The Busting Out of an Ordinary Man

by Odie Hawkins

She probed the attentive faces for a sign of disagreement as she talked, feeling a twinge of guilt at not being able to really say in words something about the concepts, the ideas that Kwendi was laying on her from his deep introspection in prison.

  She came to the end of her remarks with a solid bit of advice, “Know where they’re comin’ from, or else you might get fooled,” and sat down, feeling vaguely dissatisfied with her presentation. For some reason, no matter what she said or how she said it, it was always a dim shadow of the kind of muscular intensity Kwendi had going.

  Abdul Aboud stood next, to give a progress report on their alliance with three Chicano groups who were modeling an organization after theirs. Lubertha studied the fiercely carved lines in Abdul’s face and wondered, for the first time, what his name had been before he changed it.

  The beginning of the Club, the agony that made it necessary, the guidelines established, the early days of arguments about what they would or could accomplish, flashed through her consciousness as she listened to the heavy rise and fall of brother Abdul’s voice. A sudden, deepfelt sense of hope lessness overwhelmed her for a moment … she lowered her head, afraid that the feeling would show in her eyes, betray everything they were trying to accomplish. What the hell did it matter? she asked herself, if they had cleaned all the dope peddlers out of the neighborhood and had some slimy politician take all the credit for it.

  What did it matter that her little seminars on American politics taught young brothers and sisters more than they would ever learn in any American school about the real nature of the dominant white power force? Or that they had established sections in each one of the Clubs that dealt with Art, Music, Ourstory, Drama, Mathematics, Sociology, the Politics of Revolutions and how to make them work. In addition to having worked on each other, sharpening their sense of brotherness with real sacrifices for each other, like sending Rudy to school.

  None of it seemed to matter, she thought sadly, none of it, so long as the world they were living in was threatened to be polluted out of existence, any coming month now. Not something purely black, white, yellow, brown or any other color, despite the fact that the white boy, with his misguided ideas about what manhood was all about, was largely responsible for it.

  No, this was something greater than they were a little bunch of Afro-Americans wanting human rights, this was a planet rights thang, and she hated being forced to only deal with a thin, thin slice of the whole thing.

  Nici Miles nudged Maisha, pointed at Lubertha with her eyelashes, Maisha nodded back, aware of Lubertha’s state of mind, saddened beyond words for her sister’s hurt … After all, how many Kwendis were there in the world?

  The meeting went on Rudy slouched down in his seat, half a mind on what might be going on at the Club’s meeting, half a mind on what the little dull-eyed Jewish guy with the tweed sports jacket and the expensive pipe was saying.

  He glanced around at his classmates, their shiny blue eyes riveted on the instructor’s movements as though he were an A+ in slow motion. His attention wandered into the seat two aisles to the right of him, right up between the milk-fed thighs of Dora Hirschberger and then sped away, guilt ringing down the curtain.

  This was definitely not what the Club was sending him to school for!

  He smiled to himself and scribbled a flurry of notes, what a helluva idea! His own, he thought proudly, to send Club members off to school, to use their talents in as many ways as possible to help the community. The idea had blossomed in him during Kwendi’s third trial, attended to by a jive black lawyer who had been damned near shamed into dealing with the case, threatened might’ve been a different way to describe his involvement.

  It was at that point that he began to persuade, first Kwendi and then the membership. Rather than just be some damned gang, he had argued, whipping asses and taking names, why not become doctors, lawyers, artists, professionals working for the Club’s causes? Which had to be the people’s causes, ’cause that’s who they were.

  He frowned at the memory of some of the arguments, some of the opposition the sisters and brothers had given him.

  “Awww, what the fuck you tryin’ to pull, Rudy!? All you wanna do is take a freebie on our backs.”

  Yeahhh, the obstacles had been there, but eventually, with Kwendi backing the idea and the membership falling in line, they had managed to stick four sisters and brothers into school. Law, economics, Kwendi’s idea “We ought to know how money makes things function up in here.” Kwendi Jones, beautiful brother. Ourstory, political science, and they were trying to groom a brother and sister for medical school; that was going pretty slow because of the expense, but hopefully, within the next few years, they would have Club doctors, lawyers, economists, hip dudes from the block with more than just degrees, pieces of paper, more than an “education,” they would have a sense of commitment to the community that sponsored them.

