by Wesley Brown
I was led to a door which had printed on it: WOLF TICKETS AND ASS KICKING. The room was packed with men of the hard-headed and backbutted variety. Two dudes were in the center of the room louding each other. One of them was Otis.
“So what’s your problem, man?
“I ain’t got no problem. You got the problem.”
“What’s my problem?”
“Me, if you keep fucking with me!”
“Punk, you ain’t gonna do nuthin but leave me alone.”
“You believe that shit if you want to, but if I put hands on you, I’m takin your life!”
“Okay,” Otis said, “this is an example of the proper way to sell a wolf ticket. Now, I’d like two more volunteers to try it.” Chilly stepped forward. “Is there anyone else? What about you?”
“I just got here,” I said.
“Well, there’s no time like the present. Remember, he who hesitates is dead.” The circle of men tightened around us, and Chilly bumped my shoulder.
“Hey, man, why don’t you watch where you goin?” he said.
“I was watching where I was going,” I said. “It’s just that when such a frail-ass muthafucka like you walks down the street sideways I just automatically mark him absent.”
“Awwww, SHIT!”
“Talk about him!”
As I turned my head to acknowledge the acclamation, something plunged into my chest and sucked back. In Chilly’s hand was a pulsating mass of dripping tissue.
“I told you, you ain’t nuthin. I snatched your heart out. And it don’t even pump blood. It pumps Kool-Aid!”
“The chump don’t have no heart!”
“Fuck him up!”
“Waste his ass!”
Guards whisked me out of there to another room. Behind a desk was a dude cut from a Sonny Liston mold.
“You have a problem, Ellington?”
“What’s that?”
“You’re off to a bad start in becoming a bronze buckaroo.”
“I thought I sold a pretty good wolf ticket.”
“Yeah, but all that’s nullified when you let someone take your heart away from you. The value of a wolf ticket is having the heart to back it up. The baddest dudes usually don’t have to do any more than sell the ticket.”
“So what do I do now?”
“Well, the first thing is to get your heart back.”
“How do I do that?”
“We put you in an arena with other dudes in your position. Then we turn out the lights and y’all commence to throwing hands.”
“But what does that prove?”
“It proves that in the dark the ones who kick ass are those who bring the most ass.”
“What happens if I don’t bring enough ass?”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s a poor ass that can’t take an ass-whipping anyway. So you can still get your heart back if you can do like a Timex watch and take a licking but keep on ticking. Now get out a here and let the doorknob hit where the good Lord split you!”
I waited in a den before being sent out to do battle with the rest of the heartless dudes.
A voice came over a loudspeaker.
“All right, everybody, it’s time to bring ass. Just remember: the sweet smell of success comes from exposing somebody else’s stink. Nobody will ever kiss your ass unless you kick theirs first. So let’s see some decayed rump when the lights come up. Remember to keep in mind that all we’re trying to do is prepare you for a world where nobody accidentally bumps into anyone else.” The hatch to the den opened. There were hundreds of us in the arena.
“YOU GOT TO BRING ASS TO GET ASS!”
And then total darkness, followed by crazed shrieks, a stampede of hoofbeats, the crunch of bodies colliding, and blows backed up by grunts. I got caught in the height of someone’s hitting streak, and fists spit into me without letup. Somehow I managed to drag myself to a neutral zone. A light shone on me and moved to my behind.
“Is his ass grass?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it Kentucky Blue?”
“No, it looks more like crab to me.”
“All right. Bring him along.”
“Hey, looka here. It’s the spade whose heart pumps Kool-Aid. What you got to say for yourself?”
“Well, the Chinese say that of the thirty-six ways of avoiding trouble, running is the best.”
“Yeah, it figures that you’d be the first one to escape the scene of the action. And since you were the first to get away, we’re going to parole you. But it will go down on your record that you were released because of your skill in evasive action.”
I was picked up, and after a few warm-up tosses, thrown into a pool full of people being baptized. I was dunked until those giving the sacrament figured I was ready to enter my new church home. I was given a standing ovation. An apple-butter-brown man in ministerial robes with hair laid to his scalp like patent leather motioned me to the front of the church. My folks, Debra, Alice, Pauline, Otis, and Chilly were among the many packing the pews.
“At this time, we’d like to welcome our illustrious brother back among us and present him with a token of our appreciation for what he has done.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We know you are modest, Melvin, but we heard the splendid reports of your work while you were away. And these have led us to the conclusion that in the future the sawdust from your good works will become a lasting residue in the nation’s eyes, ears, nose, and throat. So, in recognition of the work you’ve done thus far, and as a testament to our confidence that you will continue the work you have begun, I would like, on behalf of everyone here, to present you with this hammer!”
The applause was deafening.
“Say something appropriate,” the preacher whispered.
“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t make a long speech, but at this very moment I have an appointment to see a man about some lumber that will help to realize the work for which you are honoring me today. Thank you!”
