The Last Days of Louisiana Red

by Ishmael Reed

  Big Sally arrived first. Big old thing. Though her 300 ESL Mercedes was parked outside, Big Sally insisted upon her “oppression” to all that would listen. She had a top job in the 1960s version of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which was somewhat surprising since the poor had never seen Big Sally. Never heard of her either. Although she was always “addressing myself to the community,” she spent an awful lot of time in Sausalito, a millionaires’ resort. A Ph.D. in Black English, her image of herself was as “just one of the people”; “just me” or “plain prole.” Big Sally took off her maxi coat which made her look like a Russian general and then slid onto one of the barstools and continued her knitting; she was always knitting.

  “WELL, HOW YOU, SALLY? WHAT’S THE NEW THANG? WHAT’S WITH THE HAPPENINGS?” Big Sally looked at Rev. Rookie as if to say “poot.”

  “I guess I’ll get by.”

  Rev. Rookie knew better than to scream on Big Sally. She had a habit of screaming on you back. She’d rank you no matter where you were; in the middle of the street, usually, telling all the traffic your business.

  The next Moocher to show up was curly-haired grey Maxwell Kasavubu. Trench coat, brown cordovans, icy look of New York angst. He slowly removed his trench coat and put it on the rack; he smiled at Big Sally.

  “Hi, Rev., Sally.” Rev. Rookie lit all up; Sally blushed and fluttered her eyebrows.

  Rev. Rookie rushed over to one of his church’s biggest contributors, slobbering all over the man.

  “HEY, BABY, WHAT’S GOING ON?” he said, placing a hand on Max’s shoulder. Max stared coldly at his hand, and, meekly, Rev. Rookie removed it.

  Sally continued knitting. Rev. Rookie paced up and down behind the bar. Max sat for a moment, contemplatively inhaling from his pipe, occasionally winking at Big Sally. Soon Max rose and went over to read some of Rev. Rookie’s literature which was lying on the bar top: Ramparts and The Rolling Stone. Max stared at them contemptuously for a moment, then slammed them down.

  “WOULD YOU BROTHERS AND SISTERS LIKE TO HEAR SOME LEON BIBBS?” Rev. Rookie asked.

  Big Sally made a sound like spitsch, lifted her head and stared evilly, stopping her knitting, staring disgustedly at Rev. Rookie for a long time.

  “I don’t feel like hearing no music now,” she said.

  The door opened and in walked Cinnamon Easterhood, hi-yellow editor of the Moocher Monthly. He walked in all tense and hi-strung in a nehru suit, clutching a wooden handbag which the men were wearing or carrying these days. He looked so nervous and slight that if you said boo, he’d blow away. Accompanying him was Rusty, his dust-bowl woman of euro descent, wearing old raggedy dirty blue jeans, no bra and no shoes. She immediately got all up in Sally’s face.

  Big Sally showed the whites of her eyes for a real long time. “Uhmp,” she said. “Uhmp. Uhmp.”

  “Sally, lord, you sure is a mess,” Cinnamon Easterhood’s wife said, looking like the history of stale apple pie diners, confidante to every Big-Rig on the New York State freeway.

  “HEY, PEOPLE. I FEEL GREAT NOW. ALL MY PEOPLE ARE HERE. WHY DON’T WE LIGHT THE FIREPLACE AND ROAST SOME MARSHMALLOWS? MY UKULELE AND PETE SEEGER RECORDS ARE OUT IN THE VW.” Ignored. And here he was the chairman of the Moochers, second only to Minnie herself.

  Cinnamon was over in the corner, congratulating Maxwell Kasavubu on his startling thesis, now being circulated in literary and political circles, that Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas wasn’t executed at all but had been smuggled out of prison at the 11th hour and would soon return. Cinnamon was doing most of the talking, saying that he thought the idea was “absolutely brilliant,” or “incredibly fantastic.”

  Max examined his watch.

  “Well, I guess it’s about time we began the meeting,” he said in his obnoxious know-it-all New York accent. As usual Max talked first.

  “I’ve been thinking about our problem and think I can put some input into the discussion. After Ed was murdered, we thought it would take people’s minds off gumbo and renew the interest in Moochism, but this hasn’t been the case. The community’s infatuation with cults and superstition should have run its course by now. But now we have this LaBas. A name that isn’t even French and so you can see how pretentious he is.”

