by Ishmael Reed
Davis claims he tried to wrestle his captors to the ground from their horses. He is a proud patrician with a “chiseled” nose and tells the Union soldier to kindly take his “buckrah” hands off of him. The rude Yankee soldiers refer to him as “Jeff,” and when he is jailed they draw cartoons of him hanging from a tree on the wall of his cell.
23
BUFFALO, NEW YORK. THE reading was held by the Anti-Slavery Society of Western New York at the Eagle Tavern, located at Main and Court streets. Above the entrance was an eagle holding in its talons a banner which read, “Our Rights, Our Liberty.” It was a red building, three stories high, with a balustrade fronting the roof.
There was a spacious entrance hall and a reception parlor. On one side was a bar. Inside the bar was a wood-and-charcoal fireplace. On the walls there were photos and autographs of famous customers: Dan Webster, General Lafayette.
Before the reading they had dined on roasted and fricasseed fowl, boiled potatoes and vegetables.
For cocktails, Quaw Quaw, Quickskill and their hosts had partaken of a large decanter of brandy. Their hosts were very friendly and had arranged for them to be taken to Canada by a Friend. The reading, however, was far from successful.
Things kept going wrong with the microphone. The lights went out a couple of times. When Quickskill mentioned, in passing, that Millard Fillmore, a well-known Buffalo man and first chancellor of the University of Buffalo, had signed the Fugitive Slave Law, one heckler threw a tomato; the heckler was hustled out, but Quickskill’s lecture suit got smeared, and some got in his hair. He had had it done in the style of Frederick Douglass and Abe Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, one side of the forehead shaved back V-like. Some of the people in the front row began to snore, and the black help from the kitchen stood on the side, making comments, talking loud and staring at him evilly.
He wasn’t a performer, and some of the people in the audience wanted more fire. He remembered the man at Lincoln University who said, “Quickskill, you all right. You make some good points. But you ought to put a little more fire into it.” And when he said “fire,” he hit his left open palm with his right fist. A little more fire. They wanted to get warm.
Sometimes he felt like a cheap Sears, Roebuck furnace. A little fire, but not enough to heat the whole house. Some of the other slaves were downright rude. They came in late, and when they didn’t like what he was saying, got up, making comments, and walked out. Other slaves, however, sat at attention. They’d begun some kind of Raven cult. He didn’t want to have a cult. A Raven is always on the move. A cult would tie him down.
Not only were the slaves enslaved by others, but they often, in subtle ways, enslaved each other. As soon as he and Quaw Quaw had entered the tavern, two of the female slave help had begun to let out their ignorant slave cackle, giving them signifying looks.
Slaves judged other slaves like the auctioneer and his clients judged them. Was there no end to slavery? Was a slave condemned to serve another Master as soon as he got rid of one? Were overseers to be replaced by new overseers? Was this some game, some fickle punishment for sins committed in former lives? Slavery on top of slavery? Would he ever be free to do what he pleased as long as he didn’t interfere with another man’s rights? Slaves held each other in bondage; a hostile stare from one slave criticizing the behavior of another slave could be just as painful as a spiked collar—a gesture as fettering as a cage.
Some of the people had remained behind to chat with Quickskill about his work, including the two Friends who were his hosts. They were eating Freedom Hamburgers. A little Union flag hung from the toothpick that went through the buns and the meat. Quaw Quaw was still upset by the poem. Once in a while he would squeeze her hand. She’d lay her head on his shoulder. He wondered if they’d ever be as deeply in love with each other as before. Would it be a “cerebral” relationship, with them occasionally fucking like crazy animals? They said they wouldn’t become involved the way they had before. They’d just enjoy each other, learn from each other. She was a twentieth-century woman. Way ahead of the Beecherites. Finally a man appeared at the door. The two Friends nodded.
Quickskill and Quaw Quaw picked up their baggage and followed the man who was standing in the doorway. He said, “The carriage that will take you to Black Rock has arrived. Good luck, my brother, my sister.”
They got in. This was it. There was a Ryder moon over the water when they arrived at the ferry. They could see the yacht not far from the shore. The yacht that would take them to freedom.
