Reckless Eyeballing (10 page)

“Tremonisha says that Hitler was Jewish and that the reason he hated the Jews was because he actually hated himself, or wanted the approval of white people.”

“She got it all wrong. It was the German nation that tried to become white. You ask a Swede, a Norwegian or a Dane, or an Icelander whether the Germans are Nordic, as Hitler claimed, and he will laugh in your face. I mean, this Nibelungen thing that Hitler was raving about—it doesn't even belong to the Germans. It's under lock and key in a museum in Reykjavik. It's the sacred work of the Nordic people. Written on cowhide, and in different colors of ink. The Germans have too much Tartar blood to be Nordic. The Khans left onion-shaped domes all over Germany, and that is not all they left. Hitler probably had more Mongol blood than anything else; most of those people come out of central Asia. There's still no hard evidence that Hitler was Jewish, regardless of what Tremonisha says. It was the German nation that went crazy trying to be white; they tried everything, they tried to claim the Greeks, they tried to claim the Egyptians. Nothing worked, and so Hitler came along and said
you're white
so often that they believed it, and so for as long as Hitler was in power, every German person stood in front of his mirror and didn't see himself, but saw a blond, blue-eyed Aryan. Talking about schizophrenia. He had them mesmerized.

“As for Tre, they don't even understand her plays. But as long as she takes swipes at the brothers, Becky will keep her.” He leaned over. Whispering. “Between you and me, I think it's because of some affair Becky had when she was in the South organizing during the sixties. Some black dude. Fucked over her. Stole her credit cards, and forged her checks, and now she's using Tremonisha to get even with all black men. Kind of like a circus act where the ringmaster shoots a dummy out of a cannon. She dared not tamper with your play because of Jim Minsk. I'm surprised that they even gave you a workshop, now that he's dead.”

“Brashford says that the Jews are using blacks to keep the goyim off their case. All this stuff about pathology—welfare, crime and dope, single parent households—he says that the conservative Jews keep those issues on the front burner so's the goyim will be so angry with blacks that they will ignore the Jews and leave them alone. He says that the black criminals might mug somebody or relieve them of a gold chain, but they never built no empire of crime like Murder Incorporated like the Jews did.”

“Ninety-five percent of the audience for his stuff is Jewish. The blacks don't like him, nor his work. Listen, you're going to have to wean yourself away from Brashford. Hasn't he gotten you enough grants and fellowships? I mean, it must be embarrassing.”

Ball didn't say anything. The waiter came and handed Shoboater the check. He pulled out his American Express and signed for it.

“I got to hand it to you, Ball. You're the original malevolent rabbit. You couldn't care less about what happened to Brashford. As soon as you stop using him, you'll use somebody else. Your mother was like that. Wasn't she arrested?” Ball leaned over and grabbed the sucker by the collar. The diners looked at the pair, but Ball didn't care. He let him go. Shoboater was trembling.

“Hey man. Calm down. Here, have some coffee, it's like the kind they have down home. None of this weak northern stuff.” He poured Ball some coffee from the silver pot the waiter had left.

“I'm sorry, Paul. But when somebody puts my mother down, I just go crazy.” Besides, he wanted Shoboater to write a good review of
Reckless Eyeballing
.

“So Randy Shank is a doorman uptown,” Shoboater said, changing the subject, smiling profusely and straightening his clothes.

“He's an important playwright. He paved the way for us all. Now that he's down on his luck, you guys are pouncing on him like buzzards, lingering over his bones.”

Shoboater looked at his watch. “Hey, I'm late. I have to go uptown for the interview with—” He mentioned the name of another black feminist writer who had finished a book.

She wrote in a style that Brashford sarcastically called “finishing school lumpen.” Brashford accused the woman of having maimed the speech of ghetto women for the benefit of white women who didn't know any better.

He rose and hurried out of the restaurant. The tailor-made suit had his butt sticking out. That amused Ball.

“Anything else, monsieur?” the waiter asked.

“Yeah. Give me another Pabst,” Ball said. The waiter turned up his nose.

