by Gayl Jones
Free who from what detention camp?
His old girlfriend, you know, I’m talking about the guerrilla woman. Well, rumor is she’s his old girlfriend. . . . A group of artists are getting together to put graffiti on that border wall. . . . I don’t believe nothing the government tells me. It ain’t just our government, I think every government’s. . . . Who are you? the woman asks and’s looking right at me.
Shhh. . . . Don’t ask her who she is. She’s one of Ray’s new people. You’re one of Ray’s new people, aren’t you?
Yes, I says. And I kinda likes that name for myself. I mean, amongst people that ain’t supposed to know my real name.
So anyway, Ray wants us to read this book on guerrilla law. . . .
I’m thinking about them legal guerrillas. I know where I heard about them legal guerrillas. The first time I heard about that guerrilla law, I were with Delgadina. She were going to buy some new books, so I went along with her, and I guess somebody had told her the name of the book that she wanted ’cause she went straight to the law section. She lifts up a big book by somebody called Gabriella Juárez and it called Guerrilla Law. It a big book maybe a thousand pages, and then they another book beside it called The Adventures of a Guerrilla Lawyer. I ain’t know if this the same guerrilla law they’s talking about. I ain’t even thought about that till they starts talking guerrilla law.
Gabriella Juárez? I ask.
What? asks Ray. What do you know about Gabriella Juárez? He raises up.
The women were talking about guerrilla law. They said you had your own group of legal guerrillas.
I don’t want to talk about legal guerrillas, says Ray.
I ain’t read her book myself. Delgadina got a copy of that book though. He kissing me and ain’t want to talk about Delgadina or Gabriella Juárez or them legal guerrillas. But them women they’s still having that conversation inside my head. I’m like that jazz musician and they’s still singing that same song.
Yeah, Ray tells everybody to read her books. She’s from Mexico City, I think, was one of that group of students, you know. Educated at the Sorbonne in France and then got her law degrees from the University of Mexico and then from Harvard University. Practices what she calls guerrilla law. In the Americas.
Now she’s working in the USA.
We need us a lot of guerrilla lawyers here in this regime. Shit. Somebody oughta do a teleplay about her, about this group of guerrilla lawyers. Put something intelligent on TV. And they’re keeping all the documents for us and for all the different people whose rights have been abused. Ray likes to tell this story about Brazil.
What about Brazil? I asks. I mean, I ain’t ask Ray, but them women inside my head they’s talking Brazil now. About how the first thing the Brazilian authorities did when slavery was abolished was to destroy most of the documents or as many of the documents as they could. Of course, there were too many accounts that they couldn’t destroy—people who had been there. People who had the story of Brazilian slavery in their memory. The stories that people told about slavery. The people who had already written books about it. A lot of those journals that a lot of people from Europe kept when they came to explore the Americas and to explore Brazil and then they would publish a lot of those journals in Europe. American authorities. I mean the USA America. Norteamericanos, ’cause it’s all America. I don’t think ever destroyed any slavery documents. The masters wrote the history books anyway—it had been a crime for slaves to read and write! ’Cept in Kentucky and Arkansas.
I’m from Kentucky. I said. It might ain’t been a crime, but it were the custom. ’Cept I usedta hear a tale ’bout one of the Johnsons who was a soldier during the Civil War and he usedta know how to read and write and he usedta write letters for the other colored soldiers, you know, the ones that joined the union, ’cause they saw theyselves as fighting for they own freedom in that war. Some of us Johnsons was named after him, ’cause his name were John, and so we is his descendants. Somebody told me that Johnson were my slave name, but we was named after that John. We changed us name after Emancipation to the name of that John, so’s it wasn’t a slave name, it were a Emancipation name. You know, you know like Monkey Bread, that’s my friend in California, she once told me us should change us names to some Swahili names telling me my name were a slave name. Or us should have African names. Aw, y’all, I ain’t supposed to tell y’all my name. Well, they’s so many Johnsons you ain’t gonna know which Johnson I is. Don’t tell Ray I told y’all my name.
