Next he examined his face in the bathroom mirror. It looked the same. “Stuff embalms you good enough,” he thought.
His head felt funny and he suffered streaks of sharp brain ache when he moved it too quickly, and his mouth felt cottony and tasted brown. His body was slightly numb as if his sense of feel was impaired, and did things contrary to the commands of his brain.
He had no idea what time it was. When he went into the bedroom to look at the clock, he noticed through the partly open window that it was dull gray and raining outside. Without turning on the light for fear of awakening Kriss, he stooped and peered at the clock. But the clock had stopped at 3:16 and he had to switch on the light to find her watch. In the meantime he took a good look at her. She lay flat on her back with her arms straight down as if laid out for burial and slept so peacefully she seemed scarcely to breathe. “Bitch is so quiet she must be dead,” he thought. The covers were pulled up about her throat and only her face was exposed, and it was serene and very white and astonishingly beautiful. “All bitches look best flat on their backs,” he thought as he studied the marble countenance, “Too bad they can’t function in their sleep. When you wake up their brains the trouble begins.” He saw by the watch on her dressing table that it was 8:23 and started to wake her so she’d be in time for work, but changed his mind. “Leave her to Gabriel, son, too late to score now,” and then, “we got no twat but too late to plot another shot, eh wot?—bestseller…” and went to the kitchen for a drink. Finding only the two bottles of vermouth left, he opened one, drank a tumblerful and muttered sourly, “Ladypiss,” quickly adding, “Some other lady’s, not hers.” Taking a bottle and glass back to the sitting-room he decided suddenly to dress and leave before Kriss awakened. While showering he entertained himself by imagining an invention whereby one could bite into a set of electric brushes attached to the wall and have his teeth cleaned while taking a shower. “Wonder someone hasn’t thought of it before,” he said. “Typical American innovation. Fits smackdab into the American way. If so many million gainfully employed U.S. citizens spent thirty seconds every morning brushing their teeth, look how much time would be saved to earn more money to pay for this machine on the instalment plan.” Then, “It’d be the easiest thing in the world to sell; a natural for an advertising slogan: Why be whiny when Packer’s electric shower-brush will make your teeth so nice and shiny?—Too long, though—Don’t Beef! Shine your teeth!…That’s better…” He could envision a fine, fat, somewhat paunchy but still bustling bald-headed businessman, B. Smart, taking his morning’s ice-cold shower with his teeth clamped about the electric brushes when all of a sudden he has a spell of lockjaw brought on by staying beneath the icecold shower too long and trying to sing the chorus of Old Shagging Riley while his teeth were being shined. And before he can get loose his teeth have been worn down to the roots and the busy little brushes are busily polishing away his jawbone. “Nothing serious,” he can hear the firm’s executives saying. “People expect such things. Perfectly normal accident of our mechanical age. Good publicity, too. Couldn’t sell the damn things without an element of risk. Great gamblers, the Americans. Got plates myself, thank God…” He laughed until he cried, thinking of old B. Smart chomping up fillets in “21” with his razor-sharp jawbones. “I got a beautiful sense of humour,” he thought laughingly. “As typically American as the tooth-shining machine. Laugh my ass off at misfortune. But somebody else’s, not mine. Must remember to tell them that next time I apply for membership in the human race.”
