“Anyway, Fatty-Come-with-Fleas walks past a few times smoking a five-cents cigar and tipping his hat real grand to the crowd. And I have to admit that with each pass he makes he looks more and more like the woodpile politician and the historical figure some folks like to believe him to be.
“Then here comes old pop-eyed lawyer Jerkins, looking like a pouter pigeon with that elk tooth dangling from his watch chain. And Tommy and Brilliantine, the two fat, high-yellow aristocratic-looking whores from down in the Bottoms. They’re dressed to kill but as usual they’re loud and disorderly. Then right behind them here come four big, strong, double-jointed butchers who worked on the killing floor at the meatpacking plant. They’re high-stepping along dressed in stocking caps, rubber boots, blood-stained aprons and carrying meat cleavers, cattle prods, and butcher knives and looking like they have the world by the tail with a down-hill swing and dare anybody to deny it. That’s when I look around and see that other folks besides me are staring at all that steel like they were asking themselves some serious questions about what might happen next. But then, here comes a quartet of Pullman porters singing ‘Oh Didn’t He Ramble’ in barbershop style, so they forgot to come up with an answer. But by now all kinds of folks were passing back and forth before that goddamn eye, and each and every one making sure to give himself a second chance—and I mean a heap of second chances!
“Because after making the first few passes they’d stand back a while and stare at that three-legged thing like it’s the unblinking eye of the universe—Yao!— and they’re thinking up the next thing to do that will please it. So they kept going and coming and trying to satisfy that one-eyed contraption.
“And Hickman, I tell you, they really walked some walks and cut some capers—and I mean all kinds! And since the goggle eyes kept on pointing and grinding that contraption folks kept reversing the field and doing something different. Then with the womenfolks joining in it really got confusing. And to make it worse, some clown up in the second floor of a rooming house sticks the horn of his phonograph out the window and started to playing ‘The Bugle Call Rag.’ And next thing I know a bunch of thugs are swinging past singing ‘There’s a Soldier in the Grass’ at the top of their voices. And when the war veterans in the crowd hear them yelling ‘Pull it out, Uncle Sam,’ it’s like some strict, no-bull-dodo master sergeant had yelled a command for everybody to fall in and act the fool. Because with that they grab the women for partners and got to doing just about every dance step they could think of.
“Oh, it was something to see! They balled the jack and bunny hugged, they eagle rocked, two-stepped, waltzed and turkey trotted. And when they ran out of those they started making up steps never seen before, whether in dance hall, whorehouse, or gospel meeting. But no matter what kind of steps they came up with they made sure that camera was taking them in.
“And then, running true to form, they did what State Negroes are apt to do in any situation from baby-naming rites to public funerals—they turned it into a dancing contest. And when one tap-dancing joker does a routine and yells ‘I’m no goddamned amateur,’ he was speaking the truth for a heap of the others.
“Hickman, I look up the block a few yards and I see four dressed-up couples lining up in a row, with the men squatting low to the sidewalk like a flock of penguins. And then when the women squat beside them with their hands on hips and skirts hiked above their knees, one of the men gives a signal and their friends on the sideline start beating out the rhythm with their hands. And that’s when they take off doing something they called the funky walk—Which wasn’t much of a walk, but it sure in hell was funky funky—or maybe funky goosey! Because that was the way they moved.
“First a long lean fellow shuffles to the front with his head high and his chest stuck out like a gander’s. Then with his shoulders squared and his elbows raised and his fists pressed tight together he moves forward, swaying from side to side while fanning his thighs in and out like his crotch is on fire. And after he wobbles his way a few feet in front of the others he halts, still fanning his thighs and nodding his head, while the gal who’s his partner starts fanning her big fat thighs and duckwalks up to join him. And then, one by one, the others take their turn, grinning and fanning up a storm of funk.
“Then—a-hup-a-hup-a-hup!—they all fan out in a row and come shuffling forward until they reach a spot where there’s no way in the world for that camera to miss them. And then with the crowd urging them on they squat there with their arms over their heads, snapping their fingers and fanning their thighs. And then, staying close to the ground with their hands on their hips, they take turns spinning and kicking their feet from a sitting position.
“And then, Hickman, right before my mixed-up eyes, they’re up and dancing themselves into ducks and drakes, boar hogs and sows, seed bulls and cows, stallions and mares, bucks and ewes, roosters and hens …”
“Wait! Hold it,” Hickman said; “they were doing what?”
“Mating dances, Hickman; mating dances! And with the bucks on the prod and the females willing but teasing. Then they all go Cuban by dancing a dance called shoeing the mare, with each gal twisting her hips and smiling a come-and-get-it smile and the fellow spinning at her feet ‘til he corkscrews erect and begins circling around her, bucking his shoulders and head with his feet pawing the ground like a stud in white heat. Which turns out to be one hell of a performance, and done with so much spirit that everybody in the crowd is clapping and yelling. Yao! And admiring those teasing views provided by those hip-swinging ladies.
