Reckless Eyeballing

by Ishmael Reed

  “I went through your coat pocket. That’s where I found the names and telephone numbers of Christian women you’ve been screwing all over Europe. Now you two get on your knees. Get their guns, Otto.” (Delighted, the audience applauds. Otto goes over and takes Hitler’s gun.)

  “Please don’t shoot. Why, I’m the savior of the German nation, the German nation is like…well…a bride to me.”

  “And so you treated her like your other women. Destroyed her because she couldn’t measure up to your mother.” (Otto grins.) She fires shots into Hitler, after each one reciting a specific crime. “This is for tortured France. This is for ravished Poland. This is for maimed Czechoslovakia. This is for Mother Russia. This is for all of the women you’ve ruined…my sisters.” (The audience is on its feet applauding, hooting, cheering, and the two women sharing a table with Ball stare at Ball, menacingly. Come to think of it, he’s the only man in attendance.)

  “Please don’t shoot me,” the priest says. “It was his fault. He made me do it. He made all of us follow him. He swayed us with his brilliant oratory and mesmerized us with pageants and fireworks, he somehow managed to tap into our collective un—” (Eva kills the priest with one shot.)

  “Go warm up the car, Otto, I’ll be right with you.” (Otto exits. Eva walks over to where a fur coat is hanging and removes it. She puts the coat over her slip and picks up a packed suitcase. She pauses. She puts it down. She places the gun in the hand of Hitler’s corpse. She goes to the dresser and picks up a lighter. She pours some of the fluid on Hitler’s body. She throws a match and flames begin to cover his body. She walks over and removes Hitler’s mother Klara’s picture from the wall, and throws it to the floor where it crashes. She calmly walks offstage as the audience goes nuts.)

  20

  Ball decided to get out before the crush. He walked down the deserted halls until he came to Becky’s office. The door was open. He decided to sit down at Ickey’s desk until it was time to return to the basement workshop. What? On top of Ickey’s desk was a newsletter called Lilith’s Gang, “a publication for feminists in the culture industry.” On the first page was THE SEX LIST! Next to each male writer’s name was a column that included the offense he’d committed. There were names of black as well as white male writers. He recognized some of the names. Floyd Salas. “Author of a poem entitled ‘Pussy Pussy Everywhere,’ in which he proposes that women lure men using furtive means.” John A. Williams. “Author of book entitled, ! Click Song, Tremonisha says that this book glorifies mixed marriages. Our people in subsidiary rights assure us that this book will never reach paperback.” Cecil Brown. “Said in an article that ‘there are as many female Hitlers as male Hitlers, and probably even more.’ If he ever returns to the States we’ll keep an eye on him.” Next to Randy Shank and Jake Brashford’s names was written “incorrigible.” “Shank we understand is having hard times, but it will take time to reduce Brashford’s reputation since he is supported by many aging white males of the modernist persuasion. They still have power, but within ten years most of them will be dead.” He scanned the list for his name. Ian Ball. “Has shown improvement after that terribly sexist Suzanna. He’s also a southerner and is not as bitter and as paranoid about women as some of his northern soul brothers. With this issue we’re removing him from the sex list mainly as a result of Tremonisha’s recommendation.” Ball almost leaped out of Ickey’s chair, he was so happy. If he had been close to Tremonisha at that moment he would have hugged and kissed her.

  He heard voices coming down the hall. Eva’s Honeymoon must have been almost over. He opened the door to Becky’s office part of the way, to see who was approaching. The old lady was being helped down the hall by her chauffeur. If the two had looked toward Becky’s office they would have seen a lone gray eye staring at them.

  “I hope, madame, that this will be your last exercise in folly,” the chauffeur said.

  “Oh, don’t be angry with me, Otto,” she said, patting the arm that was aiding her. “I’ve always wanted the world to know. To know my side. What really happened.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry, they can’t trace it to me.”

  “It’s just dangerous, madame, don’t you think?”

  “We’ve been together for forty years now. You can trust me. I know that you couldn’t trust the others, but you can trust me. Trust me, Otto. This will be the last of my creative efforts. I promise. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to dance on the grave of that son of a bitch. It’s been forty years.” They walked past where Ball was standing behind the door. When the coast was clear he headed down the stairs toward the basement where his workshop was probably ending. He stood outside the door, and heard Ham Hill’s defense lawyer summing up the defense for the jury.