  He straightened up in his seat, suddenly conscious that he was a Club member and that he had a rep to maintain. The Club’s scholarship people, they called themselves, and worked harder because they had pride in that.

  Rudy wrinkled his forehead, trying to concentrate harder, to scratch all other intruding thoughts.

  Wonder where Phyllisine was going? Oh well

  “And now, class will you please place all of your notes and books under your seats, we’re going to have a lil’ quiz, call it twenty questions, if you like hah hah hah.…”

  Rudy placed his books under his desk, thought of keeping his small notepad concealed under his left forearm, but decided against it. What the fuck! I can go through this shit blindfolded, with minimum output, and still get a B. Why cheat?

  He folded his hands on his desk and waited grimly for the multiple choice questionnaire to be passed out. Even with a full time gig and a thousand ’n one other things to worry about, school was a sop, the hardest part was making it to class on time.

  He bent over his questionnaire as soon as it was dropped on his desk and mentally marked the first ten correctly yeahhh, school was a sop.

  Fergy Smith shifted his weight slightly, trying to ease out of the depression on his side of the bed, as he listened to his woman’s movements in the kitchen. Of all the goddamned, fucked up things to be afflicted with, what the hell could be worse than to have a bad back? He rolled his head from side to side, feeling swamped by self pity and anger.

  I knew I should’ve asked somebody to help me lift that fuckin’ sack, but nawww, not me, not ol’ strong nuts Smith.

  Lucille popped through the bedroom door with a glass of water. “Here, Fergy it’s time for your pills.”

  He frowned at the thought of swallowing the two horse-sized tablets he had to take every night. “Damn, Lucille! Why can’t we skip ’em tonight, baby?”

  Lucille placed a fist on one well-endowed hip and moved the water glass inches closer. “Now, Fergy you know what the doctor said!”

  He reached out reluctantly for the glass of water with one hand, and to the pills on his night table with the other, and felt a stabbing pain in the lower left side of his back. The pain surprised him. How long had it been? Almost a week without any bad pain at all.

  Lucille looked at him closely, deep concern, compassion etched on her face. “Fergy? You all right, honey?”

  He had to let the pain pass, trickle away in little spasms before answering.

  “It is bad, baby?” she asked gently.

  “It’s goin’ away,” he mumbled, relief creeping across his face as the spasms stopped. He gulped the water and pills in two quick motions, handed her the glass and settled back slowly, carefully.

  Lucille sat on the side of the bed. “Fergy?”

  “Yeah, baby …” he answered, patting her thigh, trying to lighten the moment.

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “What did he say? Ooohh same-o same-o, keep on takin’ your medicine, keep a lotta heat on and come back next Monday.”

  “Did he did he think you was gettin’ any better?”r />
  Fergy looked off, evasively, tempted to lie, but decided not to … Lucille was like radar on lies. “Uhh, well, lemme put it this way, baby he said that he couldn’t tell me that I was gettin’ better or worse … With the kind o’ thang I got, at my age, it could last for a long time or go away just like that!”

  They were both silent for a few long moments, their thoughts blocking out the noises from the apartment next door, the rumbling of the el train a few blocks away and the heavy, wobbly sounds of someone stumbling through the hallway.

  Lucille, coming back from the doldrums first, kicked her shoes off and began to prepare for bed. “Well, I was just wonderin’,” she said absently.

  He watched her unbutton her blouse, slip out of her skirt. Damn … how long had it been? Funny about my back, he thought, lacing his hands behind his head, some days I don’t feel a thing and then, for no reason at all, making the slightest move, it feels like somebody had hit me in the back with an axe, or a sledgehammer.

  Lucille smiled warmly at him and eased into the bathroom.

  Sho’ is a good woman … got to be a good woman to be goin’ through all the shit she’s been goin’ through with me for the last eight months.

  “Fergy, won’t you be gettin’ your check tomorrow?” she asked from the bathroom, the toilet gurgling erratically in the background.

