The Free-Lance Pallbearers

by Ishmael Reed

  “Tomorrow night? But aren’t we supposed to have an audition or a rehearsal?”

  “Idiot!” he sneered. “Auditions? Rehearsals? There you go again talking like the Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar. Why don’t you do as you’re told. Just show tomorrow night at eight thirty and we’ll just allow things to drift. Now no more of these questions,” he said, putting twenty ten-dollar bills into my hand.

  “Why, I can’t take this. I haven’t done an honest day’s work. Right here in the Nazarene manual,” I continued, removing my trusty little booklet from a pocket. “Allow me to quote from our beloved Bishop Nancy Spellman: ‘One must sweat one’s balls off to be a head in SAM’s.’”

  But Cipher X had crossed to the other side of the room and was now kneeling before the big black hoopla hoop which hung from the wall by a nail. Not wishing to interrupt the man’s meditations, I went out of the building and walked toward Connecticut Avenue.

  I came upon a room-for-rent sign displayed in the window of a tenement building. I rang the super’s bell. A nattily dressed bearded man wearing a fez opened the door. It was my friend Elijah Raven, the heretic Nazarene apprentice.

  “Bukka Doopeyduk, you ol son of a gun. What are you doing here?”

  “Elijah, my good man,” I answered his greeting as we warmly embraced. “You were saying ‘Flim Flam Alakazam’ last time we saw each other. Aren’t you still with the Jackal-headed Front?”

  “No good, baby. It all turned out to be a plot. What a hummer that was, man. Made me real disillusioned and cynical about organizations. You see, the CIA controlled the organization through an ol geezer who was given to such eccentricities as wearing cobwebbed antlers all the time. In fact, the kat was eating pork on the side and had a Betty Grable pinup on his wall; and to make things worse, his mother, I mean the man’s own mother, put the hoodoo not only on the people in the ghetto but one-third of the planet. They made themselves rich by getting the patent on a solution that would de-hoodoo people they’d put the hoodoo on. Well, just as we uncovered that the mystery man behind the organization was this joker, SAM made him ambassador to Luxembourg. Man, we got our nickel plates and were heading for the pier to ice the kat. But just as we drove up to the dock the Queen Mary was pulling away and the cocksucker was sticking his tongue out and laughing at us. And you should have seen the party they had. Governesses, maids, companions, manicurists, domestics and a beautiful fly black chick. Man, all kinds of o-fay kats were on their knees in their tuxedos and tall hats serenading her like in those 1930 musicals. She was decked out from head to foot in some of those chic saber-toothed fashions for aggressive living.”

  “I wonder, did they take the antler polish?” I pondered out loud.

  “What was that, Bukka?”

  “Never mind, Elijah, you’d never believe it.”

  “As I was saying, Bukka, the Queen Mary pulled off with this really Hanging-Gardens-of-Babylon scene taking place on the deck and this traitor that the CIA had picked was surrounded by all of these old blue gums holding ear trumpets and shaking hands with some hooting crackers in creme-colored ten-gallon hats. Man, I was really down in the dumps after that but now I’ve recovered. I moved down here to write plays about ‘Git It On.’”

  “‘Git It On’?” I cried. “Why that’s the same thing I’m preparing for. Cipher X, the white BECOMINGS king, and I are doing a thing called ‘Git It On.’”

  “Cipher X,” Elijah scowled. “Man, watch that kat. Whitey is a born devil. Snakes hide in his tongue muscles.”

  “O, I don’t know, Elijah. Cipher seems to be pretty serious. He’s in his loft all day fashioning those hoopla hoops. Why, some of them hang in the American collection at the Metropolitan. He even gave me a two-hundred-dollar advance and I haven’t performed yet. Now if you’ll excuse me, Elijah, I’d like to find the super so that I can inquire about the room for rent.”

  “The super,” he said, breathing on his knuckles and rubbing them up and down his chest. “You’re looking at the super, my man. I’m the agent in this house. You see, I collect rent for a kat named Irving Gooseman and the dwarf assistant Slickhead Fopnick he got from the Urban League. Two characters the likes of which you’ll never see. Once a month they come pouring in here, all out of breath and waving a rod. A real heat. Man, those kats are always in a hurry. Then they put the money in a sack and they’re gone, quick as a flash. You should see them speeding around the corner at one hundred miles an hour in that T-Model looking as if they’d seen a ghost. And the kids and dogs and people on the street are like climbing trees and leaping into the air trying to get out of their way.

