Ishmael Reed - The Free-Lance Pallbearers

He went to a bookshelf as I lit up a Picayune cigarette. On the other side of the bookshelf was a bar. After removing some implements from the shelves he began to shake a mixer vigorously. I suddenly felt dizzy.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” I asked.

“Relax,” the tiny man said, stirring the drink. “We’re taking you for a little ride.”

THE LIBRARY WAS MOVING! I could not determine from sensation whether it was moving up or down. It seemed to be speeding through the universe like some demon missile. I took a taste of brandy and before long dozed off. It seemed like centuries before the elevator came to a halt. The Screws and the little man put on gas masks. Then the little man-after providing me with one-walked to bookshelves which covered an entire wall. He pressed a button and the shelves began to move from left to right. I could not believe what I beheld when the shelves finally disappeared into the side wall.

Before me, in a high black wheelchair flanked on each side by seven little men dressed like my escort, sat a man with a blanket over his knees. Behind him stood the Chief of Screws, the Chief of the Nazarene Bishops, Nancy Spellman, the Chief Theoretician of the Party and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (known by the ancients as SNATANACHIA, AGALIAREPT, FLEUTEREETY, AND SAGATANAS). Behind them was a high toilet booth with a diamond-studded knob on its door of carved griffins and gargoyles. It was surrounded on each side by seven smaller black and more austere little booths. Everybody wore gas masks and stood at attention except for the man in the wheelchair who held the neck of a bottle in the opening of his gas mask.

“Bukka Doopeyduk,” the little man said, putting the Buck magazine under his arm. “MEET SAM.”

“PUT ER DERE BUKKA GLAD TO MEET YOUSE.”

I dropped to my knees between the two elite Screws standing at attention. It can’t be, I thought. The great dictator, former Polish used-car salesman and barn burner.

“Gimme some skin dere, kid.” The little man returned to an empty place in line.

“Thanks for bringing the lad, you little Rapunzel, you,” twitted Nancy, Chief Nazarene Bishop.

The little man turned around suddenly and whipped out a.45, aiming it right into the Bishop’s face. “Another crack like that and I’ll lob you right back into MARBLE COLLEGIATE CHURCH.”

“CUT IT OUT, YOU GUYS,” said the opening in the gas mask. “Can’t you see I’m trying to speak to this sturdy young lad about what’s going down in ME. So quiet before I blast both of youse.”

“All right, boss, but next time I’m going to give it to him.”

“Shake hands, my boy,” SAM said in a raspy froggy-the-gremlin voice.

I extended my trembling hand to his and then pulled it away, leaving a stringy wad of goo between our fingers. He wiped his hand on his shirt.

“Excuse me, my boy, you see I have this weird ravaging illness which causes it to melt on my hands and in my mouth too. Causes it to melt in my mouth and on my hands too,” he laughed spastically, turning to the men standing behind him, giving the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a poke in the ribs.

“Gee, boss, that’s real funny,” the men in the room said in chorus.

I finally managed to speak. “HARRY SAM, my leader, O what I gonna do? I’m so very overwhelmed.”

“Call me SAM, kid, dish the formalities. You’re just as good as me or even better. Just for being such a gent, I’m going to give you one of my ball-point pens,” he said, removing one of twelve from his shirt pocket and giving it to me.

“Gee, I don’t know what to say, SAM,” I said, looking at the boots which rested on the wheelchair’s footboards below the blanket. One boot appeared to be larger than the other.

“He’s got real class, ain’t he, boys?”

“Like somethin’ out of the Knickerbocker Follies,” SAM’s mouthpieces chimed.

“You know, Bukka,” he said, “just because I’ve been up here evacuating for thirty years from the really way-out bringdown illness doesn’t mean that I don’t know what’s going on down in ME. Why, I look through my binoculars and see everything flying over there in NOTHING which is ME. NOTHING escapes my eyes. I like the way you operate. Here, have one of the pauses what refreshes, har, har, har, har,” he said, jamming the bottle’s neck into my mouth.

He belched, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then continued. “Now there’s a lot of clammering and beefing going on down there. Some of those dropouts are griping about me not coming out of the John to hold them in my lap. A man in my position can’t be exposing himself in public. I’m not nice to be near.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff winked at the Chief Nazarene Bishop through his goggles, nodding in agreement, pinched his nozzle and pointed to the back of SAM’s bald head.

“YOU GUYS TRYING TO BE FUNNY OR SOMETHING? I TOLE YOU NOTHIN’ ESCAPES MY EYES. YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE JOKERS WHAT WAS TRYING TO JAM UP THE PLUMBING WITH DEM CHICKEN FEATHERS? YOU WANT SOME OF THE SAME MEDICINE?” he said, bringing out a German luger from beneath the blanket.

“We was only greeing with youse, boss,” said the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, his face livid with fear.

“WHEN I WANT YOU TO AGREES OR DISAGREES WIT ME, I’M DA ONE GIVES DA ORDERS, UNNERSTAND?”

“We gotcha boss,” the four replied, mopping their brows with their hands and wringing the sweat to the tile floor.

“You gotta watch these eggheads,” he said, again turning to me. “The only thing they’re good for is handin’ out honorary degrees to my generals and Screws, on commencement day at all the Harry Sam Universities. You should see these shirkers. Why, one of dem guys is pushing a ball of shit all over the world by the tip of his nose.”

“The paper is called ‘The Egyptian Dung Beetle in Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,”’” added the little man whose head was now buried in the daily racing form.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that,” answered SAM. “See, they push them little mega-morphosis all over the world for me and I give um peanuts and then they start signing petitions and debatin’ them white papers what me and the boys hustle up once in a while to keep peace and harmony down there and cut out all the yakkity-yak. That’s why I had to send them gray ladies down there that time.”

“One time we developed a thing what would put down all them smart-aleck spicks acting up called … ‘The Counter Insurgency Foundation,’” said the little man, biting into an apple.

“Yeah, and this foundation came up wit some weapon what would crush them spicks and had them yellow dwarfs with pocketknives running around giggling and hopping around, har, har, har, har. You shoulda seen them running with their clothes all on fire, har, har, har, har,” said HARRY SAM, slapping his knees. “What was that weapon called, Rapunzel?” asked SAM of the little man.

“I think we called it a beneficent incapacitor.”

“Well, them guys was applying for that foundation in droves, then they got the noive to get up there in their hats and gowns singing ‘Blow-he ain’t much eager to’ at the top of their lungs.”

“Gaudeamus igitur,” corrected the little man.

“There’s one of them guys what a famous ’tomic scientist. Little fellow with ice-cold blue eyes over at Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies. You shoulda seen him at Yukka Flats that morning with his clammy hands all over my detonator. Why, he wouldn’t even let my generals get their cookies he was carrying on so, quotin’ perms and stuff. See, they laugh at me because on the newsreels, my shorts don’t fit too good.”

“We think they fit fine, boss. You look like Rock Hudson,” the chorus said.