The Free-Lance Pallbearers

by Ishmael Reed

  I was all choked up. “I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Doopeyduk,” the nurse said. “We’re sure that you will prove yourself worthy.”

  I opened the door, knocking over the three orderlies who had their ears fastened to the keyhole. Ignoring them I walked to the old man’s room with my nose upturned and holding the bedpan engraved with my initials.

  The old man had been placed in a secluded ward. He lay under an oxygen tent in the bed, next to which was a floor lamp exuding a soft violet glow. He wore a damp waist-length nightgown and his bony knees were propped up under his hamstrings by pillows. His wrists were bound to the side rail and his eyes were two black dots. A thin layer of skin stretched around the small skeletal outlines of his face. I read the chart which hung at the foot of his bed.

  Man: White male gave his name as Roger Young Ist. About 89 years old. Admitted to the floor at 2:00 A.M. Only possession—a musty can of newsreel entitled Versailles 1919. He fought five orderlies for the can yelling, “Gimmie back my newsreel, I want my newsreel.” Scratched and bit and spat on them until he was subdued with vesperin. Went to sleep about 5 A.M.

  Diagnosis: Schizoid with paranoid tendencies. Keeps muttering, “The Huns raping the nuns.”

  I changed the man every five minutes until the corner of the room was filled with sticky wet sheets. I applied the powder and gave him a rubdown.

  He finally went off to sleep. The room was quiet. I sat in a chair next to his bed leafing through a magazine. At about 6:30 P.M. he suddenly rose, lurched forward and pointed a long bent finger toward the open door of the room.

  “Save me! They’re in the door! The Free-Lance Pall-bearers are in the door! Look, look! The long frock coats and shiny black boots, the black box! It’s them! They’re going to try to take ol Roger Ist away from here! Please save me, ooooo, save me, no! Get back! Get back! Arra! Ggggg! Grggrrrrgrrg! Rrgrgrgrrrrrrrrgrgrrrgrrrrrrr g … …. r … … ….!”

  I ran through the door of the room and into the nurses’ quarters. “Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp! Please hurry—the old man is hallucinating; he seems to be having an attack of some sort”

  All the orderlies and doctors ran clomping down the hall toward the room. But it was too late. The old man had given up the ghost.

  We washed him, wrapped him in a shroud and placed him in a basket. He was then rolled into the morgue and placed in an ice-cold tray. (One of the morgue attendants was to say later that upon making a routine inspection he found the corpse holding the can of news-reel in a death clutch.)

  It was the end of my shift. I filled out the report on the deceased and gave it to the nurse. “Thank you, Mr. Doopeyduk,” she said. “You made the poor ol man’s last hours as comfortable as possible. We’ll be calling on you in the future for more tasks like these.”

  One of the orderlies helped me with my coat. “I will do my best to justify your faith in me,” I told the nurse. (I detected a snicker from the orderly who was helping me with the garment, but I ignored him, attributing it to jealousy on his part.) I walked out into the streets of Soulsville toward home. The crisis over, the convoys of plumbers in battleships headed from Harry Sam Island toward the pier. They leaned over the rails of the ships guffing down the hot dogs and beer.

  In Soulsville banners hung over the street. WELCOME SOULSVILLE’S OWN ECLAIR PORKCHOP. Barricades had been set up and Screws linked hands holding back the crowd which had come out to greet the newly appointed bishop. They were not to be disappointed because the parade turned out to be quite a spectacle. I lined up with the crowd to get a better view of the goings-on.

  The first car in the procession was a big sleek Rolls-Royce. The body of the car was painted lavender and the hood was a frieze depicting the Nazarene apocalypse. It was painted in wild wiggy colors.

  It showed HARRY SAM the dictator and former Polish used-car salesman sitting on the great commode. In his lap sat a businessman, a Nazarene apprentice and a black slum child. These figures represented the Just Standing on each side of the dictator were four washroom attendants. In their hands they had seven brushes, seven combs, seven towels, and seven bars of soap, a lock of Roy Rogers’ hair and a Hershey bar. Above the figures float Lawrence Welk champagne bubbles. Below this scene tombstones have been rolled aside and the Nazarene faithful are seen rising in a mist with their hands reaching out to the figure sitting on the commode.

  There were purple velvet curtains on the windows of the car. Through the drapes of the back window was a wrinkled yellow hand. On one of the fingers was a large sardonyx ring.

