Revolution
Harlem Transfer
E.K.Walker
Evan K.
Walker lives and works in New York. His
full-length
play, East Jordan, was produced by the
Free
Southern Theater. A one-act play, The Message,
was
produced by the Freedom Theater of Philadelphia
and The
Performing Arts Society of Los Angeles.
Mr.
Walker is currently working on a novel, a
Play, and an original screenplay with Larry Neal.
He shot the Browning automatic rifle down into the crowded street, and the people did not move. The bullet slammed into the hood of a new lavender Eldorado Cadillac dappled with snow, and not a soul moved. He shifted his position in the window and aimed the BAR at a hustler outlined against the dirty gray snow near the curb. The rifle was aimed at the center of the man’s head, but before he fired, he raised it a click. The bullet tore a large hole in an overstuffed garbage can out of which scurried two large rats—one white, one black—and ran into the deserted house across the street. Then the people on the crowded street in the middle of Harlem moved, moved as if they had been jolted from a deep sleep, and found cover in the cellars, hallways, and stores.
As he saw the hustler crawl into the Lucky Dollar Bar and Grill, he smiled and moved back from the window. The smell of cordite stung the air in the small living room, and it made him think of the last time he had fired the BAR many years ago in a land he barely remembered. It flashed across his mind in pieces and fragments, fragments and pieces, of snow, of valleys, and of mountains, always mountains, seemingly strung out across the face of the earth. He looked at the BAR and rubbed his hand over the steel and wood, freshly oiled and cleaned, and it felt good.
Down on the street he could see that a few people had come out of their hiding places. He thought this strange but
passed it off as curiosity; anyway, they had nothing to fear from his rifle; Dap was not among them. But Dap would soon come out of the Lucky Dollar Bar and Grill. Of this he was sure. Several men had gathered around the lavender El D and were talking and pointing to the hole in the hood. From his sixth-floor window he could not hear what they were saying, nor did he care. He smiled. They probably think one of them rats ate that hole in that caddy, he thought. And he waited by the window, calmly, quietly, quietly as he had been trained to do light years ago, to wait in the snow in a land that was now only disjointed pieces and fragments reforming themselves into meaning in his mind.
He saw the Dapper Dude come out of the Lucky Dollar Bar and Grill, walk coolly over to his El D, and rub his hand over the wound in its hood. Dap took off his hat and scanned the buildings, his sleepy eyes bare slits against the blazing yellow sun. Then Dap kicked the dirty gray slush with his slick alligator shoes and bared his teeth toward some ungodly thing that he could not see and under his breath he said, “Some motherfucker done shot my El D.”
Up on the sixth floor, he aimed carefully, breathing in and then breathing out as he squeezed the trigger, as he had been trained, and saw the top of Dap’s head fly through the air and land on the wound in the hood of his lavender El D. The red and white blob did a little shake dance and then was still. He switched the BAR to automatic and ripped off a burst of that plowed into Dap’s heart and turned his yellow coat into a bright orange. The sun caught Dap for a second, and then he fell into the gray streets.
He left the smoking barrel of the BAR sticking out of the window until he was sure someone—it was, in fact, a junkie who had been strung out since Bird died—had seen where the shots came from. That ought to get a little action ‘round here, he thought. That ought to bring Bull runnin’. But maybe the bastard’s off threatenin’ somewhere over on 125th Street for some money. Yeah, that be just like Captain Bull. I be givin’ im a chance to be a hero, and he be off blackjackin’ some hustlin’ woman in the name of the law and the Christmas spirit. Well, one thing for damn sure, he got his last Christmas gift from Dap. Fact is, Dap ain’t gon lay nothin’ on nobody no more. Come on Bull, you bastard. Come on and see what a air-conditioned skull look like.
A shroud of silence lay stiflingly across the street below. Never during the eleven years that he and his family lived
there had he seen such stillness. Silence. Not a hustler wrote a number; not a junkie nodded; not even James Brown wailed from the record shop. Silence. And he never felt so good as when he looked down on the Dapper Dude, not so dap now, and saw a white rat scurry away from what was left of his head. Even the rats he though, don’t want his ass now.
