Soul City

by Touré

  “Well, Massa Honkymothafucka couldn’t help but blurt out a big ol’ laugh, and by noontime Shiftless was on his way to Canada!”

  “Praise the Lawd!”

  “But when Massa Unctuous heard Shiftless was free, he set the paterollers on him, and despite the deal with Massa Honkymothafucka, Shiftless was soon back on Massa Unctuous’s plantation, hungry for vengeance.”

  “Back in de belly of de beast!”

  “One Sunday Massa Unctuous was in church and he got into it with another massa about which of them had the biggest, baddest slave. Them two bet a thousand dollars and agreed to meet that very afternoon to let they slaves battle it out! When Massa Unctuous, Missus Unctuous, and Shiftless was ridin on over to the other plantation, Massa Unctuous say, ‘Now, Shiftless, there’s a lot riding on this here fight. You do whatever you got to do to win.’ Shiftless say, ‘Awright, Massa Unctuous.’ When they got there they saw the man Shiftless was to fight. He was twice as tall as Shiftless and had muscles upon muscles. He was chained to a tree, snortin and clawin the dirt like a hungry wild animal staring at fresh meat. Shiftless knew it would take a miracle to win that fight! So he walked over to Missus Unctuous and backhand slapped her across the face so hard that she fell to the ground and her skirt came up over her head exposin her bloomers!”

  “Preach, Revren! PREACH!”

  “When the manimal saw that, he ripped off his chain and sprinted into the fields!”

  “Praise the Lawd-uh!”

  “Shiftless was declared the winner, and one dumbfounded massa gave a stack of money to the other. Massa Unctuous ran over and say, ‘Shiftless, how dare you touch my wife! When we get back to the plantation I’ma whip you til my arm fall off!’ Shiftless say, ‘Hold on one cotton-pickin minute, Massa Unctuous. You said I’s to do anything possible to win the fight. Well, there wasn’t no way for me to stop that man with my hands, so I had to use my mind.’

  “‘What you talkin bout, Shiftless?’

  “‘Massa, e’ry nigger know any nigger bad enough to slap a white woman is damn sho bad nuff to murder a nigger!’”

  “Tell the truth, Revren! TELL IT ALL!”

  “Well, Massa Unctuous ain’t find that so funny. When they got back to the plantation Massa Unctuous tied Shiftless to a tree with his back in the sun and whipped him til he died!”

  “Lawdy, Lawdy!”

  “I say, he marched Shiftless right into the middle of Jerusalem, Louisiana, made him carry the whip himself, strapped him to a tree, and in front of a hundred folk he whipped him and whipped him and whipped him,” he was yelling now, “til the blood from Shiftless’s back flew out onto Massa’s face, and right up there on that there tree, Shiftless Rice, in the midst of a flock of body-snatchers . . . !”

  “Come with it now, Revren!”

  “. . . criminals of the flesh . . . !”

  “Don’t hold back one lil’ bit!”

  “. . . in the middle of a gang of thieves, I tell you, Shiftless Rice was crucified!”

  “PREEEACH!”

  “But he was not forsaken!”

  “No, he wan’t!”

  “Ah say, our savior was NOT forsaken!”

  “Revren speaks the truth!”

  “Oh, the dyin day was a good day for Shiftless Rice! Do ya know why?!”

  “Tell us why, Revren!”

  “I say, do ya know why?!”

  “We’s waitin on the answer!”

  “Cause then he ain’t have to slave no mo!”

  “Hallelujah!”

  “He immediately rose on up to Heaven, where he had a righteous warm welcome and was given a nice, big penthouse apartment on Amen Avenue in a neighborhood reserved for those who’d been in slavery, or suffered unjustly, or been wrongly persecuted. Mary Magdalene’s mansion was just four doors down the road. Everyone on Amen Avenue liked Shiftless so well that after a few months in Heaven they nominated him to become an angel. God had taken an instant liking to Shiftless and accepted the nomination immediately. Shiftless was to become the first African-American angel ever! Everyone was pretty excited about it, specially Shiftless! So when St. Peter came down and laid them wings on Shiftless, he couldn’t contain hisself. He started flyin all over the place, doin tricks and stunts and loop-de-loops, puttin more style into flyin than any angel ever had. And speed, whew! He flew so fast they couldn’t hardly see whether he was comin or goin! As with everythin, soon’s we get our hands on it, we make it better.”