A man rowed them out in a canoe. “I thought we’d stopped these runs since the war was over. What’s going on?”
“My slavemaster, Arthur Swille. You don’t understand. These issues don’t apply to him. He sees me as his chattel, and he won’t rest until he recovers me. If I’d taken Greyhound or Air Canada, his men would have seized me at the terminal.”
“Some kind of maniac.”
“You might say that.”
They had reached the boat. The man who’d rowed them delivered them over to another man who helped them onto the boat. Already Quickskill’s heart was pounding. Quaw Quaw was pleased, too. This was an “adventure” for her. They were directed to a room where they would greet their benefactor, who must have been pretty wealthy, because the yacht was a luxurious boat. They opened the door of the room they were directed to. He saw the man. Quaw Quaw had a shocked look on her face.
“Hey, you ain’t no Quaker,” Quickskill said, for it was her husband, Yankee Jack.
He was wearing a pin-striped Savile Row suit. Cuff links from Jolly & Rogers. He was wearing a black glove over an artificial hand. He was twirling a fountain pen in his fingers. On the wall was the photo of some kind of swami.
“Well, what do we have here?” The silver earring on his left earlobe glistened. He wore a headrag with a design of a Confederate flag.
Quaw Quaw noticed the ashtray. “That ashtray, Jack, where did you get that ashtray?”
“What ashtray?”
“That one,” she said, pointing to the skull which had been polished until it had the appearance of china.
“One of our many … well, in the old days when we were still in that crude business, I’m not exactly proud of that … I was in my pre-Zen period …”
“That’s my father, you shit. You killed my father and are now using him as an ashtray. And my brother, you …” She went to where the skull rested and began hugging it. “Daddy, Daddy,” she said.
“You don’t belong to the human race, Yankee Jack, you … you pirate,” Quickskill stormed. “But you’re more suave, more sophisticated than the Gilbert and Sullivan variety. That was a good idea to bring in poets to give you an artsy-craftsy front. You call yourself a ‘distributor,’ attempting to make yourself respectable. You decide which books, films, even what kind of cheese, no less, will reach the market. At least we fuges know we’re slaves, constantly hunted, but you enslave everybody. Making saps of them all. You, the man behind a distribution network, remaining invisible while your underlings become the fall guys. Taking the rap, their reputations capsizing while yours remains afloat. And what you’ve done to Quaw Quaw, you … I have a good mind to—”
Quaw Quaw is really sobbing now.
“Hold on, whatever you are,” said Jack. “You know it’s not even been determined whether you’re a human being. I pay my taxes. Contribute to the March of Dimes. Someone has to get the goods to the market. I’m just a middle man.”
“Yeah, a middle man. Cool. Like a model stepping out of the pages of The New Yorker magazine. Scrupulous, precise, correct, but entirely devoid of human feeling.”
(A little origin here. Tralaralara was an Indian princess. She was carried off by Yankee Jack. It wasn’t just the turquoise beads, the rugs he was after. Nor did he want to corner the Arizona Highways Market. The pirate needed to get through the chief’s village to reach the oil before his competitors. His tankers were being out-highwayed. He needed the chief’s village out of the way. The chi
ef stood fast and was about to defeat the pirate when someone, an informant, gave away the weaknesses in the chief’s defenses. He was taken by Quaw Quaw, a mere fourteen then. He carried her off, and he raised her. Sent her to the best Eastern schools and trained her in “the finer things of life.” She is under a white spell and has no feeling for her own people’s culture. She does ethnic dances because that’s what the colleges want, and she can earn a little extra money and, therefore, be not so dependent upon the pirate’s support.)
“You killed my father. How could you? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“What are you complaining about? Before I raided your village, the chief ran it. Men. Isn’t that what you and your suffragette ideas are supposed to be about? That women should have equal power with men? Well, that’s what I brought to your people. You should be pleased with your emancipator. I was your people’s Lincoln. Not only that, we gave you women absolute power. The freedom to adopt Christian names. We gave you the property. We killed the chiefs and made your medicine men into clowns. Your father got in the way. He had to be … removed. And now he’s been put to good use. An ashtray. A fitting memorial for a hothead. And we gave your tribe a settlement for that highway we got through. Supplied them with plenty of whiskey. They like whiskey. Lots of money. I thought you didn’t identify with any group. Besides, you’re doing okay. You don’t have to do anything but dance. Dabble in art. I pay all the bills.
