by Gayl Jones
Yeah, I know about Maria’s cousin.
Maria still ain’t got citizenship, though, ’cause they’s got a different type of law, seems like they is always changing them immigration laws, you know.
Yeah, I know.
But I don’t go with y’all to them detention camps.
He starts lathering with the soap and soaping me and then I starts lathering with the soap and soaping him.
Yeah, I likes y’all’s group. Y’all is like the union in that y’all don’t let me participate in y’all’s strategy meetings, but y’all does have these sessions where y’all listens to what everybody got to say. At first I thought y’all was having some kinda revolutionary parties where you got the peoples together, then I realized that that is part of y’all’s strategy, that that is one of the ways that y’all communicates with each other and gets y’all’s messages back and forth to each other, and hears what everybody has got to say and lets us all be heard, like what Puff Daddy say about even them people that ain’t no heroes have got to be heard, ’cause like somebody else say us all can’t be like Noble Drew Ali. Even when I thinks y’all people ain’t doing nothing but talking shit, I’m learning. Y’all just lets me do what it’s in my capacities to do. I mean y’all nudges me, and even though y’all knows me for the fool I am, that don’t mean y’all wishes for me just to remain a fool. I learns from Maria. Like I didn’t even want to go to jail with Maria and Journal to get they cousin. I mean, I wanted to. But it seem like every time I’m in the presence of the police, they starts looking at they wanted posters. And they’s a lot more women on them posters nowadays. They’s gotta be somebody on them that looks like me. And they photocopied all my identification. So they’s got me in they files. I mean, when I give the affidavit for Maria, they photocopied all my own identifications.
Yeah, I know. We appreciate the help you do for us.
Well, I was just doing that for Maria and Journal, not y’all. And for Maria’s cousin. Even though I don’t know her, she’s Maria’s cousin, and if Delgadina becomes the detective that she has the capacities for becoming then she can hunt for Maria’s cousin. And there is even work that I has for Delgadina myself. But I likes y’all. Y’all is sorta like that movie I seen where these revolutionaries, I mean, it’s during a war, so’s they’s legal revolutionaries, anyway so they comes to Jane Fonda I mean the woman that Jane Fonda is playing and asks her to do something for them, it’s something dangerous, but the woman that wants her to do it say that if she feels she can’t do it that it’s okay if she don’t do it, I mean it ain’t one of these things where she’s got to do it. I mean they still considers her to be someone worthy. Of course, she does it, out of her own love.
Yeah, I know the movie.
I was thinking, though, if they would really still have considered her someone worthy if she hadn’t done what they wanted her to do. I mean because she really did what them legal revolutionaries wanted her to do. I mean they was illegal in Hitler’s Germany, but legal because it were a war. But I was thinking suppose it were a different scenario, would they still think she were worthy?
Ray don’t say nothing.
I pictures Monkey Bread in us scene, ’cept she the director of the movie. She be saying, Action y’all Don’t y’all know how movies is made. We ain’t paying y’all y’all’s exorbitant star salaries just to sit around and talk. Americans likes actions in they movies. This ain’t no Swedish movie, excuse my French. Give us a French kiss. John Henry appears and him and Monkey Bread demonstrates the French kiss. Ain’t y’all going to follow my directions? Is y’all casting aspirations on me and my integrity as a member of New Negrofied Directors Guild? I might not be amongst the legendary New Negrofied Directors, but I knows how to direct y’all in French kissing.
