Flight to Canada

by Ishmael Reed

  11

  QUICKSKILL WENT OVER TO the address that Stray Leechfield had given him. It was located in the old warehouse district of Emancipation City. He looked at the directory. “Leechfield & Leer.” Their office was located on the third floor. He got off the elevator and walked down the hall. The door was ajar, so he walked in. He heard some people talking. One man seemed to be giving directions, telling people to move into certain positions. What was going on? He walked into the hall from the outer office and came upon an area closed off by some curtains. He opened the curtains and took a peek.

  Oh my God! My God! My God! Leechfield was lying naked, his rust-colored body must have been greased, because it was glistening, and there was … there was—the naked New England girl was twisted about him, she had nothing on but those glasses and the flower hat. How did they manage? And then there was this huge bloodhound. He was licking, he was … The Immigrant was underneath one of those Brady boxes—it was flashing. He … he was taking daguerreotypes, or “chemical pictures.”

  “Hey, what’s the matter with you? The sun, there’s too much light. Quickskill, what’s wrong with you?”

  Leechfield said, “Damn.” The unclothed girl looked up. She had a strange smile on her face. Her eyes were glassy. She was panting heavily.

  “I want to talk to Leechfield. It’s important.”

  “I have to deliver this film to a distributor tonight. Make it quick,” Leer told Leechfield.

  “Wait outside,” Leechfield said, annoyed.

  Quickskill went outside. Soon Leechfield came through the curtains. He was dressed in a robe he was tying around the waist.

  “What was that?” asked Quickskill.

  “None of your goddam business, Quickskill. Look, man, don’t you worry about me. We supposed to be free, aren’t we?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then don’t handcuff yourself to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s my bi’ness what I do. I ain’t your slave, so don’t be looking at me with those disapproving eyes and axing me questions.”

  “I …”

  “Shit, everybody can’t do anti-slavery lectures. I can’t. I have to make it the best I can, man. I don’t see no difference between what I’m doing and what you’re doing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have to get evil-smelling eggs thrown at you, and I heard up in Buffalo they were gettin ready to throw some flour on William Wells Brown. Remember when those mobocrats beat up Douglass? Even Douglass, knocked on the ground like any old vagrant.”

  “I don’t want to go into it. I was just shocked because I didn’t expect it.”

  “You shocked? What you shocked about? I’m not watching no houses for nobody. I’m not feedin nobody’s cats and forwarding nobody’s mail. I get it this way. I pull in more in a day than you do in a whole year. You green, man. Brilliant but green. You one green Negro.”

  “Listen, Leechfield, I didn’t come in here to get in an argument—”

  “House nigger. Yes ma’am, no ma’am—you and that Uncle Robin. I see you coming down to the field village, putting on airs and shit. I used to watch you.”

  “If it wasn’t for us, they would have discovered your game a long time before.”

  “What?”

  “They knew about the poultry. They asked us about it when we made inventory of the eggs. We told them it was a mistake the Texas calculator made. We knew it was you. I saw you over in the other county when I was doing errands for the Swille family.”

  “What? And you didn’t say nothin?”

  “We covered for you all the time—made excuses for you and sometimes did the work ourselves that you were supposed to do. And when some of you ran away, we provided you with a map, and so some of us are traveling all over the country pleading for the Cause. So what if we get eggs thrown at us and are beaten unconscious? Swille was the one who stirred up rivalry among us. Don’t you think I knew that when Swille was flattering your kind, he was making fun of us. Look, Leechfield, the reason I came up here is because, well, Swille is on our trail. Today I was visited by a couple of Nebraskaites.”

  “So what you bothering me for?”

  “Don’t you think we all ought to try to stop them?”