“You wanted to be a flower girl? Who do you think paid for that? The bills I got from International Florists! Do you think the honorariums from your ethnic dances paid for that? Look, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Do you think that those little colleges paid for your honorariums? No, my foundation supplied them with matching grants. That’s how they were able to pay your expenses and your travel. Crying over a fucking skull. As for your mother, she never says anything, and you see her as merely a remnant of the past, but that old lady’s got balls. She’s the one who gave your father’s position away in exchange for a cut of the settlement I made with your people. I’m distributing those robes for her. Got Buffalo Bill to buy some. He deals with her exclusively. She gets forty percent.”
“You’re a liar,” Quaw Quaw says, balling her fists.
“A liar, huh? Okay, take a look at this.” He reached into a drawer and handed her what looked like a contract with her mother’s signature on it. “I represent her in blankets, beads, rugs. How do you think she bought that Rolls Royce and that house in Santa Cruz, by the ocean? You never questioned it. As long as you were able to spend your winters in Rome and New York, your summers in Taos, you didn’t care who was paying for it. There was always plenty. And now that slaves are big in the papers, you went and took one, for diversion. Adventure. And those chapbooks you bought and those bum Bohemian friends of yours, those … those ‘Franklins’!”
“Those are my friends, they’re very talent—”
“Ha. That’s a laugh. Me and my friend Leo, the art dealer, were at a party, and one minute this painter friend of yours was pissing in the hostess’ fireplace, you know, showing his ass to the bourgeoisie, and next thing you know, when all of the guests weren’t looking, he was just about on his hands and knees asking Leo to give him a show. Made all kinds of obscene proposals. Then after the bum left, Leo turns to me and he says, Leo says, ‘You see that? They get all denimed and pure downtown, but as soon as they see me, you’ve never seen such obscene hustling.’ Sometimes Leo wishes he’d gone into the garment business.”
Quaw Quaw was choking. “You … you savage. My father was a great chief. A warrior. My brother was a noble prophet. None of your gentleman’s clothing, your sweet talk, your trucks and planes will hide your savagery.”
“The difference between a savage and a civilized man is determined by who has the power. Right now I’m running things. Maybe one day you and Raven will be running it. But for now I’m the one who determines whether one is civilized or savage.”
“Let’s leave, Quickskill,” she said, taking hold of the fugitive slave’s hand.
He shook his head. “I didn’t come all this way to turn back, Quaw Quaw. ‘Once you start out for a place, there’s no turning back’ is an old HooDoo saying. I mean, Quaw Quaw, I’ve been looking forward to this all my life. Ever since I was a kid, the old people talked about Canada. I have to have my Canada. Quaw Quaw, I’m going to go if it means swimming across,” he said, pointing in the direction of the lights of Niagara Falls, Ontario, across the Niagara.
“All right,” Quaw Quaw said. “I’ll come too.”
Jack laughs. “Okay, go with him. Be pursued by nigger-breakers, ‘paddies,’ Hays and Allen bloodhounds. Do you know that bloodhounds bite? They can eat five or six pounds of meat per day, and they’re not too particular about where it comes from, either. The woods are full of alligators and rattlesnakes. Panthers. That’s how your life will be. Afraid of the cop who stops you for speeding or running an intersection. Hiding in the bushes, depressed when the sky is overcast and you can’t see the North Star. Somebody always on your tail, and you know, Quaw Quaw, it’s hard to tell what you are.”
Quaw Quaw removes her hand from Quickskill’s and moves back a few bewildered steps.
“You’ve always complained about your lack of identity.” Jack goes on. “What do you think life with him will be like? They’d mistake you for a Negress of hazy origin. You’d have to scrub floors to keep him out of chains.”
“Stop,” Quaw Quaw says, placing her hands over her ears.
