Ishmael Reed: The Last Days of Louisiana Red

Solid Gumbo Works had no need for a factory; no need for mojo; the museums could have the mojo, the Working artist could have it. Not even the need for modified mojo of Ed’s, the aspirin-like pill, the Gumbo in which he had distilled Doc John’s cancer-healing formulas. Louisiana Red had indeed completely gone from manual to mind. A calm mind, unlike the old Louisiana Red mind which could only lead to a stroke. People were calmer, more peaceful because Louisiana Red had gone from manual to mind. No longer the animal entrails, the mess you had to make to do good, but from manual to mind, the jet equilateral cross replacing the many charms — so many that one couldn’t keep track of their many names and the many rites in these fast-paced modern times.

Ted C. was right, all you needed was a silver cup; the loas didn’t mind as long as you nodded their way from time to time. Now each Worker would take the knowledge he had gleaned from Ed’s mastery and LaBas’ precise investigative techniques and would spread out through the land, taking care of Business, teaching, improving the quality of the product, giving the customer a fair deal, making only enough profit to sustain him or herself.

The Workers were removing the last objects from the factory. They could do without all of the trappings of Business. They had decided to take Ed’s challenge of going from manual to mind, that is, everything the Business required was inside of each Worker. They had gotten rid of Louisiana Red but maintained its pungency. The Workers were dispersing, spreading out across the country, each person responsible for the quality of his or her own craft, getting in touch with one another only when necessary, through ultrasonic telephones. He remembered the lesson of war where, if you put all of your airplanes on one field, they could easily be destroyed. That was the problem. The Moochers were done for, but how long would it be before some other group riding on the crest of any old fad would get all up in their face, demanding they do this and that with their Business when they were ignorant of what the Business was all about? Now, without a central location, no one could lay a hand on them.

He read the news item in the San Francisco Chronicle about people who were in the old Business à la Louisiana Red and how in Florida they skinned a dog, put pennies under its feet, a banana in its mouth and an apple in its rectum. This done to discourage a Business competitor. The Business could not survive with such crude methods. Their people must have forgotten that the Business could always adapt itself to whatever time and whatever place it found itself in. He had assembled the Workers a few hours before and told them they were liquidating the physical equipment because it was no longer necessary. That they could help people without the long technical prayers, the pills; they could help them through using their own inherent psychic energy. The Workers seemed relieved. There had been problems too. When people worked around one another all day, they got on the other fellow’s nerves. Ms. Better Weather had given him a tearful goodbye. She was going back into teaching, and though she would miss the operation she knew that this was best.

The Yellow Cab honked its horn. LaBas gathered his things and went outside and got in. He could smell the fresh breeze coming in from the Pacific. Soon he was at the SFO Heliport.

When the helicopter reached San Francisco, he got out and went into the TWA section for his flight to New York. There was a big commotion. It was Ruby Yellings, Ed’s divorced wife. She was in the company of some people from the Food and Drug Administration. She was announcing to the press their mission; they had come into town to investigate her husband’s business to see if there had been any violation of the law. He walked over to the newsstand, away from the hubbub generated by Ruby’s arrival, and bought a paper. The story was on page 1.

There were wholesale arrests in New Orleans after Solid Gumbo Works informed the Authorities in New Orleans of Louisiana Red Corporation’s crimes. As the French would say, “Chef Cock,” the Red Rooster, had been plucked. The music and the song of the country were no longer controlled by one family operating out of Brooklyn and Las Vegas, but were open once again to Free Enterprise. Louisiana Red was going out of style. The Louisiana Red that tempted even LaBas to consider having an arsonist shot until he found that arsonist was Minnie. Minnie was going to be all right. Young people are resilient, like a body that can grow back a limb.

Had the presence of Solid Gumbo Works meant the complete end of Louisiana Red as Ed wanted? Never, thought LaBas, who subscribed to the viewpoint that man is a savage who does the best he can, and so there will always be Louisiana Red. No, Ed wouldn’t go down as the man who ended Louisiana Red, but only one of many people who put it into its last days. But like the tough old swaggering pugnacious vitriolic cuss Louisiana Red was, it would linger on until it was put out of man’s mind forever. Ed would be remembered as the good Businessman whose only fault was too much heat; a model who showed the up-and-coming Businesses that “you can do it”; this achievement would eclipse even his cure for cancer.

LaBas chuckled at the thought of how Ruby would react when she found that the Solid Gumbo Works had dissolved to be carried on in the Work of each of its Workers.

(The next morning’s paper said that when her party arrived at Solid Gumbo Works and found only a deserted interior of plain walls, she became furious and cussed out everybody in sight. Ranking some of her Food and Drug male associates so they felt like crawling on into the Bay, which was some feet away.)

LaBas sat relaxing on the plane. It was a clear day and he could see the skyline of Chicago below. It looked like a row of dominoes, some taller than others. He had been on the plane for about three hours. There were magazines the stewardesses brought, but he wasn’t interested. He was writing a long report, a criticism of the Board of Directors, who were spending all of their time partying while the Workers were taking care of Business. Blue Coal had pulled rank on him and talked about seniority when LaBas complained about the lack of adequate bookkeeping and how he was only called upon during an emergency. He would submit a critical report to the stockholders, who were the Workers working from coast to coast. In this respect he would call for a clean slate and a new Board of Directors, and if this didn’t work he would go to higher-downs. Maybe it was time to elect a Gemini to the post. Somebody rational who wasn’t Pisces-eaten like Blue Coal (even though the Egyptians hated fish!) — somebody who wouldn’t be as indecisive as Pisces was, condemning somebody the first minute, releasing them the next. But first he was going to visit Hamadryas, who should have completed the translation of the line from “Minnie the Moocher.” He would take him a bag of pears dipped in champagne. Maybe Hamadryas had an inkling of what his next Work would be.

But what was this? He unbuckled his seat belt, bent down and picked up the Daily News from underneath the seat in front of him. It had a bizarre headline:

ZOO ATTENDANT’S SKULL

FRACTURED: BABOON CHARGED

Berkeley, California

December 13, 1973

*from Hoochy-Coochy: “one who practices Voodoo.” Dictionary of Afro-American Slang .