  “It’s patois.” Big Sally, expert on Black English, put in her input.

  “What say, Sally?” Max said, smiling indulgently.

  “I said it’s patois.”

  “Well, whatever, the man has presented us with some problems.”

  “Spitsch!”

  “Did you want to say something, Big Sally?” Max said, mistaking this sound for comment.

  “Nothin, Max. ’Cept to say that I concur with your conclusions. Things was moving nicely till this LaBas man come in here, but it seems to me that we ought not be sitting here talking bout our problems but bout our conclusions, I mean about our solutions.”

  “TELL IT, SISTER. TELL IT,” Rev. Rookie hollered all loud.

  “Our solutions is an inescapable part of our problems, and they are one in the part the woof and warf of what we’re going to be about. Now, are we going to be about our problems or are we going to be about solutions?”

  Hi-yellow, pimply-faced and epicene, rose to speak.

  “But—”

  “I ain’t through. Now, I ain’t through. Let me finish what I’m saying and then you can have your turn to talk, cause ain’t no use of all us talking at one time, and so you just sit there and let me finish.”

  Maxwell signaled him to sit down.

  “When it comes your time, then you can have the floor, but long as I’m having the floor I think everybody ought to treat me with the courtesy to hear out my views, cause if you going to dispute my views you have to hear me out first—”

  “But I was only being practical,” Easterhood protested.

  “Practical? You was only being practical? If you was only being practical, then look like the first practical thing you would want to do would be to hush your practical mouth so I can talk.”

  Easterhood’s wife was just beaming at all that good old downhome rusticness coming her way. She just leaned back and said, “Sally, lawd. Sister, you sho can come on.”

  “Takes Sally to just cut through all the bullshit and get right down to the nitty gritty,” Maxwell said.

  “TELL IT LIKE IT T/I/S/MAMA,” Rev. Rookie said.

  “That’s mo like it. Now, as I was saying, we don’t have to worry about this LaBas man, and was going on to say that what we need is somebody to replace that hi-yellow heffer,” Big Sally said, her eyes rolling about her head.

  Easterhood smiled a good-natured Moocher smile but secretly wanted to crawl on his belly out of the room. He didn’t mind all this downhomeness, but, shit, he had an M.A.

  “Hi-Yellow Heffer?” Max asked. “What’s with this hi-yellow?”

  “THE SISTER IS CALLING SOMEBODY A COW,” Rev. Rookie explained to Maxwell Kasavubu.

  “O, you mean heifer,” Maxwell Kasavubu said.

  “Whatever you call that old ugly thang. Think she cute. Drive up here in that sport car and when she come start talking that old simpleass mutherfuking bullshit make me sick in my asshole.”

  “RUN IT DOWN, SISTER, RUN IT DOWN TO THE GROUND,” Rev. Rookie said, jumping up and down.

  “But which sister are you referring to, Big Sally?” Max asked for clarification. He always asked for clarification, not one to be swept away by emotions as the “minorities” were. They got “enthused” real quick, but when you needed someone to pass out leaflets or man a booth, they were busy or tired or it was so and so’s turn to do that.

  “Minnie,” Big Sally blurted out.

  “Minnie?” Cinnamon said, jumping from the couch where his wife Rusty sat guzzling beer, eating Ritz crackers as if they were the whole meal and grinning squint-eyed over what Sally was saying.

  “Minnie? Did I hear you right?” Cinnamon Easterhood said, grinning.

  “You hearrrrrrrrd, me!” she said, cutting a rough gl
ance his way.

  “Well, you have to admit Minnie is a bore. Only a handful turned out for the last rally,” said Maxwell.

  “That’s crazy, we need her. The sister has a fine mind,” Cinnamon protested. “She’s writing an article in the Moocher Monthly magazine on the morphological, ontological and phenomenological ramifications in which she will refute certain long-held contradictory conclusions commonly held by peripatetics entering menopause. Why the dialectics of the—”

  “Big Sally, did you want to say something?” Max said, noticing Sally’s impatience—impatience being a mild word. Frowns were proliferating her forehead.

  “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we don’t need no ontology, we needs some grits, and Minnie ain’t bringing no grits. Ain’t no ontology gone pay our light bill. P.G. and E. fixin to cut off our Oakland office. Disconnect. We need somebody who knows how to get down.”

  “Who would you suggest, Big Sally?”

