The Last Days of Louisiana Red (11 page)

George Kingfish Stevens and Andy Brown are creeping up a dimly lit Oakland Street in a superior neighborhood.

They examine a letter box in front of the shrubbery of a well-groomed old Oakland home.

“It say Mr. & Mrs. Amos Jones. This must be the place. Let's jump over the bush here. It don't look like they home, Bro. Andy.”

After landing on the other side, they steal up the pathway towards the home. It is dark. On the ground they see a copy of the
Oakland Tribune
.

“Don't mind if I do.” Fish puts the newspaper under his arm and dons the robber's black mask. They tiptoe up the steps and look through the window. They see no one, and so they lift the window. Andy and Fish climb through to find themselves in the parlor. They come upon some lavish living-room furniture: huge sofas, tables topped with expensive lamps. Fish drops a cigarette on the floor and squashes it with his foot. They start with the lamps, putting them into a sack. They see a huge cassette machine, and they rip that off too. Then they rush about the room like madmen, swooping the valuables into boxes and sacks they've brought. They go into the kitchen and take the silverware. They enter the bathrooms and take $2.00 cakes of soap, shampoos, vitamins, Haitian oils and bathing herbs, combs imported from Ghana, thick exotic towels from India, Filipino prints. They go into the bedrooms and take clothes and jewelry. Down the hall they see a room with a faint light on. They rush down the hall and open the door. Incense is burning. There are two tables with food on them, a glass of champagne. White candles give out the light. Above the tables are pictures of mermaids and fan mail from South America.

“What on earth do we have here?” Fish says.

“Look like somebody had a party. Hey, look here on the table. Some coins! U-we! Let's swoop them into the sack, Andy.”

“I'm gone have me a piece of this chicken,” Andy says.

Suddenly the lights go on.

Amos stands in the corner, armed with one of them Haitian pistols.

“Why, why,” Fish says, grinning, “Brother Amos, we thought you and the Missus might be out tonight, so we came here to watch the place. You can't be careful enough in these times, all this surreptitious entry and all going around. We was putting your stuff in these bags so the robbers wouldn't get ahold of them.”

“Yes, we was keeping an eye on it for you,” Andy adds.

Amos, frowning: “What do you take me for—some kind of chump? Something told me to come back here tonight. A vague feeling. I'm not surprised at you, Fish. You've always been a cheap thief, but Andy—you? Why, we came north together. Remember when Fish tried to pick your pocket?”

“Well, that's true, Bro. Amos. But Iz been listening to this Minnie woman, and it seem to me she got the right idea. What's yours is mine.”

“That's right, Andy, he is being divisive. Share and share alike.”

Amos, lowering the pistol, stung: “But we came from Georgia together. '39. Don't you remember? We use to go fishing and sell the catch aside the road. Why, all the things we've done together, and you pull this?”

“That don't matter. I don't care nothing about the past. We is the future. We is the new world. Ain't that right, Fish?”

“Now you talkin, Bro. Andy. Ain't no use a you taking time to talk to this chump. Let's rush him.”

“O no you don't!” Amos raises the pistol; it clicks. “You always figured me for a patsy since I worked hard and I didn't hang out on the avenue. All those fives I gave you. You thought you were tricking me, but I knew what I was doing. Always brother this, brother that. I should have known that it was always a hype. True brotherhood is not so casual. I'm going to call the police.” He walks over to the phone, all the while keeping the gun aimed at the two intruders.

“Why … why … Bro. Amos, you wouldn't do that, would you? You must be on whitey's side,” Fish says.

“Whitey's side? How dare you confuse my struggle with yours? Who are my kind? Who are my people? Those who volunteer for the meanest tasks without fobbing them off on others. Those who when wrong don't get mad at someone for pointing out their faults.”

“Aw, nigger, I ain't heard nobody talk that way,” Andy says. “Kissass.”

“Shut up! How long did you think we would take this crap, Fish? You Moochers always intimidating us, extorting us because we're the same skin color; even insects and animals have a higher criterion than that for comradeship. It was just another protection racket, but we ain't going to be your old man in the candy store any longer. I'm calling the police.”