The combination of warm shower and dry herb wine had a sobering effect on him and again he felt a dread of going outside into the unknown day. So instead of dressing as he had intended he went into the living-room and sat naked on the sofa and finished the bottle of wine. “Courage, son,” he said, feeling slightly better, “it’s cheaper by the bottle—bestseller,” But lacking the high proof courage of bottled-in-bond bourbon he still did not feel up to facing the unknown outside. “Reason why Italians never won a war,” he thought. “Drink this lady-piss.” Then corrected himself, “Raped Abyssinia, though. So must be good for raping.” Taking the empty bottle back to the kitchen for the full one, he thought, “Maybe if you drink enough of this, son, you’ll get in some raping too. Do the bitch a world of good.” Then, “But then Abyssinia was a nigger; don’t know how it’ll work on a white bitch.” While drawing the cork he looked about the kitchen at the night’s devastation. “Tell we won the war,” he thought. “Don’t know who we whipped but this is sure hell a liberated nation.” Pouring a tumblerful of the aromatic wine, he drank it down without pause, then cautioned himself, “Just don’t fuck up like Mussolini, son. That bastard got so het up over raping a nigger he set the whole world on fire.” For some reason he didn’t know, he was assailed by a feeling of remorse. Taking the bottle and glass to the sitting-room, he stood for a moment as if bemused. With one part of his mind he thought, “They’re all watching Russia. Better watch Mississippi too—more firebugs there than in the Kremlin,” and with the other part, for no evident reason, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all…” Then with the first part, half-amused, “No tonic manufactured good as whipping a nigger’s ass. Makes you feel more powerful than cocaine,” and with the second part, strangely depressed, “All his conscience in his dick, though, never yet no higher.” Then with the first part, “Poor Kriss, too bad she’s not strong enough to whip your ass, son; she’d give you all of hers to heal it,” and again with the second part, “Can’t change nature, son, nuts and brains taste just the same; fact, nuts taste better, got more soul.”
Involuntarily he went over and tuned in the television set, then sat widelegged on the sofa, staring absently at his penis and thinking the while, “Doctors know. Can’t prescribe it though. Whip nigger’s ass—unlawful even in Latin. But know just the same. Aphrodisiacal, too, just like whipping a bitch’s ass. Works the same way. In the glands. Tightens them. Glands slack? Whip a black!—spot add…”
The voice from the television drew his attention: “—peace treaty re-establishing Japan as an independent and sovereign nation, will go into effect. On May 6, a federal law requiring gamblers…” On sight of the two faces grinning at him from the television screen, he realized that Gloucester was conducting his weekday morning interview with the prophetic chimpanzee, and involuntarily rushed in to call Kriss, thinking, “She’ll want to hear this.” But his call didn’t awaken her and he could hear the chimp saying: “East Germany will announce plans to form an army to protect itself against aggression…” So he let her sleep on, thinking, “We must have been drinking different stuff,” and went back to his seat.
“—twenty-seven year old Negro porter, Irving Greene, will confess to setting twenty fires in Brooklyn during the past two years, including the June 18th fire in which seven persons died. When asked why he did it, he will reply that he liked the excitement.”
“—black Nero—” Jesse thought.
“—U.S. will allocate a fifteen million dollar working fund to aid business in West Berlin—”
“—thicker than conscience—”
“—new series of reports of flying saucers over Washington and other parts of the nation resulted in an Air Force announcement that the objects were not a menace to the U.S.—”
“—McCarthy nightmares—”
“—August 7, Florida Supreme Court will dismiss pleas of five Negroes who seek entrance to the University of Florida, and rule they are not entitled to admittance while equal facilities are available at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes—”
“—southern mathematics—”
“—General Eisenhower will urge Southerners to protect the rights of Negroes—”
“—shell-shocked—”
“—beautiful world—”
“—will be tried for the first degree murder of Mrs Kristina Cummings, white, a divorcee employed as assistant director of the India Institute. State-appointed defence attorneys for Robinson will
enter a plea of temporary insanity, based on the allegation that Robinson, after a weekend of excessive drinking in the Gramercy Park apartment of Mrs Cummings, had become intoxicated to the extent that, during the commission of the crime, he was not conscious of his actions—”
“—battle fatigue,” Jesse thought. “Same thing as shell-shocked, just sounds worse—”
“—prosecution v/ill establish that, following a previous quarrel, during which he knocked her down with his fist, he entered her bedroom armed with a kitchen knife, stabbed her through the heart while she lay in bed, after which he washed the body clean of blood, changed the bedding, and arranged the body in the fresh bed in the position of sleeping with the eyes closed and the arms extended at its sides, then took a shower, dressed, packed the murder knife, bloodstained towels and bedding into two paper shopping bags, pocketed an extra set of keys to her apartment which he had formerly noticed in a bowl on the table, walked down 23rd Street to East River and threw the shopping bags containing the bloodstained evidence into the river, returned to the apartment on 21st Street, let himself in with the extra set of keys, undressed, hanging his clothes in Mrs Cummings’ hall clothes closet, made a bed on the sofa in the sitting-room, and went to sleep immediately—”
“—what you get for reading too much Faulkner, son,” Jesse said, half-laughing.
