by Ishmael Reed
Look, Thor answers, rising. They are my friends. I believe in their way and reject yours. I can’t sleep at night for the thoughts of your foul deeds. Feeding the Tasmanians to dogs, for food…
Nerts! So you’d just say why bother about a civilization which is in need of young men? So you’d just fink out upon our glorious Western civilization; you would say why bother putting it back in stock? It makes me so mad I want to cry. You, a young Prince of Our Ways, running with a band of…of…of Mu’tafikah. Them loafers, ne’er-do-wells, nihilists throwing pineapples at us. Look son. Don’t you think I want to see every man a king, a chicken in every pot, every child fed clothed and sheltered in America? Warren Harding himself presided at a celebration of their achievements the other day at the Lincoln Memorial. Son, we don’t mind digging in our pockets and pitching in for the underprivileged, the insulted and injured, but son, this Berbelang is different. This is a nigger gone berserk. A nigger the planters kept from other niggers so they wouldn’t catch what he had. The insolent freeman who will sit in the front of the bus and look about as if to say “Who don’t like it?” Berbelang was on the ship the Flying Dutchman, the slaver under the cruel master captain. He put something on the captain so his sailing around the world forever became legendary. Berbelang’s not 1 of these automatons marching well dressed in an anti-lynching parade; he is aware of his past and has demystified ours.
Son, this is a nigger closing in on our mysteries and soon he will be asking our civilization to “come quietly.” This man is talking about Judeo-Christian culture, Christianity, Atonism whatever you want to call it. The most noteworthy achievements of anybody anywhere in the…the…whole universe. A…haha…haha…hahahaha.
His head in his hands, Biff Musclewhite begins to sob quietly.
Stop it stop it, Thor says, pacing the room nervously.
I’ve seen them, son, in Africa, China, they’re not like us, son, the Herrenvolk. Europe. This place. They are lagging behind, son, and you know in your heart this is true. Son, these niggers writing. Profaning our sacred words. Taking them from us and beating them on the anvil of BoogieWoogie, putting their black hands on them so that they shine like burnished amulets. Taking our words, son, these filthy niggers and using them like they were their god-given pussy. Why…why 1 of them dared to interpret, critically mind you, the great Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick!!
Stop it! Thor sits down on the bench and begins to cry.
Musclewhite, seeing that he has made a dent, continues. That’s what it comes down to, son. They’re the 1s who must change, not us, they…they must adopt our ways, producing Elizabethan poets; they should have Stravinskys and Mozarts in the wings, they must become Civilized!!!!
Thor, crying, continues to sit at the table.
Musclewhite. Softly. Gently. Son come and untie me, son, and together my young valiant prince we will do battle with the dragons of Jes Grew, Helen and Mu’tafikah too. You know how she is: fickle, unreliable. You remember what Goethe said: Helen goes the way of Euphoria.
No, he said Euphorion.
Yes of course son, you know the bitch. My Great Book hasn’t arrived this month. The mails are slow.
Thor finishes untying Musclewhite. Musclewhite rises from the chair and begins to massage his wrists.
O.K. son, I’m going to call my bulls. We’ll wait here until he returns. When is he due?
Thor is crying at the bench where he has returned to sit. 8 o’clock…, he answers.
Musclewhite walks over to the bench and removes from his pocket a key chain. The charm on the key chain is Charlemagne. The Crowned Head of Charlemagne done in gold.
There, son. It will soon be over.
He gives the chain to Thor who begins kissing it and handling it as the devout do that Sufi invention, the rosary.
