Tragic Magic

by Wesley Brown

  “Otis!”

  “This is the part I like, when John Agar raps. I know it by heart. ‘Aw right, you Marines, let’s saddle up and get back in the war.’ That reminds me of that scene in The Longest Day, about the Normandy invasion, when a whole company was pinned down on Omaha Beach and would not advance. Then Robert Mitchum comes up and says, ‘There’s only two kinds of men on this beach: those who are already dead and those who are about to die. So get up off your butts and move out!’”

  “Otis, the film snapped!” I said, cutting on the lights. He cut off the projector, looked at the reams of film on the floor, and shot a defensive glance at me.

  “What the fuck you lookin at?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think I’ve flipped out, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t think that.”

  “Yes, you do, muthafucka. I ain’t stupid. Just cause you didn’t go in the service you think you better than me.”

  “That’s not true, Otis.”

  “You callin me a liar, muthafucka?” he said, rushing at me, slamming me into the wall and setting off the alarm. For the instant I was pressed against the wall, hate spit out at me from his eyes like darts. Then we stumbled and tripped our way out of the building, hunching into getaway profiles and hoisting our legs chin-high up Tenth Avenue until a police car pulled alongside of us.

  “All right, you two, hold it right there,” came the voice of one of the cops over a loudspeaker on the top of the patrol car. On the roof the red and white of a beacon chased each other in a circle as the two cops emerged from the car. They were huge hulks in blue uniforms, lumpy from overcrowded pockets. As they moved closer, their white faces showed the strain of fatigue. One stayed back a few feet while the other walked right up to us. Both had their hands within short reach of their guns.

  “What’s the hurry?” the closer one to us asked.

  “Well, Officer, it’s like this,” Otis said, “me and my friend haven’t seen each other in a long time, and we were reminiscing about the time when we used to run the mile relay in high school. My man here was third and I was anchor man. So when you saw us, we were reliving the hand-off-on-the-gun lap.”

  The cop turned around and looked at his partner, who shook his head. Turning back to us, he said, “You expect us to go for that?”

  “It’s the truth,” Otis said.

  “It may be but it ain’t good enough. You see, if you’re a cop in the streets everybody’s got a story for you. If you hear good ones, this ain’t a bad job. So we bust people according to the stories they tell. If you can’t tell a good story, you got to take a bust. Based on that first story, you two ain’t doing too good. That’s the way it is. It’s our asses if we work a whole shift without making any busts and don’t have any stories to show for the time. Most cops would rather have the stories. It makes our job easier and a lot more fun…

  “But times have changed. People seem to have lost the knack for talking their way out of trouble. So we got to make more busts. It’s a shame cause cops in every precinct in the city are starving for good stories… Now, I got a proposition for you two. We’re almost at the end of our shift and we’re tired. But we ain’t made a bust all night. You two fit a lot of descriptions and we could take you in just on that. But we’d rather hear a story. A good one this time.” Otis started to speak. “Unh, unh,” the cop cut in, “I want to hear from you this time,” he said, pointing to me.

  “Well, it’s like this,” I said. “We were running out of respect for Mantan Moreland, who used to play the chauffeur, Birmingham Brown, in all those old Charlie Chan movies. We always dug Birmingham because he knew when the plot of a whodunit thickened he couldn’t depend on his gig. So when push not only came to shove but was riding piggyback, Birmingham would say ‘Feets, do your stuff.’

