It was a Capricorn night: stubborn and grim. He knew he was out of his cotton-picking mind. And although he was in dirty, poor Monrovia—he remembered that for sure—the enemies had surely closed in. What could they want? He was drunk but not blind. And this taxi driver wasn't to be believed: smelling of bamboo and salted herring, he had a license placard with his grasshopper-face on it and his name was Wassily Bruno Ludwig Rottluff. Mason was suddenly afraid. Would they kill him, dump his body in some extragalactic space where nobody but nobody would ever find his remains? The guy was blue-rimmed and haughty even! In front of the dance hall, Mason got out. He reached into the uterus of the machine and pressed a filthy dollar into the crusty black hand. “Thanks.” The joint was jumping. Called The Total Situation, it was on a side street off Broad, the main drag near the Chase Manhattan Bank. Natives were packed at the bar so deep it took Mason a full minute to recognize Reverend Jack Mackins tending them. Now this was some shit! Mason worked his way in and reached for Mackins' hand. The bartender gave him a dirty eye. Mason felt like a fringed-footed lizard. Red lights winked against blue darkness in the mirror behind the Man of God. Being here was like shopping in a supermarket. Mason looked up and down the length of the bar: a woman—the only white woman in the place—was eating peanuts from a bowl. A mug of beer in the other hand. Something about her rung a bell, nearly broke the ding and split the dong. He rubbed his pumpkin-colored eyes: this dame this lass was Little Sally Walker, the porno kitten. Nobody could tell him different. Damnit! The world wasn't that small. The man next to her was eating the placenta of some animal. Steaming hot, it superseded the double shot of whisky at his elbow. His black face was twisted and purple under the light. Mason turned back to the barkeep: “I know you, Reverend. You can't fool me. Remember Attica?” “Are you drunk? Can't serve you if you drunk. You from New York? Thought so.” “Where can I find Chief Q. Tee, Reverend?” “Never heard of a chief by that name.” Upstairs people were dancing and the weight of their festive display and desperate and absolute celebration of life had the lights in the ceiling rocking, releasing pearly iridescent specs of dust and crud. Mason ordered a scotch on the rocks. This place was more vulgar than he'd hoped for. Down the bar Little Sally Walker was licking her fingers. He remembered the tadpole-touch of her inner flesh. It gave him goose bumps and made eggs break against his spine. Later he'd go down and speak to her. She couldn't possibly be part of any plot against him. Could she? But the Reverend? Who could say. Little Sally Walker's glitter and glamor were throwing off a glazed inner rigidity she hadn't had back in Guy Flotilla's world of sentimental flesh and alienated genitals. Now now, be gentle. A commotion at the door pulled him around and his eyes snagged on the exodus: people were splitting like mad. It was moments before Mason could see the body of a bleeding man on the floor half way under a table by the front window with its winking bar sign. A hard muscle in Mason's head turned to spring flowers. His teeth felt like pine cones. He drank the scotch down in one gulp. In minutes uniformed police and soldiers filled the place. Like everybody else he had to show his i.d. People wearing German music hall costumes and American designer jeans and French fluff came down the stairs from sweating and jumping, herded along by the tips of billy-sticks. In the crowd was one white guy. He was German all right. And yes: believe it or not: he was none other than Taurus Heiner Graf with a black woman clinging to his arm. For a moment Graf was only inches from him. Mason reached out and touched his arm. “Graf!” Graf didn't respond. He kept right on as though he hadn't felt the tug. At the same moment little Sally Walker and her date were pushing their way past. He couldn't remember her real name when he opened his mouth. “Rise Sally rise.” She gave him a smile and a wink. Well, well. On the way out Mason looked at the face of the man on the floor. He recognized it but he couldn't place it: it was too far out of context.
