Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  Bring me my bow of burning gold!

  Bring me my arrows of desire!

  Bring me my spear! O, clouds unfold!

  Bring me my chariot of fire….

  I will not cease from mental fight,

  Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand.

  “So naturally the words had to get into it and came with ‘Till we have Miss Janey’s Jerusalem / In this flat crazy western land.’ … But while the words of the poet were dancing in my mind like gnats around the eyes of a hound dog this fellow came on towards me not saying a word. Then he stopped beside my chair and stood there, just looking at me. And before I knew what was happening those words went after him like he’d asked me a question they didn’t want me to answer. And I mean before I had a chance to say Howdy.

  “But like I say, those words didn’t need me. They seemed to’ve been waiting to get out and didn’t give a damn about how they did it. I know now that they’d recognized him long before I did, maybe by smelling him, or hearing him coming from a long way off the way dogs do. But even after they go to working on him I still didn’t know who he was.

  “And I should have, just by his standing there looking poker-faced and listening. Which alone should have told me that he was someone who knew something about me. Because with me sitting there weighing over three hundred pounds and talking all disorganized from the words taking over, a true stranger would have listened a second and then backed down those steps and cut out. Wouldn’t even have taken time to tell me good-bye.

  “But, no, this fellow was still standing beside me. And what’s more, I could see definitely that he wasn’t an insurance collector or a recruiter for some kind of religion. I was sure of that, because instead of looking like he was getting ready to scare the hell out of me in order to save my soul, whether I wanted it saved or not, or working out a strategy for taking advantage of a fool, his eyes were asking questions. In fact, even though those words were working up such a head of steam that they had me stuttering he’s looking at me as though I was normal.

  “Which is another reason I should have recognized him. Because from the day I first knew him and until he was taken to live somewhere up North he always treated me like I was no different from anyone else. But I swear, apart from those words I didn’t know him from Adam—or Lazarus, which is more like it, since Adam had only one time to die while Lazarus had him at least two.

  “So, having said that, I might as well tell you that this fellow had been gone from this town so long that I thought he was dead. But those words knew different and were going after him like he was a long-lost friend suffering from amnesia or the loss of his memory. So when I hear them saying, ‘There was the big one in the union suit’ I just wanted to get out of there and ease my mind by watching me some trains rolling for parts elsewhere.

  “But instead of looking surprised at the way those words were going after him this fellow just looks at me with a funny expression in his deep blue eyes. And then as in answer to a question that had never been asked those words took off.

  “‘That’s right,’ they said to this stranger. ‘You know, the big one in the union suit. You remember Boo-Jack, the guy who got so worked up by seeing Miss Theda Bara smiling and blinking her great big eyes in a movie that he yelled, ‘Hey, Lawdy Mama’ so loud and urgent that he caused a panic? Boo-Jack, the one who was always as clear and present a danger as you ever would see, and I mean far beyond the faintest shadow of a shadow of a doubt….’

  “But even with such disconnected stuff as that coming at him all this fellow does is frown. And while I’m trying to catch on the words kept after him.

  “Jack Beaujack, the words insisted. BooBoo Beaujack! You remember him. The big one, the burly one. The one the boys used to call Ole Sacka Fat, Ole Funky London, Mister Loud Fart in a Cyclone with a Derby On! Hell, you remember: Jack BooBoo Beaujack, Weinstein’s Bear….”

  Suddenly Cliofus paused, taking a sip from his glass as he listened to the laughter. Then, looking back at Hickman he raised his hand for quiet.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “at this point I’d better explain that in those days there were so many great big colored guys nicknamed Bear around this town that they had to be identified by the businessmen who gave them jobs. So there was Helpler’s Bear, Ruby Lyon’s Bear, Lowinstein’s Bear, McDonald’s Bear, and a heap of others. But Weinstein’s Bear was the most notorious. You’ve heard talk about what can happen when a bull turns up in a china shop? Well, although he was from Chicago and had a Phi Beta Kappa key to boot, Weinstein had him a bear working in his jewelry store! This was the BooBoo Jack-the-Bear Beaujack that those words of mine were going on about. And until he was finally forced to fire him Beaujack gave Mr. Weinstein (who, incidentally, was an underground member of the N.A.A.C.P.) a lesson in what I’ll define as passive resistance to honest, paid-for labor.