S.R.: THE WALLFLOWER ORDER INDUCES ITS RUNNING DOG MEDICAL SOCIETIES AND ITS JACKANAPE PUNK FREUDIANS TO ISSUE A REPORT WHICH “SCIENTIFICALLY” PROVES THAT JES GREW IS HARD ON THE APPENDIX… THE SHIMMY, THAT DESCENDANT OF THE NIGERIAN SHIKA DANCE, IS OUTLAWED…DOCTORS IN YAKIMA WASHINGTON ANNOUNCE THAT “THE SOURCE OF MAN’S WICKEDNESS IS A ‘TORRID ZONE’ IN THE BRAIN, AN INCH AND A HALF THICK FROM THE EARS UP.…” *
Jazz did a number of things to popular music as well as to metropolitan life. It sped up the tempo of things. Whether it was a cause, or the effect of a still more general cause, is here beside the point. Once the new musical spirit had come, it rapidly spread into daily—and nightly!—activities. It was not long before the old type of musical comedy began to appear outmoded. “Pep” was heard in the land. Once we had “ragged” words; now we “jazzed up” everything.
Isidore Witmark & Isaac Goldberg From Ragtime to Swingtime
* This Fabulous Century: 1920-1930, vol. 3-Time-Life Books.
31
SLIGHT-OF-BUILD, WIRY, SINEWY and melancholy, resembling the drawings of Charles Cullen, Nathan Brown walks down the steps of Salem African Methodist Episcopal where he comes to meditate about the Black Christ. Black-caped, he is impervious to the rain. The poet whose work commingles Death and Nature in haunting ways reaches the corner of the street. He sees upon a building’s wall a foreboding shadow closing in behind him. He turns to see a regally dressed, elderly gentleman wearing a black seal coat. He is carrying a cane and wearing a top hat.
I didn’t mean to startle you…I admire your collection of poetry Dark Crepuscule. It’s solidly in the Western tradition and convinces me that you are the foremost bard of your race. It’s about time they produced such a bard!
If you will excuse me, sir, I have another engagement, answers Brown, rather embarrassed, looking down at the pavement.
But surely you will sign this autograph to your volume of poems. I would be most grateful, Hinckle continues, extending a pen for Brown’s use.
Nathan Brown interrupts his walk to stop and sign an autograph for this stranger. He then resumes his walk, moving along the street, the stranger alongside him.
Do you reside in Manhattan? Nathan decides to inquire of the gentleman who persists in accompanying him on his journey.
I have a modest place…a cottage…on Long Island. Spiraling Agony. It’s where I spend my time during my declining years, courting the muse and feeding sea gulls. I am what you could consider a gentleman editor. I publish a magazine called the Benign Monster. You’ve heard?
Haven’t I! It has a bad reputation in these parts…lurid, tasteless like an overgrown glossy tab.
We’re short of staff but we do the best we can. That’s why we need someone like you to give it class, taste.
I am committed to teaching school. I wouldn’t be in any position to help you…
But your vast knowledge of civilization, Christ, Abelard, Prospero, your word order, Think Not instead of the vulgar Don’t Think, your consciousness of your Black heritage but never allowing it to become a mystification as J. A. Rogers, Hughes, McKay and some of that contingent; the way you recorded that Simon, the servant, the servant who carried our Lord’s Cross, was colored.
I have been educated in both cultures and so I use the advantages of both.
That’s why you would be such an addition to our staff, the publisher of the Benign Monster insists to this poet whose biographer has written “[his problem] was that of reconciling a Christian upbringing with a pagan inclination…”
You never become bogged down in Marxist clichés and nationalism: all of these qualities are needed with the plague occurring. Look, we can make you the dominant figure in Negro literature today: King of the Colored Experience.
“All Coons Look Alike to Me,” mutters Nathan Brown vacantly, examining the trees which lined the street, uncomfortable as he listens to the stranger’s extravagant praise.
What was that?
I think that when people like you, Mr. Von Vampton, say “The Negro Experience” you are saying that all Negroes experience the world the same way. In that way you can isolate the misfits who would propel them into penetrating the ceiling of
this bind you and your assistants have established in this country. The ceiling above which no slave would be allowed to penetrate without stirring the kept bloodhounds…I’m afraid that I won’t be able to help you, Mr. Von Vampton. I am teaching school to Harlem youngsters so that they won’t be influenced by people like you…
Hinckle is desperate; there is only another month remaining and if he doesn’t create this Android, according to the bargain, he’ll have to drink the poison.