  “’Sposed to,” he answered evenly, “either I get it or I’m gon’ have to go down there ’n cuss that dumb bitch out again.”

  Lucille giggled, Fergy flashed a broad smile at the ceiling, listening to her giggle good to hear that sound for a change. Mrs. Swartz, the state workers’ compensation representative was a serious, standing joke between them. She was responsible for getting his monthly check out to him, but for some reason, she never seemed to be able to do it right two months in a row. God and Mrs. Swartz.

  His smile faded, reconsidering the serious position she put them in, whenever she goofed. You could almost laugh about it, if you didn’t feel like crying, he thought bitterly.

  “How’re things goin’ with you ’n Mizz Bernhammer?” he asked, calculating the stages of Lucille’s preparation for bed. Brushing her teeth now.

  “Awwww, you know how it is, some days is better than others,” she spat toothpaste into the toilet bowl, flushed it and re-entered the bedroom, blue middle-length negligee swirling about her thighs. Fergy’s eyes danced from her breasts to her thighs and back, his eyelids hooded. “You know, I just walk ’round that woman’s house sometimes, lookin’ at all the advantages she has. Damned near everything in the house is automatic, ’cept me,” she laughed sarcastically, sat down at her dressing table and started creaming her face.

  “Can you imagine someone havin’ all they bills paid? damned near nothing to do, really but shop all day, and when she ain’t doin’ that she’s drinkin’. Come to think of it, she’s been drinkin’ a long time now, but I didn’t pay it too much attention ’til here lately.

  “She came up to me today, breath smellin’ like a distillery and started talkin’ … Mrs. Smith, she says, yes, Mrs. Bernhammer … hate that name! what can I do for you? I’m right in the middle of polishin’ the silver, so you know damn well I ain’t feelin’ too much like no chitchat.

  “‘Mrs. Smith, how long have you worked for me?’

  “How long? Five ’n a half years, I told her, on my guard all the way, you know? ’cause ain’t no tellin’ what gits in middle-aged white women’s heads sometimes. Anyway, she looks down in her gin glass for awhile and finally looks up into my face and says, slurs would be a better way to put it, almost with tears in her eyes, ‘Mrs. Smith, why can’t we be friends?’

  “For a second I had the urge to jab one of those forks I was polishing in her eye, but then I thought, nawww, don’t do that, Lucille she’s just drunk, and besides she ain’t even worth killin’.

  “I stopped polishin’ the silver and asked her, ‘Mrs. Bernhammer, how in the hell we gon’ be friends while I’m sittin’ up here, polishin’ a bunch o’ knives ’n forks ’n spoons o’ yours, that you don’t even use but once a month? In addition to that, you ain’t payin’ me enough for us to be friends.’

  “She walked away, behind that, sobbin’ in her drink. Yeahh, white folks is sho’ nuff hard to figure out sometimes, I think it’s rainin’.”

  She stood at the wall switch, looking at his peaceful expres-

  She stood up and faced the bed, and Fergy’s angelic dreamless expression. She crossed over to him on tiptoe and kissed his forehead. Poor baby, bet he’ll be glad when he stops takin’ those pills, they knock him out faster than a cat can lick his ass.

  She stood at the wall switch, looking at his peaceful expression, and measured the distance she’d have to cover in the dark after flicking the light off, smiled as she glided to bed in the dark, remembering all the times Fergy had stubbed his toe against the bedstead or a chair on his way to bed.

  “Goodnight, baby,” she whispered into his sleeping ears and turned her back to him, her arms aching from the wax job she had given the Bernhammer living room that afternoon.

  God, I hope I ain’t coming down with bursitis or something that’d be all we’d need.

  Kanoon Al-Haddi, once known before his conversion to Islam as Milfred Hawkins, stood center stage, bathed in a luminous spotlight, his precious bassoon perched on a stand next to him, playing an African thumb piano solo. The Pot’s Monday night jazz audience, a confection of semi-professional musicians, professional musicians, deep believers, cool dudes and their ladies, sat mesmerized by Kanoon’s passionate involvement with his art.

  During the course of the playing of one particularly tricky phrase, Kanoon looked out at the audience, tears forming in his eyes, lips trembling, and moaned.

