by Ishmael Reed
“How dare you insult our sacred institutions, our cherished heritage, you roughnecks—you low-life rakes.”
“Aw man, set yo behind down,” came someone’s gruff reply.
“Indeed, ‘seat myself,’ you reprobates,” I continued, to the taunts of several ruffians seated in the front row. “When one hears subversive remarks, it is one’s duty to report them! Why it says right here on page seventy-seven of the manual …” I demonstrated, removing the torn book of creeds from my tweed pocket.
“Are we going to listen to you, schmuck, or listen to the newsreels?” the owner yelled between the chawed black cigar which leaned from his fat lips. “Whaddaya tink runs this dump? Cheese? Now sit down or I’ll have one of my bruisers kick you out!”
I ignored the owner who stood to the rear of the theater next to a short man who was waving a college pennant. Casting a shadow upon the movie screen with my person I unflinchingly stood my ground, taking on all comers. The theater seemed to heave and rock from the commotion caused by the indignant customers, as I defended our big klang-a-lang-a-ding-dong and antiseptic boplicity. Paper cups, yellow greasy popcorn, and candy wrappers rained upon my head. With the strong burning lungs of martyrdom I repeated my oath. “HARRY SAM does not love us—”
But before I could continue a rough hand gripped me by the shoulder and lifted me until I was kicking thin air. “I’ll make a citizen’s arrest upon the entire theater!” I shouted but was drowned out by the cheers of the audience who seemed delighted by my unceremonious exit. With guffaws and belly laughs coming from his garlic-smelling mouth, the usher threw me to the pavement outside the theater where I landed flat on my backside. As I was being ejected, tussling up the aisle with the usher, I was to hear the owner comment to his assistant, “Got to hand it to him, Slickhead. He may be a crackpot but he’s got a lot of chutzpah.”
I started to report the entire incident to the Screws but seeing as how I was shoulder high in difficulties—what’s the use, I thought, heading back to the Harry Sam Projects.
When I arrived at the bar outside the Harry Sam Projects, I was still smarting from the sound thrashing received at the usher’s hands. The bar was a broken-down joint with a few scarred topped tables and an ol-fashioned stove with paws whose pipe disappeared into the roof.
Seated at the barstools were the workers from the Harry Sam Ear Muffle Factory. My M/Neighbor and Nosetrouble sat at a table in the back. Nosetrouble was talking in a spirited manner and M/Neighbor was nodding his head. This meant that they were discussing Nosetrouble’s plot to get SAM. M/Neighbor had a peculiar-shaped head with a sharp curvature in the back of the skull which prompted many people to deride him with colorful names like “watermelon head” or “football head.”
Nosetrouble’s distinguishing features were a sharp jaw and receding hairline. He had the habit of narrowing his eyelids whenever he spoke of his plot to get SAM. He was wearing open-toed sandals, a boat-neck sweater, and corduroy slacks. When I approached the table they greeted me vigorously, pumping my hand. Nosetrouble ordered me a beer.
“Haven’t seen you in a long time, Bukka Doopeyduk. Where you been hiding?” Nosetrouble began.
“I’ve been getting special assignments at the hospital and in my spare time I go over rather obscure passages in the Nazarene manual and make red pencil marks in the margins of the pages. Sometimes I meditate over these issues on long walks.”
“You’re still in dat bag, huh Bukka? Don’t you know dat HARRY SAM is full of shit?” asked M/Neighbor.
I was shocked by M/Neighbor’s newly acquired political acumen. But maintaining my cool I parried his rib. “I didn’t know that you dabbled in politics, M/Neighbor, and if I recall correctly, it was YOU who viewed with consternation the remarks your son made about our self-made Pole and dauntless Plymouth-pusher who ‘nobody could undersell.’”
“You got it wrong. Me and my son don’t see eye to eye on some issues. I even keeked him out da house ’cause I found some reefers in his room. And he kept on wearin’ tablecloths and started talkin’ funnier than dat little white boy Joel O. he was palling around wit. But he’s right on one thing. Da man do smell no matter which way you look at it. And since I became a leader of my people, me and Nosetrouble gone have it out wit dis man.”