  “For one thing, Beaujack wouldn’t keep all those clocks in Weinstein’s stock running on time. For another, he wouldn’t keep all that gold and silver polished and shining. And then, when Weinstein refused to give him a raise, he bought up a batch of cheap rings from the five-and-ten and passed them out to his girlfriends and henchmen. Then he spread the word that it was some hot stuff which he stole from Weinstein’s finest stock. So before Weinstein caught on to the fool, BooBoo had more green, brass-cankered fingers fumbling and sneaking feelies around this town than there’re Okies in all Los Angeles. What’s more, he damn near ruined Weinstein’s reputation among the high-school-graduation trade, both black and white….

  “So this was the Boo-Jack those words were whipping my visitor’s ears about, and they got to him. Because finally he frowned and asked me, ‘Where did he live?’ And that’s when I heard those words saying:

  “‘Where else but down in the Killing Floor section with the rest of the rough folks? Back in those days he was already a very famous character and was the same outlaw who threw his voice and wrecked Miss Kindly’s class. Boo-Jack had a sweet tenor voice and could sing like a songster but liked it better trying to sound like Satchelmouth Armstrong with a bad cold in his throat. Once he grabbed your marbles, remember? Came storming across the schoolyard yelling “Snatch-grabs” and kicking up dust and striking unholy terror among the little kids by knocking them down just to see them falling. Made you so mad you just lay on the ground and howled!

  “‘You can’t forget Jack BooBoo Beaujack! The fool and his henchmen had been stealing and drinking the Communion wine out of seven churches for three straight years before the preachers and members laid a trap and caught him. And when they asked him why he would do such a thing he laughed and said he was just testing to see if the grape juice had actually been changed into wine. Then he got sassy and said that he was teaching them that the only true and correct reason for drinking wine was raising hell.’

  “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, and our distinguished visitor, I know it was out-rageous. But that was back in the olden days before the mayor hired those fine colored cops and brought some civilization to our part of town….

  “Well, when the words told my visitor about Boo-Jack and the wine he gives a little laugh and shakes his head. So I said, ‘What’s the matter, you still can’t remember Boo-Jack? If you can’t, something terrible has happened to your memory….’

  “‘Mainly it’s time, change, and different scenes,’ he said. ‘And the shock of returning. After all, it’s been over twenty years. But nothing seems wrong with your recall….’

  “‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘but I can’t take credit for that because it’s not my recollection that counts, it’s what I can’t keep from saying. That’s why folks call me things like the Talking Fool, and the Reckless Word Man, and tell one another, “Don’t ask Cliofus anything, because he’ll tell it like it is.”‘

  “So he laughed and said, ‘Does that mean that you always tell the truth?’

  “‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘but the funny thing is that most of the time the truth manages to turn up in it. May
be that’s why folks take a gamble and listen.’

  “That made him laugh, and when they heard him those words took off after his memories of the olden times. Said:

  “‘Remember the little children sitting in rows, sniggling and snotting, snorting and stinking, and almost all of us knotty-headed, pee-pee-legged, and wearing corduroy breeches or gingham bloomers? And everybody stealing bites out of their lunch bags whenever Miss Kindly turned her back or dropped her weary old maid’s eyes? All small, most of y’all, but with Beaujack and me the biggest in the class?

  “‘Miss Mable Kindly was her name, and teaching unruly kids her city-wide fame. She talked real proper, rolling her rrr’s and bugging her eyes, wore her hair rolled up in three big buns out of which the fat felt rats peeped where the hair was skimpy. She had a little bosom which was ironing-board flat and made up her face with so much powder and rouge that it looked like some kind of Anglo-African-Indian mask. Then she swore that us kids were outlaws and heathens and the burdensome cross she had to bear. That’s right, and ole Beaujack did his best to prove it!

