Ishmael Reed: Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

Bewildered, the men glanced at each other.

What brings you here? I told you to come only if you were ready for business. Sign the town and your property over to me so that my quest for power will be satisfied. If you do that I’ll have my men go in there and wipe them menaces out.

We decided to give in, Drag. Why, we’re losing money each day the children hold the town and we have to be around our wives all the time and they call us stupid jerks, buster lamebrain and unpolite things like that. It’s a bargain, Drag. What do we do now?

Now you’re talking business Doc. Sign this stiffycate which gives me what I asked for and I’ll have them scamps out of your hair in no time.

Drag brought forth an official looking document from inside his robe, to which the Banker, Marshal and Doctor affixed their signatures.

It’s a good thing we got the people to see it your way, the Banker said, wiping the sweat on his forehead with a crimson handkerchief. Some reinforcements were arriving today. They were in some wagons that was painted real weird and we hanged and shot one who was dressed like a clown. We thought they might be heathens from up North, you dig?

You mulish goofies, that was the circus I ordered to divert the kids so’s we could ambush them. Any damned fool knows kids like circuses.

Drag we’re confused and nervous. Just today four boxes of drexol were stolen from our already dwindling supply of goods. That’s why we didn’t think when we killed that man. The old people are wandering around the camp bumping into each other they’re so tightened up. All day people are saying hey stupid idiot watch where you’re going. It’s a mad house.

And the Preacher Rev. Boyd, he’s in the dumps in a strong and serious way this time. You know how hard he tried with the kids and the town’s heathen, how he’d smoke hookahs with them brats and get stoned with Chief Showcase the only surviving injun and that volume of hip pastorale poetry he’s putting together, Stomp Me O Lord . He thought that Protestantism would survive at least another month and he’s tearing up the Red-Eye and writing more of them poems trying to keep up with the times. Drag you know how out of focus things are around here. After all Drag it’s your world completely now.

How can you be so confident your men can take care of them varmits Drag? It takes a trail boss a dozen or so cowboys and a wrangler to get the herd North. You can’t have many cowpokes left behind. Don’t get me wrong I’m not afraid for myself cause I rode with Doc Holiday and the Dalton Boys before I went peace officer — I have handled a whole slew of punks passing through the hopper in my day…why if I hadn’t been up the creek at the Law Enforcement Conference it wouldn’t have happened anyway.

You always seem to be at some convention when the town needs you Marshal, Drag said, looking into a hand mirror and with a neckerchief wiping the smudges of mascara that showed above his batting lashes.

Drag, the women folk, well you know how women are, what strange creatures they be during menopause. They’re against us wiping out the kids. That’s one of the reasons we didn’t cast lots quicker to give you the hand over of Yellow Back Radio, so that you could adjust all the knobs and turn to whatever station you wished. Anyway we tried to get Big Lizzy to talk to them but they don’t recognize her as one of their own.

Pshaw, don’t worry about the women Doc, Drag Gibson said, bringing his old fat and ugly frame to its feet. Start appeasing them and pretty soon they’ll be trying to run the whole show like that kook back in Wichita who campaigned to cut out likker. Now quit your whining and get back to camp and see after them townsfolk. Leave the job up to me.

The dignitaries rose and tumbled down the hill. The Banker rolled over a couple of times as Drag stood jerking his shoulders and with one finger in his ear as pellet after pellet flew over the Marshal’s, Banker’s and Doctor’s heads. He relaxed, drank a glass of rotgut and gave the appearance of a statesman by returning to his book The Life of Catherine the Great . As soon as the delegation disappeared, he slammed the book shut and called his boys.

Get in here cowpokes, we’re in business.

Skinny McCullough the foreman followed by some cowhands rushed onto the lawn and surrounded their boss. Chinaboy! Chinaboy! Bring me that there package.

The Chinese servant rushed into the scene with his arms weighed down with a bundle.

O.K. men, Drag said, this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. They signed the town over to me, the chumps, haw haw.

He opened the package and placed its contents on the table.

This is a brand new revolving cylinder. It has eight chambers. A murderer’s dream with a rapid firing breech-loading firearm.

The cowpokes’ eyes lit up and foam began to form around their lips.

It was invented by a nice gent lecturer named Dr. Coult of New York London and Calcutta. Just bought it from Royal Flush Gooseman, the shrewd, cunning and wicked fur trapper, the one who sold them injuns those defected flintlocks allowing us to wipe them out.

The kids are down there with a circus I booked under a pseudonym. I been watching them through my long glass. Now get busy and before you know it Drag Gibson will be the big name in Yellow Back Radio then Video Junction then va-va-voom on to the East, heh heh heh.

The cowpokes from Drag Gibson’s Purple Bar-B drank some two-bits-a-throw from a common horn and armed with their shiny new weapons headed towards the outskirts of Yellow Back Radio on their nefarious mission.

The Dancing Bear, the Juggler, Loop and Zozo entertained the children far into the night. The Dancing Bear did acrobatic feats with great deftness, Loop his loco lariat tricks, and Zozo read the children’s palms and told their fortunes.

Finally Jake the Barker gathered them near the fire to tell of the Seven Cities of Cibola, magnificent legendary American paradise where tranquilized and smiling machines gladly did all of the work so that man could be free to dream. A paradise whose streets were paved with opals from Idaho, sapphire from Montana, turquoise and silver from the great Southwest:

In the early half of the sixteenth century about 1528 an expedition which included the black slave Estevancio landed at Tampa Bay. He and his companions were lost trapped and enslaved by Indians. Other expeditions also vanished mysteriously. Legend has it that the city can only be found by those of innocent motives, the young without yellow fever in their eyes.

Stupid historians who are hired by the cattlemen to promote reason, law and order — toad men who adore facts — say that such an anarchotechnological paradise where robots feed information into inanimate steer and mechanical fowl where machines do everything from dig irrigation ditches to mine the food of the sea help old ladies across the street and nurture infants is as real as a green horse’s nightmare. Shucks I’ve always been a fool, eros appeals more to me than logos. I’m just silly enough to strike out for it tomorrow as soon as the circus splits up.

A place without gurus monarchs leaders cops tax collectors jails matriarchs patriarchs and all the other galoots who in cahoots have made the earth a pile of human bones under the feet of wolves.

Why don’t we all go, the children shrieked.

Wait a minute, Jake said, we don’t have enough supplies for the trip. It lies somewhere far to the south.

That’s no task, supplies, one of the children said.

After huddling together they all started into the town, leaving the troupe behind. Finally having had a loot-in on the Hat and Boot store, the Feed store and the Bank they returned with enough supplies to make the long journey.