Three Days Before the Shooting ... (108 page)

Am I the “me” I used to be, or someone or something I’m still becoming? That’s the question. And if you rely only on clocks to guide you you’ll find yourself in time suspended. But see the Cross—thank the Lord!—and you’ll remember the Promise. Go seeking a man to find a boy who got lost in time-past like I’m doing, and right away you’re tangled in newsprint, double-talk, radio jabber, and broadcast images—not to mention the man’s own cussed orneriness. Therefore how in time redeem lost time when time itself has hidden the man it embodies in the blinding hot spotlights of high places?

Stop it, Hickman
, he thought,
the answer is simple: You keep trying, you keep seeking and striving against the time when your own time is ended. ‘Cause as the old saying goes, time’s flying, souls dying, and the coming of the Lord draweth nigh…
.

And now, drawing closer, he saw that one of the clock’s hands pointed toward a bank whose name appeared on a plaque underneath and the other toward the avenue—where, now, a frustrated hearse followed by a string of black limousines with headlights aglow in the brightness was steering a slow solemn path through a stream of agitated cars, taxis, and trucks. And hearing the singer’s tribute to her “jelly-roll” continue he thought,
Yes, madam, its promise still sounds in the music, but by now, as the boys on the block used to say, it’s probably grown old and got weary…
.

And reminded suddenly of Janey’s account of her dream, he thought,
Time! One way or another everything seems to be yelling Time! Which I can’t deny but would rather not hear—how long has it been since I heard those blues? Twenty years? Thirty?

Then, catching a whiff of rum-flavored pipe tobacco he eyed the clock and snapped open the lid of his watch to compare their readings. But in the interval between his glance at his watch and the clock a flock of pigeons appeared; and as he watched them circling the clock in a sun-dazzling swing and setting wings in a gliding approach to its widespread arms there came a blare from the blues band and a shout from the singer. And struck by the shock wave of blues the birds were flaring and whirling in a wing-flapping cloud and the clock’s face was veiled by a whirlwind of fluttering.

“Jelly-roll, Jelly-roll, from my bakery shop,” the singer sang above a mocking riff from trombone and trumpet, “Get it while it’s juicy, Get it while it’s hot….”

And with birds swooping and diving in a wing-beating frenzy people were skittering close to the buildings or making for the curb in quick-stepping panic; and as they bumped and clung to their briefcases and packages, some were brushing past with annoyed expressions; while others, rushing in opposite directions, were looking back and shouting at something up the walk beyond them.

What’s going on up there? he
thought, and as he pressed past pedestrians and headed for the area where the clock’s sun-flecked shadow slanted upon a mounting confusion of forms that were ducking and fleeing the music became ever more strident. Then, in looking past the heads and shoulders of two men wearing identical white suits and panama hats, he realized with a start that the source of the sound and confusion was a small Negro man.

White-haired and dressed in a black frock-tail coat, a white T-shirt, baggy striped pants, and soiled tennis shoes, the man appeared to be much older than himself as he approached with his right hand on hip and arm akimbo while shouldering a large portable radio which was pressed against the left side of his white hatless head like a cake of black ice applied to an ear that was aching! Which it should be, Hickman thought as he listened to the radio’s shrill blaring of, “Jellee, Jellee!, Jelly-jelly all night long!”

Well, would you look at that
, he thought, and as the little man rocked to the music’s loud beat with a limp, and a pause, and a hand-on-hip strut he realized that he was advancing with his eyes closed and smiling as though so entranced
by the sound of his blues-spouting burden as to be totally unaware of the panic being stirred by the inchworm’s pace of his progress.

And as he watched people clearing the walk before the little man’s advance, he thought,
I should have known it! Who else but one of our old-timers who’ll exploit any opportunity the white folks leave open by dismissing them as crazy could cause such confusion! And with nothing more than a funky blues number, an old tinny radio, and a crabbed way of walking! No more than a frail bundle of bones but still taking on the world’s most powerful city. And what’s more, the little clown is getting
away
with it! Truly, Hickman, this thing called
democracy
is not only unpredictable, but far more fragile than anyone wants to admit—Sister Bea, where are you now that I need you?