Formerly Berkeley was called “The City of Many Churches.” It still is, though not the kind Edward Rowland Sill, an early U. C. English professor, had in mind when he wrote the hymn “Send Down Thy Truth, O God.” Signs reading HooDoo were posted on the telegraph poles at Euclid Street near Hearst; Marcus Gordon had dressed up like Baron Samedi, top hat and all, at the Long Branch on San Pablo. At his Nyingma Institute, Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Lama, led a session in meditation, exercise and philosophy. Cardadoc ap Cador and his pagans were conducting weekly meetings at 2
P.M
. Sundays at Stiles Hall on the University of California campus. People were asking, Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji? Nam-myoho-renge-kyo was holding meetings at 790 Curtis Street. Gypsies everywhere.
Muhammad Speaks
was sold in broad daylight. Shamballa. Asian Bean Pie. Nairobi College. Transcendental meditation lecture at Martin Luther King Jr. High School at 1781 Rose Street. Maggie Anthony, Isaac Bonewitz.

There is a full moon over the “City of Many Churches.” Midnite. Venus high. Cool empty streets. Trees whispering. A woman walked into Harry's niteclub. It was the messenger. Full lips, sharp-edged “sculptured” nose, big bright Egyptian eyes. The messenger standing on the right-hand side of Osiris. When the messenger entered the club, the few patrons who were there on this cool Berkeley night looked up. Even the bartender, suave Obie Emerson, a connoisseur, looked up. Every time she entered a place, people looked up. She was smiling, fresh from the crossroads. She was wearing a white cloche hat, white suit, white high heels, and white veil. She wore the cross made of jet; not the cross of anguish and suffering but the traditional cross of American Business people: the Watson cross. She saw LaBas, who was beckoning to her, and joined him in a booth behind the fireplace. As soon as she was seated, they ordered. Judy, the waitress, brought them two long-stemmed glasses of rum; the messenger prepared to give her report; you see, LaBas maintained that only fools thought they knew everything, and therefore he would enlist someone from the other side who would check out information beyond his realm to verify. The messenger began her report with her characteristic broad smile.

“It's some place. I didn't think we were going to locate Ed at all until someone crossed my path and introduced me to Blue Coal's scene; all of these ages in the service of the Business, and I'd never met the boss. It was a cabaret type place with entrances and exits formed of arcs formed by old trees. The host was one of these archaic nigger faces you see in Italian palaces of the Renaissance. You know, the ones with the bright red lips and shiny black faces. Art Deco nigger. Blue Coal tried hard to please me; he took me to a patio, and there, staring sadly out over a red lake, was Ed.

“When he saw me, he really became jubilant. Blue Coal was happy too in his rather guffawing manner, slapping me on the back, happy that you were leaving no stone unturned in your effort to solve the case. He seemed uninformed of what was going on in the Business; maybe he's been on the job too long. He set up a cabaret to celebrate my locating Ed. There was some kind of floor show and the band played like Cab Calloway's orchestra; you know, those dippy riffy 1932 woodwinds.”

“Cab Calloway! I'm doing research on one of his villainesses.”

“Really? Anyway, it was hot. Ed began to pump me for information. He reminisced. He talked about how he used to go to the Claremont Hotel to hear Count Basie.”

“That's all very interesting. Did he say anything about industrial spies killing him?”

“They never say anything candidly there, Pop. Everything is said in riddles. Question marks decorate the cabaret, whirling above your head like mobiles. I'll just have to report to you what he said. The key is Doc John.”

“O yes. Doc John the herbalist. Wolf told me of Ed's interest in Doc John.”

Judy, the waitress, refreshed their drinks.

“Well, Ed sought out Doc John's advocates who had fled across the river to Algiers after Doc John was murdered in New Orleans. They took his ideas with them, which Ed was able to compile. Actually, there were two Doc Johns. One of the primitive variety who wore loincloths and prophesied that Marie would replace Saloppeé, the dark-skinned queen of the Business and undisputed ruler who held rites down at Saint John Bayou. Saloppé was getting old and Marie was young, sassy and beautiful. But there was another catch to the prophecy.”

“What was that?”

“Well, the first Doc John said that Marie would reign but would be temporarily replaced by a man, but then after he passed she would reign again.