They pretends they ain’t heard me say my name, and goes on with they own story. Anyway, so the master’s tale was that of Rhett and Scarlett. The southern gentleman and the southern belle. They hadn’t done anything wrong. Southerners even today have that myth about their own history. I think people of Linda have always known the true America, the reality of America as opposed to all that idealistic shit. I mean, we believe the ideals, but we know it ain’t never applied to us. So when those fools start saying American values they hear one thing and people of Linda hear another thing. But those people, you know. Believe all that Rhett and Scarlett shit about themselves, want to be Rhett and Scarlett. You’s even got Northerners wanting to be Rhett and Scarlett. Like they’ve turned a lot of them old plantations into inns and shit, and a lot of them Northerners likes to stay in them old plantations, and they’ve even converted them former slave cabins into guest houses and a lot of them fools likes to stay there and pretend, you know. And even got colored folks waiting on them and shit, pretending they’s in the South Befodewah. And I even overheard one of them women that owns one of them former plantation talking about how them people just loves to come there.
Honk. Honk. Honk. Honk. Hey, Nadine.
Got them servants and shit. They likes that shit. Everybody serving they funky-butts. Like in those old movies. You know those old movies. Whether they’s in Asia or Africa or anywhere in the world. Got everybody serving they funky-butts. That’s the way the world supposed to be. And when the colored people ain’t in the movie, they women is serving they funky-butts. I was going to say that the women that don’t serve they funky butts is whores. But even the whores are there to serve they funky-butts. I mean, their funky-butts.
Course she calls them servants and don’t mention that other history. Just talking about how people just loves to come there and pretend it’s Befodewah and Emancipation. And a lot of Northerners. The Union won the war, but the South, the Confederacy, won the propaganda, least when it comes to the slaves. Of course, you’ve got the depiction of them other Southerners, the poor Southerners, the so-called white trash and the neurotic types. The hillbilly stereotypes and shit. But them ain’t noble Rhett and Scarlett. Slavery was a shameful history but one the slaves should be ashamed of, not themselves. And, of course, they convinced many of the slaves, the former slaves, to be ashamed of that history—so that the masters could tell it the way they wanted it, and the slaves, or former slaves—or so they thought—wouldn’t tell it at all. And they’s still got they Rhett and Scarlett images. . . . They really believe that shit. We don’t romanticize ourselves enough and all they do is romanticize themselves. . . . I mean, even their so-called realism, when it’s about themselves, is romanticism. That’s why they prefer Rhett to whoever he played in The Misfits. . . .
Somebody said she started her a cult out there in California, Nzingha I mean. . . .
It ain’t actually a cult. . . . I think they’s a bunch of satirists myself. I’ve read some of their literature, and I don’t even know if they’re a real organization.
Hey, Nadine. Honk.
I knows about Nzingha, but I ain’t say nothing to them women. They’s just talking and Ray kissing me and I wants to tell Ray that I told them women my name, but maybe Ray know I told them my name. Maybe one of them women already told Ray I told them my name. I told them my name. I just told them my Johnson name. They ain’t know my whole name. They ain’t know my whole name till years later when Ray say it okay to tell them my name. But t
hen him loving me and I ain’t want him to think I’m a fool and talking shit and ain’t obeyed all they rules, but when they started talking that woman deny being a guerrilla lawyer and that woman supposed to be a comedian in them little comedy clubs in South Texas when they starts talking about it being a crime to read, I couldn’t help but think of us ancestor who could read and write and usedta read and write for them other coloreds who couldn’t read and write, sorta like them scribes. But them Sanctuary workers, them new Underground Railroad peoples, they’s all races and all classes too, not just them African-American women that I’m listening to. I’m that jazz musician and they’s singing the same song. And Ray’s kissing me and loving me. And even them they’s looking at me like they think I’m some kinda spy. But even though they be mostly speaking English, it kinda sound like one of them foreign languages. This ain’t no foreign language. Love. Then I hear some of them same words I heard from Father Raymond, call me Ray, darling, about the ruling classes and revolutionaries and oppressors, call me Ray, darling, and aliens and the state and, call me Ray, darling, not trusting strangers, call me Ray, darling, especially strangers who comes asking about the Sanctuary movement and the new Underground Railroad. Call me Ray, Darling.