“Do you think it’ll be any different in Canada? The free population is getting too big. There have been incidents. Grave incidents. Students from the West Indies manhandled. Fugitives stoned. Canadian parents refusing to send their children to school with ‘coloreds.’ And have you ever heard of the Mounted Police? Vicious. After those huskies, you’d welcome the bloodhounds. Like wolves. They catch the flesh and won’t let go. They have mean habits. And don’t let the Prime Minister fool you. He may throw a Potlatch once in a while, but he’s still a white man. He sees himself as a white man in a white man’s country.”
“Race,” Quaw Quaw said. “Always race. You and Quickskill always boxing yourself in. What does race have to do with it? People are people.”
“Don’t listen to him, Quaw Quaw,” Raven cried. “Pirates have always undercut our dreams. Canada is beautiful. I hear that on some of the Canadian freeways trucks aren’t even allowed.”
Quaw Quaw walked to the table. She poured herself a glass of red wine.
Quickskill turned to Jack. “You try to worm your way out of all situations with your forked tongue. You and your graphs and your video charts that show your inventory immediately. It’s unearthly, the way you hold sway over the American sensibility. They see, read and listen to what you want them to read, see and listen to. You decide the top forty, the best-seller list and the Academy Awards. Breaking the legs of your rivals, making them offers they can’t refuse. Yes, you’ve moved up from looking for buried treasure of dubious value, Yankee Jack. Though I’m a fugitive slave, I’m still a better man than you. The hardships I’ve had to overcome. My mother sold down the river. My father broken for spitting into the overseer’s face. The whippings, the floggings.”
“That’s not what the revisionists are saying. Don’t forget, I read the New Republic.”
“Revisionists. Quantitative historians. What does a computer know? Can a computer feel? Make love? Can a computer feel passion?” Quickskill tears off his shirt. “Look at those scars. Look at them! All you see is their fruit, but their roots run deep. The roots are in my soul. What does a fucking computer know about that?”
“Do I look like a hairdresser to you? I’m a real man. This arm. Do you see this arm?” the pirate says, pointing to where a real arm used to be. “What do you think caused that? The Indians got ahold of me. They cut off my arm.”
“You think that’s manly. Huh? You think that’s manly. One day I outwitted thirteen bloodhounds.”
“Prep
osterous.”
“I did. Thirteen bloodhounds. They had me up a tree.”
“That can’t be. I’ve studied the history of bloodhounds since the age of William the Conqueror, and that’s just a niggardly lie.”
“What did you say?”
“I said it’s just a niggardly lie.”
“Why, you—” Quickskill rushes around the desk and nabs the pirate, lifting him up.
They begin to struggle. The pirate delivers a stunning blow to Quickskill’s jaw. Quickskill comes back with a thunderous right uppercut, sending the pirate reeling against the boat’s rails. Quaw Quaw begins to scream. The pirate comes off the rail with a crushing blow to the forehead of Quickskill. Stunned, Quickskill shakes his head, and before the pirate is about to follow through, knocks the wind out of him with a short, savage right to the stomach, and then … a splash! They stop. Quaw Quaw is nowhere in sight.
They run to the direction of the splash and look over the rail. Quaw Quaw is swimming, moving away from the ship, in the treacherous rapids of the Niagara River.
Her clothes were in a small pile next to their feet. They yelled after her until their voices became hoarse. They yelled that mournful, pining Chloe yell. Chloe. Originally the haunting moan of the slave seeking his lost wife—Chloe.
24
THE PIRATE WAS SERVING Quickskill out of a silver champagne goblet. Quickskill was sitting at the table, staring straight ahead.
“Now we’ve both lost her,” said the pirate matter-of-factly.
“You haven’t lost anything. What was she to you, Jack? Something you could sequin and polish. A subhuman pagan you sent to Radcliffe to learn to appreciate twelve-tone music when her people’s scales were more complex, to appreciate nature poetry when her people were one with the bear and the fish and the mountains and the waters, to appreciate uptown classical painting when one totem out front was as good as anything inside.” Quickskill watched Jack take a sip. “You can always write her off as a loss, like all the other items you ship out that get damaged or fall from trucks onto the freeway.”
