Three Days Before the Shooting ... (184 page)

“With that the mystified crowd is arguing and cussing. With some saying, ‘He went
here,’
and others, ‘He went
there,’
but of the hound himself there’s neither hide nor hair. Exactly
where he’s
gone nobody really knows, but according to this Geechee gal known as ‘Miss Heavy Toes,’ he’s long, long gone and headed South so the city can’t sue him for damages. Then there’s a loud difference of opinion on various grounds as they argue whether according to man-made law, or even the Bible, a hound could really be held liable for obeying the laws of his doggy nature. But then when things start to getting real contentious, with some folks cussing and others quoting Scripture—there stands the hound, and he’s giving them a grin as he poses like a star for those moving-picture men—and the camera keeps on grinding.

“And what gives weight to Miss Heavy Toes’ theory is the indisputable fact that he has his tail pointing north and his nose pointing south, grits on his chin,
and
red-eye gravy on his long lean mouth! But although everybody’s amazed and delighted, he gives them no time to figure out just where he got it. And maybe to remind them of the true spirit of the day they’re celebrating he starts beating time with his tail, which is as stiff as a rail, and with a-one, a-two, a-three, he throws back his head and it’s ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ that he howls.

“He really sends the crowd with his mastery, and when they give him a great big hand he takes a bow-wow bow and gives them the radiance of his canine smile. And when Miss Brilliantine protests and causes the crowd to boo, he proves for all his admirers that he’s by no means through. Sitting up on his
haunches ramrod straight, he starts to covering first his eyes, then his ears and his mouth at a mind-spinning rate as he flashes his paws and imitates those three wise monkey boys of yore, who were known as See-no, Hear-no, and Speak-no Evil.

“It’s an eye-popping performance, and smooth as silk, except that when he covers his eyes his hackles rise, and when he covers his mouth to everyone’s surprise he looks straight at Miss Brilliantine with a sweet soulful expression in his big brown eyes—which proves again that he’s one lo-mo signifying hound, while the cameramen keep on grinding.

“Yeah, but his fine performance and the sniff he gave Miss Brilliantine didn’t help him one bit. Because with the crowd knocked off its feet by his fine performance she’s fit to be whipped and tied. She tries to get at him once again, but the crowd won’t let her. And when she sees the movie men still grinding that camera at the hound she rears back with her hands on her hips and starts reading them some uncensored chapters from her very filthy mind. But just when she’s about to bust a gut from dishing out such smut, it’s Jack BooBoo Beaujack who comes out of nowhere to cool her down.

“First Jack grins and pats the hound on the head and lets him smell his funky fingers, and as drunk as he acts he sounds stone-cold sober when he straightens up to address Miss Brilliantine.

“He says, ‘Woman, how come you badmouthing and abusing these innocent movie men? Are you trying to make out like what they’re doing is some kind of sin? If so, I’m here to tell you that they’re only doing their duty just the way this dog was doing hissen. Which is a hell of a lot more than can be said for you! Why, the way you been acting is a crime, a sin, and a damn disgrace, to the state, the country, and the whole human race. And that includes your own funky butt and all of us who been watching you tear your nasty drawers in a public place. Just who the hell you think you kidding, when everybody knows for a fact that the only reason you were trying to make that leading man look like a clown was because he’s a gentleman and wouldn’t fight back. If it had been me and you wasn’t so plump I’d a lost my foot in your big fat rump! You tried to play the poor man cheap, and when the joke goes against you, you start acting like some Northern creep, who thinks all the folks in this part of the country is ignunt!’

“And when Miss Brilliantine gives him a drop-dead stare he basses at her deep and loud, ‘Don’t you roll those bloodshot eyes at me! ‘Cause I’m big as you and twice as evil! Yeah! That’s what I said, and if you don’t like it I’ll go upside your ignunt head!’ Then he balls up his great big fist and sniffs it.

“Jack sounds like he means it too, and for once Miss Brilliantine pays some heed to a man and just stands there pouting and glaring. So then Jack sees the director standing way up high as he directs his buddies where to point the camera and decides to gives Miss Brilliantine the benefit of his philosophy:

“‘Woman,’ he says, ‘you’ve got a lot to learn about the game of life, so you
better give strict attention to this sound advice, because from now on these are the rules of the street that you better follow:

“‘Number One: When you trick a sucker, take what’s yours because you won it fair. But don’t rub it in and mess with his pride unless you aim to commit instant suicide.