  “Something is wrong with Cora Mae. You see, white people can’t own you anymore, so they try to own you with their eyes. They can’t punch you anymore without getting harmed, so they try to punch you with their eyes. They try to control you. Nigger, what are you doing here, we don’t want you here, they are saying to you with their eyes. Years ago it was the lynch rope. Now it’s the rude stare. They look at you in airports, in restaurants. They stare at you like they’re not used to anything.” He could see some of the black women on the jury following Ball’s directions (“as she is saying this the black jury members nod their approval”). “They’ve been accusing the blacks and Jews of owning the evil eye when they are the ones with the evil in their eyes. So here is this young boy, Ham Hill, minding his own business when this…this…vixen intrudes upon his space, glares at him with lust in her eyes, and when he pays no attention accuses him of reckless eyeballing, causing her husband and his friends to lynch the lad until he is dead.” He could hear Cora Mae yell out, “No. It’s not true.”

  “And twenty years after this child has been murdered, she comes along and says that what he did to her was similar to what her husband and that lynch mob did to Ham Hill. Now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that the most air-headed thing you ever heard of?” Cora’s attorney says, “I object, your honor.” While the audience laughed, Ball walked away from the door and got a drink from the bartender, who was dressed in white jacket, black bow tie. He asked for a gin and tonic.

  Who knows, he might luck up tonight, he thought. The bartender mixed his drink. “Looks like a hit, Mr. Ball. Congratulations.” Ball smiled and sat at the stool of the bar, which had been set up in the lobby. He slowly imbibed. He could tell by the loud cheers and screams that the lawyer’s speech was over. God, he was getting nervous. He went outside and walked around the block. When he returned he went back to the workshop space and listened in at the door. Cora Mae’s lawyer was making her closing statement to the judge and jury.

  “And when she felt his hot and dirty eyes on her she felt as though the scum of the world was taking an X-ray of her body. The men in this country think that all of the women are available to them, and so they use their eyes to scout in the same way that a predator stalks its prey. And though my distinguished opponent argues that Mr. Hill’s only crime was that of having his eyes in the wrong place at the wrong time, I disagree. This man knew what his eyes were doing. He was raping her, in a manner of speaking, ladies and gentlemen. No, he didn’t struggle with her or molest her with his hands; he did it with his eyes. He undressed her with his eyes. He accosted her with his eyes, he penetrated her with his eyes. He eyeraped her, ladies and gentlemen. For him, all she was was a cunt.” Ball walked over to the bar and had another drink. He sat there for about ten minutes. Suddenly, there was wild applause mixed with a few boos. The people began to pour from the theater. They began to collect in the lobby and almost immediately the well-wishers came up and shook his hand, the ordinary black and white everyday people, that is. They had obviously enjoyed themselves. Even some feminists he’d seen on the art scene from time to time, including a few who’d given him problems in some of these little fly-by-night drama magazines, were congratulating him. The New Yor
k black avant-garde was leaning against the wall, grumbling, their jaws all tight. The men were dressed in an unorthodox way, anything to be different, and the women were wearing bizarre attire. There was this tall one who looked like she always wanted to fight and was always writing articles cussing white folks out, and would go up to Harlem and denounce the brothers who were with Anne—the American white woman—but next night she’d be in one of the downtown lesbian clubs dancing with Anne. The fellas said that this must have meant that she wanted to have all of the white women for herself. A bunch of backbiters and verbal scorpions, still back there with Malcolm X and John Coltrane when everybody knew that the greatest black militant they’d produced was Koffee Martin, who was from the South. Anyway, if they really wanted to embrace some politically far out position, let them go and mix it up with Pol Pot or the cynical and mean regime that runs Ethiopia.

  This snit, who in his books was always dusting this politically incorrect person or that backslider and traitor, came toward Ball, leaving his group against the wall sulking. He rudely pushed through the crowd of well-wishers, and when he got to where Ball was standing he said: “White women elected Ronald Reagan, twice.” Ball stamped his foot. The little fellow scampered back to his friends, to the amusement of the people who were gathered about Ball. A feminist came up and elbowed her way through the people who were telling him how great he was.

  “Mr. Ball. I have an apology to make,” she said.

  “What apology, Ms.?”

  “I was chairperson of women’s studies at a small obscure university in Cincinnati and…” She broke down; it took a few seconds for her to regain her composure. “One of my students wanted to write a dissertation on your plays and I—I.”

  “Go on,” Ball said.

  “I turned her down. I said that you were a notorious sexist even though I hadn’t seen any of your work.” Ball smiled and put his arm around her. She began crying on his chest.

