Jason Overstreet - Beneath the Darkest Sky

“Hmm,” I said, chin and eyes down. “Ah, yes! Made the kids kolbasa sandwiches this morning to pack for their lunch and put plenty of mustard on the bread.”

I licked my right thumb and rubbed at the red silk.

“Damn yellow stuff stains like crazy, too!” I continued.

“Oh, yeah! That Russian mustard is a beast.”

“Thank you for pointing it out, Mr. Fort-Whiteman.”

“Ah, call me Lovett… please!”

“Okay. And you can call me Prescott.”

“Will do! What a time to be working at this particular embassy, Prescott.”

“Yes, it is fascinating work. Quite an influx of Americans here with the unemployment rate back in America being what it is. I understand you teach chemistry.”

“Yes! But you’ll have to forgive me for dabbling in current events from time to time with the students. I’m sure your children have shared a few of my passionate stories with you. I’m a very political man and find myself teaching civics sometimes when I should be teaching chemistry. Something about being in the Soviet Union and not feeling colored all the time has liberated me to the point where I want to shout it to the world.”

“Amen! I’ve had the same feeling since arriving here.”

“Where you from?”

“Born in Chicago. Raised in Milwaukee. Educated in Vermont. Employed in Harlem. Liberated in Paris.”

“Ha, ha! Harlem! I moved there after finishing school at the Tuskegee Institute. Tried to become an actor. Tried!”

“You have the gravitas for it,” I said, studying how his sallow-brown skin, shaved head, and pointy features almost gave him an Asian, Buddhist monk look.

“Wasn’t deep enough,” he said. “Acting! Didn’t help heal things. Nah, but even before that, after I was done at Tuskegee, I tried to be a doctor. Got into medical school in Nashville. Wasn’t for me. That’s when I went to Harlem and tried acting. Wasn’t long before I left that and went to Mexico for a few years. Got to see up close the Mexican Revolution. Affected my thinking!”

“I’ll bet.”

“Inspired me to head back to Harlem and seek change. Yeah, I was there when it seemed like every brother and sister I ran into had come there seeking refuge. But I didn’t find it. Didn’t find it anywhere in America. It was only when I joined the Communist Party that I began to see a way forward.”

“When did you join?”

“Only secretively in 1920, then publically… officially… in 1924. I rose up quick. Started recruiting other coloreds, too. Now I’m workin’ on you!”

“I see!”

“Was that year, 1924, when I came to the Soviet Union for the first time. Found my soul. Ain’t never looked back! Had a lot of colored folks say to me, ‘Don’t you know the U.S. Government has declared the Party their number-one enemy?’ I said, ‘Give me a choice between communism and Jim Crow, and I’ll sign up the same way every single time.’ My daddy and momma back in Dallas taught me too good about the evil of Jim Crow. Got to know it all too well! Oh, yeah! That Crow is an awfully ugly bird.”

“Ain’t that the truth!” I said, thinking about my old friend James, whom Lovett reminded me of. The longer he spoke to me, the looser his talk became, as if he had been sizing me up, seeing what kind of brother I was.

“Ya know, Prescott, stayin’ on Jim Crow for a second… lotta folks knew only that ugly thang and nothin’ else from cradle to grave!”

“I like the way you said that. Thang! ”

“Us Texas niggas don’t never get too far away from what we done got used to! Come on now! Guess I feel like I can talk to you straight, just like I could when I was around my two Communist Party USA brothers, Harry Haywood and Otto Hall. Been a while since I ran into a brutha like you. But I’m like a chameleon. I can talk real white for those high-and-mighty muthafuckas who like to sit up high. But then I can get on down with my country family like you. Feel like you the type who mighta done ate a chitlin or two! Ha!”

“Oh, yeah!” I said, laughing and purposely slipping into his way of talking. “My aunt Coretta and my momma used to cook the mess outta them things back in Bronzeville. Would throw some hog maws in there, too. Had the whole damn house… hell… the whole damn neighborhood smellin’ like… like—”

“Like shit!” he bluntly said. “Go on and say it, boy! Shoot! Can eat me a whole pot of them thangs! A whole mess of ’em! I been known to slap the hell out a nigga who tries to take the last chitlin out my momma’s pot! Uncles, cousins! Shit! I ain’t one to play!”

We both giggled aloud, his words tickling me to the point I had to bend over. It had been a long time since I’d felt this kind of deep, sidesplitting laughter burst out of me. I’d gotten used to being around such formality for so long, and he was taking me back to that essence of old, black-folk comfort, the kind that never leaves you, the kind that bonds people. A momma’s pot of chitlins was familiar to all of us colored Americans.

“You should come by this shindig I’m throwing next Saturday night, Prescott. There’ll be other fun-loving members of the Party there as well. I know you might have to keep it hush-hush in terms of your embassy colleagues, but I think you and your wife would find the company quite enlightening and spirited.”

“I just might do that.”

“Everybody there will be dressed up in their finest, but here’s the catch… bring your suits, fine dresses, makeup, and jewelry in a suitcase. Then get dressed once you’re inside. Stalin’s NKVD tend to keep a watchful eye on us foreign Americans when it comes to our nightlife.”

“You’re kidding?” I said. “Look at me now.”

“But they know you work for the American embassy. I’m talking about the masses. They’re okay with the way I dress flamboyantly because they think I’m making a positive statement to the U.S. They actually think I’m protesting the U.S., and that brings a smile to Stalin’s face. I’ve been told as much by a member of his Politburo.”

“You’ve met one of them?”

“Of course! Time magazine didn’t label me the ‘Reddest of the Blacks’ for nothing. I was the first organizer of the American Negro Labor Congress that got this damn flood of coloreds-to-Russia thang started. Back in 1924, I actually spoke to a large contingent here in Moscow during the Fifth Comintern Congress, and Joseph Stalin was in attendance. The Comintern is simply the international organization that advocates world communism. I like to call it the League of Nations for communists. Damn near every country in the world has its own party, and representatives from each gather in Moscow quite often. Headquarters is here! But, yeah, in 1924 I spoke in front of Stalin.”

“I’ll be damned!” I said.

“I spoke about America’s Negro problem being a race thang and not a class thang . Stalin and company didn’t like that too much. His men made it clear to me that dealing with class always came first. Shoot! These Soviets still don’t know that being colored in America ain’t got a damn thang to do with class. It’s race first! The wealthiest nigga in the U.S. is still a lowlife nothin’ to greater America.”

“Preach, Lovett!”

“Shoot! I wanted to tell Stalin that the poorest white man in the U.S. is treated far greater than said wealthy Negro. You don’t see any poor white men being lynched all over the South. We’re far away from it over here, but lynchings are still rampant back home. I wanted to make Stalin understand that if he snapped his fingers and all at once, every American suddenly became of the same class , Negroes would still get lynched. But these Soviets just don’t get the complexity of our homeland. Our color-land ! Shh! Let me watch my tongue!”