That night he dreamed that all of those giant Amazon women that Shoboater had said were on the walls of museums on the domed ceilings of churches, and on public buildings in Europe had escaped and were chasing him and the fellas through the streets. These giant women didn't seem to have much difficulty in catching them, despite the heavy clothing they were wearing. None of them tripped over her skirt. They were “monstropolous,” as Zora Neale Hurston would say.

O'Reedy was getting nowhere with his search for the Flower Phantom. The bastard's somewhere right now, probably laughing at me, he thought as he entered his house in Queens. He hung up his coat and hat in the hall.

“Where's dinner?” he said gruffly. He heard low voices talking in the living room. He couldn't make out what they were saying.

He sees things. I think that he needs a rest, and the other day he didn't know that I was in the house, and he was in the bedroom with that thing
.

What thing?

That gun. He had it next to him
.

Maybe he was keeping it under the pillow
.

No, he had it next to his cheek. He had a smile on his face
.

I'll try to talk Dad into taking a vacation
.

He calls the gun Nancy. I mean, Sean, I wouldn't…I mean I've been a good wife, and, well, if it was another woman, I'd understand, and even another man, I mean, I try to keep up with the times, but Sean, competing with a gun—
He stood in the doorway. He cleared his throat.

“Oh, dear, we didn't hear you come in, Sean is here.”

“Yeah, I see him with my own eyes. So what were you two gabbing about?” He folded his arms and leaned against one side of the threshold.

“We, ah, we—” his wife began. “Oh, I'd better see about dinner.” She went into the kitchen, leaving Sean to his father. His son looked more like O'Reedy's father, Captain Timothy O'Reedy, who was known as a great risk taker, and finally made captain after a controversial career and many unnecessary homicides, which he claimed took place in the line of duty. Freckled face, red hair, but unlike his grandfather Sean O'Reedy was a wimp, in the eyes of his dad. He was thirty-five years old and still in school.

“Mom and I were thinking, Dad, you've built all of this vacation time up, maybe you ought to take a vacation, kind of get your schedule ready for retirement.”

“I haven't missed a day's work in the thirty years I've been on the force.” O'Reedy picked up the newspaper from the doorway entrance and sat down on a sofa and began reading as though Sean wasn't even there. On the wall of the living room were framed portraits of the Virgin Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The queen was seated. The wall also bore a painting of a landscape, and there were furnishings that elitists would consider kitsch. He could smell the roast beef coming from the kitchen.

“Staying for dinner?” O'Reedy asked, not even taking time to look up from his paper. The headlines read:
FLOWER PHANTOM STRIKES AGAIN
.

“I don't think so, Dad, I have a date tonight.”

“Yeah, when do you think you're going to settle down? Your mother keeps talking about grandchildren.” O'Reedy was uncomfortable being left in the same room with Sean. Something about the kid was strange. Always into the books, never any time for fun, and when O'Reedy took him to some chippies to get him broken in, the kid ran away. Scared of broads.

“Dad, I came to say goodbye.” O'Reedy looked up.

“Goodbye, what do you mean, goodbye?”

“I'm going to California, Dad. I'm going to be teaching Irish studies.” His father slowly lowered the newspaper from his face.

“Irish what?”

“Irish studies. I've been hired by a foundation that's begun an institute in ethnic studies.”

“And what was it again that you were going to teach?”

“Irish studies.”

“And what, may I ask, is that?”

“It's the study of Irish culture, history, politics, literature—” O'Reedy laughed as his lanky son stood before him dressed in a tweed jacket, green turtleneck sweater, jeans, and sneakers.

“Hey, you come here.” His wife came into the room, but not before turning down the portable television's volume. Bette Davis was giving Anne Baxter a good scolding on the subject of ambition.

“Tell her what you told me.”

“He's teaching Irish studies, he told me all about it,” she said.

“Both of you are nuts,” O'Reedy said, rising. “I thought that you'd finally come to your senses. Thought that you might go into something worthwhile. The high tech stuff. Now that's where the money is. I said give him time. He'll shape up. Settle down. But no, none of these neighborhood girls are good enough for you. Downtown freaks, like that…the one you brought into your mother's house, didn't like me using the word broad or chick. And now this Irish studies. All about stupid micks.”

“Dad, don't say that.”