  It was Nancy Spellman, Chief Nazarene Bishop. It was a crime punishable by death to look at him directly so the people bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Following the automobile on foot were the Nazarene Bishops. They wore Dobbs hats and double-breasted suits with ball-point pens sticking from their pockets. Carnations were pinned to their lapels.

  Next came a black Pierce-Arrow. A chauffeur’s velvet glove gripped the car wheel. He sat next to a bottle of Fleischmann’s which was as large as his body from the waist up. A spindly old woman sat next to him waving a long cigarette holder and dangling her leg over the car door.

  She was holding her hands together responding to the cheers of the crowd. In the rear half of the car, through the roof, some plastic antlers appeared. The woman wore a green satin dress under a black bolero jacket She wore a diamond ring on every other finger of her hands. Sparkling green mascara was smeared to the edge of her plucked-out eyebrows. Her hair was tinted blue-silver and frizzed in a permanent wave. A white ermine stole with black tails was thrown across her neck and dripped down her back. A heavy beaded necklace hung to her stomach. It was my father-in-law’s mother and the bitch was dressed to kill. The automobile pulled to a halt. The chauffeur climbed out and went to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. Children who were poking their noses through the spokes of the tires were shooed away.

  He brought a case to the side of the car and gave her a bottle. She held up a bottle of the anti-hoodoo lotion. Suddenly da hoodooed leaped from alleys and jumped from the windows of fleabag hotels, and dropped their forks and Chicago caps (which had been pulled down over their eyes) into their bean soups in restaurants as they left trails of screaming waitresses who tossed check pads into the air and jumped on tables, and the beasts bent bars of jails and hurdled the lamps of police stations, and nurses shrieked disbelief as da hoodooed knocked over trays in hospitals where they were undergoing the hoodoo kick, and they loped from the beds and toppled confessional booths in churches where they were being expunged of the fever—causing the priests to fling themselves upon the coins which had spilled from falling collection baskets, and da hoodooed bolted through the doors of churches, hospitals, jails, cellar apartments, jumped from rooftops, leaped out of alleyways, and jaunting to the forefront of the crowd snatched bottles from her hand before she could deliver her pitch. The chauffeur held fistfuls of dollar bills they slapped into his hands as the old woman stood up in the seat of the Pierce-Arrow, rolled up her sleeves and ran down her game.

  “Come and get your anti-hoodoo lotion! Get rid of those ugly fangs, that tired hair. Be a delight to the womenfolk.”

  While she went into her thing I walked to the rear of the car to examine the plastic antlers of my father-in-law. I pressed my nose against the window and saw my father-in-law dressed in a tuxedo and resting his hand upon an ebony cane. He was swinging the antlers from side to side while talking to some ladies in cotton dresses who remembered him as the head of the colored Elks in 1928.

  “How you, Miss Lucy?” he drawled, giving one woman a limp handshake and exposing his gold teeth. “How’s the youngins? Hopes they’s fine.”

  “Father-in-law, father-in-law,” I shouted. He turned to the rear window and momentarily flashed anger; but remembering the women standing next to the car, he spoke for their edification.

  “Well, my goodness, if it ain’t my son-in-law. What you
wont, dear son-in-law?” The women smiled at this exhibition of family affection. He rolled the car window down and beckoned me to come closer. “Look, my man,” he said out of the hearing range of his admirers. “Make it. It’ll mess up what you might call our ‘image’ if we are seen in the company of an orderly.” I fell back to the curb and shoved my hands into my orderly’s uniform which was still soiled from the old man’s juices.

  All the merchandise sold, the old woman had returned to her place next to the chauffeur. She clapped her hands and the car moved on. The car was followed by a battalion of old men wearing derbys and aprons with mystic signs sewn on them. Others were wheeled along by nurses who held up the old men’s arms occasionally so that they could respond to the good wishes of the festive crowd. They were part of that celebrated contingent who in glittering ceremony underneath the watchful eyes of the founders of the nation—who wore frills on their wrists and fake moles on their cheeks—stood in solemn silence as their leader, my father-in-law, knelt, unsheathed his sword and kissed Calvin Coolidge’s ass. At that time a minor stir was created when a protocol officer ran up and pulled my father-in-law from the President. He said that the proper procedure was to pull aside one flap and kiss the President between the cheeks instead of smacking the Chief of State all over his bottom like some kind of madman. My father-in-law nearly went to blows with the protocol officer for embarrassing him before his following and all those “fine white peoples.” But the President saved the day, pulling up his trousers and saying, “We Americans are known for our informality.”