Tell me about her, I says, rising up, calling him darling but still nibbling the soft hair on his chest. His mustache is scratchy, though. We’s still in the back of my truck and’s pulled over to the side of the road. Seem like it the same road that I first met Maria on, but I can’t tell y’all that for a fact ’cause all them border roads is alike. I hope none of them border patrols don’t come checking for no contraband. I wishes we was at my apartment, though, or his, and I was sipping me some Bud Light. Or even one of them Mexican beers. We usselves could be in Mexico City or staying at one of them Mexican haciendas. Or be in one of them Italian villas like you reads about in the novels. I think in the Afromance novel by Nefertiti Johnson—we ain’t the same Johnsons—the one called Valentino’s Kiss, they’s staying in one of them villas in Italy. And I know a lot of y’all be imagining y’all’s at the Plaza in New York sipping champagne. I likes me champagne, but to tell y’all the truth I prefers Bud Light. I knows I’m supposed to prefer champagne. This ain’t no commercial for Bud Light, ’cause us can prefer what us wants to prefer. I know there’s a lots of us that is more champagne womens than we is Bud Light gals.
Her? he repeats.
The woman you were in love with. The one in Mexico City.
You’re a strange one, he says. He sits up straight against one of the detergent drums, my horse blanket hugging his knees. Here we’ve just made love and you wanna hear about the other woman.
Yeah, why not? What’s the Spanish word for strange?
Extraña. Rara. A stranger is an extranjera, that is a woman stranger. A man extranjero.
I rises forward and kisses him again and say Yum. I nibbles his mustache, then leans back against another detergent drum. He sit up even straighter, leaning against his own detergent drum. I reaches up on top of one of them drums and takes a beef jerky from my jacket pocket and offers him one. He take a bite of the beef jerky and chew, then he say, Very good. Muy bueno.
The woman, the kiss, or that beef jerky? The jerky.
And what about the woman. Very good?
Very beautiful. A newspaper woman.
Honk.
Oh, yeah? That’s almost a rocket scientist. I mean, compared to me. I leans forward and kisses him again. Yum.
Comparison’s a petty demon.
Say what?
Just some quotation. Some Russian writer. I forget who.
I scoots up next to him and takes some of the horse blanket. I nibbles a bit of his chest hair. It taste like coconut. That coconut oil. Not scratchy like his mustache. Probably Chekhov. Delgadina read that Chekhov all the time. Say her teacher say they don’t think as high of him in that Russia though as they does in the States and Europe. To them Russians he sposed to be just some ordinary writer, you know, maybe even mediocre. But to them Europeans and the Americans he like the start of modern literature and shit. She read to me some of that Chekhov, some oyster story. You know this story about some little boy that ain’t allowed to eat oysters, ’cause only adults is allowed to eat oysters. Sounded like a pretty good story to me, but Delgadina say to them Russians he supposed to be mediocre. Delgadina say her teacher always use that Chekhov, though, to teach the story. Except but she don’t just use that Chekhov, ’cause she say storytelling is universal, and she have her class read stories from all over the world, and she one of them multiculturalist, you know they always be talking about that multiculturalism, so she don’t just have them read European stories like when I were in school. When I were in school multiculturalism just mean Europe. You read you some stories from England, some stories from Spain, some stories from France, some stories from Italy, some stories from Germany and that be multiculturalism. What you think about that multiculturalism, I mean the real multiculturalism? And they’s that other one, that Afrocentrism? Can someone be a Afrocentrist and a multiculturalist? But the only multiculture we had when I were in school were them haiku. You be reading all them European stories, then instead of reading Japanese stories or even Chinese stories you be reading them haiku. You know them haiku? They teach that haiku in college too, don’t they? I ain’t been to college myself, though my girlfriend and I drove to that Tuskegee Institute ’cause we all the time be hearing about that Tuskegee Institute. My friend Monkey Bread she went to culinary school and were working with me and my folks for a while in us restaurant, they owns this little restaurant in Covington, Kentucky, you know, and then she decide to go out there to California, Monkey Bread. How she get the name Monkey Bread? I ain’t know how she get the name Monkey Bread. I gotta ask her how she get that name Monkey Bread, I just always call her that Monkey Bread. Everybody call her that Monkey Bread. But I like me them haiku, though. We read them from this book called Poems You Can Eat. I don’t know why they call them eatable poems, though. And I remember that teacher who teach us them haiku, colored teacher, ’cause we had us that segregated school when I were in school, she put on one of them Japanese puppet plays. But everybody they got them puppet plays. But that petty demon that probably Chekhov be talking about petty demon. I remember one of them haiku about water birds.
