Ishmael Reed - The Last Days of Louisiana Red

“O, you mean heifer,” Maxwell Kasavubu said.

“Whatever you call that old ugly thang. Think she cute. Drive up here in that sport car and when she come start talking that old simpleass mutherfuking bullshit make me sick in my asshole.”

“RUN IT DOWN, SISTER, RUN IT DOWN TO THE GROUND,” Rev. Rookie said, jumping up and down.

“But which sister are you referring to, Big Sally?” Max asked for clarification. He always asked for clarification, not one to be swept away by emotions as the “minorities” were. They got “enthused” real quick, but when you needed someone to pass out leaflets or man a booth, they were busy or tired or it was so and so’s turn to do that.

“Minnie,” Big Sally blurted out.

“Minnie?” Cinnamon said, jumping from the couch where his wife Rusty sat guzzling beer, eating Ritz crackers as if they were the whole meal and grinning squint-eyed over what Sally was saying.

“Minnie? Did I hear you right?” Cinnamon Easterhood said, grinning.

“You hearrrrrrrrd, me!” she said, cutting a rough glance his way.

“Well, you have to admit Minnie is a bore. Only a handful turned out for the last rally,” said Maxwell.

“That’s crazy, we need her. The sister has a fine mind,” Cinnamon protested. “She’s writing an article in the Moocher Monthly magazine on the morphological, ontological and phenomenological ramifications in which she will refute certain long-held contradictory conclusions commonly held by peripatetics entering menopause. Why the dialectics of the—”

“Big Sally, did you want to say something?” Max said, noticing Sally’s impatience — impatience being a mild word. Frowns were proliferating her forehead.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we don’t need no ontology, we needs some grits, and Minnie ain’t bringing no grits. Ain’t no ontology gone pay our light bill. P.G. and E. fixin to cut off our Oakland office. Disconnect. We need somebody who knows how to get down.”

“Who would you suggest, Big Sally?”

“Street Yellings is the only one the people in the street wont. He the only man that can put this Moocher business back in business.”

“Street!” Rusty said. “Street Yellings! Why, if you brought him back, everything would be so outtasite.” She remembered his Wanted poster in the post office. The girls would go down there and get all excited. Somebody had painted horns on his head. Street made them want to say fuck. Say words like fuck. Made you feel obscene. Even the men. There was a way he looked at you. And when he made love she had heard from one of the women who had named a rape clinic after him — after he had your clothes off he would say, “Now Give Me Some That Booty, Bitch!!”

“I don’t think he can articulate the Moocher point of view,” Easterhood said.

“We don’t need no articulate,” Big Sally said. “Articulate we got too much of. We need someone to oppose that LaBas and them niggers over there in that Gumbo business.”

“I wish I had your gift, Big Sally — right down to brass tacks.”

“Why, thank you, Max,” Big Sally said, smiling.

“And as for you, Cinnamon, don’t ever call Street inarticulate. Why, if it wasn’t for me convincing the Moocher Board of Directors to back that rag of yours, your verbosely footnoted monstrosity would have folded long ago. Street knows the poolrooms, the crap games, the alleys and the bars. He knows the redemptive suffering and oppression. We will offer Street Yellings the position. Is there any dissent?”

“You, Rev. Rookie?”

“WHATEVER YOU SAY IS FINE FOR ME, MAX,” Rev. Rookie said.

“Mrs. Easterhood?”

“Do I look like a broomhandle to you, you four-eyed goofy motherfuka,” Rusty says nasty as Max turns red as a beet. Big Sally starts to cackle.

“Please, dear, you’ll upset Mr. Kasavubu,” Easterhood said.

“I don’t care, I’ll spit on that fat worm.”

“Let’s not get carried away, Rusty. We’ll remove the licorice sticks you enjoy so much,” Max said.

“What did you mean by that, you poot butt?” Rusty said, leaping from the sofa.

Easterhood looked real simple, like a Bunny Berrigan adaptation of a Jelly Roll Morton hit.

“I get sick of your pompous insane cock-sucking remarks,” Rusty bellowed.

“BROTHERS AND SISTERS. WE MOOCHERS DON’T GET INVOLVED IN PETTY INDIVIDUALISTIC CLASHES. WE ARE TOGETHER FOR ONE CAUSE. WE MUST LEARN TO SUBMERGE OUR DIFFERENCES.” (Guess who.)

Rusty was sobbing, curled up in Big Sally’s lap. Big Sally was comforting her.

“Just don’t ask me up here any more. I am not a Mrs. Rusty Easterhood, I’m a person. You men think it always has to be your way. Do your housework, raise your children. Well, I’m sick of it; I want to play tennis, express myself, visit motels. Big Sally,” she says, looking up to her, “you busy this evening?”

“Look, it’s hot,” said Maxwell Kasavubu, so sensible, so cool at these times. “We’ve gone through a difficult transition from an obscure Telegraph Avenue notion to a movement to be reckoned with. I’ll fly to Africa, pick up Street tomorrow.”

“But what do you make of Street’s criminal record? You remember how he murdered that brother and escaped from jail,” Easterhood asked. “The editorial board of the Moocher Monthly has had a change of viewpoint concerning the effectiveness of the charismatic lumpen.”

“That doesn’t count. Just another nigger killing. What’s a nigger to the law?” Max said.

Rev. Rookie, Sally, Rusty and even Cinnamon gave Max a momentary hostile look. But when he asked, “Did I say something wrong?” they outdid each other trying to put him at ease. All except Rusty. She didn’t owe him anything.

(The 70-foot-long main ballroom of the house given to Street Yellings by the ruler of a contemporary African country. Asian, European and Arab hippies are dancing smoking eating and talking. Street’s associates, the Argivians, a band of international hoodlums who serve as Street’s elite bodyguards, are wearing jackets with grim emblems sewn on them. When their flesh is bared, grotesque and ugly tattoos can be seen. Tambourines are shaking. Incense is burning. Cats are strolling about, and in recognition of their presence there is the thick odor of cat feces in the air. One fellow sits in the corner, his vomit splattered all over his jacket. He is napping. A girl is being walked up and down the room with friends who are helping her crash. Minnie’s brother, Street, sits in a huge hollow wooden throne. He glowers as he holds an archaic weapon in each fist.)

STREET: I’m beginning to like this Gimmie over here. This is like the Big Gimmie they only dream about back home. Twenty rooms for everyone; limousines at my beck and call; a view of the sea and lots of discussion. My radio broadcasts are big with the populace, and so now many are beginning to envy my power. Who knows? James Brown is real big over here now. They like Americans. What new influences from us will they be desiring next? My host, the President, has nothing going for him. Always attending parties given by Europeans, without his wife. Always handkissing and talking about London. London this, London that. Said he was a Fabian socialist after the manner of George Bernard Shaw. Clown. And that car he drives. The joke of the embassies. A city-block long with gold and ivory trimmings. In the back seat a bathtub purchased with a tenth of the country’s treasury; a real gaudy number. Had it shipped over .

(Street’s thoughts are interrupted by one of his seven bodyguards, Hog Maw.)

HOG MAW: Man, Street. The States were nothing like this. You gets all the pussy over here your belly needs. Don’t even have to take it. Here man, drop some of these.