Tales of the Out & the Gone

by Imamu Amiri Baraka

  For some reason, Johns was determined to go through with it, but the whole deal had cooled him out as far as having any raging animal passion that had to be pulled off by some anonymous chocha. Laffawiss, on the other hand (and on the other side of the bed), quickly pulled his pants down, and without the least adieu got to righteous work, pumping away at speeds sometimes approaching the sound barrier.

  Johns was still fumbling and trying to maneuver the woman in some kind of way. And at the same time, trying to remain oblivious of his partner three inches away heaving and wheezing like a small white Groucho Marx gorilla on loan from the Lower East Side.

  Not long after, Laffawiss’s “long time” was got to in a relatively short time. But at this point, Johns was just beginning to feel that maybe in a little while he might actually begin to feel something—at least be a little more comfortable. And the woman was not giving much help. Instead of going through a few of Scheherazade’s 1,001 sexual variations, the way the old soldiers said it was done for them at bases all over the universe, this less-than-plain woman lay back in the shadows and scowled. After a while of Johns’s aimless pushing, she ventured, “You finished? It’s long time.”

  Ray was raising his head to make some comment to the babe, and he saw Laffawiss’s narrow butt rising up. What a sight that must be, Johns thought, black and white butts flagging away in unison—shit, it’s what Civil Rights is all about, goddamnit.

  But then Laffy started sounding like the babe Johns was supposed to be banging. “Hey, Ray, you finished yet? Huh?”

  “What? Am I finished? Goddamnit, Laffy. Nobody told you to be so goddamn quick. You like a kid—wham, bam, thank you ma’am.” All that to hide the fact that in this surrounding, there was nothing going to happen with Ray Johns. In fact, he was laying there mostly embarrassed in the near dark, wondering how the fuck he’d gotten talked into this madness.

  “You finished yet, Johns? We can’t stay here all night, you know. Not only are we off-limits, but we only got about forty-five minutes to get back to the base.”

  “Aw, fuck that.” Johns had his head cocked to one side to talk to Laffy, who had now risen up completely away from the woman. “You bastard, I don’t care about all that shit. Ain’t nothing happened with me yet, goddamnit.”

  “Hey, you finish now,” the woman puffing under Johns called out. “You pay for long time, but not for all night. You finish now.”

  “Goddamnit, I ain’t finished. Laffy, look, you got this bitch throwing me on the floor and shit. I ain’t got my money’s worth yet.”

  Laffawiss looked at him and tried to make a suggestive face. But in the half-dark, Ray couldn’t tell what he was making faces about. So Laffawiss whispered, “Hey, we didn’t pay, ya creep. We’ll get our clothes on, then lam outta here. See, you get a little free stuff.”

  “I didn’t get nothin’ in the first goddamn place.”

  “You finish,” the woman repeated once more. “Your long time is over.”

  Laffawiss was pulling up his pants now. Johns had been put off the woman as she tried to rise. Laffy was making faces, urging Johns to get his pants on and make ready to dash out of the joint. But Johns was still reluctant, feeling cheated, even though he and his buddy were getting ready to cheat these women (and their pimp). But then the woman that Johns had been riding stood all the way up and began talking to her companion, who had also risen. Ray Johns could see her now more clearly, and in near profile he saw that the woman was a cripple. She had a large hump on her back. Johns’s skin felt like pins and needles, and all he could think to do was shout at his buddy who was about to break out the front door. “Laffy, you dirty son-of-a-bitch! Goddamn you, goddamn you!”

  As he was answering Johns, Laffy was pulling his buddy’s arm to get him to move. “Come on, Ray. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

  Johns did not really believe Laffy would run away after fucking the women. It never occurred to him that you were supposed to pay even if nothing happened. But now, after being jerked by Laffawiss, he found himself staggering out into the front room and past the startled old woman, who now had her broom raised to stop the two retreating thieves.

  The two women in the back room bust out too, the three of them screaming, “My money, mi dinero. Mi dinero, maricón! Cholito negro!”

  Then the old lady started calling a man’s name. “Miguel … Cabrón! Miguel!”