  “His best movie was From the Back of the Bus to the Driver’s Seat, which was set in the Deep South. Charlie Chan and Birmingham are on a bus trip in search of two dudes named Plessy and Ferguson, who are believed to be running an organization called ‘Separate but Equal Unlimited,’ which is really a front for an international syndicate that manufactures and distributes trick bags and sleight-of-hand gadgets…

  “Plessy and Ferguson are believed to be on the bus, so in an attempt to find out who they are, Birmingham cops a squat in the front and goes into what he calls his ‘indefinite routine,’ where he talks to himself and then interrupts himself with some off-the-wall rap from a second party who is not present. This causes many whites to change their seats. In different parts of the bus are some of Birmingham’s cut buddies from the Limousine and Rickshaw Union who are disguised in whiteface. Whenever somebody white sits next to them they badmouth Birmingham for his disgraceful behavior and express their agreement with the Booker T. Washington philosophy that, in all things social, blacks and whites should be as separate as the fingers on a hand. One man finally goes for the bait and tries to interest one of the dudes in whiteface in some stock in ‘Separate but Equal Unlimited.’

  “The bust is made and the man turns out to be Plessy. At first Plessy refuses to point out Ferguson, but changes his mind when Charlie Chan threatens him with separate but unequal punishment… As Charlie Chan’s rickshaw man, Birmingham was able to expose the hype behind ‘Separate but Equal Unlimited’ because he knew that one could be in the driver’s seat and still be taken for a ride… So, at least once a day we honor Birmingham Brown by invoking his creed—‘Feets, do your stuff’—which is what we were doing when you stopped us.”

  The cop turned around to his partner again, who shrugged and shook his head up and down.

  “All right. You two can go. You definitely got a lot of shit with you. But if we catch you again you better not run the same shit on us, cause if you do, we’ll make both your faces break out into assholes!”

  “Well,” Otis said as we waited for a cab, “it looks like all that shit you learned in college finally paid off.”

  OTIS AND I DIDN’T SPEAK at all on the ride back uptown. When we got to Wells’ it was dawn. I figured Alice would be pissed by my getting there over an hour past the time I said I would meet her. Wells’ had a pretty good-size crowd made up of people who were probably still high from Friday night and had a bad case of the munchies. Alice and Pauline were in a booth in the rear of the restaurant.

  “We had just about given you two up,” Pauline said. Alice didn’t say anything; Otis sat down and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said to Alice.

  “Sorry didn’t do it,” she said. I ordered and went up to the front, put some money in the jukebox, and played a side as a way of apologizing to Alice.

  “You always let records do your talking?” Otis asked when I sat back down. “Hey, I’m talking to you, man.” I continued to ignore him. “I bet you let dudes fuck you in the ass the whole time you was in the joint.”

  “Maybe if I’d gone in the service like you, I’d be more together,” I said.

  “That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t let nobody fuck with me!”

  “When’s the last time you looked at the end of your arm?”

  “I’m still twice the man you’ll ever be. And if you don’t believe me, hit the floor, muthafucka!”

  “No thanks, Otis. I’m through playing your games.”

  “Through? Shit, you ain’t never played, chump. I carried your ass all those years. I thought there might be some more to you after you got out the joint. But you ain’t never gonna be the real thing… What I need is somebody to keep me in shape. Like that dude sitting behind you.”

  He was sitting alone, sporting a black wide-brimmed hat, broken-down ace, deuce, trey, a ruby-red suit, and rings that looked like pieces of planets. There was a worm of a scar on the side of his face that jerked when he ate.

  “He looks a lot like Slick Swanson. He probably thinks he’s slick too. I think I’ll go over and find out what he’s into.”

  “You better be c
ool, Otis.”

  “No, you be cool, punk! You’re good at it. And anyway, push ain’t gonna come to shove unless I’m the one doin the shovin.” He got up and walked over to the dude’s table.

  “Excuse me, home,” Otis said, “but has anyone ever told you, you resemble Slick Swanson, the disc jockey?”

  The dude looked up from his plate, pried some food loose from between his teeth with a fingernail, and sucked his teeth.

  “Yeah, you just did.”

  “Well, I just wanted to know if you were aware of it.”

  “Is there anything else you wanna hip me to?”

  “No, that’s about it—except do you believe that style is character?”

  “Okay, my man, I think you better raise.”