“Indeed, M/Neighbor,” interjected Nosetrouble. “We can have none of the bourgeois decadence that your son and his little teeny boppers were into. It was plain nihilism. They seemed to be having a lot of fun with savage boo-ga-loo dancing and love feasts. It was tactically correct of you to get rid of the boy, M/Neighbor, and further—”
“How is Georgia Nosetrouble?” I said, not wishing to hear Nosetrouble’s recital of ‘ol speeches made by the famous dead’ for which these remarks were usually an introduction.
“She left me a week ago. Didn’t you know? They’re at your father-in-law’s new town house that the munitions manufacturers and Texas oil money bought him. She’s become Fannie Mae’s companion. I read in the society page of the Amsterdam News that they were leaving for Europe next week. You see, SAM has appointed your father-in-law ambassador to Luxembourg.”
“Ambassador to Luxembourg!” I gasped. (What operators that ol man and his mother were.) “I’m sorry about that, Nosetrouble,” I said, offering my condolences.
“No need. At first I was upset but now I spend most of my time organizing so I don’t have enough time for self-pity. You see, we’ve formed a committee to get at the root of these mysterious child disappearances. We want to prod the Screws into some kind of action. Why, haven’t you been listening to the splendid speeches M/Neighbor has been making on the radio? Didn’t you see his picture in the Deformed Demokrat last week?”
“That’s right,” M/Neighbor added. “Life be here tomorrow and Esquire comin’ down next week.”
“You know, Bukka,” Nosetrouble continued after a pause, “I wouldn’t be surprised if your man HARRY SAM didn’t have a hand in these disappearances.”
Now I could put up with some of these seditious remarks, but this was a bit much. Beside myself with rage I jumped to my feet and banged the table so hard that the beer suds spilled into the laps of both M/Neighbor and Nosetrouble. They abandoned their composure and held each other.
“I REFUSE TO SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO YOU DAMN OUR LEADER LIKE THAT!”
“Aw knock it off,” M/Neighbor responded. “You sound like a tool and lackey of the capitalist class, cha-cha-cha.” Nosetrouble nodded approvingly, winking at me.
I held the sides of my head. My temples were pounding like crazy. I got up and slowly staggered out of the bar. The people sat at the tables with their hands over their ears and eyes bulging like gargoyles. Subversion was rife. Plots, subterfuge were the order of the day. What was to become of our beloved out-of-sight, our razz-a-ma-tazz and o-bop-she-bang? I contemplated these questions, walking aimlessly through NOW-HERE with my eyes downcast. I kicked a tin can from time to time and occasionally sighted Screws lining up teeny hoppers and frisking them. Leaves swirled about the streets, low-bent trees hooted with abandonment. Dogs howled and I ducked the too-close-for-comfort swoop of vampire bats.
I had reached the Emperor Franz Joseph Park. The ol men—having completed a day of kissing jive frames-were filing through an arch which stood at its entrance. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode on the top with fierce-looking eagles perched upon their shoulders. Under the steady bombardment of the elements over the years, some of the sculpture had broken away from its base. The ground surrounding the arch was littered with the heads of the famous dead. The ol men shambled into the tenements and ol brownstones of the street which adjoined this park of cannon balls stacked in triangular heaps. Through the windows of the fleabag hotels which stood in this strange community, some of the ol men could be seen lined up for showers. Others sat in the lobbies of hotel after dismal hotel playing chess or watching a television film of Neville Chamberlain’s airport speech which followed his conference with the Dictator. Still others lea
ned against the walls of several missions with bowls of soup in their hands. They watched with hawk eyes their possessions: the cans of film, flags and ladders which rested on the ground beside them.
A procession moved toward me from the other end of the street. It was composed of some elderly gentlemen who pushed carts filled with artifacts and relics. The leader of this parade was a wizened-faced creature dressed in a ragged World War I uniform. His cart contained some parched manuscripts belonging to Wilfred Owen, stacks of broken violin scrolls, some twisted marble toilet bases and a big rock, the only remnant of Hadrian’s wall. When his wheelbarrow came along the spot where I stood he suddenly dropped it and pointed to me. Then frantically signaling the other men, he approached me. Now I might be a Nazarene apprentice but enough is enough. I wasn’t prepared to take a similar beating to the one dished out at the theater so I picked up a lead pipe which lay on the sidewalk.
“Wait a minute,” the man pleaded. “We mean you no harm. I merely wanted to introduce you to some friends of mine. My name is Aboreal Hairyman. In my heyday I was an itinerant preacher but now SAM has taken me out of retirement—taken me out of the trees in a way-and he’s made me chief investigator in the case of the slashed mini-skirts and hip boots.”