  For saving my father-in-law from a humiliation that could have set back “the struggle” fifty years, Ebony magazine hailed Calvin Coolidge as the second emancipator.

  The old men were roundly applauded by the onlookers. Suddenly a woman fell into the arms of a man standing behind her. Another woman swooned. People began dropping like flies. A rank stench filled the air and the spectators held handkerchiefs to their noses and puked on each other. Up ahead was a 1938 Oldsmobile flanked by a V-shaped entourage of Screws on motorcycles. The Screws wore gas masks. Standing in the back seat of the car and wearing damp peppermint-striped pajamas and a cone-shaped hat was none other than Eclair Porkchop, newly crowned Bishop of Soulsville, direct from his negotiations with Dictator HARRY SAM, former Polish used-car salesman. Those who could withstand the odor which filled the street like quicksand fumes bowed their heads or held up their babies to receive Eclair Porkchop’s blessing. The Bishop lighted from the automobile and walked on a red carpet toward the door of the Church of the Holy Mouth. Some young men on the sidelines teased the Bishop by playfully pinching his buttocks. He spun away, sticking out his hand like a quarterback dodging tackles. He executed pirouettes, arabesques, grands jetés saying, “Stop, hee, hee, that tickles. Now stop, now, hee, hee.”

  Those who could take the stench followed him until he was swallowed by the door of the church. He was shadowed by those men HARRY SAM assigned to protect his bishopric. They wore pantaloons and brogans. They were stripped to the waist and peering through the terrifying eyeholes of their masks they beat back the crowd with their whips.

  All at once a man elbowed his way through the crowd. The hem of a long vicuña coat reached his ankles. He paced up and down in front of the crowd with his hands behind his back. Once in a while he glanced at his watch. He had a heavy mustache and a cigar jutted aggressively from between his teeth. A dwarf hunchbacked Negro ran through the crowd and joined the man. The Negro wore a raccoon coat and a straw hat. He waved a pennant which read “Fisk 1950.” Underneath his arm he carried a small black case. “Hurry up, hurry up,” the first man said to the dwarf as the little fellow opened the case, pulled out a mouth organ and began to play the Protestant hymn “The Old Rugged Gross.” It was the mad slum lord Irving Gooseman and his Negro dwarf assistant Slickhead Fopnick. Irving cupped his thick red trap and addressed the crowd.

  “All you little pretties and swingers of Soulsville, this is your main man Irving Gooseman and Slickhead Fopnick telling you all the bargains at the USURA pawnshop. No cash down—all you have to have is a gig. Take as long as you wont, all you souls, little pretties and swingers, boppers and groovers. Come on over to the store and look at some fine jools, dig some blond coffee tables and some zebra-skin couches. Now as an introduction to USURA pawnbrokers, we offer you a record that no home should be without It’s historical. It’s edjoocational. It’s a credit to you people. A forty-five disc of the historic meeting between HARRY SAM and Soulsville’s own Eclair Porkchop: ‘A Meeting of Titans.’ Just so that you can get a sample of this dignified recording, we’re going to play a little bit of it.” With this he pulled a folding stand from beneath his overcoat, set it up and mounted a small victrola on the top. He put the needle on the record and soon the voices of the two leaders could be heard.

  AWWWWW, DO IT TO ME. AWWWWWW BABY. DO IT TO ME. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT LONG THING? MY MY O LORD, DON’T STOP, DON’T STOP. HELPLEASE DON’T STOP. DO IT THIS WAY. DO IT THAT WAY. OOOOOO MY MY MY YUM YUMMY OOOO …

  The sleep-in maids, porters and redcaps, hustlers, junkies, and Nazarene apprentices threw nickels, dimes, and quarters into the basket. All at once two Screws appeared around the corner and spotting the mad slum lord and Slickhead gave chase. Irving and Fopnick got their gear together and jumped into a T-Model Ford which was parked behind the crowd. The car rattled and bustled so, a door fell from its hinges and into the street. Smoke and oil spouted furiously from its radiator cap.

