Ishmael Reed - The Free-Lance Pallbearers

“It’s a deal,” I said, untying my bag on the top of the chest.

“See you later, my man,” Elijah said, closing the door of the room behind him. I placed the spittoon next to the bed, the remaining Picayunes I put in my coat pocket, washed out some shorts with the gold dust twins then went to the sink and put the elbow baking soda in a glass of water. After drinking it down I looked at the gold pocket watch: it was July 5, 1945. I fell back on the bed and got a long shot of shut-eye.

I spent the next day lying in bed and reading the Nazarene manual for loopholes and making notes in the margins. There were certain things about the doctrine that confused me. For example, the Nazarene apocalypse. What sort of commode should HARRY SAM be sitting upon? Should it be a pink plastic one or one made of mahogany? Should it be done in lavender with a beautiful ring of fur on the seat? I didn’t even want to get into the subject of tissue; that one stumped the best scholars in the movement. What about the sanitary, safe modern breeze style? This notion would certainly get me into difficulty with the conservative wing. Some of them still preferred the outhouse with the half-moon window. And others were so reactionary that they fought and broke chairs on one another’s heads at conventions over the issue of the squat method or as the kats on the block used to say, “wherever you be let your water run free.” I certainly couldn’t use dialect, as it was called. The academicians would circulate a petition:

We refuse to sit back on our RANDS and listen to the steady erosion of the English language. Not since Caxton has there been such a crisis in letters. For many years now we’ve been lecturing on how Dostoyevsky ate cabbages and have tolerated (giving themselves away) the ADULTERATION of HER TONGUE. Now we feel it’s time to speak out. There will be a twilight vigil at the grave site of RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES in Spiegel Grove State Park, Fremont, Ohio. All those who feel as we do please try to be present. Buses will leave at 6:00 a.m. A potluck lunch will be prepared by the Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo. Then a community sing will be led by BENNETT CERF and BERGEN EVANS .

So you see these were thorny and profound questions not to be taken lightly. I would have to study and study hard.

The time had arrived for the performance. In line were the interior decorators, male nurses from the University of Rochester and the entire student body and faculty of the University of Buffalo holding surfboards, plus the mayor of that great city. Stephen Wolinski was dressed in black-and-white-checkered bow tie, a chartreuse cap, patent leather shoes, and trousers known in the forties as “cootie drapes.” The Society of Mechanical Drawers was also present and they brought along the wives of all these groups who had been posing for underground films all day. Is that all? No, wait! Hundreds of yellow cabs pull up in front of the building. It is the head of the Yellow Cab Company, a true patron of the arts, followed by his entire fleet who remove their caps in respect for KULCHUR.

Inside the loft the people sat on newspapers which were laid about the floor. A movie projector stood in the aisle. I went into Cipher’s office.

“Well, Bukka,” he said, doing the hoopla hoop. “Do you feel nervous?”

“Just a little, Cipher meaning Zero,” I said. “Where do I change into my costume?”

He slapped his hand against his forehead as the hoopla hoop slipped down around his thighs. “Can’t you learn? Look,” he said, opening the door of the office. “See that stock over there before the front row of audience?” He pointed to a stock-the kind used for punishment in the American colonies. Behind the stock and mounted on a table was a tape recorder. Standing next to the table was a roll-out movie screen. “Just go there and put your neck and wrists in that stock, there’s a pillow behind it that you can rest your knees upon. Put this gag on.” He tied a piece of cloth over my mouth, then turned me around so that I faced the stock.

It seemed simple enough so I walked out stepping over the people in the audience as I made my way toward the stock. There was scattered applause. I put my neck and hands through the stock and knelt on the pillow. The stock clamped shut. I looked worriedly at Cipher who only stood in the door of the office with his arms folded and his legs apart. He was immobile in his dark glasses. I tried to wriggle out of the stock making muffled cries through the gag for help. A movie projector showed athletes jumping over hurdles at the 1936 German Olympics. The audience didn’t seem to hear me. They were busily exchanging cogent comments.

“Do you think it’s Christ hanging off the cross?” whispered a businessman who had made a fortune in pot holders.

“No, I was reading Jessie Weston the other day and it’s all about yams,” replied a hairdresser from the East Bronx.

The door of the loft swung open. And the taxi dancers from the BUCK-RABBIT CLUB and their aviation executive escorts moved to one side as a robot with stroboscopic lights for eyes moved around the loft. The newspapers rustled while on the screen the Hitlerjugend marched past the dictator, proudly displaying flags. Finally after rolling about the floor the robot stood before me. It opened a panel in its chest and removed a baseball. It then threw the baseball into my face. In rapid succession it removed baseballs and threw them at me and red lumps began to rise on my face. I looked, eyes imploringly, to Cipher X for relief but he simply stood quietly in the door inspecting the stock, screen and robot. The tape recorder switched on.

WHITEY YOU DIE TOMORROW RIGHT AFTER BREAKFAST AND IF YOU DON’T DIE THEN CHOKING ON YOUR WAFFLES DON’T BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF AND SAY THANK GOD FOR BUFFERIN ’CAUSE THAT WILL ONLY MEAN THAT YOU WILL MEET YOUR MAKER COME THE VERY NEXT DAY. HEAH THAT. HEAH THAT, WHITEY, ON THE NEXT SUNNY DAY YOU WILL MEET YOUR DEMISE, YOU BEASTS CREATURES OF THE DEEP. ’CAUSE YOU CAN’T HOLD UP A CANDLE TO US VIRILE BLACK PEOPLE. LOOK AT THAT MUSCLE. COME ON UP HERE CHARLIE AND FEEL THAT MUSCLE. IF YOU DON’T WATCH OUT WE WILL BREAK INTO THOM MCAN’S TOMORROW AND STEAL ALL THE SHOES. HEAH THAT, ANIMALS. TOMORROW NIGHT AT FIFTY-NINE SECONDS PAST EIGHT EVERY LAST PAIR OF MOCCASINS WILL BE CONE. COME ON, STEP ACROSS THAT LINE. STEP ACROSS THAT LINE AND KNOCK OFF THAT CHIP. …

The robot swallowed the baseballs on the floor and quickly exited. The clamps snapped away from my neck and hands. The projector was turned off. Cipher X ran from the office door to the stock to thunderous applause. I could not believe it, the audience was applauding its own doom. I gazed out through my puffy eyelids, as the audience stood on its feet cheering us. Cipher lifted me from the stock and hand in hand we bowed to the audience from side to side. A man crawling on his hands and knees slid up to me followed by a pack of reporters. He dropped his pad from his teeth and with a pencil between his toes began to ask me questions.

He was J. Lapp Swine, jazz critic from the Deformed Demokrat . He tugged my pants cuffs and asked, “How does it feel to have all that rhythm, Mr. Doopeyduk? Tell me, huh? Won’tcha please? Won’tcha?”

Cipher X threw up his hands and said, “Be patient, fellows. I’ll answer all your questions in my news conference.” He took me by the elbows — the fuken elbow grabber with sterling high cheekbones — and escorted me through the throng of well-wishers toward his office. We had difficulty getting through. The Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo with a surfboard tied to his back and a long petition hanging from his hands accosted us.

“Mr. Doopeybuk and Cipher X,” he said, his wife on his arm. “We’re just crazy about BECOMINGS and HOOPLA HOOPS and LOOPHOLES. Why just last week my wife and I rushed to the A&P and bought nineteen of those big black beauties. And just because we’re way up there in Buffalo which is eighty per cent Polish-American doesn’t mean that we don’t keep up with what’s happening in NOWHERE. Why, we read the Deformed Demokrat each week, religiously.”