Ishmael Reed: Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

All right men, Skinny said, let’s go get this black berserk who thinks he’s a buckaroo. We’ll show him a thing or two.

The men spat into their hands and, lighting torches, started into the cave.

The cowpokes descended, holding the flares in their hands until they came upon an opening where Loop Garoo lay, pretending to be asleep.

Gotcha now!! Gotcha now!! Raise your hands you frightening coon you!! Start grabbing the blue. You ain’t so tough, cause you lost the mad dog’s tooth from around your neck. Now we understand them dolls we found on the boss’s doorstep every morning, making him sick, and the rooster with the top hat and tails. The goat without horns makes a lot of sense now, a lot of sense.

Them artists you’ve been holding captive, they took the thing and gave it to us and the Pope of the Romans — he snitched to us about what you were up to.

So the Pope told you of my connaissance huh? Loop asked sitting up from the cave floor.

Reach for the sky and don’t be smart.

How’s the Pope these days?

What, insolent nigger, you trying to question Rome or something? Skinny yelled, knocking the Loop Garoo to the ground. Get up and start marching.

They tied Loop’s hands and began to shove him out of the cave.

He looked back to the altar. Then above to the cage. The cage was open and the snake was nowhere to be seen. Loop looked over to a dark pool on the other side of the cave and saw a white tail disappearing into the water.

I said move on Loop, keep movin, the foreman said, as he and the cowpokes took their prisoner to Yellow Back Radio.

The hump-backed attendant was tormenting the Loop by dangling a grey mouse before him. He would rush forward with the dead rodent on a string and push it through the bars. As soon as Loop was about to knock the stick down the attendant would quickly retreat laughing.

Loop, impatient with the antics, was about to turn the little man into stone — having had it up to his ears with Yellow Back Radio — when he heard a commotion outside the cell block.

The Pope walked into the corridor of the prisoner’s section. Other prisoners, when they saw the visitor, banged their coffee mugs against the bars.

Wow, the pin-headed attendant shouted when he saw the Pope. He ran up to the Pope and began kissing him all over his hands. Moof, moof, Pope, wait until I tell my mother about seeing you, moof, moof — let me hold your train.

The Pope stroked the attendant’s back and it became straight. The attendant skipped about the room, then returned and kissed the Pope’s hands with even greater passion.

O.K. little attendant, let’s not get carried away now, take the rest of the day off — I want to be alone with this sinner.

You sure you don’t need me Pope? He’s a tough hombre, the attendant said, snarling at Loop.

I can handle him little attendant. Now you go off and fall into the first well you see.

Anything you say Father, the attendant said, running out of the block.

What do you want Innocent? Loop asked as soon as they were alone. Isn’t it enough that you turned me in?

The Pope drew his skirts up around him and folded his hands glowing with huge rings.

Look Loop you know me, I wouldn’t have done anything if it hadn’t been for the woman. She wants you to come back Loop. Ever since her ascension she’s been with the blues. T. S. Eliot, one of those trembling Anglicans, said “blue is her color.” But now it’s her song and her day. Those other two, they behave as if they had ice cubes up their asses.

The raunchy Pope, Loop grinned, you were always my favorite. What did they say of you?

eight boys eight girls

the Pope in sinful love begat

Rome him “father” rightly calls

Cut it out Loop. Why don’t you give up this nonsense and come back home?

Loop ignored the Pope’s request and looked distantly out of his cell window.

How did you find me?

Wasn’t hard — mass murder, sexual excess, drugs, dancing, music. It was quite simple. We used the Vatican dirigible and circled the Valley until we spotted the Peak of No Mo Snow. After all Loop, in these many years we have come to know you as well as the back of our left hands.

You’ve got your nerve. What about the Witches’ Hammer that you and the ol man cooked up to crush my followers way back when? When you and your cronies finished it was so bad that in some villages only a few women could be found alive.

O Loop let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway I’m here to question you, not you me.

As always — Inquisition Inquisition. I would venture to guess that your Inquisition signaled the triumph of the clerk, the bureaucrat, and the West has been in the committee thing ever since.

Loop you know you could have leveled this town with a word. We were observing you. We looked it up in the Book of Mysteries and found what you were doing with the snake and the charms. We thought we’d play along with you. Of course the ol man wanted us to come blasting like before, you know how ill tempered he is — belligerent chariot fleets, thunder storms, earthquakes. But she overruled him, gave him a headache. At times it seems she’s about to take over. Loop, we figured out your game, what’s your point?

Horse opera. Clever don’t you think? And the Hoo-Doo cult of North America. A much richer art form than preaching to fishermen and riding into a town on the back of an ass. And that apotheosis. How disgusting. He had such an ego. “I’m the Son of God.” Publicity hound, he had to prolong it for three hours, just because the press turned out to witness. And his method had no style at all. Compare his cheap performance at the gravesight of Lot — sickening — and that parable of our friend Buddha and the mustard seed. One, just a grandstand exhibition, and the other, beautiful, artistic and profound.

Like Father like Son always, getting hang-ups in the way of craftsmanship. Nails, driven into the wrist, hypocritical and maudlin women. Why she was screaming at his feet for three hours and the next night in my room I thought she would bite off my horns with the steel of her hungry teeth. Two weeks later I had her on the block and rolling bums. She even attracted two other tricks, and I had a family. It was groovy until that angel he sent — the impostor who spread the rumor of her ascension and before you knew it — it became a Papal Dogma.

She went uptown on me and left me holding the bag — and as soon as she left, Mighty Dike and Mustache Sal mustered enough courage to leave too.

You’re his Son too, Loop.

Yes, the eldest according to what they call apocrypha. You know how his propagandists are — anything they disapprove of they ascribe to hearsay, apocrypha or superstition. But I’ve never cashed in on it like he did. I knew very early that he wasn’t the only one, there were others — but his arrogance and selfishness finally got the best of him and he drove them all underground. Now they’re making a strong comeback.

So you’re through with this performance, huh Loop?

Yes, even martyrdom can be an art form, don’t you think? Hoo-doo, which in America flowered in New Orleans, was an unorganized religion without ego-games or death worship. In the States, books like the 6th & 7th Books of Moses, The Art of Burning Candles, The Explanation of Voo-Dooism, Mystic Secrets of Mind and Power, Egyptian Secrets of Albertus Magnus, or White and Black Art for Man & Beast , are sold across the counter at drugstores. I even had a betrayal motif, giving one upmanship on his most obvious forms.

You always did dig artists Loop, in the old days passing the elixir to those writers and painters in the cafe, pretending to be a patron.

Loop reflected. Remember when he came home that day Innocent? The old man made love to him as if they were man and wife. He licked his punctures and fed him from the breast.