And spurred by a sudden impulse to see if the little disturber-of-the-peace was simply taking advantage of the self-flattering condescension which the white public extended to those of his color and style, or actually as hard of hearing and blind as he appeared to be, he rushed up the walk with footsteps pounding.

Okay, Mister Casey Jones
, he thought,
if you’re only playing games get ready to jump, otherwise us two old-timers are about to bump…
.

But just as he drew closer he saw the little man pause with one foot in midair and his eyes popped open. And even as he thought,
I knew it
, he realized that the little man was sizing him up with a snaggled-toothed grin.

“Hey, now!” he heard through the radio’s blaring. “They don’t make ‘em like that these days—am I right or wrong?”

“That’s right,” Hickman said, “nor your type either. And maybe it’s a good thing”—and broke off, his ear suddenly arrested by the attack and modulations of a muted trombone and in recognizing the pulse and timbre of his own gut-bucket style from the old days he gaped in amazement.

Well, I’ll be
, he thought with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment,
it’s really me—but how? Where’d they come up with such an old recording? It’s me and Estella Moore, and we recorded it so long ago that I didn’t even recognize her voice or her style—not to mention my own!

“Hey!” the little man shouted as he nodded off-beat to the music’s loud pulsing. “You know how good music like this makes me feel?”

“No,” Hickman said, “but why don’t you turn it down a bit?”

“… I feel exactly like the monkey when he ate the cat—you remember?”

“What!” Hickman shouted. And as he bristled at the little man’s challenge, two well-dressed women, one white and the other mulatto, stepped out of a store behind them. Raising his palm he shouted, “Hold it, my friend!” Whereupon the women looked startled, frowned in dismay, and hurried away in opposite directions.

“Now, what was that?” Hickman said.

“Hell, cousin, you heard me,” the little man said. “What’d the monkey say when he ate the cat?”

“Let me think,” Hickman said as he studied the little man’s face. Either way he’s got me, he thought, and all the more if he knows I’m a preacher. So if I give the correct answer he’ll laugh because he knows I’m an old-timer; pretend that I don’t know it and he’ll have the pleasure of having a minister tell him a lie….

“Now, let’s see,” he said. “Wasn’t it something about his … er … digestion?”

“Yeah!” the little man laughed. “That’s
right
! Monkey said, ‘I got me a belly fulla’—come on now, cousin, you take it from there….”

“I’m not sure,” Hickman said with a frown, “but I seem to recall that the monkey said something about having a pleasant sensation….”

“… Right!” the little man said with a cackle of delight. “What the monkey said when he ate the cat was, ‘I got a belly fulla pussy and it’s tight like that!’ That’s the lick, my man! You might
look
square, but you solid have
been
there! And I mean the
old
country!”

Yes
, Hickman thought,
and you’re an old down-home rascal
. But made nostalgic by the little man’s irreverent folk humor, he grinned and thought,
If this ain’t the mythical ole Uncle Bud I hope I’ll never meet him!
And seizing the little man’s free elbow, he tugged him gently to the curb of the sidewalk.

“Sure,” he said as now the little man turned the volume down to a static-filled murmur, “I’ve been there, but that was long ago—before they flattened the hills and rerouted the river. Nowadays things have changed so much that they’re even taking the whistles off the railroad trains….”

“Yeah, man,” the little man said with a frown, “but that don’t really matter, ‘cause you and me got all that good stuff
inside us
. Or at least behind us. All them sassy gals and crisp fried fish and chicken, sweet-potato pie, and good smoked Southern barbecue. All that good ole jive that keeps a man
alive!
The shim and the sham and the shim-sham-shimmy, the God-given glory and the way the weather was—hell, cousin, with all
that
inside him a man has got to
prevail
! You been blessed—you hear me? You been
blessed
!”

Head cocked to the side, Hickman stared; thinking,
Better watch him or this little devil will start quoting Scripture…
.

“You’re right,” he said, “and I’m truly grateful. But how about you?”