Saturday. Bopola-Ganori was a remote village reached by way of a good road built by foreign “investors” interested in you-know-what. Along the way were gigantic rubber tree plantations. A few scattered clouds hung above. It was not just another day drawn in charcoal. It had a conté sharpness, a certain verve. . . . They didn't arrogantly drive into the village, rather, they parked outside and walked in. Nothing much had started. The village chief, a slender old man wearing a white turban, greeted them with dignity and ceremoniousness. He didn't apply the customary, more casual, snap-of-the-finger-at -the-end-of-the-shake “handshake.” Mason and the teachers walked about the area. A crowd was beginning to gather in the village square. Occasionally one of the professors explained something—how the huts were built, or—as they passed young girls cornrolling each other's hair—the process of braiding. They then ended up back at the square where the beer and food were spread out on tables under a shelter. Mason surveyed the feast, sniffed the pungent, spicy stuff, bean and sesame seed spread that smelled strongly of garlic; a wooden bowl filled with jumbo shrimp in red pepper paste; a big old pan of fried chicken in groundnut sauce that released little smoke clouds of chili and onions; some sort of baked thing with the aroma of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon; then familiar potato greens. Kakotu said the chicken and rice casserole was a specialty of Ghana—called jallof rice. Ghana was his homeland. The professors paid their fee of twenty dollars to the old woman in the corner. The first thing Mason lifted to his plate was a baked dish of corn and okra then a wooden spoonful of sugared yams. His sweet tooth was calling. A bus load of people from Monrovia arrived at the moment they started eating. The dancers in costume out in the square were warming up, stretching their limbs. Mason and the professors took a table adjacent to the serving table and a boy placed a bottle of beer alongside each of their plates. Kakotu wanted to know if the writer's books were available in Africa. Mason didn't know. Something in the corn and okra was reaching under his tongue and burning all the way down through the root of his mouth and into the throat canyon. Besides, he felt sore and dizzy from a sleepless night. His host assured him that this food was a cut above Julia's Gurley Street place, the Lebanese joints, the Mandarin, and even better than what you'd get on Carey or Broad not to mention the so-called European places. Our wolf-in-sheep skin was enjoying himself out here among the “tribal” folk. . . . Before the dancing started, the visitors—Liberians mainly, an American couple, two British ladies—crowded the sheltered area. Mason wanted to know if Kakotu knew of a Chief Q. Tee in Monrovia. He did not. Some people from Sinkor and Paynesville arrived in a pickup truck. They came in just as a sprinkle started. The dancing was sort of casually beginning out there, though not with much kick. . . . A little man with an adult upper body perched on short legs—which were uneven—went to the center of the square, shooed the dancers aside, raised his hands against the drummers then addressed the visitors. Most of them were still eating as they stood or sat under the sheltered area. The deformed man explained the limitations of the festival: there were tribal secrets they couldn't share with strangers. . . . A grizzly fellow—obviously got-up to scare away evil spirits—wobbled into the square as the deformed guy stepped aside. Grizzle flopped about beating up dust despite rain. He ran toward the spectators in one direction then another. He was more comic then menacing. Not even the children flinched. Then two other bedeviled critters came from between huts and joined the old woolly bear. They beat around in the dust and tugged at each other with no apparent symmetry. A fourth one came forward from behind a cluster of old village women in plain cotton. Mason chewed on a shrimp dipped in ata sauce and watched the antics. (He was sure one of the English ladies was Cornelia in disguise!) About an hour later the thick dusty creatures were shooed away by the deformed man and the girls in grass skirts were ushered out. They moved their arms and twirled their hips and made all the turns and squats just right to the drum beats. The drummers, by the way, were clustered together at the other side of the square: also under a shelter of branches supported by four simple poles. . . . New dancers came and joined the present ones. Within minutes the girls were moving in a dusty storm as they
pounded the ground with their bare feet. The drums talked. The sun came out sharply. Mason and his escorts continued to watch from beneath the thatched roof. The deformed man kept shouting to the dancers—urging them to move faster. Standing to the side, just inside the circle of viewers, he'd cut a little step himself to the drums. Cackling and gesturing toward his genitalia. He reminded Mason of Snake Hips. . . .
