s known as Literary Town, maybe because Bret Harte once read a poem at Berkeley’s School for the Deaf or because Frank Norris (“McTeague”) flunked math at U.C. Berkeley. However, the real talent came from the town of oyster pirates whose skyline was “gothic gable.” Oakland, California, produced Jack London, Gertrude Stein, Joaquin Miller. Berkeley was a traditional “dry town”—there was a scandal very early when Cal founder Doc Durant found that his helpers were selling bootlegged booze out of his Oakland School for Boys.
Since LaBas arrived, he has seen the sights. He traveled once to Santa Cruz, once called “The Switzerland of the West,” which reminded him of the village below Frankenstein’s castle; he went to San Jose’s “Little Egypt.” He went to Sacramento, whose newspaper the Sacramento Bee coined the word “hoodlum,” to describe the early quality of life you had here.
San Francisco led the world in two professions: prostitution and vigilantism, and Barbary Coast used to be the biggest red-light district in the country.
So as not to draw attention, LaBas moved into a modest little house below Grove Street in the “Flats.” He had rejected life in a tick tack with “a sweeping view of the gateway to the Pacific.” Wasn’t much to do in the town. It closed at 2:00 A.M. and mostly earlier. There were coffee shops on San Pablo Ave. which played string quartet music. The hills above the University were dominated by structures out of Buck Rogers. Richard Pryor lived there for a while. It was Edward Teller’s town, with a little artsy-crafsty thrown in to give it a semblance of elegance. The police ran it with an iron fist in collusion with some old-line businessmen.
Sometimes LaBas would go over to the Roxie Theater in Oakland. Walter Cotton dominated five frames in “Gordon’s War.” Remember that name. Walter Cotton.
On other occasions, LaBas would escort Ms. Better Weather to some of the restaurants: Pot Luck, Narsai’s, The Anchor, Le Petit Village, Casa de Eva, Kabul’s, Yangtze River. And, oh yeah, Oleg’s. Oleg’s had good manners.
Berkeleyans danced at Harry’s, Ruthie’s Inn, the New Orleans House and the Tenth Street Inn, a block of Mississippi on Gilman Street. They listened to music at Mandrake’s across the street from the Toulouse.
Minnie, Ed’s daughter, was still agitating about the Gumbo Works going public, even though Ed’s death had caused the near dissolution of the factory. She called them Elitists. Well, they were, kind of. Maxwell Kasavubu had given orders that things would have to speed up because there were no students in the summer and the Moochers had to work twice as hard. Behind their backs, the Berkeley Hills’ supporters referred to Moocher programs as “nigger physics”; a comment on their use of 19th-century physics metaphors to explain them.
The Gumbo Works was getting back on its feet. LaBas had stalled the creditors for more time. The Gumbo Workers had returned to their usual shifts and most of Ed’s old customers remained with the firm.
Ms. Better Weather, Ed’s assistant, had really shown LaBas the ropes and acquainted him with the U.C. Works processes. Often he would show her a thing or two about how it was done in the east. Occasionally they would stop in a restaurant after work.
(The Toulouse, a restaurant named after the French painter, was a popular hangout. Berkeley had always liked things French. In the 19th century a “Second Empire” fad swept through the campus area, whose building plans were designed by a French architect. The Mansard style.
CHAPTER 11
(The Toulouse, a restaurant on University Avenue in West Berkeley. Elder, a medium-sized man wearing glasses and neatly groomed hair, is standing behind the bar. He has the appearance of being efficient and is cleanly attired. Above him, on a platform, is a television set. He is watching a football game. Next to the television is a poster of a handsome black woman, holding a spear. Her legs are spread apart. Across the aisle is a bulletin board announcing jazz and poetry events. The modest chairs have a tiger-skin decoration on the seats. Many types of people are seated about: chicanos, blacks, whites, yellows, browns—all races as well as all classes. People are playing chess and reading about revolution. Bill Jackson has just destroyed a hapless victim with two queens and a rook. During the day the “regulars” come in. On school nights it’s American Graffiti. George Kingfish Stevens and Andy Brown are talking loudly, much to the occasional annoyance of their fellow customers. Andy Brown is a large, heavy man. He is the consummate Brother Bear of Disney’s film ver
sion of Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories. He wears a process, derby, platform heels, fur cape. He is the kind of man who would refer to his automobile as a “hog.” George Kingfish Stevens is short, slight and wears “hippie pimp” attire; lots of leather. He wears a “cornrow” hairstyle.)