Nodding to the congregation and the minister, I slipped out a side door that led to a courtyard bordered by tenements sagging from the weight of clothes hanging from clotheslines. In an alley leading away from the courtyard a man was sitting on a milk crate playing a guitar.
“I’m a MAN!/ M, man, / A, a child, / N, non-spoiled! / I’m a MAANNN!” When he saw me, he stopped playing.
“Excuse me, I want to ask you about that song you were singing.”
“I can’t tell you nuthin bout it.”
“But maybe if you could—”
“I can’t do nuthin with your maybes, ifs, and supposes. You got to pay your own fare when you in the tragic magic.” He got up and walked toward the back entrance of one of the buildings.
“Wait a minute!” I said, running after him. But he disappeared into the building. I tried to find an alley that led to the street. Then, from a space between one of the buildings, a boy came through carrying an open switchblade. There was a sharp pain in my left side. I touched it and my shirt was saturated with blood. I took my hand away and it began to throb with pain. I looked at it and there was a deep gash in my palm caked with blood. The boy moved on me. I turned to run but tripped. And he was on top of me with the switchblade poised over my face.
“You couldn’t even take a bottle away from a kid.” My focus on the blade shifted to where the voice came from. It was Chilly. “You know what I’m going to do for you, punk? I’m gonna let you see what your face looks like. Okay, peel off his face!”
I screamed in time to feel the sharp steel tug against the side of my jaw, but never saw the blade do its work as blood ran into my eyes.
“You got the face?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“All right. Give it to me.”
“What do you mean, give it to you?”
“Just what I said.”
“Unh, unh. It’s mine.”
“No, it’s not. It’s his. Now, either you give it to me or I’ll take yours!”<
br />
“Shit!”
“Melvin?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Hardknocks. Everything is cool, but whatever you do, don’t open your eyes till I tell you.”
“What happened to my face?”
“It’ll be all right. But Chilly had that kid peel it to the bone. If he could have, he would’ve recast your mug in a mold to suit himself.”
“Where’s Chilly now?”
“He split… Now, dig this. I got your face heating up in a frying pan. But before I pour it back over your skull, I’m gonna hip you to a few ways of looking at yourself. Now, imagine that your mug is an egg, and think about all the different ways of fixing it. For example, soft-boiled is always hip-hugging for any mug, especially if you want to be together in a jiffy. Only thing is, you can’t let folks get too close cause the slightest bump will crack your shell and show you as the raw recruit you are.
“Then there’s hard-boiled. Now, that’s a good shingle for the mug. Folks could peel you back from now on and never get to you. But then your bark would be so tough there might not be nuthin left of you. You could decide to leave your sunny side up and keep out of sight for a while with your once over light. And then, of course, there’s the meanest mug breakout of all—scrambled. When you’re scrambled, you can use a spatula and try to take the best from all the ways of fixing your face and risk being a little bit of everything.
“So what’s it gonna be, Melvin? Sometimes you can’t save the face and spare the ass at the same time. But whatever your face is gonna be, you decide. That way there’s no squawk at bust-a-yolk time. Uh-oh, your mug’s giving me uppity signs. Let me put it back. Don’t move now. Just lie still.”
I moaned as the hot flesh and blood splashed back into the hollow recesses of my skull. I felt my face cook to the bone tissue and stick into place. And as the juices of flesh and bone cooled, they turned to sweat, streaming over my face. I was delirious within the wet heat of my sweat when a lyric from a woman’s voice broke my fever.
Oh, they say some people long ago
were searching for a different tune,
one that they could croon
as only they can.
They only had the rhythm so
they started swaying to and fro.
They didn’t know just what to use
so that is how the bluuuues
really
really
really, began…
I OPENED MY EYES to blurred images. I blinked repeatedly, and as my vision sharpened I could make out a large chalk-covered figure hovering over me. Searching the whiteness, I found a bush of hair the color of ash, a bean-pie-complexioned face punctured by sleepy liquid eyes with thick lids, cheeks, a chin, and a mouth grizzly with black hair flecked with gray.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in the emergency ward of Harlem Hospital. You’ve been in shock from loss of blood. You were delirious when you were brought in here, and I had to give you a shot to calm you down. Your wounds have been dressed. You’ll be all right. Just don’t try to move around too much.”
“How long have I been here?” I raised myself up on the bed and winced as I felt some pain within the tightness of the bandages on my left side. My right palm also throbbed with pain and I noticed that it, too, was heavily bandaged.
“You’ve been here over an hour.”
“Who are you?”
‘”I’m Doctor Blue.”
“Where’s Otis? What happened to him? Is he all right?”
“Your friend didn’t make it.”
I tried to summon something up from inside of me but nothing came. “Did they catch the dude who did it?”
“I don’t think so. The police want to question you about the man who stabbed your friend and also about what happened to you. The people that were with you are also here, and your family has been contacted. But I told the police I’d let them know when you could talk to them. I don’t want you to have too much excitement all at once. I think you’ve had enough for one night.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, my reasons are not entirely medical.”