“Tomorrow at noon come to Village Tabli-Gablah in Bomi Territory for official meeting. Essential you be there. You must appear in wooden mask. No one is to see your face. Q.T.” This message awaited him upon his return to the Ducor. It was on letter-head stationary: Q.T. Secret Society. No address. No phone. Reader, for hours Mason was in a quandary! Yet he bought a mask. He didn't sleep well that night. The taxi trip to Tabli-Gablah would cost forty cruddy dollars. (Did the American government send all its dirty money to Liberia?) On his way, he thought how odd he'd felt to discover yesterday in the afternoon during the dinner party at Kakotu's that Kakotu had four wives. Mason'd known in the abstract that polygamy was still widespread here but to see it in action—all the wives busy in the kitchen—was different. The whole neighborhood came to Kakotu's home in northwest Monrovia to help him celebrate the visit of the American poet and novelist. It was also a party to honor the birth of Kakotu's first grandchild. Mason felt a little cheated. Scotch, rum, wine, beer, soda pop, a dining room table in a dark house filled with serving dishes of sizzling hot stews, fried meats, peppered baked dishes, salty, tangy, sweet meats and yams, overripe fruit. Guests chattered politely standing in line around the table, loading and reloading their plates. The cool darkness complimented the soft, low, sweet voices. As Mason listened to Jacquelyn Cloves tell of her adventures in New York, there suddenly came the clamor of something afoot out in the yard. Had Mandingo tribesmen come with unfriendly intentions? Had Camp Johnson Road been taken by the advanced guard of a new government? Naw. It was only The Devil: tall as a Georgia pine, with a red face! Mason, with the others, rushed out onto the screened porch to see what was up. The Devil was a sight standing there in the dust surrounded by a hundred or so awed and giggling children. Then His Satanic Majesty started a little sweet dance step. He had the charm of little Shirley Temple. A lifted foot, a lifted arm. His body was wrapped in yellow sacks all the way down his wooden—stilt-held—legs. The sucker was every bit of twelve feet! He had no voice but gestured toward his mouth with a webbed set of fingers—indicating thirst. Impatient with the slowness of spectators, The Devil snatched a bottle of beer from a man's fist. Toodleoo, beer. Whoa, now! Back up! But it was too late. He drained the bottle then snatched a glass of scotch from Robert's grip—spilled most of it in his clumsy effort to get the liquid in through his slit. Sort of wavering in a dust cloud of his own making, he accepted bits of meat, sips from bottles of soda pop, potato chips, crackers, pieces of chocolate. Even money. After taking Mister Nobody's scotch he demanded money—making his request clear by rubbing his thumb against his index and forefinger. The crowd roared. Mason gave The Devil a couple of dollars. He stuffed them into his shirt front then reached down and grabbed Mason by the shoulder. “Tonight . . . ” he whispered through the mask. But there was something else. Mason missed it: a few words at the end: unclear, curved, clay-clogged, in a wheeze. A boy at the back of the crowd—perched high on a fence—was beating a drum to The Devil's dance. The Devil stepped now to the dreamy drunk sick rhythm of his Shirley Temple tap. Where was Big Bill? Calm as a clam, innocent as a curl, he danced his magic whim. He danced till he couldn't stand. By now the whole party'd moved outside. Then the poor-devil-of-a-guy dropped and leaned against the high terra cotta wall that separated the yard from the dusty road. As in novels of old, the afternoon wore on. . . . Tonight?
As he approached the Ducor to turn in for the night he felt like Moll Flanders (“Who was . . . Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife . . . Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon . . . at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest . . . ”) but he wasn't. Had he let his Hobby-Horse grow headstrong? Mason suddenly felt a breeze. The Prince without a principality was smooth as polished wood. His stride was indistinguishable from that of a man of noble birth. Then a hand reached out of the darkness and yanked at his sleeve. Mason swung around. It was The Devil, still on stilts. The diabolical fella stank of his own sweat. He hissed. He bent toward Mason's head. Whispered: “You be an irreligious—an infindel, like me: you no unspotted one. A circle will be drawn around you feet. Be careful where you stand. Don't cross the cross. The full moon watches you as you sleep. Stay away from swastikas: they be bad signs for a scoundrel the likes of you.” As the demon whispered in Mason's ear Mason cringed, struggling to free himself from the fallen angel's powerful hold. “Hear me out! You'll go soon enough!” Two Chinese men got out of a taxi and went in the Ducor. Mason shuddered: he was a Francis Bacon figure in a bleak landscape: half-formed, trapped—deformed. The Devil's voice became sharp: “Don't let you dereliction go you to the wrong way: don't weave spells with them in Tabli-Gablah. It will be cause the end of you.” Then before Mason could form the obvious question The Devil disappeared down the dark walkway alongside the Ducor. He thought of chasing but quickly realized how pointless it was since the archfiend's stilted footfalls couldn't even be heard on the stone.