  Laffy and Ray plunged headlong into the darkness. Laffawiss knew generally the direction he was heading in. Johns knew nothing, except that it was dark and now three women and some crazed pimp were chasing them.

  Running, as they were, down the off-limits black streets of Aguadilla—no, Mondongo—made Ray Johns feel absurd. Like he had been Shanghaied into a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Laffy, on the other hand, felt exhilarated. The sweaty air laughed around him like his sweaty skin and sweat-soaked uniform. He had his cap in his hand, running in his squatty Groucho Marx gait. The three women had fallen quickly into the far rear, and the pimp was only a step or two ahead of them. The cries of “Mi dinero, maricón! Cabrón!” and other untranslatable obscenities sailed along closer to the feverishly retreating G.I.s. But suddenly, out of the darkness, there were other figures next to them, closer.

  “Oh shit!” Johns called out, trying to raise his velocity still higher. Laffawiss was actually chuckling, and the sight of this made Ray very angry, but there was not time to do anything but hotfoot it.

  The Air Force physical-fitness programs kept Laffawiss and Johns relatively close in their flight, except Laffy was beginning to breathe a little heavier. Johns ran track and cross country in high school and college, and was actually sprinting easily. If he was sitting still he might have been more frightened, but during the chase he saw it as an emotion-tinged physics problem. The bottom line of this was: You’ll never catch me, motherfucker.

  Then, it seemed, several more dudes leaped out of an alley ahead of them, and all at once they were just about surrounded. A hand scraped Ray Johns’s face, trying to grab at his clothes or whatever. Laffy was being reached for, and then both of them were trying to break free from many hands and the blood-seeking Puerto Rican Spanish.

  Johns twisted, flailing his arms, and put his head down, twisting and diving for freedom. As he began to receive several glancing blows, he broke free and then accelerated to light speed. In the darkness, it was almost impossible to see clearly the faces of the seemingly young men who lunged at them. He moved away and caught a glimpse, still moving, but with someone’s hands grasping for him as he tried to round a corner.

  Speeding through the dark, Johns careened blindly into a stack of garbage, knocking over boxes, cans, bags. As he regained his balance, he grabbed the lid from one of the cans and bashed it at the threatening shadows as he ran. He was trying to get away, number one, but then thought he should try to circle back behind where they were jumped to see what was going on with Laffy. Yet it was not merely one block he had to circle, but several, in the blind hit-and-miss fashion his running enforced. And it seemed a long time and a long journey, with the voices behind him. Once, he had to swing the garbage can cover at a couple of dudes moving near the edge of an alley. As he passed them, he wasn’t even sure they were chasing him. But now they were, for sure. He ran and ran, hoping he still had the right direction.

  When he turned the corner to what looked like the narrow little street where the citizens had first cornered them, Johns’s heart leaped again as he noticed a blue Jeep of the Air Police, the red light blinking threateningly from its hood. He could see two air policemen, one black and one white, talking to what looked like a huddle of screaming young locals. To one side of the group, the wrinkled old woman stood, adding her two and three cents to the general roar.

  Laffy lay up against one of the buildings, turning his head slowly from one side to the other. Somebody (or bodies) had popped him good. Johns froze for a second, figuring if he showed, he blowed. But fuck it, it didn’t mean that much. Who cared? A fuckin Article 15, wha
t the hell? He thought this as he came striding out of the shadows. His appearance set the little crowd on “Vaya!” and for some reason the old woman wanted to spit at him.

  Looking up wearily, all Laffawiss could offer was, “Hey, do any of you sad sons-of-bitches got a cigarette?” He even gestured at the crowd that strained to ice him. “Mira, dame un cigarillo, por favor.” They howled blood.

  At Johns, Laffawiss merely tried unsuccessfully to grin. “Hey, airman, what the fuck happened to you?”

  As the A.P.s closed on Johns, particularly because of his ability to move the assembled crowd, he answered, “I went home to jerk off. That was the worst pussy I ever had.” And they tried to laugh again.

