Ishmael Reed: Flight to Canada

But before Uncle Robin can issue some apologies, saying that the devil must have gotten ahold of his tongue or that he will promise not to express such notions again, the red light above the kitchen door begins to blink, which means that Massa Swille wants Moe to come into his office. Moe wipes his mouth with a napkin, gulps the coffee down so quickly it stains his junior executive’s shirt.

“Oh, dammit, now what will I do?”

“Hold on, Mr. Moe.” Uncle Robin rushes to the cabinet, takes out some spot remover and dabs it on Moe’s shirt. The button-down collar’s stain disappears. Moe rushes out of the kitchen.

LINCOLN SALUTES THE CONFEDERATE soldiers Lee has sent up to escort him and his party back to The River Queen. He climbs into the carriage and sits next to an aide.

“Did you sell him some bonds?” the aide asks.

“Yeah,” Lincoln says, leaning back in his carriage, removing his stovepipe hat and boots; he takes off his white gloves last.

“Gilded Age ding-dong if there ever was. Hands like a woman’s. I feel like a minstrel …”

“But you did sell him some bonds?”

“Yes. First I gave him the yokel-dokel — he saw through that. And then he went on about my lack of culture and poked fun at my clothes. Talked about my shiny suitcoat and pants. Then he said some nasty things about Mary. Well, I know that she’s … she’s odd. Well, you know, I couldn’t stand there and listen to that, so I blew my top.”

“And he still gave you the gold?”

“Yeah. You know, if we lost this war we wouldn’t be able to repay Swille. We’re sticking our necks out, but with the cost of things these days, we have to turn to him. Why, we still owe a bill for that Scotch plaid cap and cloak I bought so I could enter the Capitol in disguise. The Confederates thought I was frightened, but that wasn’t it at all. I was trying to duck the bill collectors who were holding me responsible for the debts owed by the last administration. Buchanan said there’d be days like this. No wonder he was trembling when he shook my hand at the inaugural ceremony, and when I was sworn in — whiz — he took off down the platform steps. Said he had to catch a train. Said ‘Good luck, Hoosier.’ Now I know what he meant.”

“It was a close call, when the Confederates came up to the house just now. You should have seen the secret service men in the next carriage scramble from the Queen Mary. I don’t think they know what in the hell they’re doing. And I think one of them, that fat one, is a little off into the bottle. Mr. President, you ought to fire that one.”

“I don’t plan to fire that one. Just put him on detail at insignificant events. The theatre. I might need Swille’s support some more and so I’m going to start doing more for culture. Tidy up my performance. I want you to get me and Mary Todd some tickets to a theatre from time to time and invite Ulysses and his wife.”

“Look, sir.”

On the side of the road some of the colored contraband were appearing. They started waving their handkerchiefs at the President. The President waved back. One man ran up to the carriage; Lincoln stuck his hand out to shake the slave’s hand, but instead of shaking the President’s hand the man began kissing it until he dropped back behind the carriage. He stood in the road waving.

“They love you, sir.”

“Curious tribe. There’s something, something very human about them, something innocent and … Yet I keep having the suspicion that they have another mind. A mind kept hidden from us. They had this old mammy up there. She began singing and dancing me around. The first time in these years I took my mind off the war. I felt like crawling into her lap and going to sleep. Just sucking my thumb and rolling my hair up into pickaninny knots. I never even gave spooks much thought, but now that they’ve become a subplot in this war, I can’t get these shines off my mind. My dreams … She must do Swille a lot of good.”

“She didn’t treat us very well; told us to abandon her kitchen.”

Lincoln laughs. “You know, I can’t help thinking sometimes that the rich are retarded. That Swille couldn’t go to the bathroom, I’ll bet, without an escort or someone showing him the way. And do you know what he subsists on?”

“What, sir?”

“Slave mothers’ milk.”

“What?”

“It’s supposed to reverse the aging process. Said he got the idea from some fellow named Tennyson. Sir Baron Lord Tennyson. Sounds like one of those fellows we used to beat up and take lunch money from back in Springfield. Anyway, Swille says he got the solution from the hormone of a reptile, and that this Tennyson fellow wrote a poem about it. One depressing work, if you’d ask my opinion. All about immortality and ennui. These people down here don’t seem to do nothin but despair. This Tennyson guy was talking about flowers a lot. Do you know of him? Is he all right? And who is this ennui feller?”

“Ennui means … well … it’s like a languor, a general discontent concerning the contemporary milieu. Tennyson, he’s an aesthete, Mr. President.”

“Well, I’ll be as dull as a Kansas moon. You say he’s what?”

“An aesthete. He knows about flowers, reads poetry aloud lying on French Impressionist picnic grass. Visits the lofts of painters. Attends all of the openings. Is charming and fascinating with the women.”

“Well, I don’t think that this Swille fellow’s got all of his potatoes. He said something about a town named Camelot. Where is this town, aide? How far away is this town Camelot? Is it a train stop? Is it in Virginia?”

“Camelot is the mythical city of the Arthurian legend, Mr. Lincoln.”

“Well, I’ll be a flying fish on a worm tree. This Swille kept talking about the place and about how a king was going to rule America. I think he was trying to buy me off. That’s my last dealings with him. His kind make you feel like … what’s the name of the character in Mrs. Stowe’s novel?”

“Uncle Tom, sir?”

“That’s it. They have you tommy to them. The man started to talk strange, a lot of scimble-skamble, about knighthood and the ‘days that were’ … Hey, what the hell’s going on down here, anyway? Did you hear all that screaming back there? Nobody even noticed. I didn’t say nothin cause I figured if nobody noticed it, then I must be hearing things. Did you notice it, aide, all that screaming going on back there?”

Lincoln rested his head against the window and looked out into the Virginia night, the blackest night in the South. There was an old folk art cemetery with leaning tombstones behind an ornate black wrought-iron fence. A woman in white floated across the cemetery. A wolf howled. Bats flew into the dark red sun.

“Aide, did you see that?”

“I can’t see anything for the fog, sir. But I think I did hear some screaming. As soon as we entered Virginia we heard the screaming. First a little screaming and then a whole lot. As soon as the sun goes up out here you hear the screaming until the moon goes down, I hear tell, Mr. Lincoln.”

“Like hell.”

“What’s that, Mr. President?”

“The screaming, it reminds you of hell. This man Swille was talking about whips and said something about people being humiliated. Is that some kind of code?”

“Grant said it was decadent down here, Mr. Lincoln. Said it was ignoble. Others call it ‘immoral.’ William Wells Brown, the brown writer, called it that.”

“Grant said ignoble?” Lincoln laughs. “Swille offered me a barony. What’s that all about?”

“I heard talk, Mr. President. The proceedings from the Montgomery Convention where the slaveholders met to map the Confederacy have never been released, but there are rumors that somebody offered Napoleon III the Confederate Crown, and he said he’d think about it. It was in The New York Times, August—”