The Last Days of Louisiana Red (7 page)

“Just don't ask me up here any more. I am not a Mrs. Rusty Easterhood, I'm a person. You men think it always has to be your way. Do your housework, raise your children. Well, I'm sick of it; I want to play tennis, express myself, visit motels. Big Sally,” she says, looking up to her, “you busy this evening?”

“Look, it's hot,” said Maxwell Kasavubu, so sensible, so cool at these times. “We've gone through a difficult transition from an obscure Telegraph Avenue notion to a movement to be reckoned with. I'll fly to Africa, pick up Street tomorrow.”

“But what do you make of Street's criminal record? You remember how he murdered that brother and escaped from jail,” Easterhood asked. “The editorial board of the
Moocher Monthly
has had a change of viewpoint concerning the effectiveness of the charismatic lumpen.”

“That doesn't count. Just another nigger killing. What's a nigger to the law?” Max said.

Rev. Rookie, Sally, Rusty and even Cinnamon gave Max a momentary hostile look. But when he asked, “Did I say something wrong?” they outdid each other trying to put him at ease. All except Rusty. She didn't owe him anything.

(The 70-foot-long main ballroom of the house given to Street Yellings by the ruler of a contemporary African country. Asian, European and Arab hippies are dancing smoking eating and talking. Street's associates, the Argivians, a band of international hoodlums who serve as Street's elite bodyguards, are wearing jackets with grim emblems sewn on them. When their flesh is bared, grotesque and ugly tattoos can be seen. Tambourines are shaking. Incense is burning. Cats are strolling about, and in recognition of their presence there is the thick odor of cat feces in the air. One fellow sits in the corner, his vomit splattered all over his jacket. He is napping. A girl is being walked up and down the room with friends who are helping her crash. Minnie's brother, Street, sits in a huge hollow wooden throne. He glowers as he holds an archaic weapon in each fist.)

 

STREET:
I'm beginning to like this Gimmie over here. This is like the Big Gimmie they only dream about back home. Twenty rooms for everyone; limousines at my beck and call; a view of the sea and lots of discussion. My radio broadcasts are big with the populace, and so now many are beginning to envy my power. Who knows? James Brown is real big over here now. They like Americans. What new influences from us will they be desiring next? My host, the President, has nothing going for him. Always attending parties given by Europeans, without his wife. Always handkissing and talking about London. London this, London that. Said he was a Fabian socialist after the manner of George Bernard Shaw. Clown. And that car he drives. The joke of the embassies. A city-block long with gold and ivory trimmings. In the back seat a bathtub purchased with a tenth of the country's treasury; a real gaudy number. Had it shipped over
.

(Street's thoughts are interrupted by one of his seven bodyguards, Hog Maw.)

 

HOG MAW: Man, Street. The States were nothing like this. You gets all the pussy over here your belly needs. Don't even have to take it. Here man, drop some of these.

 

STREET: Don't mind if I do. (Street takes a handful of colored pills and gulps them down. He gives the signal for the revelry to cease. A “rock” record is turned off.) You bitches over there, shut your asses. I just got some cans of films from the States from the Gimmie underground over there. Let's all go into the projection room and see them. They're about a Black superhero named “Dong.” He has it out with the mob and stays up all night playing cards. Plus, he is a real pool shark!

 

1ST. ARGIVIAN: Fantastic!

 

2ND. ARGIVIAN: What a groove. I mean zow, what a groove.

(They exit to the projection room. Street remains behind. He turns to see a man standing in the doorway. The man is wearing a pith helmet, safari outfit, elephant boots. He carries a lion tamer's whip.)

“Who you?” Street said, eyeing Max Kasavubu suspiciously, stroking his chin and shutting one eye. “O yeah, I know. Yous the dude used to hang out with Minnie, my sister. You one of them Moochers, ain't you?”

“I'm glad you recognize me, brother. It makes things easier.”

“Easier?” Street stepped down from the stairs leading to his throne, wrapping his superfly cape about his shoulders and making loud noises with his funkadelic boots.

“My task, Street. I have been authorized by the committee to offer you a proposal. In exchange you'll be brought back to the States.”