  “Anyway, I’m just the agent, kinda like a catalyst. Little does the Joo know that I’m secretly collecting milk bottles and rags as I prepare for ‘Git It On’ right under my man’s nose. See, I’m a poet down here in this artistic community, going around saying mothafuka in public by night, but by day I’m stacking milk bottles in the closet instead of taking them back to the store for the two cents deposit. That’s what you might call out-maneuvering whitey.”

  “There’s no two-cent deposit on milk bottles these days, and they’re disposable,” I said.

  “There isn’t? Well, that’s even better because Borden’s and Sealtest won’t even miss them. Hey, Bukka, you’re smart. Why don’t you help me and the brothers work on a manual for urban guerrilla warfare?”

  “I’m too busy looking for loopholes in the Nazarene manual.”

  “Bukka, don’t you know that HARRY SAM has body odor?”

  Another one, I thought, but too weary to take up the challenge, I said, “If you don’t mind, Elijah, I’m kinda tired. Would you mind showing me the room?” I followed him up the stairs.

  “By the way,” he said, looking over his shoulder, “is Fannie Mae moving down here?”

  “No,” I answered. “You see about the time Art Linkletter awarded a life supply of pigeons to these … I mean … you see, I became hoodooed and the Chinamen slashed Dr. Christian … just let’s say we broke up, Elijah.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Bukka,” he said, turning the key in the lock.

  A large sink, a chest of drawers and a closet. Atop the chest was a basin of water and a towel. There were also some Hershey-bar wrappers.

  “O, Bukka,” he said, picking up the wrappers, “the last tenant here was a transient who rented for two days. She was a former movie star and the chick was so tired that she slept the entire time. That’ll be ten bucks a week, Bukka. Pay promptly on Friday.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said, untying my bag on the top of the chest.

  “See you later, my man,” Elijah said, closing the door of the room behind him. I placed the spittoon next to the bed, the remaining Picayunes I put in my coat pocket, washed out some shorts with the gold dust twins then went to the sink and put the elbow baking soda in a glass of water. After drinking it down I looked at the gold pocket watch: it was July 5, 1945. I fell back on the bed and got a long shot of shut-eye.

  I spent the next day lying in bed and reading the Nazarene manual for loopholes and making notes in the margins. There were certain things about the doctrine that confused me. For example, the Nazarene apocalypse. What sort of commode should HARRY SAM be sitting upon? Should it be a pink plastic one or one made of mahogany? Should it be done in lavender with a beautiful ring of fur on the seat? I didn’t even want to get into the subject of tissue; that one stumped the best scholars in the movement. What about the sanitary, safe modern breeze style? This notion would certainly get me into difficulty with the conservative wing. Some of them still preferred the outhouse with the half-moon window. And others were so reactionary that they fought and broke chairs on one another’s heads at conventions over the issue of the squat method or as the kats on the block used to say, “wherever you be let your water run free.” I certainly couldn’t use dialect, as it was called. The academicians would circulate a petition:

  We refuse to sit back on our RANDS and listen to the steady erosion o
f the English language. Not since Caxton has there been such a crisis in letters. For many years now we’ve been lecturing on how Dostoyevsky ate cabbages and have tolerated (giving themselves away) the ADULTERATION of HER TONGUE. Now we feel it’s time to speak out. There will be a twilight vigil at the grave site of RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES in Spiegel Grove State Park, Fremont, Ohio. All those who feel as we do please try to be present. Buses will leave at 6:00 a.m. A potluck lunch will be prepared by the Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo. Then a community sing will be led by BENNETT CERF and BERGEN EVANS.

  So you see these were thorny and profound questions not to be taken lightly. I would have to study and study hard.

  The time had arrived for the performance. In line were the interior decorators, male nurses from the University of Rochester and the entire student body and faculty of the University of Buffalo holding surfboards, plus the mayor of that great city. Stephen Wolinski was dressed in black-and-white-checkered bow tie, a chartreuse cap, patent leather shoes, and trousers known in the forties as “cootie drapes.” The Society of Mechanical Drawers was also present and they brought along the wives of all these groups who had been posing for underground films all day. Is that all? No, wait! Hundreds of yellow cabs pull up in front of the building. It is the head of the Yellow Cab Company, a true patron of the arts, followed by his entire fleet who remove their caps in respect for KULCHUR.