  “Git down, Kanoon! git on down to stone soul!” a high Gemini lady, unable to bear the tension any longer, called out to him.

  Flicking into and through the phrase again, satisfied that he was getting exactly what he wanted, he slid away from it and signalled, with an arrogant turn of his head, for the re-entrance of his quintet.

  The quintet’s sound, Mediterranean-Afro-Cuban-New World African, danced past his staccato piano playing, the little box held up close to the microphone now, wobbled back artfully to the last phrase he had played and slithered to an end.

  The audience stood as one and applauded wildly.

  Kanoon bowed, ever so slightly, a cold smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. Good, really good, he thought, to see the people giving themselves up to Another Music.

  He nodded solemnly to the members of his group, taking the measure of each one as he did so. Armandito on congas, a fiercely proud little black dervish from Matanzas, Cuba, who acted and played as though rhythm belonged to him. Sheikh Baby on oud, Buford Knobbs singing on every sized flute currently known, doubling on chekere and double gong; Pablo Cruz-Extrana playing the cello with so much quickness and grace that people were always asking why the dude was playing this oversized guitar, standing on end like that. Them, that is, who weren’t hip to the fact that Cruz-Extrana was a genius. Baby Blood blew soprano sax and loved ragaic solos, always seemed to be mad at somebody or something, but showed none of that kind of feeling as he spooled out yard after yard of brutally honest song.

  “Concerto for Bassoon!” someone yelled.

  “Yeahhh! Concerto for Bassoon!” somebody else picked up the request.

  He stood at the edge of the stage and let them come at him in full voice before he took a backward step to his instrument.

  “Yeahhh, gon’ put the pot on!”

  “Con-certo for Bassooooooon, Ka-nooooooon!”

  “Right on, brother!”

  He picked his bassoon up from its stand, glared the audience into submissive silence, … paused to deep-breathe several times, to tune in with the members of his group, and gestured the music into being “Uh one! uhh two! uh three!”

  Cruz-Extrana loved the Concerto for Bassoon, and it showed in his method of attack. A
so-called jazz critic, unable to get past Pablo’s long black eyelashes and his slender, delicately tapered fingers, called his opening statement, the Chinese Blues. Pablo and Kanoon had laughed themselves to tears reading the review. It was obvious that the reviewer had never heard of a saeta, nor had he ever heard La Nina de los Peines or Manitas de Plata’s cousin, Jose Reyes, sing one.

  He slipped Baby Blood in behind the cello’s opening statement, nodding warmly at the Baby’s deep, searching, slurry sounds. Buford trailed in, swiping at the Baby’s tail ends with little melodic swoops and whoops, Sheikh Baby counter-pointed with his oud, Armandito calmly put the chekere aside and got down on his congas with a rhythmic pattern that was almost Hindu Indian in its complexity.

  The unit, jellied into place with the first movement, slowed down to pick Kanoon up in the second section and stretched out from there.

  Kanoon, never content to feel his way up and down old scales, frowned at the familiarity of his first notes, erased the memory of them with a succession of finely woven statements, profound commentaries on his state of mind and the deep regard he had for beauty and the truth that his instrument was capable of exploring. The Gemini lady’s eyes glistened, and the corners of her mouth grew moist as she listened, each of his notes a precious piece of advice to her consciousness.

  Kanoon fixed her mind with a soulful glance at the end of the piece, and told her, in eye language, that he wanted her to follow him back to his dressing room at the conclusion of the set.

  The audience, satisfied with another reading of his trademark work, the avant garde of Another Music, allowed him to leave the stage, opening up an aisle of adoration to his dressing room.

  The Gemini lady, a lyrically constructed, Ethiopian looking cocainist, her head held high, followed him, dazzled by the idea that she was going to be given the privilege of serving the master. Warm applause and many jealous looks followed them as they turned the far corner of the club, another kind of creativity about to happen.

  Fred Lee nudged Bessie gently, “That’s it, baby … you’ll be lucky if you see Mil uhh Kanoon, again ’til Friday. We better git on outta here so I can get up tomorrow.”