The other men applauded one of their own who had made good.
“Now gentlemen,” Aboreal said, “it’s not for me to take the limelight but rather this young colored lad standing here deserves your deepest gratitude.”
“Wha hoppened? Come on, boss. Tell us wha hoppened?” asked the toothless many. The ol men loved tall tales, having little else to do with their time save play brinkmanship, mope over the “decadence” of the youth and empty their colostomy bags.
“You see,” Aboreal Hairyman explained, “I was in attendance at the public cinema viewing some film of the uprising from which our leader emerged victorious and this young man debated some rabble who were speaking ill of the faith. I’ve not seen such a display of valor in all my years.”
I was taken aback by all this notoriety and before I knew it I was bobbing on two shoulders as two of the men began to carry me through the streets. One of them pulled out a rusty trumpet and began to play the Marseillaise. Two others ran to the head of the procession and unfurled a banner which read “Buy Victory Bonds. The Nuns are Raping the Huns,” and each holding an end they began to goose-step through the streets.
“Why don’t we take him over to the Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar and buy him a drink?” Aboreal suggested. With Aboreal in the lead strutting proudly with his chest thrown out and his chin high our outlandish troupe shuffled up to the door of the Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar. A man came flying out through the swinging doors and landed in front of Aboreal’s feet He got up, brushed off his clothes and shaking his fist at the door shouted, “You’ll see, you’ll see, just like Munich. You’ll see.”
Tears streamed down his face as he, disillusioned, removed his Mickey Mouse button from his chest and angrily flung it into the gutter. We laughed good-naturedly and went inside the bar and soon were standing at the rail drinking giant steins and eating onions and horseradish on cheese. At the tables other ol men were ordering from menus. One sat nude except for a boiled vest and tall hat whose top had been ripped off.
“I’d like some cucumber soup, some jellied deer tongue and some Berchtesgaden 1936,” he requested of the husky walrus-mustached waiter who stood at his table.
When all the mugs at the bar were filled to the brim Hairyman raised his stein and proposed a toast “At ease, gentlemen. I want to introduce all of you to Bukka Doopeyduk, a brave young apprentice who single-handedly bore the assault of some of our detractors in the public cinema yesterday. Without assistance he took on those monsters behind us, who breathe fire into the neck of our tired generation. Long live Seato Nato Cento and the granny executioners in black sneakers.”
The ol men clinked their glasses, took some robust swigs and then sang a rousing chorus of “I’m a Yankee-Doodle Dandy.” Suddenly the half-nude man rose from his chair and genitals swinging moved toward us.
“Gentlemen,” he said in the Boris Karloff voice. “A toast to Lenore!”
There was sheer silence until Aboreal Hairyman spoke up. “Alfred,” Aboreal consoled, putting a sympathetic hand on the man’s shoulder, “please don’t start that again.”
“A toast to Lenore, dammit,” the man insisted, rudely pushing Aboreal’s hand aside. “How can we forget Newport? The milling young women just home from Radcliffe shading themselves near the picnic baskets? The sumptuous melons on the tables and the brilliant conversation?”
One ol man waving his hands wept uncontrollably, pleading with the speaker, “Don’t talk about it, Alfred. Please don’t talk about it, boo, hoo, boo, hoo.”
“O the boat races,” he said, ignoring some of the weaker of the ol men who had dropped their heads to their tables. Their violently trembling fingers clutched the handles of their steins as the man went on. “I would walk about in my duck pants and blazer and sometimes we’d go clam-digging. O, if only I could have continued paying for her harpsichord lessons, things would have turned out different”
“It wasn’t your fault, Alfred,” Aboreal Hairyman whispered.
“My boy,” the grief-stricken gentleman said, turning to me, “it would have never happened if Matthew and Waldo had remained to guard the gate. The villagers wouldn’t have been able to …” But he trailed off and broke down. After a pause he looked up, and reaching inside the top of his hat, brought out a gold watch. He put the gold watch in my hands. “My boy, I want to give you this as a token from Lenore and the army of unalterable bores.”
“O, no I can’t, sir,” I protested.
“No, take it,” he insisted, then wheeled about and slowly returned to his deer tongue, cucumber soup, his Berchtesgaden. Another man came, hesitated, gave me a carton of Picayune cigarettes. Still another, a shiny spittoon. I was babbling with joy.