“‘Number Two: When you get tricked by Lady Luck or a smarter trickster, the rule of the game is not to complain, because the only way to save what’s more precious than winning is by taking your loss and coming up grinning. So you better remember what the old folks say about every good dog having his day, because that’s the stone-cold truth even though they forgot to say a
word
about bitches!

“‘So now straighten up and stop all this assing around and give some credit to this fine little hound, because thanks to you, this
heah
day is hissen!’

“Then, while the crowd gives him a thunderous hand, Jack pats the hound on the head and takes a bow while Miss Brilliantine hikes her skirt and disappears—and those cameramen keep grinding.

“Then, with a wag of his tail for what Jack said about him doing his natural duty, the hound backs back and kicks real hard, then takes off doing sixty for his own backyard—if he
had one
.

“Because just as nobody had ever seen him before, no one has seen him since, and that’s why he’s still the subject of great argument in our oldest barbershops, pool halls, and bars—but that’s another story. As for now the crowd is delighted with his signifying, self-made part, and while those drunk masked actors discuss the hound’s acting skills, the movie men start searching for the hero with that camera.

“And that’s exactly when Pulliham’s old dog’s howling warning takes effect. Because after taking Miss Brilliantine’s double-barreled blows to his sobriety, manhood, and self-esteem—and he took it mostly with a smile—the hero was too unstrung to finish with the scene which the drunks had interrupted. And besides, the little leading lady is long, long gone to parts unknown and no one knows where to find her. So after making his polite excuses to one and all, the hero heads for his redheaded Texas woman’s house, where he hopes to get his head together and his ashes hauled. That Choc which they made him drink has him pretty groggy, and since the movie men want him rested for his big love scene it’s fine with them that he takes off. ‘Just take it easy and be ready for tomorrow’s shooting,’ is what they tell him.

“That was late in the afternoon, but now we come to what happened that evening. Halloween is really popping all up and down the streets, with kids racing around with lighted railroad flares dripping hot sulfur on everybody’s feet, throwing firecrackers into crowds, and putting torpedoes and cherry bombs on the streetcar tracks. One bunch went celebrating on the outskirts of town by running through alleys pushing the little outhouses over ‘til they landed on the
ground. By using teamwork and keeping quiet they’d toppled four in a row when they pushed on one that came alive. They’d just begun to count, a-one, a-two, a-three, and were set to bring it down when they heard a voice from inside yell, ‘Wait! Dammit, wait! This ain’t no time to clown!’ But although some took off running like the ghosts they were pretending to be the others laughed and heaved it over with the doorway facing down. Then with the man cursing and thumping about inside and outraged neighbors firing shotguns in the air they broke all kinds of records as they beat it out of there. And that they considered having fun in those honey-dipper days.

“Another gang stole Mr. McHenry’s jackass and pushed him into the parlor of a leading whorehouse, where he spoiled the evening’s business by honking and pissing and kicking over chairs. Then a gang of Beaujack’s henchmen found an old discarded horse-drawn hearse and pushed it down the street all lit up with flares and with six drunk musicians sitting on top playing
‘Oh Didn’t He Ramble’
and ‘
The Bucket’s Got a Hole in It
‘, all out of time and out of tune. While stretched out inside like a corpse is Mr. Choc Charley, the tailor who’s known as the section’s best, who’s sleeping off a drunk with a red railroad warning lantern glowing on his chest. I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, things had turned primitive and really gone to swinging.

“But now it’s dancing time, and the block where the dance hall stood is all lit up and as jammed with folks as the hall three stories up above. In fact, more costumed folks are dancing in the street than could’ve been packed in the dance hall with a battering ram. But most don’t care because they’re having such a fine time drinking and carousing that they’ve forgot all about the movie men while letting BooBoo Beaujack lead them deeper and deeper into what the judge who later fined them called ‘a state of extreme and rowdy drunkenness attended by a total and mind-busting disregard for civic peace and universal order.’