The taxi driver refused to drive him into Tabli-Gablah. “They got a pact with The Devil. Me best not go there, Mister.” He'd parked his Buick just outside the village at the mouth of the dirt road that led in. He held out his hand. Mason gave him four tens. Then got out. The air was heavy. It was eleven-thirty but felt like midnight. No sun. Giant trees caused a medley of shadows along the road. Goddamnit, had he so completely fallen out of Joyce Kilmer's? hurt himself? lost the formula? forgot his P's and Q's? his Z's? his C's? What the hell was a “smart” guy like Mason doing out here on a back road alone walking toward some unknown, uh, event? He started out. Heard the taxi leave. Then a vehicle on the highway a moment later. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a holi on its way to Monrovia—crammed with passengers. Absently, he felt the wooden mask in his shoulder bag. Should he put it on now or . . . ? He felt foolish. Sure. Why not now. He stopped and sat on a rock alongside the road. Opened his bag. He liked the mask a lot. It reminded him of the face of the woman who'd shown up at the Sommerfield party in Greece. Mason heard voices. But he saw nobody. Quickly he placed his mask over his face and adjusted the string around the base of his head. A weird tiredness gripped Blackface Hermes. He couldn't breathe properly with the mask on. Or . . . was something else . . . wrong? Then he saw three figures—men?—coming from the direction of the village—his way. The Prodigal son stood. His foolish wooden mask felt heavy like freshly grafted skin. His mouth tasted like Robert E. Lee's old boot. Mason waited—his eyes burning behind the slits. He watched the men approach. (“The Man Who Rode Away”?) No. You wouldn't get off that easily! Before the three were at arms' length he could see they too were wearing masks made of wood. He felt his mudfrog disappear. They stopped before him. The shortest one spoke: “Follow us.” The tallest one quickly added: “We must hurry.” Then they set off at a trot. Mason tried to keep up. . . . On first sight the village of Tabli-Gablah seemed normal: except there were no people. Mason followed the three toward the large hut at the base of the village square. They pushed him in. Inside, he couldn't see anything—at first. Then, by candlelight, he saw that the room was packed with people sitting on the ground in a circle: all wore wooden masks. An old man in a red robe came in. He told Mason to sit. Mason sat. The old man then sat on the ground next to him. The three escorts left. The circle was then complete. The old man spoke: “The envelope, please.” Mason pulled it from his pocket and handed it over. The old man ripped it open and read aloud: “Keep this nigger!” He then looked with calmness at Mason. “Are you the person referred to here?” Mason didn't think to hesitate. He chirped. He felt the gravity of the situation—the serious presence of the circle of wearers of masks. Pastiché? Something linear about this circle . . . ? Mason
scanned. He thought he recognized the flicker of an eye in a slit, the gesture of a body, the turn of a head, the shape of a set of breasts, the curve of a big toe. But he couldn't be sure. Not absolutely. Then the old man said, “One can carry the disease one covers oneself against on the fingers one uses to secure the cover. You, my son, have come to the end of your running.” But by now his words were meant for himself alone. Far away in the distance they all could hear the sad bullhorn of a Muslim and shortly thereafter the crier with his mournful whining appeal from the upper window of a mosque. It was hot and muggy. The hut smelled of, of, cow rocks, turtle piss and smoke.
My Amputations (Fiction collective ;) Page 23