by Gayl Jones
What about reparations? They talk about reparations for everybody else. What about reparations? I ask, ’cause I’ve heard everybody talking about that. I even seen one of them talk shows on television talking about reparations.
The woman is still talking to Ray, though. She kinda look at me when I says something about them reparations, like she saying this her and Ray’s conversation, then she starts talking to Ray. Maybe it ain’t that expression, but that the expression I reads. Then she look at me again as if to say that that ain’t the true expression that she meant and that she talking to me as much as to Ray, and then she say, looking from me to Ray, Use some of that Cadillac money to buy your forty acres and a mule. . . . We oughta reclaim a lot of that land, though. . . . You hear stories all over the South, like in Mexico, during the revolution, a lot of the peasants’ land got confiscated, you know, ’cause a lot of the people didn’t have documents showing that they were the owners of the land, or the people in power falsified a lot of the documents, so’s they could take over the people’s land, lotta that happened in the South. . . . Instead of buying Cadillacs we oughta reclaim our land.
You know that’s a stereotype, Ray jokes. He goes over and gets himself a Coke. Says something to another one of them refugee workers, look kinda like a stereotypical Mexican, wearing them white pajama-type clothes and guaraches, and then he come back where we is.
Is it? asks the woman. Everything stereotypical ain’t a stereotype. Like Langston Hughes usedta say. I think he said something like that. Him or Claude McKay. Naw, I think Langston Hughes. I know somebody that had Langston Hughes for a teacher. Can you imagine having Langston Hughes for your teacher. Well, I guess you can have him for a teacher, just read his poems and stories. Course they’s writers that ain’t at all like the stories they writes. Least people don’t expect Langston Hughes to be no Simple, even when he’s writing about Simple. Suppose Langston Hughes had written about Simple but give him his own vocabulary, you know?
Ray didn’t say nothing. I starts to say something about it look like Ray were standing over there talking to a stereotype, but I don’t. I likes Langston Hughes, but I ain’t know nothing to say to that woman about him. I knows the poems and I knows something about his characterization of Simple. I could recite Simple, but I ain’t. They think I’m crazy standing up there reciting Simple in the presence of them refugees. And then maybe they ain’t know it Simple I’m reciting and think it me personifying Simple.
Well, some stereotypes got some basis in reality, one of my professors usedta say. I’m talking about a African-American professor. Had us reading one of those poems about Aunt Jemima. Reclaiming Aunt Jemima, you know. ’Cause when you go over there to Africa you see a lot of women wear headscarves. I mean, as part of their culture and tradition and even for religious reasons. Then they come to America and they’s supposed to be Aunt Jemima. But in Africa they’s true women. He started showing us pictures of African women all over the world wearing that headscarf, and then even started showing us Eastern Europeans and Mediterranean women, women all over the world wearing that headscarf. So he had us reading this poem about Aunt Jemima. I didn’t know why we had to read a poem about Aunt Jemima, but he said we were reclaiming the stereotype. They had taken something that had a basis in our reality and perverted it into a stereotype and then we ourselves perverted it into a further stereotype. Anyway the Cadillac ain’t just a Cadillac, the Cadillac is anything, the Cadillac is a metaphor for anything. . . . Instead of buying Cadillacs we oughta buy back our land. . . .
How come we have to buy it back? If the land was ours, how come we gotta buy it back? Ain’t that reparations? I ask. ’Cause I heard them talk about reparations on all them talk shows. When they wasn’t talking about a apology to the peoples of Africa, they was talking reparations. I don’t owe you people a apology for slavery, said one of the women. I didn’t enslave you people. I don’t own you people. And what about Reconstruction. I’m from the South. Some of y’all owe me a apology for Reconstruction.
That’s because you don’t know the true history of Reconstruction, said one of the people.
I know about as much of the true history of Reconstruction as I need to know, said the woman. And then I think the woman is about to say something about affirmation action when there’s a commercial.
The woman looks at me and starts talking to me now. I mean the woman with the silk headscarf. Well, there’s no way you can prove a lot of those documents were falsified. . . . Then she starts talking to Ray again. I mean you could say the land was yours, but then they’d go to the documents and the documents say it ain’t, and you can’t prove them documents are falsified. . . . That’s how the system works. . . . Either they’d point to the documents or they’d say they ain’t no documents. . . .