“Oh, no?”
“I wanted to talk to you. You interest me.”
“Why is that?”
“Do you have any idea how many stabbings and gunshot wounds I treat every weekend?”
I shook my head.
“They’re too many to count. But no matter how many dudes come through here, the reasons are always the same: money, pride, or a woman. To keep my sanity, I play a little game where I look at the wounds of every dude I treat and try to guess what category he falls under. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Your friend was no problem. I guessed him right away. A simple case of trying to hide fear behind foolish pride. But you’re a little more difficult. I haven’t yet figured out what your problem is. Did you really try to take a bottle away from a kid?”
“Yeah, I tried.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t stop Otis from getting himself killed. I guess I figured I could stop those kids.”
“Just because they were kids?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You guess! Don’t you know?”
“Hey, look, Doctor Blue. I really don’t feel like being psychoanalyzed, okay?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get on your case. I get a little carried away with my game sometimes. You can split if you want to.”
I slid down off the bed slowly. On the counter next to the coatrack was a turntable with a stack of records on it. “You play music in here?”
“You better believe it! Those sides keep me from becoming completely numb. Look, Ellington, I don’t want to get in your business, but did you just get out of jail yesterday?”
“Yeah. Who told you?”
“One of the women you were with, named Alice.”
“I guess you know what I was doing time for, too.”
“Yeah, she told me about that. But what I can’t understand is why you didn’t cool out at home your first day out. Couldn’t wait to get some pussy, eh? Yeah, I can dig it.”
“Oh, you can, hunh? Well, tell me about it!”
“Oh, excuse me. I forgot. You’re one of those cats who are willing to go to jail for a principle. And you’d never allow something as counterrevolutionary as pussy to even enter your mind… But tell me, Melvin, why didn’t you go into the service?”
“I didn’t feel I had anything to fight for.”
“Look, don’t tell me what you read in a book. Tell me your own reasons for not going in.”
“I guess I just didn’t understand how the army had a right to decide when I should put my life on the line.”
“Do you always refuse to do something you don’t understand?”
“It depends on what it is. And when it comes to my life, I figure I should have the final say on what I will or won’t do.”
“Well, tell me this, then. Did you think you were putting your life on the line when you grabbed that kid with the bottle?”
“I didn’t really think about it.”
“Your friend Otis didn’t think about what he was doing either. And now he’s dead.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Only that neither of you did very much thinking last night. The difference is that you came out alive. But only because you were dealing with kids.”
“Yeah, but it was my choice.”
“Then it was a bullshit choice.”
“Hey, you don’t know anything about me!”
“Maybe not, but I bet I’m close.”
I leaned back against the bed to steady myself.
“Sit down on the bed for a minute,” he said.
“Leave me alone!” I said, knocking his arm away. “You must really dig taking people apart.”
“Hey, why not? I don’t get any satisfaction trying to put them back together. Every weekend people come through here wasted. And for shit that don’t even matter.
And that’s the funny part. When you get right down to it, none of it really matters. Hey, I want you to listen to something.”
He went through a stack of records, found the one he was looking for, and put it on the turntable.
“I play this for people I treat who I figure can profit from it. It’s a Miles Davis tune called So What. And that’s the advice I give: that ultimately you should be able to say ‘so what’ to just about anything. That things really don’t matter… Listen to this.”
The opening statement of the theme by a full orchestra speaks of bad news, and the bass whispers, “Did you hear that?” The reeds and the wind instruments, backed up by the piano, loud the bass like it ain’t no big thing. “So what.” The bass is put out by the way everybody ganged up on him but takes it out on the keyboard, saying, “Hey, man, I just thought I’d pull your coat, but since you wanna get the ass I’m gonna sic Miles on you.” And Miles comes on out the side of his mouth with licks that say, “Let me tell you about yourself, sucker.” Miles’ tricky-lipping slurs pose as threats, but the piano is insistent on the comeback chord: “I don’t want to hear it. ‘So what.’” Miles shapes his rap into spitting fancy lipwork, but the piano player is right back on time with an answer: “You don’t understand…” “So what!” “Did you hear about…” “So what!” Miles feints and styles, then blows: “Well, later for you too, then, chump.” And you hear the brass knuckles rattling in his tone as the tenor man is all up in the face of the refrain, “So what!” His solo is a wolf ticket signifying behind the dozens, with a little of my father talking mean through teeth and biting down on his lower lip. The tenor man takes his solo out, murder-mouthing the “so what” piano chord. The bass line reenters the rap, giving a synopsis of the theme with fat plucks on the string. But the piano man ain’t impressed, saying, in so many words, “Yeah, I hear you, but ain’t nobody put their hands on me.” So the answer is still “So What,” with the ax men going along with the piano man’s chord… So what… So what… So what…
“You understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Yeah, I guess so. But that’s like saying nothing matters.”
“Nothing does.”
“Some things matter.”
