Ishmael Reed - Flight to Canada

“My slavemaster, Arthur Swille. You don’t understand. These issues don’t apply to him. He sees me as his chattel, and he won’t rest until he recovers me. If I’d taken Greyhound or Air Canada, his men would have seized me at the terminal.”

“Some kind of maniac.”

“You might say that.”

They had reached the boat. The man who’d rowed them delivered them over to another man who helped them onto the boat. Already Quickskill’s heart was pounding. Quaw Quaw was pleased, too. This was an “adventure” for her. They were directed to a room where they would greet their benefactor, who must have been pretty wealthy, because the yacht was a luxurious boat. They opened the door of the room they were directed to. He saw the man. Quaw Quaw had a shocked look on her face.

“Hey, you ain’t no Quaker,” Quickskill said, for it was her husband, Yankee Jack.

He was wearing a pin-striped Savile Row suit. Cuff links from Jolly & Rogers. He was wearing a black glove over an artificial hand. He was twirling a fountain pen in his fingers. On the wall was the photo of some kind of swami.

“Well, what do we have here?” The silver earring on his left earlobe glistened. He wore a headrag with a design of a Confederate flag.

Quaw Quaw noticed the ashtray. “That ashtray, Jack, where did you get that ashtray?”

“What ashtray?”

“That one,” she said, pointing to the skull which had been polished until it had the appearance of china.

“One of our many … well, in the old days when we were still in that crude business, I’m not exactly proud of that … I was in my pre-Zen period …”

“That’s my father, you shit. You killed my father and are now using him as an ashtray. And my brother, you …” She went to where the skull rested and began hugging it. “Daddy, Daddy,” she said.

“You don’t belong to the human race, Yankee Jack, you … you pirate,” Quickskill stormed. “But you’re more suave, more sophisticated than the Gilbert and Sullivan variety. That was a good idea to bring in poets to give you an artsy-craftsy front. You call yourself a ‘distributor,’ attempting to make yourself respectable. You decide which books, films, even what kind of cheese, no less, will reach the market. At least we fuges know we’re slaves, constantly hunted, but you enslave everybody. Making saps of them all. You, the man behind a distribution network, remaining invisible while your underlings become the fall guys. Taking the rap, their reputations capsizing while yours remains afloat. And what you’ve done to Quaw Quaw, you … I have a good mind to—”

Quaw Quaw is really sobbing now.

“Hold on, whatever you are,” said Jack. “You know it’s not even been determined whether you’re a human being. I pay my taxes. Contribute to the March of Dimes. Someone has to get the goods to the market. I’m just a middle man.”

“Yeah, a middle man. Cool. Like a model stepping out of the pages of The New Yorker magazine. Scrupulous, precise, correct, but entirely devoid of human feeling.”

(A little origin here. Tralaralara was an Indian princess. She was carried off by Yankee Jack. It wasn’t just the turquoise beads, the rugs he was after. Nor did he want to corner the Arizona Highways Market. The pirate needed to get through the chief’s village to reach the oil before his competitors. His tankers were being out-highwayed. He needed the chief’s village out of the way. The chief stood fast and was about to defeat the pirate when someone, an informant, gave away the weaknesses in the chief’s defenses. He was taken by Quaw Quaw, a mere fourteen then. He carried her off, and he raised her. Sent her to the best Eastern schools and trained her in “the finer things of life.” She is under a white spell and has no feeling for her own people’s culture. She does ethnic dances because that’s what the colleges want, and she can earn a little extra money and, therefore, be not so dependent upon the pirate’s support.)

“You killed my father. How could you? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“What are you complaining about? Before I raided your village, the chief ran it. Men. Isn’t that what you and your suffragette ideas are supposed to be about? That women should have equal power with men? Well, that’s what I brought to your people. You should be pleased with your emancipator. I was your people’s Lincoln. Not only that, we gave you women absolute power. The freedom to adopt Christian names. We gave you the property. We killed the chiefs and made your medicine men into clowns. Your father got in the way. He had to be … removed. And now he’s been put to good use. An ashtray. A fitting memorial for a hothead. And we gave your tribe a settlement for that highway we got through. Supplied them with plenty of whiskey. They like whiskey. Lots of money. I thought you didn’t identify with any group. Besides, you’re doing okay. You don’t have to do anything but dance. Dabble in art. I pay all the bills.

“You wanted to be a flower girl? Who do you think paid for that? The bills I got from International Florists! Do you think the honorariums from your ethnic dances paid for that? Look, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Do you think that those little colleges paid for your honorariums? No, my foundation supplied them with matching grants. That’s how they were able to pay your expenses and your travel. Crying over a fucking skull. As for your mother, she never says anything, and you see her as merely a remnant of the past, but that old lady’s got balls. She’s the one who gave your father’s position away in exchange for a cut of the settlement I made with your people. I’m distributing those robes for her. Got Buffalo Bill to buy some. He deals with her exclusively. She gets forty percent.”

“You’re a liar,” Quaw Quaw says, balling her fists.

“A liar, huh? Okay, take a look at this.” He reached into a drawer and handed her what looked like a contract with her mother’s signature on it. “I represent her in blankets, beads, rugs. How do you think she bought that Rolls Royce and that house in Santa Cruz, by the ocean? You never questioned it. As long as you were able to spend your winters in Rome and New York, your summers in Taos, you didn’t care who was paying for it. There was always plenty. And now that slaves are big in the papers, you went and took one, for diversion. Adventure. And those chapbooks you bought and those bum Bohemian friends of yours, those … those ‘Franklins’!”

“Those are my friends, they’re very talent—”

“Ha. That’s a laugh. Me and my friend Leo, the art dealer, were at a party, and one minute this painter friend of yours was pissing in the hostess’ fireplace, you know, showing his ass to the bourgeoisie, and next thing you know, when all of the guests weren’t looking, he was just about on his hands and knees asking Leo to give him a show. Made all kinds of obscene proposals. Then after the bum left, Leo turns to me and he says, Leo says, ‘You see that? They get all denimed and pure downtown, but as soon as they see me, you’ve never seen such obscene hustling.’ Sometimes Leo wishes he’d gone into the garment business.”

Quaw Quaw was choking. “You … you savage. My father was a great chief. A warrior. My brother was a noble prophet. None of your gentleman’s clothing, your sweet talk, your trucks and planes will hide your savagery.”

“The difference between a savage and a civilized man is determined by who has the power. Right now I’m running things. Maybe one day you and Raven will be running it. But for now I’m the one who determines whether one is civilized or savage.”

“Let’s leave, Quickskill,” she said, taking hold of the fugitive slave’s hand.