Ishmael Reed - Reckless Eyeballing

“And Ham Hill. Why Ham Hill?”

“Ham Hill gets lynched for staring at this southern white woman. I call him that because it’s kind of like Ham in the Bible, who gets cursed to be “black” and “elongated” for staring at Noah’s nakedness. Brashford tells me, however, that this version was perpetuated by a Jewish commentator and can’t be found in the Bible.”

“Well, I hope you don’t think that’s anything original,” Shoboater said sarcastically. “All over the world there are legends and myths about men staring at women or staring into their eyes or at them bathing, and being cursed.”

“I didn’t say anything about it being new,” Ball said. Their lunch arrived. It looked like vomit. Some kind of veal covered with a rich, creamy sauce. Shoboater began to eat; Ball pushed his plate away and continued to drink from his second Pabst. He couldn’t understand why Paul sneered at Pabst. If you ever examined the can or bottle closely you could see the reproduction of the medals the beer had received in international competitions with other beers, he thought. Shoboater kept scribbling in a leather-bound notebook with a red fountain pen that probably cost about five hundred dollars.

“Why are you so hung up on eyes? I remember in that travesty of yours, Suzanna , there were a lot of eye monologues and dialogues.”

“Eyes reveal a person’s true intentions. They are, as Rousseau said, the soul’s mirror. I also like to provide my actors and actresses an opportunity to do mime. I use the term ‘reckless eyeballing’ because on one level the play is about people intruding into spaces that don’t concern them.”

“Yeah. Well, you might try to rationalize it that way, but it seems to me that you’re trying to make amends for your awful reputation as a male chauvinist. Admit it. The tables have turned since the seventies and now this women’s thing is hot, you’re trying to cash in on it.”

“That’s your opinion, Paul.”

“My opinion, huh. Clever of you, I must admit. That bit about this woman having the body of Ham Hill exhumed twenty years after his lynching in hopes that a new trial might erase the lingering doubts that she brought the attention of his eyes upon herself — that is hilarious. Just like those dizzy feminists. I like that.” He chuckled, but in his column he was always pretending to be a feminist or a womanist, probably because women wielded some power at the Mandarin . There was something odd and weird about Paul. Come to think of it, the nigger did resemble Peter Lorre a bit with his Dr. Moto spectacles, his whiney, nasal voice.

“I’m glad you liked that,” Ball said, watching him eat the veal and sauce. Just watching him eat it made him feel nauseous.

Ball looked around because he felt some heat at the back of his neck. A woman dressed in the art nouveau fashion of the restaurant was staring at him, but when he caught her eyes, she fluttered them nervously and stared again toward her male companion. Lot’s wife, Ball thought.

“What do you think happened to Minsk?” Shoboater asked.

“I don’t know.”

“So they got Tremonisha to direct.”

“Yeah,” Ball said, looking down at his beer. He grinned.

“But you were the one who went about bad-mouthing her after Wrong-Headed Man hit the big time. What made you change?” He grinned even wider.

“I’ve matured. You know my play Suzanna , well, it was written at a time when these guys were into a big macho thing. You know, going around bragging about how they knocked this bitch over and that bitch over. Now we’ve entered a new period. I’ve grown with the times. I’m used to working with Jim, but I can adjust, I am adjusting.”

“Yeah. The Jews were the only ones keeping you guys going. But instead of expressing gratitude, the fellas keep coming down hard on the Jews, and commenting on the Middle East when most of you don’t even know where it is on the map. Instead of fighting the Jews, you ought to be like them. They’ve survived all of their enemies, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Pharonic and Ptolemaic Egyptians, Rome. All dead. In fifty years they will have outlived the Germans, a vanishing race hung up on Föhn. Germany’s population growth is zero. They don’t have the will to continue. It’s as though they’ve been obeahed or dybukked. Günter Grass has written a book about it: Headbirths , or The Germans Are Dying Out .” He kept on yammering about how the blacks ought to be like Jews. The waiter took the plates away. Ball was glad. He was really getting sick. How could Shoboater eat that shit, he thought.

“These blacks ought to save their money instead of loafing around and break-dancing.”

“Brashford said that the reason the Jews came up with monotheism is because they were too cheap to buy idols.”

“You’re still hanging out with him, huh. He hasn’t written a play in over twenty years and the only reason they’re still backing him is because of that long monologue in the middle of his one and only play where the character renounces militancy and the end where that black guy comes out dressed in drag. He knew what he was doing. And then in the epilogue all of the black male bar patrons go off and register for World War Two so’s they could fight Hitler. That’s how the clever second-rate writer got to Broadway. That monologue in the middle and the ending. That’s what got him over. The producers propped him up so that they wouldn’t have to deal with Randy Shank. Incidentally, what happened to him? He was quite a character.”

“He’s working uptown as a doorman at Tremonisha’s apartment building.” Shoboater got a big kick out of that. He thought it to be so hilarious that he didn’t stop cackling for a couple of minutes.

“Serves him right. He alienated the women, the Jews, and now he’s out on the street. All those things he said about the Jews. Now he’s suffering the retribution that eventually catches up with all of their enemies. That Jehovah, or Jah, is the Dirty Harry among the gods. He don’t play. You fuck with his people, he’ll get you. Now you know if he punishes his own followers so harshly, calling the children of Israel harlots and nasty things for disobeying him, you can imagine what he has in store for his people’s enemies. The Jews are the only ones standing between black people and these barbarians from Europe that are over here. What do you think that the Posse Comitatus, the Order, and the other right-wing outpatient clinic is talking about when they say “bleeding heart liberals.” They’re talking about the Jews. Plain and simple. And every year I send one-tenth of my salary to the Anti-Defamation League because they’re keeping an eye on these people who not only hate the Jews but hate blacks too. You can’t depend upon this black middle-class to do that, or the black intellectuals. All of them have become buppies. They spend an hour sometimes talking about condos and these wine-tasting clubs they belong to, or their computers. If it wasn’t for Jewish morality these people would be burning niggers left and right. The Jews went into Europe and civilized these Anglos Nordics and Germans who were painting themselves blue and eating one another. Go read their texts. Read Hamlet— the play that tells you about the Nordic soul: a cold-blooded serial murderer who kills all of these people because he heard voices. Man, the only difference between Son of Sam and Hamlet is that Hamlet speaks blank verse. And their music, full of killing, like those Wagnerian operas where people ride into fire and things. Man, that’s where this whole idea of nuclear war comes from. When one travels through Europe and visits the museums as I have done”—big deal, Ball thought—“one is struck by the violence on those walls. If violence is as American as apple pie, then Europe provided the oven, because on the public buildings, in the churches, and in the paintings there are scenes of violence. People stabbing one another and hacking each other to pieces, or beheading one another, and when there are no scenes of that they’re killing dragons. Armies clashing and people wrapped up by snakes. They even have these women warriors there, Amazons who are dealing blows to men left and right. It’s all over the place. The most frequent object you see in European art is a weapon. And their stories. Full of murder and mayhem. Man, if the Jews hadn’t gone in there and tried to civilize these people with their blood-thirsty Viking gods, these people would still be on the rampage. And every time there’s a period of reaction against compassion and mercy, these gods start to rumble again. They even named this new laser weapon The Excalibur; they can’t get swords out of their minds. If Judaism hadn’t required those people to renounce their blood-thirsty war gods, the world would have been finished long ago.” The waiter brought Shoboater a tiny cup full of espresso. Ball was on his third Pabst.