Three Days Before the Shooting ... (161 page)

“Maybe they didn’t care about the story because they were glad to be doing something they didn’t do every day. Some of them got so worked up that pretty
soon the goggle-eyed fellows were making money hand over fist by selling little strips of the film they’d shown in the Sunset. Folks wanted to study how they looked and went around showing off those little bits of film to their friends. You could see them standing in the street holding the stuff up to the sun and saying to anyone who would take a look, ‘See, that’s me. I’m the one standing next to Choc Charlie.’ Or, ‘Look at the way I’m walking the dog with that high gloss polish on my best pair of shoes.’ It was as though they felt they were looking at themselves and yet
not at
themselves, so they needed somebody else to tell them, to make them feel sure of who they were.

“The next day on the street it was even wilder. I watched them, Hickman. I gave them my closest attention. The sun was bright and the air was clear, and after those three fellows stirred them up the State Negroes started parading in front of that one-eyed contraption like it had reached out and grabbed them by the short hair. It was like it had them under a new unheard-of spell. I don’t know what else to call it, but like it says in the Bible, I tell you verily, its effect was something to see!

“And naturally it started with the men. After they listened to whatever those three fellows told them to do for the camera they went into action. First they’d walk past the damn thing cool and slow, with each man carrying himself according to his own home-grown notion of dignified decorum. And then, after they got down the street a piece, they’d double back and try it again. But this time real fast and agitated, like they were urgent. Then some of the others who’d been looking on and didn’t want to be outdone—
they
took off in front of that thing and it was like somebody being chased by the Klan, the police, and a sheriff and his posse—or maybe the Devil hisself. Then the same fellows would circle around and come past it again. Some would be strutting and walking the dog, some walking tall and proud like soldiers, and others kinda dipping and swaying like they were marching in church and the music was solemn. Then a bunch staggers past with their arms around each other’s shoulders, pretending to be drunk and disorderly. And right behind them comes old ‘Fatty-Come-with-Fleas,’ a nickname which some joker came up with for
Fait accompli
, which was the French nickname some white politicians gave him after he stole the State Seal from the old Territorial Capitol at Guthrie and brought it down here in the plot which made this the state capital.

“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 hell. 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!”