  “Look, man”—he pulled out a wad of bills—“I sent the money to Swille. I bought myself with the money with which I sell myself. If anybody is going to buy and sell me, it’s going to be me.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference to him. I don’t think he really wants us to pay for ourselves. I think he wants us. He thinks by sending the Tracers after us we’ll be dumb enough to return, voluntarily; he thinks that a couple of white faces with papers will scare us. Why should I have to tell you all of this? You of all people. You were their hero. They egged you on when you took your stolen hens, went into business. At that time they didn’t want us Mints anywhere near the business. You worked one right under their eyes. Man, Stray, you were our greased lightning, our telegraph wire, our wing-heeled Legba, warning the woodsmen and the rootmen about Barracuda and Cato’s plan to replace all of the cults with one. You were the last warrior against the Jesus cult. And when they caught up with you, how extravagant your departure was. How glorious. And now, here you are with this Leer; I don’t trust Russians. How can you—”

  “Aw, man, Mel’s all right. Look, I just want to be left alone. I’m not no hero, I just have bravado.” That’s what Mel said: Bravado, striking a flamboyant pose. “See, Quickskill, the difference between you and me is that you sneak, while I don’t. You were the first one to hat, but you did it in a sneaky way. What kind of way was that, we thought. Just like a house slave. Tipping away. Following a white man and his wife onto the boat with a trunk on your shoulder, and when the guard ax you where you going, you say you with them. You house slaves were always tipping around, holding your shoes in your hands, trying not to disturb anybody. Well, Leer has done more for me than any of you niggers. Any of you. Always rooting for somebody, and when you do it, say we did it. I got tired of doing it. ‘We did it’ wasn’t paying my rent. ‘We did it’ wasn’t buying my corn, molasses and biscuits. Where was ‘we did it’ when I was doing without, huh? When I was broke and hungry. So I decided to do something that only I could do, so that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. What I’m doing is something ‘we did it’ can’t do, unless we did it one at a time. You follow? Besides, I sent Swille a check. Look, Quickskill, money is what makes them go. Economics. He’s got the money he paid for me, and so that satisfy him. Economics.”

  “Hey, Leechfield, we have some more shooting to do,” Leer says, peeking through the door.

  “Look, man, if you want to buy yourself, here’s the money. You can pay me back.”

  “But it’s not that simple, Leechfield. We’re not property. Why should we pay for ourselves? We were kidnapped.”

  “Yeah, you may think so. But this is a white man’s country. It never occurred to you because you thought that since you were working in the Castle …” He started to return to the room; he was combing his hair. “Hey, look, Quickskill, come by the pad sometime. Don’t stay away.” He closed the door on Quickskill.

  12

  QUICKSKILL WALKED THE STREETS. He kept seeing license plates with VIRGINIA on them; they seemed to be following him. He put his collar up around his neck. He put his hands in his pocket. He kept walking against the shop windows, sliding around the corners. He was a fugitive. He was what you’d call a spare fugitive instead of a busy fugitive: he didn’t have the hundreds of wigs, the make-up, the quick changes busy fugitives had to go through; he was a fugitive, but there was no way he could disguise himself.

  That’s it, he thought, snapping his fingers—40s would know what to do. 40s lived in a houseboat down near the river.

  When he climbed onto the old rusty houseboat, it was dark. He went to the door and knocked.

  “Who’s there?”

  40s opened the door on Quickskill. He had
a shotgun aimed at him.

  “Aw, 40s, put it away. We’re not in Virginia no more.”

  40s spat. “That’s what you think. Shit. Virginia everywhere. Virginia outside. You might be Virginia.”

  All the same he put the shotgun down and took Quickskill inside. “You ought to get your own home instead of watching them for peoples. I got my home. Nothing like having your own home. Don’t have to take care nobody’s plants and they cats or forward they mail.”

  “How can a ‘fuge’ have his own home, 40s? Why, I’d be a sitting duck. Swille’s claimants and catchers could find me any time they wished.”

  “I got something for them. This rifle. You and Leechfield have nothing but dreams. Your Canada. His ‘show business.’ You writing poems. Leechfield with that Jew …”

  “Listen, I’ll have none of that.”

  “He is, though. He is a Jew. He call me a Mint, why come I can’t call him a Jew? He call me a Mint, don’t he?”

  “But—”

  “Don’t he! He call me a Mint, and a black man suppose that’s what I don’t want to call myself. Huh! Suppose I don’t.”

  “You sound like a Nativist.”