  “You know thass right!”

  “Well, the white angels weren’t so happy bout Shiftless’s aesthetic innovations, especially one Pancho Pilot, and they complained to St. Peter.”

  “De whitefolks done did it again!”

  “So St. Peter went down to Shiftless’s apartment one night and talked to him about maybe slowin down a bit so’s not to embarrass the other angels. Shiftless agreed, but soon as he got back in the air he couldn’t keep his Blackness from showin and the next mo’nin he was out playin hide-and-go-seek with the clouds and tag with the comets! Well, Pancho and the other white angels went and complained agin! They wouldn’t put up with this behavior at all. Said it wasn’t dignified!”

  “Tell it . . . !”

  “. . . wasn’t sanctified!”

  “Say it ain’t so!”

  “Wasn’t angelic!”

  “Betrayers!”

  “Pancho and the white angels said if Shiftless wasn’t removed as an angel they’d go on strike and there’d be not one miracle performed til they got their way! God could see they was serious, and as charming as Shiftless was, Heaven couldn’t handle having all the angels on strike. So, on just his fifth day in Heaven, the Heaven Police grabbed Shiftless, took his wings, and escorted him to the edge of Heaven.”

  “Now that ain’t right!”

  “It’d been millenniums since anyone had been kicked out of Heaven, so most of the place gathered to say good-bye or good riddance. When they got to the back door of Heaven, St. Peter asked Shiftless if he had any last words.

  “‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Life was a bitch and death’s been just the same. I been in Heaven five days and already the motherfuckin honkies are kickin my ass out.’”

  “Praise the Lawd!”

  “Shiftless considered makin a second comin, but he thought that after Heaven, Earth would be boring, and after slavery, Hell couldn’t possibly be that bad, so he strolled on down to the Inferno to check out the scene. Shiftless discovered Hell was a world of plenty, where everything you could imagine was within arm’s reach. He stayed a while. He ate juicy prime rib until he couldn’t stand the sight of it. He drank fine wine until the smell turned his stomach. He was given a harem, and though it took a long time, eventually his taste for women began to wane. Slowly, everything he loved was being spoiled for him!”

  “Lawdy, Lawdy!”

  “Hell was much more tricky and pernicious than he’d realized. It wasn’t any worse than slavery, but Shiftless hadn’t been happy bein in slavery in the first place! So he started looking for the back door out of there when he glimpsed the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen! Her name was Madonna Satanas. The Devil’s daughter!”

  “Watch out now!”

  “Shiftless went over and laid his game on her, and within minutes she was stuck on him. One night as they strolled through a river of fire, Shiftless said, ‘Hey, baby, you know the way out of here? It’s gettin kinda hot.’

  “She said, ‘Course I do.’

  “‘Well, you the finest thing I ever seen in my life. I could marry you right now and never look back! Let’s you and me zip over to someplace a little cooler like St. Bart’s, where we can jump the broom barefoot on the beach.’

  “Madonna said, ‘Shiftless Rice, are you proposin to me?’

  “And Shiftless said, ‘Yes, I am. I’d git down on one knee but I think I’d get burnt real bad.’

  “They grabbed two of the Devil’s favorite stallions, Hallowed Be Thy Name and Thy Kingdom Come, and raced toward the back door
of Hell, way over in West Hell. But before they got there, the Devil noticed his beloved horses were missing and heard about his daughter’s new man and raced off to catch them before they could reach the door!”

  “Satan on ya tail!”

  “Well, of course, he caught them, he’s the Devil, and he tried to trick Shiftless and Madonna into sticking round, but they were too smart for that and before long a plain ol’ fistfight broke out tween Shiftless and the Devil. Now ain’t too many men can hold up their end in a donnybrook with the Devil! A scuffle with Satan . . . !”

