The Two-Bear Mambo cap-3

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Of course, a movie cowboy usually has a stand-in.

  "No," I said. "We'd like something to stay. I want flapjacks and eggs and biscuits and coffee. My buddy here will have the same."

  "I will?" Leonard asked.

  "You will," I said.

  Leonard tipped his hat at the lady. "I will," he said.

  The woman looked at us sadly and went away.

  The brothers came over and stood by me, one on either side. The one with the bad mustache smiled, said, "There ain't no Christmas ants, are there?"

  "No, son, guess there aren't," I said.

  "You lied to us?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "That was a good one," Bad Mustache said. He grinned at me, then he and his brother moved to the rear of the cafe and took a booth together.

  The door opened, let in the cold wind. We turned toward a voice saying: "You boys passing through?"

  The voice belonged to a man in a gray waterproof topcoat and an expensive gray cowboy hat over which was attached a clear plastic rain cover. He eased off the topcoat, shook the rain from it onto the floor, hung it on a peg by the door, put his hat on another peg.

  He looked to be in his sixties. He was the only man in the place wearing a suit. It was a nice, dark gray suit, expensive in a J.C. Penney's best sort of way. He had gray hair, perfectly combed, not mussed by his hat. It was held in place with enough hair spray to make an evangelist proud. He wore a bright red tie. It was tacked with a gold horseshoe to a crisp white shirt. He had on gray lizard-skin cowboy boots. He had a muscular build, with a slight paunch. His skin was very pale. He looked very proud of himself.

  On one side of Gray Suit was a rather sizable gentleman who looked as if he could snap a baseball bat over his knee. I affectionately thought of him as Bear.

  On the other side of Gray Suit was an even larger gentleman with enormous shoulders, a big belly, and a very wide ass. He looked as if he'd enjoy jerking a knot in a gorilla's dick on his worst day. I affectionately dubbed him Elephant.

  "What'd you say?" Leonard asked Gray Suit.

  Gray Suit grinned. He had a very precious deep dimple in his right cheek. I think he liked that dimple. I think he thought it got him lots of pussy. I wished I had a dimple. I wished I had all my hair. I wished the gray in my hair looked as cool as the gray in his hair. I wished I'd stayed home. I wouldn't have minded some pussy either.

  Gray Suit kept right on smiling. "I said, are you two passing through?"

  Before we could answer, he went over to a booth, and the men sitting there got up casually, with their plates and coffee, and found another seat. Gray Suit slid in against the wall. Bear sat in the seat beside him. Elephant took a seat across the table from Bear. The rain outside came down hard and consistent. Good sleeping weather.

  Leonard said, "Naw, we ain't passing through. Actually, we was sorta thinking of moving here."

  "And for what reason?" Gray Suit said.

  "We were thinking of opening up a little Afro-American Cultural Center. That's a black thing, see. Hap here would be working for me."

  "I does right," I said, "sometimes, Mr. Leonard, he lets me takes off a little early on Friday afternoon and he give me a fifty-cent tip."

  Gray Suit smiled, said to the lady behind the counter, "Maude. I'd like some coffee. The boys here would like some too. Keep it coming."

  Maude gave Gray Suit a look that could have raised tumors. Gray Suit acted as if he hadn't noticed. He turned his attention back to Leonard, said: "You know, when I was a little boy, right here in Grovetown, we used to have traveling minstrel shows." He paused and looked at Leonard. "You know what those are, boy?"

  "I ain't wearing no knee pants," Leonard said. "Don't call me boy. Don't call my friend here boy neither."

  "All right," Gray Suit said. "Man. Isn't that what you people prefer? Man?"

  "Man's nice," Leonard said. "Man sound good to you, Hap?"

  "I like it," I said. "Even if I'm not a 'you people.' "

  "When I was a little boy," Gray Suit started, then paused to poke a cigarette into his mouth. Bear whisked out a little box of kitchen matches, struck one on the bottom of his shoe, offered it to Gray Suit. Gray Suit held Bear's hand, touched the match to his cigarette, puffed. Bear dropped the match on the floor.

  Maude said, "Pick that up."

  No one picked up the match. No one seemed to notice she'd spoken.