  “Street Yellings is the only one the people in the street wont. He the only man that can put this Moocher business back in business.”

  “Street!” Rusty said. “Street Yellings! Why, if you brought him back, everything would be so outtasite.” She remembered his Wanted poster in the post office. The girls would go down there and get all excited. Somebody had painted horns on his head. Street made them want to say fuck. Say words like fuck. Made you feel obscene. Even the men. There was a way he looked at you. And when he made love she had heard from one of the women who had named a rape clinic after him—after he had your clothes off he would say, “Now Give Me Some That Booty, Bitch!!”

  “I don’t think he can articulate the Moocher point of view,” Easterhood said.

  “We don’t need no articulate,” Big Sally said. “Articulate we got too much of. We need someone to oppose that LaBas and them niggers over there in that Gumbo business.”

  “I wish I had your gift, Big Sally—right down to brass tacks.”

  “Why, thank you, Max,” Big Sally said, smiling.

  “And as for you, Cinnamon, don’t ever call Street inarticulate. Why, if it wasn’t for me convincing the Moocher Board of Directors to back that rag of yours, your verbosely footnoted monstrosity would have folded long ago. Street knows the poolrooms, the crap games, the alleys and the bars. He knows the redemptive suffering and oppression. We will offer Street Yellings the position. Is there any dissent?”

  “You, Rev. Rookie?”

  “WHATEVER YOU SAY IS FINE FOR ME, MAX,” Rev. Rookie said.

  “Mrs. Easterhood?”

  “Do I look like a broomhandle to you, you four-eyed goofy motherfuka,” Rusty says nasty as Max turns red as a beet. Big Sally starts to cackle.

  “Please, dear, you’ll upset Mr. Kasavubu,” Easterhood said.

  “I don’t care, I’ll spit on that fat worm.”

  “Let’s not get carried away, Rusty. We’ll remove the licorice sticks you enjoy so much,” Max said.

  “What did you mean by that, you poot butt?” Rusty said, leaping from the sofa.

  Easterhood looked real simple, like a Bunny Berrigan adaptation of a Jelly Roll Morton hit.

  “I get sick of your pompous insane cock-sucking remarks,” Rusty bellowed.

  “BROTHERS AND SISTERS. WE MOOCHERS DON’T GET INVOLVED IN PETTY INDIVIDUALISTIC CLASHES. WE ARE TOGETHER FOR ONE CAUSE. WE MUST LEARN TO SUBMERGE OUR DIFFERENCES.” (Guess who.)

  Rusty was sobbing, curled up in Big Sally’s lap. Big Sally was comforting her.

  “Just don’t ask me up here any more. I am not a Mrs. Rusty Easterhood, I’m a person. You men think it always has to be your way. Do your housework, raise your children. Well, I’m sick of it; I want to play tennis, express myself, visit motels. Big Sally,” she says, looking up to her, “you busy this evening?”

  “Look, it’s hot,” said Maxwell Kasavubu, so sensible, so cool at these times. “We’ve gone through a difficult transition from an obscure Telegraph Avenue notion to a movement to be reckoned with. I’ll fly to Africa, pick up Street tomorrow.”

  “But what do you make of Street’s criminal record? You remember how he murdered that brother and escaped from jail,” Easterhood asked. “The editorial board of the Moocher Monthly has had a change of viewpoint concerning the effectiveness of the charismatic lumpen.”

  “That doesn’t count. Just another nigger killing. What’s a nigger to the law?” Max said.

  Rev. Rookie, Sally, Rusty and even Cinnamon gave Max a momentary hostile look. But when he asked, “Did I say something wrong?” they outdid each other trying to put him at ease. All except Rusty. She didn’t owe him anything.

  CHAPTER 17

  (The 70-foot-long main ballroom of the house given to Street Yellings by the ruler of a contemporary African country. Asian, European and Arab hippies are dancing smoking eating and talking. Street’s associates, the Argivians, a band of international hoodlums who serve as Street’s elite bodyguards, are wearing jackets with grim emblems sewn on them. When their flesh is bared, grotesque and ugly tattoos can be seen. Tambourines are shaking. Incense is burning. Cats are strolling about, and in recognition of their presence there is the thick odor of cat feces in the air. One fellow sits in the corner, his vomit splattered all over his jacket. He is napping. A girl is being walked up and down the room with friends who are helping her crash. Minnie’s brother, Street, sits in a huge hollow wooden throne. He glowers as he holds an archaic weapon in each fist.)

