by Amiri Baraka
I rolled hard on her and stuck my soft self between her thighs. And ground until I felt it slip into her stomach. And it got harder in her spreading the meat. Her arms around my hips pulled down hard and legs locked me and she started yelling. Faggot. Faggot. Sissy Motherfucker. And I pumped myself. Straining. Threw my hips at her. And she yelled, for me to fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck me, you lousy fag. And I twisted, spitting tears, and hitting my hips on hers, pounding flesh in her, hearing myself weep.
* * * * * * * *
Later, I slipped out into Bottom. Without my hat or tie, shoes loose and pants wrinkled and filthy. No one was on the streets now. Not even the whores. I walked not knowing where I was or was headed for. I wanted to get out. To see my parents, or be silent for the rest of my life. Huge moon was my light. Black straight trees the moon showed. And the dirt roads and scattered wreck houses. I still had money and I.D., and a pack of cigarettes. I trotted, then stopped, then trotted, and talked outloud to myself. And laughed a few times. The place was so still, so black and full of violence. I felt myself.
At one road, there were several houses. Larger than a lot of them. Porches, yards. All of them sat on cinder blocks so the vermin would have trouble getting in. Someone called to me. I thought it was in my head and kept moving, but slower. They called again. “Hey, psst. Hey comere.” A whisper, but loud. “Comere, baby.” All the sides of the houses were lit up but underneath, the space the cinder blocks made was black. And the moon made a head shadow on the ground, and I could see an arm in the same light. Someone kneeling under one of the houses, or an arm and the shadow of a head. I stood straight, and stiff, and tried to see right thru the dark. The voice came back, chiding like. Something you want. Whoever wants. That we do and I wondered who it was kneeling in the dark, at the end of the world, and I heard breathing when I did move, hard and closed.
I bent toward the space to see who it was. Why they had called. And I saw it was a man. Round red-rimmed eyes, sand-colored jew hair, and teeth for a face. He had been completely under the house but when I came he crawled out and I saw his dripping smile and yellow soggy skin full of red freckles. He said, “Come on here. Comere a second.” I moved to turn away. The face like a dull engine. Eyes blinking. When I turned he reached for my arm grazing my shirt and the voice could be flushed down a toilet. He grinned and wanted to panic seeing me move. “Lemme suck yo dick, honey. Huh?” I was backing away like from the hyena cage to see the rest of them. Baboons? Or stop at the hotdog stand and read a comic book. He came up off all fours and sat on his knees and toes, shaking his head and hips. “Comeon baby, comeon now.” As I moved back he began to scream at me. All lust, all panic, all silence and sorrow, and finally when I had moved and was trotting down the road, I looked around and he was standing up with his hands cupped to his mouth yelling into the darkness in complete hatred of what was only some wraith. Irreligious spirit pushing thru shadows, frustrating and confusing the flesh. He screamed behind me and when the moon sunk for minutes behind the clouds or trees his scream was like some animal’s, some hurt ugly thing dying alone.
* * * *
It was good to run. I would jump every few steps like hurdling, and shoot my arm out straight to take it right, landing on my right heel, snapping the left leg turned and flat, bent for the next piece. 3 steps between 180 yard lows, 7 or 9 between the 220’s. The 180’s I thought the most beautiful. After the first one, hard on the heel and springing up. Like music; a scale. Hit, 1–23. UP (straight right leg, down low just above the wood. Left turned at the angle, flat, tucked. Head low to the knee, arms reaching for the right toe, pulling the left leg to snap it down. HIT (right foot). Snap left HIT (left). Stride. The big one. 1–23. UP. STRETCH. My stride was long enough for the 3 step move. Stretching and hopping almost but in perfect scale. And I moved ahead of Wang and held it, the jew boy pooping at the last wood. I hit hard and threw my chest out, pulling the knees high, under my chin. Arms pushing. The last ten yards I picked up 3 and won by that, head back wrong (Nap said) and galloping like a horse (wrong again Nap said) but winning in new time and leaping in the air like I saw heroes do in flicks.
