Ishmael Reed: Reckless Eyeballing

At first the faces were a blur, but then he was able to identify the people who owned them. It was a painting he’d seen in a book about Salem, of the Puritan fathers solemnly condemning the witches, but in place of these patriarchs’ faces were those of Tremonisha Smarts and Becky French. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were moving their lips. They were mad. He was sitting in the dock where they kept the witches. Becky said something to a guard and the guard started toward him. The guard was about to take him away to the gallows, he’d gathered from the logic you get in dreams, but when the guard looked up from underneath the black Puritan’s hat she wore, she wasn’t a guard at all but his mother.

Becky and Tremonisha said cut it, cut it, and then the dream cut to a scene in the desert. He was cowering behind a huge cactus plant as a snakeskinned hand was about to cut off a rattler’s head with a large, gleaming blade. He shot up in his bed. He was sweating. He looked next to him. The cover had been pulled aside and the woman he’d brought home from the evening of nonreferential poetry had left. Her subtle perfume still hung in the air. While he’d been making love to her he kept thinking of that ad for Jamaica that contained the line: “Come daydream in a private cove.” At one point, they were fucking so heavy that they began to warble involuntarily like birds. He’d had about three gin and tonics. This drink always brought out his romance. He got up and put on a robe.

He occupied a large studio in a run-down hotel in the west twenties of Manhattan. A huge poster of Bugs Bunny, carrot in hand, hung over the white fireplace. On a table near the stove and refrigerator lay a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken with only a half-eaten breast and a couple of French fries remaining. The packet of ketchup hadn’t been opened. There was a quart bottle of Bombay Gin next to the box. He removed the sheets and blanket from the bed, converted it into a sofa, and added a couple of pillows. On the floor lay a copy of Life’s World War II special issue, and a book about negritude poets. On another wall was a Hagler vs. Hearns fight poster. An IBM typewriter, a gift from his mother, lay on a table with more books and magazines. Two magazines with mammoth circulation carried cover photos of Ronald Reagan laying a wreath at Bitburg, a cemetery in Germany where a number of Nazis were buried. A record cover lay on the floor. The Kronos Quartet playing Thelonius Monk’s “Crepuscule for Nellie” had played all night. They’d gone to sleep without removing it from the turntable. Underneath that record was one that featured Archie Shepp playing piano, Tadd Dameron’s “If You Could See Me Now”; his version was rich and sweet. Most of the records in his collection were from the Caribbean, but he loved jazz, be-bop, and blues as well. They’d gone to a Clifford Jordan performance after the reading; he invited her up to his hotel room for “conversation.” He told her that she didn’t talk like an American. He remembered that he had told her she looked like an Arawak Indian. That’s why the opened map lay on the floor next to the subway tokens. He had brought out this map of the Caribbean to show her were the Arawaks were located. Sometimes when you’re inspired you’ll say anything, Ian thought. The dishes in the sink were giving off a sour odor. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and sat on the sofa after turning on the Sony 25-inch, also a gift from his mother.

His mother had second sight. Once when they were having an argument she had blurted out, Maybe I don’t have such a grand education as you but there are some things that I know that your professors and all your high-class education don’t know. She could know your business before you knew it. One of the reasons he came to New York from the South was to become a playwright. The other was to get away from his mother. Being the son of a mother who had what the people in Arkansas called “the Indian gift” was not easy. When he was a kid he couldn’t get away with a thing. He had the vague feeling that even here she was noticing him, and knew what he was up to. The phone rang. Speaking of the devil.

“Are you all right, Ian? I had a bad dream about you. You aren’t getting those women mad at you again, are you?” How did she know that? Ian wondered. “I’m one step ahead of you, Ma,” he said. “I’ve written a play that’s guaranteed to please them. The women get all of the good parts and the best speeches. I’ve taken all the criticism they made of Suzanna to heart. You’d be proud of me. I’m — I’m going for it.”

“You what?”

“I’m trying to reform, Ma.”

“Don’t be using that low-class vulgar Yankee talk on me, you hear? When you coming home? End this artistic foolishness. It’s been six years since you left the South. I worry about you up there in New York.”

“I’m here for the limit, Ma. I’m going to make it as a playwright. I can’t quit now. They’re doing my play at the Lord Mountbatten. Anyway, I have to go to a meeting with my director. I’ll call you later.”

“Did you get the check?”

“Yeah, thanks, Ma. And, look, this time I think I’ve got a hit. You won’t have to send me any more cash.”

“That’s what you said the last time. Before Suzanna . Don’t get me started on that.”

“Goodbye, Ma.” He put the receiver down. He put on some jeans and a sweater.

There were real problems growing up with a clairvoyant mother. A woman who could look around comers and underneath the ground. He used to have nightmares of eyes with wings swooping down on him. Then the room would be full of women wearing white dresses and white head coverings. And then he would be at peace again as they knelt, rocked, and keened about his bed in a circle. He cleaned up the place, leaving the chore of putting away the gin until last. He took a swig of the gin, twisted the cap on, and put it on a shelf above the sink. Actually he preferred rum. He walked out to get the newspaper. What it carried on the front page woke him: TREMONISHA SMARTS, WELL-KNOWN BLACK PLAYWRIGHT, ACCOSTED BY PSYCHO. He read the story. It said that a man dressed in a gray leather coat, matching beret, and dark glasses had entered Tremonisha Smarts’ apartment two nights before, tied her up, and shaved all of her hair off. His twisted explanation: this is what the French Resistance did to those women who collaborated with the Nazis. The man had said that because of her “blood libel” of black men, she was doing the same thing. Collaborating with the enemies of black men. Ian blinked and read the story again.

It was a blue and windy New York day. Jim’s scarf almost reached his hips. He had his hands in his pockets as he walked and half ran toward the theater. His black curls seemed to bounce on his head. As he bounded up the stairs, he didn’t acknowledge the greeting of two actors who were descending. Mr. Ickey, Becky’s assistant, tried to block his way but was unsuccessful. When Jim burst into Becky’s office, she became as angry as he was, but managed to put on a professional smile. The German shepherd she kept tied to the leg of her desk stood up and began some ugly barking. She commanded him to sit down. Becky had two guests, an elderly woman with gray-silver hair tied up into a bun and wearing a black velvet dress and black shoes, and the woman’s chauffeur, a huge, oafish-looking man with gray hair. He looked as though he weighed about 250 pounds.