  STREET: I’m beginning to like this Gimmie over here. This is like the Big Gimmie they only dream about back home. Twenty rooms for everyone; limousines at my beck and call; a view of the sea and lots of discussion. My radio broadcasts are big with the populace, and so now many are beginning to envy my power. Who knows? James Brown is real big over here now. They like Americans. What new influences from us will they be desiring next? My host, the President, has nothing going for him. Always attending parties given by Europeans, without his wife. Always handkissing and talking about London. London this, London that. Said he was a Fabian socialist after the manner of George Bernard Shaw. Clown. And that car he drives. The joke of the embassies. A city-block long with gold and ivory trimmings. In the back seat a bathtub purchased with a tenth of the country’s treasury; a real gaudy number. Had it shipped over.

  (Street’s thoughts are interrupted by one of his seven bodyguards, Hog Maw.)

  HOG MAW: Man, Street. The States were nothing like this. You gets all the pussy over here your belly needs. Don’t even have to take it. Here man, drop some of these.

  STREET: Don’t mind if I do. (Street takes a handful of colored pills and gulps them down. He gives the signal for the revelry to cease. A “rock” record is turned off.) You bitches over there, shut your asses. I just got some cans of films from the States from the Gimmie underground over there. Let’s all go into the projection room and see them. They’re about a Black superhero named “Dong.” He has it out with the mob and stays up all night playing cards. Plus, he is a real pool shark!

  1ST. ARGIVIAN: Fantastic!

  2ND. ARGIVIAN: What a groove. I mean zow, what a groove.

  (They exit to the projection room. Street remains behind. He turns to see a man standing in the doorway. The man is wearing a pith helmet, safari outfit, elephant boots. He carries a lion tamer’s whip.)

  CHAPTER 18

  “Who you?” Street said, eyeing Max Kasavubu suspiciously, stroking his chin and shutting one eye. “O yeah, I know. Yous the dude used to hang out with Minnie, my sister. You one of them Moochers, ain’t you?”

  “I’m glad you recognize me, brother. It makes things easier.”

  “Easier?” Street stepped down from the stairs leading to his throne, wrapping his superfly cape about his shoulders and making loud noises with his funkadelic boots.

  “My task, Street. I have been authorized by the committee to offer you a proposal. In exchange you’ll be brought back to the States.”

  “Well, you wastin your breath, buddy.
I ain’t never going back there. Jiveass fascist Amerika. No good.”

  “That’s why we need you, Street.”

  “Need me for what?”

  “Look, Street, don’t you understand that the place hasn’t been the same since you left? Folks really miss you. Remember how you used to come and beat up people at rallies? How you and your gang would come in and wipe us out? Obliterate our refreshments and run off with the liquor? People miss that. Now they say, where’s Street? There’s nobody to rip us off any more. Professors from Queens are writing papers on you. Missing you.”

  “Writing papers on me? Why would they be writing papers on me? Why would they be spending their time writing papers on me and the boys?”

  “Because, Street. In these times when things are so structured, so sterile, people need someone to remind them of the power of spontaneity, of uninhibited existential action. Bam! Street. Bam! Bam!”

  “Huh?”

  “Let me put it this way, Street. When you used to come into those parties in those high heels, those floppy three-musketeers’ hats, those earrings, Street. Those huge glowing earrings you wore and that headrag, Street! That headrag all greasy and nasty (said nastily). People would say, Now there goes someone who is just like a natural man. Then, that night, you came into that party with nothing but those gold chains on you, symbolizing … symbolizing the dreaded past, and that Isaac Hayes haircut. You remember what happened, Street?”

  “The people bought it.”

  “That’s right, Street, the people bought it.”

  Street walked to his window on Africa. Victoria Falls was streaming down its wonders. Elephants roamed. In the distance he could see a gazelle leaping. Good old Africa. Good. Old. Africa. Who was this man tempting him so? Telling him the glory that awaited him back home. He could see it now. Five thousand in Golden Gate Park. Eight thousand in Sheeps’ Meadow. Clapping. Just a-clapping. Clapping real loud while he strolled about the stage in his great maxi coat made of condor feathers and his hat. Why, maybe he could save his peoples. That’s it. He would be the Moses of his peoples.