“Well, you wastin your breath, buddy. I ain't never going back there. Jiveass fascist Amerika. No good.”

“That's why we need you, Street.”

“Need me for what?”

“Look, Street, don't you understand that the place hasn't been the same since you left? Folks really miss you. Remember how you used to come and beat up people at rallies? How you and your gang would come in and wipe us out? Obliterate our refreshments and run off with the liquor? People miss that. Now they say, where's Street? There's nobody to rip us off any more. Professors from Queens are writing papers on you. Missing you.”

“Writing papers on me? Why would they be writing papers on me? Why would they be spending their time writing papers on me and the boys?”

“Because, Street. In these times when things are so structured, so sterile, people need someone to remind them of the power of spontaneity, of uninhibited existential action. Bam! Street. Bam! Bam!”

“Huh?”

“Let me put it this way, Street. When you used to come into those parties in those high heels, those floppy three-musketeers' hats, those earrings, Street. Those huge glowing earrings you wore and that headrag, Street! That headrag all greasy and nasty (said nastily). People would say, Now there goes someone who is just like a natural man. Then, that night, you came into that party with nothing but those gold chains on you, symbolizing … symbolizing the dreaded past, and that Isaac Hayes haircut. You remember what happened, Street?”

“The people bought it.”

“That's right, Street, the people bought it.”

Street walked to his window on Africa. Victoria Falls was streaming down its wonders. Elephants roamed. In the distance he could see a gazelle leaping. Good old Africa. Good. Old. Africa. Who was this man tempting him so? Telling him the glory that awaited him back home. He could see it now. Five thousand in Golden Gate Park. Eight thousand in Sheeps' Meadow. Clapping. Just a-clapping. Clapping real loud while he strolled about the stage in his great maxi coat made of condor feathers and his hat. Why, maybe he could save his peoples. That's it. He would be the Moses of his peoples.

“Why, Street, I could see the headlines in the
Chronicle
right now. ‘On holy Mission—Street says.' Well, what do you say, Bigger… I mean Street!”

“What about that incident in the club in Oakland? That man they said I killed when they tried to frame me.”

“Thirty-two witnesses said they saw you do it, Street.”

“I don't care. They was probably informers working for the fascist Amerika. They framed me, that's what happened.”

“Don't worry about it, Street. We got some of our money to get you off. That murder doesn't count anyway. Negroes kill each other every day, and after a few hours the murderer is back out on the street. In New York they are killing each other at a rate of eight negroes to one white.”

“Hey, ain't my sister leading this Moocher thing anyway?”

“She talks over the people's heads, Street,” Max said, now cooler, lighting a pipe. “She runs around Berkeley with these bodyguards she has for herself called the Dahomeyan Softball Team, a bunch of butches who split a man's head open with a baseball bat. They go about ejecting men from the Moocher rallies mostly, losing recruits for us, diverting attention from our real foe: LaBas, industry, Business.”

“LaBas—who is that?”

“He's the man your brother Wolf brought in after your father was killed, I'm sorry, I …”

“Skip it. He wan't nothin anyway. Bourgeois sell-out and a punk, that's what he was. A punk. A torn.”

“I didn't know you were political, Street.”

“I wan't then but I am now. When I was framed and sent to the slams, mysterious visitors brought me this book. And it was this book that turned me on. I brought the book over here and read it from page to page. The first book I ever finished.”

Maxwell Kasavubu examined Street:
This lousy son of a bitch! Why do I admire him so? Why did I permit them to put this man in? I couldn't tell them about my dreams, my dreams about him. Jungle drums. There I am tied up and wriggling on a post while these yelping nigger savages are jumping up and down. Mary Dalton, virginal and nude, is about to be… about to face a crime worse than death. And I am saying or trying to say, “Mary, I'll save you,” but the words won't come out. I am forced to watch them violate this beautiful young thing, sticking Burgers into her cavities while she almost faints from … she feels faint. And then this huge black gorilla they are calling Old Sam whips out his “Johnson,” as they say. And the drums, the drums pound across my sensibility, and I cry, “Mary, my Ivory Snow Mother, I'll save you,” and they shout, “Old Sam,” the natives shout, “Old Sam” at this hideous grinning creature, the creature in a Bosch drawing, and then the slow rhythm builds into a rising crescendo as the head of his Johnson slides on into home … EEEEEEEEEEEE!

