Ishmael Reed: The Free-Lance Pallbearers

I walked up the path toward my motel, exultant, rehearsing the phonemes of UNNERSTAND and INNERSTEAD. I COMBED MY HAIR WITH A TWO-FOOT COMB.

A noise came from inside the main ballroom where people were running around the halls with their arms loaded with SAM’s legacy-locks of Roy Rogers’ hair, Picayune cartons, Hershey bars (semisweet and sweet chocolate), spittoons, phonograph records, etc.

But the fourth door had been opened. Deep tracks in the rug indicated that a massive object had been rolled from the room and into the ballroom. I opened the door of the ballroom. A giant smiling replica of HARRY SAM in a squatting position had been brought out. IT WAS WHITE HOT WITH ELECTRICITY! The people were climbing into the molten-hot lap and whining at the top of their lungs.

“WAIT! WAIT! GET OUT DAT LAP! I’M DA ONE WHO’S BOSS! LISTEN TO ME.”

On the other side of the room a familiar voice shouted, “STOP HIM! THAT’S THE ONE!”

I turned to see a battery of microphones and TV crews wheeling in and out. The next-in-rank on the Civil Service list was being sworn in. He was surrounded by fourteen of his followers; little men in quilted jackets. Nosetrouble was administering the oath and Cipher X was pointing an accusing finger at me. I started to cop a plea but found myself looking into the barrel of a gun held by one of the little men.

I was hung by meathooks in the Emperor Franz Joseph Park. It was televised nationally, narrated by Fredric March and written up in Variety . On the first day a weird boat moved up the bay. The entire student body and faculty of the University of Buffalo were riding behind on surfboards. They held hoopla hoops under their arms. They also carried some subscription blanks for the Deformed Demokrat (which incidentally had bought serial rights for U 2Polyglot’s long-awaited paper). Two men leaning over the bank waved to me. They were Matthew and Waldo going into exile as guests of the mayor, Steve Wolinski. His honor stood next to them munching on a thirteen-foot kabalsa. Steve was overjoyed. Not only were there plenty of snowplows and cement in the boat’s hold, but now he’ll be the hit of the Chopin Singing Society with the news of all the BECOMINGS and avant-garde muggle-smoking and head trips going on in NOW-HERE.

On the second day of my swinging, I was visited by my parents. They placed a gaudy wreath at my feet, then made a request. “Bukka, we saw you on television and called up the television people to ask how much time on the air cost. They said that television is very expensive. Right, honey?”

“Right,” answered my father, having added a Billy Eckstine shirt to his items of adornment.

“We got the time chart to see how much air time cost. Way we figure it, you must be cleaning up. We were wondering whether you could turn us on to some change so that we can add an air conditioner to the sixth house we just bought to rent out.”

“I didn’t receive anything, mother. Do you think that I enjoy swinging by these meathooks?”

“Nigger probably lying,” my father said. “Soon as he get famous he forget about his peoples. Well, as my mother use to say before she flaked out, ‘hard head makes a soft ass.’ Let’s go, dear. The Donna Reed Show is on the other channel. We’ll fix him. We’ll support his competitor.”

Just as they walked toward the subway Rapunzel came up and placed a gift-wrapped box of Gillette razor blades at my feet. I was touched. “I was on the way to Aqueduct and I wanted to show you my ’preciation for sparing me and to ask you a couple of pertinent questions. First of all, how come you let me go?”

“The preacher said that you had stolen the secret of the Black Bay from Matthew and Waldo and gave it to him so that he might save us. Where did SAM get ahold of the bottle that cleared the Black Bay, Rapunzel?”

“SAM thought that if things ever got hot, he’d have to take it on the lam. Like if GOAT-SHE-ATE-SHUNS failed or something. So he had the Counter Insurgency Foundation invent this formula what would work if he ever had to swim the Black Bay. They worked closely with this ol dame who was corresponding—”

“O, no, no, no. That old witch again!” My father-in-law’s mother would be the death of me yet.

“Well, anyway, Bukka, tanks again.”

“Wait a minute, Rapunzel,” I asked. “Why did you bother to save me?”

“I don’t know. I ask myself that all the time. Why did I stick my neck out? Maybe it’s because you had balls and most of the kats who came up there were always talking about SAM behind his back but when they were with him they were kissing his ass all the time. You stood up to the guy. Which reminds me,” Rapunzel continued, “there was somethin’ else puzzlin’ me and it confused SAM too but he didn’t say anything to you about it because he thought it was some special custom your people had, and didn’t want to seem ignorant about it. What was that Nazareeny thing you kept yapping about?”

“Well, Rapunzel, it’s a long story,” I began. “It all started when I stood outside my dean’s office when he was pushing this ball of manure around the world by his nose. … I mean, you see, these kids were on an elevator one day fighting with clipboards and they disappeared. … You see, there was this thing stuck in my frig and it asked could I arrange an appointment for it with SAM. … O, no, that’s not the way. What’s the use?” I said, giving up the ghost, as the little man removed his derby and bowed his head.

On the night of the third day, the darkness surrounding out-of-sight became a horrifying yellow. Hundreds of eyeholes encircled NOW-HERE. It was the Free-Lance Pallbearers. (Better late den never.) They had come to cut me down. But you see they couldn’t get through. There was this great ball of manure suspended above Klang-a-Lang-a-Ding-Dong. Held down by spikes and rope it stank to high heaven. The Pallbearers consulted the maps provided by the martyred neighbor’s son and his sidekick, Joel O. A little figure hobbled on crutches moving through these deadly professionals. It was U 2Polyglot making his way toward a mailbox behind the Free-Lance Pallbearers. His arm was in a sling. He had been winged while U-twoing through Indochina but nothing can stand in the way of scholarship.

So he dropped the greenish-brown envelope containing his manuscript into the mail. He sat down to contemplate his next paper. It was a beautiful night and U 2lit up a pipe and marveled at the motel standing on the mountain, across the bay. Helicopters bounced up and down on its roof and the sign of the new regime blinked on and off:

EATS-SAVE GREEN STAMPS-BINGO-WED-EATS-SAVE GREEN STAMPS-BINGO-WED-EATS-SAVE GREEN STAMPS-BINGO-WED-EATS-SAVE GREEN STAMPS-BINGO-WED-EATS-SAVE

WRITTEN IN CHINESE NO LESS

Aug. 13, 1966 ,

HELL’S Kitchen, New York

*Readers will note that U 2Polyglot is quite adept at the use of slang. This is because his position at the Harry Sam College was that of Chairman of the Department of American Studies.