Juneteenth (13 page)

Thank you suh! he said. It’s awfully white of you
.

He knew all right, and he knew someone important too, selling white women and bootleg whiskey to the leading white citizens and the drummer trade and to a few not-so-leading black ones who slipped in unctuously wearing starched waiter’s jackets with the buttons missing. Yes, suh! and donating good sums of money to the Afro-American Episcopal Missionary Society and to a finishing school for young black upper-class ladies in Baltimore. He had it made all right, with certain complications of adjustment it’s true, but made. He could have taught us all. Should find the bastard, make him a career diplomat. Chief of Protocol. He trained them all to
Southern manners. Smarter than most men in the House—any house. I kept away from him while we waited for sun and opportunity in that town in which he appeared to be the only one with a capacity for fantasy. Dominated by those high gray walls and the freedom of both those inside and out seemed to be measured in days marked off on the calendar. I’m number so-and-so and I know my time and knowing my time I know the who-what-why-wherefore of me. No dreams, please. Well, so much the worse for you.… We tried everyone from the Chamber of Commerce to the bootleggers and no one interested in backing us in bringing a little poetry to the town. We almost starved, broke and cooking beans in our room, patching and pressing with a secret iron borrowed from one of the girls until her pimp threatened Donelson and I was forced to do once more that which I said I’d never do again. But we were hungry and the memory of Eatmore came to the rescue. That was long ago. Grant and forgive us our agos. Amen. We left before dawn, half drunk and unwashed and our bills unpaid, slipping into the damp streets by the baggage entrance, past seven stacks of pulp magazines abandoned by the drummers
—Argosy, Blue Book, Ace
and
Golden Book
being saved by the baggage man for the kids in his neighborhood—agent of cultural baggage—doing what he could to keep them reading, stopping on the outskirts of the town as the light grew and buying cheese and crackers in a lamp-lit general store where the men on the road gang bought their lunch. That smell of hogshead cheese, that greasy counter, that glass case with trays of dull penny candy. John Deere plows set in neat bull-tongued rows on a side of the porch and the boxes for benches the barrels the drums the baby crib, well used from its yellow pad a string of pecans strung end to end for a teething toy was dangling; that great crock of lye hominy setting on the counter looking white and sinister and garnished by a single blue-tailed fly yet making me twinge for home
—Hickman?
There were shelves of prison-made shoes and peg after peg hung with prison-made harness—Donelson, I said, shoot those horse collars hung round the walls, they’re frames for portraits of future Presidents. Yeah, he said, I know a few bastards who’d look pretty natural with their heads stuck through one of those; the mayor, the mine owners, the
Chamber-Pots-of-Commerce gang. And near Holdenville getting those shots of the motorcycle circling the overflow embankment around the storage tank in the refinery yard, leaning toward the parallel and his eyes like set points of madness behind his goggles, bent low close over the handlebars, roaring as though intent upon circling there forever … MOVIE TYCOONS VISIT CITY was the headline and there we were looking out from page one, my arms across their shoulders and all three looking dashing and devil-may-care, each with goggles on forehead and each with an air of potency, mystery. The camera in the foreground. It made it easy and I kept things simple, a pageant dedicated to the founding of the town with all the old-timers parading past the camera on horseback, or in buckboards, then sitting before the courthouse in funeral parlor chairs and an Indian or two in the background. Shot everything from low angles to make them tall and imposing, and the fire engines I made a half-block long. Holdenville, yes, the weather was fine and Holdenville couldn’t hold us. No, but what we made there was lost in Ponca City. Roustabouts, Indians, 1001 ranch hands, and Wild Bill Tillman in the flesh in a white suit and white Stetson and astride a white horse every hour of every day in the streets. Yes, but in the middle of a roaring circus who has time for silent scenes? Donelson went wild in the town, getting hot on the dice and winning a thousand then losing our stake before they cooled him off. Then when he asked to see the dice they threw him into the street. There was hardly enough money for gas then Karp to the rescue, found a cousin who helped us on our way. And what a cousin, walking around in a blanket, a bullet-smashed derby, and a necklace of rattlesnake buttons, selling snake oil and mustard plasters. Morris, the Osage Indian Jew, of whom Karp disapproved. Listen, Morris said, here there’s no minyan in fifty miles so what if I temporarily joined another tribe? And let me tell you something, wise guy: I been scalped like the best of them!