  “‘One fine spring afternoon when he sees her taking a ladylike stroll dressed in robin’s-egg blue, white gloves, and a pink parasol, Jack ducks behind a tree and yells, ‘Cherries are ripe! Cherries are ripe!’ Then, being a master whistler and ventriloquist, he thrills the air like a robin redbreast on the prod for his mate. Took me years to understand why his yelling about cherries got her so upset, but when Miss Kindly hears him it’s like he’s yelled her most secret secret business to the wide wide world.

  “‘First, she jerks around to see who’s putting her down, then her white-gloved hands start flying over her hair, her neck, bosom, and butt, and it’s like she’s having a spasm. And next thing I know she’s cutting out of there in double-quick time, and her face had turned red as a maraschino cherry!

  “‘Shucks! You remember Dust-mop Mable, which was what those bad big gals used to call Miss Kindly as they shagged their hot young nasties up and down the schoolhouse halls between classes.

  “‘Oh, Dust-mop Mable,

  She swears she would if she could,

  But she just ain’t able!’

  That’s what they sang—and there she was, trying to teach us arithmetic and algebra!

  “‘ “What’s the difference between a multi-plier and a multi-pli-cand,” her question was—and shame on poor Miss Kindly!

  “‘There we little heathens sat, looking all innocent and bland behind our second-grade desks, when Beaujack—who’s being punished by having to sit facing the class—wakes up and gives Miss Kindly his kind of answer.

  “‘First the fool lets out a sigh and slumps way forward in the seat of his chair, with his arms dangling like he’s throwing a faint. Then he gives a heave and a grunt and does a gut-bucket bump. And like magic a big, hickey-headed pickle flips out of his fly, and the effect on Miss Kindly is damn near explosive!

  “‘The poor woman’s eyes stretch so wide it’s like she’s seeing the Devil come straight from hell. Then Jack aims the pickle at the electric lightbulb, and every eye in the class is watching it fly, break the bulb, and skid across the ceiling. And when it slams down on the desk and squirts juice all over poor Miss Kindly’s hands she stares and lets out a horrified a yell of “Oh, oh, OH!,” like she’s been hit square in the belly with a baseball bat. Then she leaps backward—wham!— against the blackboard and the map; and before we can blink she’s out in the hall, screaming “Rape and resurrection” at the top of her voice—no, don’t ask me why, because “rape and resurrection” was exactly what she cried.

  “‘Then, while she’s throwing conniptions out in the hall, ole Beaujack is rolling on the floor and laughing like he’s having a fit, and everybody except me is on his feet and roaring away like a football crowd on Homecoming Day.

  “‘Oh, but then, filling the doorway like the Angel of Doom, there stands Dr. Peter Osgood Ellicot, our strict and respected principal. Usually he looks as majestic as a bronze general astride a granite horse that stands two hundred hands high in the air, but now his iron-gray hair is standing up on end, his bowels grumbling and rumbling up an earth-shaking storm, his false teeth rattling like a telegraph key, while his right arm stabs the air like he’s wielding a saber and us kids are the enemy in a cavalry charge.

  “‘Ole Doc’s fairly foaming at the mouth, and before he stops to get his breath he’s put the whole class under a combination order of quarantine and house arrest, charged all the boys with flipping the pickle, playing the dirty dozens in a public school, writing nasty language on the schoolhouse walls, and breaking his iron-clad rule against saying spit, which for him was the dirtiest word in the dictionary And when he runs out of charges of misconduct he does a smart roundabout-face and rushes out yelling for his fearsome lawman.

  “‘Then, before we can blink our bewildered, bugged-out eyes, in leaps the Right Reverend “Blue Goose” Samson with his razor-skinned head. And without a word of explanation he goes into action with that half-a-tree limb he was always dragging behind him. He doesn’t say who, wherefore, or why, but before he’s through he’s not only whipped Beaujack’s tough butt to a fare-thee-well, but the tender behinds of all the boys in the first five rows—and few of us knowing what it’s all about or able to believe what’s happening before our own dear eyes. I tell you truly, that was one day when Justice was not only stone blind, but deaf, dumb, and vindictive!’

  “Well, that’s when my visitor broke out laughing just like you folks are doing and said, ‘I remember Blue Goose, he was the truant officer.’

