by Ishmael Reed
My mouth quivered as I started to speak. The orderlies and nurses’ aides stopped and moved in closer to the bed. Their arms folded, their ears cupped. The lab people dumped ol people off carts and left women’s breasts hanging before the X-ray machines. Patients were left with scissors in their wounds as surgeons moved into the room and closed in about the bed. One man who was about to be declared dead got up and came into the room arm in arm with his priest. Crowds of people were perched atop carts, sitting in window sills, jostling and maneuvering for a better view. There was silence when I spoke.
“I apologize for frightening you. I lost my head. I have not been keeping abreast of my Nazarene studies.” I stopped and put a paw in my mouth. My voice was sounding like the growling of an animal.
She lifted her head and said, “Did you bring cigarettes, chump? After all, we lay in dese beds in our own mess, rats leap into da nightstands, and down below some of da po’ patients are moved into some room and come back wif dey legs all cut off, even though they was only in here for da whoopin’ cough. You have to ring da bell for hours jess to get a drink of water. We need a smoke or we will go crazy.”
“Filter tip or plain?” I asked in a deep croaking voice.
The crowds of people fell from their positions in laughter. Men doubled up on the floor and howled. I charged through the crowd and my cap fell off. Women in the halls screamed, as I swung over the staircase and into the street. There were air-drill alerts, people running.
A sound truck announced: A NATIONAL EMERGENCY OF HIGHEST IMPORTANCE/THE HARRY SAM JOHN IS STOPPED UP/EVERYONE GO INSIDE OFF THE STREETS/WE REPEAT …
I ran. Convoys of plumbers were moving across the bay in battleships with rags sticking from their back pockets. They were armed with monkey wrenches and pliers and hammers. I continued to run. A truck pulled up to the park and cans of dead newsreels were dumped. I ran. The old men dropped to their knees, crossed themselves and cheered for the holiday. They swung their pails and walked somberly from the park.
Through the field glasses one could see the judges, generals and His Excellency Nancy Spellman tumbling down the slopes of the island toward their limousines while clammy fingers were adjusting their gas masks. I kept on running—galloping on my hooves like the wind.
PART II
An Old Woman Kidnaps Checkers
And I ran until I stumbled over a man who was lying face down in the street. My heels spun as I flew into a row of garbage cans causing the lids to tumble clanging into the gutter. In front of the spent form rested a giant ball of light manure. Thinking that the man might be ill, I went over to him and tugged at his armpits. Lying next to his body was a piece of luggage upon which were pasted stickers with the names of several Western capitals. Aroused, he slowly turned over and rubbed his eyes. I recognized him at once! It was my old professor from the Harry Sam College, U2 Polyglot, working out some empirical problems of his paper, “The Egyptian Dung Beetle in Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis.’”
“Bukka, my boy,” he said as he sat upright in the street “What are you doing outdoors during this grave crisis? All citizens have been advised to remain inside with their shades drawn and their fingers crossed.”
“I was on my way home before I fell into you, professor,” I answered,
He lit a pipe which he removed from the luggage at his side and continued to examine me. “My boy,” he finally said, “you look a little weak. I mean, those pointed ears and hooves. What are you trying to do, get on a quiz show or something?”
I told him of the setbacks I had received since leaving the Harry Sam College: the fights with Fannie Mae; my physical and spiritual deterioration; my increasing doubts as to the validity of the Nazarene discipline.
When he heard the last of these downcomings, the pipe nearly fell from his lips. “You’ve not kept up with the faith! That indeed is serious. You must get right down on your knees and repeat after me.”
The thinned tweed of U2 Polyglot’s knees met the street and I knelt next to him as he chanted: “HARRY SAM does not love us. If he did, he would come out of the John and hold us in his lap. We must walk down the street with dem signs in our hands. We must throw back our heads and loosen our collars. We must bawl until he comes out of dere and holds us like it was before the boogeyman come on the scene and everybody went to church and we gave each other pickle jars each day and nobody had acne or bad breath and cancer was just the name of a sign.”