* * * *
I got back to where I thought the Joint would be, and there were city-like houses and it was there somewhere. From there, I thought I could walk out, get back to the world. It was getting blue again. Sky lightening blue and gray trees and buildings black against it. And a few lights going on in some wood houses. A few going off. There were alleys now. And high wood fences with slats missing. Dogs walked across the road. Cats sat on the fences watching. Dead cars sulked. Old newspapers torn in half pushed against fire hydrants or stoops and made tiny noises flapping if the wind came up.
I had my hands in my pockets, relaxed. The anonymous seer again. Looking slowly at things. Touching wood rails so years later I would remember I had touched wood rails in Louisiana when no one watched. Swinging my leg at cans, talking to the cats, doing made up dance steps or shadow boxing. And I came to a corner & saw some big black soldier stretched in the road with blood falling out of his head and stomach. I thot first it was Don. But this guy was too big and was in the infantry. I saw a paratrooper patch on his cap which was an inch away from his chopped up face, but the blue and silver badge had been taken off his shirt.
He was groaning quiet, talking to himself. Not dead, but almost. And I bent over him to ask what happened. He couldn’t open his eyes and didn’t hear me anyway. Just moaned and moaned losing his life on the ground. I stood up and wondered what to do. And looked at the guy and saw myself and looked over my shoulder when I heard someone move behind me. A tall black skinny woman hustled out of the shadows and looking back at me disappeared into a hallway. I shouted after her. And stepped in the street to see the door she’d gone in.
I turned to go back to the soldier and there was a car pulling up the road. A red swiveling light on top and cops inside. One had his head hung out the window and yelled toward me. “Hey, you, Nigger, What’s goin on?” That would be it. AWOL. Out of uniform (with a norfern accent). Now murder too. “30 days for nigger killing.” I spun and moved. Down the road & they started to turn. I hit the fence, swinging up and dove into the black yard beyond. Fell on my hands and knees & staggered, got up, tripped on garbage, got up, swinging my hands, head down and charged off in the darkness.
The crackers were yelling on the other side of the fence and I could hear one trying to scale it. There was another fence beyond, and I took it the same as the first. Swinging down into another yard. And turned right and went over another fence, ripping my shirt. Huge cats leaped out of my path and lights went on in some houses. I saw the old woman who’d been hiding near the soldier just as I got to the top of one fence. She was standing in a hallway that led out in that yard, and she ducked back laughing when she saw me. I started to go after her, but I just heaved a big rock in her direction and hit another fence.
I got back to where the city houses left off, and there were the porches and cinder blocks again. I wondered if “sweet peter eater” would show up. (He’d told me his name.) And I ran up the roads hoping it wdn’t get light until I found Peaches again.
At the Cotton Club I went down the steps, thru the alley, rested in the black hall, and tapped on Peaches’ door. I bounced against it with my ass, resting between bumps, and fell backward when she opened the door to shove her greasy eyes in the hall.
“You back again? What you want, honey? Know you don’t want no pussy. Doyuh?”
I told her I had to stay there. That I wanted to stay there, with her. That I’d come back and wanted to sleep. And if she wanted money I’d give her some. And she grabbed my wrist and pulled me in, still bare-assed except for the filthy brassiere.
She loved me, she said. Or liked me a lot. She wanted me to stay, with her. We could live together and she would show me how to fuck. How to do it good. And we could start as soon as she took a pee. And to undress, and get in bed and wait for her, unless I wanted some coffee, which she brought back
anyway and sat on the edge of the bed reading a book about Linda Darnell.
“Oh, we can have some good times baby. Movies, all them juke joints. You live here with me and I’ll be good to you. Wallace (her husband) ain’t due back in two years. We can raise hell waiting for him.” She put the book down and scratched the inside of her thighs, then under one arm. Her hair was standing up and she went to a round mirror over the sink and brushed it. And turned around and shook her big hips at me, then pumped the air to suggest our mission. She came back and we talked about our lives: then she pushed back the sheets, helped me undress again, got me hard and pulled me into her. I came too quick and she had to twist her hips a few minutes longer to come herself. “Uhauh, good even on a sof. But I still got to teach you.”
