Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Folks showed up in all kinds of costumes. Some came as African kings carrying shields and spears, some came as Indian chiefs wearing warbonnets and arrows, Indian clubs, and prizefighter’s skipping ropes. One fellow came dressed like Uncle Sam and went strolling through the crowd on stilts. He claimed that he had been in the circus and minstrel shows, and proved it by whirling the hell out of a drum major’s baton. Another fellow dressed himself in tights and did all kinds of acrobatics that nobody ever dreamed he could do. And like here there were others who used the movie as an opportunity to show off skills which they’d put aside years before—and among them even some old-time musicians who were working as handymen. But hardly anybody came dressed as his own dear self—except some of Jack BooBoo Beaujack’s henchmen. Such as Tyree, Yella Pea Mitchell, Sad Rag Doll Green, and Duck-Dinner Jones. The rest came in masks and fancy costumes.

  “In fact, folks got so enthused that they damn near started a business boom in the hock shops. Pretty soon, as the pawnshop owners tried to keep their supplies in pace with demand, they found themselves making money hand over fist. But then Little Sammy, who owned a popular shop, almost killed it. That’s because when he realized that folks were buying and renting things that they’d never even looked at before, he made the mistake of letting one of his customers overhear him say that the schwartzers were going crazy from trying to be like the goys. When folks heard about that they wanted to kill him, because after all Little Sammy was a midget who sported a monocle and strutted around trying to impress white folks as well as black with his phony aristocratic manners. Naturally, he lost his colored trade, but before he put his pigeon-toed foot in his mouth he’d been reaping the benefits along with Uncle Jake—who was the favorite—and Uncle Nate and Uncle Moe. That was because instead of hocking their jewelry and threads as they usually did, Negroes were buying and renting all kinds of suits, coats, hats, and boots, spurs, helmets, sabers, and medals.

  “One guy bought every medal and ribbon he could find and pinned them up and down the front of his Prince Albert coat. And for a walking cane he carried a flag on top of a tall thin staff. But since they were taking part in a cross between the Fourth of July, Emancipation Day, and Halloween, many of the would-be actors tried to combine the three themes in their costumes. And since they didn’t know exactly how their costumes would fit in the movie they just let their imaginations go for broke.

  “They came up with all kinds of airplane pilot’s goggles, leather jackets, flying helmets, and leggings. And enough smooth and woolly cowboy chaps and britches to outfit the entire crew of the 101 Ranch. Some came up with some old leather fire chief’s helmets, and those striped railroad engineer’s caps were selling like hotcakes. One war veteran wore a spiked German helmet which he had brought back from France. Two others had army gas masks dangling from their necks, and wore overseas caps with long red feathers stuck in the folds. And still another went parading around all wrapped up in a webbed machine-gun belt that was full of old corroded bullets. The damn thing was so heavy that he looked like ole Uncle Jack, the jelly-roll kind, and since he had a hump in his back folks kidded him about being too old to shake that thing. The jokers were really giving him a hard time, but when another old fellow turns up dressed like an angel complete with a halo and some beat-up wings and starts to quoting the Bible at them they let him be and went to teasing some of the women.

  “And there were plenty of them. One bunch of women came dressed as Red Cross nurses, and so as not to be outdone, another bunch shows up dressed as Black Cross nurses, and wore pictures of Marcus Garvey pinned to their uniforms. One young high-yellow woman decided to play the part of Harriet Tubman, so she did up her face in lampblack, put on a bandanna for a turban, and marched around with a corncob pipe between her teeth, a Civil War rifle over her shoulder, and a waving railroad lantern in her hand.

  “Then folks with reputations for having loose screws got into the act. For instance, there was this fellow called Gone Grease Thompson, who was supposed to have gotten his brains scrambled after selling his two-hundred-acre farm near Okmulgee and turned most of the money over to Marcus Garvey with the idea of going back to Africa—where, being part Creek Indian, part South Carolina Geechee, and a good deal Georgia cracker, he’d never been except in dreams. But then, after his money was gone and Garvey was deported, he learned that the lower forty acres of the land which he’d sold for a song was swampland soggy with high-grade oil and it snapped his cap. Well, Gone Grease Thompson turns up wearing striped pants, pearl gray spats, a long-tailed coat, a high silk hat, and carrying a silver-headed walking stick—all of which he’d rented from Little Sammy’s pawnshop. I don’t need to tell you that folks gave him hell….