“What's wrong, Max? I was going to tell you that I would take your proposal when you started staring off into space real weird.”

“An old war wound, Street. It comes and goes. I got it in the Pacific. World War II,” Max said, holding his helmet. “Just let me sit down, Street.”

“Sure, Max. Shall I get you a drink?”

“That's fine, Street, sure.”

Street went to the liquor cabinet, walking through the muck track on the floor.

“Nice place you got here, Street. How long did the President give it to you for?”

Street was making a drink.
White folks wonts to know all yo business. How much you pay for this, how much you paying for that, how are you getting by? Always checking niggers. Like slavery days. Nigger, let me see your pass. Where you going? Whose nigger is you? Well, if he wants to sponsor me and my boys back in the States, that's fine with me. I don't care if it is my own sister. Dumb ho. Dad gave her all the benefits he denied Wolf, Sister and me. Well, I'm a Moocher's Moocher. We'll see about this
.

“O, he give it to me until I can get myself together, why?”

“Just asking, Street. We have a little ranch-styled number for you and your people we leased up on Grizzly Peak in Berkeley. I know you'll like it. You can stay as long as you want.”

“What about Minnie, my sister?”

“We've taken care of her. She didn't make a big fuss about the committee's decision, but you never can tell. She was my protégé and she got out of hand. She and her Dahomeyan Athletes.”

“When do you want me to return, Max?”

“As soon as possible. We have a chartered plane on stand-by in case you would come.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, huh, Max?”

“Not at all, Street. I know you, Street, know you better than maybe you know yourself. You started out in the thirties and got Bigger and Bigger, but you were on our minds and in our souls a long long time before that. We knew you'd come.”

“Huh?”

“It's that book I'm working on. The critical work on
Native Son
. Can't get it off my mind.”
What's a nigger doing with a villa like this? A French chef. While back home his people are starving. Why, I don't even have a home as good as this. Thick carpets. Probably lies about all day smoking pot and getting laid. Just the kind I need for psychological scab service to strike LaBas and Wolf. He'll do for the assignment, though. Then I can really retire. My baby and me
.

LaBas and Wolf are seated on a sofa sipping some white rum as they watch the flat TV screen on which Street is being interviewed.

“Look at him running off at the mouth. He's become a media event.”

“What do you suppose led to a reconciliation between him and the authorities of the Moochers, Pop? I thought they'd put out an alert on him—that he was to be killed on sight. Now he's returned.”

“He's been brought here to stop us. That's for sure, Wolf. As if Minnie wasn't enough. Another one of our convoys was ambushed by her Moochers the other night. I tried to get the politicians in this town to do something about her terrorist activities against the Business, but they're suspicious of me because I'm from the east. The fear of the stranger. Vestiges of the American dark ages co-existing with nowadays when people are constantly shifting about. Next time she starts something we'll have to invoke one of our ancient company.”

“I hope not. The last time you called one up and had him touch someone, the man implored you to take it off of him. It was pitiful seeing him just pine away like that after he'd been picked by one of the ancient company.”

“I had thought at one time of giving it up, but you need it, Wolf, really, just a little seasoning of Louisiana Red. I used to think that love was all that you needed, but anyone who believes that doesn't stand a chance in this world. I just want to flip her about a little. I don't think I'll have to call up the leader of the ancient company. The mutilator, the Killer Dealer. I just want one of the Board to send a messenger to give me a briefing on how to proceed; I don't want to harm Street or Minnie, and so maybe they have some ideas the messenger can reveal to me. They only give counsel when summoned, not desiring to invervene; like the good Board of Directors they are under the watchful eye of the Chairman of us all.”

“There seems to be some kind of conflict broken out between Moochers and Street's people now that Street has returned, Pop. The attacks by Street's gangs on Moochers have increased. One remarked that although Minnie wants to be Joan of Arc, she'll probably play Hamlet till the end.”

They chuckle.