Ishmael Reed - Reckless Eyeballing

“Mom and I were thinking, Dad, you’ve built all of this vacation time up, maybe you ought to take a vacation, kind of get your schedule ready for retirement.”

“I haven’t missed a day’s work in the thirty years I’ve been on the force.” O’Reedy picked up the newspaper from the doorway entrance and sat down on a sofa and began reading as though Sean wasn’t even there. On the wall of the living room were framed portraits of the Virgin Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The queen was seated. The wall also bore a painting of a landscape, and there were furnishings that elitists would consider kitsch. He could smell the roast beef coming from the kitchen.

“Staying for dinner?” O’Reedy asked, not even taking time to look up from his paper. The headlines read: FLOWER PHANTOM STRIKES AGAIN.

“I don’t think so, Dad, I have a date tonight.”

“Yeah, when do you think you’re going to settle down? Your mother keeps talking about grandchildren.” O’Reedy was uncomfortable being left in the same room with Sean. Something about the kid was strange. Always into the books, never any time for fun, and when O’Reedy took him to some chippies to get him broken in, the kid ran away. Scared of broads.

“Dad, I came to say goodbye.” O’Reedy looked up.

“Goodbye, what do you mean, goodbye?”

“I’m going to California, Dad. I’m going to be teaching Irish studies.” His father slowly lowered the newspaper from his face.

“Irish what?”

“Irish studies. I’ve been hired by a foundation that’s begun an institute in ethnic studies.”

“And what was it again that you were going to teach?”

“Irish studies.”

“And what, may I ask, is that?”

“It’s the study of Irish culture, history, politics, literature—” O’Reedy laughed as his lanky son stood before him dressed in a tweed jacket, green turtleneck sweater, jeans, and sneakers.

“Hey, you come here.” His wife came into the room, but not before turning down the portable television’s volume. Bette Davis was giving Anne Baxter a good scolding on the subject of ambition.

“Tell her what you told me.”

“He’s teaching Irish studies, he told me all about it,” she said.

“Both of you are nuts,” O’Reedy said, rising. “I thought that you’d finally come to your senses. Thought that you might go into something worthwhile. The high tech stuff. Now that’s where the money is. I said give him time. He’ll shape up. Settle down. But no, none of these neighborhood girls are good enough for you. Downtown freaks, like that…the one you brought into your mother’s house, didn’t like me using the word broad or chick. And now this Irish studies. All about stupid micks.”

“Dad, don’t say that.”

“I think he’s doing the right thing, dear,” Mrs. O’Reedy said.

“Who’s asking you. Get back into the kitchen.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, returning to the kitchen.

“What can you learn about Irishmen in a university that you can’t learn down at the local gin mill?”

“Look, I have to go, Dad. My date.”

“Probably some fucking hippie like the last one. Kept interrupting all of the male guests with her crazy ideas, embarrassing me in front of my buddies and their wives. She wouldn’t even offer to help with the dishes. Yet you got all high and mighty when I tried to introduce you to those hookers that time when I was trying to help you learn things.”

“You hate yourself, Pop, you’re Irish, yet you don’t think that the Irish have produced anything worthwhile. You and your father, just carrying out the orders of people who hate you, who treat you no differently than they would a stage Irishman, a clown—”

“Now, you wait—” O’Reedy said, rising.

“A great Irish-American writer like James T. Farrell had to borrow money from friends because the Irish were so busy trying to assimilate that they didn’t support their artistic geniuses, ignored them because they were considered too ethnic by people on the make. Reminded them of a world they wanted to leave behind, and so they use your pop—”

“How would you like to get a good belt—”

“That’s right. Be their Dirty Harry Callahan. If you can’t get your way, use violence. You’re like the middle men all over the world, the muscle, the fists for people who spit on your kind, you’re protecting their property by beating up people. You and your father, both mercenaries. At the turn of the century they used your father against the Jews on the Lower East Side and against other Irish. Why do you think they call those vehicles that transport prisoners paddy wagons? Did you ever think of that? And now they use you against the blacks and the Puerto Ricans.”

