Ishmael Reed - The Last Days of Louisiana Red

“I’m leaving.”

Max pulls out a sheet of paper from a desk drawer. “You know that Louisiana Red doesn’t play. They will get to you through your police record. You are a fugitive from justice, you know, you bag woman. (Reads) ‘Real name: The Hammerhead Shark.’ The title you picked up in that caper when you hit a man on the head with a hammer, put a hex on a congressman, double-crossed Jack Johnson, stabbed Martin Luther King, brought charges against Father Divine, brought down Sam Cooke in a blaze of gunfire and bad-mouthed Joe Louis. They know your penchant for Coon-Can and about your scar too. Not only are the law enforcement bureaus after you, but you know the consequences of crossing the Louisiana Red Corporation.”

“I’m not frightened any more. I’ve sent a message to the Red Rooster and told him that I want out, Max.”

“I’ve thought about leaving myself.”

“You have? Why, Max, we can leave together, go to Reno; why, I can get a job as a waitress, you can deal blackjack.”

“But they’ll follow us.”

“Not if we move fast enough.”

“Maybe we ought to. You know how I missed you during those long days. When you couldn’t be with me in my arms. How we had to limit ourselves to meeting every other Thursday, your day off. There must be thousands of us all over the country, meeting like this out of public view.

“Yes, my dearest, the American underground of Desire, the name of the first American slaver; we know each other on the street and recognize each other’s signals. How we pay subscriptions to our propaganda organs which convince the public that it’s only the Jim Brown and Racquel Welch bedroom scene that’s the problem. We rule America, all of it, my Nanny and me. The ‘Every Other Thursday Society.’ Yes, I want to leave, Lisa. My cover is getting to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That book I’m doing — the one on Richard Wright’s book.” He rushes to the bar, makes a drink and gulps it down. Then he slams the empty glass on the bar. “It’s getting to me. I’m having these dreams. Just before you knocked on the door, I had one. I was the murder victim and this big brute was coming towards me with a pillow.”

“That dream will come true if you won’t move over to the wall.”

The startled couple turned around to see the gunman standing in the doorway.

“Son of a bitch. So you were going to take it on the lam and leave me stranded now that the assignment has heated up.”

“T, take it easy, have a drink.”

“No thanks, I’m not thirsty. Here I have been playing the fool for these past years, helping you set up Ed Yellings, and now you are going to drop me. Years of swallowing my pride and acting like a kookie rookie when all along you two were carrying on. I’m finished with this assignment. I feel sick about what has happened to Minnie. She wants more power now than Marie Laveau, and you two did it to her. I’m going to call the Director of Louisiana Red Corporation, the Red Rooster, and tell him everything I know about you two. You see, it’s all over. That’s what I came up here to tell you about.”

“What’s all over?” Lisa says. “You don’t make sense.”

“About an hour ago Minnie busted George Kingfish Stevens and Andy Brown out of jail and then commandeered an airplane after miraculously evading San Francisco security, which was as tight as a drum. You don’t have anything else to use against Solid Gumbo Works because Minnie has been shot.”

“Shot,” both Lisa and Max exclaim.

“Yes, she was shot by a passenger. The poor child was rushed to a New York hospital. It sickens me, my part in this whole thing.”

He walks over to the telephone and dials.

“Hello operator, give me Louisiana Red Corporation in New Orleans, person to person to the Red Rooster, the number is area code 504—” but before he could say anything Max lunged for him and with incredible strength wrestled him to the floor. The gun went off, killing T Feeler.

“Max, let’s get out of here. We really must go now.”

Max slowly looked up from where he knelt over the corpse. “Who you callin Max, bitch? I’ll whip you into bad health.”

“Max, what’s the matter with you? Why are you talking that way?”

“I’m gone fix you good. Killing you won’t count. Not even the best critics will notice it. I’m going to kill you.” He walks towards her. She screams.

“Max! Stop!”

“Max? Who Max? I’m Bigger,” Max growls.

Chorus received the good news that morning. Yes, he had been ejected from a recital hall but he was still in demand. Another had called the day after his dismissal. His agent wanted him to fly to New York to check out its dimensions, its acoustics. His voice had been stifled so much over the years through bad distribution, poor and often hostile salesmen, indifference from those at the top that he insisted a clause be added to his contract giving him the right to satisfactory acoustics.

Chorus fed the cats, cleaned his apartment and was soon packing his white tuxedos. He drove to the San Francisco Airport and before long was airborne.

About ten minutes out, the stewardess asked him if he wanted to have a cocktail. He sipped his Bloody Mary and gazed out over some dry-looking mountains. He read a magazine. He napped for about a half-hour. He got up and walked down the aisle towards the bilingual toilet. He noticed a woman and two companions. He recognized her from her picture that had appeared in the Berkeley Barb and the San Francisco Chronicle . He recalled she made Herb Caen’s column regarding some Moochers’ benefit in which she shared the platform with Rev. Rookie.

He returned to his seat and read some more.

One of the woman’s companions rose and went towards the cockpit. Sky-jack! The man addressed the passengers telling them that no one would be hurt.

The two men, now wearing terrorist masks which looked like big woolen socks with two slits for eyes, walked down the aisle, putting the passengers’ valuables into some sacks while the skinny woman with them, quite fashionably dressed, began making some kind of speech to the passengers. She went on and on, and the more she talked, the more Chorus became enraged.

Chorus went along with it, though. He didn’t want any hassle. When they came to him, he would gladly give them whatever cash he had.

Fish came to Chorus and spoke sarcastically through his mouth opening.

“Well, what do we have here? Mr. Superstar. Big Nigger. I seen your picture in Jet . Some kind of actor you is.”

Chorus fumed.

“Sell-out, oreo niggers like you — I can’t stand. Fork over some of that money, you minstrel.” He laughed. “Hey, Andy, look what we have here. A minstrel all decked out in a white tuxedo.”

After taking Chorus’ money, they moved on, robbing some of the other passengers.

Minnie moved down the aisle as the men kept an eye on the passengers. She caught Chorus’ eye. She paused in front of him. She said she had seen his last performance. She said that she didn’t think it was “relevant.” She started calling him obscene names, standing in the aisle with her hands on her hips. She went on and on, and every time he tried to get a word in edgewise, she would scream, “YOU LISTEN TO ME, NIGGER. YOU LISTEN TO ME. LET ME FINISH. LET ME FINISH!”

Chorus knew what he had to do because he’d be damned if he was going through this scene again.

They are dining at Spenger’s Seafood Restaurant. Ernest Hemingway dined here and after talking to Frank Spenger went on to write The Old Man and the Sea . Frank Spenger remembered a time when there were so many crabs in the Bay they made a nuisance of themselves.