  “And I said, ‘Well, it’s about time.’

  “Because he was right, and I knew right then that I had to catch up with all that action which those words were digging up and stretching out—but I didn’t let on to him.

  “I said, ‘How could you forget him? When he used to make his regular rounds by knocking on classroom doors and saying to the teachers, “Miss So-and-So, you have any boys who need my attention?”—and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d just start to squinting and pointing like he was picking sides to play some kind of game, yelling “You … you … and you, over yonder on the aisle—get on your devilish feet and march!” Then he’d stand there trembling in his tan striped suit, brogan shoes, and that dusty brown derby he wore for a hat, while his snuff-colored eyes threw sparks like an anvil.

  “‘Yes! And if the teacher said, “But not him, Reveren’ Samson, he’s a good boy who makes all A’s for his grades,” Blue Goose would tell her, “Is that right? Well, I aim to keep him going good, and what I’m giving him won’t hurt his A’s or B’s a single iota. Because, believe me, ma’am, I don’t aim to touch ‘em!”

  “‘And then for no good reason that we could see he’d march us down into the basement among all those pipes, urinals, and toilet bowls, and lined bottoms up with all our britches hanging down he’d lay on that strap—strap? Hell, no! It was a thick, solid rubber tire he’d taken from the pedal wheel of a big tricycle and it raised welts on our butts like alligator hide!

  “‘Damn his soul! Damn his bald-headed soul to hell! Calling him Blue Goose wasn’t much revenge, but it was about all the little kids could get away with. Sure, those fast, fleet-footed runners like Buster would wait under the viaduct for him to ride his bicycle over it and yell, “Blue Goose is a loose goose” and take off. Or on Sundays when he was preaching some would hide outside under the windows of his church and honk like ganders, but I could never move with enough control to risk joining them.

  “‘Blue Goose was a holy terror! Why, one time he whipped China Jackson so bad that ole China ran down the railroad tracks home and came racing back with his daddy’s forty-four and shot at Blue Goose six straight times, raising up steady and leveling down slow, and busting those caps like a young Jesse James—Wham! Wham-wham-wham-wham! Yeah, but he missed the snuff-dipping bastard every damn time!

  “‘Because, you see, poor China was pulling the trigger with the barrel pointing a
t twelve o’clock noon instead of at three P.M. because he’d been watching too many of those shoot-em-up movies. Which was too bad, because if he’d only pulled the trigger with the barrel pointing at one he would have drilled Blue Goose a third beady eye; or if he’d squeezed it pointing a little bit lower he would have hit him in his spareribs or chitt’lings; while nine o’clock or three would have hit him in his heart and called right then for the undertaker to dress him in his last clean shirt. But it wasn’t in the cards—Blue Goose choked to death on the glorious Juneteenth while nibbling on a catfish bone at a party.

  “‘But ole China did much more than fire a blank, because when all that gunfire erupted, Blue Goose took off honking bloody murder for a fare-thee-well. In fact, he ripped his britches, swallowed a big lip full of Garrett’s snuff, and busted all the seams in his brogan shoes. And when he finally stopped running and found he was still in one piece he threw back his head and preached the Book of Revelation down on poor China’s soul. What I mean is, Blue Goose put the badmouth on China and all his kinfolks. And then he cursed him the way that cruel old prophet, cruel Jeremiah, cursed those little kids who yelled “Go down, ole Baldy” at him. And as you’ll remember, he had them eaten up by bears!

  “‘Ah, yes! But China boy, while both you and Blue Goose are gone forever those bullets are still up there in the ceiling to mark your day of glory. A little snot-nose kid who lives up the street told me the other day that it was some Indians who put all those bullet holes up there in the ceiling. So I said, “Well, if that’s the truth, then one of them had to be named Chief China Lee Jackson.” And then I told him that he’d better remember things like that because out in this part of the country folks tend to make up history as they go along. Either that or they think that all the lessons are written in books and believe that everything happened the way somebody writes it….’ ”

  “Hey, Cliofus,” a man’s voice called, “forget history, what I want to know is what happened to that cat in the union suit!”