  “Tell it, Revren!”

  “. . . a melee with Mephistopheles . . . !”

  “That’s right!”

  “. . . a brouhaha with Beelzebub!”

  “PREEEACH!”

  “And there’s damn few who would win! But we here talkin bout Shiftless Rice and Shiftless Rice ain’t like other men. He was smart, fast, and highly motivated by the lifetime of top-shelf pussy riding on that fight!”

  “Praise the pussy!”

  “Plus, he was advised by Madonna that the Devil had a soft spot in the middle of his ribs on his left side, and a good punch there would leave him screamin like a hungry baby with a soakin diaper. Sure, she was betraying her father, but in her family they constantly betrayed each other. Shiftless punched the Devil in the spot and watched him curl up into a fetal ball. Shiftless took a stake from Madonna and drew a cross on the Devil’s chest. Then the Devil had to bow to Shiftless. It was time to save some souls!”

  “Praise the Lawd!”

  “Shiftless and Madonna postponed their nuptials a few hours, passed out ice water, and installed air-conditioning units to make the bottomless pit a bit more bearable.

  “‘I’m only doin this,’ Shiftless said, ‘because you’re gonna be my father-in-law and someday we’re gonna wanna come back with some little ones, and if it’s too hot we ain’t comin. So don’t mess with these here ACs because if you do, I’ma beat that ass again and turn this whole place into a giant icebox!’ With that, the road was clear for Shiftless Rice’s second coming. He and Madonna flew on out of Hell and over to St. Bart’s in search of a broom they could jump and a hotel with outdoor showers!”

  The service concluded with the organist, drummer, electric guitarist, and three-man horn section bursting into righteous riffs and the congregation clapping to the rhythm. The Revren yelled out, “May all our lives be filled with love, sex, and God! And where God will not provide, grant us the grace, courage, and cunning of Shiftless Rice so we might make it through! Amen!” The Revren stepped down off the phone books as though it pained his little body, thrust his arms out melodramatically, and moved through the aisles taking collection by allowing each member of the congregation to use a safety pin and stick a ten or a twenty to his suit. The ladies, of course, took their time, pinning on their currency like a delicate corsage and stealing a chance to touch his cheek or his hair or give him a quick kiss. As the Revren moved through the church he became a little strutting money tree. He stopped when he reached the church’s back pew, and with the church thundering with claps and cheers and stomps and tears, the tiny Revren took the hand of a light-skinned, ancient man with paper-thin skin stretched so taut over his bones and muscles that you could see every vein and tributary and the blood pulsing through them. As the church roared, the man moved in slow motion from his seat to his feet and nodded with an augustness available only to the extraordinarily long-lived. “We love you, Shiftless!” someone yelled out.

  9

  _____

  AFTER CHURCH there was an impromptu reception in the parking lot. They all just had to chat a little before they got in their cars. Dream Negro, Precious’s mom, helped Chickadee Sunflower, Mahogany’s mom, navigate through the crowd. Chickadee was nine months pregnant. She knew it could come at any moment. She’d wondered if it would come during service. But Mama Sunflower wasn’t about to miss a good sermon. Now, as the two walked slowly through the crowd, ladies were waving and wishing her well and the sun was out and the day was going so beautifully. But just then Ubiquity Jones was driving by in her Ninasimonemobile, listening, as usual, to her favorite song, “Sinnerman.” She loved it when Nina sang, “Oh sinnerman, where you gon run to?” Ubiquity saw Mama Sunflower and Dream Negro together in a crowd and couldn’t resist. She had somewhere to be, but she parked her Ninasimonemobile just to drop her gossip bomb.

  Ubiquity rumbled into the parking lot wearing a hat with a brim so wide she cast a shadow over her entire giant body, as if she’d finally embraced her ominous place in their lives. Her triple chins jumped up and down as she bounced toward Chickadee and Dream, and it looked like the chins were rooting her on. As Ubiquity moved through the crowd women held their breath until she passed, then turned around to see where she was headed. They all feared the big, pregnant smile she always had before she was about to drop a particularly large gossip bomb. She was wearing that smile that day.