  “Then here comes a woman dressed in a pair of overloaded army britches with a reinforced seat that’s as wide as a barn door, and some high laced boots that are under one hell of a strain from trying to contain her great big calves. She’s also busting out of a leather pilot’s jacket, and on her head she’s wearing a flier’s helmet and a pair of goggles exactly like the ones the three movie men were wearing. She’s moving along real proud, and when some jokers asked her to explain her costume, she cussed them out for being ignorant and proclaims that she means to get some true history of the colored flying woman into the picture. Then she drew herself up like a balloon and declared that she was the living spirit of Miss Bessie Coleman.

  “‘So who the hell was that?’ one of the jokers asked her, and she drew herself up and said, ‘Why, she was a famous colored lady airplane pilot, that’s who! And you better believe it!’ And then to make sure that nobody missed the part she was playing, she went home and came back wearing signs on her bosom and her back which read bessie. She must have also taken a look into some book, because now she was walking with a terrible limp, which she said was the way Miss Coleman had to walk after busting her leg while test-piloting a German airplane. The joker didn’t want to believe her but she had a faded photograph of Miss Bessie to prove she wasn’t making things up.

  [COSTUMES]

  “OH, it was something to see, especially since I was only a kid. Men in lodge uniforms, with their ribbons and sashes and Sam Browne belts, and their cocked hats crowned with snow-white feathers. Ole Zebedee Richardson, who’s as big as me and as dark-complected, turned up wearing a white suit, white shoes, a big broad-brimmed white hat, and the kind of flowing tie that you see in pictures of those old-time poets. He was really strutting his stuff and shaking hands, and swore that he was the spitting image—nose, mouth, chin, and cheekbones—of Senator Carter Glass. And when some joker asked who the hell was Glass, ole Zeb frowned like he was outraged and said that he was an important politician he used to know back in Ole Virginia. So then the joker said that he’d never heard of any such senator, but that if he looked anything like Zeb there was no way in the world for him not to have been a white, unreconstructed ink-spitter. That’s when I thought I was about to see a fight, because up to that point Zeb was only clowning, but when he heard himself being signified at as a black ink-spitting Uncle Tom it made him so mad that it took four big strong men and a pint of whiskey to quiet him down. And with that things really started getting out of hand.

  “When the news about a movie being made in this part of town reached the white folks, a big-shot politician decided to exploit it. So he donated a whole herd of pigs, carcasses of beef, and a young boar bear to be barbecued and served to all those taking part. Back in those days not many of us could vote, but he figured that by casting all that meat on the streets things would get so greasy that come the fall election all the colored votes would come sliding to him. But he made one big mistake. His only link to folks out here happened to be a con man of a jackleg preacher whose ace-in-the-hole hustle was operating a beat-up old-folks home. And it was this con man who convinced the politician that with all that barbecue to work with not only could he deliver the vote for the entire district, but he’d even get the Lord to send the white man straight to Cong
ress. And it worked. That’s right—yeah! But then instead of the rascal turning the meat over to the cooks to be barbecued as he was supposed to do, this con man crams as much of it into the iceboxes of his congregation as they could hold and stashes the rest in some crates and hid it in the basement of his old-folks home. Then he loads the rest in a wagon and heads for the little nearby towns and farms, where he peddles it at prices way below those of the markets and grocery stores.

  “Up to this point his plan was working smooth as silk, but he overlooked two details. The first was that the news of the barbecue had been announced in the newspapers, and the second was his forgetting about Jack BooBoo Beaujack and what could happen when the doctored-up liquor which Jack was dispensing free to anybody who had nerve enough to drink it took effect. But by now the moviemaking was well under way, and when all that liquor started working its spell in all that July heat, folks began to be agitated by the bite of all that booze in their empty stomachs, and that’s when hell erupted.

