Ishmael Reed - Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

Naw Doc. Coon won’t show his face in this town. We kilt off the injuns and we can take care of anything he has in mind, even if he managed to get across the desert.

Upstairs the door banged violently, the curtains flapped against the walls. Sal attired in a blue negligee, was combing her hair for bed.

I really got ahold of a john this time. Like those old guys in Club Harlem, Atlantic City, drop a dime of their lives just to sniff me. This guy looks like he’s got a weak ticker — if I turn him out a couple of times he’ll kick off and this will be mine. Maybe a little arsenic to ease it along.

She looked in the mirror and saw him and like the hungry balladeer she was she shrieked, Mitt man mitt man where you been so long O mitt man my beautiful darlin. The black-haired beauty’s hand rushed to her jaw.

Loop Garoo moved towards her. Yeah bitch! I thought I told you to stay in the Attic.

Loop baby I just kept bumping into the fairy stone I do declare. A girl can’t go on making one night stands all her life. I tried therapy but the Dr. turned out to be a Democrat. I even tried scientism Loop, gave up Las Vegas steaks, and even the swami tried to fuck me Loop — you know men, only one thing on their minds.

She walked over to the Kid, unbuttoned the diamond solitaires on his buckskin jacket and dug her long sharp fingernails into his chest. She mussed the hair underneath his shirt. The blue negligee became a heap around her ankles. She took his hand and pressed it against her naked buttocks which showed a scar here and there. Her right knee stood out between his legs. She was panting hard.

They caught me Loop. The old man, you know how he is, Loop, the other one just watched — as if the fishermen weren’t bad enough he’s really got a degenerate crew around him now. He does lewd dances and shows off his scars, he uses 12 types of make-up, and the old man he did things to me Loop, I bleed a little — but hold me Loop, don’t be so cold, we can have swell times again like before, you know, sniff airplane glue, make a bee-line to the two reelers, take a spin in the flivver, like, do the things we used to do.

Loop hurled the woman to the floor where she dramatically rolled over.

Honey bunch what did you have to go and do that for?

You know why bitch. When she georgiaed me, you had to follow. She made a fool of me and now you and that other one with the fur trapper who’s always handing me subpoenas. All of you made fools of me. I walked the streets and ate ugly soup. Only wallpaper of zigzag designs kept me company. And you wanted to go and party time. Even when she left I thought you might still be loyal — but when I called you that night for a sandwich you hung up the phone and I could hear you in the background, the glasses clinking, the laughter, and to add to the insult it was Christmas Eve.

He removed a long brand from the black bag he carried. He went to the fireplace and returned to where she lay on the floor, trembling and naked. Her feet were about ten inches apart and a forest lay between her thighs.

O Loop my mitt man. How I missed your good good loving. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as the poker pressed against her abdomen. Saliva formed around her lips, her tongue shot out over her lower lip and she yelled, no longer able to contain the pain and beauty of being branded with a Hell’s bat.

LOOP GAROO GAROO! LOOP GAROO GAROO! LOOP GAROO GAROO!

What’s going on upstairs Drag? the Doc asked.

The way things are going on around here it must be the barnyard crawling into the house, Drag answered.

At the wedding the next night Drag interrupted the festivities to make an announcement:

The likker was fine, folks, the fiddler really cooking and you’ve met my wife who I think is going to turn out fine, the last one being so cold she give one frostbite of the penis haw haw.

Skinny McCullough the foreman, red-eyed with tears chortled — too much boss, frostbite of the penis that’s really rich.

Someone requested that Chief Showcase read some of his militant poetry. Everyone applauded as the savage made his way to the front of the dining hall.

The Wolf-tickets of Chief Showcase

eat out of me backwards paleface!

like, your mind is a prairie dog’s hole ;

your soul the wild cat’s squall. like ,

may you fill the yawn of boothill’s sigh ,

and coyotes trample the fence of your grave .

may goats dine on the black grass of your

plot and the evil one skin your genocidal

hides and sell it as old clothes to serpents

of the sea .

my people gave you roots and berries ,

showed your trains the perilous cliffs ;

taught you how to rope a steer and bled

themselves to salute you. monsters that

you were you knifed them in the back ,

sent their children off to die;

made their squaws chew your boots ,

paved over the forests with cold concrete .

eat out of me backwards paleface ,

like, your mind is a prairie dog’s hole ;

your soul the wild cat’s squall .

Hear that injun! Did you hear that injun! What bitter and tortured Americana. Hey Injun come over here and look up my dress, said one of the hurdy gurdy girls from the Rabid Black Cougar.

The injun was tipping over to this tall broad amid healthy applause when all at once a Japanese semanticist came out of the curtains.

I enjoyed your poems dear child of nature, but I must say your people have a tendency to overuse the word ‘like.’

The injun was about to bring his imported tomahawk down upon the little man when a crash was heard at the garden door.

O I thought spade poets had gone up in tinder, said the town Preacher Rev. Boyd with his sideburns electrified. But before he got out of the house altogether he turned around. But I guess it’s the puff of smoke that bewitches.

Because standing in the doorway in full regalia was none other than the LOOP GAROO KID.

Drag Gibson, wicked whiskey drinker, your Hoo-Doo Death will be a collector’s item, your head will lie in excrement, the flies will feast upon it and their wings will drop off. The maggots will eat and turn blue. Only your own kind will savor you and even for them you will be their laxative.

Then the Loop turned on his heels and vaulted over the veranda wall.

Stunned Drag staggered back a few steps with his elbow shielding his eyes and with the other hand pointed to the aura in the door:

THE LOOP GAROO KID DONE REACHED VIDEO JUNCTION AND GOT HIS UNKNOWABLE TOGETHER, SPECTACULAR ENTRANCE, CHARMS, RIDING MY SYMBOL, FANCY BLACK BOOTS, SILVER SPURS, BLACK BUCKSKINS WITH PINK FRINGES, BLACK MAGICIAN TO END THEM ALL PSYCHING UP A BALLOONED SPEECH OF GRAFFITI THAT WOULD ESTRANGE POPEYE — AFTER EM BOYS, Drag hollered.

The cowpokes stood shaking in their boots — Chief Showcase was protecting the women, his arms outstretched and a slight grin on his face.

Drag removed the scourge from his side and started to whip the cowpokes about the arms and shoulders. I’ll be a Son of a Gun, you’re not following my orders, I’ll have your tongues snipped. He continued to beat them about the posteriors and the heads as they slowly filed out of the House to pursue the Kid. (Actually they rode about the Main House a couple of times pretending to follow the boss’s orders.)

Drag plopped to the floor bawling like a kid.

All of you women clear outta here you’re bringing me down.

Crying like mad, Drag mumbled to himself:

Twas only yesterday or so we burnt down the circus and here he come today. O Lord why did I ever bring nigras to the West — he done gone ahead and got some strange magic he’s whipping on me — even trying his hand at heraldry. I got to get the old Woman in the Valley to match him trick for trick.