Three Days Before the Shooting ... (163 page)

“
‘They
who came here bringing their messy ideas and stinking up the land, step by step, as they made their way westward!

“‘They
who came like packs of wild dogs that piss-marked and shit-kicked every stone, bush, and tree on the landscape—Yao!’

“I said, I told the boy, ‘They claimed that they were here seeking freedom, but I think that they were really on the run from themselves! Why? Because behind them they’d left that big bloody war and all the killing and stealing that followed. Yao! And all the lying and cheating and betrayal of that much too short a spell when Yankee armies guarded the human bones of contention that had led to all the bloodshed and lying. Then they declared peace, a peace which turned out to be tall like a pine, squawked like a crow, and talked more crap than the radio!

“‘Even so, it was a peace enforced by rifle and cannon, and for a while there appeared to be a possibility of making a life in which men on both sides, black men and white, could walk tall with their heads erect on their shoulders. But then the white man’s belief in what he calls “freedom” and “justice” went limp as a flag in a skin-soaking weather. Then he turned his chicken-shit weakness westward and his back on that which he should have done in justifying all the bloodshed, the killing, and arson. Yao!

“‘But just at the time when he should have been strong and determined, he collapsed like a brave debauched by syphilis and whiskey. Then he demonstrated
his strength to be mainly of numbers, guns, and bloodthirsty ruthlessness. But because no group of men can live out their seasons perpetually at war—not even these, the proud ones called Americans—they became uneasy. Aye, for a greater strength, a strength of the spirit, was needed. And this the white man did not have—and still doesn’t!’

“Well, when I said that I could see the boy’s face turn red as an ember.

“He didn’t like it, but I continued. I told him, ‘For even in so powerful a country as this, peacetime is harder, much harder, than wartime. And even harder for men like these who had turned what they called peace into a nastiness that’s in many ways much worse than armed warfare. They corrupted the spirit of the words they claimed to hold sacred until they were like words scribbled on scraps torn from catalogs and newspapers, which in the days before bathrooms they used on trips to the outhouse—Yao!

“‘So, as I say, when they could no longer stand the stink they’d made in the East they rushed here and invaded this country. The humiliated ones, the greedy, and the mean, dog-assed, bloodthirsty ones—yes, and even a few, though only a few, of those who were truly brave and well-meaning. And I name only the best of a crew that was sorry.

“‘Because all that can be said even of the best, both the black, the white, and the stewpot mixture of Africa, Europe, and Asia, is that when the jagged blade of their bloody transgressions was pressed to their throats, when the consequences of their misdeeds could no longer be disregarded, they tried to leave the past and all their misdeeds behind them. They took off. They ran—Yao! And they had a heap to run from!

“‘Like the death and destruction left by that cowardly scum dressed in hoods rigged out of bedsheets who rode through the night killing and raping. That mangy scum mounted on horseback who prowled the countryside by the light of tar-burning torches carrying ropes noosed for hanging—yes, and lynching and burning you black Christian State folks on tree limbs and crosses …’ ”

“But …”

“No, Hickman, don’t say it! Don’t tell me that they were only a few!
All
the bastards were guilty! All of them, North and South, who benefited from slavery, which was a violation of their own ideals, which turned life into something that stank like the body of a dead horse being worked from asshole to eyeball by buzzards—and the land was the horse and they were the buzzards!

“So they swept out here in a leg-pissing panic. Because after a brief time of hope they had seen the face of freedom turn into a mirage, a mask hiding evil. Then a pestilence arose and polluted the old land, a pollution that ballooned, farted, and drifted until it was impossible to look anywhere, but they saw its effects and felt it and breathed it. Yao! This was the new life that had been bought, back there in the North and the South, with so much bullshit and bloodshed. This, Hickman, was the life your folks, your grandparents, the emancipated freedmen, came into after that war. And it was very different from what mine knew with the People.

“This was the new peace, the new morality and justice. And though they were running there was no escaping. Because those who came West, even the good ones, brought along their sickness like pox in the bloodstream.