  “If they could have eaten they wouldn’t have drunk so fast, and if they hadn’t drunk so much they might not have got so doggone high. And if they hadn’t been pretending to be somebody else and living in different days and ages they wouldn’t have begun to believe it. But with everything going at sixes and sevens, they lost control. So yes, ladies and gentlemen, the answer is yes: It all began to come apart when that movie camera became red hot from all its grinding….

  “That’s right, sir,” Cliofus laughed as he waved to Hickman, “I was there and saw it steaming! It was as hot as Hoot Gibson’s pistol, but although those movie men had been cramming folks into it for hours they still weren’t telling them what they were supposed to do.

  “‘Just act natural,’ they told them, and went on to explain that for the time being they were just shooting some background scenes so that folks would get used to the idea of being actors. And therefore they could feel free to do anything that came to mind. So with the streets all decorated and renamed for some local characters who had long since passed away, folks lost their bearings. And with all those masks and costumes mixing them up as to who they were, they started cutting loose like mile-high kites in a strong March wind. And by the time Beaujack’s liquor went to work, all some of them knew for sure was they had to have some food to eat. So the stage was set, and when a gang of them burst into a restaurant and can’t be fed, one of them gets the others all worked up by yelling, ‘What? No barbecue! So how the hell are we supposed to act our best on empty stomachs?’ Then the others join in, yelling things like, ‘Who the hell stole all them ribs and the bread with the hot-sauce on it? Where the hell’s our rightful share of them red beans and fluffy rice?’

  “And when the cooks couldn’t produce and told them why, they took off looking for that jackleg preacher, with the one in the lead waving a beat-up Louisville slugger in the air. Quite a few took off with them, but with so many people in the street the movie men didn’t mind. Because even though they’d been rolling that camera since sunup, they hadn’t even begun to run out of raw material, and more folks in masks and costumes were appearing.

  “Pretty soon it was like watching a parade. Here comes a little short guy wearing an oversized cowboy hat and some boots with turned-up toes that looked like somebody had shot their heels off with a blazing forty-five. He’s pretending to be a marshal or a sheriff and doing a John Wayne strut, but the star on his chest is made of tinfoil, and instead of six-shooters he has a couple of rolling pins dangling from his cowboy belt.

  “Then here come three drunks dressed in black choir robes and wearing lensless glasses who’re pretending to be judges and carrying ball-peen hammers for gavels, and beat-up copies of Captain Billy’s Wizbang and the Police Gazette for law books. They’re marching along all dignified, but talking more jive than a reefer-headed disc jockey at five o’clock in the morning. But it worked because folks got a kick out of identifying them with judges who were actually sitting on the courts. The crowd gave them star-quality attention, but then—here come a dozen of Jack BooBoo Beaujack’s buddies and they steal the judges’ thunder.

  “These thugs are all dressed up in long, pioneer women’s dresses and wearing poke bonnets like the Old Dutch Cleanser woman on their heads. And not only are they wearing death-head masks, but they have pillows stuffed under their dresses to make themselves look last-minute pregnant. This gets the crowd to laughing and calling them the various kinds of mothers which on any normal day could get you killed. But instead of getting mad, Jack’s henchmen just start dancing in a circle and singing ‘Little Sally Walker,’ with a tall skinny fellow standing in the middle. And when they come to the line ‘Turn to the east, turn to the west, turn to the one that you love the best,’ he falls down and starts to screaming and rolling on the street like he’s about to have a baby. Then he snatches off his bonnet and screams like he’s in body-wracking pain, and the others close in on him while holding up their skirts to give him privacy. And the next thing we know one of them kneels over him and comes up holding a little suckling pig by its hind legs. The little pig is as wet as a circus seal and squealing for dear life, but they’re oohing and aahing over it like a bunch of women; and the next thing I know they’re dressing it in baby clothes! And I mean including a little bonnet—which they must have swiped off some little girl’s doll. Then after they get it dressed they shove a baby bottle of milk into its squealing mouth and the little pig goes to work on it like it’s his mama’s tit and nipple.