  * * *

  The two buddies did get an Article 15 as punishment, and the First Sergeant made them paint the exterior of both of the large cement barracks that housed the flying personnel of the 73rd Strategic Bomb Squadron.

  Ray and Laffy renewed their friendship after both had left the service. Johns had gotten out early because someone had written an anonymous letter to his squadron commander saying that he was a Communist. He didn’t even protest. Laffy got out a few months early on a hardship discharge he had phonied up.

  Ironically, the last time the two were together was in New York City, the fond and flying apple of their Air Force daydreams. Coming down Ninth Avenue together, crossing into the Village, they were jumped by a screaming, bottle-throwing mob of young white boys. Again, Johns, with his fabled foot speed, got away, circling a few corners and picking up a garbage can cover as he ran, laughing at the déjà vu of the whole thing. But this time as he rounded the corner, Laffy had already been taken away in an ambulance.

  Two guys, who said they were related to Laffy, came by Johns’s house a few days later and left an odd message that they had been there. They had also asked the superintendent “what color” Johns was, for some reason. But he never saw them again, nor did he ever see his old comrade in arms.

  July 1983

  BLANK

  LC stopped at the corner and looked in a shop window. At whatever, but the reflection caught his eye and startled him. He did not recognize who he saw. The face would not smile. His shoulders were not stooped, but broad. He had a gray flannel blazer and black tweed pants. A thin yellow sleeveless sweater and open collar, gray silk-mixture shirt, tie-less. His brown hair, carefully combed, flattened casually back to his ears. Perhaps a strand or two brushed his forehead.

  He stared, amazed. Amazed at what? He was not certain, only that he was surprised at what he saw in the window, stashed between the hats and ties in the store. He looked at his hands. There was a light brownish-red tinge to them, as from the sun. His nails, perfectly manicured. He turned his hands over slowly, at the same time peering closer into the window, trying to see whether his face was lightly tanned as well. It looked like it, like a light tan over an otherwise healthy but very northern European complexion.

  Why was he surprised—yes, amazed? He was not certain. Not certain, except …

  And his thoughts tailed off as he turned from the shop window and stared randomly up and down the street at the breezy walkers crossing and moving at the corner of East 65th and Madison. Perhaps they were shoppers and executives out to lunch. Perhaps … And he turned his head in another direction, watched, then turned it back, then turned around.

  He was surprised because … Now he had forgotten why, but maybe something was wrong with … He crossed toward a drugstore on the opposite corner. Maybe he could look closer at his face, if he bought …

  But a car mirror served his initial purpose. He stopped and peered into it, now seeing his face more clearly than before. It was smooth, clean shaven. There was a subtle aftershave he could barely smell. His gray eyes narrowed slightly as he inspected his face. But then, what was it? What was so strange? Why was he sort of stumped? Or something. Dazzled? Whatever. It was (his hand slid into one pocket and a few coins tapped and rolled against each other; he noticed the Oyster Rolex watch—it was just after 1:00 in the afternoon, the date read September 1) … what? There was something pressing in his mind, against his brain, from within. Some pressure. But he could not say from what. He patted his back pockets—there was a gray handkerchief, nothing else. He patted his jacket, finding keys in the right-hand pocket. And in the inner breast pocket, he felt a wallet. He slid it out, unfolded it. People passed him, oblivious and perhaps lighthearted. There was, of course, money in the wallet. He fingered the bills lightly, not really counting, but definitely counting. Not much, perhaps $1600 in twenties and fifties. An inadvertent smile he didn’t see flirted with his lips and vanished. He slipped the wallet back into the pocket simply, turning at the same time to survey the passing strangers.

  But here he stopped abruptly, as if pondering. It was warm and bright, at the civilized edge of summer’s swift demise. He had nothing in his hands. In his mind, a question was forming. But he stepped quickly toward a newsstand and looked down at the papers and magazines, confirming the date. It was Wednesday. He glanced innocently at the headlines and a few stories on the front pages. One paper predicted War, another Peace. Another showed the bare breasts of a blond woman with her open mouth, both grimacing and smiling.

