Ishmael Reed - The Free-Lance Pallbearers

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Ishmael Reed's electrifying first novel zooms readers off to the crazy, ominous kingdom of HARRY SAM a miserable and dangerous place ruled for thirty years by Harry Sam, a former used car salesman who wields his power from his bathroom throne. In a land of a thousand contradictions peopled by cops and beatniks, black nationalists and white liberals, the crusading Bukka Doopeyduk leads a rebellion against the corrupt Sam in a wildly uproarious and scathing satire, earning the author the right to be dubbed the brightest contributor to American satire since Mark Twain (The Nation).

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“Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp,” I said, “I will certainly do my best to warrant your confidence.”

“Good, then,” she replied. “This is your assignment. There was an old man admitted to the floor last night I’m afraid he’s delirious and raving. We want you to get samples so that we can analyze them. He has meningitis and typhoid complicated by double pneumonia. You will be given a surgeon’s mask and we want you to give him lots of fluids and rub his back with powder. Then at the conclusion to your shift we want you to make out a report on him.”

I jumped to my feet and started for the door.

“One minute, Mr. Doopeyduk, we have a little surprise for you.” She opened the drawer and pulled out A GOLDEN BEDPAN WITH MY INITIALS ENGRAVED ON THE BOTTOM.

I was all choked up. “I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Doopeyduk,” the nurse said. “We’re sure that you will prove yourself worthy.”

I opened the door, knocking over the three orderlies who had their ears fastened to the keyhole. Ignoring them I walked to the old man’s room with my nose upturned and holding the bedpan engraved with my initials.

The old man had been placed in a secluded ward. He lay under an oxygen tent in the bed, next to which was a floor lamp exuding a soft violet glow. He wore a damp waist-length nightgown and his bony knees were propped up under his hamstrings by pillows. His wrists were bound to the side rail and his eyes were two black dots. A thin layer of skin stretched around the small skeletal outlines of his face. I read the chart which hung at the foot of his bed.

Man: White male gave his name as Roger Young Ist. About 89 years old. Admitted to the floor at 2:00 A.M. Only possession — a musty can of newsreel entitled Versailles 1919 . He fought five orderlies for the can yelling, “Gimmie back my newsreel, I want my newsreel.” Scratched and bit and spat on them until he was subdued with vesperin. Went to sleep about 5 A.M.

Diagnosis: Schizoid with paranoid tendencies. Keeps muttering, “The Huns raping the nuns.”

I changed the man every five minutes until the corner of the room was filled with sticky wet sheets. I applied the powder and gave him a rubdown.

He finally went off to sleep. The room was quiet. I sat in a chair next to his bed leafing through a magazine. At about 6:30 P.M. he suddenly rose, lurched forward and pointed a long bent finger toward the open door of the room.

“Save me! They’re in the door! The Free-Lance Pall-bearers are in the door! Look, look! The long frock coats and shiny black boots, the black box! It’s them! They’re going to try to take ol Roger Ist away from here! Please save me, ooooo, save me, no! Get back! Get back! Arra! Ggggg! Grggrrrrgrrg! Rrgrgrgrrrrrrrrgrgrrrgrrrrrrr g … …. r … … ….!”

I ran through the door of the room and into the nurses’ quarters. “Mrs. Nurse Rosemary D Camp! Please hurry — the old man is hallucinating; he seems to be having an attack of some sort”

All the orderlies and doctors ran clomping down the hall toward the room. But it was too late. The old man had given up the ghost.

We washed him, wrapped him in a shroud and placed him in a basket. He was then rolled into the morgue and placed in an ice-cold tray. (One of the morgue attendants was to say later that upon making a routine inspection he found the corpse holding the can of news-reel in a death clutch.)

It was the end of my shift. I filled out the report on the deceased and gave it to the nurse. “Thank you, Mr. Doopeyduk,” she said. “You made the poor ol man’s last hours as comfortable as possible. We’ll be calling on you in the future for more tasks like these.”