“—defence will allege that he was completely blotto all during this time; that if, as the prosecution will maintain, he stabbed her in a rage because she refused to succumb to his advances, he was entirely unconscious of making advances and of feeling outraged, and could only have been acting out of a subconscious resentment toward the woman who invited him to spend the weekend in her apartment for immoral purposes, and then, after two days of continuous drinking and sexual enticement, reneged on her part of the bargain—”
“—you tell ‘em, bub! Give a little sausage or get slaughtered for ham.”
“—will dismiss the insanity plea—”
“—must be sure to get a copy of the transcription to show all those critics who’ve been calling you psychotic—”
“—and Robinson will be sentenced to be electrocuted in Sing Sing prison, December 9th—”
“—elementary progression—”
“As a rule, on this program, we don’t consider murder a newsworthy event,” Gloucester rebuked the chimp, somewhat superciliously. “What do you find so unusual about this case?”
Chimpanzee (leering): “There will be no evidence of rape.”
Jesse: “Son of a bitch was too drunk. Only reason.”
Gloucester (embarrassed): “Oh! You don’t say!”
Chimpanzee (grinning maliciously): “But I do say. And furthermore, on May 17, 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court will render a decision against racial segregation in all U.S. public schools—”
Jesse (with drunken clairvoyance): “Then the agony begins—”
Gloucester (sardonically): “I say, my little friend, aren’t you letting your imagination run away with you. As much as I abhor any form of discrimination toward our darker brother, I doubt if the south would stand for it—for the end of segregation, I mean—”
Jesse: “Boy’s shooting with history. Doesn’t know it—”
Gloucester: “—by the Federal Government, I mean—”
Jesse: “—thinks he’s playing with sentiment; harmless stuff, he thinks; killed more people than—”
Gloucester: “—feel very strongly about State Rights. They consider the problem—”
Jesse: “—time integrates; man liquidates—”
Gloucester: “—will fight valiantly for what they deem right. But I have no doubt—”
Jesse: “—kill the rooster, son! Do it every time. Only answer to enlightment man’s ever figured out—”
Gloucester: “—if you understand the problem, my little friend, and the issue of the rights involved—”
Jesse: “—more rights, more grave grow, all I said, massa—”
Chimpanzee (with bored indifference): “My dear sir, I report the news as I foresee it.” After all, chimpanzees have never been segregated in U.S. public schools.
Gloucester: “Why the south might even go to war again.”
Jesse: “They laughed at Hitler too, when he sat down to play, Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles!”
Chimpanzee (brightening): “That reminds me of a joke they tell about Generalissimo Franco—”
Gloucester (startled): Generalissimo Franco?”
Chimpanzee: “There was great poverty in Spain and the Franco government couldn’t get a penny from the U.S. And they had a grave beggar-problem similar to your Negro-problem which had to be solved, besides which Franco’s uniforms were getting somewhat frayed. So the Generalissimo met with his ministers to see what could be done about these problems, especially about the problem of his uniforms. After a week’s deliberation, the ministers suddenly struck upon a foolproof solution. In a body, they rushed to the palace and demanded an immediate audience with the Generalissimo.
—What’s the answer, boys? he asked.
—Declare war on the U.S.! they chorused exultantly. Generalissimo Franco considered the suggestion. He thought of the prosperity in post-war Japan and Germany. It seemed to be a flawless solution. But he was assailed by one grave doubt.
But what if I win? he asked.
Jesse: “Damn right! Suppose the south had won the Civil War…”
The interview had overrun its time and abruptly the commercial came on. A disembodied hand held forth what appeared on first sight to be an ordinary cigarette lighter.
“PRESTO!” the mealy-mouthed voice of the adman shouted, and the disembodied thumb pressed a button on top and a flame shot upward. “Light your cigarette.” Disembodied lip holding a cigarette leaned into view and the cigarette was lit.