* * * * * *
I woke up about 1 the next afternoon. The sun, thru that one window, full in my face. Hot, dust in it. But the smell was good. A daytime smell. And I heard daytime voices thru the window up and fat with optimism. I pulled my hands under my head and looked for Peaches, who was out of bed. She was at the kitchen end of the room cutting open a watermelon. She had on a slip, and no shoes, but her hair was down flat and greased so it made a thousand slippery waves ending in slick feathers at the top of her ears.
“Hello, sweet,” she turned and had a huge slice of melon on a plate for me. It was bright in the room now & she’d swept and straightened most of the shabby furniture in her tiny room. And the door sat open so more light, and air could come in. And her radio up on a shelf above the bed was on low with heavy blues and twangy guitar. She sat the melon on the “end table” and moved it near the bed. She had another large piece, dark red and spilling seeds in her hand and had already started. “This is good. Watermelon’s a good breakfast. Peps you up.”
And I felt myself smiling, and it seemed that things had come to an order. Peaches sitting on the edge of the bed, just beginning to perspire around her forehead, eating the melon in both hands, and mine on a plate, with a fork (since I was “smart” and could be a lawyer, maybe). It seemed settled. That she was to talk softly in her vague american, and I was to listen and nod, or remark on the heat or the sweetness of the melon. And that the sun was to be hot on our faces and the day smell come in with dry smells of knuckles or greens or peas cooking somewhere. Things moving naturally for us. At what bliss we took. At our words. And slumped together in anonymous houses I thought of black men sitting on their beds this saturday of my life listening quietly to their wives’ soft talk. And felt the world grow together as I hadn’t known it. All lies before, I thought. All fraud and sickness. This was the world. It leaned under its own suns, and people moved on it. A real world. of flesh, of smells, of soft black harmonies and color. The dead maelstrom of my head, a sickness. The sun so warm and lovely on my face, the melon sweet going down. Peaches’ music and her radio’s. I cursed chicago, and softened at the world. “You look so sweet,” she was saying. “Like you’re real rested.”
* * * * *
I dozed again even before I finished the melon and Peaches had taken it and put it in the icebox when I woke up. The greens were cooking in our house now. The knuckles on top simmering. And biscuits were cooking, and chicken. “How you feel, baby,” she watched me stretch. I yawned loud and scratched my back getting up to look at what the stove was doing. “We gonna eat a good lunch before we go to the movies. You so skinny, you could use a good meal. Don’t you eat nuthin?” And she put down her cooking fork and hugged me to her, the smell of her, heavy, traditional, secret.
“Now you get dressed, and go get me some tomatoes . . . so we can eat.” And it was good that there was something I could do for her. And go out into that world too. Now I knew it was there. And flesh.
I put on the stained khakis & she gave me my hat. “You’ll get picked up without yo cap. We have to get you some clothes so you can throw that stuff away. The army don’t need you no way.” She laughed. “Leastways not as much as I does. Old Henry at the joint’ll give you a job. You kin count money as good as that ol’ jew I bet.”
And I put the tie on, making some joke, and went out shopping for my wife.
* * * * * * *
Into that sun. The day was bright and people walked by me smiling. And waved “Hey” (a greeting) and they all knew I was Peaches’ man.
I got to the store and stood talking to the man about the weather about airplanes and a little bit about new jersey. He waved at me when I left “O.K. . . . you take it easy now.” “O.K., I’ll see you,” I said. I had the tomatoes and some plums and peaches I bought too. I took a tomato out of the bag and bit the sweet flesh. Pushed my hat on the back of my head and strutted up the road toward the house.
It was a cloud I think came up. Something touched me. “That color which cowardice brought out in me.” Fire burns around the tombs. Closed from the earth. A despair came down. Alien grace. Lost to myself, I’d come back. To that ugliness sat inside me waiting. And the mere sky graying could do it. Sky spread thin out away from this place. Over other heads. Beautiful unknowns. And my marriage a heavy iron to this tomb. “Show us your countenance.” Your light.