“Marie was a stunning creature. When she walked down South Ramparts Street, the carriages of gentlemen would halt and their masters would gaze at her. She knew the art of beauty because she ran three beauty parlors. She was rising in the New Orleans world of charms and was becoming somewhat of a poet. One Sunday she challenged Saloppé, and it wasn't long before Marie replaced her. Saloppé was never the same after that and walked through the streets mad—rummaging garbage cans, subject of children's ridicule.

“She gave a muted version of the old woman's work. She went commercial with it. You see, the Americans didn't want their women bowing down half-naked before those African loas; you know how they look and act. So when Marie took over the Business, Americans would come to Bayou Saint John to slum because they could stomach her version. Marie was yellow, and the American men loved yellow women. A yellow woman brought more money than a black, brown, or even a yellow man. To make it even more palatable, Marie replaced the African loas altogether and substituted Catholic saints. For example, Legba became Saint Peter, and you might be interested to know that LaBas is a creole version of Legba. Legba, Spirit of Communications; ‘Good for Business.'”

“Yes, I know. Quite a coincidence. In Filipino it means ‘to chase out, as in evil spirits, to make it go away.' LaBas is everywhere.”

“That Marie was quite a show woman. She'd have her dancers leaping about.”

LaBas glances at his watch. “Look, I have to return to the Works for a little midnite duty. Gather more leads. I fail to see what this story has to do with Ed's murder.”

“I'll explain,” she continued, as LaBas lit her cigarette. “Once in a while Marie would throw a real authentic rite for the colored people so they wouldn't dismiss her as Queen of the Business. She'd put on a rousing affair for them which she would call playing at the Apollo. Well, about the time Doc John came to town, she was at the height of her power and prestige. New Orleans will never forget Doc John, or to be exact, Doc John II.

“Doc John, as he called himself, didn't need the Madison Avenue-styled show-biz tricks to get his Gumbo across because he had gone even beyond Marie, whom Business people all over the world acknowledged as a distiller, successfully fusing the Business with Catholicism. She was real tight with a priest named Pierre Antoine, and before she died a Catholic she cooperated with the Church to drive the Business underground.

“She was against the dark-skinned people and thought that with the end of slavery they wouldn't know their place—many of her clients were wealthy Confederates. This attitude was in marked contrast to that of one of her protégés, Mammy Pleasant, who hid the slaves and was responsible for many gaining their freedom through the underground railroad. In fact, Marie smuggled Mammy Pleasant out of New Orleans to San Francisco, where Mammy Pleasant gained quite a name for herself. No negro man has ruled a city as much as Mammy Pleasant ruled San Francisco. She helped finance John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry.”

“The Business has room for all kinds—right, left, etc.”

“You know it. Well, Doc John was getting a lot of clients, and this got Marie upset. She got her Mafia connections to harass Doc John. There were lots of Italians in N.O. at that time who struck a common bond with the negroes because they were persecuted too. Eleven were lynched on March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, and Italy almost went to war with the United States over the incident.

“Doc John was living in a house full of women—white black yellow brown and red—and the house was full of babies. Marie then tried to get some dope on him. You know, she just about ruled New Orleans with her network of domestic help. She had a domestic spy network, and they would give her all of the goods on the rich and powerful people in town, their employers.

“The powerful people of the town would come to Marie and be amazed at how much she knew about the secrets of their homes. Powerful women flocked to her ceremonies; some danced in the nude, and white gentlemen would go to these ceremonies to engage yellow women. Marie took the ceremonies off the streets and indoors. Had an old club called Maison Blanche—the beginning of the speakeasies. She had all of this, and still she was afraid of Doc John's competition. So she decided to send him a Bill.”

“A bill?” LaBas asked.

“Yes, a Bill, you know.”

“O, that kind of Bill.”

“See, her lies didn't hurt Doc John because though people would viper-mouth the man, they knew that he was essentially clean. So every time she had her cronies put a technical or hidden clause on Doc John he would interpret them in ways they couldn't understand, and Marie became so frustrated that she sent Doc John a past due. Well, that did it. Doc John went to her apartment with the Bill and flung it down on Marie's table. He said, ‘You didn't think that this would frighten me, did you?' Marie sat there, her heart palpitating and her lashes fluttering. Doc John was a big old negro man with coal-black skin and Nigerian scarification on his face. He was always dressed like a prince. Marie didn't know whether to love the man or mutilate him. You know how passion works.”