“I think he's doing the right thing, dear,” Mrs. O'Reedy said.

“Who's asking you. Get back into the kitchen.”

“Yes, dear,” she said, returning to the kitchen.

“What can you learn about Irishmen in a university that you can't learn down at the local gin mill?”

“Look, I have to go, Dad. My date.”

“Probably some fucking hippie like the last one. Kept interrupting all of the male guests with her crazy ideas, embarrassing me in front of my buddies and their wives. She wouldn't even offer to help with the dishes. Yet you got all high and mighty when I tried to introduce you to those hookers that time when I was trying to help you learn things.”

“You hate yourself, Pop, you're Irish, yet you don't think that the Irish have produced anything worthwhile. You and your father, just carrying out the orders of people who hate you, who treat you no differently than they would a stage Irishman, a clown—”

“Now, you wait—” O'Reedy said, rising.

“A great Irish-American writer like James T. Farrell had to borrow money from friends because the Irish were so busy trying to assimilate that they didn't support their artistic geniuses, ignored them because they were considered too ethnic by people on the make. Reminded them of a world they wanted to leave behind, and so they use your pop—”

“How would you like to get a good belt—”

“That's right. Be their Dirty Harry Callahan. If you can't get your way, use violence. You're like the middle men all over the world, the muscle, the fists for people who spit on your kind, you're protecting their property by beating up people. You and your father, both mercenaries. At the turn of the century they used your father against the Jews on the Lower East Side and against other Irish. Why do you think they call those vehicles that transport prisoners paddy wagons? Did you ever think of that? And now they use you against the blacks and the Puerto Ricans.”

“That's enough outta you.”

“Don't think I don't know about those three Spanish guys and that jogger—” O'Reedy knocked his son over the sofa he was standing in front of.

“Get up! Get up! I'll teach you.” His wife ran from the kitchen screaming.

“You keep out of this,” he said. One Spanish guy was standing behind Sean. He was thumb-nosing O'Reedy, mocking him. The other two Spanish guys sat on the edge of the couch behind which Sean was beginning to rise. One had a radio next to his head and the other was popping his fingers. They were wearing party shirts and dark glasses. O'Reedy stepped back, a look of horror on his face.

“Dad, what's wrong?” Sean said. As he said that, the black jogger ran through the room, entering through one wall and exiting through another. O'Reedy went for his gun, but before he could fire Sean knocked it out of his hand.

“I…” his father was in a daze. Sean and Mrs. O'Reedy escorted him to the couch.

“I'll be all right. I just need a drink. Son, I'm sorry, I just haven't…”

“It's all right,” Sean said, going to the kitchen to remove a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. O'Reedy's wife remained in the room. She sat next to him on the couch. He put his head in her lap and began to sob.

“Don't worry, dear,” she said. “You'll be retiring soon.”

Opening night. The play was going splendidly. The ninety-nine people were sitting on top of one another, and must have been uncomfortable, but they were paying close attention to the developments onstage. Tremonisha had supervised every detail: costumes, lighting, props, sets, et cetera. But where was Tre? He'd called her house, but there hadn't been an answer for a week or so. Nobody had seen her since their encounter in the office where her blowup with Becky had taken place. Becky had brought in another director who merely supervised the details of mounting the play that Tre had created. Becky insisted that Tre's version of the play not be tampered with. They waited a half hour after the scheduled opening time for her to show up, but when she didn't they decided to begin. She'd worked out every detail with such professionalism that there was really no need for her now. Ian's respect for her had certainly increased, and he hoped that she'd never learn what he and the fellas said about her behind her back, all of the scurrilous, unprintable things. They talked about Clotel the mulatto and Coretha the black woman, and how they and their Native-American, Asian, and Hispanic sisters had had babies by every conceivable European man from the tip of Argentina to the Arctic—how they'd performed the hemispheric sixty-nine with Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Russians, British, Scots, Irishmen, and God knows what other kind of European white eyes.

