by Darius James
Saw dat young whyte gal’s pussy—Hard dick f’daze!
Ol’ wrinkle-ass huffin’ ’n’ hunchin’ nigga what said he only meant to rub it f’luck ’cause dat young whyte gal’s pussy look jus’ like d’top of a nigga’s haid!
Chicken-rustlin’ rascal.
Nah, dat Weefee ridin’ ’round wif dat car load o’ whyte gals, can’t tell dat nigga nuffin’. He be talkin’ ’bout slick skull game, how he be hard on his ho’s, keep a big roll in his pocket, ’n’ d’res’ ob dat ol’ okeydoke!
Ah oughts t’go out dere mysefs ’n’ take a switch to dat citified country nigga’s—great gugga-mugga!
The Maid’s eyes are disks of surprise. Her mouth is an O of wonder.
Bubbles enters the kitchen, sits at the table, and stares at the pancakes piled on the plate in front of her. Hundreds of fish eyes fried inside stare back.
The Maid glares at the ovals on Bubbles’s face.
Smiling in mock innocence, Bubbles reaches into her jacket’s side pocket, and eats, one by one, a handful of the human-shaped chocolate figurines. Webs of masticated chocolate pop in her mouth.
MAID
(talking into telephone)
Lucille, I’m’a hasta call y’back later.
The Maid hangs the telephone on the wall.
MAID
Miss Bubbas Brasil! What is dat devilish mess caked on yo’ face?!
BUBBLES
Magically converging uteri to equalize the balance of my aura’s negative and positive energies.
MAID
Mah’uta—wha’?
BUBBLES
War paint.
MAID
Why can’t you dream up sum’in practica’—like how ah kin hit d’numba!
BUBBLES
What’s a white girl to do in a school full of jigaboos?
MAID
Mind her business. Yo’ parents spent all dat money sendin’ yo butt off to fancy private schools. ’N’ whatchoo do? Getcha hot little boll-daga ass throwed out!! ’N’ den you end up in a crazy house fo’ rich dope fiends! Face it, you is jus’ gon’ hafta put up wid dem niggas.
Bubbles wrinkles her nose.
BUBBLES
But they’re gross and they spit!
A half-eaten nigger baby spits from her mouth.
MAID
Spit back at ’em.
BUBBLES
But you don’t know what it’s like! Girls yank my hair and guys yank my tits! That place is a fucking Monkey House!
She eats another nigger baby.
BUBBLES
Jigaboos!
Bubbles folds her arms across her breasts and pouts.
MAID
Lookie here, Miss Whyte ’n’ Mighty!! In dis kitchen, whyte is right if it kin kick three hundred ’n’ sixty pounds of sweatin’ black ass!
Ah don’ takes kindly t’you ’ferrin’ t’my peepus as jigaboos! You makes us out t’sound like we be hidin’ in d’bushes affa dark wif our teef shinin’ ’n’ shit.
BUBBLES
Coons hide in the bushes after dark with their teeth shining. Jigaboos steal chickens!
The Maid lifts the ladle from the pot of sputtering grits. And swings. Bubbles ducks. The Maid misses. The grits slap against the wall, and begin to congeal into frightening glacial forms.
MAID
Don’t sass-mouf me!
BUBBLES
(pouting)
Well, it’s true . . .
MAID
Lookie here. Nah dat we is no longa cullid, we is whatchoo calls Neo-African Americans—hostages misplaced in time, captives of a racist hist’ry ’n’ a oppressed peepus dissolvin’ in d’stomach acids of whyte amerika—d’cause o’ so much bad breffs!
BUBBLES
Monkey chatter! I’m oppressed! But you wouldn’t know anything about that. You were never white and pretty!
MAID
’N’ you was never black ’n’ broke!
BUBBLES
Thank God! I don’t know what I would do without my mane of golden fairy-tale curls!!
MAID
’N’ ah bets you be wonnerin’ why dem niggas be bustin’ you’ b’hine all d’time!
BUBBLES
I don’t wonder. I know.
MAID
If’n you knows so much, what put d’idea in yo’ head t’put dat mess on yo’ face in d’first place?
BUBBLES
One of your books.
The Maid’s eyes ignite into twin lights of paranoia.
MAID
Which books?
BUBBLES
The creepy ones.
The Maid’s voice is taut with anger.
MAID
Which “creepy ones”?