I wanted him to join us but Karp was against it. But what a town, everything in our grasp: gunplay and Indians, dance-hall girls, cowboys and gamblers, gunmen, bandits, rustlers and law officers, the real frontier atmosphere and Wild Bill acting himself right off a circus poster. But it was all too real
and when we set up the camera on the street they gathered around, looking from everywhere. Then, understanding, they knocked us down and fifteen .45s were looking us dead in the eye
.

What’s the big idea, I said
.

What’s your name, the one-eyed one said
.

We told him and what we were about
.

Pictures,
he said. We don’t need any dam’ pictures around here
.

Maybe
you
don’t but other folks do, Donelson said. We’ll put this town on the map
.

Map? the one-eyed one said. We don’t want it on any goddam map. You want to ruin everything?

We’re trying to help, Karp said. We can help it grow
.

We don’t need any help. We don’t want no growing. Get up on your knees
.

He pointed the pistol
.

We looked into their miscellaneous faces and did what he said
.

All right, One-eye said, from now on you three cockies are going to be known as the three monkeys …

Why you—Donelson began, starting up
.

One-eye moved without bending. There was a flashing arc of movement and at the smackcrunch of impact Donelson sprawled in the dirt, his cheek flaming with the red imprint of a .45’s long barrel
.

Now shut up, Rebel, One-eye said, and you’ll keep healthy
.

God damn you, Donelson said, scrambling to his knees. But this time I grabbed him, holding on
.

Shut up, I said, we’re outnumbered. Can’t you see that?

Now you’re talking, One-eye said, glaring down. And don’t you forget it! Outnumbered, outgunned and outmanned!

He grinned, shaking the whiskey to an oily foam, his thumb over the bottle-mouth. And you, he said, dowsing whiskey on Donelson’s head, I now baptize Mister Speak-No-Evil. So from now on keep your big cotton-pickin’ mouth shut tight as your daddy’s smokehouse!

Then, pouring whiskey on Karp’s bowed head, he said, And your buddy here is named forthwith, like the lawyers say, Hear-No-Evil
.

Out of the corner of his swelling mouth Donelson’s voice came harsh and violent. All right, Israelite, he said, Where’s your goddam cunning now? Why don’t you blow your fucking horn!

Karp looked straight ahead, kneeling there in the dust, his face calm, his eyes tragic and resentful yet resigned. As though the world was affirmed in the pattern of his forefathers’ prediction. So he was prepared to die a stranger in a strange land, resigned before even this random fulfillment of prophecy. The goyim were repeating once more their transgression against him….

I shook my head feeling the hot splash of whiskey soaking my skull. My eyes stung as it coursed down my face and I suppressed a scream, holding my breath. And I seemed to be walking under water and I no longer saw them there above me. For I was in the kingdom of the dead, tight and enclosed. Back in the box …

Don’t appear to like it much, someone said and laughed
.

And you, One-eye said, I name See-No-Evil
.

I could see him then, his collar band held with a brass button, his rotten teeth, his drooped lid, stepping back and the others no longer threatening but laughing. My knees were aching but I could see very sharply now. The hair that showed on his knuckles, sprouted from his ear, his flared nostrils
.

All right, boys, One-eye said, let ’em up
.

We got up and I picked up the camera and folded the tripod. A drop of whiskey had splashed the lens and I polished it away with the end of my tie. I looked—Donelson’s face was bright red and twitching as he watched One-eye take a drink and pass the bottle around. One-eye stuck the pistol in his waistband and rocked back and forth on his heels, smiling now and his missing eye giving his face the look of a battle-scarred, shell-shocked tomcat. Then the bottle came to Donelson, paused before him, and before he could open his mouth I said
,

Drink up. Go ahead.… Then Karp took it, even though he didn’t drink
.