“But then, not to be outdone by the sinners, a little old church sister catches fire and shocks everybody by pulling off a pretty fair high-kicking cakewalk—and I mean showing off her linen and everything. She was known for being a strict fire-and-brimstone Baptist, but under all those petticoats and ‘touch-me-not’ bloomers, she’s wearing some red silk garters—maybe to warn herself that she’s still a woman with sin-juice left in her bony little frame. Anyway, when the others see a woman of her reputation cutting loose it’s like they’d got a signal to go rip-snorting wild. Because quicker than you could say ‘Bojangles Robinson,’ everybody and his brother, cousin, and mother-in-law is joining in the breakdown.
“And with that one-eyed contraption and those goggle eyes in full command, that was just what it turned into: a breakdown. It was like they’d put something powerful in the drinking water that was driving those State Negroes out of their minds. And with all the commotion the news kept spreading.
“Next thing I know an undertaker turns up driving his hearse but he can’t get through, so he curses up a storm over having to drive backwards for more than a block. Then right behind him, and twisting up a breeze, come sixteen whores from the red-light district. In all that heat they’re sashaying along sporting silver-fox fur pieces and with those Hudson-seal coats they favored pulled up tight to advertise the full nasty action of their rumble seats. And as they come on they’re looking down their noses and batting their gooey eyelashes like vamps in the movies. You should’ve seen the respectable folks, especially the women, giving them room!
“I tell you, Hickman, before it was over almost everybody in the section was out there acting the fool before that damn one-eyed contraption. But now as I think about it, they were doing no more than folks do today, when they’ll knock one another down trying to sneak them a split-second on television news. In fact, about the only ones who didn’t join in were the undertakers, the doctors, the teachers, and the preachers. And with a few of them it was only because they didn’t want to be seen associating with the riffraff, whether by their neighbors or that one-eyed contraption.
“Hickman, like I say, I’m of the People and old as the mountains, but I tell you verily, it was like nothing I’d ever seen. And you can believe me, because I’ve seen shoot-outs, I’ve seen lynchings, I’ve seen roaring-drunk Apaches on the prod. I’ve seen dust storms, springtime floods, cyclones and tornadoes, and out of control oil wells burning like eruptions from hel
l. I’ve seen State folks hold those powwows they call revivals and get so worked up by all the yelling and singing that they rolled on the ground and foamed at the mouth. I’ve witnessed a big Fourth of July dance ruined by a reefer-headed whore who got mad and snatched the bandleader’s golden horn out of his hands and smashed it on the floor just because she didn’t like the way he winked his eye at another whore when the band was playing ‘Mama Loves Papa!’ I’ve heard Billy Sunday preach and seen him beat the hell out of his Bible and go jumping up and down until he had a whole tent full of white folks staring in a drip-lipped trance—and I could keep going for hours. But Hickman, I swear: Of all the things that have driven the State Negroes loco—like gambling on the numbers, driving secondhand cars as though they were chariots, dancing the Lindy, the Charleston, and the one-butt shuffle—the way they performed for the eye of that camera was
[NATIVES]
BY ALL MEANS THE damndest!”
“Yes,” Hickman said, “and as you relate it you’re still amused over those poor folks being so gullible. But while I share your reaction I’m appalled by the tragedy.”
“Tragedy?”
“Yes, if you consider what happened to that young man and young woman. With no experience whatsoever as an actor, he wins a contest and thinks he’ll be the hero of a movie. Yes, and one contrived by three strangers. But then the movie turns out to be nothing more than a swindle and he ends up—well, let’s say, with his ‘head’ on a platter.
“And as though that wasn’t gruesome enough, the young woman gets so excited over winning the role of a leading lady that she gives in to one of the swindlers and turns up pregnant. Then, after nine months of being humiliated by all the backbiting and staring, she’s so distraught that after giving birth she kills herself and leaves behind a motherless baby.”
“All right, Hickman, if that’s all you make of what happened, call it tragic. But from where I stand it was the fruit of State Negro foolishness. So before you preach me a sermon about pity and terror …”
“Me, preach to you? Forget it!”
“… Remember that you’re a medicine man and accept the fact that the evil no-see-ums spawned by that hungry-eyed gadget are still around buzzing and stabbing.”
“And you find that so amusing that you can forget the rest of it?”
“No, but the rest is important. Think about it: After the hero got butchered he moved up North and took a new name. But that didn’t help, because today he’s still so mad over being scammed by those goggle-eyed strangers that he hates all white folks, whether they be men, women, or babies. So now he wears African clothes, calls himself the new Marcus Garvey, and tells anyone who’ll listen that before he was reclaimed by what he calls his African heritage he was on his way to becoming famous as an actor in movies—Yao! But not a peep about his foolish pride or the woman who pruned him!
“Then take a look at what happened to the child of Lavatrice. Until he’s snatched away by his father’s smooth-talking lawyer, he’s mothered by Janey. Then taken East, he grows up living the life of a rich white American. But now, after all his years of such living, he’s back here among the black State folks and pressuring Janey to come up with answers to unanswerable questions!”