  “I understand,” he said. “Sometimes we feel that our goals are so righteous, so necessary for the benefit of personkind, that we in our haste make mistakes that we later regret. Don’t give it a second thought.” The people gathered around murmured their approval. A woman whose shape revealed her to be a lover of animal fat and starches stepped forward.

  “Me too, me too,” she said. Ball and his admirers turned to her. “Do you remember a few years ago when you tried to get a one-acter staged at the theater I ran, and you got turned down? It was my fault. Now that I’ve seen Reckless Eyeballing, I feel so…so…I feel so bad.” She too broke down and began sobbing like an infant. Ball had his arms about each in his attempt to console the two women. Suddenly a loud challenge came from the top of the stairs leading to the restrooms. “Ian. You ain’t nothin’ but a gangster and a con artist.” It was Brashford—Ball and the people with him were shocked as Brashford began to descend the stairs. Uh oh, Ball thought. Brashford was going to imitate James Mason’s drunken entrance in A Star Is Born. This classic beauty, a woman some would describe as “olive skinned,” started up the stairs toward him and grabbed his arm. She was dressed in a black silk dress and wore some fine jewelry. She could not deter Brashford, who kept walking down the stairs and behaving like a Cossack in a succoth, as Isaac Babel would say.

  “Tricking these people. You ain’t nothin’ but a trickologist with your fuzzy quick lines. You mischievous malicious bastard.”

  “Come on, dear,” the woman said. He yanked his elbow from her grip and waved her away. “Ain’t no way in the world for a jury to bring in a verdict of guilty against that corpse. In the version you gave me he’s acquitted, after a confession from Cora Mae that she realized that she and the boy were in the same boat. Fellow sufferers. They made you change it. These vain, conniving bitches made you do it.” The two feminists that Ball had been comforting glared at Brashford, and some of the patrons who remained to congratulate Ball looked at Brashford with utter disgust. The woman with Brashford said, “Dear.”

  “You keep out of it,” he said. He wore a light blue suit that must have cost a grand and one of those Mike Hammer hats, which slid about his head as he came down the stairs. He also wore one of those British coats that intellectuals of the fifties favored. It was kind of like part of the existentialist’s uniform. Camus wore one like it. It had shoulder straps, pockets, belts, and other features of little discernible use. A couple of Brashford’s old-time liberal buddies, now neo-conservatives, who’d written little and had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the major intellectual, political and cultural trends of Europe only to be disillusioned time and again, started up the stairs to try to restrain their friend, the only colored in their club.

  He punched the two, who already seemed out on their feet, and they fell down the stairs. The effort had placed Brashford off balance also, and he came tumbling down. Their friends helped them up, and Brashford sat up on the bottom stair, pulled a flask from his suit pocket, and took a long swig of something. He made a grunt, offending some of the first-nighters.

  “I’m your literary father, you shit. And look at what you’ve done to me. A pitiful old man who has only one play to his name. But you wait. I’ll show you. Wait until my masterpiece about the Armenians is staged. Lengthy Struggle Toward the Borders of Darkness. It’s about this alcoholic father, see, with these two sons, who are real losers, and the mother, well she’s a hophead and injects herself offstage—and…and…” Some of the people started to leave. Others shook their heads in sadness.

  “These bitches had better not touch my play. Fucking twats. They hate the black man worst of all because they’re sleeping with these other guys and are afraid to take a shot at them. Shit. Hey, that’s not bad. I’m beginning to miss the old days when you were just hated because you were black.” He began to laugh at his own joke. Others began to leave. He shouted after them.

  “Hey. Where you going? Would you like to see a little ham bone?” He pulled up his trench coat and began to slap his thighs rhythmically. He began to sing some lewd choruses of the song “Mama Don’t Allow,” offending people with every dirty stanza. He finally reached the chorus: “Mama don’t allow no Playboy reading in here/Mama don’t allow no Playboy reading in here/We don’t care what the Mama don’t allow we going to read our Playboy anyhow,” whereupon a few grim-faced feminists had stood all they were going to stand, and stormed out. A security guard finally came and told Brashford to leave. Brashford got up and tried to take a swing at the security guard, but the guard caught his arm, and brought it behind his back. The Mike Hammer hat fell to the floor. Somebody picked it up and followed the security guard and Brashford out of the theater. The people who had remained turned to Ball.