The professor—after the manner of the Nazarene Bishops—lifted his nose from the street with great dignity. He then looked both ways and whispered into my ear: “Look, Bukka. I know that you’ve been afflicted with the hoodoo. That’s no disgrace; why in the “bad ol days’ they took the hoodooed, bound their paws, gagged them and made them lie on straw mats. But in this enlightened period, we take a more scientific view of this disease and that my boy is precisely what it is—a disease and not a curse.”
He shook his head sadly, then said, “The life of a scholar has its ups and downs, Bukka. We try to lift the spiritual sights of mankind and what do we get? These piddling allowances from the state for projects in the humanities, such as the one in which I’m now engaged. The grant I received for pushing this goddamn ball all over Europe is not enough to keep me in good pipe tobacco—so I’ve taken to a little hustlin’* on the side. You see, there’s this ol woman with two bricks for breasts who was taking conjure lessons through the mail under the Mojo Power Retraining Act. The other day while experimenting she came upon a recipe for allaying the symptoms and even curing advanced stages of hoodoo fever. I’ve been selling the stuff like hotcakes in Europe, scene of mysterious hoodoo epidemics, and I get five per cent on each bottle sold.”
He removed a bottle from the luggage which I tried to wrest from his hand, so eager was I to return to my normal self.
“Not so fast,” he said, gripping the bottle. “That’ll be five mazumas.”
I shoved the bills into his hand which he totaled—licking his thumb after each count. I unscrewed the bottle’s cap and poured the solution down my throat. I became itchy and nauseous. Convulsing and retching, I held my hips with crossed arms. My nostrils bristled from the sharp odor of the fluid and hair began to fall away from my body. Fangs dropped from my mouth, and falling into the street, broke into fine crystals. My feet began to shake involuntarily as if stricken.
“Thank you, professor,” I said to U2 Polyglot, as I began to feel a new lease on life.
“That’s all right,” he said, lighting up his benevolent eyes, those soft eyes which looked like chick-peas. “I still have faith that you will become a fine Nazarene Bishop, one of these days; I only hope that I will be able to follow your career.”
I was about to bid him farewell when suddenly a jeep full of Screws pulled up next to the ball whose greenish-brown flakes shone in the moonlight. One Screw stood up in the vehicle as soon as it screeched to a halt and aimed a turkey musket at our heads.
“What is this crap?” he shouted. “Why aren’t you citizens indoors like everybody else? Haven’t you been informed of the curfew?”
I was scared to death, but the professor seemed unperturbed as the Screw’s fingers fidgeted with the trigger of the turkey musket. U2 Polyglot removed some officious-looking papers bearing the greenish-brown seal of HARRY SAM from his vest pocket. The Screw’s eyes popped after he inspected them. He grinned meekly, then snapped to a stiff salute and clicked his heels. “Forgive me, Your Excellency, for interfering with a top-secret project.”
“That’s all right,” U2 Polyglot replied. “We must all be on guard against enemies of HARRY SAM.”
The Screw saluted, then shouted something to the other four who were huddled together in the back seat of the jeep. The vehicle jerked forward then backward and skidded around the corner on two wheels.
“Well, Bukka,” the professor said. “I have to get back to work. Take it easy, kid.” With this said, he lodged his nose in the ball of manure and with aplomb and correctness began pushing i
t down the street. I waved, until U2 Polyglot became a dark speck on the horizon.
The projects were settled in heavy gloom. Hundreds of candles flickered behind the yellow curtains of the narrow cubicles. The sirens wailed throughout the area and men holding flashlights trotted through the streets. The Nazarene apprentices from the universities—looking like sick dust mops—were dispensing coffee and doughnuts to the volunteers. I went into my apartment and turned on radio station UH-O. Reports of the crisis in the Harry Sam John were coming in from all over the world:
Because of the grave crisis in the Harry Sam John the Pope has called in all Bingo cards. Appearing on the balcony of his Vatican apartment and waving his crooked finger over a restless throng, the Pontiff said that “under no circumstances would last week’s Bingo results be revealed.”
