The Busting Out of an Ordinary Man (12 page)

“I'll never know for certain, but I think I say I think the English knew what was goin' down but they couldn't scream, ‘Hey! bring that bloody Stool back!' 'cause they couldn't admit they had it, not with all those brothers out there. On the other hand, the Asantehene couldn't admit that he was stealin' it back 'cause he was never supposed to have lost it in the first place.

“We wound up with what you might call an impass. Three days later, the Asantehene called me in again, laid another bag o' dust on me without sayin' nary a word; two days after that the English ‘advised' me to get on. Or, as I remember the way the young stud put it, ‘Uhh, Simmons, we should like to see you depart on the next scheduled ship from this ahrea.'

“When's that? I asked him.

“‘This afternoon,' he told me and didn't blink once.

“So, once again, there I was, orphaned in the world.”

He stood and stretched, “Yeahhhh, orphaned in the world.” He bowed to the men in the cell like a Mandarin lord and strolled out onto the tier, heading for his own cell, and the horrors awakened within himself from a couple hours of story telling.

“Buddha!?” Marcus called to him as he made his exit.

He turned, two cells away a quizzical expression on his Mao-shaped face.

“Buddha, you ever think about doin' your autobiography?”

Buddha smiled at him coldly. “Yeah, I did do it once. It got all messed up, that's why I'm servin' time now.”

Marcus looked down at the floor helplessly, and then back up to see Buddha disappear into his own cell, ready for the evening lockup.

Sweet Peter Deeder sat in the corner of the sofa in his eighth floor apartment, a drink beside him, a three-hole notebook on his robed lap, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city.

What was coming up? Another lecture tour, a few t.v. talkshow shots, a best selling underground record album (Sweet Peter Raps), a couple other lil' things, a movie role, possibly.

He took a long sip from his drink. So much had happened to turn his head around. He smiled solemnly at the memory of the brutal ass-kicking Kwendi and company had given him years back. Maybe they did me a favor, maybe that's what finally did it, havin' some young bloods try to wipe me out.

He set his drink down and made a note in his notebook “Ass kicking by young black nationalists, a turning point.”

Nawww, that wasn't it, you son of a bitch you! he mumbled fiercely to himself. That wasn't it and you know damned well it wasn't. What's one more ass-kickin', more or less, even if that one put you in the hospital?

He stuck his pen behind his ear and reached for his drink, the city lights seeming to harden into cold, glistening splashes before his eyes.

Lulu's eyes Lulu's eyes his bottom woman's eyes gleaming out at him like the eyes of some cursed statue, Lulu's eyes, his dead bottom woman's eyes curled around the hot shot he had accidentally given her as a present.

He poured the rest of the drink down his throat, trying to wash away the memory of the bona fide 'hoe he had been too afraid to love for five years, the one he had pushed, beaten, bullied, slaved, pimped. His bottom lady, the one who had stuck when everybody else had become unglued, the one he had killed.

He pushed the notebook out of his lap and shuffled over to his liquor cabinet for a fresh drink.

And Idella

He shuddered half the glass of scotch down. Idella caught running through the streets, stark ravin' naked, mind completely shot by one-hundred and twenty-six tricks and eight rapes in a day and a half.

And all the rest of them. The poor fools who had come to the big city looking for glamor, romance, finance or whatever the hell it was that they sought and found themselves mummified into whatever Sweet Peter Deeder, pimp extraordinaire, wanted to make of them. He refilled his glass and slouched back over to the sofa, feeling too sad for tears.

Why couldn't I have gotten my ass put in jail for something worthwhile, like Kwendi? Or Buddha? Or gotten killed, like Mayflower? The pantheon of neighborhood figures, sharers at one time of his mystique, flashed through his mind.

He stood up, postured drunkenly, became Ol' Sweet Peter Deeder again, giving commands and making decisions, whippin' asses 'n takin' names.

“Bitch! I thought I told you to bring three-hundred dollars in here! What the fuck am I gon' do with two-ninety-five? What the fuck does this look like to you, Sears' bargain basement?”

“Idella! hold still! Don't you move a fraction of an inch! If you force me to move from this spot when I swing at your motherfuckin' jaw, I'm gon' kill your worthless, triflin', funky, jinky ass! I shoulda exiled your ass to Montana the day after you got here!”