  "What I remember fondly," Gray Suit continued, "was white folks doing colored minstrel shows. They wore blackface. Shoe polish. Big white lips. They did some jokes. And they were real funny. You know," he pointed the cigarette at Leonard, "you remind me of them minstrel folks, but you're not in blackface. Least I don't think so. And you know what? I think you're real funny. That makes me nostalgic. I like that. I like having you here. I didn't realize how much I'd missed being around funny niggers. And what I got here is not just some white man in blackface playing nigger, I got the real thing. I got me a genuine, born-of-black-hole nigger."

  "Don't talk like that," Maude said, coming out from behind the counter with a pot of coffee. She put the pot on their table. "You're in my place, don't talk like that."

  "It's all right, Maude," Gray Suit said. "It's just men talkin'. Ain't that right, nigger?"

  Leonard didn't answer. He just tipped back his straw hat, sat there, patient.

  Gray Suit turned his coffee cup upright and poured coffee. Maude rubbed her hands together, clasped her fingers, pulled, let go and went back behind the counter. I could hear her breathing behind us. Nervous, short breaths; kind I'd have been breathing had I not been holding my breath.

  "I tell you, buck," Gray Suit said, "you look to me like someone who was bred of good stock. You know, that's why there's so many of your people can play basketball and football well. We white folks bred you. Got the biggest dumbest nigger bucks we could find, put them with some big ole black mammy could take about a ten-inch dick big around as a man's wrist, and that ole buck, well, he was the kind would mount a cow if our grandaddies told him to—and most likely if they didn't—and he'd bang that black bitch till she couldn't take no more. Then maybe our granddaddies would have a pony or a jackass do her, just to get a little spice in the stock. And through all that planning, down through generations of nigger kennelin', we ended up with solid, strong-lookin' niggers like yourself. And just as an added note, I got to tell you, I've always been partial to a nagger in a straw hat."

  Most everyone in the place laughed. Even the blue-haired lady laughed. When the laughter died—

  "Mama said don't talk that way in here!"

  I turned and looked. It was Bad Mustache. His bubba was beside him. They were out of their booth, standing. The other brother said, "That's enough! Mama said that's enough."

  "Billy, you and Caliber just relax," Bear said. "No one wants you hurt. Y'all sit down and have some coffee."

  Billy and Caliber didn't move.

  Leonard said, "Well, that certainly explains some things about us black folk, don't it?"

  "Oh yeah," said Gray Suit, and he laughed a little, and the others laughed.

  When the laughter slowed, Leonard said, "You know, every one of us, when you think about it, just missed about this much," Leonard held up his hand and made a C with his thumb and forefinger, "being a turd. Every one of us. I mean, there's only about this much space between one hole and the other. And we all missed the shithole by this much." Leonard lowered his hand, looked at Gray Suit and smiled, "Except you, mister. You made it. Your mama shit a turd, put a suit on it, and named it you."

  Gray Suit turned red as a sun-ripe tomato. Bear started out of the booth then, but before he could shoot the distance, a blast of cold air blew through the cafe, and Officer Reynolds came in with it. He was sucking another Tootsie Roll Pop.

  Everything stopped. Reynolds looked around. He eyed Bear, halfway out of the booth. Bear slid back into his place. Gray Suit raised up so Reynolds could see him, said, "Willie, it's me."

  Reynolds pu
lled the Tootsie Roll Pop from his mouth, held it, said, "Yes sir." He turned to the woman behind the counter, said, "Maude, you got that breakfast?" He looked right at us. "To go?"

  Maude glanced around, as if on the lookout for a miracle, sighed, went to the kitchen, came back with a greasy brown sack. She gave it to Reynolds.

  Reynolds said, "Certainly glad I didn't see no unpleasantness here. Wouldn't want that. Chief wouldn't want that. I seen something like that, didn't do anything about it, he'd fire me. I don't like the idea of being fired. I like my little check. But, say I leave, how the hell am I gonna stop something gets going?" He looked at Leonard. "Any idea how I could do that?"

  "There was," Leonard said, "you'd find a way around it."

  Officer Reynolds smiled, put his Tootsie Roll Pop back in his mouth, went out with another blast of cold December air.

