Ishmael Reed - Reckless Eyeballing

“I can’t tell you how honored we are to have you here. I trust your trip down was satisfactory,” Watson said, as they walked into the building. The two men were on either side of him; Steepes had gone to place his bags in the guest cottage the school reserved for visitors. The wooden floors were shiny and there was an old, elaborate staircase made of wrought iron that led to the other floors. Inside the president’s office, Watson offered Minsk a drink. Mr. Rhodes went into another room to mix Minsk a martini. He brought the president some George Dickel sour mash whiskey, and Rhodes had a glass of the same for himself.

“Here’s to your good health.” The three raised their glasses in a toast. Minsk thought he noticed some ironic eye exchange between the two men when Watson said “good health.” Rhodes noticed Minsk glancing at the portrait of Jesus Christ on the wall. The portrait painter had given Christ a sinister smile.

“We may be a Christian school, but we do enjoy some earthly vices from time to time. Not as strict as some of these other southern fundamentalists down here. Why, we have seminars on Tillich, Barth, and Heidegger,” he said, taking a sip of whiskey.

“I heard one of the local preachers on the radio on the way here. The most hateful junk you’ve ever heard. A raving anti-Semite.” The two men stared at each other for a few seconds, following Minsk’s complaint.

“Throwbacks,” Rhodes finally said. “They’re still against the teaching of evolution.” The three men laughed. “There are people down here who believe that the earth is flat and that if you fly too high you’ll punch a hole in the sky. We’re sort of an oasis of civilization within this cultural wasteland.”

“The people in this neck of the woods have a yearning for the old populist values. William Jennings Bryan is still a big hero to them. You know what Mencken said about him,” Watson said. The other men shook their heads.

“He said that people down here used his hair to cure gallstones.” The three laughed. What urbane and civilized men these were, Minsk thought. He glanced at the bookshelves, which were stacked with books on philosophy, science, and religion. There were even some up-to-date novels.

“You’re doing a play by Ian Ball, I hear,” Rhodes said. “I like his stuff. He’s quiet. Not like those mau maus who used to write that junk threatening white people. They’ve all disappeared. We have one here that we keep around for our amusement, though I will admit that some of his essays on the English Romantics are not bad, considering—”

“He’s talking ’bout Steepes, Mr. Minsk,” Watson said. “He’s our resident mau mau. Capable fellow, but from time to time he wanders off into these cumbersome monologues about his blackness.”

“Steepes, he’s—”

“He’s black, as they’re calling themselves these days,” Rhodes said.

“But, I thought—”

“You’re not the first one to think that Steepes is white. We have a lot of blacks down here who have blond hair and blue eyes. We Southerners can detect them, though.”

“He’s a good man. Popular with the students. And he doesn’t give us half the trouble of the blacks here in the States. Every time you turn around they’re up in arms about something. Steepes is from Jamaica. The British somehow found a way to civilize them.”

“So that explains the British accent,” Minsk said.

“His most cherished possession is a photo of him bowing down to the queen,” Rhodes said.

“Hear him tell it you’d think that he was Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey combined, but actually he’s as harmless as a pail of milk,” Watson said.

“He’s always talking about the black community when the nearest black is about thirty miles from here.” Watson and Rhodes laughed. Minsk was becoming annoyed at the direction their humor was taking, and when Watson got serious Minsk was relieved.

“Well, Mr. Minsk, I hope you’ll have an enjoyable stay. Your presence will provide a needed shot in the arm to our fledgling drama program. Every year since 1912, the college has been performing this show. It’s kind of lik e a tradition.” The window slammed shut. The impact startled the three men. Rhodes got up and raised the window.

“What’s the play about?” Minsk asked.

“Oh, it’s hardly connected, just a series of scenes and sight gags. I guess it’s our own brand of avant-garde theater, Mr. Minsk.” Watson and Rhodes laughed, and once again exchanged telling glances.

“Yes, we’ve always tried to be up-to-date,” Rhodes said. “Mr. Minsk, have you had dinner?”

“I had a meal on the plane,” Minsk said. “It wasn’t exactly the Chez Panisse.” Watson looked at his watch.

“We’ll have Mr. Rhodes escort you to your cottage. You have about an hour to relax and clean up. I’ll come and get you after that.” The three men rose.

“Mr. Minsk, you really don’t know how grateful we are to have you down here. If there’s anything I can do to make you comfortable, just say so.” Minsk thanked Watson and followed Rhodes out of the room.

Rhodes and Minsk walked down a tree-lined path toward the guest cottage. The campus was quiet except for the chirping of crickets and the incessant warbling of night birds. It was cool. Minsk was glad to get out of New York, which was hot and muggy. Finally Rhodes, the man waddling alongside him, who probably took out after the carbohydrates between breakfast and lunch and dinner, said: “What’s Ball’s play all about?”

“It’s about the lynching of a black lad down here for staring at a white woman. Only Ball has introduced a twist. He has the woman the kid allegedly stared at demand that his body be exhumed so that the corpse can be tried. She wants to erase any doubts in the public’s mind that she was not the cause of the eyeballing she got.” Both men laughed.

“That Ball is hilarious. He has a fantastic range.”

“We thought that it was a fantasy at first, and then Ball produced an article that appeared in Ebony magazine regarding a Mississippi man who was actually arrested for what was called ‘reckless eyeballing.’”

“We’ve changed since those times, Mr. Minsk. This is ‘the New South.’ The races get along fine down here. We don’t lynch Negroes anymore.” Minsk thought that the stress Rhodes placed on Negroes was peculiar. He glanced at the man’s flat, vacuous face and decided that there was no malicious intent. He read everything but the man’s goat eyes, which were difficult to examine; one couldn’t determine whether they were staring at you or away from you. Rhodes left Minsk at the door of the small guest cottage. He told Minsk to call him at home if he had any difficulty. Minsk walked to the inside of the cottage. It was cozy. There was a fireplace and a couple of straight-back chairs with cane seats and a rocking chair. In the bedroom was a brass bed covered with an ancient quilt. Hanging over the bed was a picture of Jesus of Nazareth. He remembered what his crotchety father had said about Jesus when he was growing up. He called the rabbi from Galilee a magician and sorcerer.

When the three men entered the small stadium, the students were already there. This surprised Minsk because, though he had seen many cars parked in the parking lots, he hadn’t seen any people, nor had he heard anybody while entering the stadium. The five hundred or so spectators sat in one section of the small stadium. The other sections were dark. The men wore suits and ties and the women wore white dresses. He looked around and all he could think about were the models on the boxes of soap, with their confident grins. He felt the energy of their eyes upon him so intensely that he nearly stumbled and had to be aided by Watson and Rhodes as they started down one of the aisles and toward the front row. In front of their seats a red, white, and blue banner had been hung, and at the far end of the stadium there stood a large white cross that was blinking yellow from the lightbulbs. Rhodes and Watson sat next to him. He looked about at the crowd, and they were all looking at him. He could see their faces behind the candles that each had lit. He asked for a program and was told that there was none.