Ishmael Reed - The Terrible Threes

Reverend Jones was shaking his head in disgust. He turned the channel to C-Span. Some of the meanest Congressmen were taking turns recounting the supernatural experiences they’d had with Nick. Fighting each other over who was going to introduce subsidized housing for the poor, universal health care, free day care, scholarships for all students, etc. Nick was all over.

Everybody had deserted the White House. The doorbell rang. The Marines and the Guards had gone downtown to gawk at Dean Clift and his party, like everybody else. Reverend Jones called for the help. “Jane, Esther, get that door, on the double,” he shouted. There was no answer. He’d forgotten that it was Xmas Day. He had to go and answer it himself. He would have to do a lot for himself from now on.

His wife had called him that morning and told him that she was going to spend the holidays with her folks in Wisconsin, and not to expect her back. That Saint Nicholas had come to her in a dream and told her that she had too much talent to waste it on the same scene. That she could return to the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, and develop her gifts. She wanted to be in a place where, as a blonde, she could remain anonymous. She told him that she had dismissed the help, and if he wanted Xmas dinner, he could fix it himself.

Who could it be at the door? He had an hour to catch the plane. By Xmas evening, he’d be in Texas. He’d fight his enemies from his Gospel Hour Show. Call upon his invisible battalions to help defeat the fornicators and whoremongers. He would fight the ungodly from exile in Texas. The knock at the White House door was louder. “OK, I’m coming,” Reverend Jones said. “Hold your horses.” When he opened the door he got the shock of his life. Standing before him was Lucy Artemis, and rather than the homeless surp she’d become after he’d destroyed her career — baggy, dirty, and disheveled — she wore a cutaway suit and fox skins in wine and lavender. Her lipstick was eye-boggling, and her black eyebrows had been sculpted. Her long grey gloves set off the overall elegance of her appearance.

Nance was feeling the Xmas spirit and so he allowed Krantz to hide out in his apartment for a little while longer. He was filling up Nance’s small apartment with newspapers and magazines which were in neatly bound stacks in the corner. Nance had decorated the place with Cost Plus rattan, wicker, and cane furniture. Chairs, a sofa, and a coffee table. On the wall hung art by Haitian painters, Jacques-Richard Chery, Wilmino Domond, Prefete Duffaut, Fritzner Lamour, Celestin Faustin’s incredible La Soiree de Damballah . Its reds, yellows, oranges, and browns warmed the apartment. Out of place among these reproductions was a portrait of Maurice Ravel, the composer. When asked why, Nance said that he admired Ravel as a man who put his testosterone to good use. He’d put on his disguise and go out in the morning for the early papers and then in the afternoon he’d fetch the late editions. His picture was everywhere. Jesse Hatch appeared in a news conference flanked by the head of the F.B.I, and other intelligence officers to announce that all of the borders were being watched in case Krantz had any ideas about leaving the country. He said that he and the members of the administration hadn’t the slightest idea that Admiral Matthews and Krantz had been collaborating on an insidious plot to liquidate the surps and promote a war with Nigeria. Hatch said that Nigeria hadn’t built nuclear reactors in the first place, and that it had been the hothead prime minister of the newly named country of Gun who was suspected of having plants operating in the desert. Hatch said that the United States had satellite photos of the operation.

Krantz spent a lot of time peeking through the curtains to look out the window. Nance, meanwhile, was making his run for fares to La Guardia. When he wasn’t doing that, Krantz noticed that he spent a lot of time in his “office,” as he called it. It was in the rear of Nance’s small apartment, and contained a desk and two chairs. There always seemed to be a line of people waiting to talk to him. One day Krantz asked him why.

“It’s because I’m a ‘King.’”

“A what?” Krantz chuckled.

“I’m the king of this block. You’ll notice that in the other neighborhoods the streets are filthy, and dealers are openly selling dope; this street is clean and orderly. It could be a street in Bern, or Basel. You don’t see any abandoned cars, nor do you see any trash littering the streets. See those flower gardens planted in front of the tenements? That’s my idea too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. You see, you and people like you are always asking why the blacks don’t want to move to the suburbs, and why they concentrate in these cities, and why they don’t want to climb the ladder. It’s because some of them are marooned, by choice from American Society. They don’t want to fit in. They don’t want to integrate, as the old word used to be, and so these ghettos as you call them are enclaves for the marooned. They have their own law, and their own leadership, like the Indians. Wherever Africans were carried in the hemisphere, there have always been the marooned — the runaway. So on this block I’m the ‘King.’ I deal with downtown for them. I put pressure on the crack dealers. I phone in their license plate numbers to the DMV. I call the Health Department. I take pictures of their transactions. If this block is the eye of the hurricane, it’s because I keep it that way.”

“But doesn’t that make you a snitch?”

“A snitch. Look, pal, was Harriet Tubman a snitch? She spied on the Confederate Army, and passed on valuable information to the Union. These crack merchants pose more of a threat to us than Robert E. Lee did. The way I look at it, I’m a freedom fighter. If you fuck with this neighborhood, you have to come by me. We have a neighborhood alert program here, and look out for the women and the kids.”

“Man, you’re a real Boy Scout.”

“Call it what you want to call it. I see that the old people on the block get their Social Security checks. I see to it that the kids don’t play hooky from school. I help these people stave off bill collectors.”

“That’s irresponsible, Nance.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“People should be responsible for their debts.”

“Why don’t you tell that to your boss, Hatch? The U.S. is rolling up about a million dollars in debt every second, and you got these defense contractors ripping off the government to the tune of billions, and you and your friends down in Washington. Nothing but moral rot and hypocrisy. Look at Jesse Hatch, about to be indicted for a land deal. And that ain’t all.”

“What’s not all?” Krantz asked.

“Every prostitute in New York has his number. They all know he’s a freak. He comes into town about three nights a week. Some friends of mine who work at La Guardia say that they hide Air Force 1 over in the shadows of the field, near a fence.”

“Well, if you were a true King you’d instruct these people to pay their debts.”

“They don’t have the cash, Krantz. Anyway, all that I’m doing is perfectly legal. If landlords don’t keep their buildings up to code, I instruct my clients not to pay the rent. And these bill collectors. You don’t know the tactics they use. These people are behind in their bills, they’re likely to be garnisheed. You just don’t know how it is among the surps. That’s your name for them, isn’t it? We’re surplus. We don’t have the necessities nor are we necessary. But what am I telling you this for? You’re the one who masterminded this Operation Two Birds.”