Pure Revolution, I says. I think I seen that book. I know I seen a lot of books dealing with Revolution, ’cause Delgadina got a lot of them books. She ain’t just got revolution books, though, she got all kindsa books. That’s what Delgadina’s dream is herself is to be a writer. She wants to be a writer-detective, though, because the writing will be her avocation and the detectiving will be her vocation. I think she’s read everybody books that’s ever been written. Seem like it anyway. I tell her she should be in a book and represent the true Chicana, ’cause she ain’t like none of them Chicanas they puts in the movies. She is more like Rita Moreno than Rosie Perez, but she ain’t exactly like Rita Moreno neither, because she is of a deeper hue. I mean she’s done her share of union organizing and boycotting but that ain’t all she is. I boycott if Delgadina tell me to, ’cause she know what’s to be boycotted, but I ain’t organized no unions, and can’t even Delgadina get me to join no union. I usedta belong to the union, though. I paid my union dues but I didn’t attend no meetings. And when I did go to one of them meetings it didn’t seem like it was the people’s meeting. They didn’t want to hear what I had to say. And somebody even tried to say I wasn’t at the right union meeting, that I was at the wrong union meeting, that I belonged to some other union, when I knowed I belonged to that one and paid my dues the same as them and’s gots the right to be heard. They throwed me out of that union meeting and I ain’t been back to none. Course they tried to pretend they ain’t throwed me out of the union when someone informed them I were a loyal, card-carrying member of that union. But they’d already throwed me out of that union. I works independent now. There’s them that don’t like it, and the same folks that throwed me out of that union that I rightfully belonged to in the beginning is trying to unionize me and is pretending that they’ll allow me to even let my voice be heard. And they is always giving me they union flyers and pretending that they truly believes they motto that a strong union includes everybody, you know how they is when they thinks they can use you. But I know who they is now. And when you goes to them union meetings you can’t count on there always being people there that knows you. And that ain’t right. It should be the people’s meeting. I bet Delgadina’s probably read your book on pure revolution, though, ’cause she reads everybody. Sometimes she brings me books. But she knows I don’t read everybody. ’Cause they’s some folks out there who ain’t writing for you and some you ain’t meant to read.
We needs us some props, John Henry. She and John Henry leave the bathroom and comes back with a watermelon, fried chicken, and a couple of Budweisers. I think they’s going to serve them to us but they sits in the director’s chairs, one with Monkey Bread on it and the other John Henry and eats the food theyselves. Action y’all, says Monkey Bread between bites of fried chicken.
What do you mean? asks Ray.
I ain’t one to destroy books, but I think they’s some books that destroys people’s souls. If they’s holy books, they must be unholy books. I ain’t mean them books that them religionists is telling you is unholy ’cause they’s got bad words and sex in ’em, ’cause they’s all kindsa books that is written to spiritualize people. They’s books that spiritualizes peoples by telling them how they shouldn’t be as well as how they should be. I likes to read books that makes you better for reading them. I don’t mean that they’s got to have just good people in them. Even saints in the storybooks often start out as sinners. So you can’t even read about saints without learning something about sin. And I ain’t amongst the people to be come asking what sin is. Sin is sin. I remember reading a book about a woman that was the sorta woman I never would want to be. But I also likes reading them books about the sorta woman I would like to become or that I could imagine myself as being. I ain’t read no book yet about the woman I am.
You’d have to write your own book.
That ain’t the woman I am. Least that ain’t the one I am now. I likes to tell people stories but me I don’t just like to tell anybody my tales. Seems like with writers just anybody can read your tales and make out of them what pleases them, and maybe what they interprets your tales as being might not please you at all. Or if I did write stories, I’d imagine writing for the people who understood
my stories. Or I’d imagine just writing for people who I’d want to hear my stories.
Who’d you write for?
Well, I’d write for you, Ray, though Delgadina was telling me about all this feminist literature here if a woman imagines writing for a man, then she ain’t a liberated woman.
Who else would you imagine writing for? You couldn’t just write for me.
Well, Delgadina and Monkey Bread, that’s my friend out in Hollywood.
Hoochies and gents, the one and only Monkey Bread! says Monkey Bread, standing and prancing about. I feels like a banana, John Henry. John Henry leaves the bathroom and comes back with a bunch of bananas.
Sing me that “Banana Boat Song,” John Henry, says Monkey Bread.
John Henry obliges by singing “The Banana Boat Song.”
Daylight come and me want Monkey Bread, sing John Henry.