She do say they ain’t no documents. I know some of y’all be telling me she ain’t say that ’cause she supposed to be a cultured and educated woman, but she do say they ain’t no documents.
That’s how they use their literary tradition—they go by what’s written down, not by what people say, even if the people falsified them documents. . . . But every African-American family in the South has got the same tale, part of their family history and folklore. Call it folklore ’cause it ain’t written down . . . You be with somebody in Georgia or somewhere and they say, Look at that land over there, that usedta be us family land, and then they be telling you they history. . . . ’Cept they ain’t got the documents or the documents they do got is falsified. . . . So Koshoo thinks we oughta all buy farms. . . . Koshoo ain’t from the USA. . . . Every time I’m in the South people tell me the same story. I hear the same story when I’m in Mexico or Brazil. . . . Do you think y’all try to go out there to the detention camp. ’Cause I don’t know if we can free her by legal means. . . . I mean, Ray, we can go out to el centro. I can talk to the Latino group, ’cause they seem like a well-organized and reliable group of people from what I hear, but I don’t think we can get her out of el centro by legal means. And the people who remember her as the general’s girlfriend don’t want to liberate her from el centro anyway.
Ray looks at me like I’m not supposed to hear what they’re saying. Then he doesn’t say anything, and the woman doesn’t say anything. Then Ray kisses her on the jaw and touches my elbow and he goes up the stairs. Somebody else in the basement comes up to us and starts talking to the woman with the briefcase. She a African-American woman too. She wearing her hair in them braids, though. She ’bout the same age as the woman with the briefcase. I can’t tell if they’s my age, though, or older than me.
Girl, you’s looking like you’s in love with that man.
First I think she’s talking about me but she’s talking to the woman with the briefcase.
I know you ain’t talking about Father Raymond, says the woman.
Y’all could be in love. You hear all them stories these days. People think they’s new stories, but they had stories like that back in the Middle Ages in Europe or I guess wherever they had priests. In the Middle Ages those holy men had girlfriends. They had all sorts of famous people claiming to be the children of holy men.
Don’t joke about Father Raymond, says the woman.
Do y’all see the scene we had?
What scene? me and the woman asked at the same time.
I call her the girlfriend of everybody, everybody who’s a general and the ones the general want her to spy on. She’s here as a refugee and somebody recognized her and started a ruckus. Had to get Father Raymond to come and calm down everybody. He didn’t tell y’all about that?
Naw. He told us about getting deported, I said.
I know about the guerrilla woman, but I didn’t know they had a scene here, said the other woman. He just told us about getting deported from Mexico.
Oh, yeah, him and Cheech and Chong down there in Mexico. I told the fools not to go down there. I mean, Father Raymond might have been an effective negotiator if he didn’t have Cheech and Chong with him.
Don’t talk about Al or the other Ray, now. They ain’t no Cheech and Chong. Even Cheech and Chong ain’t Cheech and Chong like in the movies.
About the guerrilla woman, when we brought her here, somebody knew her and pointed her out and says. Don’t think I forget, I don’t forget. Then some of the others who were in the same revolution joined in. We got her out of here, and then the fools who were transporting her to California got confiscated and she’s in el centro. I told the fools they oughta take her north to Canada.
I’m supposed to go out to el centro.
Naw, not you. Ray and Al and the other Ray. I don’t think they trust you, girlfriend, ’cause you knew each other in school, and y’all be talking shit and get her deported or some shit. They’re sending somebody out there they can trust.
Who said that?
You talk too much shit. Talk shit to me. Don’t talk shit to Ray if you want to be trusted.
Are you going out there?
Naw. I wouldn’t trust myself at el centro. Not with the guerrilla woman. Somebody they really consider a subversive. I mean, most of these refugees here wouldn’t start no revolution. I mean, not here in America. But she’s on their subversives list. I think some spy is following me about. So I told Ray I can’t smuggle none of his true revolutionaries. You know these old spies gotta have jobs. You know that poem about the old spy? I remember reading that poem in school, about some old spy from the FBI, during the days of desegregation. . . .
Shhh. . . .
I heard you’re being reassigned?
