“Well, I’ll be damn!”
“I know,” he said, “it’s a strange turn for me, but believe it or not, today I’m a minister.”
And as Aubrey’s eyes blurred and returned to focus he was met with a pained expression.
“Now why would a man like you go and do a thing like that,” Aubrey said, “especially when he was such a hell of a fine musicianer?”
“Aubrey, I was ‘called,’ you understand the meaning of being called, don’t you?”
“Yeah—maybe … I guess so, now that I remember your daddy’s being a preacher. But for such a fine bluesman as you to turn into one? Hell, Hickman, that’s almost as bad as going on drugs or passing for some kind of African—which don’t make sense, at least not to me. Still, a thing like that’s a man’s personal business—but you, Hickman, a preacher? It’s hard to believe. It really is, so let it be. But with you gone religious I guess ain’t no point in my offering you a drink—even for old times’ sake?”
“No, but thank you, Aubrey. I gave up drinking long ago.”
“Okay, ‘cause I don’t mean to insult you, but if it makes any difference this stuff ain’t bootleg, no matter what they been telling you. It’s bonded! We had us whole cases of one-hundred-percent, pure-dee bonded—which is what Mister Jessie ordered. And although a few bottles got busted there’s still plenty left. What’s more, I bought it at the liquor store. So don’t let these white folks sell you some bull about me being a bootlegger.”
“I believe you, Aubrey.”
“And you can bet on it. But look, Hickman, these police say you brought me a message from Carrie—how’s she doing?”
“Well, Aubrey, it’s like this—and I’m sorry to be a bearer of sad tidings—she’s as well as could be expected of someone her age, but now she’s nearing the end. That’s why she asked me to come here to persuade you to come home and see her before it’s too late. Won’t you please try and do that for your sister?”
Suddenly reaching for the table on which the dead man sat, McMillen attempted to stand, missed it, and tumbled back into the chair with a belch and a gurgle.
“And I mean to do it, I swear,” he said, “I’ma start packing just as soon as I can get these officers to understand that I wouldn’t harm anybody, much less a close friend like Mister Jessie.”
“I know,” Hickman said, “I know …”
“Naw, you don’t, ‘cause there ain’t many like him to be known. But the man was a prince. A prince! You dig what I mean but these smart-ass police don’t know a damn thing about his kind of colored man—and don’t want to! Because after my telling them they still won’t believe me. That’s right! Just because I’m black and a little woozy from drinking all that fine bourbon they think I’m lying. Which goes to prove they don’t know any more about a man like me than they know about Mister Jessie. But hell, Hickman, as you damn well know from the old days, I’m one hell of a complicated man….”
“Yes,” Hickman said, “I remember.”
“Sho, you do, but these police act like some of these ole dicty D.C. Negroes who see me as no more than an ignunt clown. Yeah, but unlike most of them I’ve been around, and around, and around! Oh, yes! And like that cat you used to sing about: I’ve wrasseled me some bears and outfoxed me some hounds, and done heard me some sweet-talk from some mellow high-browns—but hell, you been knowing about me for years. So do me a favor: Tell these police about the kind of folks I come from. ‘Cause as you know I’m out of some very fine people. Honest people, respectable people like Carrie. That’s why I wouldn’t even think of disgracing them by doing harm to Mister Jessie—and I didn’t! That’s right, Hickman, nobody did … less’n it was the sight of that crazy white man….”
“White man! What white man?”
“The one who busted in here raising hell about buying back some kinda damn coffin! That’s right, man! And a white one at that! Done up and color-segregated the goddamn coffins! Then the crazy dude claims that Mister Jessie bought it from somebody on one of his business trips down South. But then, when the sucker sees Mister Jessie sitting up there in that thing that’s been stored in the basement for years he looks like he’s seeing a ghost! It wasn’t enough for Mister Jessie to be sitting in that beat-up thing which I warned him would bring us bad luck—oh, no! But then, all of a sudden, here comes this big-shot-looking white dude yelling about his having a white one!
“And Hickman,” Aubrey said with a weary wave of his hand, “that’s the honest-to-God truth! Everything was going fine until that white dude showed up….”
“Showed up from where? And who let him in?”