“Now about this time Buster and me are up on the hill looking down on the lit-up business block, and from the way folks are dancing and flinging themselves about it’s like watching a combination of the chronic heebie-jeebies and the seven-year’s itch. Then, way back in the alley, we hear Pulliham’s old dog give out with an awful, hair-raising howl. He howls two times and then he takes a deep, deep breath and howls another howl that’s so long and eerie that it sounds like it’s either turned him inside out or outside in, including his lock, collar, chain, and fence post. This stops us cold, but when he doesn’t howl again and we don’t hear thunder we decide to wander on down to the action. And when we get there it’s easy to see that nobody else had heard him, and no wonder!

“Up in the dance hall, three stories above the street, twelve natural-born musicians are having a ball as they beat out the rhythm with the windows up. While down on the floor the fat young singer and dancing master is urging them on as he cavorts before the crowd in his gleaming golden shoes. The floor had been polished with cornmeal to make it slick, and by now he’s led the dancers through
every step from the quadrille to the tango, but now they’re doing the well-known mess-around, with everybody moving slow and easy to the tune of ‘See, See, Rider, Look What You Done Done’ which he’s singing through his three-foot megaphone. Not that he really needs it except to swing and dip like he’s dancing with a partner, because folks down in the street can hear his sweet, sweet tenor ringing like a bell. And above all the noise and rhythm and the muted trumpet’s cry he’s making those blues laugh, sigh, and signify like Madam Ma Rainey with her love come down and her good man’s gone ten thousand miles from Georgia. Talk about some sweet,
sweet
sadness—maaan! Oh, man!

“So now some of you are asking, ‘What happened to the moving-picture crew?’ Well, the answer is that they were grinding in the street. And not only because there wasn’t room for them and that camera up in the hall, but when they tried to get in some men who were out with women other than their girlfriends or their wives wouldn’t let them. It didn’t matter that everyone was wearing masks, those guys weren’t taking any chances of getting caught with the wrong woman wearing the wrong mask, no matter
when
or
wherever
that movie hit the screen. So their spokesman told the movie men, ‘Listen here, y’all, and try to understand—we got nothing against what you’re doing, and we’d like to help you out, but you have to recognize that if you shoot what a fine time we’re having and these local white folks happen to see it they’ll get so jealous and raving mad that the next time we have a dance they’ll send the Sheriff out here to close us down.’ So, being men of the world and far outnumbered, the movie men take their camera and go back to shooting up the action in the street.

“Now on the floor beneath the dance hall ten physicians, all good men and true, are resting back in their swivel chairs with their feet propped up, patting their bellies in time with the music and dreaming sweet dreams about such matters as their shaky rent-houses and their Hippocratic oaths, their be-diamonded women, and their Cadillacs, Auburns, and Pierce-Arrow cars; about cutting and curing and buckets of blood, and about outdoing Doctor Daniel Williams, who dealt cruel Death a blow and earned eternal fame by patching up what could have been a fatal stab wound in a living human heart. So now they’re resting back easy in their big desk chairs, and surrounded to a man by grosses of catgut and cotton swabs, bandages and bullet probes, scalpels and hemostats—plus gallons of iodine, ether, and chloroform, gauze, catheters, and surgical needles—in other words, they’re waiting for such casualties as gunshot wounds, busted skulls, broken limbs, and switch-blade stabbings to come rolling in. They didn’t mind at all that the movie men had mixed up the calendar, because back in those rugged pioneer days folks around here swore by tradition and the tides of the moon that for a real
good
time to be had by all—by which they meant a real ripsnorting, compound-cathartic, knock-down-drag-out celebration—somebody famous had to shed some blood. And as far as anyone could remember it had never failed. They never knew when, and they never knew who, but it
always
happened. And so it did this time.

“Because now, with the festivities really grooving, both in the dance hall and the street, the musicians wailing and the movie men grinding that camera and thinking the leading man is already safe in bed having his loving and his ease—here comes somebody screaming through the street in his B.V.D.’s! And he’s running so fast that he’s hard to identify, but when folks hear the note he’s screaming they know right away that he’s shedding blood. Then he comes a little closer, and when they see who it is some begin to scream, some begin to cry, some to moan, and some to stutter, and some react like they’d been hit by laughing gas. In a second it was like the world had up and looped-the-loop and started spinning upside down….