“So you see, after the State Negroes endured slavery and survived the war they were betrayed by those in the North who made a deal to undermine the so-called Reconstruction—which was no more than a new form of slavery. So now they were little better off than when they were slaves. And as though all of that hadn’t been enough testing, enough of an initiation into the white man’s freedom, the State Negroes learned that they now had to deal with tar, lynch ropes, and fire as other men dealt with the cost of their food and their shelter.

“And like I told the boy, some came here even before statehood was established. They came in hope, but now hoping was even harder than when they were slaves. Because the hope which had once been a life-sustaining vision had shrunk like a spring gone dry in a drought. And the same with their belief in their strength to endure—oh, yes, they had survived, but they had been seared, maimed, and their vision distorted. So they came here. Came walking, came riding, came running—Yao! And like the old slave song has it, some came crying in the name of your Jesus—ha!

“Yes, but now they were folks of cloudy, color-warped vision. No longer did they possess the clear eyes and high hope mixed with caution which guided those like my pappy and mammy after they killed and escaped bloodhounds in making their way to the People. Theirs was an old,
old
, hope, a hope as old as the giant sequoias. Secret, yes; but undulled and unblemished by what would come after the end of the Reb-Yankee war. And Hickman, it was probably a hope which your grandparents shared. Not a hope for what you Christians call Eden, no. But simply a yearning for a place where they could be themselves whatever their color.

“My pappy used to sing about going to the Nation, going to the Territory, and after he made it here and found his place with the People he kept singing that song until he died and went back to the earth to join his ancestors. For him it was a song of promise, a song of fulfillment—Yao!—an incantation to the gods on which he and my mother had staked their lives and found contentment. They had planned long and thought hard, and took the risk of stealing themselves—clothes, bundles, and hopes for freedom—then made their way here to become part of the People. For them that was the way it was, and they lived in peace and died in dignity, right here in what was then the Old Territory….

“But with the State folks it was different. Something inside must have been killed off as they made their way West. And I mean most of them, and especially the white ones. Maybe they died in spirit as did many of the People on the long Trail of Tears. Because it was back in those times that we began to unravel. First in the old land—in Alabama, the Carolinas, Florida, Mississippi, and Georgia—and then along the trail that was watered with tears. And once in this land the dying continued, a cruel slow dying during all the long years.

“So maybe the State people who came later were already dead, were zombies,
who didn’t realize they were no longer human. Perhaps all that which had happened, all that they had done during the Reb-Yankee war and after, had been like something that scrambled their brains and shriveled their hearts. And perhaps because of their crimes they were made to go on as though they were human. I do not know, although I have thought on it for a long, long time. But suddenly they were here, still moving and building and ruining. And with my own eyes I saw them. Hickman, I am old enough to have seen many generations rise up and go West, but I do not believe that most of them are human….”

Pausing, Love shook his head. “Like I told the boy, I know what I say is not generous—Yao!—but I stand by it. Truly I don’t think they are human. They are something else, for them another name is needed. And to this the boy grinned and said, ‘How about “supermen”?’

“And I looked into his eyes and I said, ‘No, that is now a name for the funnies—which are no longer funny—or for cartoons printed on the editorial pages of newspapers. Besides, if you were in the last war you would know not to laugh at the type of men who call themselves super.’

“And the boy said, ‘Okay, so I made a bad joke.’ And I said, ‘By helping us deal with the truth joking helps keep us alive, but in this I am far from joking. No, because I think seriously that they’re something else, and therefore some other name is called for. For they are people who violate both their own gods and the rules of their gods. And though they are many and powerful, no tribe has been known to violate its gods and go unpunished. For sooner or later something revolting takes over. Something small which they overlook or dismiss with a sneer of pride will defeat them….’

“And to this the boy shook his head, and I said, ‘Do you think I’m overstating my case?’

“And he said, ‘I think you’re making it all black and white, or all white and red. If not, where do
I
stand in all of this?’