“Hell, I don’t know, but when I look up he’s in here causing trouble! Hickman, we were just having a little party to celebrate Mister Jessie’s birthday, when all of a sudden this white dude is in here raving. And before I know anything that crazy white gal …”
“What! Do you mean that you had …”
“… Oh, no! Not me, she was strictly Mister Jessie’s idea. So get that straight! And when that fool gal starts doing her funky number I …”
“Yes,” he said, “yes?”
But before Aubrey could answer, Tillman reached between them and swung him around to face the coffin.
“Reveren’,” Tillman said, “that’ll be enough for now, because as you can see he’s getting overexcited again. So now we’ll take a break and continue after he’s calmer.”
“But, Officer, I’d like to hear the rest of it—especially about this woman he mentioned. What happened to her?”
“Now listen, Reverend,” the detective said with a sudden note of irritation, “you’re getting into police business, so let it lay! And since I’m convinced that you and your deacon had nothing to do with this matter you’re both free to return to your hotel. Just leave word as to where you can be reached in case we need you….
“McVey,” he said, turning abruptly to the freckled-faced detective, “go along and see that nobody stops them as they leave the building. That’s an order.”
So, Hickman thought, some things haven’t changed: Just mention a white woman and the law slams the door.
And suddenly struck by the comic undertones that sounded in Aubrey’s account of a white man invading a black American’s disorderly house in a search for his coffin, he surged with amusement. Had it actually happened, or was it an example of Aubrey’s sly skill in outfoxing the hounds by playing the dozens? Anyway, the whole thing’s too wild for that man to have been our boy—No!
And now, watching Aubrey eyeing Tillman’s restraining hand with a look of disgust, he turned to leave.
“Thanks, Officer,” he said, “I’m much obliged. And for what it’s worth I believe Aubrey’s telling the truth. Because given the general disorder around us, how could anyone make up such a story?”
“Reverend,” a voice called from the shadows, “didn’t I advise you to stick to heaven and let us decide what’s true or false in the area of crime?”
“Yes, Detective Morrison, I remember,” he said, “but while you keep trying to get at the truth and can’t believe what McMillen has told you, even an unworldly preacher like me knows that getting at the truth can depend upon asking the right party the right questions. So maybe if you forget your theory about McMillen being a bootlegger and ask his friend up there in the coffin the meaning of that cornbread, those yams, and his black-eyed peas and rice and you might get your answer.”
“Thanks for the brilliant advice,” Detective Tillman said. “Now get the hell out of here!”
“So long, Aubrey,” he called. “I’ll get in touch with you as soon as possible. Just keep telling the truth and you’ll be all right.”
“Come on, you,” McVey said, “let’s move it.”
“I’m with you,” Hickman said. And with a final look at the man in the coffin he put the scene behind him and moved through the shadows and focused his mind on the day ahead and the problem of seeing the Senator.
But now, having followed McVey to a
point near the door, he was brought to a halt by the sight of a woman who lay stretched on her back in a lounging chair. And as he watched her white skin and features emerge from the shadows he thought, So here’s the woman that caused Tillman to shut Aubrey’s mouth!
Apparently asleep, with a bare arm curving above her head, the woman lay beneath a blue policeman’s jacket that stretched from the tip of her chin to the cleft of her thighs. And as he gazed at the odd fringe of yellow paper that protruded beneath the end of the jacket he realized with a start that the woman’s silk panties were adorned with depreciated twenty-dollar bills like those on the floor near Jessie Rockmore’s coffin. And as he looked back to the woman’s face he felt a jerk on his arm.
“Let’s move it,” McVey shouted, “and I mean now!”
“All right,” he said, “all right!” But not yet. For at the sound of his voice the blue-shadowed eyes popped open and flashed from his face to McVey’s—and he was watching the motion of the woman’s hand as it reached for the jacket and drew it aside with a stripteaser’s gesture—and except for its flip-tail skirt and high-heeled shoes he was staring at a female form which was completely bare.
But what better costume, he thought, for somebody performing a “funky number.” And with McMillen’s term echoing in his ear he saw the woman smile and extend her manicured hands in his direction.