BUBBLES
The ones you buy from the Puerto Ricans. How to Cause Constipation, Protection From the Evil Eye, Black Herman’s Book of Shrunken Talking Heads . . .
The Maid’s temper blows with the blistering heat of steam spouting from a teakettle.
MAID
You been messin’ in my mojos! Ah tol’ you ’bout bein’ in my books! Dems my sacred books ’n’ not fo’ d’eyes o’ whyte folks! Ah’ma whips d’hoodoos on you fo’ sho’!
The Maid springs for Bubbles’ throat, her fingers curled and clutching. As her mandarin-curled fingernails near Bubbles’ throbbing jugular, she freezes. She stands eerily immobile.
The Maid’s eyes spin around their rims in dizzying circles, turning up in their sockets until only the whites are visible. Her tongue flops out of her mouth, contorting one way and then the other. Beads of sweat pop out on her forehead. Her head snaps back and forth. Her shoulders hunch and jerk.
MAID
Ah’ma hang d’gris-gris ’bove yo’ do’! Snakes gwine crawl ’cross yo’ flo’! D’rats gwine howl ’n’ blood gwine run down yo’ jo’! Yo’ body gwine bust out in nasty so’s! Yo’ ass gwine shrivel up ’n’ you ain’t gwine shit no mo’!
Bubbles’ eyes widen in awe. She has never seen such a looned coon.
The Maid slithers into a convulsive snake dance, foams at the mouth, and tears off her clothes. Sweat clings to the hairs of her armpits. Fish-eyed pancakes are slung Frisbee-style across the kitchen. Bruce Lee’s kung fu cat cries mingle with James Brown’s R&B funk shrieks. The Maid mindlessly misquotes lines from Gone With the Wind (“Ah knows all ’bout birfin’ babies, Miz Scarlet. Jus’ fetch me dat rusty coat hanga ober dere!”). Twirling across the floor in a daze, the maid cackles and then collapses into a heap. Her tongue lolls from her mouth.
Bubbles walks over to the prostrate Maid and kneels. The Maid pants like a young slut. Her eyes flutter open.
MAID
Nah march upstairs ’n’ wash yo’ face ’fore ah wear yo’ hindpots out wif dis chere spoon o’ hot hominy!
Bubbles leaps to her feet and dashes from the kitchen. The Maid laughs long and loud. Dolly in for close shot of Maid’s face.
FADE
INT. Subway car—Morning.
SFX: Train’s loud locomotive rattle.
Pull back from close shot of the urban-tribal ovals painted on Bubbles’ face to medium shot of Bubbles bunched into a ball on the subway train’s plastic bench. The train’s rock and rumble rattles her bod.
Bubbles is seated between a NURSE and a WINO. The Nurse is fat and black. The Wino is black and babbling.
Sporting a dried-out, high-top Little Richard conk, the Wino is dressed in bits of discarded costuming he discovered in the theater district’s trash bins. He wears fungus-covered feather boas, a sequined G-string, fishnet stockings, a gummy, grime-covered gold lamé jacket, and a pair of purple platform shoes.
Believing the subway car to be the set for Arsenio Hall’s television talk show, the Wino preens for the TV cameras, patting the smears of aqua gel smudged on his high-top conk. He laughs, slaps his thighs, and smokes invisible cigarettes. Feathers and sequins float to the floor.
WINO
I was makin’ that big-time money back in 1920. Two-hun
’id ’n’ fi’ty dollas a week! And do you know why? I was the o-riginal “Little Rascal”! Sunshine Sammy!
Mister Moonpie they used to call me. Yeah! Tha’s right! I was before Farina, Stymie, Buckwee—any o’ them has-beens!
And I was Scrono, too! On the Bowery, with Mugsy and Satch! I even shared billin’ with that old-time smecka, Count Dracala! Lemme tell ya, that was no blood he was bangin’! Me ’n’ Drac did d’duji! Which was why he was such a freaky muthafucka—Drac flashed and flipped the fuck out!
Now I make fi’ty thousand dollars a night! Out in Vegas! With my name in neon high above the strip: “MOKE MOONPIE AND THE MOTORCITY MULES!” It’s a Motown kinda thang, with Mickey Mouse gloves, big whyte lips, and synchronized dance steps! We be grinnin’ our asses off!