Look, you little yellow bastard; we can make you powerful, Striver’s Row, Sugar Hill, you name it…don’t you think that people are sick of this Jes Grew thing, this malady that’s hanging over America like a black…cloud?
It may be a malady to you but many of us are attempting to catch it. Now if you will just remove your hand from my shoulder I want to continue my walk. I have an appointment with someone who will perhaps make me vulnerable to it.
He leaves Hinckle Von Vampton standing on the street in Harlem.
He would get even with him. He would call his friends and tell them that they will publish more work from this poet at their peril…
Hinckle Von Vampton returns home and spends a night dreaming of things too horrible to repeat. New Jersey. Things like that. He awakes the next morning and after bathing goes downstairs to fetch the newspaper. The headline causes his ancient wound to feel. Cab Calloway had startled a Cotton Club audience by announcing his candidacy for President on the strange Jes Grew ticket. Then he outlined his platform in some kind of strange Satchmo language. The show was headlined by a group known as the Dancing Bales. Was this some kind of nigger code?
A telegram arrives. From the Wallflower Order. It consists of 1 word.
WELL?
Time was running out. He would have to come up with something, Knock It Dock It Co-opt It Swing-It Bop It or Rock It were the orders.
…But the woman he really loved was a voodoo queen
From Creole French market, way down in New Orleans
—Stackalee
32
THE TROLLEY CAR FACES the Hudson River. A strange ship has been docked there, a huge black freighter which, although appearing shabby, distinguished looking Blacks, many of them well dressed, have been boarding and disembarking. Funny that the ship should be anchored at this particular pier because it had been closed down and in the many years of his route he hadn’t noticed any other ships using it. It rested there in the water which undulated, shining like black silk. It was a yellow moon with spots of red appearing as if they had been left by the wild brush strokes of a painter. After the cloud passed the bright, full moon remained, as white as cocaine. The ship flying the black and red colors wasn’t any of his business.
He was 1 of the few trolley car operators of his race. After the riots of 1900 when Whites ran amuck and murdered or assailed every Black in the streets of New York City they could lay their hands on he had been hired as a concession to the sentiments of a protesting Black committee. They still wouldn’t give him a holiday and he wanted to have this 1. He and his wife had been married for 20 years. He wanted to be home with her and the 3 children. As he sat in the trolley resting for 2 minutes before resuming his route he removed a wallet and smiled upon the photos of his family. He put it back in his pocket. Across the street was an illegal blind pig. It would be 2:00 A.M. by the time he returned home and maybe he would just stop in after this last round and have a drink. A drink of King Korn and then home. This night was special. His wife had gotten some “wine” for the occasion from one of Buddy Jackson’s boys. He was going to get his head spifflicated. He looked in the rearview mirror hanging above his steering equipment. That passenger was still on the trolley. He had picked her up on the corner each day in Harlem and brought her downtown, but this time she hadn’t got off. And she was giving him the eye. No mistake about it. He had been around; even served in the 1st World War. But she didn’t seem to be a harlot. He had seen harlots on his journeys around the country and Europe and recognized the signal from their waist up. Man, if he wasn’t a married man! The perfume enticed him. He had noticed it when she got on the trolley. She wore the long skirts the fresh white bandanna the tropical blouses all the women were wearing now. His wife even had 1. Tonight she was going around in the circles of his route. Maybe she was lonely. Well, wasn’t his business; he would have a drink when he returned to his stop, then on to the carbarn and home.
33
BERBELANG HAS DECIDED TO return to the basement to relieve Thor who’s been watching Biff Musclewhite, now object of a city-wide manhunt. The street is unusually quiet as he enters the block. He feels a tingling at the nape of his neck. Something’s wrong but he doesn’t quite know what. He starts to enter the basement…Those cars across the street. When he turns around Biff (Musclewhite orders his men to open up. Between the eyes. Berbelang grabs his forehead. But the blood pours out like fire hydrants gush water into the summer street. Strange, he feels O.K., he doesn’t feel a thing. He’s just getting weaker, losing consciousness. Biff Musclewhite climbs from the police car and with 2 other men walks across the street. They stare down at the corpse. Berbelang’s mind has rushed out to the pavement: Yellow, Red, Blue. Fire Opals.