  Inside the loft the people sat on newspapers which were laid about the floor. A movie projector stood in the aisle. I went into Cipher’s office.

  “Well, Bukka,” he said, doing the hoopla hoop. “Do you feel nervous?”

  “Just a little, Cipher meaning Zero,” I said. “Where do I change into my costume?”

  He slapped his hand against his forehead as the hoopla hoop slipped down around his thighs. “Can’t you learn? Look,” he said, opening the door of the office. “See that stock over there before the front row of audience?” He pointed to a stock-the kind used for punishment in the American colonies. Behind the stock and mounted on a table was a tape recorder. Standing next to the table was a roll-out movie screen. “Just go there and put your neck and wrists in that stock, there’s a pillow behind it that you can rest your knees upon. Put this gag on.” He tied a piece of cloth over my mouth, then turned me around so that I faced the stock.

  It seemed simple enough so I walked out stepping over the people in the audience as I made my way toward the stock. There was scattered applause. I put my neck and hands through the stock and knelt on the pillow. The stock clamped shut. I looked worriedly at Cipher who only stood in the door of the office with his arms folded and his legs apart. He was immobile in his dark glasses. I tried to wriggle out of the stock making muffled cries through the gag for help. A movie projector showed athletes jumping over hurdles at the 1936 German Olympics. The audience didn’t seem to hear me. They were busily exchanging cogent comments.

  “Do you think it’s Christ hanging off the cross?” whispered a businessman who had made a fortune in pot holders.

  “No, I was reading Jessie Weston the other day and it’s all about yams,” replied a hairdresser from the East Bronx.

  The door of the loft swung open. And the taxi dancers from the BUCK-RABBIT CLUB and their aviation executive escorts moved to one side as a robot with stroboscopic lights for eyes moved around the loft. The newspapers rustled while on the screen the Hitlerjugend marched past the dictator, proudly displaying flags. Finally after rolling about the floor the robot stood before me. It opened a panel in its chest and removed a baseball. It then threw the baseball into my face. In rapid succession it removed baseballs and threw them at me and red lumps began to rise on my face. I looked, eyes imploringly, to Cipher X for relief but he simply stood quietly in the door inspecting the stock, screen and robot. The tape recorder switched on.

  WHITEY YOU DIE TOMORROW RIGHT AFTER BREAKFAST AND IF YOU DON’T DIE THEN CHOKING ON YOUR WAFFLES DON’T BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF AND SAY THANK GOD FOR BUFFERIN ’CAUSE THAT WILL ONLY MEAN THAT YOU WILL MEET YOUR MAKER COME THE VERY NEXT DAY. HEAH THAT. HEAH THAT, WHITEY, ON THE NEXT SUNNY DAY YOU WILL MEET YOUR DEMISE, YOU BEASTS CREATURES OF THE DEEP. ’CAUSE YOU CAN’T HOLD UP A CANDLE TO US VIRILE BLACK PEOPLE. LOOK AT THAT MUSCLE. COME ON UP HERE CHARLIE AND FEEL THAT MUSCLE. IF YOU DON’T WATCH OUT WE WILL BREAK INTO THOM MCAN’S TOMORROW AND STEAL ALL THE SHOES. HEAH THAT, ANIMALS. TOMORROW NIGHT AT FIFTY-NINE SECONDS PAST EIGHT EVERY LAST PAIR OF MOCCASINS WILL BE CONE. COME ON, STEP ACROSS THAT LINE. STEP ACROSS THAT LINE AND KNOCK OFF THAT CHIP. …

  The robot swallowed the baseballs on the floor and quickly exited. The clamps snapped away from my neck and hands. The projector was turned off. Cipher X ran from the office door to the stock to thunderous applause. I could not believe it, the audience was applauding its own doom. I gazed out through my puffy eyelids, as the audience stood on its feet cheering us. Cipher lifted me from the stock and hand in hand we bowed to the audience from side to side. A man crawling on his hands and knees slid up to me followed by a pack of reporters. He dropped his pad from his teeth and with a pencil between his toes began to ask me questions.

  He was J. Lapp Swine, jazz critic from the Deformed Demokrat. He tugged my pants cuffs and asked, “How does it feel to have all that rhythm, Mr. Doopeyduk? Tell me, huh? Won’tcha please? Won’tcha?”