Yeah, Miami. Who say Ray don’t trust me? I know you’re bullshitting me. Koshoo’s designing some new brochures about thumbnail size that can’t be easily confiscated. So I’m going to be giving everybody copies of those brochures, you know, so they’ll know their rights. A lot of them they don’t even know they’ve got rights, you know. And the government isn’t going to tell them their rights. I’m talking about our government. Who say Ray don’t trust me?
Koshoo? Is that his real name? Girl, I thought I was saying his code name. . . . Girl, if you’re going to talk shit, don’t talk shit in front of Ray is what I’m saying.
He’s the only one we’re allowed to name. . . . He’s got contacts everywhere in the world, so he can go to just about any country. . . . Anyway, Ray says he’s getting one of his guerrilla lawyers to represent Koshoo. Ray trusts me. I know he does.
Legal guerrillas? Say what? What’s a legal guerrilla? I asked. Seem like I heard about legal guerrillas.
People that the government and the official sorts can’t coopt, said the woman with the briefcase. ’Cause a lot of these lawyers are cooptable. I know Ray trusts me. I might talk shit sometimes, but that don’t mean I ain’t trustworthy. Plus I know enough not to acknowledge the fact that I already know the guerrilla woman if that what Ray wants. I know enough not to go to el centro telling everybody all the shit I told Ray. I wasn’t talking shit, was I?
I didn’t say anything, ’cause I wouldn’t know if she was talking shit or not, plus I didn’t hear all the shit she was talking ’cause she was already talking to Ray when I come down to the basement and heard them talking shit, then I went and got me a Coke, and I didn’t come over to where they was talking till Ray indicated for me to come over there, so she mighta been talking shit, except I wouldn’t know what Ray considered talking shit ’cause they was talking about somebody I didn’t know.
Yeah, said the other woman. You think they’re working for you and they’re working for the government or some other official type.
’Cept ain’t nobody supposed to call them though. . . . You can’t just call one of Ray’s legal guerrillas. You got to get word to Ray that you need one of them. . . . They publish their own literature, but you can only contact them by contacting the people that contact you . . .
Are you a guerrilla lawyer? You look like a lawyer, I told the woman who looked like a lawyer.
Naw, girlfriend. I ain’t no lawyer. Actually, I help with various documents, but Ray says you’re not involved in all that. I make sure all our documents look like the real ones. I supposed I can tell you that. I know Ray trusts me, ’cause he wouldn’t have me making sure all our documents are real.
I know the only reason she tell me that much is Ray say it okay to tell me that much about what she do, ’cause these people has got rules. And maybe that ain’t really what she do. Maybe she just telling me all that to camouflage what she really do. Or maybe she just talking shit, like that woman say, and ain’t to be trusted.
We’ve got a whole list of code words we can use. Code words and code names. I sorta don’t like to use the words code word because of them.
Who? I asked.
Who do you think them is? she asked. All their code words for people like us. Or for people not like themselves. I remember they usedta have a song during the Second World War—“People Like Us.” You know, defending the world for people like themselves.
Telling your age, said the woman who denied being a guerrilla lawyer. I bet Ray trusts me more than he trusts most people.
Girl, Ray don’t trust nobody. Well, he trusts people as much as he trusts them. Anyway, I mean, I saw it in a movie. One of those movies made during the war, about this group of American musicians, European-American musicians. So they had this girl singer, I guess they usedta call them then, singing about “People Like Us” while the band was playing, you know. No satire meant at all in that song. They really believed that shit. You know, one of those sweet-voiced girl singers, not like the girl singers today. Then they were sweet-talking a lot of people into thinking they meant them in that song. Sweet-talked a lot of African Americans to fight in their war.
My uncle Buddy Johnson fought in that war, I says. And we were fighting Hitler—Nazism—that was different. I surprise myself talking to them women about my uncle Buddy Johnson and that war but I was talking to them like I always knew them and belonged amongst them, and that ain’t the truth for me and most people I don’t know shit about.