34
THE FINAL RUN COMPLETED, he stops the trolley car. A funny sweet odor comes from that ship. Lavender lights beam from her portholes. Still on the trolley, huh? Well she would have to get off now.
Lady, you haffta get off. This is the last stop.
Earline rose from her seat and walks, swinging her hips, down the aisle of the trolley car. She gives him a look the nature of which would force a man to divorce his wife, sell his home, hang around the blood bank, offer his skin for grafting, donate his eyes to an alligator, hit the banker on the head to give her what she wanted.
That…feeling swept over his abdomen and then worked its way up. She didn’t come on like a whore. He had served in the last war, you know. He couldn’t figure out. What she was up to?
Would your husband mind you having a drink with me? Man, he didn’t mean for it to come out like that. He was getting rusty…
All Black men are my husbands, she answered seductively.
The music came from the blind pig, heavy, thick, gummy like a quagmire; mud, the rich ancient soil of the Black-belt South with its climate, swamps, swarming with birds, snakes, bugs, wildflowers. Egypt of America, someone said. When they open the door, her arm in his, the funk hits them so hard it almost knocked them out. The air is surfeit with smoke: yellow, billowy; couples dancing as if in trances doing the Slow Drag, Grind and other intimate dances. On the wall is a torn ancient poster of a Jack Johnson fight. The guitar player with the band looks as if he was asleep but his guitar sounds like a tiny evil venomous snake would sound if it could sing. His hair is parted down the middle and is wavy from vigorous applications of Tuxedo. They stand at the bar.
Would you like a drink, miss?
You can call me Earline, and she eases closer to him and through her skirt he could feel her body. He gets hard as a rock and he isn’t even embarrassed.
35
YOU KILLED HIM. YOU didn’t give him a chance, Thor yells as Biff Musclewhite got back into the car. It wasn’t necessary to shoot him like that. Like…like an animal.
O, so you didn’t like the way we handled your friend, huh? We’ll see that yours will be quiet and traditional. And then Musclewhite laughs, all weird and sick-like. Early Richard Widmark; Kiss of Death (1947). 1st the opening, his nervous mouth baring a few front teeth and then a little more teeth until he is grinning widely; all the way to the station his eyes are fixed.
The detectives on each side of Thor exchange puzzled glances. Thor sobs holding his head in his hand.
36
EARLINE AWAKES THE NEXT morning; her head is bad. She supports herself, raised in the bed. Lying next to her is the nude trolley car man sound asleep. Snoring. A smile on his face that people must bear when they witness the Christian’s Glory.
She gets up, the expression
on her face a mischievous smile, frowning. She goes into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee. When it begins to boil, she pours herself a cup of coffee and reaches for the newspaper.
Major Biff Musclewhite is about to phone Charlotte to tell her that he has survived the “excruciating ordeal” at the hands of the Mu’tafikah and perhaps ask her to dine with him. A sort of celebration. He had told her that he would deal with these rapscallions and by golly giminy he had.
He is dialing the number GR 3-4822 when an assistant comes in and places some items on his desk. The phone rings once.
Chief, here are some objects belonging to that black Mu’tafikah Berbelang: his billfold, razor and dice…
The phone rings a 2nd time.
Musclewhite moves the things lying on the desk.
…Cards, a strange-looking tangled root.
The phone rings a 3rd time.
Hello?
Yes my dear, this is Biff, I was able to extricate my person from the Mu’tafikah.
Say it again, I just awoke. The last thing I remember was going on the stage of the Plantation House…I don’t remember how I got home…
O that’s all right. He comes upon the picture of the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral group: there is Earline, Berbelang, PaPa LaBas and… and…
I was going through the last routine with my Pick and then I must have fainted. I don’t know how I got here…
