Ishmael Reed - The Terrible Threes

There’s a rumor that’s been around some hundreds of years that Nick enjoys an erotic fling, and has been known to do orgies. This is the Gnostic Nicholas who is condemned in the Book of Revelations. The eat, drink, and be merry Nicholas, whose style influences the American Xmas, when the waistlines expand and there’s carnage on the road caused by intoxicated drivers. His reputation in the ancient world is that of someone equipped with a very active and energetic pelvis. After the trans-Atlantic crossing for the pair, Nick became a part of the American Xmas, but Pete was ignored. Pete is very bitter about this, and spends time in his apartment in Guinea, being bitter. Of course, Nick’s appearance in the American Xmas wasn’t all that flattering either. His bad body image in a place where weight watching is the national “mania,” as Carson McCullers would say. But, unlike Peter, at least he was visible. Even in Guinea where he had a following his image didn’t please him. An apelike creature climbing up and down ropes in Dutch department stores. He wants respect. He wants his propers. He had been cheated out of history. If they only knew that Nick received credit that rightly belonged to him, maybe Americans would leave out soup for him. Maybe he’d be invited to join the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

He could hear the groups outside, the Delta music from Martinique and Zairian rhumba, the stands set up along the way hawking the kind of food they ate in Kinshasa, New Orleans, Guadalupe, Peytonville, and Fort-de-France. They ate Navajo Tacos and Buffalo Burgers. They drank strong fruited drinks.

Black Peter was still moody. He couldn’t enjoy himself. He didn’t like the way he went out. He was like Larry Holmes. He didn’t feel that he’d received his credit. Holmes was the champ, yet it was Gerry Cooney’s face that made Time . He beat Mike Spinks twice, but was robbed. During Christmas he got the big SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. There was a knock at the door. It was Nescafe, who spent most of his time poking around for available uteruses and playing piccolo or gazing at nipples and crotches. He wore sandals, and his toes were covered with sand. He wore a brown and white cotton smock, and black pants, and on his head he wore a fez. Underneath his eyes were three parallel, horizontal white lines, covering his skin as brown as Swiss instant coffee. His facial features were simian, like those of the early cartoons on Paddy, the stereotypical Irishman. As soon as he entered Pete’s apartment, his eyes began nosing around, picking up on this or that item. “Just thought I’d stop by since I was in the neighborhood,” he said. He was the type who never merely stopped by because he was in the neighborhood.

“Man, you sit up here in this apartment, lights out, dressed in black. You never go out unless it’s to cheat some poor devil out of his soul.” There were bookshelves lined with ancient and leather-bound books bearing Northern European titles: The Meaning of Meaning, Vol. Twenty-three . The room’s furniture was also of the same national mixture. The refrigerator was always full of Dutch schnapps and seafood. Peter liked spicy foods and white chocolate.

“You’re upset because the Americans don’t recognize you.

They recognize Nick. So even though we have all of this good music, food, women, white rum, dancing, carnival twenty-four hours a day, you’re unhappy. That’s because you spent all of that time in Northern Europe. Those winters, and twenty-four-hour days. The long nights, and the restless dead. Taking an African and putting him in one of those places is like trying to domesticate a white shark. Something dies within the African soul, or he gets a Ph.D., which is the intellectual equivalent of a lobotomy. While you’re up here doing your Kierkegaard bit, some guy in New York is partying away at the expense of your reputation.” Black Peter lunged at Nescafe, and within seconds had him pinned to the floor. Struggling for air and gasping, Nescafe protested. “Get off of me. Stop choking me.” Black Peter let him go. Nescafe brushed himself off. “You have a mean and nasty temper, Peter. That’s why you’re slowly being banished from history. Whipping children, going down the chimney for white people. You’ll never be as loved and as admired as Saint Nicholas.”

“You have to tell me about this imposter.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“What do you mean, you’ll think about it?”

“There’s this Caribbean queen I ran into down at the beach. You mix me some of that Love Powder, so that she will find me irresistible. For this I’ll give you the information.”

“I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore. I’m more into thought, Creative Visualization. Positive transmission. That sort of thing.”

“I’m trying to get laid, and you’re talking this Northern European nonsense. OK. I’ll keep the information to myself.” Nescafe got up to leave.

“Hold on, Nescafe. I’ll give you the stuff.” He went to a cabinet and brought down a small oval-shaped box of Love Powder. It looked like paprika, guaranteed to make a man irresistible to a woman. Nescafe slipped it into his pocket. “OK, give me the goods,” Pete said.

“I’d like a bottle of Dutch schnapps first.” After Pete gave Nescafe a bottle of schnapps, Nescafe told him the strange story of the Terrible Twos Xmas, about a Forty-second Street hustler who owned a bizarre act using an almost human dummy, until somebody stole his dummy and he got in with Boy Bishop and his gang, who were devoted to a noncommercial Xmas. Picketing toy exhibits and conferences, and making things miserable for the multibillion-dollar Xmas industry. He told him about Big North, the North Pole Development Corporation, which bought the exclusive rights to Santa Claus, therefore driving all of the Santas out of business. He told him about how Boy Bishop stole prostitutes from pimps because this was one of Nick’s stunts, that of rescuing maidens from prostitution. He told of how this got Boy Bishop in trouble with Joe Baby and Big Meat, two gangsters, and how they sent Snow Man, a white hood, to ice Boy Bishop, and how Bishop and Peter and his cohorts were able to kill Snow Man and use the fat gangster’s corpse as a Xmas zombie, through which Peter the ventriloquist would pipe all sorts of socialistic speeches against the exploitation of Xmas by merchants. He talked about how Pete took over the Nicolaites and threw a big non-traditional Xmas party at Madison Square Garden which goons, acting on behalf of Big North in league with the Xmas merchants, broke up, and how this riot had sent Pete and his followers into the underground. He told him how a calypso song had brought Pete back into prominence, and how Jack Frost, one of his former enemies, had recruited him to work for the toy manufacturers who knew a good merchandising stunt when they saw one. He told Pete how Pete, the impostor, was living off his name, on a whole floor of suites for his followers and for himself, and how they were having a grand time partying every night and devoting themselves to pleasure. Looking about Pete’s place, Nescafe said, “He has a bedroom that makes this place seem modest, a big bed with a canopy hanging over it, with a constant procession of women — show dancers and actresses. All because he’s cashing in on your identity. Boy, if he were doing that to me, I’d be real sore.” Black Peter was depressed. He put his head into his hands.

“All of these years I’ve tried to clear my name. Now I’m not only a boogeyman and a clown in Europe, but a fool in America.”

“That’s about the truth,” Nescafe said, smiling.

Nescafe got up to leave. “Thanks for the love potion, Pete. If I hear anything else I’ll let you know. I’ll keep my ears open.” Pete was raging inside.