Blueschild Baby

by George Cain

  “You know they got the Army National Guard and everybody else out there shooting brothers like horseshit? Tanks, machine guns. Can you imagine a tank coming down Sixty-fourth Street spitting fire and rumbling through the playground?”

  Someone snickers, most of us are young and have never seen war except in book and film and the image is beyond us.

  “That shit sounds unreal, but that’s what they doing. The man ain’t jiving, he’s looking to take us off the planet. We done got dangerous talking that shit about we going to burn baby burn, only thing going to burn is us till we get it together and stop snatching shit out of stores and start taking heads.”

  A young boy rushes to defend the riot and his peer group, for they are the major participants. “Yeah but this is the first time we ever really got down.”

  J.B. looks at him, mock incredulous, eyeballs bugging out his head as if he cannot believe such stupidity. “Say what? First time we ever got down. Nigger is you crazy? We been rumbling this man ever since we showed. You think we laid down and played dead for this shit? Thought you had better sense than that, but shit it ain’t your fault, you went to one of those good white man’s schools and got a good white man’s education. You oughta know they ain’t never told the truth about nothing, especially about you. You think they want to roil all you crazy niggers up by telling you your fathers, grandfathers, and their fathers fought every way they knew how. No good. Only brothers they going to tell you about is those good jeffin niggers.

  “You think you raising hell now, let me tell you bout in ’forty-three. You ever hear of the zoot suit riot? Go ahead, laugh motherfuckers laugh, that’s right the zoot suit riot. Know it ain’t in none of them textbooks and they try and act like it didn’t happen, but I was there and know what went down.

  “Was in the Marines, Camp Pendleton, San Diego and all they had were these cracker, motherfucken sergeants. They was a bitch. They were so fucked up they couldn’t say Negro, they’d say nigra and make it sound so nasty and fucked up and used to hate us brothers from the North.

  “‘Ya’ll is a Yankee nigger ain’t ya’ll boy?’”

  We broke up at his mimicry, twisting his face and mouth as the sergeant must’ve done. Posing with hands on hips.

  “I looked at this big hat-wearing cracker motherfucker and said, ‘Ya’ll, who the fuck is he, I don’t know no ya’ll, my name’s James Black.’

  “‘Boy I see ya’ll one of them smartass Yankee niggers, ain’t ya boy?’

  “They didn’t like you talking to em smart, but they was afraid of a nigger from a big city, they thought niggers and gangsters ran New York and Chicago. Our outfit didn’t have nothing but brothers in it, and man we gave our C.O. so much static he went crazy and got a transfer and they sent a Yankee down.

  “Had this partner of mine Ace, outta Chicago, me and him won all this bread gambling and bought a brand new Lincoln, color hot pink. Had it done up special. We go on up to Frisco and snatch off a couple of them blond-haired blue-eyed bitches and bring em on down to Tijuana. Be partying and shit, making the clubs and sure enough we’d run into one of them jiveass sergeants. They hated to see us with one of their women.

  “‘Black, what ya’ll doing with them white women?’

  “You heard them talk? I’d been around em so long, got so I could imitate em good as I wanted to. We use to call it crackio, the way they talked and they hated when I went into my act. Knew I was fucken with em. Anyway I say to this sergeant, and dig I got my hand all on the bitch’s ass and shit, ‘Sarge, what ya’ll think I’m gonna do with this here fine blond-haired white woman?’

  “And the hole, she be goofing this sucker too, laughing and pulling on my dick. Man you should’ve seen him burn, he turned deep purple and started strangling on himself.

  “‘Black, ya’ll know when ya’ll get back to base, your ass is mine.’

  “Come out my butch bag then.

  “‘You don’t stop fucking with me and your ass is going to be mine right now Sarge.’

  “By this time the word done got round and all the sergeants are on my ass, but I don’t give a fuck, going to do what I’m going to do anyway. I come into the barracks one day and this sergeant says, ‘Black what’d you do them pants?’

  “I was so slick, had all my uniform pants pegged. This lame takes my pants and calls the entire company out on field, he got my pants holding em up so everybody could see and says, ‘Look at these here britches.’ I’m standing there next to him clean as the Board of Health. ‘This is how Private Black gallivants about town.’