Kingfish Stevens: Did you see that ’38 Oldsmobile that just went by? Look like Hitler driving to the Russian front. Man, that Wolf Yellings is quite a fella, quite a fella.
Brown: Aw, Kingfish, that man is a square. Is a cube. He ain’t in the Moochers like you and I is. Minnie’s Moochers. Plus I hears the nigger is running some kind of bizness. Colored folks ain’t cut out for no bizness.
Kingfish: Very well put, Bro. Andy, very well put. A man like that is dangerous, prespicacous. MMMM. We is going to have to keep an eye on niggers like that.
Brown: Yeah. He and his sister is two different people.
Kingfish: Not to mention Street. Remember the time we use to go up on Telegraph Avenue and watch the bitches go in and out of Robbie’s? Every time the weekend roll around, people were wondering who Street gon cut.
Brown: Yeah, Kingfish, we use to go to Steppenwolf’s and dance all night. Now they plays dat old funny white music in there. I goes to sleep.
Kingfish: Buzzart?
Brown: What’s that, Kingfish?
Kingfish: Buzzart, that’s one of the men they be playing. Boy, that Buzzart be chopping and sawing away. Whew. (Pause)
Kingfish: Bro. Brown, let me borry some beer outta your pitcher. Share and share alike is what we Moochers say. (Pours himself a drink)
Brown: Help yo self, Kingfish, share and share alike as the Moochers say, but sometime I wonder, Kingfish; look like I’m doing all the sharin.
Kingfish: Don’t worry, Bro. Brown, I will buy the next round.
Brown: Why, Fish, you told me you didn’t have no money. Where’d you get the money?
(Kingfish beckons Brown to lean over; he whispers)
Kingfish: I collectivized d tip on the next table the people left for the bartender. How’s you like that for Mooching? Pretty clever, don’t you think?
Brown: Why, Kingfish, you is a genius. You and me is the only genius to emerge from the 1950s.
Kingfish: Excuse me, Brother Brown, let me go up here and get me a pitcher of beer. I seez they handin out some delectable supplications too. You want some weenies, Bro. Brown? (Midway to the bar he notices a girl walking by outside. She is wearing a terse skirt. You can see her Burger and he takes off through the door. A moment later he comes back inside.)
Kingfish: (excitedly) Bro. Brown, did you see that? That woman throw one of them ol legs round your waist and would asphyxiate your hips, I’ll betcha. (He asks the bartender, Elder, for a pitcher of beer. Elder draws a pitcher and puts it on top of the bar.)
Kingfish: (frowning, examines the pitcher) Where’s de foam?
Elder: For 99 cents you need all the beer you can get.
(People at the bar laugh. Kingfish sneers at Elder, returns to where Brown is sitting.)
Brown: What was that all about, Kingfish?
Kingfish: Aw, that nigger is trying to be cute. Bushwa. Why, over at de Trident in Sausalito, they got plenty of foam.
Brown: Well, you know what I always says, Kingfish.
Kingfish: What’s that, Brown?
Brown: Niggers can’t do nothing right; not a damn thing. (Pause)
Kingfish: Yeh, that Street was something. Over there in one of them African countries. Remember that night he killed that nigger?
Brown: Which nigger, Fish?
Kingfish: That last nigger he kill that got him into San Quentin.
Brown: O yeah, that time. Yeah, that nigger said something about “Excuse me, isn’t that my seat?” all bushwa. Kekup.
Kingfish: (mimicking, gesturing) No, the nigger say, “Excuse me, that seat is reserved for me.” Next thing they know that nigger was on the ground holding his brains in. Kekup!
Brown: Kekup! Yeah, that was something. Look like chittlins comin out. Kekup!
Kingfish: (tears of laughter) Street told the nigger that we don’t believe in no reserved. We Moochers believe that niggers—all of them—is in the same boat.
Brown: They the same thing. There’s no such thing as privacy as you own thoughts, we is linked to each other and can’t break that linkage.
Brown: That Street was the real Royalty of the avenues of despair, as that newspaper man said. Sho wish we had him as the leader of the Moochers.
Kingfish: What’s wrong with Minnie?