“Blessed too,” the little man said. “I’m still here, ain’t I?”

“Right!”

“I’m still traveling under my own steam and ain’t on relief, ain’t I?”

“Correct!”

“And you know something else?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ma even be here when
Martin
comes,
and
I aim to be here after he done come and
gone—
oh, yes!”

With hands flying to his hips, Hickman roared with laughter as he recalled the old joke about Sam, the hungry hobo who had been promised a meal and a peaceful way out of town if he spent the night in an old haunted house; but who,
after enduring a devilish series of hair-raising testings by animals that kept dropping down the chimney and talking like humans, lost his nerve—not because of the creatures’ surprising conduct, but because just before disappearing each had asked the same mysterious question: “Sam, are you going to be here when Martin comes?”

Thinking, Poor Sam, poor fellow, Hickman shook his head and grinned.
Like me
, he thought,
he could deal with the hellishness of what was then-and-there before him, but was fazed by the threat of that which was unspelled, unknown, and unseen
.

“Why, I haven’t heard either that story for years,” he said. “Brother, who
are
you?”

“Me?” the little man said as he trembled with mock indignation. “You mean to say that an old hustler like you don’t recognize
me?
Hell, man, I’m
Martin
!!! Sho! I’m the stationmaster, chief bottle-washer, and the nappy-headed judge of the court of last resort for this heah entire hainted house of a country! Hell, cousin, you
got to
know
me
!”

“Well, I’m beginning to—but are you sure you’re really everything you say?”

“You damn right I am—and a hell of a lot more!” And stamping his foot for emphasis, the little man began spieling like a veteran sideshow barker:

“I’m the cat who’ll be here looking at ‘em after the roof falls in!

“I’m the invisible spook in the woodpile they always telling themselves big lies about! I’m the man on the stairs who they say ain’t really there—but they gon’ see, and you better believe me!

“I’m Willie-the-poor-boy, a little short on funds, that is, but
looong on
experience, and whale-shit deep in hard-to-earn knowledge!

“I’m the old man of the mountains who ole Cab used to hi-de-ho so loud about!

“I’m Wine-ball Bill, and while I ain’t so sweet as I used to be, I’m still doing me some fine winding and grinding.

“I’m also Daddy Step with the mitch-matched feet, and the one who cries when the big shots laugh, and laughs like hell when they break down and weeps!

“I’m Oddball Papa—you know, the one with one hung way,
way
low, just so’s I can keep my balance in all this confusion.

“And cousin, befo’ I go I’ll tell you one thing mo’: Folks don’t recognize it, but I’m the unknown soldier who keeps the bowels of all of these congressmen and Supreme Cote judges roaring up a storm. And I’ll tell you confidentially that all this talk you been hearing about
Chicago
being the windy city is some pure-dee bull! This heah Washington is the
original
windy city and still undisputed champion of the whole wide world! And you can believe it, because it’s
me
, also known as the natural-born Little Blister, who does the pumping that makes ‘em keep howling and bellowing!”

“And there I was,” Hickman said, “thinking you were none other than the Real McCoy….”

Staggering backwards as though struck by a blow, the little man let out a shout that leaped two octaves: “Him too! He’s
me!
And when those folks up on the Hill is flying right I keep the machinery oiled and running smooth as fine silk. But when they messes up and start looking for somebody else to blame it on, I’m in there greasing the skids from under their butts! The next time they foul things up take a look and you’ll see me in the background!

“In the meantime, why don’t you come along while I deliver this message, which is my job these days, and then come on over to my pad and listen to some more of this music? I got records they don’t even have at the Smithsonian.”

“Thanks,” Hickman said with a pang of regret, “I’d like to, I truly would, but I have an appointment.”

“Too bad,” the little man said, “because you’re the kind of fellow I like because I don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining what things really mean. Like the good in the bad and the bad in the good. You a messenger too?”

“No—or at least not a real professional….”

“Well, don’t lose no sleep over it, ‘cause these days most folks don’t get the word, no matter how fast you get it to ‘em. I’ll see you around. Been good talking with you.”