And I run with the Rat Pack! I’m back-slappin’ buddies with Dino, Frank, Sammy, Jerry—and his cripple chirren! I’m Mister Entertainment hisself! Why I taught Scatman Crothers ever’thing he knows!
The Nurse, seated on Bubbles’ right, looks at the Wino and rolls her eyes in disgust. Tics of annoyance tug at the faces of the other passengers on the subway car. The Wino turns to Bubbles.
WINO
Y’know, we didn’t have pussy when I was a boy. That’s right. Pussy hadn’t been discovered yet. Y’see, pussy was first discovered in 1827 in a cave down in Mississippi by a Massa Johnson. He’d gone out quail huntin’ and there it was. Pussy. Sittin’ right up there in a cave. Laughin’.
Bubbles tries to ignore the Wino, but as the Maid’s counterspell begins to take effect, exposing Bubbles to her Negrophobic predicament, she grows fearful, her body appearing to wilt smaller and smaller in size.
WINO
. . . I don’t know what the hell it is! But let’s grease it down and fuck it anyway!
The train stops. Bubbles stares out the window.
Passengers file into the subway car, filling the seats and jamming the aisles. Cattle-crammed bodies sparkle with pungent perspiration. Bubbles wrinkles her nose at the thick Negro smell.
An ALBINO, in kufi skull cap, a floor-length linen robe, billowing bulbed pants, and curved slippers, enters the car carrying a conga drum. He stands by the doors on the left side of the car’s far end. The Albino’s complexion is the urine hue of unflavored gelatin. His eyes are rabbit pink. His Afro is nicotine yellow.
His palms paddle the skins of the conga drum.
ALBINO
Listen
As my snakes
Slither
Out of majestic
African drums.
Ta dum, ta dum.
Lost
Subway children
In masks of ebony.
Black wood
Distorted
By ivory minds.
White man
Kiss
My black behind!
An angry voice shouts offscreen.
FIRST VOICE
(o.s.)
Shut up wid dem drums, you funny-lookin’ ’Rabian Nights nigga! I gots “Wild Eye” poundin’ in my head dis mornin’!!
The Albino paddles his conga skin.
ALBINO
This is no Arabian Nights fantasy, brother. This is the all too real nightmare of America, the treacherous! And I am not a nigger. A nigger exists only in the blue eyes of the Devil!
My name is Al-Shebop Shabazz Hazred. I’m an Inner-City Shaman, a Minstrel of Mau Mau Metaphysics, and a Pop Poet of Oppressed People’s Propaganda. Can you spare a quarter for Allah?
FIRST VOICE
(o.s.)
Ooooooh please, nigga, shut up! My head! Yo! Anybody know what color classification dis’ nigga’s complexion qualify for?
SECOND VOICE
(o.s.)
I don’t know, but if you rub his ’fro, I bet you a genie fly out in a puff o’ reefa smoke and grant you three wishes!
The Passengers explode with laughter. In spite of his embarrassment, the Albino continues pounding his conga drum.
DOMESTICS, FACTORY WORKERS, STREET HUSTLERS, JUNKIE TRANSVESTITES and other SLUM DWELLERS of increasing strangeness board the subway car and converge on Bubbles from all sides.
A ring of GHOULISH FACES revolve around the periphery of Bubbles’ vision, all with large, bloodshot eyes, bone-pierced nostrils, and clacking, plate-distended lips.
An onrush of fragmented images, evoked in low lit eeriness, stab Bubbles’ consciousness in quick succession, congealing into a cubist portrait of urban paranoia. A MINISTER WITH NO FACE, the hollows of his skull covered by a scabbing layer of undulating skin, leans forward and waves his hands before Bubbles in silent malediction. A noisome brood of PALSIED RETARDS, DROOLING MONGOLOIDS, GRINNING PINHEADS, SLITHERING QUADRIPLEGICS, and HUMPBACKED DWARVES shamble through the subway car, squealing and grunting like pigs, clustering around Bubbles in curiosity. They paw her breasts and hair, wheezing a pathetic sound midway between a pant and a whine.
Hyperventilating with terror, Bubbles shuts her eyes in cold horror.
When her eyelids open, Bubbles finds, just inches in front of her nose, a testicle drooping from an open fly, its few strands of pubic hair matted with a crust of dried semen. Bubbles looks up.