Banana ain’t nothing but Monkey Bread, say Monkey Bread.
I think y’all is the only ones I’d trust with my stories, I’m telling Ray. I mean, y’all is the only ones I’d imagine telling my stories to. I mean, other people might read them and have their own interpretations. It seems like I’m always around people that’s writing. Mr. Freeman, Delgadina, Monkey Bread, she’s always sending me little stories and poems. They say everybody wants to be in show business. But seem like I’m always around peoples that wants to write. Stories and poems and plays. They is even people that calls me Mada because of a role I played in a play when I were a young teenager. I played a woman called Mada so they is a few peoples in central Kentucky that don’t know my true name and whenever I goes to visit my cousins in central Kentucky—I’m from northern Kentucky myself—but when I goes to central Kentucky they calls me Mada. How you, Mada? And they don’t know me by Nadine or Sojourner or Jane or Mosquito or even Johnson, they just knows me by Mada. Sometimes I think that Mada shoulda been the true name of Eve.
What?
’Cause when you spells Eve backward it’s still Eve. But when you spells Mada backward it’s Adam. And men always thinks that womens belongs backward to a man, ’cause that’s biblical. They’s people in central Kentucky that calls me Mada.
Ray don’t say nothing.
We is trying to have us a interesting movie, y’all, says Monkey Bread as she and John Henry shares the same watermelon. They’s eating different watermelons, hut they’s eating them like they’s the same watermelon.
Or maybe they just wants to tell they stories. I mean them peoples that writes stories. I likes to tell my stories, ’cause then you knows who’s hearing them. And all them written books has got a lot of rules. I wouldn’t abide by them people’s rules. I don’t think a Mosquito-crafted novel would abide by any of them people’s rules. And then they’d be telling me it weren’t no novel. I guess they’s people, when you tells them stories, they tells you they ain’t no stories. But you still gets to tell your stories. Well, them union people didn’t get me to tell what I had to say, but I gets to tell you about them, I gets to tell somebody about them, so I’m telling a story anyway. I guess most writers gets somebody to read them, but that ain’t the same as talking. Them readers seems like choosy people, though. ’Cept Delgadina. Sometimes I think books chooses her to be read.
I’ve never heard you tell any stories. I’ve heard you express opinions.
Ain’t I told you no stories?
No. You’ve told me a lot of what you think, a lot of your opinions.
Maybe I just think an opinion is a story. I know they’s books that’s built on opinions. ’Cause Delgadina’s got herself a book called the opinions of somebody, except it’s a novel.
It must be Sterne’s book, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
Yeah, that’s the name of that book. ’Cept it’s got a gent on it?
What?
It say. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. Gentleman, you know. That would be my book, The Life and Opinions of Mosquito. ’Cept I wouldn’t be no gent.
Gentlewoman. They have gentle women. I think you’re a gentle woman, Sojourner.
You’s the only one.
There’s a lot of meanings of gentle. You have an essential tenderness. You’re like some grand being, sure of strength, self-contained, but so sure of your strength that you don’t overwhelm a man. A woman like you could overwhelm a man. You don’t overwhelm a man’s strength.
I just think that you ain’t the sorta man to be overwhelmed. I’m all woman, but there’s mens that don’t know what a full woman is. You must know who I am. That’s why I loves you. Tell me what pure revolution means.
He reached toward me for a kiss, then he leaned back on his side of the tub. I swiveled in the tub, glad for his king-size tub, ’cause I’m a king-size woman—I would say queen-size, but I’m bigger than that; and don’t y’all be depicting me as fat neither, ’cause I know how a lot of y’all is; I can describe myself with every word in everybody dictionary and even them that don’t have dictionaries and y’all still have y’all depiction of me; there is those of us who really is big and ain’t fat—and sat with my back to him. He kissed the nape of my neck as he told me what pure revolution meant. Then he told me he liked my proportions and the smoothness of my skin and my hair and my color and my scent of vanilla. Then he whispered all my names.