Brown: Well, me and some of the boys been thinkin, Kingfish. Since Minnie is heading it up, them gals be around her has become bodacious. Them girls talk to a man any way they want to talk to him. Them Dahomeyan Softball Team that be riding around on them meter-maid scooters. Look like they go out of the way to ticket us poor colored men, and Kingfish, the fellas afraid to go to meeting any more. That big ol one?
Kingfish: The one they call Eunice, the Reichsführer?
Brown: Yeah, that’s the one. Well, she put some kind of Dragon Foo See on one of the boys.
Kingfish: Dragon Foo See?
Brown: Some kind of new thing them chinamen invented where the woman go all the way up in the air and come down choppin away and what’s worse of all …
Kingfish: What’s the worse, Brown?
Brown: Well, why is a grown woman like that needs to have a Nanny always chaperoning her. Some of the fellows are saying that that woman Nanny is dealing Minnie more than pancakes.
Kingfish: Why… you…
(Kingfish and Brown stand up and begin to wrestle. On their feet, Brown’s derby comes off while Kingfish has him by the neck. They fall against the bar, causing the pitchers to fall and break.)
Elder: Hey! What’s going on here?
(The bartender comes from behind the bar and grabs both of them, rushing them to the outside of the bar.)
CHAPTER 12
LaBas was sitting in his office reading the Berkeley Gazette, a newspaper that carried Max Lerner’s column. A different kind of politician, indeed a “radical” politician of the “new politics,” Berkeley Congressman Ron Dellums was buying a $150,000 home in Washington, D.C. So read a report with the dateline Washington.
Outside LaBas’ window could be seen the motorboats of fishermen, some small yachts, sailboats, and people fishing on each side of the Berkeley pier. Outside his office-door window he could see the Workers going about their Work. The incense was floating in from beneath the door. LaBas continued reading. He always read the Berkeley Gazette. Its feature, “About People,” with its announcements of The Business and Professional Women’s Groups’ meetings: “Mrs. Mabel Speers will read an old-fashioned Christmas Story”; its recipes for “Kung Fu Clusters,” told you more about Berkeley than the Telegraph-Calcutta Street (only three blocks) of runaways or Mario Savio.
LaBas’ thoughts were interrupted by Wolf, who entered the room wearing a white double-breasted suit. LaBas looked up.
“Yes, Wolf.”
“Pop, I just wanted to say that you’ve done a good job here. Why, after Dad died we didn’t have anyone to turn to. Street and Minnie—they’re so ragged in their ways. They would never have been able to manage the household and this place too. Now that we’ve built ourselves back to the top, it’s time to liquidate our physical assets as my father Ed wished.”
“The Board of Directors told me that there would be a phasing out, but I didn’t know when you were going to decide to begin it.”
“The Workers are taking an inventory of our goods and will be having meetings over the coming weeks on how to inconspicuously place them where they won’t be noticed.”
“We’ll take care of that back east, Wolf. We will have them go to up-and-coming Businesses. These Businesses will have to go through the same phases as your factory, Solid Gumbo Works. They will need time to gain enough knowledge to do with only token physical assets. We have to be fast. Physical assets weigh us down.”
�
��Good, then it’s decided. We will begin to dissolve the Solid Gumbo Works the world has come to know and disperse, communicating only through the post office box.”
“I’m glad you made the decision, Wolf. I admire the way it was handled. If you had liquidated after your father was killed that would have been interpreted as a sign of failure, and it would have made all of us look weak in the eyes of the competition, for what is the situation in their other Businesses if this particular west coast franchise buckled under, they would ask. They would have put pressure on us at the T.C. Institute and branches throughout the world. This way, since they know we’re ahead, our disappearance from the public scene will be interpreted as meaning that you’ve found a lucrative market elsewhere. So-called legitimate businesses make these kinds of decisions all the time.”
“Thank you for seeing it my way, LaBas. No word of this is to be said to anyone. I’ve only told the Workers. We’ll just continue to operate as we always have, then one day, our mission accomplished, we will have up and gone. I have to go now, Pop. Must send our Going Out of Business cards to our customers. Don’t have to worry about them. They’re discreet and won’t talk.” Wolf went out. LaBas returned to reading the Berkeley Gazette. His eyes scanned the television listings. Inaccurate as usual.