A milling crowd booed as the Swiss guards rolled wheelbarrows up to the Sistine Chapel and dumped tons of Bingo cards. Early-morning raids were staged in key Latin American cities as bootleg Bingo games were broken up. On Mulberry Street in Lower Manhattan, mobs pelleted police, hooted and cursed as they yelled: “Give us Bingo or shoot us.” Although a spokesman has said that last week’s Bingo results are walled up in a secret room in the Vatican protected by three Spanish cardinals, informed sources here say they’ve been passed on to the American ambassador. They are: B6, I16, N26, FREE, G33, O43. The State Department has issued a flat denial.
I shut off the radio and began to repair the house which was still in shambles from my strife with Fannie Mae. The lamps were overturned. Ashtrays lay scattered on the rug and chairs were broken into splinters. Dead plants lay in soiled spots near broken vases. I stretched my arms, yawned, then went into the kitchen and downed a bottle of beer. I then went into the bedroom, removed my clothes, curled up into a ball, threw the covers over my head and went to sleep.
At about twelve o’clock loud reports of gunfire came from the island. I ran to the window and raised the shades. Shadows moved behind the curtains of the other apartments. Frightened tenants looked out of their windows and across the bay to the Harry Sam Motel which stood at the summit of his mountain. The sky above the motel blazed a bright red, lighting up the night as if it were day. The sign on the roof of the motel blinked on and off rapidly: EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS EATS. I hurried back to bed with both arms outstretched and hit the sheets with such a thud the planks nearly collapsed.
People are walking on the deck of a ship. Seated in two chairs are Dick and Pat Nixon and their dog, Checkers. Dick is signing autographs for a group of maimed war veterans who stand before the family, some on stumps and some on crutches and walking canes. One mutilated G.I. is blind and he bumps into the deck chair jarring Pat Nixon who smiles and returns to her knitting.. Two other men appear. They are dressed fancier than the others. One says, “It was much better in Egypt at the time of the two cities, Matthew. The artists and dreamers lived in one and the slaves lived in the other.” They walk to the rail and lean over looking below at the hundreds of hands holding paddles which stick from the portholes. One man removes a small bottle of acid from his pocket, unscrews the top and pours it on one of the hands. The flesh of the hand falls away and drops into the water. A piercing scream is heard below. The man’s companion falls to the deck and banging his fists on the boards, dies laughing. Pat Nixon is not amused; she walks over to the rail and jots down their names. She then returns to her chair and sits down in a huff. An ol woman appears. Under her armpit she carries the Christmas issue of the Reader’s Digest (stars, snow and reindeer on a blue cover). The lead article is “Should Dolphins Go Steady—33 Parents Reply.” She stoops over and pretends to pat Checkers. The Nixons and the war veterans are charmed by the sweet ol soul. Suddenly the ol woman swoops Checkers into her arms and splits. The Nixons and the soldiers hobbling on their crutches and artificial limbs give chase shaking their fists and shouting.
In the stateroom there is an orchestra of men in white dinner jackets entertaining ol generals with songs from the “bad ol days.” Songs such as “Faraway Places with Strange-Sounding Names” and strains of “Don’t Fence Me In” are heard. Betty Grable appears through the curtains to thunderous applause. She bends a knee and holds her left hip with her left hand and with the other hand touches the back of her hair—which is arranged in an upsweep; the ol men put their fingers between their teeth and whistle. Others stamp their feet and say, “Hip, hip, hooray.”
A crash is heard outside the stateroom as a deck chair overturns. The ol woman appears at the entrance holding a yipping dog. She speeds across the room in her black sneakers knocking the ol generals from their tables. The stateroom empties as the ol men chase the widow executioner holding the cocker spaniel being chased by the Nixons followed by … or is it the war veterans chasing the generals who are chasing the Nixons? Anyway, the Nixons and the soldiers enter the stateroom. Betty Grable says, “They went thataway.” The entire string section rises with their violin bows pointed to the direction of the other exit. The ol woman jumps to the top of the rail and holding her nose and the dog under her armpit dives into the drink and starts making it out to sea plowing the water with lusty breast strokes. Tricky Dick and the Mrs. followed by the soldiers are not far behind.
Betty Grable’s chance for a comeback has been spoiled. She sits on the stage brooding, eating a Hershey bar and holding her jaw in her hand. Not to be outdone she gets up and says to the orchestra, “Come on, boys.” The ol woman followed by the four men followed by the generals followed by the Nixons followed by the war veterans followed by Betty Grable followed by the orchestra swim toward the skyline in single file.