  “Those clowns really had it all worked out, because after they pass the pig back and forth between them and oh and ah over it, they ask the one playing the mother the name of its father—and right away here comes a guy who’s dressed like a preacher, except that instead of wearing britches he has on a great big diaper. Then after he chants some mumbo-jumbo which he pretends to be reading out of a book, he pulls out a pint of whiskey, and as he sprinkles the little pig’s head he gives it his blessing by saying, ‘My dear new born chile, I bless you now in the name of the butcher, the brush, and the football maker, the mud, the moon, and the barbecue pit. But most of all I bless you in the name of all those fine folks who like their pigmeat greasy!’

  “And as you would expect, this really sets off a roar of hooting and hollering, especially among the hustlers. Because ‘pigmeat’ was their special name for young women’s most precious gift and burden. And then, right in the midst of all that noise, here comes Jack BooBoo Beaujack in all his unrighteous glory….

  “Ole Jack has been laying low and playing it cool, but now with that camera grinding away here he comes. Strutting along in his deep-wine-red bully-woollies; which, being him, he’s wearing with the drop-seat gaping. And behind him the fool is pulling an old billy goat which he stole off the grounds of the hospital where its blood was used for making serums.

  “Jack’s wearing a black derby hat and smoking a big black cigar and sweating up a river as he drags the goat along. And quite naturally, with the poor goat being upset by all the noise and people, he’s butting at anything that moves and smelling up the sidewalk like a crapping machine.

  “Oh, the lamb misused breeds public strife—that’s from a poem I’ve read, and from all the fancy footwork folks were using in getting out of his path it’s doubly true of billy goats.

  “Anyway, by now Halloween is everywhere. Folks are wearing costumes right down to the bricks. With women dressed as men and men as women, and with all kinds of foreigners being represented. Because when it came to masquerading, folks were forgetting their prejudices and trying anything and everything on for size and feeling. But just after Jack and that goat showed up some powerful conjure woman—probably old Miss Mildred Merryweather—must have dropped the shuck, cussed it, and set it on fire.

  “I say that because when Buster and I came down the hill to watch the fun we heard Mr. Pulliham’s big black dog cut loose with a bark which he followed with a lonesome howl. Then from up in the corner dance hall where the band was tuning up we heard th
e trombone player stick his horn out the window and blow some pure gut-bucket down the crowd. And that’s when we see Jack stop pulling on the goat and do a nasty mess-around. Then he throws back his be-derbied head and yells, ‘Aw, put us in the alley, love’—which was his nickname for everybody, both men and women, white folks, Indians, Chinese, Mexicans, and Jews. And he got away with it too, because he always winked and grinned so that nobody knew what the hell to do about it. So now with folks yelling and shouting to encourage the fool, the three movie men were cussing like sailors because folks keep getting between Jack’s clowning and their camera lens.

  “With the camera set up in the intersection of the street they had been making some shots of the leading lady and the leading man, but now, with Jack cutting the fool, the one with the Southern accent was trying to herd everyone who wasn’t in the scene off to one side. He’s trying to use some slave-master psychology, but it won’t work and it’s about to get his Rebel up. But then the one with all the accents, who’s directing from on top of a big moving van, finally gets folks to move out of the way. Then through his little megaphone he tells the leading man and lady what he wants them to do. And since they don’t know the beginning or the end of the story, he explains that the hero is supposed to be a young lawyer who’s new in town, and that he hopes to make his fortune by helping to bring some law and order to the wild and woolly frontier. And although he’s only seen her passing in the street he’s supposed to be falling head over heels in love with the fine southwestern pioneer gal who’s being acted by the little leading lady.

  “So now the leading man is supposed to be out on the streets trying to get her in his sights, but he’s not supposed to let her see the extent of his true feelings. Just pretend that you’re walking past the ice-cream parlor where she’s having a soda, the director says, and when she comes out, pretend that you just bumped into her accidentally. Then you give her the glad eye and sweet-talk her into going back inside to have a chocolate nut sundae.