The Busting Out of an Ordinary Man (3 page)

“Ohhh my Lawwwd, please give me a sign she moaned, and lowered her head to the table to pray.

Lubertha's eyes wandered from face to face, smiling at one, nodding to another. There were times when she hated the Club's meetings without Kwendi, the way the brothers and sisters looked at her as though she were some kind of martyred black ghost.

She listened to Nici run up one list of financial figures and down another, explaining in detail exactly what expenditures had been made, what this and what that was all about.

Charlie Tucker stood as soon as she had finished, to give out the latest on Kwendi's case, what progress had been made and how. The job had formerly been Lubertha's, but over the years it had become too rough for her to handle emotionally to stand at meetings and announce to the world that her man was in a deep bind, that she was in limbo and that it was likely to be that way for years.

She caught Ojenkasi looking at her, a soft gleam in his eyes, and smiled pleasantly, neutrally, in his direction. He always seems to be looking at me these days, she reflected, gearing herself for the Political Awareness section of the meeting, her contribution.

In nine other places in the city, at staggered times, this same kind of meeting was taking place … with certain allowances for personality differences, the meeting was the same. The police-oppressors called them cell meetings of subversives, conspirators, and tried to keep tabs on them whenever they could. The membership simply called itself the Club, and came to learn a few truths, gain some insight and awareness, hoping eventually to put it all together in such a fashion that they would effect some profound changes in their neighborhoods, the city, the state and perhaps the country.

The Club had almost been killed off during the first three years of its existence, before it learned not to publicize its aims, to give the enemy guidelines but now it stood strong, vital and thriving. Kwendi's spirit giving it life.

Lubertha stood quickly at the conclusion of Charlie Tucker's report, in tune with the policy they had established to prevent business from dragging on and on. “This evening, sisters and brothers, goin' on with how some of the bullshit operates in this country I would like to cover briefly three specific areas that are very important to all of us. I haven't really labeled each of the areas because they're all interrelated politics, money and food.”

She paused to study her notes for a couple seconds, pursing her lips thoughtfully, mindful of a few things that Kwendi had laid on her in a recent letter. “Give them as much hip information as they can stand, baby black folks have been given enough entertainment and rhetoric, what we all need is some correct information information, information and more information, something that will act as a true agent for change.”

“First of all,” she continued, “on the political side, I don't think I have to go into a whole bunch of examples to show how rotten the political structure of the country is at this point in time. Even the corrupt newspapers owned by the corrupt politicians find themselves being forced to tell the truth because everyone knows the truth nowadays, well, at least those who admit that they know the truth.

“As you all remember, in our last meeting we discussed the reasons why the political structure started off stanky and got progressively rotten as time went on. That was back in the days of Georgie Wash-in-ton the uh ruhhh father of our country.”

She paused to allow the laughter that her sarcastic tone of voice provoked to die down.

“The span of time we have covered goes from then to now,” she held up a newspaper clipping of one of the president's latest lies, “but the prerequisite, the conditions needed for wrongdoin' in government have always existed, they've been encouraged, the founding ‘fathers' made certain of that. The only changes that've been made over the years is that the corruption is more sophisticated, more ruthless, more corrupt now.

“Two of the greatest reasons why corruption has always been a part of the American political scheme of things concerns, first of all, money, and secondly, money. We could reverse those two things and still wind up, probably, with the same hill o' beans.”

She checked Chico Daddy and Chiyo Mungu's expressions out closely to determine whether or not her message was getting through. She knew, from experience, if they were understanding it all, then she was over.

Chiyo's puzzled frown told her that she'd have to go a little deeper, in a simpler way.

“Let's step back in time a lil' bit, to when the contracts and deals were being made. One of the things that the dealer made certain of when he was passin' out the contracts was that the dudes with the most bread got the biggest cut of whatever was being passed out … them that's got shall get. Them that's not shall lose, so Billie Holiday said in her song.

“Despite all the rhetoric about this being a democracy 'n all, it didn't start off that way and it hasn't become one yet as a matter of fact, it's lookin' more and more like it's not about to happen every day.”

Chiyo's frown eased slightly.

“O.k., I started off about money, power and food. If you check the situation out closely, you'll see the people who've always been in power, those few rich dudes who decide how much everything is goin' to cost, the ones who have always had the means to manipulate prices … and since we all have to eat, the greatest manipulation has been with food prices.

“Yeahhh, I know, we can talk about steel, lumber and a whole bunch of other things, but they wind up being spinoffs from the basic manipulations.”

She paused again, to watch Ojenkasi walk over and shake Sherman from a light nap, or was he nodding? There were rumors going around about him.

“Now then,” she continued, smiling briefly at Ojenkasi, “on the basis of what we've gone over before, we know that, early on in the game, the power structure of this country has practiced dollar imperialism, backed up by superior bullshit and a greater lack of scruples than almost any other country in modern times. Including England.

“Those of us who've paid close attention to how and why this country has messed around in the internal affairs of other countries know that usually the reason was for the benefit of the rich and the rippin' off of the poor. To use an example, a lot of people would like to believe that the American war fought against the Vietnamese people was to prevent the spread of communism from the north of Vietnam to the south. Meanwhile, the president of this country was over in Big Bad Red China, drinkin' toasts with Mao because the money people here, fed up with that rhetoric about a jive Bamboo Curtain, had told him, look asshole! git your jiveass over there and set up some trade agreements with those people … eight-hundred million Chinese are dyin' for a Coca Cola and a stick of Beechnut chewin' gum.

“And so he went, just like he was 'sposed to go, because Big Business sent him.

“Meanwhile, back in the war, which was being fought for control of the dope trade in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.…”

BoBo spoke out, a skeptical look on his serious, dark face, “For the dope trade, sister?!”