One of the orderlies helped me with my coat. “I will do my best to justify your faith in me,” I told the nurse. (I detected a snicker from the orderly who was helping me with the garment, but I ignored him, attributing it to jealousy on his part.) I walked out into the streets of Soulsville toward home. The crisis over, the convoys of plumbers in battleships headed from Harry Sam Island toward the pier. They leaned over the rails of the ships guffing down the hot dogs and beer.

In Soulsville banners hung over the street. WELCOME SOULSVILLE’S OWN ECLAIR PORKCHOP. Barricades had been set up and Screws linked hands holding back the crowd which had come out to greet the newly appointed bishop. They were not to be disappointed because the parade turned out to be quite a spectacle. I lined up with the crowd to get a better view of the goings-on.

The first car in the procession was a big sleek Rolls-Royce. The body of the car was painted lavender and the hood was a frieze depicting the Nazarene apocalypse. It was painted in wild wiggy colors.

It showed HARRY SAM the dictator and former Polish used-car salesman sitting on the great commode. In his lap sat a businessman, a Nazarene apprentice and a black slum child. These figures represented the Just Standing on each side of the dictator were four washroom attendants. In their hands they had seven brushes, seven combs, seven towels, and seven bars of soap, a lock of Roy Rogers’ hair and a Hershey bar. Above the figures float Lawrence Welk champagne bubbles. Below this scene tombstones have been rolled aside and the Nazarene faithful are seen rising in a mist with their hands reaching out to the figure sitting on the commode.

There were purple velvet curtains on the windows of the car. Through the drapes of the back window was a wrinkled yellow hand. On one of the fingers was a large sardonyx ring.

It was Nancy Spellman, Chief Nazarene Bishop. It was a crime punishable by death to look at him directly so the people bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Following the automobile on foot were the Nazarene Bishops. They wore Dobbs hats and double-breasted suits with ball-point pens sticking from their pockets. Carnations were pinned to their lapels.

Next came a black Pierce-Arrow. A chauffeur’s velvet glove gripped the car wheel. He sat next to a bottle of Fleischmann’s which was as large as his body from the waist up. A spindly old woman sat next to him waving a long cigarette holder and dangling her leg over the car door.

She was holding her hands together responding to the cheers of the crowd. In the rear half of the car, through the roof, some plastic antlers appeared. The woman wore a green satin dress under a black bolero jacket She wore a diamond ring on every other finger of her hands. Sparkling green mascara was smeared to the edge of her plucked-out eyebrows. Her hair was tinted blue-silver and frizzed in a permanent wave. A white ermine stole with black tails was thrown across her neck and dripped down her back. A heavy beaded necklace hung to her stomach. It was my father-in-law’s mother and the bitch was dressed to kill. The automobile pulled to a halt. The chauffeur climbed out and went to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. Children who were poking their noses through the spokes of the tires were shooed away.

He brought a case to the side of the car and gave her a bottle. She held up a bottle of the anti-hoodoo lotion. Suddenly da hoodooed leaped from alleys and jumped from the windows of fleabag hotels, and dropped their forks and Chicago caps (which had been pulled down over their eyes) into their bean soups in restaurants as they left trails of screaming waitresses who tossed check pads into the air and jumped on tables, and the beasts bent bars of jails and hurdled the lamps of police stations, and nurses shrieked disbelief as da hoodooed knocked over trays in hospitals where they were undergoing the hoodoo kick, and they loped from the beds and toppled confessional booths in churches where they were being expunged of the fever — causing the priests to fling themselves upon the coins which had spilled from falling collection baskets, and da hoodooed bolted through the doors of churches, hospitals, jails, cellar apartments, jumped from rooftops, leaped out of alleyways, and jaunting to the forefront of the crowd snatched bottles from her hand before she could deliver her pitch. The chauffeur held fistfuls of dollar bills they slapped into his hands as the old woman stood up in the seat of the Pierce-Arrow, rolled up her sleeves and ran down her game.

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