Ishmael Reed: Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

They put me into jail, them Yankees. But I sawed out of a jail in Texas and went and found me some more happenings and lynched a Negro because by this time that was more kicks than eating, fucking, or getting stoned.

Just then a white python fell from the chandelier and coiled itself around John Wesley Hardin, its ruby red tongue and eyes staring directly into the famous gunslinger’s face.

John Wesley Hardin began to wiggle and stagger around the room as Drag and the cowpokes looked on helplessly.

Certain psychologists have said that human beings have a way of blocking experiences too awful for the senses to accommodate. So it was in the old West.

John Wesley Hardin and the snake were now against the wall of the room sliding down to the floor.

An unusual calling card don’t you think? Standing in the door was the Loop Garoo Kid.

I told you, Drag Gibson, that no amount of romantic dosage is going to save your neck, dead man. Heroes given to hyperbole — I even chased the Marshal out of town! Besides, when you want me, come and get me yourself.

The cowpokes were pretending to be in a dentist’s office of the mind. They had their heads buried in magazines.

Loop went over to the corner and removed the python from the prostrate man’s body. John Wesley Hardin’s hair had turned completely white. His pupils were crosses.

Dressed in his black shirt and pink fringed black buckskin, Loop coolly walked out of the room and down the stairs to the green horse waiting outside in the shadows.

The men sat in silence and stared at their last hope, out cold and mad looking in the corner.

Drag had fallen from the chair. It looked as if the cattleman was about to give up the ghost. The cowpokes cried. Outside the night cried pouring down hard on the crying barnyard. The fruit on the trees was covered with icy fluid and the whole valley seemed to throw up its hands in despair.

Loop Garoo, the python tucked away in his saddle bags, rode through the town of Yellow Back Radio towards the swine pit trough behind the gallows. He removed his black fedora and paused for a minute of silence.

He tossed a red rose into the pit where hogs were chewing on their dessert — a black velvet dress covered with blood.

That’s the breaks, Loop thought riding back to the cave to get on with the serious business of closing every conceivable repair shop available to Yellow Back Radio, whose signals were needless to say becoming very very faint. In fact it seemed that the whole valley would soon be off the air.

Field Marshal Theda Doompussy Blackwell sat on a white crate in his office. The doorman’s coat covered his long johns to about two inches below his knees. A wig lay lopsided on his shivering head and his dentures were on the floor next to a bucket of hot water in which his feet rested.

He was sobbing and listening to a recording of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” which came from a Victrola horn in the corner of the room. Besides the white crate it was almost the only other furnishing. Not quite. On a wall was the famous petrified moose head.

Pete the Peek, Congressman, professional voyeur and Theda’s co-conspirator groucho marxed into the room, picked up Theda’s dentures and pushed them into the black hollow of the soldier’s mouth. He then fixed the wig which was about to fall from the Field Marshal’s head, and with a white monogrammed handkerchief dabbed at the tears rolling down his cheeks.

Thanks honey I’m so cold I’d freeze if I picked them up myself.

Think nothing of it, the Congressman said squatting in the corner.

They both swung their heads in time to the music until the needle got stuck on macaroni macaroni macaroni macaroni…

Pete lifted the arm from the record and returned to his place in the corner. It was close to 12 A.M.

I just had enough time to take off my pajamas when I got your message Theda. Geez I was having dis nightmare about some Hoo-Doo nigger cowboy who took over a radio station and broadcast strange fixes, laying a trick on a Western town. I forget da name. Anyway it got so bad dey had to call in da Pope to straighten tings out. Da bad dream ended with pigs with scrap iron for teeth doing da re-cap. It really got into me. My lips were wet and was screaming, “Mama Mama Mom O Mom help your baby.” It was a deep trip Theda; it was as if I had to don a snorkel and rubber suit to go through da black pools of my shut-eye. I woke up on da floor in a heap of panties, bras, lipstick tubes strewed about my bedroom. See me and da guys had a caucus last night. After it was over I wuz stuck with dis real dog who remained when all da other guys got good lookin pancakes and left. I wuz about to stick da pig when I dozed off and dat’s when I had da dream. I had to go into da kitchen and have da maid prepare me a late snack out of da frig — Kentucky Bourbon chased with water.

Well what about me? Field Marshal Doompussy Blackwell said squirming on his white crate. Does this look like my outfit to you? And why do you think my wig is all nappy and only a few patches of powder cover my decrepit yellow face? I didn’t even have time to place a mole on my cheek I rushed over in my carriage so fast. The doorman was doll enough to lend me his coat.

What’s up, Theda, is Frenchy up to his old tricks again? Pete asked dipping into a snuff box and removing the funnel from his head.

You said it Peter. O they treat me so mean — do you know what that child did this time?

No Theda, what?

Appropriated 2500 dollars so’s a couple of ruffians could go hunt mammoth’s bones and various botanical specimens to add to his Americana collection at Monticello. Can you get to that? Here I am in charge of Defense and I have to go around in ragged sneakers and borrow the doorman’s coat because to tell you the truth honey I was ashamed to wear my General’s outfit. I don’t even have enough money to take it to the cleaners. He said he didn’t believe in standing armies and that a good revolution from time to time is good.

Did he say dat Theda?

Said it as sure as you’re standing before my eyes. Why that’s why he got his ass out of Virginia that time when the British invaded and he was Governor. Said he was too busy inventing a cyptographic device called a wheel cypher to be concerned with force of arms.

Yeah Theda, remember dat time he was almost busted when he was ambassador to France and he was recuperating from an ailment in Italy and was seen smuggling Po Valley rice so’s he could compare it to da rice grown in Carolina?

Gossip has it that he spent most of his time learning the process by which parmesan cheese was made and learning how to make macaroni. And you know what else, Pete?

No, the Congressman answered, as Theda leaned over and whispered into his ear.

Likes niggers a whole lot.

You don’t mean it.

I kid thee not. When he was Gov of Virginia he tried to have a law passed against slavery and then later on wanted to banish slavery in the territories.

And he spends a lot of his time womanizing.

And remember what he did to the old man John Quincy Adams, Pete? I won’t forgive him for that as long as I live. This impudent obscene underground pamphleteer accused the old man of giving all the baboons the original red ass and when the old man retaliated against all of those liberals, anarchists, beatniks and what have you by getting through the Alien and Sedition Acts, high and mighty couldn’t even be a loyal Vice President — he pushed through his Kentucky resolution which declared the President’s act illegal. Took it upon himself.

Well whaddya expect, Theda, look at all of dem far-out amendments he got pushed through da Constitution. He looks down his nose at us Congressmen, I see him, just because he can do fol de rol, calculate an eclipse, tie an artery, plan an edifice, break a horse, do a mean minuet and play da fiddle, he ain’t so smart, why look.