  “Ain’t that a bitch, he calls my pegs britches, you know how that killed them crackers, man they fell out, the whole fucken company. Felt like breaking my leg in the fool’s ass. Sucker threatened to court-martial me for destroying government property, but that didn’t stop nothing. I’d leave camp with em under my arm and the minute I was outside the gate I’d put em on. Old Sarge’d come by.

  “‘Black, I done told you about destroying government property.’

  “Tell him to kiss my ass then and kept getting up, was off base then.

  “Remember when all the brothers got together, we’d be talking a hip and slick shit, a roony ofay and whatnot. This old redneck’d come and ask what we’d be talking bout. I’d fuck with em, they’d get mad when you wouldn’t tell what you were talking about.

  “‘Why you want to know Sarge?’

  “‘So I can understand ya’ll.’

  “‘You don’t ask them Mexicans or Filipinos what they’re saying.’

  “‘Well they’s different Black, they’s foreigners, we Americans. They talking another language, you and me we both talking English and we got to understand each other.’

  “I’d tell them fools anything.”

  “What about the riot J.B.?”

  “Say man this is my story, I’m coming to the riot. The shit kicked off in this bar downtown San Diego. Generally the brothers went to this one Mexican bar, but this night four or five of these cracker sergeants were there and one of them started fucken with this little Mexican. Next thing I know this sucker pulls a machete out his ass and cuts the sergeant’s throat. Blood flew everywhere, should’ve seen those crackers haul ass. This one cat, his head was hanging on by a piece of skin, eyeballs rolling round and blood just bubbling out his neck. You ain’t never heard no shit like this. Ever hear a cleaver go through meat and bone and smack that chopping block? That’s how it sounded, whomp. After that the shit started, them crackers came back with more crackers looking to do something and we rumbled, all the niggers and pachucos rumbled those devils. They called out the Guard and we split to Mexico, was AWOL for ninety days. Swear on my mother, may God strike her dead if I didn’t kill me a devil. That’s right, I brought one of them fools out his life. That was in ’forty-three. You didn’t know about that and a lot of suckers got wasted. They tried to hush it up and say it didn’t happen, but I was there and know better. Think how many other things we don’t know about, that they ain’t telling.”

  We stand about commenting and I feel sick. An ache in all my bones, chills, the junk leaving in a sweat from every pore.

  “James you got any works?”

  “I don’t fuck around anymore Georgie but I got some stashed on the roof.”

  Making farewells, we leave the group and hurry through the project. Everybody and thing here is a warm memory of a time when all was new impressing indelibly on consciousness. Growing old was only a loss of innocence and now everything is bound in habit. Life with no consciousness of life, meeting experience with a stock of pat reactions, nothing is new, initiated or willed. I’m dying and need a shot of dope.

  WE ENTER THE BUILDING and the past closes on me. I lived in this building for years. Everything is unchanged, like an exhibit in a museum, a period piece of another time and place. Hear the elevator moving, stopping, starting and finally opening on us. It is the same, the ever-present puddle and stink of child’s pee in the center which forces us to the corners
of the car. Starting up and apprehension, a fear from childhood.

  A child was unable to reach the desired buttons save one, a pretty white-lettered red button. The car stuttered up, alarm sounding urgently. Closing doors and movement frightened him and he’d scream for his mother. Then it would stop as if at his fear and open on a hall exactly like his, white brick façade and five steel blue doors in corresponding positions. He knocked on the one thought his and strange faces appeared, hostile voices. Insane questions. “Who are you? What do you want? You don’t live here, go away.” And the door would slam. He’d stand crying, not knowing where to go, where was his house, father, mother, above, below, maybe they were gone and he’d never find them. Maybe they never were and his life had been a dream. To try the stairs was folly, a thirteen-story stairwell was a universe in vastness from which he might never be rescued. He’d reenter the car and his mother hearing his cries would press the button and bring him to her, hug him and ask what was wrong. It was beyond his ken how she rescued him each day from the losing vastness and he thought it magic.