Act I was a tremendous hit, with some of the audience breaking into applause after particularly dramatic lines and speeches. The only male member of the cast was the skeleton of Ham Hill, which they'd borrowed from one of the local medical schools. The play opened with the female judge, who wore her hair in a dignified bun, Cora Mae, her lawyer, Ham Hill's lawyer, played by an excellent black actress, though on the plump side—but the casting director had said that they'd lose one-third of the white male audience if they didn't include “a ham,” as this type of actress was called—the female jury, and female bailiff. Even the two gravediggers were female. They all stood around the grave as the coffin of Ham Hill was raised. Ball had included some telling eye exchanges in this scene. Ham Hill's defense lawyer, who was wearing a black pin-striped suit, white silk blouse, and huge black bow tie, her hair straightened and glossy, was glaring with contempt at the plaintiff, Cora Mae, now a radical feminist lesbian, part owner of a bookstore, and her lover, a woman with short hair, a round face, and wearing glasses. The two embraced and sobbed as the coffin lid was raised. Cora Mae's lawyer, who was dressed like one of the female executives one sees in
Ms
. magazine—attaché case, business suit—remained expressionless during the entire scene, which ended with the skeleton of Ham Hill being removed from the coffin and placed into a patrol car—offstage—for the trip to the courthouse, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and great applause. Though one drunken black male first-nighter was ejected from the theater for standing and shouting—“Looks like a case of dig the nigger up and kill him again.”

The second act took place inside the courtroom and was highlighted by Ham Hill's attorney demolishing the testimony of Cora Mae. She showed the jury photos of Cora as she appeared twenty years before, in the sixties, with heavy makeup, miniskirt, eye shadow, rouge, blond hair with black roots: a sleaze and a tease. Over the objection of Cora's defense lawyer, Ham Hill's attorney said that there was no difference between Cora Mae and the man who opens his coat and displays his genitals to females in public places. Her description of Cora Mae as a flasher brought an eruption of discussion from the courtroom, whereupon the judge banged the gavel for order. Cora Mae, the defense attorney claimed, craved attention from men and only complained about Ham Hill when she noticed that Ham Hill wasn't staring at her in the fateful encounter outside the supermarket where Ham Hill worked as a packer. At that moment the skeleton, with a sardonic grin, began to slide to the floor; the bailiff propped it up. This gesture by the corpse, as if done to make a point, was applauded wildly by the audience. The judge overruled the objections of Cora Mae's lawyer, stating that Ms. Mae's reputation in the sixties was certainly relevant to the case. The second act ended with Cora Mae's lover—both of them were dressed in men's clothes and looked as though they'd just climbed from beneath a manhole—jumping to her feet and complaining about Cora's treatment and the judge citing the woman for contempt and ejecting her from the courtroom. It took five strong women to accomplish this deed.

During the intermission Ball went out into the lobby. Average everyday normal middle-class people were congratulating him and parting him on the back, while the white feminists stared at him stonily. He could tell that their black feminist friends had really enjoyed the performance of Ham Hill's defense attorney but wouldn't let on before their white sisters; one came up to him later and told him so. The fellas had said that a lot of feminists were okay when you had a one-on-one relationship with them, but when they were around the sisters they'd get all fired up. The academic black Marxist-Leninists were in one corner sneering, and the black avant-garde members of the audience segregated themselves from the rest of the people in the lobby. They were standing near the wall, sulking.

Drat them, Ball thought. He figured that he had it made. The third act would begin with Cora Mae back on the stand. Under questioning, Cora Mae would reveal that it took her twenty years to bring charges against Ham Hill, the lynch mob victim, because she'd been converted from a rock and roll sex kitten to a radical feminist and was only now capable of assessing the heinousness of Ham Hill's crime. That she felt it was important to clear her name. That if there was no trial, there'd always be the suspicion that she was trying to lure Ham Hill, the supermarket packer, who'd been lynched by her husband and his friends. That sex with her husband was no good after the incident and that he'd spent many nights during their married life pacing the floor and sitting on the porch, staring at the stars. She would testify that her social life had been ruined until she took up with her lover and opened the radical lesbian bookstore. The audience would hiss and catcall at this explanation, Ball was sure. Confident, Ball decided to leave the workshop performance of his play and head upstairs to the Lord Mountbatten, where “the important play” was taking place. As he walked up the aisle well-wishers touched his elbows or shook his hands.