  “Hey, there’s no need to get an attitude. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, I heard you, but—” It was a slap, snapping Otis’ head around to the limit and sending him crashing into a table. I looked at Otis: We had both aspired to the same fantasies about being bad, but the humiliation twitching in his face was the reason I never had the courage of mine. The other dude’s face looked bone hard and leather tough from living in the saddle of do or die. He had sized up Otis and knew what he was capable of.

  “You said style was character, didn’t you, home? Well, let’s see some.”

  “Please, let’s not have any trouble,” the waitress pleaded.

  “Don’t worry, Mama, there ain’t gonna be no trouble. Ask him… How much do I owe you? You’re very greasy, my man, but you got a long way to slide before you get to be as slick as me,” he said on his way out.

  “Forget it, Otis,” I said, but he burned out of Wells’ like a flame sucking quickly down a fuse to a stick of dynamite. I ran after him as he moved his arms in a way that resembled the language of mutes. His legs slid at angles as if he was doing the Twist in slow motion. The other man stood at the corner rearing back on his heels, coattail flung back, his right arm cocked on his hip.

  Propelling himself toward the other man, sucking in air as he moved, Otis slammed into him and they stuck together. Then the dude stepped away and disappeared around the corner. Otis tottered and fell backward in a heap on the pavement. The flash of something metallic protruded from his stomach like a grave marker. I kneeled over him, watching his contorted face struggle to shape sounds that wouldn’t come out. His body writhed around the knife stuck in his belly. I reached for it, but my hand became spastic as my eyes fastened on the blood spreading like shade through his shirt till it hugged him skintight.

  I pushed a path through the gathering crowd of people.

  “Hey, where you going, man?”

  “He’s not the one that did it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Some dude shanked the cat.”

  “He split around the corner.”

  “Anybody call the police?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Somebody ought to call an ambulance.”

  “He’ll bleed to death before they get here.”

  “Crazy muthafucka got what his hand called for. Didn’t have no business comin at that dude the way he did.”

  “Aw, man, the dude slapped him. What would you done?”

  “I sure wouldn’t have let the dude know what I was going to do!”

  “Yeah, he should a snuck him.”

  Moving beyond the range of voices, I found myself in the midst of a group of kids.

  “You should a seen it.”

  “Yeah, it was cool, man.”

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody got stabbed trying to do some kung fu.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. The faggot-ass muthafucka didn’t even know how to do it right. If that had a been me I would a kicked that muthafucka to death. He wouldn’t a stabbed me!”

  “Aw, punk. You wouldn’t a done nothin but ran to your mama. You ain’t nothin. You let a white boy whip your ass.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said. Bringing his forearms in against his sides, he went into a squat, raised his bent right leg into a jackknife, and snapped his foot straight into the side of the other boy’s head.

  “EEEEYOWWWW!” The boy ran screaming to the curb and from the debris picked up a drained wine bottle that he broke against a fire hydrant. The shatter of the bottle moved the heat of attention from Otis to the spectacle of the two boys. The boy who had done the kicking stood his ground while the other boy advanced on him with the broken bottle. Suddenly, involuntary muscles activating me thrust me between the two boys.

  “Gimme that bottle!” I yelled, reaching for his arm. Fear and surprise detonated in his face. He swung at my hand. I snatched it back to see a stream of blood flooding between my fingers. He jabbed at me again with the bottle. I jerked away too late. But before the pain spoke from the place where I was cut, I replayed in slow motion the broken bottle pushing into my side, the give and take, and finally feeling the raggedy mouth of the wine bottle cut into me. I ran, my head thrown back, my throat gargling the screams from the street and the sirens in the distance.

  I RAN INTO A FIRE HYDRANT. Dizziness from my eyes formed a cartoon blurb above my head, filling up with diacritical marks and exclamation points.

  “You ain’t nuthin,” someone said. There was a man leaning against a pole of a bus stop sign shaking his head. “You couldn’t even take a bottle away from a kid. You ain’t nuthin but a silly-assed little mama’s boy.”

  A boy resembling me ran into a building. I followed him and knocked on a door to one of the rooms.