Instantly insulted and alarmed by a white female’s signifying play upon taboos that could trigger many white men to violence, he snatched his arm from McVey’s grasp as the woman spun to her right and attempted to stand. And now, rocking and reeling against the counter-swinging of her bulging breasts, she kicked the jacket aside and turned to McVey with a challenging smile. Whereupon, sensing an eruption of movement, he whirled to see McVey reaching down and shooting erect with the abandoned jacket stretched in his hands; and as the young detective sprang forward with a grimace of distaste the scene became a distorted version of a chapter from Genesis, and he was transfixed by fleeting images of Shem and Japheth hurtling backwards with a billowing blanket between them. And with details of the post-Deluge story flooding his mind, he realized that neither the likes of wine-drunk Noah nor the son who had witnessed his nakedness were anywhere to be seen, heard the woman explode with obscenities, and saw McVey’s improvised blanket resume its mundane form as it flew like a fisherman’s net toward the woman’s red head.
And as he listened for Tillman to take over, he saw McVey closing on the woman with the sleeves of the jacket flapping like the wings of a hawklike bird. He thought, Hickman, as one of his so-called sons you’ve always questioned Ham’s being punished for looking too hard at his father’s weakness, but drunk or sober this woman’s no Noah, and McVey’s no Shem or Japheth—so how is it that way late, and here in this crazy Washington house of all places, you’re being forced to suffer Ham’s sin and his fate once again?
And as he restrained a sudden impulse to grab the jacket and allow the woman to deal with her own bawdy nakedness, he was amazed to see her snatch McVey to her breasts and assail his crotch with a fierce bump-and-grind.
Yes, he thought, but that’s far too simple for a final answer. So much for Noah, so much for Ham, and so much for Ham’s son, Hickman. And collapsing with laughter he heard a disgusted Tillman roaring behind him, “McVey, handcuff that strumpet and get that goddamn preacher out of here—and I mean NOW!”
“Right,” McVey called, “right!”
But as he laughed and watched McVey struggling to break free of the woman’s embrace she glared at him over the detective’s shoulder.
“That’s it, Dad,” she called, “laugh your chitt’lin’- eating head off if you think it’s so funny, but this is one frigging gig that’s been tra—uuul-ly maaad!”
At which, cursing and breaking her hold with a thrust of his shoulder, McVey leaned forward, and in raising the jacket received a backhanded slap across the bridge of his nose as the woman screamed, “Get your hands off me, you sonof -abitch!”
And as McVey paused and stood shaking his head, she snatched at the jacket and screamed, “That’s right, Dad, the whole frigging deal has been mad as a hatter! We were having … one … wow of a time … just the three of us … spreading a little joy … as you boot boys say …”
Bump!
“Take that, you little bastard!—I say, stop it, you clown!—But then some bigshot coffin-freak shows up—how about that!—and before this ole gal could yell hooray the hell for Jackie Robinson he’s gone and a gang of creeps like sonny here come barging in! And then, Daddy-O, all hell broke loose! And with the Boots and cops going at it like the Dodgers and Giants, the whole frigging scene turned into a saaud, saaaauud maaud!”
And now, giving McVey a stiff-arm thrust to his chest, she threw up her arms and fell backwards into the chair; from where, giving a flaunting flip of her banknote skirt, she exploded with laughter.
And now, slamming her face with the policeman’s jacket, McVey whirled and seized his arm. And gasping with laughter he was being rushed through the narrow aisle of the room, banging against objects that creaked and tilted as McVey propelled him into the door that led to the vestibule; where, now, he could see Wilhite looming closer with his mouth agape. Then they were there and McVey wheeling Wilhite around and snatching open the door to the vestibule—and as cross-eyed little Maud screamed from the stairs, “Wait, darling, wait,” they were both being rushed through the jam of wide-eyed tenants, past the grandfather’s clock, and onto the steps—where, relieving himself of an encyclopedic explosion of anti-Negro profanity, McVey released their arms and rushed back into the hall, which was now roaring with the shouting of angry Negroes.
“A.Z.,” Wilhite said as he gasped for breath and stared at the door, “what was that all about? What happened in there?”