The long, lush nights of being surrounded by soft, loving bodies, the wild flights of fantastic thought, courtesy of Our Girl, Miss Snow, the dynamite weed, the translucent feelings of pure, absolute power.

He settled back onto the sofa, mind juggling the pleasures and horrors of the past. And the remorse, the cold, deep, heart-crumpling awareness of how evil, dumb, foolish and stupid it had been to pimp sisters, black women, his Momma.

A bitter tear swam along the bottom lid of his left eye, threatened to break over the edge, to run down his carefully composed cheek, but failed. He picked up his notebook, put it down, plodded back for another drink and returned to try to get the notes for his new lecture series together.

He sat once again with the notebook in his lap, staring out at the city. Cryptically, he began. “Respect! You can't respect yourself or those you pimp. Nixon had no respect. When I was a pimp, I had no respect. I thought just like him, that everybody was my fool.”

He didn't turn when the children rushed into the room, into his work.

“Don't bother Daddy, Tamara! Melba! He's busy!”

Peter Dawson turned to look at his wife, a square-ass high school teacher with loads of mother wit, a profound understanding of where he had come from, and smiled drunkenly.

She swept the children along in front of her, cold and chattering about their evening at the movies, turning to wink seductively at him as she made her exit, and said, “Don't work all night, Peter Momma gets cold in bed by herself.”

He almost laughed aloud as he scribbled points to make for his next talk, at a co-ed college thank God! Wonder what kinda 'hoe she woulda made? he mumbled to himself and went on to his next point, feeling tipsy but free.

Chapter 5

Getting By

Lubertha stared at the dull circles under Kwendi's eyes, the heavy, tired, defiant look at the corners of his mouth. Visiting days were much harder sometimes than other times. This was a hard one, Kwendi being out of the Hole for only a week. A feeling that she would never see him again settled in on her, forced words to flow from her.

“We had our first snow this morning.”

Kwendi nodded, feeling unable to speak, his love down on him so heavy that he seriously considered jumping across the glass paneled barrier to kiss his woman.

“And, as usual, I found myself wishin' that I was pregnant. I do that a lot, 'specially when it rains or snows.”

Kwendi nodded again, realizing that she was writing him a verbal, visiting day letter. Writers are really funny people, he reflected, smiling more now.

“You know, I think the most romantic shit you could ever imagine sometimes. Like, at times I see the two of us floating away, way above the heads of all the people we hate, livin' a really beautiful life.”

“Sounds like you're loaded to me,” he said softly, humoring her.

She flashed him one of her we-us-you-me smiles. “I guess, at times, in my state of mind I feel naturally high.”

Kwendi's mind shot to the middle of his month in solitary. Yeah, you could be high from a lot of things.

“Sometimes I work myself into such a state that I feel, I feel superlucid. Super ain't it a shame the way people are allowin' this creep to run the government?” she veered off suddenly.

“Uh huh,” Kwendi answered quickly, feeling more into the visit second by second. “All of it is just a bunch of drummed up drama. The jive political drama. Well, we know where that takes us … hah! there's got to be somethin' better than the Republicans 'n the Democrats. The sociological drummed up drama, hyped up social divisions that make it supereasy to keep the real rulers, the money grubbers, in power.

“Ooops, I'm sorry, baby,” he apologized, “I didn't mean to monopolize the conversation. How's your father?”

“Oh, that's o.k., I get off into things myself, as you well know. Daddy's become such a groove. The other night he came home growlin', with a newspaper under his arm, spread it out on the kitchen table and actually started ravin'! I mean, sho' nuff ravin'!”

“What about?” Kwendi asked quickly, the contagious feeling of something seriously funny making him feel that way.

“Something we had rapped about a few nights before, he 'n I, Manipulation by Big Money Interests. I can't remember exactly what the article was sayin', but at any rate, in its own shabby way, it was tryin' to justify jackin' up the poor so that the rich could get some more.”

“I can dig it.”

“Anyway, I don't know about my Daddy sometimes, he can come off with the weirdest notions in the world sometimes. Especially about politics, but what I've been noticing more and more, is that he'll come right back at me with my argument a week later, if necessary.”