“That’s enough outta you.”

“Don’t think I don’t know about those three Spanish guys and that jogger—” O’Reedy knocked his son over the sofa he was standing in front of.

“Get up! Get up! I’ll teach you.” His wife ran from the kitchen screaming.

“You keep out of this,” he said. One Spanish guy was standing behind Sean. He was thumb-nosing O’Reedy, mocking him. The other two Spanish guys sat on the edge of the couch behind which Sean was beginning to rise. One had a radio next to his head and the other was popping his fingers. They were wearing party shirts and dark glasses. O’Reedy stepped back, a look of horror on his face.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” Sean said. As he said that, the black jogger ran through the room, entering through one wall and exiting through another. O’Reedy went for his gun, but before he could fire Sean knocked it out of his hand.

“I…” his father was in a daze. Sean and Mrs. O’Reedy escorted him to the couch.

“I’ll be all right. I just need a drink. Son, I’m sorry, I just haven’t…”

“It’s all right,” Sean said, going to the kitchen to remove a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. O’Reedy’s wife remained in the room. She sat next to him on the couch. He put his head in her lap and began to sob.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “You’ll be retiring soon.”

Opening night. The play was going splendidly. The ninety-nine people were sitting on top of one another, and must have been uncomfortable, but they were paying close attention to the developments onstage. Tremonisha had supervised every detail: costumes, lighting, props, sets, et cetera. But where was Tre? He’d called her house, but there hadn’t been an answer for a week or so. Nobody had seen her since their encounter in the office where her blowup with Becky had taken place. Becky had brought in another director who merely supervised the details of mounting the play that Tre had created. Becky insisted that Tre’s version of the play not be tampered with. They waited a half hour after the scheduled opening time for her to show up, but when she didn’t they decided to begin. She’d worked out every detail with such professionalism that there was really no need for her now. Ian’s respect for her had certainly increased, and he hoped that she’d never learn what he and the fellas said about her behind her back, all of the scurrilous, unprintable things. They talked about Clotel the mulatto and Coretha the black woman, and how they and their Native-American, Asian, and Hispanic sisters had had babies by every conceivable European man from the tip of Argentina to the Arctic — how they’d performed the hemispheric sixty-nine with Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Russians, British, Scots, Irishmen, and God knows what other kind of European white eyes.

Act I was a tremendous hit, with some of the audience breaking into applause after particularly dramatic lines and speeches. The only male member of the cast was the skeleton of Ham Hill, which they’d borrowed from one of the local medical schools. The play opened with the female judge, who wore her hair in a dignified bun, Cora Mae, her lawyer, Ham Hill’s lawyer, played by an excellent black actress, though on the plump side — but the casting director had said that they’d lose one-third of the white male audience if they didn’t include “a ham,” as this type of actress was called — the female jury, and female bailiff. Even the two gravediggers were female. They all stood around the grave as the coffin of Ham Hill was raised. Ball had included some telling eye exchanges in this scene. Ham Hill’s defense lawyer, who was wearing a black pin-striped suit, white silk blouse, and huge black bow tie, her hair straightened and glossy, was glaring with contempt at the plaintiff, Cora Mae, now a radical feminist lesbian, part owner of a bookstore, and her lover, a woman with short hair, a round face, and wearing glasses. The two embraced and sobbed as the coffin lid was raised. Cora Mae’s lawyer, who was dressed like one of the female executives one sees in Ms . magazine — attaché case, business suit — remained expressionless during the entire scene, which ended with the skeleton of Ham Hill being removed from the coffin and placed into a patrol car — offstage — for the trip to the courthouse, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and great applause. Though one drunken black male first-nighter was ejected from the theater for standing and shouting—“Looks like a case of dig the nigger up and kill him again.”