  “The Nativists got good ideas. So do the Know-Nothings. I’d join them if they let me. Matter fact, let me show you.”

  He pulled out a hand-spun crude-looking medallion. It was mixed up with symbols that couldn’t possibly go together. Strange letters. What ragged band of Bedlamites could this be? “The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner.” The “S” was backwards and the “Spangled” spelled with an extra “g.”

  “They right. Immigrants comin over here. Raggedy Micks, Dagos and things. Jews. The Pope is behind it. The Pope finance Ellis Island. That’s why it’s an island. Have you ever noticed the Catholic thing about islands? The Pope and them be in them places plottin. They gettin ready to kill Lincoln so’s they can rule America.”

  With this he pulled out some filthy saddle-stitched rag printed on paper, which looked like the kind of paper towels they have in the men’s room at the Greyhound Bus Station in Chicago. It had the same symbols he had on his old nasty medallion, which germ-infested thing he stuck back into his pocket. The Know-Nothing Intelligencer it was named.

  “Why, that’s outrageous,” Quickskill said. “What fevered brain could have thought that up?”

  “Okay, you watch it. Lincoln is courtin destiny. Look how he went into Richmond like that. Got to be a fool. Going to Richmond before Jeff Davis was fresh out of his chair. It say Lincoln sat in his chair … sat in Jefferson Davis’ chair, mind you, with a ‘serious dreamy look’ it say here. Now what kind a fool is that? He is tempting the reaper.”

  “Listen, ah, 40s, I have to go. I just wanted you to know that Swille knows where we are.”

  “You come all the way down here to tell me that? Come here.” He takes Quickskill to the window. “Look up there.” He points to the mountains above the river. “I can hide up there for twenty years and don’t have to worry. If you got caught, you wouldn’t know what to do. Spent too many years in the Castle. I seed you. Sittin at the piano, turning the pages for the white man, admiring his tune. His eyes highbrow. Yours highbrow. Look like twins. If you had to go to the woods, you wouldn’t know what to eat and how to find your way around. You’d eat some mushrooms and die or walk into a bear trap and crush your leg or the elements would get you. No, you let Swille send his dogs, both the four-legged and the two-legged ones. You the one’s going to have to hide. I’m already hidin. You don’t see me, you don’t know me. I’m hidin myself from you right now.”

  “I … I can’t understand you guys. You, Leechfield, irrational, bitter. You still see me as a Castle black, some kind of abstraction. If we don’t pull together, we are lost.”

  “I’m not going to put in with no chumps. What do you know? I was with Grant and Lee in Mexico. Bof of em. Mr. Polk’s war. They was friends then. We chase Santa Yana’s butt all over the mountains. I was there when they captured—”

  “In what capacity, a body servant? Fetching eggs for the captain, Arthur Swille the Second, shining his boots and making his coffee? Oh, look, 40s, I’m … I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Look …” He puts his arm around him.

  “Get on way from me.”

  “But …”

  “I got all these guns. Look at them. Guns everywhere. Enough to blow away any of them Swille men who come look for me. I don’t need no organization. If I was you, Quickskill, I’d forget about this organization.”

  “Why?”

  “Cause them niggers don’t wont no organization. You have a organization, they be fighting over which one gone head it; they be fightin about who gone have the money; then they be complainin about things, but when it come down to work, they nowhere to be found. Look, Quickskill, they bring in some women, then it’s all over. Then every one of them want to impress the women. They be picking fights with each other and talking louder than each other, then look over at the women, see if they lookin.”

  “There really doesn’t seem to be too much interest in it. Maybe you’re right.”

  40s closed his eyes and rocked in satisfaction. “Now you’re talkin, Quickskill. You worry about Quickskill. Leechfield will look after himself, you can be sure of that. Come on, have a drink.”

  He went to the shelf and pulled a bottle down. It had a mushroom cloud painted on the label. He poured Quickskill a shot glass. He poured himself one. Then he hobbled around the table on his stump. “Here’s to the emancipation of our brothers still in bondage, in Virginia, Massachusetts and New York.”