  Suddenly, he went into the inside pocket again and withdrew the wallet. He fished for the rows of credit cards stuffed into several compartments. There was American Express Gold, Visa, Diner’s Club, Carte Blanche, Brooks Brothers, all made out in the name Close Securities-LC. Close Securities-LC was on each one, but why was he studying these cards? What, was he going to buy something? But that was not it, it was something else. It was not clear. It was not on the windows of the buildings he looked at, scanning easily toward each of the four corners. He had moved perhaps fifty or sixty feet in the last five minutes or so, according to his watch. But there was something bothering him. Everything seemed alright—in order, so to speak.

  He was at the corner now and the traffic light was blinking, about to change, with people streaming by him, absorbed in their movement and the flow of midday traffic through the glistening part of the glistening city. He too began to cross as the flow of people eased off somewhat. But then it occurred to him that he had some time to kill, that he had been looking in the window, and also that he did not know where he had decided to go. He thought it would come to him momentarily, when he touched the other side of his jacket, running his hand into the other inside pocket. Here was an envelope, a long business envelope with no writing whatsoever on it. Inside was a cashier’s check with the Bankers Trust seal on it for $2.5 million. The check was made out to Close Securities- LC. 2,500,000, as well as Two Million and Five Hundred Thousand Dollars and No Cents, was written on the check. Made out to Close Securities-LC.

  The bank at which the check had been drawn was very close to where he was at this moment. He looked at the numbers on the buildings. The bank was … it was across the street, just in back of him. It was over there, just next to that haberdashery. That was the same store he had been standing in front of, where he’d looked at himself in the window. When he’d been amazed that he did not …

  He turned, and at this point a steel-gray Bentley eased up to the curb next to him and a black man looked out at him earnestly. In a moment, the man was out of the car and around it, almost at LC’s side. “Sir?” he began. “Shall I wait, or where would you like to go?”

  The black man wore a gray worsted suit and dark-blue shirt with gray silk tie. A small accommodating smile played at his lips and he reached toward the Bentley’s back door, ready to open it at LC’s request.

  “I should go to the bank,” LC said quietly, staring straight at the black man.

  “Yes, sir. But I thought you’d already gone in, sir?”

  “Yes.” LC wanted to say more, but he looked across the street at the bank and then at the envelope which he still clutched in his hand. He put the envelope back in his inside pocket. “Yes.”

  The chauffeur had his hand on the door handle, and as L
C looked at him, the man opened the door easily and held it for LC to enter. With no thought at all, LC entered the rear of the car. There was a small, well-outfitted bar that opened out of the front of the backseat and a small television. There was also a tiny compartment with the day’s newspapers.

  On the seat next to him was a leather envelope. LC moved his hand toward it expectantly. At the same time, the chauffeur turned to look at him, asking instructions with his eyes. The question in LC’s mind, as it finally made itself clear, was jokish but at the same time frightening. Who? The word pushed into the connecting slide between mouth and brain, remaining unsaid but felt in the softest part of his voice. There was a rush of words flooding through, but what was heaviest was a fearful thrust of steel absurdity. He realized now that he did not know who he was. He did not recognize the face, the voice, the clothes, the wallet, the check, the black chauffeur, the Bentley. He did not even recognize completely where he was, except what he had seen in fragments shuffled by in the day and sun and light, sensuous breeze. He did not know who he was.

  So he did not know where he was going or where he had been. He had no instructions for the chauffeur because he did not know anything about anything. Was it amnesia? Was he ill or crazy? What had happened to him? He was amazed at what he looked like. Happily surprised, perhaps, at the wallet, the $2.5 million check. The car and chauffeur, there among the tall rich buildings.

  “Sir,” the elegantly dressed black chauffeur was saying, “are you going back to the office as scheduled, or somewhere else?”

  “Schedule?” LC was about to say that he did not know who he was, but it sounded too stupid. “Can you open the window, please?” he said instead. He thought perhaps a little more air and time, some of the sun, maybe, anything. But there was no real panic, it was just aggravating. And for a while he had not even understood that he knew nothing, that there was nothingness just a little before thirty minutes ago. Blankness.