  Cipher X threw up his hands and said, “Be patient, fellows. I’ll answer all your questions in my news conference.” He took me by the elbows—the fuken elbow grabber with sterling high cheekbones—and escorted me through the throng of well-wishers toward his office. We had difficulty getting through. The Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo with a surfboard tied to his back and a long petition hanging from his hands accosted us.

  “Mr. Doopeybuk and Cipher X,” he said, his wife on his arm. “We’re just crazy about BECOMINGS and HOOPLA HOOPS and LOOPHOLES. Why just last week my wife and I rushed to the A&P and bought nineteen of those big black beauties. And just because we’re way up there in Buffalo which is eighty per cent Polish-American doesn’t mean that we don’t keep up with what’s happening in NOWHERE. Why, we read the Deformed Demokrat each week, religiously.”

  Cipher shoved the man aside and continued toward the office. “Sir, Mr. Doopeyduk and I have to go into my office to relax. The performance was truly exhausting,” Cipher lisped.

  But the man kept talking. “We just thought that you might want to sign this petition concerning the erosion and bastardization of the tongue!”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Cipher answered, fluttering his eyelids. “I’m neutral in all things. Besides I have a very nice soft and juicy tongue, so there,” Cipher said, sticking out his tongue at the man and continuing toward the office.

  The man and his wife went back to the mayor, Stephen Wolinski, who standing in the corner asked, “Did he say anything about da snowplows and da bombed-out swimming pools?”

  Inside the office Cipher pulled the gag off my mouth and then I BLEW MY COOL.

  “WHADDAYA MEAN PUTTIN’ ME UP THERE WITH THEM BASEBALLS KNOCKING ME FACELESS AND THEM CRAZY SPEECHES AND STUFF? YOU TRYIN’ TO GET ME BUMPED OFF OR SOMETHIN’? WHY I GOT A GOOD MIND TO HIT YOU RIGHT SMACK IN THE KISSER!”

  “Cutey poo,” he said, prancing about the office, the tips of his left and right hands touching. “Sweetheart. Dearest. I’m completely pooped from the BECOMING! You were so absolutely adorable,” he said, “come here. Let me puck you one on the cheek. Let me grease your palm,” he said, applying some Vaseline to my palm which had been bruised. As a Nazarene apprentice I was completely disarmed in the face of such kindness.

  “ALL RIGHT, BUT YOU’D BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHIN’ GOOD, BUDDY.”

  “Do come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss the BECOMING,” he said.

  “All right. I yield to art this time, but tomorrow I want a full-dress review of this thing.”

  I walked down the steps into the streets. Just as I stepped into the
area in front of the loft, someone whispered from the shadows. “Psssssssssst, Bukka Doopeyduk, Bukka Doopeyduk. Come over here.”

  I walked over to the figure standing in the corner.

  “Look, Bukka,” the figure said. “Dose people over there told me dat you knew where I could get some snowplows and some cement. See dim Chinamens came into Williamsville and Snyder last week and bombed out all da swimmin’ pools?”

  “I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t help you,” I told the mayor of Buffalo, Stephen Wolinski. “I know that it is an inconvenience and all, but I got troubles of my own.”

  I left the mayor of Buffalo looking like a sad sack as he walked holding out the insides of his pockets toward the student and faculty delegation who stood next to sight-seeing buses looking disappointed. I was surrounded by fans holding autograph pads. BECOMINGS’ followers were standing deep in front of the buildings discussing the performance. Ratner’s was filled to capacity.

  The next morning I ran out of the house and returned with an armful of newspapers. I nearly fainted dead away when I read the headlines in the ny teeth.

  ACTOR CALLS FOR GUERRILLA WARFARE AGAINST SAM.

  CALLS DICTATOR A BARN BURNER.

  POPE GIVES UP AS BINGO CRISIS ESCALATES. TAKE THE GODDAMNED CARDS, WEARY PONTIFF SAYS.

  CHINESE ESCAPE THROUGH DUMBWAITER.

  M/NEIGHBOR AND NOSETROUBLE DEMAND PARLEY ON MISSING TOTS.

  I put on my shoes and rushed downstairs to the telephone. I would have to call the ny teeth and get an extraction. But before I could pick up the receiver, the phone rang.

  “Mr. Doopeyduk,” a voice said. “This is Allen Hangup. I’m emceeing the controversial new Allen Hangup Show. We are going to have a discussion on how the migration of the eastern brown pelican affects the civil rights movement.”

  “Man, I don’t know nothing about no birds,” I told the kat.