“PRESTO!” A disembodied little finger pressed a button on the bottom of the lighter and a flame shot downward. “Light your pipe.” Disembodied teeth clamping a pipe leaned into view and the pipe was lit.
“PRESTO!” the disembodied hand pressed both buttons at once and what had been a simple two-way cigarette-pipe lighter became a modern kitchen fully equipped with all the most modem appliances in shining chrome and gleaming white enamel. “Why bum your candle at both ends?” the mealy-mouthed voice asked solemnly, “When PRESTO, the greatest gadget of them all will not only do the trick slick, but cook you a meal just as quick!” And sure enough, there was a pre-cooked self-roasting turkey basting itself in a self-heating oven, while on top of the stove was a self-frozen vegetable garden complete with gardener, self-thawing itself; self-washing breakfast dishes were slopping about happily in a sink full of self-foaming suds; self-washing shirts were hard at work in the self-operating (invisible: takes up absolutely no space at all) laundry, washing and drying and ironing themselves and turning the collars where needed; and over by the four-way kitchen door (just turn handle and it opens from either side or top or bottom) the PRESTO Atom-atic Refrigerator, equipped with the famous PRESTO NO DOOR (just press a button and the door disappears completely) was busily engaged in freezing and defrosting, cheese-and-butter keeping, juice-and-dairy barring, and many other necessary functions, such as crisping various items and mixing rye highballs, and all the while operating itself entirely on stale air at absolutely no cost whatsoever to the owner (perfect for city apartment dwellers); while across the room in the self-opening-and-closing window a self-containing air conditioner was washing and rinsing the air until pretty soon the PRESTO Atom-atic Refrigerator called over, “Look, bub, I eat stale air, you’re taking the food out of my mouth!”—to which the self-containing air conditioner retorted, “Food for the mouth yet, he says, in this self-eating nation!”
“Won’t be long now before they have the main problem solved,” Jesse said, laughing, scratching his testicles and peering curiously at his penis. “How man and woman can screw with both on top. No more beefs about who’s being screwed. Both being screwed. Be a good thing,
too. Solve the woman problem, too…”
“Mawnin,” a flat negroid voice greeted from behind.
He turned with such a violent start he almost denutted himself, and on sight of an amazonian black woman clad in professional rags grinning at him slyly from the hallway, leaped to his feet and started to run.
But she said, “Ah’m Mattie,” and he caught himself. “That’s a relief!” he said. “I wondered what had happened to Kriss.”
Her sly little eyes appraised his manly physique, took in the spread sofa and the consolatory bottle, then she went about her work collecting the dirty glasses and ashtrays as if finding a naked black man laughing and scratching his nuts and talking to himself in a white lady’s fashionable apartment of a Monday morning were as commonplace a Manhattan incident as finding cockroaches in the kitchen. But he could tell by her sly silent laughter she didn’t give much for his chances. “She doesn’t think much of the Robinson label, son,” he thought, half-amused, as he picked up his bottle and glass and went into the bedroom. “Can’t depend on those self-starting genitals. Choke up every time. Nothing to beat the old fashioned crack. Give it a turn and it never fails to start. These modern jobs got to be babied and petted every minute. Then if you happen to put a couple of quarts of booze in the tank, the automatic nuts will go dead sure as hell.”
Placing the bottle and glass beside the telephone on the night-stand, he made certain the door was shut, then sat on the side of the bed and poured a half glass of wine and drank it. Everything was delightfully blurred again and he felt relaxed and indifferent. “Your maid’s here,” he said to Kriss. Then, recalling the maid’s sly scrutiny of his equipment, he thought, “She probably wonders how they missed throwing me back into the Harlem river.” Listening to her moving about the apartment, cleaning up the night’s debris, he realized he’d been given a short reprieve from having to face the unknown outside. There was a vaguely drunken delicious atmosphere of safety in the small dark room with the gray chill dangerous day locked out. He began feeling a warm half-amused friendliness for Kriss. “Kriss, baby,” he said tentatively, and started to awaken her, then changed his mind and decided to take a nap himself. He slipped beneath the covers without disturbing her and went to sleep instantly.
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