Yeah, but the Nazi aesthetic, I heard somebody call it. Lotta European Americans they still believe in the Nazi aesthetic. What’s the Barbie Doll, even Madonna and Madonna wannabees, nothing but the Nazi aesthetic. You have a few of them questioning that Nazi aesthetic, but most of them, most of them want blond-haired, blue-eyed children. Like I was listening to these two white women, one had this little girl, this little blond-haired girl and the other white woman was telling her how pretty this little girl was. Now if this little girl had had dark hair and brown eyes but the same features, this woman wouldn’t be calling her a beauty at all. They call a few dark-haired women beautiful, but mosta them still gotta have blue eyes. So, anyway, this woman with the little blond-haired girl says, Yeah, she is pretty. I hope she stays blond, though. I hope she’s not a false blonde. You know, ’cause a lot of them are false blondes. They’re blondes when they’re babies, but when they grow up their hair turns dark. That’s what I mean by the Nazi aesthetic. Even though they were over there fighting them Nazis and that so-called Aryanism. . . .
Well, you have some people that question it, like Naomi, that Beauty Myth woman, you know, said the woman that denied being a guerrilla lawyer.
Yeah, but they didn’t always question it. You can read African-American literature, even from the very beginning, and we were always questioning it. I mean, there were a lot of people who supported it, I mean their idea of beauty, so you’ve got books like William Wells Brown, where the heroine’s gotta resemble a white woman to be called beautiful and valuable . . . but you’ve always had other writers questioning it. It’s a recurring theme in African-American literature, the beauty theme, the European-American myth of beauty. You just now got European Americans questioning it. . . . Even a lot of those blondes in Hollywood. . . . Some of them even allow themselves to have red hair now. They don’t all gotta be blondes. . . . I mean if you’re a true blonde, like that Nordic woman who’s in our group, but if you’re a blonde on account of somebody
else’s aesthetic. . . . I mean, you can be who you wanna be as long as you got your own aesthetic . . . Like a lotta them blond rappers, seem like they’re just signifying on that . . .
. . . Pretending we’re writing Ray an ordinary letter, you know, to our cousin Ray—that’s why I don’t think she his real cousin—and then include those words in the text of the letter. I know Ray trusts me.
Course he keeps changing the code words . . .
. . . Or pretend we’re having an ordinary conversation with him, but then the code words are there. Anyway, they’re trying to rule her as immoral to get her deported, but Al’s putting together a psychological profile, you know, of the psychology of refugees, even legal refugees. I’m not sure what he calls it . . . not sexual hyperactivity. . . . Who else don’t Ray trust? I know Ray trusts me. I know he does. I don’t talk shit. Here you are talking shit and talking about me talking shit. Look at these refugees looking at you, girl. You’re supposed to be a exemplar and talking about me talking shit. Girl, you just like you were when we was at school. Everybody would be talking about the revolution and you’d get up and do your comedy act. Talking about me talking shit. I thought you would at least go to New York and become a comedian and ain’t play these little comedy clubs around South Texas.
I know who I am, said the woman. I ain’t know if she a true comedian like the woman say though. If she do play the little comedy clubs around South Texas. I ain’t seen her act myself.
I goes upstairs to the bathroom ’cause of that Coke, look around to see if I can find Ray upstairs, then when I comes back to the basement they’s still talking. They’s talking about somebody. Maybe they’s talking about me but pretending they’s talking about somebody else. I go over and get me another Coke, but I can still hear them talking. I ain’t going to say they’s talking shit, though. Or maybe it’s just they’s used to hearing the same conversations all the time, whereas a lot of them conversations I’m hearing for the first time, except for when they starts saying some of them kindsa things that Delgadina have already said. I know I have heard Delgadina to mention the State Department and the Soviet Union and China. You know I feel a little like that jazz musician. Say he was playing a jam session with these other musicians, then he got to go take care of some business, when he gets back they’s still playing the same song. Since I figure they still be playing the same song, I go upstairs again and search for Ray. I ain’t find Ray, but I see Alvarado in a little room that look no bigger than a closet. He got a computer in that room, and there’s a Asian-looking woman in the room, but he ain’t talking to her he talking to somebody on the phone. When he see me, he motion for me to come in. I nod to the Asian-looking woman, who sitting in a little chair near the computer, but she ain’t working the computer. I think she a refugee. Alvarado motion for me to sit down, so I sit down in one of the other little chairs. At first I’m thinking the Asian woman the one that work at the truckstop, but that ain’t her. We both sitting there ain’t saying nothing whilst Alvarado talking on the telephone.