  “This should be a night of victory, of triumph for me, but instead my heart is heavy. You all know how much I love Brashford. He befriended me after I wrote a long panegyric about him in the Downtown Mandarin in which I expressed my thanks to Brashford that the younger generation had such a fabulously endowed genius such as Jake to serve as our role model. That one play that he wrote, The Man Who Was an Enigma, though badly structured and containing some clumsy surrealistic passages and perhaps the most blatant example of author intrusion on record since the protagonist’s life pretty much paralleled that of Jake’s and in which the female characters are simply sexist and, well, I must have counted about forty mixed metaphors, served as a beacon for aspiring playwrights. But don’t be so hard on Brashford for his behavior tonight. Remember him at his best as well as at his worst. Remember the good times as well as the bad. And don’t be so hard on his generation. Those old men. All of their gods have failed, in a manner of speaking. As for what he said about me. Look, I’ve found that in this business people are going to say things and if I have raised antagonism, so be it, for that’s what one gets when one tells the truth as one sees it.” The two feminists who had wrongly attempted to censor his work cried even harder. They were embracing each other. From others came shouts of “hear, hear.” There were congratulations all around.
People were commenting on his magnanimity as they exited from the theater. He decided to take a little stroll backstage to see if the actors and actresses had left. There was one woman left. She had played Cora Mae’s lawyer. She was undressing, and she had one foot up on a bench; she was removing her stockings and shoes.

  “Oh, excuse me,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s all right.” She began pulling a dress over her slip. He had a chance to examine her hips, which didn’t have any excess, and her legs—her beautiful legs. If she was a piano she’d probably be a Baldwin. A piano that his hands and fingers could, well, play beautiful music upon. She slipped into another dress. It was expensive and showed good taste. She turned to him and smiled when she saw him standing there, fascinated. They let their eyes do all of the talking and maybe later other parts of their anatomy would be communicating, that is, if he was lucky. The gin made him feel lucky. She finally said, “Aren’t you going to the party?” The way she said it gave him a hard-on.

  “I don’t feel like partying. Just maybe going home and sacking out. Why don’t you come over for a quick drink?” Sometimes they answer something that hurts your feelings, or they tell you that they had something else to do, but this was his night.

  “Why not,” she said. She had eyes like Judy Collins.

  He took her home and fucked her until she was sore. Gin always affected him that way.

  21

  Lieutenant Brown slammed on the brakes and the police cars came to a screeching halt. “Loathesome” jumped from the car and ran up to Becky’s apartment building. She was standing outside. She was in a white bathrobe and was wearing a towel about her head. She was still holding the gun. He took the gun from her and tried to talk to her and to calm her down.

  “I think I hit him,” she said. She pointed in the direction of Fifth Avenue. “Loathesome” headed in that direction. He saw drops of blood traveling in the same direction. He reached Fifth Avenue and turned the corner. A man in a beret and coat was leaning against the wall of a building; he was holding his side. He seemed to be in agony. O’Reedy gave chase. The man ran about a block and turned into an alley. It was about 3:00 A.M. and nobody was on the street. Middle man, huh. Sean ought to see what I have to deal with. Creeps. Maniacs. Guys like this hair freak. I keep these freaks out of the public’s hair. And do I get thanks. No. My own son… He entered the dark alley. He slid against the wall, holding his gun. Nancy. Somebody hit him in the face. He felt something hard in his mouth. His teeth. His attacker wore a leather jacket, a leather beret, and a black mask. O’Reedy had the height and weight advantage over the man. He recovered in time to duck another blow. He licked some blood. The man was all over him, pummeling him. O’Reedy fell to the ground. All he could think of was that Tremonisha had gotten the Flower Phantom’s description wrong. He was shorter. O’Reedy was taking quite a beating and was about to pass out when he heard his gun fall to the pavement. He became alert. The Flower Phantom grabbed the gun. He stood over O’Reedy. The three Spanish guys were at his side. They were folding their arms. They had big smiles. They were wearing some suits that had broad pointy shoulders, and pants that draped about their ankles. One wore a hat with a wide brim. Another was sporting a goatee. They wore shirts with exaggerated collars. They weren’t wearing ties. The S.O.B.s weren’t wearing ties! They moved to see O’Reedy looking down the barrel of Nancy. The Flower Phantom pulled the trigger. It didn’t work. The Flower Phantom kept pulling the trigger; the same thing happened. In frustration, he threw the gun down. O’Reedy grabbed it and fired. The bullet missed the Flower Phantom’s head by about two inches. The Flower Phantom started to run toward the other end of the alley. But he didn’t get far. He was hit by a bullet that put a big hole in him, you could see through the hole to the wall across the street from the other entrance to the alley. He went up into the air and then slammed against the wall. O’Reedy could hear his ribs crack. He looked toward the direction of the gunfire. The jogger was standing—no, it was Lieutenant Brown. He was holding a shotgun.