“Yes,” Hickman said, “I get the irony, and it sounds like a blues howled by an idiot. And what makes it so terrible is that it all ties together, the past and the present, the hope and the terror….”
“Aye! And don’t forget this, my brother in medicine: You’re sitting in that chair because of that camera. You want to continue?”
“Of course. But since most of what you’re telling me is new, please do me the favor of not being annoyed if what you find amusing leaves me torn between laughing and crying.”
“Hell, Hickman, I’m trying to give you an idea of the mess the State people have made—and keep making—of life in this country. So the only thing new about it was what those goggle eyes did with their devilish gadget. Anyway, if I go on we’ll be needing more Choc—you with me?”
“Yes, thank you, and as long as you talk I’ll give both you and your beer my sharpest attention.”
“Now that’s the way of a hunter! When tracking game in deep cover he must see with his ears, hear with his eyes, and feel with his mind and his smeller!”
Yes, Hickman thought, and it’s also sound advice for my dealing with you….
Love New—what outrageous names for such a sly little rascal! Because old or new, he’s anything but loveable. And if as he claims he grew up among Indians, all those volumes in his bookcase suggest that he’s as much of a reader as my old friend Millsap. Which makes for a mystery because most folks don’t expect a Native to be familiar with books. That’s why in making himself even more mysterious he shuffles his idioms and makes allusions to any book he can think of in ways that mock those who assume to be of superior intelligence. Which was exactly the way of that down-home character who was known as Sam, the Truth-defying Signifier!
Yes, Hickman, an inner voice chuckled, and at some time in his life this little Choc-drinking rascal jumped the reservation and went rambling in pool halls, beer flats, gambling joints, and other not-so-green pastures. And along the way he matched wits with fast-talking barbershop lawyers, past-grand-masters of the dirty dozens, and maybe a few worldly-wise preachers like you. But now, being old and ornery, he gets a kick out of blurring his image and background with talk about being of a son of “the People.”
All right, so he’s an Oklahoma Native, but of which of the tribes—Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, or Tuskegee-Creek? That’s the the high card hidden in the deck he keeps flashing and shuffling…. He’s like that New Orleans piano man who tolerated white folks calling him a “Negro” as long as they enjoyed and praised his music. Yeah, but let one of us homeboys question his background and he’d French-fry his accent and swear to being unadulterated Creole by blood and by breeding!
Which was like saying he was a mulatto who had not a drop of African blood. But so what? When we were paid for a gig and divided the kitty it didn’t earn him an extra plugged nickel. Any more than it did when it came to voting, or taking part in anything else ruled off-limits to us nappy-headed descendants of Hagar. So Creole or no, in the eyes of white folks he was just another “boy” with a talent for a new type of music.
Yes, Hickman thought, and I’ve known quite a few like him, and sympathized—sometimes—with their attempts to make the most of their hair and their features and color. Even so, out of all of those I’ve known who tried to have it both ways, this Native, this Love, tops them all!
What a character! Knowing full well that the truth is seldom as simple as we’d like it to be he laces what he says with lies and dares you to find the truth in his lying. And along with his ducking and dodging, play-acting and jiving, the little poker-faced rascal has the nerve to play the dozens with my religion as a way of getting my goat the way he gets Janey’s. And in turning his tongue against what he calls “State folks” he’s acting an Ishmael straight out of Genesis—yes!—and with me listening and staring him dead in the eye!
Well, he has his ways and I have mine, and just as a musician’s background comes out in his music, whatever this little joker’s true identity happens to be sounds in the styles he combines in his lying. Like those echoes of Hiawatha which keep accenting the beat of his riffing And while he tries to make what happened out here a case of “either/or,” what I’m hearing in what he’s relating is the age-old, ever-present “this-plus-that.” Wonder what he’d say if I mentioned Will Rogers, who was both of the People and a star on Broadway? Or that other sons of the People, such as Jack Teagarden and Big Chief Moore, are famous for their skills in playing State Negro music?
What a mockery we make of democracy! Here’s a black, mixed-breed Oklahoma Native having fun watching what he calls “State Negroes” fighting with white folks over which of them is truly American. And while he looks on from behind his cigar-store Indian façade he’s probably cra
cking up over the idea of white folks going crazy thinking up ways for keeping us from mixing our blood with theirs. When the outrageous joke of it lies in the inescapable fact that it’s our rhythm and style which keeps taking them over! Yes, and what my bookish boy Millsap calls our grace under pressure. And as Millsap argues, many whites do draw hope and courage from our insisting that this country live up to the ideal of freedom which they deny us….
Hearing a hearty “Here we go,” Hickman turned to see Love standing with two bottles of beer. One of which the little man placed on the table before him and returned to the swing; where, taking a long sip of beer, he stared at his glass.
“Hickman,” Love said, “when it comes to beer, not even the President can drink anything better than this.”
“Yes, Mr. New, I believe you, but if you tell the white folks they’ll grab it.”