Monkey Bread is busy photographing us. She the director, but she also the one holding the camera. John Henry continues eating fried chicken, watermelon, bananas, and drinking Budweiser.
Is there anything you do wrong? I asked, rising. I was thinking of the teachings of Delgadina. When she’d come back from them creative writing classes she’d tell me different things she learned. For characters to be true, they had to have some flaw.
Well, I knows that you’s a wrongdoer in the sense of the government’s laws against immigration, but y’all’s done explained that, and I believes that myself that there is divine human rights, that there is divine rights above the laws of individual governments. ’Cause if we obeyed the laws in slavery time there wouldn’t be nobody free. Course there was some that worked within the law. They wasn’t all Nat Turner or John Brown. Some was Salmon P. Chase.
What do you know of Salmon P. Chase?
Daylight come and me want Monkey Bread, sings John Henry.
I had turned around back toward him now. He looked as if he wasn’t sure of the name of that man. I wasn’t sure of his middle initial myself. Delgadina told me about that man when I told her I woulda gone along with John Brown or Nat Turner if there was women in that group. Of course I was in one of my moods when I said that. You don’t know if you woulda gone along with John Brown or Nat Turner or not unless you was there. Like them Christians that claim that they wouldn’t have called for Barrabas, when most of them Christian is calling for Barrabas every day or reinterpreting Jesus to be Barrabas. Ain’t that the name of that man? Barrabas. I mean.
I know that Salmon P. Chase usedta work within the law. They called him the attorney general of the fugitive slaves, ’cause he usedta represent them fugitive slaves and also them abolitionists like a certain farmer that was a member of the Underground Railroad.
You read about him in some of our literature?
Naw, Delgadina told me about him. She musta read about him in somebody books. When I come back from that jail with Maria who went to get her cousin, I told you about that, I told Delgadina that if I was back in the day with Nat Turner I’da gone along with him. Then she told me about Salmon P. Chase. He didn’t get a lot of business from other white people ’cause he was always defending them fugitives and abolitionists, so them so-called respectable white people wouldn’t even come to his law offices and he didn’t make much money neither. But weren’t none of us in no position to be no Salmon P. Chase. The best we could do was try to get away from them devils by any means necessary, and they wouldn’t even let black people testify against whites in them days or file complaints. It ain’t much different today. They’ll tell you it is but it ain’t. So anyway I was ta
lking talk like that with Delgadina who had never heard me talk that kinda talk. She know I don’t take no shit from them gringos that comes in the cantina, but that the first time she heard me talk that kinda talk, after we got Maria’s cousin outa jail. We does wrongs, but seem like they does organized wrongs. Maybe they does organized rights that they boasts of, but them organized rights don’t cancel they organized wrongs.
I remember when I was a little boy, I usedta play with these little white boys, you know, ’cause we lived in this white neighborhood near the Canadian border. All these little boys they usedta remind me of the little boys I usedta read about in Mark Twain, you know, so of course I favored them when I saw them and wanted to play with them. And we played together. Cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians.
I bet they always had you playing the Indian. I wants to tell him about Leonora Valdez, the reservation Native American woman, to ask him about her and whether that were really her I seen, but I knows that were really her, and I knows I ain’t supposed to ask questions about who is Nicodemuses.
I preferred playing the Indian, ’cept I liked to outmaneuver the cowboys. I didn’t play Indian by their scenario.
I bet they didn’t like that.
Naw, they rather liked having an Indian that was more ingenious than when they’d played cowboys and Indians amongst themself. Well, we didn’t have problems playing together when we was boys. Lotta them don’t know me now that they’s grown men. Well, there was one time when they were playing policemen, though. And then another said that they didn’t have any colored policemen, ’cause they didn’t around there in those days. ’Cept they referred to it as cocoa police. Then the little boy that was my favorite among them and the one that most reminded me of one of the little boys in Twain went and made badges for us that said THE COCOA POLICE and he wore it too, though he was Irish I think.