“That's right, brother for the dope trade. Doesn't it stand to reason? Dig it practically every commercial enterprise in this country is fought over, or for, in one sense of the word or another. Now let's face it, heroin is big, big business,” she paused briefly to stare pointedly at Sherman's dreamy expression. “If any of us in this room had a kilo of heroin that we wanted to kill our people off with, all we'd have to do is get together with those who are tryin' to do it anyway and make a sale.

“Two to one, whoever bought it would probably cheat us in the deal and have us ripped off, to seal the deal. But that's to be expected. All I'm really tryin' to say, by way of example, is that dope dealin' is probably the biggest and best business in the world you got a built-in consumer market, and the profits are fantastic. Why wouldn't they fight a war over that? Call it America's secret opium war if you want to.”

She paused again, theatrically, to let her message sink in, feeling proud of the enlightened look she had put on BoBo's face. “I think I've drawn enough parallels between money and power, that's not too hard to put together. I'd like to wind up with the connection of food to all this.…”

She felt tempted to say “Kwendi says,” but erased the thought, anxious not to mummify what he was saying to her in letters, besides, he'd told her many times about the dangers of the cult thing.

“If you check out the price on items like bread 'n milk, for example, you'll see that they've usually been jacked up unmercifully after one of this country's wars the reason being, after the power elite have made all they can make on guns 'n bullets, and there's not too much more to be made on other items, the one stable source for a ripoff is food, so they add three or four pennies more to items we have to have and continue makin' up, keepin' our cost of livin' high so that they can cover their inflated standard of livin'.”

She probed the attentive faces for a sign of disagreement as she talked, feeling a twinge of guilt at not being able to really say in words something about the concepts, the ideas that Kwendi was laying on her from his deep introspection in prison.

She came to the end of her remarks with a solid bit of advice, “Know where they're comin' from, or else you might get fooled,” and sat down, feeling vaguely dissatisfied with her presentation. For some reason, no matter what she said or how she said it, it was always a dim shadow of the kind of muscular intensity Kwendi had going.

Abdul Aboud stood next, to give a progress report on their alliance with three Chicano groups who were modeling an organization after theirs. Lubertha studied the fiercely carved lines in Abdul's face and wondered, for the first time, what his name had been before he changed it.

The beginning of the Club, the agony that made it necessary, the guidelines established, the early days of arguments about what they would or could accomplish, flashed through her consciousness as she listened to the heavy rise and fall of brother Abdul's voice. A sudden, deepfelt sense of hope lessness overwhelmed her for a moment … she lowered her head, afraid that the feeling would show in her eyes, betray everything they were trying to accomplish. What the hell did it matter? she asked herself, if they had cleaned all the dope peddlers out of the neighborhood and had some slimy politician take all the credit for it.

What did it matter that her little seminars on American politics taught young brothers and sisters more than they would ever learn in any American school about the real nature of the dominant white power force? Or that they had established sections in each one of the Clubs that dealt with Art, Music, Ourstory, Drama, Mathematics, Sociology, the Politics of Revolutions and how to make them work. In addition to having worked on each other, sharpening their sense of brotherness with real sacrifices for each other, like sending Rudy to school.

None of it seemed to matter, she thought sadly, none of it, so long as the world they were living in was threatened to be polluted out of existence, any coming month now. Not something purely black, white, yellow, brown or any other color, despite the fact that the white boy, with his misguided ideas about what manhood was all about, was largely responsible for it.

No, this was something greater than they were a little bunch of Afro-Americans wanting human rights, this was a planet rights thang, and she hated being forced to only deal with a thin, thin slice of the whole thing.

Nici Miles nudged Maisha, pointed at Lubertha with her eyelashes, Maisha nodded back, aware of Lubertha's state of mind, saddened beyond words for her sister's hurt … After all, how many Kwendis were there in the world?

The meeting went on Rudy slouched down in his seat, half a mind on what might be going on at the Club's meeting, half a mind on what the little dull-eyed Jewish guy with the tweed sports jacket and the expensive pipe was saying.

He glanced around at his classmates, their shiny blue eyes riveted on the instructor's movements as though he were an A+ in slow motion. His attention wandered into the seat two aisles to the right of him, right up between the milk-fed thighs of Dora Hirschberger and then sped away, guilt ringing down the curtain.

This was definitely not what the Club was sending him to school for!

He smiled to himself and scribbled a flurry of notes, what a helluva idea! His own, he thought proudly, to send Club members off to school, to use their talents in as many ways as possible to help the community. The idea had blossomed in him during Kwendi's third trial, attended to by a jive black lawyer who had been damned near shamed into dealing with the case, threatened might've been a different way to describe his involvement.

It was at that point that he began to persuade, first Kwendi and then the membership. Rather than just be some damned gang, he had argued, whipping asses and taking names, why not become doctors, lawyers, artists, professionals working for the Club's causes? Which had to be the people's causes, 'cause that's who they were.

He frowned at the memory of some of the arguments, some of the opposition the sisters and brothers had given him.

“Awww, what the fuck you tryin' to pull, Rudy!? All you wanna do is take a freebie on our backs.”

Yeahhh, the obstacles had been there, but eventually, with Kwendi backing the idea and the membership falling in line, they had managed to stick four sisters and brothers into school. Law, economics, Kwendi's idea “We ought to know how money makes things function up in here.” Kwendi Jones, beautiful brother. Ourstory, political science, and they were trying to groom a brother and sister for medical school; that was going pretty slow because of the expense, but hopefully, within the next few years, they would have Club doctors, lawyers, economists, hip dudes from the block with more than just degrees, pieces of paper, more than an “education,” they would have a sense of commitment to the community that sponsored them.