A JUNKIE, stooped in nod, hangs over Bubbles with one hand gripping an overhead strap. His pelvis swings back and forth with the train’s rock and rumble. Locomotives and conga thuddings are synchronized to the junkie’s pelvic thrusts.
TWO ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGROES stand on either side of the junkie, speaking with fervent intensity. The second Ill-Tempered Young Negro is a cane-tapping sycophant.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
. . . wall-to-wall whyties. Imagine me, up north, in Maine, with wall-to-wall whyties. Me ’n’ dis otha brotha. ’N’ he didn’t even count. Was one of those upwardly mo’bile niggas of the bougie bougie boogahood.
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
An androided nigga!
Cane taps twice.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
Right. Manufactured in one of whytie’s nigga factories. The original prototype for nigga-baby candy. Popped hot from a monster mold.
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
A klingon nigga!
Cane taps twice.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
A klingon nigga. The Coon From Planet X. Spoke an alien tongue. Jus’ me ’n’ dis out-o’-tune buffoon ’mongst wall-to-wall whyties. As a genu-wine jitta buggin’ jigaboo, dem hunkies made it a point t’check me out! Ofay bitches was always accidentally-on-purpose bumpin’ dey titties in my face ’n’ rubbin’ my kinks, talkin’ ’bout, “It do feel like a Brillo pad!” In the mornin’, when I be takin’ my shower, I was pullin’ fistfuls o’ blond pussy hair out o’ my crotch!
First Ill-Tempered Young Negro shakes his knees and grabs his penis.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
Brutha, I was gunnin’!
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
Gunnin’ the Great White Bitch!
Cane taps twice.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
Gunnin’ the Great White Bitch! I swore the total annihilation of the entire whyte race and anything left over with the faintest trace of that demon hunkie scent—for the bitch drove me mad!
Was nuthin’ a nigga could relate to. A world without James Brown forty-fives!
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
No James Brown forty-fives!
Cane taps twice.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
No Jet magazines!
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
No Jet magazines!
Cane taps twice.
FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
No greasy collard greens!
SECOND ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
No greasy collard greens!
Cane taps twice.
The Two Ill-Tempered Young Negroes glower at Bubbles with reddened coke-glazed eyes. Dolly in for close shot of Bubbles’ face.
/> FIRST ILL-TEMPERED YOUNG NEGRO
(o.s.)
Jus’ my black ass an’ a Afro pick!
Second Ill-Tempered Young Negro taps cane twice. Echo taps and fade to blacks.
INT. Donald Goines Senior High—Classroom—Day
Fade up on the punkadelic blond dreads of a black-skinned GIRL. Slowly pan left to right, overlap dissolve, and pan right to left across the faces of the other STUDENTS seated in the classroom, each face a frightening caricature of the grotesque.
BUBBLES
(v.o.)
My high school was overridden with niggas. Not the slow-witted, slow-shufflin’, eyeball-rollin’, flapjack-flippin’ niggas in the brownstones off Central Park West. Or the upwardly mobile, paper-bag-colored Klingon niggas of the bougie boogahood. But nigger niggas—the nightmarish kind!
Mindless angel-dusted darkies slobbering insane single syllables, flicking switchblades and flashing straightrazors. Hip-Hoppity jungle bunnies in brightly colored clothes, carrying large, loud radios we white wits call “Spadios,” who drank bubbling purple carbonates and ate fried pork rinds and bag after bag of dehydrated potato slices caked with orange dust. Crotch-clawin’ niggas who talked Deputy Dawg and shot dope. Saucer-lipped ragoons who called me the “Ozark Mountain She-Devil” and asked to feel my lunch money. Percussive porch monkeys who fart with their faces to a heavy-metal beat.
These were the kind of niggas my daddy warned me about. The kind of niggas my daddy said would whisk me off to the Isle of Unrestrained Negroes far, far away, and turn me into a coal-black pickaninny with a nappy ribbon top and white button eyes if I wasn’t a good girl and didn’t do as daddy said.
At the close of the Ku Klux Cartoon Coon Show in the classroom, stop on Bubbles seated at her desk.
SFX: Hammer of electric school bell.
Bubbles stands up from her desk. Instantly, she’s swept into the rush of students jostling their way through the door. As she wrestles against the press of bodies, a finger swiftly slides between the cheeks of her behind. Bubbles recoils, and her eyebrows rise in surprise.