“O, gentlemen. This is much more than I deserve. I can’t take your pension checks, your boxes of gold dust twins and the elbow baking soda.”
Aboreal Hairyman reassured me. “Now my boy, we fossils will be very much rebuffed if you won’t take our gifts. You deserve each and every one of them,” Aboreal said in State Department redundance.
“I must go home now and study my Nazarene manual but I’ll never forget this night.”
“Three cheers for Bukka Doopeyduk. Hip, hip. … Hip, hip. … Hip, hip. …” The ol men waved as I left the quaint Seventeen Nation Disarmament Conference Bar of flickering gas lamps and beaded curtains. Mist rose from the cobblestone streets. Horse-drawn carriages moved in and out of the shadows. From the 1870 dining palace the ol men could be heard singing the haunting strains of a World War I favorite:
Roger Young Roger Young was the glory and the story of the everlasting tires of the infantry who died for you and me young Roger of the story and the everlasting wires of the infant free lies the story and the glory of you and me Roger Young who died in his veins and the …
I was as happy as a lark when I arrived home. I put down the gifts and turned on radio station UH-O.
TRAPPED IN HOWARD JOHNSON’S FOB THE THIRTY-FIFTH DAY BY ANGRY HOUSEWIVES IN MOTORIZED GOLF CARTS: CHINAMENS REFUSE TO YIELD. VATICAN SEALED OFF AS BINGO CRISIS ENTERS FIFTH WEEK. POPE ASKS COMPROMISE. CHINESE CHECKERS ANYONE?
On each side of the steps leading into the courtroom was a statue of a white seal balancing a bright ball by the tip of its nose. Inside in the ceiling of the main hall was a dome of murals depicting episodes from the life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes. RBH pulling the pigtails of the first Chinese officials to be received in the White House; RBH commenting on the size of their buck teeth to two of his cronies who hold the little diplomat’s jaws apart for a better look; Rutherford Birchard Hayes making a mad dash to get rid of the poker cards and the bottle of Old Hickory as the First Lady, affectionately known as “Lemonade Lucy,” pokes her coalscuttle hat o
f green silk into the Cabinet room to announce that lemonade and Kool-Aid are being served; Rutherford Birchard Hayes kicked in the head by a horse on October 21, 1864, but intrepidly opening the Wichita pickle fair the next day; Rutherford Birchard Hayes giving colorful and quaint measles blankets to some Indians who proudly pose with their headdresses thrown back and their noses in the air like snooty camels while the President winks at his poker partners who—in on the prank—stand off to the side of the reception slapping their thighs and covering their grinning mouths. In the center of the dome was a giant mural of Rutherford Birchard Hayes surrounded by his eight children: Birchard Austin Hayes, James Webb Cook Hayes, Rutherford Platt Hayes, Joseph Thompson Hayes, George Crook Hayes, Fanny Hayes, Scott Russell Hayes and Manning Force Hayes. They stand with their mouths open as Daddy holds a big round and firm cucumber between his raunchy lips at the Wichita pickle fair, October 22, 1864.
Inside the court, the clerk called for the case which was to precede mine. The participants were roughly shoved through the door. They were surrounded by an unusually heavy detachment of Screws. Masks had been drawn over their heads and their wrists were bound with rope. The Screws positioned the pair before Judge Whimplewopper. Whimplewopper stood on three telephone books behind the bench. He was a natural-born midget afflicted with an unusually long nose. In fact the nose was so long that it became the subject of a series of features in the National Inquirer.
It was very difficult for Whimplewopper to conduct a normal courtroom because many of the nose’s fans would line up in the corridors of the courtroom to take pictures and ask its opinion on the length of Jackie Kennedy’s riding boots. Sight-seeing buses would follow his limousine to his home in East Hampton where he entertained Mile. Matzabald’s associates and bargain-basement hippies. While he conducted the business of the courtroom, his nose rested upon a purple satin pillow Matzabald had made for him. This only added to his difficulties. Ruthless art executives would try to swipe the pillow so that they could exhibit it in their galleries. Judge Whimplewopper asked the Screws to remove the defendants’ masks. They turned out to be M/Neighbor’s son and his little anarchist friend Joel O. I knew it. I knew it. Their criticism of the state would get them into trouble. I hoped the judge would be stern with them and stern he was.