  Bear stood up, arms crossed on his chest. Elephant stood up, opened and closed his hands—very large hands, and leathery. Probably got that way from strangling children. He was maybe six-six, and his shoulders were even wider than I first thought. So was his ass; even front on, you could tell that hunk of meat was enormous.

  "You boys don't get in no fights now," Maude said. "This here is my cafe, and I don't want no fights. They were just leaving." She leaned over the counter, touched me on the shoulder. "You were just leaving, right?"

  I was agreeable to this, but before I could say anything, Gray Suit said, "That's right, they were just leaving, but not under their own power."

  "This ain't no cowboy movie saloon," said Maude. "This is my place."

  "Mama said that's enough." It was Caliber. He and Billy were easing slowly to the front of the cafe. No one was paying them much attention, however. They were watching to see if Leonard and I were going to shit our pants. I don't know about Leonard, but I felt a rumble in my tummy.

  I began to grope for a graceful way out. Even a not so graceful one, but Leonard, as is often the case, closed the door.

  "Before we get on with the butt-whippin'," he said, sliding slowly off his stool, turning his body slightly to the side. "I got one question for the big guy." Leonard gestured to Elephant. "Man, tell me true. Is that your ass following you around, or are you pullin' a trailer?"

  Chapter 17

  Elephant was a step closer than Bear, and no sooner had Leonard finished his remark than he stepped with his right foot and threw a hot haymaker at Leonard's head. It was such a wide and uncalculated blow, Leonard could have eaten a plate of eggs and biscuits and half a cup of coffee before it got there.

  Leonard stepped in and blocked with his left hand and hit Elephant on his left temple with the edge of his right hand; hit him hard enough Elephant's greasy black hair flew up like a frightened monkey springing for cover.

  Before the hair settled, Leonard captured Elephant's punching arm, swung under it, pushed against the big bastard's elbow and drove his head forward into the lunch counter, smacking Elephant’s noggin into it with a noise akin to the crack of doom.

  Leonard grabbed Elephant's hair, jerked his head up, brought it down into the counter again, let him go. What was left of Elephant’s face smashed into a bar stool. Some of his cheek turned red and greasy and slid to the right of the stool while the rest of him fell left. I tell you, it was enough to make me lose my breakfast, had I eaten any.

  All of this took no time at all.

  Bear was on me then. I had already reached back and got hold of the ketchup bottle, and I swung it. It was still in the rack with the salt and pepper and Tabasco, and the bottle and the rack caught Bear alongside the head solid enough the ketchup exploded. Wads of red went all over Bear and across the cafe and onto Gray Suit's coat.

  Gray Suit said, "Goddamn!"

  The world froze. We were like prehistoric flies in amber, but one look at the fine citizens of Grovetown, and I could sense a sort of fire building inside them. Nothing like a nigger smacking a white man to stir a bunch of crackers, and a white man taking a black man's side didn't cheer them much either. The first was like being made to eat shit. The second was like making them eat it and smile.

  I dropped what was left of the ketchup bottle and the rack. It hit the floor with a sound so sharp we all jumped. Then things went still again. I couldn't take it anymore. I said, "Well, you assholes gonna do it, or what?"

  "Don't y'all do it," Caliber said. "You leave 'em be. You do it, you're gonna pay damages. You're gonna pay lawsuits."

  Gray Suit said, "Git 'em! Kill the sonsabitches!"

  And the mass of them came unstuck in time and space, rushed fast and hard, and I swung an elbow and saw someone's teeth fly, then I got hit on the right side of the jaw and a floating rib ceased to float, and I got my fingers in one guy's face and raked his eyes, side-kicked his knee out from under him, then someone was on my back and I was swinging my elbows, trying to throw him, but someone had me around the waist, and I couldn't get the torque, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Leonard dot a fat fucker's eyes with a rapid left, right, then kick another fatty between the legs solid enough to lift him. He back-elbowed an old guy, who spat his tobacco onto the back of Leonard's head, then Leonard was swarmed. He went down beneath a pile of writhing, punching bodies, his teeth clamped on some dude's ear, his hat beneath another's feet.

  I saw Caliber launch a punch at someone, but he caught a solid one to the side of the head and went down. I saw Billy grabbing men and jerking them away from me and Leonard, but it was like trying to bail out the ocean. Gray Suit was standing up in the booth looking down on the action like Xerxes watching the last defenders of Thermopylae go down. He had a fresh unlit cigarette in his mouth.