“I said, ‘That is for you to say. It’s been many moons since you left this country and Janey, therefore you, yourself, must decide where you stand. What you are is hidden behind your eyes and under your skin; but you are young, and young men who look like you have the best of choices—though not for long. I can only tell you that you are not outside of it, no matter how you might feel.’ And the boy said, ‘Yes, that’s true.’ And I said, ‘I know that it’s true.’

“Then I told him, ‘Yes, it is true, and maybe it’ll remain true until the problem of the black and the white and the red man is considered in terms other than it is today. Maybe then the State folks will make peace with who they are, and what they are, and again become human. But today as in days gone by there is great trouble brewing among the State folks, and great inner division. And while they have some sense of what’s happening they ignore it. Otherwise, why all their endless arguing and fighting over what and who they are?

“‘Now there,’ I told him, ‘is your true comic strip alive and kicking—your Moon Mullins, your Maggie and Jiggs, your Katzenjammer Kids! The State folks
have confused human life with the comics and don’t even know it. They don’t know or recognize themselves, and when they think it’s to their advantage, some of the State white folks will even claim to be of the People! And even some of the black ones—not Natives like me, but State Negroes—will argue over who
they
are. But how could this be a problem? Are not they men with other men, their fathers, behind them? And are they not men born of mothers? Beings connected to the land? For being human, how can men not know who they are, or from whence they came? When you stop and think about it, it’s all very odd, very strange. As strange as calves with two heads and one body—which I have seen—or Siamese twins, which I have also seen, and which is a good name for the State folks. But I think you know that I speak the truth truly.’

“And then the boy was pressing me again. He said, ‘Perhaps it’s true. But tell me, Mister Love, Mister New, where do
you
stand in all of this confusion?’

“‘Hell,’ I said, ‘exactly where I’ve stood for many a long year: outside the lousy corral.’ And he said, ‘But I’ve known you for years, right here in town.’ And I said, ‘Yes, here in the flesh but outside in spirit—Yao! And a world apart from people who believe that a good life can be built on a lie, and that men can kill without taking responsibility for those they destroy. Because for all their differences all men are brothers, and to kill without compassion and pity is a crime against nature. It hangs in the mind like a snake gashing his own tail with his fangs. It bleeds in the night and rampages in dreams, where it slashes the dreamer like tomahawks and knives. And the children inherit it through the milk of their mothers, and when they grow up it sounds in their actions like fear in the boastings of cowards.’

“Like I say, we were drinking whiskey, and by now the boy’s had run low, so I got up to refill his glass. And that’s when he looked up at me like a smart-assed Sooner district attorney questioning a criminal and says, ‘This is fine bourbon, but isn’t it illegal to sell whiskey to Indians?’

“So I said, ‘Indians? Why yes, but laws like that don’t apply to me, Love New.’

“And he said, ‘But you keep saying that you’re of the People, an Indian….’

“And it’s true,’ I said, ‘but you’re overlooking one important detail….’

“‘What’s that?’ he says.

“‘Hell, boy,’ say I, looking him dead in the eye, ‘when I’m drinking my whiskey I’m
colored!—
a Negro.’

“So then, laughing like you, he says, ‘I get it, you really do fall between definitions.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and if I didn’t folks would crush me the way they crush the State Negroes.’

[FLIGHTS]

“T
HEN
I
WENT ON
, I told him, ‘It’s a crime to kill without brotherly feeling, because when you do there’s nothing left inside to restrain you. All men are
human, so when you fight with someone you recognize as being a man like yourself you might hate him but you’re bound to him by human feelings. So that being true, you don’t set out to kill the things which bind you. Neither do you call him an animal to justify killing him, because you’ll be killing part of yourself.’

“Then I said, ‘In war, soldiers are bound by their common condition as men facing death. That’s why they try to fight according to rules that respect their enemies’ humanity. But when you fight somebody and tell yourself you have nothing in common with him or his brother, or his father, or his mother, wife, or children, you feel free to go on a rampage of killing—Yao!—but later on the killed and the killing will come back to haint you.’