  The elevator shakes to a halt. Remain silent, not wanting to say anything stupid or reveal where I’ve been. So vivid memory. To make me think to speak would be to do so in child’s voice and to be seen, in child’s aspect.

  Exiting, we creep softly to the upper landing. While J.B. watches the stairs for police, I cook up. Junk stench hits my nose and I taste the wine rising in my throat and am wracked with dry heaves. Finally, I fix myself.

  Sit nodding, distant and far away I hear J.B. “I got to pray Cain.”

  He pulls a prayer mat from out his pocket. His prayers sing on the air, covering me in grace and I kneel. No words leave my mouth, but something long dormant stirs at center of self and we speak as original man before the fall. His movements are strange, but one, sadja, prostrate and submissive I assume naturally and stay there frozen feeling myself move confidently in vastness. There is harmony within, without and the light of childhood that pervaded all moments with God floods my brain.

  THE TIMELESSNESS OF SUNDAY. One knew it without calendar, it was the day of rest, when the world ceased turning and all things were held in abeyance. Troubled in mind? Sunday would come respite and Nana dressed in white to take us to church. The day always clear, and washed, ragamuffin children dressed in Sunday bursting with mischief restrained themselves for three hours while Reverend McKenzie, a shouting preacher working in frenzy chanted in a singsong. He looked down from the pulpit, intimidating, eyes dilated, head back and skinny arms flaying the air.

  “Brothers and sisters this morning I want to tell you bout the Good Samaritan. You all know the parable.”

  He drew his brows together and fire came from his eyes and he screamed. “But do you really know what it means? No you don’t. No you don’t know. But I’m going to tell you. I’m going to tell you what it means to each and every one of us today. There was a man . . .”

  His breath comes short, voice softens as he sings the story. “Yes Lord. There was a man. Hurt. Laying by the roadside. People passing saw him . . . his pain and misery and they did not stop. Why didn’t they stop?”

  He screams. “They did not stop. They’re you and me, so occupied with ourselves we cannot stop. Cannot stop to help our brother in his pain and misery.”

  And he sings softly. “But there comes one. Yes Lord. There comes a man. A man of God.” Pauses to gather his strength. Pulpit-pacing and sweating. Wipes his face with a silken rag.

  All about the agonized sinners cry, “Oh Lord. Alleleujah. Amen. Yes Jesus. Thank you Jesus.”

  In them there is pain, shame. They are those people passing their hurt brother. A thought races through the congregation and unable to be contained bursts out, “Help me Jesus! Oh Lord!”

  Once loosed you feel so good, all evil is expelled by your cry to God. Confessing publicly before the entire world.

  And the preacher sang soothingly to reassure them. “Yes brothers. There came one. A man of God who saw his brother’s pain and stopped to help him.”

  Now shouting. So tired. “Yes Lord. He stopped. And he helped him. He took him home. He cleansed him. He fed him. He clothed him. Oh Lord. He helped this man.”

  The congregation groaned and cried at this goodness and speaking softly he told it all. “He helped him not for gain.” Shouting—“He helped him cause he had God in his heart. Yes, he had God in his heart. Why don’t you give him a chance. Yes give him a chance. When you see your brother’s misery all about you. Don’t turn away. How can you turn from your brother. Let him into your heart. Extend a helping hand. Yes Lord let God come into you. Amen brothers. Amen.”

  Grace flowed all round you then, warm and golden, you were that Samaritan, helping your brother whom all others had forsaken. God had answered and was in you. Chords from an organ sounded warm and golden. Vacant eyes and ecstasy all about. Then song. The young voice chorusing with others made joyful noises unto God. In that instant believed myself an integral part of the community of man. All men, past, present and future were related, brothers. Tasted eternity and as I began to grasp the secret of this unity it vanished, leaving elation at the glimpsed beatific. Nana said it was impossible for man to grasp in his imperfect state, but given brief glimpses to reveal what is the Kingdom of God. We sang and our love covered us. We were in one another, all emanating love, growing strong and beautiful from one another. Kept time clapping and happy sounds raced through the small building, spilling onto the street. Passersby stopped and listened. Drawn they peered in and bathed in love were unable to leave and what had been so important moments ago and sent them hurrying down the street was relegated to time and place and unto God what is God’s.