  “Just a minute, Melvin, I’m dressing.”

  “Mama, how come I can’t watch you when you dressing?”

  “It’s not polite for a little boy your age to watch his mother when she’s not dressed.”

  “But you see me when I’m not dressed.”

  “That’s different, Melvin. I’m your mother. I brought you into the world.”

  “Mama, when you brought me into the world was you dressed then?”

  “No, Melvin, I wasn’t.”

  “Mama, could you bring me into the world again so I could see you when you ain’t dressed?”

  “Come on in here, Melvin, and zipper me up!”

  The room was engulfed by thick grass, twigs, and high weeds. A wind bent the weeds into bows, and in the opening between, was an elderly woman wearing coveralls, white tennis sneakers, and a Brooklyn Dodger baseball cap. It was Mrs. Cotton and she was looking intently at a small patch of earth cordoned off by pegs and string.

  “Miz Cotton?”

  “I see you all set, Melvin. Well, remember what I said and do something even if you only spit.” The weeds snapped back into unstrung bows, swallowing up Mrs. Cotton.

  I made an oval shape with my hands around my mouth and yelled through the opening.

  “Whoooahhh. Whoooahhh. Whoooahhh.” Within seconds, similar cries echoed from every direction. The weeds wobbled and fell flat to the earth. About eight other boys were visible. They were all decked out in a patchwork of clothes trying to get next to Western dress.

  “Okay, let’s go!” A cap pistol was fired.

  “Hey, man, I got you in the arm.”

  “No, you didn’t. You thought you got me. Like you thought like Nelly and thought shit was jelly.”

  “See that, man. I didn’t sound on you.”

  “Aw, go suck a butt and hug a nut.”

  “Man, what’s wrong with you? I told you to watch where you swinging.”

  “I didn’t mean it. I slipped.”

  “Slip again, punk!”

  “Don’t be coughing in my face, Melvin. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I ran out of caps.”

  “You cough in my face again and I’m gonna run upside your head.”

  “But I got to cough and spit. I’m Doc Holliday.”

  “Damn, Melvin, you always got to mess up the game with some stupid shit.”

  “Y
eah, drop your gun and cover your mouth.” A chitlin-faced man was brought in on a stretcher and lifted into a highchair. He was wearing a judge’s robe that collapsed around him. When he spoke he wheezed like an asthmatic.

  “Will the defendant please step forward. Do you have anything to say on your behalf?”

  “I only coughed because I was playing Doc Holliday.”

  “That’s all well and good, Melvin, but the tradition of John Wayne requires that certain laws must be obeyed. Cowboys do not cough in each other’s faces.”

  “But I ran out of caps!”

  “That doesn’t matter. The law is the law. If you are a cowboy and you get into trouble, you use a gun. You don’t cough. Let me show you what I mean.”

  He reached into his robe and took out a spool of thread. He removed a needle from the spool and broke off a long piece of thread. He licked one end of the thread and tried to see it through the eye of the needle. The effort proved too much for him and he fell back in his highchair exhausted.

  “Se-eee what I mean? The laws of nature have rendered their verdict on my body, and I must have the serenity to accept them.”

  “But what’s coughing got to do with that?”

  “Coughing your way out of trouble is going against the laws of cowboys. And they must be accepted just like the laws of nature.

  “Your behavior makes it clear to the court that you are in need of corrective detention. Your coughing and spitting are clear signs of your inability to make the appropriate responses during the rites of manhood.”

  “But it was the appropriate response for Doc Holliday.”

  “I’m sorry but I have no alternative but to sentence you to three years of hard labor at the state camp for fucking and fighting. During your term of incarceration you will be trained in the fine art of close-order knuckle drill, since the court believes that before you can fuck, you have to be able to fight. Parole will depend on your progress in performing satisfactorily in each of these two categories. The court usually grants the defendant the right to speak after sentencing, but your conduct thus far leads the court to suspect that something other than words will come from your mouth. Take him away!”