It was a light clap of thunder. No lightning. And the sky grayed. Introitus. That word came in. And the yellow light burning in my rooms. To come to see the world, and yet lose it. And find sweet grace alone.
It was this or what I thought, made me turn and drop the tomatoes on Peaches’ porch. Her window was open and I wondered what she was thinking. How my face looked in her head. I turned and looked at the sad bag of tomatoes. The peaches, some rolling down one stair. And a light rain came down. I walked away from the house. Up the road, to go out of Bottom.
* * * *
The rain wet my face and I wanted to cry because I thot of the huge black girl watching her biscuits get cold. And her radio playing without me. The rain was hard for a second, drenching me. And then it stopped, and just as quick the sun came out. Heavy bright hot. I trotted for a while then walked slow, measuring my steps. I stank of sweat and the uniform was a joke.
I asked some pople how to get out and they pointed up the road where 10 minutes walking had me at the bottom of the hill the bus came down. A wet wind blew up soft full of sun and I began to calm. To see what had happened. Who I was and what I thought my life should be. What people called “experience.” Young male. My hands in my pockets, and the grimy silver wings still hanging gravely on my filthy shirt. The feeling in my legs was to run up the rest of the hill but I just took long strides and stretched myself and wondered if I’d have K.P. or some army chastisement for being 2 days gone.
3 tall guys were coming down the hill I didn’t see until they got close enough to speak to me. One laughed (at the way I looked). Tall strong black boys with plenty of teeth and pegged rayon pants. I just looked and nodded and kept on. One guy, with an imitation tattersall vest with no shirt, told the others I was in the Joint last night “playin cool.” Slick city nigger, one said. I was going to pass close to them and the guy with the vest put up his hand and asked me where I was coming from. One with suspenders and a belt asked me what the wings stood for. I told him something. The third fellow just grinned. I moved to walk around them and the fellow with the vest asked could he borrow fifty cents. I only had a dollar in my pocket and told him that. There was no place to get change. He said to give him the dollar. I couldnt do that and get back to my base I told him and wanted to walk away. And one of the guys had gotten around in back of me and kneeled down and the guy with the vest pushed me backward so I fell over the other’s back. I fell backward into the dust, and my hat fell off, and I didn’t think I was mad but I still said something stupid like “What’d you do that for.”
“I wanna borrow a dollar, Mr. Half-white muthafucka. And that’s that.” I sidestepped the one with the vest and took a running step but the grinning one tripped me, and I fell tumbling head forward back in the dust. This time when they laughed I got up and spun around and hit the guy who tripped me in the face. His nose was bleed
ing and he was cursing while the guy with the suspenders grabbed my shoulders and held me so the hurt one could punch me back. The guy with the vest punched too. And I got in one good kick into his groin, and stomped hard on one of their feet. The tears were coming again and I was cursing, now when they hit me, completely crazy. The dark one with the suspenders punched me in my stomach and I felt sick and the guy with the vest, the last one I saw, kicked me in my hip. The guy still held on for a while then he pushed me at one of the others and they hit me as I fell. I got picked up and was screaming at them to let me go. “Bastards, you filthy stupid bastards, let me go.” Crazy out of my head. Stars were out. And there were no fists just dull distant jolts that spun my head. It was in a cave this went on. With music and whores danced on the tables. I sat reading from a book aloud and they danced to my reading. When I finished reading I got up from the table and for some reason, fell forward weeping on the floor. The negroes danced around my body and spilled whisky on my clothes. I woke up 2 days later, with white men, screaming for God to help me.
———————————
SOUND AND IMAGE
What is hell? Your definitions.
I am and was and will be a social animal. Hell is definable only in those terms. I can get no place else; it wdn’t exist.
Hell in this book which moves from sound and image (“association complexes”) into fast narrative is what vision I had of it around 1960–61 and that fix on my life, and my interpretation of my earlier life.