Now you got the right idea, One-eye said. You’re getting the hang of how to live in this town. This here’s a good town, you monkeys; the best town in the West. All you have to know is how to live in it. So I says: Go drink yourself some whiskey. Go diddle yourself some broads—we got all kinds from all kinds of places. Fact we got Frenchies, we got Poles, we got Irishers, Limeys, Eskimos, Yids, and even a few coal-shuttle blondes. That’s right, and the price of poontang ain’t high. So go shack up with a few and change your luck. We know the kind old Rebel here cottons after, don’t we, boys? Let him sleep with Charleston Mary and he’ll start to winning with the dice. What I mean is
, enjoy
yourself. Why, there’s money laying around on the streets in this town. You can do most anything here as long as you can outdraw and outshoot the ones who don’t like it. So like I say, you can do anything only don’t let us see you poking that goddam piece of machinery at us. You understand?

We get it, Donelson said. But tell me something….

What’s that?

What time would you say it was?

Time? One-eye said. How the hell would I know? In this town we make our own fucking time….

Mister Movie-Man, she said, you dreaming again?

Not now, I said.
Time is a juxtaposing of pains and pain hurts even after the object is gone, faded
.

You better not be while you’re eating. But you were gone somewhere, flew right away from me. Or maybe you were thinking about the picture?

No, I said. Only about you. You make a very nice picture.

She looked a question, her head to one side. I sure hope I can act like you want me to, she said. I really never thought of being in a
picture before but now I sure want to be able to do it. Will there be any fighting in it?

Some, I said.

And horses?

I’m not sure about that, I said. But there’ll be love scenes….

You mean I’ll have to kiss somebody?

Sure, that’s part of the love scene.

But in front of all those folks … and with his girl looking? She’s angry with me already—

There’ll be many more folks to see the picture, I said.

But that’s different, she said. I won’t be there….

Don’t worry about it, I said. I’ll teach you how it’s done. Now was the time to begin and I put down my sandwich and moved. I saw her large eyes and suddenly I ceased to dream.

You just work in the contest and win, I said. I’ll take care of the rest. I was disturbed.

Oh, I will, she said. I’ll raise more money than all the other girls put together. You’ll have to give me the best part….

Yes, I said, the best is yet to be, but you girls will have to work hard. Stir up the interest of everyone. Karp insists that we have the full cooperation of the community….

Which one is Mr. Karp, the one with the camera?

No, that’s Donelson. Right now Donelson is doing the shooting. Later on I’ll take over. Karp is the other one.

Well, he won’t have to worry because everybody is interested already. Two clubs are planning dances and another one—well, they’re going to give a barbecue. Is Mr. Karp the boss?

Boss? No, he’s just a partner like the rest of us. We’re the three partners. What other plans do you have?

We’re still thinking up things to do. We plan to give a combination hayride and trip-around-the-world.

What’s a trip-around-the-world?

That’s when you ride to different parts of town and go to different houses and in each house they have the food of some country—like Mexico for instance, and it’s all decorated like a Mexican house and the boys and girls who give that part of the party will be dressed in Mexican costumes. And when you get there you buy the food and they give you some drinks and you can dance and have a good time. Then after a while everybody piles into the hay and the wagon goes to another house and there they’ll find another country and another party. It keeps going on just like that.

That’s interesting, I said, but you want to work hard on the popularity contest.

I mean to, she said, I really have to have that part. I like plays and things, they kind of take you out of yourself.

They do, I thought, and you have no idea how far.

Some English people were here last year and they put on some wonderful shows. With nice scenery and music and everything. You couldn’t always understand what they were saying but it sounded so fine. Like listening to folks sing some of that opera music in a different language.

Did many folks go to see them?