  They drank. Quickskill’s liquor went down. He felt like someone had just shot a hot poker through his navel. Battleships started to move about inside. Gettysburg was inside. His face turned red. He began to choke and his eyes became teary. 40s slapped him on the back.

  “How can you drink this stuff?”

  “Jersey Lightning. Stuff is good for you. Make your hair grow. Where you think Lincoln got that beard?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Quickskill said, wheezing and coughing.

  “What’s going on with Leechfield?”

  “He’s doing okay. I just left him.”

  “He’s comin up in the world. I saw him in the paper. He had an ad in there. Man, what a con he is.”

  “Let me see it.”

  40s rose and got a newspaper from a pile over near the houseboat’s one door. He brought it to Quickskill, pointing to Leechfield’s ad: “I’ll Be Your Slave for One Day.” Leechfield was standing erect. In small type underneath the picture it said: “Humiliate Me. Scorn Me.”

  “This is disgusting.”

  “Leechfield gets more pussy than a cat, Quickskill. Always driving a long boat. Money.”

  “What does that Leer have to do with Leechfield?”

  “Oh, man, that’s his runner.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “They pardners. You see, Leer takes photos, and they sell them around the country. It’s a mail-order business they got. You’d be surprised how many people enjoy having a slave for a day even when they can’t touch them. They say that one of them Radical Republican congressmen even sent for one. Leechfield has come a long way. Use to be nothin but a chicken plucker. That Leer brought him into the big time. First they started out in Tennessee. Leer would pretend to be Leechfield’s owner, and he’d have Leechfield dressed up in black cloth pantaloons, black cloth cap, plaided sack coat, cotton check shirt and brogans. And he’d sell Leechfield during the morning and then he’d kidnap Leechfield at night, and then would repeat the same routine to a different buyer the next day. Man, they made a fortune in the nigger-running business. That’s how they got the money to come up here.”

  Quickskill rose.

  “You leavin?”

  “Yeah, I got to go.”

  “You upset about Leechfield?”

  “Yeah, a little. The slaves really used to look up to him.”

  “Well, be careful, Quickskill. Swille ain’t going to spend a
ll of that time chasing us. He’s busy. How’d he find out we were here, anyway?

  “It’s my poem. You don’t understand.”

  “You got to be kiddin. Words. What good is words?”

  “Words built the world and words can destroy the world, 40s.”

  “Well, you take the words; give me the rifle. That’s the only word I need. R-i-f-l-e. Click.”

  13

  BOOK TITLES TELL THE story. The original subtitle for Uncle Tom’s Cabin was “The Man Who Was a Thing.” In 1910 appeared a book by Mary White Ovington called Half a Man. Over one hundred years after the appearance of the Stowe book, The Man Who Cried I Am, by John A. Williams, was published. Quickskill thought of all of the changes that would happen to make a “Thing” into an “I Am.” Tons of paper. An Atlantic of blood. Repressed energy of anger that would form enough sun to light a solar system. A burnt-out black hole. A cosmic slave hole.

  Here he was at a White House reception. All of the furniture in the room is worth more than he is. It seems to be sneering at him. The slave waiters look him up and down and cover their grins with their hands. He isn’t in the same class as the property. Is there a brotherhood of property? Is he related to the horse, the plow, the carriage? He had just passed the reception line. Shook hands with Lincoln.

  Lincoln whispered a rhyme to him that was popular among the slaves and that had fallen into the mouths of the Planters. Generals of the Union had captured it as contraband, and now it was being uttered in the highest circles in Washington:

  “If de debble do not ketch

  Jeff Davis, dat infernal wretch

  An roast and frigazee dat rebble

  Wat is de use of any Debble?”

  Raven exchanged nervous smiles with the President, and after he passed he heard the President whisper to an aide, “How did I do?”

  Lincoln was uggggly! An uggggly man. The story was that Mary Todd Lincoln had become furious at his carryings-on with Mrs. Charles Griffin, who had inspected the troops with him, the incident that got tongues to wagging and made Mary furious, but how could she be jealous of Abe, poor ugly Abe? Why was he doing this? Inviting artists, writers, dancers and musicians to the White House?