  FINISHED WE GET OFF OUR KNEES and lean over the parapet. Up here the madness of the streets seems distant. It’s turning evening and the sun falls into Jersey. Peace leaves me and the world calls.

  “Come on James, let’s make it.”

  We stumble from the roof into the elevator and start down. I press all the buttons and at each landing pull James from the car. “They’re all the same. See all the same.”

  On the third floor, we hear the grumbling of people downstairs in the lobby waiting for the elevator and leave to walk down. Air hits me stirring the junk inside and I feel faint, am suffering narcotic poisoning, must get somewhere before I go out.

  “You okay Cain?”

  “Too much dope.”

  “Come. I’ll walk you.”

  We head toward West End Avenue to avoid eyes and hide my shame. Away from the project we change. Our voices and gait tighten, we’ve entered into the other world and its white inhabitants flowing around us like water round rocks make us uneasy. James’s eyes flash from one white face to another trying to read their eyes while they pass uncomfortable.

  “Dig it Cain. The man is mad. Look into his eyes, see how afraid he is. He’s afraid. Afraid of everything, afraid of getting mugged, afraid for his property, afraid of niggers, afraid of Russia, afraid of China and most of all afraid of dying. Ain’t that a bitch, afraid of what’s got to happen. Fear is what’s driving him mad. The other day I was reading about some guy who burned. He had so many locks on his doors and windows, he couldn’t get out the house. Tell me that ain’t some crazy shit. I can’t live like that, let fear lock me behind a door. Make me stay in the house, own so much shit I’m afraid to leave cause someone will take it. What the fuck happens out there Cain, what’s with them people, what do they do to you?”

  He asks the question sincerely, like one would ask an astronaut who’d been to another planet, “What’s it like out there?”

  A white woman passes, I smell the sex and lust on her, she eyes us. Watching James out the corner of my eye, he dogs her and turns away guiltily. “Can’t help myself, got a thing for those white women.”

  She has seen his glance and is satisfied, seen the lust in his eyes. They play for and expect it from every brother they see. But that is all they’ll see, lust for the fragile white flesh
they tease us with. There can be no love for them, their souls or minds, only the lust conditioned into us. But some have overcome conditioning through intimacy with them and no longer pleasure them with their glance. It disturbs and intrigues them when one does not respond to the bait. These are the dangerous ones who have tasted of the Man’s most prized possession and found it bitter and lacking. She has stopped now and flaunts her body. It has become a contest of wills, but I will not be tempted.

  “Say man that broad is giving you big rhythm. Want me to split?”

  She has started something in me and I feel threatened, out of place. “Come on. Let’s make it uptown.”

  We walk over to Broadway and go down into the hole. The platform is crowded with workaday people, huddled up in newspapers avoiding each other’s eyes. Here the madness is obvious. Everything contributes to it. The noise, the heat, the crowds pulsing and flowing like an animal. We are pushed into a car full of smelling, balky cattle and scream off through the tunnel. The Man cannot stand the cities, the noise drives him mad, silence is his heritage. The caves of Caucasoid Europe were quiet, desolate. But we are of tropic jungles where the noise level is intense. Cats scream and insects call. We can handle the sound and shall own the cities one day. We shall not have to kill the Man off. He will do it himself, his system has a built-in suicide mechanism. They talk of nuclear holocaust and we shall all die, but it ain’t so. Only the guilty shall. Contracts are made with Allah and man must stay the duration. He cannot renege.

  Flashing through the 86th Street station, I decide to take the junk back to Sun. A typical high junky gesture. Once high you are overcome with generosity, as if in attempt to atone for all the wrong you’ve done. We are pushed out into a steaming, teeming Harlem night of red neon and shifting crowds, heavy odor of fish and chips, nausea. Everywhere there comes music with lots of bass and the buildings blurred by neon are a strange landscape of dark boxes falling down. But there is a warmth, that love bond. It is the jungle, that is what they say, but it’s warm, it made and protected you. Darktown comes to life in the dark. Night is its natural garb, making soft its harsh lines and mounds of litter. Brothers on the street acknowledge James’s tarbush, the brimless hat of the Muslims, with Arabic greetings.