Ishmael Reed - The Last Days of Louisiana Red

“Do you need a hand, Minnie?” T volunteered.

“Sure, T, why don’t you take care of Big Sally’s thirteen children? Then the sister upstairs who’re minding them can come help us with the work.”

“Yes, Minnie. Anything you say. You’re the boss.” T Feeler walked behind Minnie like a frail sad puppy.

Morning. LaBas had reached an impasse in the case. Whenever this occurred, he would take up another project. Usually, when he took his attention off of a case, he’d divert it to something quite different. He had decided to give his temporary living quarters a thorough housecleaning in the old-fashioned way. Marie Laveau had written a book in which she talked about a Business housecleaning. This housecleaning not only got into the nooks and crannies of the living space but the spiritual space as well. He was looking up names under “Domestics” in the yellow pages. Domestic !! LaBas called Nanny. He wanted to ask her some questions.

He was a blonde. He lay in the bed, tossing and turning. His room. What was that odor? The pungent odor of middle-class perfume making the air misty. He didn’t feel right. His hair. What on earth was the matter with his hair? It was long and was covering the pillow. The pillows? They had a flower print and were pink. Pink? He rose in his bed and his breasts jiggled. BREASTS? THE BREASTS?? He looked back into the mirror next to the bed and his mouth made a black hollow hole of horror. “O MY GOD. MY GOD.” He was a woman. You know what he said next, don’t you, reader? He’s from New York and so … you guessed it! “Kafka. Pure Kafka,” he said. A feeling crept over him. Tingly. What could he do? He felt like screaming, but he couldn’t scream. Was that someone coming down the hall? He ran and jumped back into the bed, pulled the covers up to his neck and pretended to be asleep. Someone was coming down the hall. They stood for a moment outside in the hall. And then the knob slowly turned. Someone was now in the room; a dark foreboding shadow crept to the foot of the bed. A giant colored man — an Olmecheaded giant wearing a chauffeur’s cap. Max started to really scream this time.

“Please, Ms. Dalton, you will wake the whole house,” the figure says. Look at that white bitch laying there. Sloppy drunk. Probably wants some peter too. That’s all they think about anyway. I’ll fuck her into a cunt energy crisis she mess with me. That’s probably what she wont. Been hittin on me all night. Probably pretending to be drunk. Wonts to see how far I go. I know Jan ain’t gettin any. One simple dude. Tried to give me that old PROGRESSIVE LABOR line. Who don’t know that? Who don’t know that old simple ass mutherfuckin bullshit? Them mens was working at the Ford plant. Had some good jobs too. Then here come this Progressive Labor bullshit and them niggers lost they job after it was over. Ha! When is this bitch going to go to sleep? I wont to take that dark blue Buick with steel spoke wheels over to the South Side. Man, will them mo ’fugs be mad when they see. Think I’m a pimp. Then I’ll go up to the counter and roll out my 75 dollars. Man, they think I’m one of them pimps. Then I go get me some rangs. Lots of them. Have them all shining on my fingers. Shining. Justa shining. Gee. Bet I could have me plenty ol stankin bitches. Commisstee. That shit ain’t nothin but some bunk. Roosia. Shhhhhhit. Started to bust that mo ’fug Jan right in the mouf. Must be a sissy . … The door opens and in comes a woman tapping a cane. Ahhhhshitt. Here come that other old crazy white woman down the hall. Look like Ms. Mary trying to say something. I better do something quick .

Max finally realized the situation. He made a futile effort to move his lips. “Bigggg. Bigggggg.” Meanwhile the cane tapping comes closer to the door. Bigger picks up the pillow and starts towards Mary Dalton when—

Max wakes up from the nightmare.

There was some bamming at the door real rough. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam, Bam! Max leaped out of his dream and rushed to the door. Who could this be bamming at his door this time of night? The woman, trembling, rushed into the room.

“What do you want? I told you to never come here.”

She wriggled out of her raincoat, then nervously wrung out a match after lighting a cigarette. She plopped down in a chair and drew her breath. It was Lisa, stripped of her Nanny’s rags; sharp, voluptuous.

“It’s LaBas. He called. He wants to talk about Ed’s killing. Suppose he starts to ask me a lot of questions? You know I can’t stand up under a lot of questions.”

“You fool. You come here for that? I told you never to contact me here on this assignment.”

“Look, you’ve only been here for a few years. I’ve been here more than ten, ever since his wife Ruby left. I’ve worked on that household and put my conjure all over the place. Then they sent you in to begin this organization to add to Ed’s problems. Just as I had worked hard to prepare Minnie to do that. We’ve done enough damage to that family. When will it end?”

“It will end when Solid Gumbo Works has folded.”

“I can’t wait any longer. Since Wolf was killed, she’s brought those Moochers into the household. I have to shuffle about like Hattie McDaniel to take care of their needs. They write slogans all over the walls and sleep on stained mattresses. They leave rings in the bathtub. They’ve been up all night with the mimeograph machine, trying to free Kingfish and Andy.”

“Yes, I know,” Max said. “I wrote the copy.”

“I have to fix breakfast and clean up their mess. You know how Moochers are, never clean up after themselves, always expect someone else to do their cleaning for them. I told you not to draw the girl into that organization. I was doing O.K. All I needed was some more time.”

“You were taking too long. Besides, the Moochers provided us with the numbers to wear down Solid Gumbo Works.”

“Well, I still maintain that if it had been left to me, I would have put her on Ed. I never did go along with his killing.”

“It was necessary. You know that. If we hadn’t butchered him that night, he would have discovered the cure for heroin addiction. That was the industrial secret you passed on to me; the papers of his you Xeroxed. We had to do it. If he had found a legitimate cure, our quack operation would have shut down: the southern mailhouse empire we built would shut down. Heroin, jukeboxes, our black record company in the east, The House of Cocaine. Everybody would have been asking for Ed’s Gumbo. Wasn’t it enough that he found a cure for cancer?”

“You thought you’d gotten rid of that threat when you killed that Chinese acupuncturist, but Ed found different means.”

“You always respected him a bit, didn’t you?”

“He was a man. Ed was a hard-working man. Sometimes I wanted to tell him who I was, where I was from, and what was wrong with me. That I had been sent into his house to train his child to drive him crazy.”

“You can’t quit. I received orders from Louisiana Red that we have one more job. You think you have problems. Do you think I like posing as a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley? The way the women in the English Department office whisper about my lack of potency and sometimes refuse to file for my office post box.

“Do you think that I enjoy it when they refuse to mimeograph copies of lecture notes for my students? Why, this campus reminds me of the set of I Was a Teenage Werewolf . If Louisiana Red hadn’t promised me this one-million-dollar retirement money, I never would have taken care of this assignment. I was doing all right with my New York industrial spy firm. But you, you have to stay until it’s over. They have you where they want you.”