  None of the gossips ever had anything to say about Mama Sunflower. She was beyond reproach, working hard at raising all those kids with a man who loved her to pieces. So no one expected Ubiquity to be heading toward her. But even if they’d known where she was headed, they couldn’t have saved Mama Sunflower. Avoiding Ubiquity when she wanted to drop one of her bombs on you was as easy as avoiding Death when it’s ready to take you. Ubiquity sashayed right up beside Chickadee and Dream, then hovered there a long moment so everyone would know who she was dropping a bomb on today. It was very rare to see Ubiquity sashay up to two women at once, and no one had ever known of Mama Sunflower or Dream Negro, both women from prominent Soul City families, being approached by the likes of Ubiquity. It appeared that history was about to take place in the parking lot of Baby Love’s. Every single lady in the lot was listening.

  “Mo-nin, ladies!” Ubiquity sang out.

  Chickadee and Dream turned around and deadpanned, “Mo-nin?” Neither of them could believe that Ubiquity Jones had come for her.

  Ubiquity took a deep dramatic breath to prepare herself. This was going to be good. “Ain’t it a shame . . . !” she cried out, deeply pained for the fate of Soul City.

  Dream trembled, but Mama Sunflower kept one brow tucked low, not ready to give Ubiquity her respect. “What? What!” Dream demanded nervously, as if she were asking to be shot sooner than later.

  “That both of your daughters are running around town doing drugs . . . !”

  The entire parking lot gasped as one.

  “. . . with a strange man . . .” She paused and looked around to make sure everyone was listening. “From The City!” She held back the news of his dirty mind, waiting to see the effect of these first two bombs.

  Dream crumbled into tears.

  Chickadee was embarrassed, but her chin remained high.

  “Just tryin to help,” Ubiquity lied.

  “I will deal with my daughter on my own time,” Chickadee said firmly. And then she cut her eyes at Ubiquity. The entire parking lot gasped again. No lady dared challenge Ubiquity.

  Ubiquity took up Chickadee’s stare and tried to read her mind but could find nothing with which to embarrass her further. She considered dropping the other bomb, but she could see that Chickadee was stubborn, a tough cookie, and Ubiquity thought she might need to sashay up to Chickadee another day because she certainly did not like the way Chickadee had challenged her. She liked to see women cry. Tears were her favorite form of applause, and Chickadee had not cried a bit. This would not do. She placed the other gossip bomb back in the vault and began waiting for the absolutely worst possible moment to drop it.

  I’m gonna get you for this, Chickadee thought.

  I heard that, Ubiquity thought.

  10

  _____

  MAHOGANY STILL felt guilty about Cadillac’s bad trip, so late Sunday night she and Precious took him out dancing. In Soul City there are lots of places to go dancing any time of day or night, as is to be expected of a city with ten thousand DJs. Long after midnight the Fu
nky Butt Dance Hall, the Soul Clap Café, and Cooley High were crammed. But that was never a problem at the Honky Tonk, so that’s where they took him.

  Mahogany was a local celebrity, and the Soul City Inquirer was always wondering who she was dating. If they snapped her picture in some nightclub alongside a guy from The City, all of Soul City would be talking. Just because Mahogany didn’t like him didn’t mean it wouldn’t be scandalous. At the Honky Tonk they didn’t have to worry. The Honky Tonk struggled to attract even a modest crowd because of its playlist: all white music, all the time. As they walked in, the Average White Band was emphatically urging some white boy to play that funky music. “I fuckin hate this place,” Mahogany said. She exhaled viciously. Someone slipped past and quietly handed Cadillac a card. They were recruiting for a secret mission to help bring the White Music Party up from the underground. Mahogany snatched the card out of his hand and tore it in half.

  “You’re out of control,” Precious said.

  “Look who’s talking,” Mahogany said. She tugged at her ear melodramatically.

  Precious stormed off as Paul Simon limned a number of ways to leave your lover.