  The Ford sped toward the railroad tracks where the eight-thirty express of the B.&O. Railroad was bearing down on the crossroads like gangbusters. The Screws were hot on the pair’s trail, speeding in a jeep. Some of them were standing on the runners firing BB pellets at the car wheels. The crowd watched as the train came nearer and nearer and nearer and nearer (drum rolls) until the old T-Model just slipped across the tracks almost running down an old woman in white who was dripping wet and holding a yelping mutt by the scruff of the neck as she dashed across the road on the other side of the tracks. The Screws were left jumping up and down in the jeep, throwing their helmets into the road shoulders, tearing out their hair and slapping their fists against their foreheads in frustration as a lot of dumb numbers on boxcars whizzed by at one hundred miles an hour.

  PART III

  Rutherford Birchard Hayes Is Thrown from a Horse

  Fannie Mae did not return from the hospital. Instead I received a summons in the mail, directing me to appear before Judge Whimplewopper on such and such a date in this incredible nightmare of a NOWHERE. Fannie Mae was demanding a separation on grounds of mental cruelty. Georgia Nosetrouble’s name was scrawled above the line designated “witness.” The receipt of this intelligence sunk me into deepest pall. I had failed my first test as a Nazarene apprentice on a quest in the grimy grim world of HARRY SAM, not-to-be-believed, out-of-sight, run from the low-down nasty room.

  Now there would be hard decisions to make. First, I would have to yield my apartment because of a rule which forbade single people from dwelling in them. I decided to put my mind at ease by going to the newsreel theater in Soulsville. This proved to be my undoing.

  En route to the movies I passed the amusement truck which was parked outside the projects during the day. Most of the children were merrily riding the swans, ponies and other animals. In between these figures stood dwarfs, gnomes and witches. A lone child had his arm around one of the dwarfs. He seemed to be weeping and moving his lips as if speaking to the mute figure.

  “What’s wrong, little tot?” I offered.

  “He won’t take me across the Black Bay like he said he was going to.”

  “Who won’t?” I said, looking around me.

  “He won’t,” the little boy continued, pointing to the long-nosed dwarf who had the jokers’ smile painted on his face.

  These kids today have the darndest imagination, I thought.

  “He doesn’t play fair. He took the rest of those kids over there and they pla
y in gardens and fly like birds.”

  I sought to appease the tiny chap. “If ol meany won’t play with you, here’s a nickel. Play on one of the rides.”

  But instead of doing cartwheels over my gift, the little kid became indignant. “Why don’t you leave us alone, you grown-up boozehound? Why don’t ya go play pinochle or start a war or something? Who asked your opinion anyway?” he said, hugging the dwarf.

  “Now see here, you little brat, apparently your father has never read the passage in the manual about how little Nazarenes are supposed to behave toward grownups. You should never deride the utterances of grownups. What you need is an ol-fashioned spanking.” I yanked him from the dwarf, spun him around and brought my hand swiftly against his backside. The little kid howled as I walked away from the truck wringing my hands.

  A distance from the truck I looked around. The kids were still playing on the rides and the little fellow had his arms around the dwarf’s shoulders. He was rapidly moving his lips.

  Long lines of customers wound around the block leading to the theater. They held packages of Camembert, Gouda, provolone, port salut, Liederkranz, Brie, Edam, bleu and cheddar cheese. You see, there were these furry creatures inside who over the years had developed a pretty sophisticated palate. So as not to be maimed, it was advisable for patrons to bring something along with which to entertain the critters. I dropped my block of Swiss at the box office and paid my fare.

  The newsreel was an account of the previous week’s events: the choking of SAM’s valves by bantam roosters’ feathers, the dislodging of these feathers by Rev. Eclair Porkchop and his subsequent coronation as Bishop of Soulsville. Finally SAM surrounded by his attendants, little men wearing white smocks and bow ties replete with the familiar butterfly pattern, appeared on the screen. Our leader’s stomach swelled over the rim of his shorts like a drooping balloon. I applauded wildly but mine was the only applause. In fact I detected some snickers among members of the audience. The black rowdies in the front row began to heckle and catcall. A few even made wolf whistles. I rose from my seat and rushed down the aisle until I stood before the area where they were seated. With one hand resting on a hip and wagging my finger I gave them a “brutally frank” lecture, as the typists at several Civil Service offices are fond of saying.