  Bodies were pressing me so tight I was using nothing but elbows, leg stomps, head-butts, and knees, but it was useless. I started falling. I was being hit so hard and often my face felt as if it were exploding. I came down hard on my back, and above me were thrashing legs and bleeding, hateful faces; the fat guys, the old men, the blue-haired lady.

  Their fists and shoes tumbled down on me like an avalanche. My balls took a few shots. I wondered if Chief Cantuck and I might be able to get matching trusses. Maybe he could wear his nut to the right, I could wear mine to the left. We could walk side by side. Kind of a balance thing.

  The lights of the cafe went dark, then bright again, but I was seeing them through a sheen of blood, and it was my blood.

  Too much pain.

  My last vision before darkness was the blue-haired hag's shoe coming at me, accurately aimed at my head.

  When I awoke, I was in great pain and I was wet and getting wetter and I was shaking from the cold. I realized too I had pissed myself and there was vomit on the front of my shirt and jacket. I was up against an alley wall, out back of the cafe most likely, and it was raining hard, and my mouth tasted of copper and one of my eyes was nearly swollen shut. One of my teeth felt loose. My kidneys hurt. My ribs hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. I feared if I moved too rapidly an arm or a leg might fall off.

  I could hear grunting and I turned my head, carefully, just to make sure it didn't bowl a strike. The alley was full of people from the cafe, and the alley was full of rain.

  Two fat guys, one with a couple of black eyes, the other with a wide split in his lip, had a mostly unconscious Leonard held up between them. His knees were bent and his legs were flared out behind him, the tops of his boots dragged the ground. His head was about the size of a medicine ball, and his lips and nose and eyes blended together in a knobby topography of swollen flesh. His breath steamed from his mouth and turned into little white clouds that faded to nothing.

  The blue-haired lady was in front of him. She said, "Hold him up better."

  She tried to kick Leonard in the balls, but the alley was wet, and she slipped and fell on her ass. The crowd moved toward the woman, and two men pulled her to her feet. When the crowd moved, I saw that Billy and Caliber were lying in the alley too. They looked to have taken a pretty good beating. Their mother was between them.
Her hair was plastered to her head like seaweed to a rock. She was screaming her boys were hurt and wouldn't somebody do something, but nobody did. She squatted next to Billy and held his head in her lap, screamed, "Stop it! Stop it! Now! Stop it!"

  Billy's hand came up and touched her hair. He said something, not very loud, then his hand went down again. He got the hand under him and pushed to a sitting position and scooted his back against the alley wall. He didn't look as if he cared much about what was happening now, long as it wasn't happening to him.

  Maude rose suddenly, pushed through the crowd and went inside the cafe.

  The blue-haired lady had a solid stance now. She kicked Leonard firm in the nuts with a football style kick. Leonard let out a burst of air, it puffed white and went wide and far, like a blast from a dragon. He sagged between the two men even more. The old lady said: "Niggers is what's wrong with this country."

  I tried to get up, but couldn't. I fell over on my side and watched the alley wall lean at me. I turned my head toward Leonard, saw that Blue Hair had been replaced by Gray Suit. The rain had pushed his evangelist do apart and it had fallen into his face. I noticed, pushed down like that, he had been covering a half-dollar-sized bald spot at the back of his head. Good. I was glad he had a bald spot. I really didn't like this guy.

  He had ketchup on his suit and the rain had spread it into rusty patches all over his jacket. His white shirt looked as if it were spotted with blood. He said, "Hold him," and the two guys picked Leonard up higher and held him firm, and Gray Suit began to work on him. Pounding him in the stomach, once in the jaw, but that hurt Gray Suit's hand. He jerked it back, said "Damn," and kicked Leonard in the shin. Then the leg. Leonard's bad leg.

  Gray Suit reached in his pants pocket and got out a large pocketknife, pinched a blade open.

  I tried to crawl toward Leonard, but I wasn't making any time at all. I felt like a slug nailed to the ground. I felt like I was in a car and it had skidded off the road, and everything had gone slow motion, and I could see a telephone pole coming through the windshield and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.