Naw. Not Chekhov.
And?
And what?
Your girlfriend. Yum.
Newspaper woman, broadcast monitor, public opinion analyst, propaganda analyst.
Honk.
Rocket scientist. And speaking of cunning and clever. . . .
Got in trouble with the government—with el jefe anyhow—because she’s too honest and opinionated for them, too “liberated,” and had to flee the country. Now she’s in Mexico, like I said, has a shoe repair shop. Shoe and saddle repair shop.
I’m still thinking about that comparison’s a petty demon shit. And I be thinking ain’t she too cunning and clever to repair shoes and saddles, but then she be a refugee in Mexico. And a lot of them refugees when they come to them new countries, the rocket scientists they ain’t always rocket scientists in the new countries. Because a lot of them countries that got rocket scientists they be reserving them rocket scientist jobs for they own nationalities anyhow. And then a lot of them refugees they don’t know the language. But I guess if she from El Salvador—he say El Salvador?—she be knowing Mexican.
I’m not in love with her now, if that’s what you wanna know, he say.
I nibbles the hair on his chest some more, then I rises and leans against another detergent drum. Seem like to me he a little too quick to protest about that and maybe he be telling himself not me. Anyway, they says that love is as hard to understand as a melon. True love, I means. True and orthodox love. So she’s with this other guy, right? I asks, reaching for some more beef jerky.
Yeah, Mexico City, like I said. Actually, they specialize in repairing saddles. . . .
Honk.
You spy on
her or have someone else spy on her?
He don’t answer. He get another piece of beef jerky. Actually I was in Mexico for a conference on Latin America when I thought I saw her. I followed her to this saddle shop. I knew it was her, of course, but I . . . then I saw her with this new guy. A Mexican friend of mine, a journalist actually, who has his saddles repaired there told me all about them. Well, as much about lovers as there’s to tell. She’s quite happy. A perfect love, un amor perfecto, it seems. Stepping into that shop, he says, is like stepping into Eden. He’s married to a bit of a ogress himself, a beauty, but a bit of an ogress. So he says, but when I met her she didn’t seem like an ogress at all, my friend’s wife, I mean. My friend’s a journalist but an amateur poet, and so he talks like that, you know, about Eden, I mean. They mend shoes and saddles in the back room, the lovers, but shoes and saddles aren’t all that’s mended there. She’s still the same woman, mixing love and . . . I don’t want to call it politics, for politics, el politico, is more often talk than action. I didn’t reveal myself. But yes, knowing that she’s found her Eden, so to speak and at the same time’s still committed, you know, still engaged. . . .
Engaged? I mean, like the French engagé.
Ain’t the French engaged the same as the English engaged?
It’s just another word for committed. Yes, that pushed my buttons, I mean, that she’s still the same woman. Or better. Or no doubt a better woman. I can’t imagine her turning into anyone’s ogress. I don’t know if seeing me would have pushed any of her buttons. When I saw her new lover I just didn’t reveal myself. . . . But I’m not in love with her now. I love her, the old cliché, you know, but I’m not in love. And I suppose there’s still some aspect of me she loves, though I didn’t reveal myself.
I tries to picture her, his old lover, but can only see one of them Latin American heroines of them B-type movies on television or in the movies about them Latin American revolutionaries. Revolutionary women or soldaderas Delgadina calls them. And she kinda look like Bianca Jagger, though, or maybe even Delgadina herself. Except her hair longer than Delgadina’s and she a little lighter-colored Latina. And her name ain’t Delgadina. Manuela maybe and she be saying, Vamos. A librarnos de estos gabachos, like in this play I seen with Delgadina, and she saying whatever that Spanish word for them imperialists and shit. And she a revolutionary and intellectual heroine, like this woman Delgadina be praising, ’cause Delgadina she be telling me about this woman giving a lecture at the Community Center. A revolutionary and a intellectual. Lecture on the Chicana. The lecture in Spanish though. You should come and hear her lecture, Juanita. Sometimes Delgadina, she call me Juanita. Then she remember the lecture in Spanish ’cause this woman though she know English she refuse to speak English ’cause she one of them linguistic nationalists or something, Delgadina say, and even when she give her interviews she always insist on speaking Spanish, though she understand and can speak English as well as anybody. Clever and cunning.