“Later, Wilhite, because it will take a whole book to tell you—but I found her!”
“Found who?”
“The woman! Those detectives had me playing what my young friend Millsap used to call the American game of cherchez la femme. I thought little Sister Maud was mistaken about a woman being in on this thing, but at the last minute I found her!”
“Wait, man; wait! What woman are you raving about?”
“The one those folks said McMillen and his boss were entertaining! The white woman!”
“What!”
“Yes! And now it seems that most of what they said about what’s been happening in this crazy place is true!”
“Are you telling me that there’s really a …”
“Wilhite, didn’t I just tell you that I saw her? Those detectives had her stashed in the shadows, but she’s there—I swear. And I mean sloppy drunk, half-naked, and so foul-mouthed and disorderly that she even amazed an old sinner like me!”
“Good Lord! And what about McMillen?”
“Half-drunk and being questioned, but physically unharmed—at least as far as I could see. Which appears to be true, because while those white detectives are treating him like a clown he’s easing them into the dozens and getting away with it.”
“Well, at least that rascal hasn’t changed—but what about his boss?”
“Wilhite, the poor man is done with this world….”
“… Dead?”
“Dead? Yes! But murdered? I doubt it. Because—now listen to this—he’s sitting up on a table looking like a king holding court in a worm-eaten coffin!”
“A coffin? Come on!”
“Yes! And dressed in a morning coat and ascot tie! Man, let’s get ourselves back to the Longview before we both lose our minds!”
“I’m with you,” Wilhite said. “Let’s get out of here!”
And with a quick look at the glowing 369 on the fanlight he shook his head and hurried away.
EDITORS’ NOTE TO “HICKMAN IN GEORGIA & OKLAHOMA”
“HICKMAN IN GEORGIA & Oklahoma” consists of two sets of files that Ellison gave their own distinct tables of contents. Ellison appears almost certainly to have intended the sect
ions to follow one another. The evidence for this is both narrative and textual. The Georgia sequence ends with Hickman leaving for the airport, while the Oklahoma sequence begins with him landing in Oklahoma City. Further corroborating the connection, Ellison’s archive at the Library of Congress includes a printout with continuous pagination running from the last Georgia file to the first Oklahoma file. To respect their close connection, we have elected to treat them as a single sequence. Together they constitute the most sustained narrative from the last decade of Ellison’s life.
This sequence begins with Hickman at his home in Waycross, Georgia, going through a stack of mail. Among the letters is one from Janey Glover, an old friend from Oklahoma for whom he’d long harbored an infatuation and who, we later find, is connected both with Sunraider and Sunraider’s estranged son and would-be assassin, Severen—whom Janey had raised from infancy much as Hickman had Bliss. The sight of her name on the envelope sparks in Hickman a series of reveries, and inspires him to return to a thirty-year-old report from a man named Walker Millsap whom he had enlisted to find the young man Bliss. When he gets around to opening the letter, he discovers that Janey is in great emotional distress, the precise cause of which is unclear, but somehow related to the one she calls Hickman’s “little man”: Bliss/Sunraider.
When Hickman arrives in Oklahoma City, he makes a series of visits, including ones to Janey and to a half-Indian, half-black shaman by the name of Love New. The section ends with Hickman visiting a bar called the Cave of the Winds, where he listens to a wild improvised story told by Cliofus, a kind of savant who was raised by Janey alongside Severen.
Oklahoma, the place of Ellison’s birth, remained a source of enduring fascination for him throughout the decades of the novel’s composition. He imagined Oklahoma as the site of the novel’s governing mystery and motivation. In notes likely dating from the early 1950s, when the novel was little more than a notion, he mapped out a three-part structure that would commence with Oklahoma. “The first book is that of the frontier. // The middle book that of the city. // The third book that of the nation.” Fragmentary typewritten drafts dating from the 1950s and later place an emphasis upon Oklahoma as the scene of action in ways not found in the Books I and II typescripts. Some of these drafts show McIntyre visiting Oklahoma in the aftermath of Sunraider’s assassination seeking clues to unlock the mystery of the violent act. In the computer sequence that follows, Ellison has substituted Hickman for McIntyre and moved events back before the Senator’s shooting.