“I sure do,” LaBas said. “That I do.”

“After news of this episode got around, people began calling Marie's stuff Louisiana Red, you know how people talk.”

“Louisiana Red, yes. We got rid of it at the Ted Cunningham Institute back east, but it still runs rampant out here. Louisiana Red: toad's eyes, putting snakes in people, excrement, hostility, evilness, attitude, negroes stabbing negroes—Crabs in a Barrel.”

“Yes, if Louisiana Red is anything, it's Crabs in the Barrel. Each crab trying to keep the other one from reaching the top. Who knows? The crab might get outside and find that the barrel was made of sand all along and that their entrapment was an illusion, but they won't give each other that opportunity to get over the rim to find out.

“Louisiana Red was a misuse of the Business. It gets hot quick and starts acting sullen—high blood pressure is its official disease. Marie decided that she was going to finish off Doc John. That's when he took her daughter.”

“What?”

“Marie Philome; looked just like Marie. People couldn't tell them apart. One day Marie saw one of her clients leave her house when she knew that the woman had an appointment with her and she wasn't late. She found out that Marie Philome had done it.”

“Done what?”

“Impersonated her mother and sold the woman some Business.

“When Doc John took her child, Marie put out a contract on him. She was mad. Louisiana Red mad. Hot. You know how all those songs come out of Louisiana—those homicide songs, ‘Frankie and Johnnie,' ‘Betty and Dupree,' ‘Stagalee.'

“Wasn't long after that Doctor John showed up dead. They say he got her daughter pregnant and that infuriated Marie. He was too dark-skinned for her daughter. She had some fair-skinned children, so fair-skinned that one of them passed for white and wouldn't recognize Marie as her mother because she was ashamed of her. One of her sons went to Paris and tried to become a painter, giving up America altogether. There were lots of these fair musicians and artists and writers who went to Paris and studied; the Renaissance had happened before. But anyway, some tried to say it was an Orpho killing.”

“Orpho killing?”

“Orpho was killed by the women followers of Dionysius; it was a revenge killing. They tore him to pieces. He disliked women and wouldn't permit them to come within twenty feet of his temples.

“Likewise with Doc John. They tried to blame his killing on his female followers, but it was Marie who was arrested and put in jail. She had the strongest motive in town. Well, Marie got her powerful connections to spring her, and nothing was ever made of it after that. Marie had too much power, and that was the end of the first attempt by a brother to run the ‘Business' in America; it was mama before and it's been mama ever since. Marie was so big in N.O. that the mayor awarded her a plaque for Woman of the Year.

“They gave Doc John one of the biggest funerals they ever had in New Orleans. Buried him in that blazing red horseman's jacket he loved to wear, and the yellow top hat was laid on the casket. He loved to ride horses, and when he rode this pretty auburn-colored horse down South Ramparts Street, all the ladies sighed. You should have seen those women, hi-yellow gals, sassy black, melancholy brown, hi-society women giving him those glances. Giving him the eye. Marie Philome took it real hard; almost threw herself into the grave after him. People in the crowd testified to how he had helped them. Well, there was a lot of butchering of Doc John's followers after that; Marie's police looked the other way. Finally the band fled to Algiers, across the river from New Orleans. That's where Ed Yellings contacted them. They knew Doc John's recipes of Slave Medicine—medicine handed down through the generations and enriched by the fact that all of the African tribes merged their knowledge in the New World. You know, the slaves brought their mythology and everything here, and it underwent modifications.

“The slave name ‘Old Sam,' for instance, referred to the devil who was usually associated with gravedigging in slave lore—this was abbreviated from Baron Samedi, Lord of the cemetery; and Aunt Jemima, far from being a stereotype, is an archetype, Yemoja—Queen of the Witches, Queen Bee, so fat with honey she moves ponderously. Breasts as big as inner tubes. Same way with the Business. African ‘Doctoring' was preserved by special doctors Doc John studied under. They had many healing powers.