Ishmael Reed - The Last Days of Louisiana Red

“What lucrative benefits are you talking about — rape?”

“You say it was all rape, huh?” LaBas turns from the window where he has been standing with his hands behind his back, gazing out over the bay towards Alcatraz. “A lot of you begged for him and fought over the trinkets he threw at you, nursed him and taught him how to fuck, loved the bastard children he gave you more than your own. You are defiling the truth of history when you deny this.”

LaBas walked over to his desk and picked up an old yellowing newspaper column. “Just before you came here, I was looking through an old copy of the New Orleans Picayune newspaper, which I collect for the purpose of discovering old Gumbo recipes, and I ran across a story about a police raid that happened in the 1890s. Seems that a white man named Don Pedro, a Businessman, held an orgy in which 26 white men and 25 black and mulatto females were having intercourse in what the newspaper describes as ‘ungodly’ positions. There’s no suggestion of anyone twisting anyone else’s arm to participate in this affair. And if you don’t think it’s still going on, go to Broadway and Michigan Avenue in Buffalo, New York; Broadway and 52nd Street in New York City, and Broadway and Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. Every big city has some Broadway intersecting some other street where the ancient lovers meet, not to mention all the hidden places.”

“Those New Orleans sisters must have been drugged.”

“Could be. Could be. It could be that many were raped, but it also seems to suggest that some cooperated — you can find many examples of cooperation culled from slave narratives, old newspapers, family records and other documents found in North and South America.”

“I don’t believe that. The sisters have been wronged, and it’s time for us to take over; we’ve held the family together for all these years.”

“Every time I hear you say that I get sick. Inaccurate as usual. Your ideas seem to come from your spleen and not your head. For you to say that is an insult to the millions of negro men who’ve supported their families, freemen who bought their families freedom, negro men working as parking-lot attendants, busboys, slop emptiers, performing every despicable deed to make ends meet against tremendous odds. And as for those who ran away — if your corny little organization is interested in ‘dialogues,’ then why don’t you have a forum and invite some of them, that is, if you can get them coming out of the underground where they are ‘invisible legions,’ harassed and pursued by court warrants — the so-called ‘Law,’ that helps your vengeance. I’ll bet half the men in Attica were there on domestic court violations.

“That’s where I come in — the Spook Chaser. I’ve kept my private eye on you and the rest of the Minnies, Minnie. If you attempt, with the shrewd ally whose presence you deny — if you try what I think you ultimately want to achieve, then we will strike you. Strike you with the venom of the ancient royal cobra in our heads. Damn! At least the couples who frequented Don Pedro’s operation, now called ‘sex therapy,’ were enjoying each other and not injuring some innocent third party.

“What they were doing was not ‘ungodly’ but normal practice under cover in the North and South when the sun goes down. It’s almost like a secret society. When Governor Earl Long made a speech before the Louisiana Legislature about its existence, he was put into an asylum for giving away the Brotherhood. They’ve been enjoying each other, from the ninth-precinct cop whose car can be seen parked for two hours in front of the negro hooker’s home to the President’s cook who had more power than the First Lady. But now the old lovers have entered into a conspiracy to put the negro male into the kitchen and to death, and you can call me a male pig all you want, but I will do my utmost to stop you.”

“Aw, negro, you must be tripping. It’s the negro man who is to blame. He’s like an insect that fertilizes a woman and then deserts her. All he knows is basketball and pussy. But I didn’t come here to argue with you. I don’t have to stay here and listen to this. This counterrevolutionary, reactionary …”

“Those are just the slogans you use to mask your real ambition. You have something else in mind, don’t you? We understand each other.”

“Look, why don’t you do what you want to do? Call Rufus Whitfield in here to beat me up. That’s all your kind know to do with a woman.”

“I’m not going to call anyone. You can go. You can talk to me any way you want. I’m still trying to be a gentleman, but one of these days, perhaps soon, you’re going to meet your match.”

“Well, I hope he’s not an old fool like you,” Minnie says, hurrying from LaBas’ office.

George Kingfish Stevens and Andy Brown are creeping up a dimly lit Oakland Street in a superior neighborhood.

They examine a letter box in front of the shrubbery of a well-groomed old Oakland home.

“It say Mr. & Mrs. Amos Jones. This must be the place. Let’s jump over the bush here. It don’t look like they home, Bro. Andy.”

After landing on the other side, they steal up the pathway towards the home. It is dark. On the ground they see a copy of the Oakland Tribune .

“Don’t mind if I do.” Fish puts the newspaper under his arm and dons the robber’s black mask. They tiptoe up the steps and look through the window. They see no one, and so they lift the window. Andy and Fish climb through to find themselves in the parlor. They come upon some lavish living-room furniture: huge sofas, tables topped with expensive lamps. Fish drops a cigarette on the floor and squashes it with his foot. They start with the lamps, putting them into a sack. They see a huge cassette machine, and they rip that off too. Then they rush about the room like madmen, swooping the valuables into boxes and sacks they’ve brought. They go into the kitchen and take the silverware. They enter the bathrooms and take $2.00 cakes of soap, shampoos, vitamins, Haitian oils and bathing herbs, combs imported from Ghana, thick exotic towels from India, Filipino prints. They go into the bedrooms and take clothes and jewelry. Down the hall they see a room with a faint light on. They rush down the hall and open the door. Incense is burning. There are two tables with food on them, a glass of champagne. White candles give out the light. Above the tables are pictures of mermaids and fan mail from South America.

“What on earth do we have here?” Fish says.

“Look like somebody had a party. Hey, look here on the table. Some coins! U-we! Let’s swoop them into the sack, Andy.”

“I’m gone have me a piece of this chicken,” Andy says.

Suddenly the lights go on.

Amos stands in the corner, armed with one of them Haitian pistols.

“Why, why,” Fish says, grinning, “Brother Amos, we thought you and the Missus might be out tonight, so we came here to watch the place. You can’t be careful enough in these times, all this surreptitious entry and all going around. We was putting your stuff in these bags so the robbers wouldn’t get ahold of them.”

“Yes, we was keeping an eye on it for you,” Andy adds.

Amos, frowning: “What do you take me for — some kind of chump? Something told me to come back here tonight. A vague feeling. I’m not surprised at you, Fish. You’ve always been a cheap thief, but Andy — you? Why, we came north together. Remember when Fish tried to pick your pocket?”

“Well, that’s true, Bro. Amos. But Iz been listening to this Minnie woman, and it seem to me she got the right idea. What’s yours is mine.”

“That’s right, Andy, he is being divisive. Share and share alike.”