Dawn. Only a few volleys of gunfire are heard. I went to the window and raised the shades. An object appears at the mouth of one of the statues of the nineteenth President of the United States resting upon the imposing slope of Sam’s Island. It is a white coffin which plunks into the bay. Another coffin appears. Then 4-5-10-14. The dingy cloud above the motel lifts. The sun shows through. At eleven A.M. there is a bulletin.
LATEST ATTEMPT TO JAM UP THE WORKS FOILED. ECLAIR PORKCHOP A HERO AS HE ACTS AS A HUMAN PUMP DISLODGING THE BANTAM ROOSTER FEATHERS CONSPIRATORS USED TO PLUG THE PIPES.
Things were returning to normal in the big not-to-be-believed nowhere. Walking through the projects to work I saw women trudging to the laundromats with baskets of dirty clothes. The men were stepping onto the chartered buses that would take them to the Harry Sam Ear Muffle Factory. Carrying brown bags full of sandwiches, they walked resignedly with their heads bowed. The children were merrily playing on the amusement truck; romping over the stainless steel gnomes, giraffes and jackals and little trickster figures with long noses and stocking caps on their heads.
When I reached the hospital I unlocked the door with my passkey and went into the lounge of the psychiatric unit which was used by the orderlies to change their clothes and relax on their coffee breaks. Two orderlies were conversing while another stared at the center page of a popular men’s magazine which displayed a cadaver that was studying esoteric pharmacology at the N/School of Social Research.
“Yeah, it gone be a good break for somebody. Say the man come in lass night jessa screamin’ and hollin’. Nurse Rosemary D Camp promises that the orderly chosen to take care of him will get a five-dollar raise. Sho hopes it bees me.”
“Me too,” said the other orderly, turning to me as I buttoned my short-sleeved white shirt. “Doopeyduk, you heah ’bout the man come in the hospital last night jessa screamin’ and hollin’?”
“No,” I answered coldly, not wishing to encourage fraternizing with the other orderlies from Soulsville whom I considered lowly ruttish lumpen.
“Say he come in lass night talkin’ all out hee head. Nurse Rosemary D Camp say who evah takes care o him good gone get a five-dollar raise.”
There was a rap at the door of the orderlies’ lounge. The men hurriedly stamped out their cigarettes and pushed the fumes through the opened window. Nurse Rosemary D Camp p
eeked in and her singsong voice said, “Mr. Doopeyduk, will you please come into my office?”
“Yes, Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp,” I replied nervously. “I’ll be down as fast as I can.”
When I entered the room she invited me to sit in a chair next to her desk. She was a fat woman with a round doll-like face with rouged cheeks. Her arms were thick as hams and showed small dents here and there from the shoulders to her fingers resting on the desk. Hanging from beneath her cap were long twisted pigtails; pinned to the blouse of her uniform she wore a purple orchid upside down.
“Mr. Doopeyduk,” she began, “mishaps are bound to happen in an operation such as the one in which we are engaged on Unit Five. So I think that we might have been a little harsh with you after your accident with the patient who was here a few weeks ago.” She smiled at me while I squirmed in the chair. “Otherwise we’ve found that you’ve been conscientious in many other matters arising in the course of your duties. So we’ve decided, Mr. Doopeyduk, to give you a special assignment for this evening. Your performance on this assignment will indicate to us whether you’re ready for larger responsibilities.”
“Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp,” I said, “I will certainly do my best to warrant your confidence.”
“Good, then,” she replied. “This is your assignment. There was an old man admitted to the floor last night I’m afraid he’s delirious and raving. We want you to get samples so that we can analyze them. He has meningitis and typhoid complicated by double pneumonia. You will be given a surgeon’s mask and we want you to give him lots of fluids and rub his back with powder. Then at the conclusion to your shift we want you to make out a report on him.”
I jumped to my feet and started for the door.
“One minute, Mr. Doopeyduk, we have a little surprise for you.” She opened the drawer and pulled out A GOLDEN BEDPAN WITH MY INITIALS ENGRAVED ON THE BOTTOM.