Ishmael Reed: The Free-Lance Pallbearers

I opened the one nearest to me, and out walked Waldo and Matthew, who continued arm in arm gently up the stairs, Waldo saying to Matthew, “Not since the Tu Fu dynasty has there been such an outpouring of creativity, such a potpourri of form; and those monsoons are worth more than twenty volumes of haiku, and all of Snyder and Williamsville, New York, are full of the pixie-quick tracks of their sandals. There is no hope for the Pope. O, what is to become of us?”

“Hey, can’t you hear that person screaming downstairs? THIS IS NO TIME TO BE TALKING ABOUT PERMS.”

But the men had disappeared at the top of the steps. I pulled at the door of the next room as grunts, groans and squeals continued to come from below. The door slowly opened, its rusty hinges squeaking. Before me were concrete steps that disappeared into the hollow of an abysmal throat. The moans were definitely coming from that oval-shaped darkness.

Putting my finger on the trigger of the turkey musket I started down the endless steps. Through the soles of my shoes I could feel the concrete; the slime of tiny animals squashed underfoot and rats dashed across my shoestrings. Wispy spider webs brushed against my face as I pushed on-my ankles moving through sludge-until I came nearer to the gasps and snorts echoing through the dank ol house steeped in mildew. When I came to the middle landing an awful stench attacked my brain that smelled of the very putrescence of mass graves. I took a handkerchief and held it to my nose as I ran through the passageways and past propped-up human skeletons in chains. I finally came to a door, behind which, shouts and wails nearly burst my eardrums. I broke it open and saw on the tiled floor men in grotesque pretzel-shaped poses. It was a kind of underground cockfight. One man jumped up and covering his face ran and hid under the sink.

“MAN, AM I THE ORIGINAL FALL GUY? I GOT A GOOD MIND TO BLAST YOU MOTHAFUKAS RAT SMACK INTO THOSE CRYSTALS WHIRLING ABOVE OUR HEADS.”

HARRY SAM jumped to his feet and hobbled toward me. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand and zipping up his fly, he shouted, “WHAT-IS-DA MEANIN’ OF INTERRUPTIN’ MY GOAT-SHE-ATE-SHUNS?”

“Get over there against the wall, SAM,” I said, banging the barrel of the gun against his stomach.

“NOW SEE HERE, WISE GUY, I’M DA BOSS UP HERE. I GIVE DA ORDERS.”

I lifted the musket and aimed for the area between his eyes.

“BUT I’M ALWAYS WILLING TO COMPROMISE SO I’LL GET MY TAIL OVER THERE AGAINST THAT WALL. JUST THIS ONCE.”

“What do you have to say for yourself?” I said to the first nude man who sat on the cold tile.

bong bong bong bong

“Well, Bukka, it kinda go like this-C E G D. I was up here ‘gotiatin’ one night when the sweet old man put his hot hand on my knee. Before I knew it, it had gotten good to me and I was on my hands and knees doing the salty dog with all my might.”

“Okay, Eclair Porkchop,” I said to the first man. “I can forgive passion. What are you doing up here turning tricks? You’re supposed to be a CREATOR,” I said to the second man.

“It’s like this, Bukka,” the man answered. “These tricks pay more than my hoopla hoops so I come up here once in a while and give up some head. No big thing. I never said those hoopla hoops were art. It was SAM who made it art. He and his washroom attendants control the museums so as long as they were forking over the bread I made them hoopla hoops. The only reason I got into the business was that one day the hoopla hoops were sliding down over my thighs and SAM was digging through the telescope gettin’ his jollies. That night a limousine came to my loft and brought me up here where SAM introduced me to some of the most powerful people in art circles. Finally I had such a demand for hoopla hoops that they began selling them in the A&P.”

I sensed something creeping up behind me. I swung around bashing SAM on the head so hard that he dropped the toilet chain he held in his hand and fell against the wall. He slumped unconscious to the tile, his tongue sticking out and his eyes crossed. Turning from Cipher I walked over to the sink where another man was cowering beneath its base near the plumbing. I forced his hand from his face. It couldn’t be-NOSETROUBLE?

“O, BUKKA, MERCY, SPARE ME. I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO IT, SEE HOW IT FELT AND WHEN THEY SENT ME UP HERE TO NEGOTIATE FOR THE MISSING TOTS I JUMPED AT THE CHANCE. O, BUKKA, I TOSSED AND TURNED IN MY BED FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND FINALLY THE DAY ARRIVED AND I CAME UP TO MEET THIS DIRTY OLD MAN IN PERSON AND HE JUST SENT THRILLS ALL UP AND DOWN MY SPINE AND MADE ME SCREAM WITH ALL MY BEING.”

I started to blow the mothafuka to kingdom come but suddenly the house shook at its very roots. I turned and saw that HARRY SAM, having recovered, was pulling a cord that hung near the door. He then screamed in rhythmic incantation: “Enter-Wand and Wayside; Up-Warrior Watchman and Wing; Up-Witness; Run-Digest Dazzle Deacon and Debut; Rush-Drummer Dresser and Dasher.”

The doors of the little johns swung open and the gnomes began to rise from their seats. I started for the exit, backpedaling with my turkey musket until I came to the door where SAM was crouched on the floor.

“IT’S CURTAINS FOR YOU, BUSTER. YOU’LL NEVER GET AWAY FROM HERE! LISTEN AT DEM TROOPS COMIN’ DOWN DA STAIRS AND LOOK AT DEM GNOMES GETTING UP OFF THEIR RUMPS.” I hit him in the mouth and blood gushed out.

I opened the door and shut it behind me. “If anyone follows me, I’ll blast them to bits,” I shouted.

I ran up the steps to the middle ranges and hid in the shadows hoping that the stampede of footsteps now descending upon the bottoms would pass right by me. IT WORKED. Five hundred marines, five hundred navy personnel, five hundred coast guard and five hundred Green Berets plus one Arab, one Nationalist Chinese, one Rhodesian, one Peruvian and one Aussie sped by the middle range. It was a regular U.N. peace-keeping force.

I headed up the steps until I came to the main floor. I ran to the third door marked “classified” and opened it, thinking of the door as a possible exit. Hundreds of tiny skulls poured out and knocked me off my feet. Skulls rolled through the halls and stacked against the walls to pile up slowly. A tide of gore was rising all around me. I heard the sound of tingly music coming from outside the house. I plodded through the skulls-still bouncing and rushing from the third room — and toward a window where the merry-go-round, connected to the cab of a big Mack truck, was winding around the path. Behind the merry-go-round were the rolling waters of the bay licking the top of the wall like black tongues. In the distance I could see another battleship head back toward HARRY SAM.

HUNDREDS OF FOOTSTEPS WERE COMING FROM THE BOTTOMS. IT ALL BECAME CLEAR TO ME! THE LAST ONE ON THE BLOCK TO KNOW. I puked and fainted into the heap of bones, dead weight.

When I awoke I found myself being carried down the path. I looked up into the face of my rescuer, Eclair Porkchop.

“Man, you weigh as much as lead,” said the preacher, running down the path toward the high wall. We had passed the gnarled tree standing in the middle of the road when voices of the mob could be heard pouring out of the motel. The helicopters dipped and started toward us.

“What are you doing rescuing me? You’re with them.”

“No time to talk now. You have to get away from here,” he replied.

We finally reached the Black Bay which had hungrily rose above Rutherford Birchard Hayes’s head and now was on level with the top of the wall.

Suddenly two Screws came from out of the darkness.

“JUMP, BOY, JUMP!” the preacher said.

“But the Latin roots, those terrible man-eating plants and who knows what else,” I pleaded.