Kwendi laughed, seeing Mr. Franklin's brusque manner and his bristling mustache in his mind's eye. “When's your book comin' out?” he veered off, anxious now to ask, say everything, knowing that the visit would be over too soon.

“Ohh, 'bout the first of the year,” she replied, trying to be modest. “You know, even though Third World Press is publishing it, they still want to take advantage of the commercial side of things. Can you imagine, Kwendi …? I got a book comin' out, about us! What more could any writer ask for?”

“Well, since it's about the Struggle, let's hope it gets read,” he stated drily.

“Yeah, me too,” she said wistfully, “Kwendi! guess what happened the other day?”

“No, what!!?” he responded gleefully, playing out a little number on her spontaneous bursts.

“The Negroes for a Latter Day Hitler, or whatever the name of the organization is, came to us, to talk about funding our theater group. Their only stipulation was that we would ‘tone' down the messages in our work. Can you imagine what kind of souls those niggers must have, in order to be able to make up the words to ask us to do something like that? Especially in these times.”

“Well, hey, baby you know, it just doesn't register with a lot of sisters 'n brothers that we are now living in a fascist state, a Neo-New World fascist state, but still a fascist state. Yeahhh, it really is hard to try to figure out where people are coming from, at times,” he concluded sadly.

The guard stood at Kwendi's left shoulder, not saying a word, as though he were eavesdropping and overseeing at the same time. Lubertha saw the muscles tighten in Kwendi's jaws as the guard casually tapped him on the shoulder.

“Awright, Jones it's time.”

Kwendi half turned toward the guard. It's time … for you, that means ending the only pleasure I have these days, my woman visiting me. It's time what do you know about time?

“Be cool, Kwendi,” Lubertha whispered urgently to him. “Be cool, baby.”

He relaxed and stood, gave her a soulful look and turned away with the guard grasping his elbow, unnecessarily.

She sat there, as she had done a number of times after a visit, feeling rotten, suddenly remembering the little things she had wanted to tell him but could never seem to remember.

Sweet Peter Deeder, Peter Dawson, reformed pimp, offering to make some fund raising speeches for the Club.

I've stopped smoking so much anyway.

Kwendi. Five years without Kwendi. Five hurtin' years. No deep kisses, no picnics in the park, movies, no jazz concerts, dances, parties. Is the Cause worth it? she asked herself, glancing up and down the row of convict faces on the other side of the glass paneled visitor's glass.

A couple of the black inmates raised their fists in her direction, a toast for black liberation, recognizing that she was Kwendi's woman.

She smiled back weakly, drained.

Yeah, the Cause is worth it. She slid out of the seat and strolled slowly out of the visitor's section, her mind suddenly swamped by the amount of Club business she had to take care of. Oh well, at least it's Monday, that does give me the rest of the week.

Big Momma bustled around her room, pouring a little more tea from her twenty-one year old teapot, into the sister's cups, her arthritic knees aching slightly. “I'll be with y'all in just a few minutes, ladies,” she said, resettling the teapot on her two burner, and disappeared behind the Chinese screen in her room to change.

“Take your time, sister,” one of the Muslim sisters spoke out in a clear, deep voice.

Mrs. Washington struggled nervously with the buttons on her washed out gingham dress, fumbling out of her old cardigan at the same time, bursitis adding to the effort. She peeked through a slit in the screen at the two sisters, both of them close to her age, straight gowns and headgear making them look somehow like … her mind fumbled for the right image like ol' time Egyptian queens. And the way they sit … so straight. Her heart pounded from unaccustomed excitement. This was her fifth trip to the mosque, courtesy of Baby … Lawwd! when am I gon' ever remember that child's other name? Robert 30X!

The first couple trips had been made out of boredom mostly, and in response to the many kindnesses Robert had shown her as the hard wintertime settled in bringing bags of groceries (“Sorry, Sister Washington, no pork chops in this sack”) and warm sweaters, all donated by the Sisterhood. The first few trips had been kind of funny. They had sent two sisters over to escort her, and she had felt compelled to go. The mosque itself had struck her in an odd way, what with the quiet and the efficiency, no bustling Christianity anywhere around, meaning bullshit. But most of all, the extremely polite way all of the visitors had been treated.