He lit a cigarette and sat in his overstuffed chair and watched the silent, flickering images on the television set. A children’s chorus was singing Christmas carols, songs praising the young lord who had come to deliver the people from eternal bondage. Even with the sound turned down, he knew the song they were singing. He had learned it from his mother as a child in Georgia, and he had taught it to Bobby, his only son. He remembered that the song never failed to bring tears to his eyes. He rose from the chair and turned up the sound, and the children’s voices rang into the dark, close little room and seemed to shake the picture of the Christ child that hung behind the set. They sang about peace, love, and eternal deliverance from suffering. But this time no tears came to his eyes. He sat down in his chair and waited.
There was noting to do but wait. The first part of his plan was completed. After seventeen years, the BAR worked perfectly; his eyesight, as he had feared, had not failed; his aim was good as the day he qualified as a master marksman in advanced infantry school. The clips of bullets lay neatly spread out on the coffee table. The gas mask was on the floor near the window. He had made his choice, the time had come, and now he walked the lonely passage that men must take when their grief turns to anger and that to solitary action; when they can no longer depend on man or God for redress of their grievances. And he neither wanted nor expected the help of either. But most important of all, he was not afraid.
He had felt the absence of fear many times, especially when he was thousands of miles from home firing his BAR and taking the unending snow-capped mountains for reasons that he only vaguely understood. Once, it was after they had taken Mountain 999, he asked his young captain why they had taken the mountain, what was its strategic importance. The young veteran of more than two hundred campaigns around the globe—his white face was already beginning to wrinkle and was streaked with blue and red blotches, the result of, so the rumor went, locked bowels—
took off his helmet and narrowed his pale eyes, hitched up his pants, and said, “We are taking these mountains, boy, to rid the world of our enemies!”
Warming up to his subject, he went on. “In the course of human events, we and God have decreed that it is our moral right to make the world a fit place to live in. And, boy, when you got moral right in your heart and a gun in your hand, anything is possible. Anything…..” The young captain would have undoubtedly told him more, the very secret of the universe, but the order came from the general to take Mountain 1000, and the young captain led the troops down the mountain exhorting them to their moral duty: “Charge! Charge! Ye defenders of decency, charge!”
The young captain, a merciless commander, drove him up the next mountain, drove him to stalk the padded figures and silently slit their throats. “A slit for decency. Good show, my boy,” he said. One of the figures pleaded for mercy, shot through the eye, begged to be spared. The young captain leaned into his ear and said, “Do your moral duty, boy. Your country demands it.” And he laid down a heavy burst into the enemy’s good eye with his BAR. As they marched across the endless mountains, the young captain gave him a bright green gas mask; and he was indifferent to the stench of death even among the severed arms and head s and legs freezing in the falling snow, soon to be forgotten, not even remembered by God—who wearing his dark shades and squinting from behind the sun—watched as the young captain whispered to him that he was the true king of the world and God was on his side. With this, God split for lunch.
Now, sitting in his thick overstuffed chair smoking a cigarette, he did not even feel the last traces of outrage; they had vanished after he and his wife Mae had gone, to no avail, to the police precinct for the tenth time and then finally, still hopeful, downtown to the hundredth-floor of offices of N.E.G.R.O.—The Negro Enigmatic Grievances Research Organization. He and Mae stood before the chief of N.E.G.R.O., Pimpleton, who seemed to listen patiently, benignly, as they explained their grievances but was secretly looking past them and out of the window, wondering if the low clouds meant more snow and his flight to Miami Beach would be canceled. His attention vaguely drifted back to the couple before him.
“…..So you see that cop captain up there, he in on it, too,” Mae said.
“Won’t lift a finger. Talk to us like we ain’t in our right minds,” he added.
Pimpleton smiled benignly and said, “What proof have you of these accusations?”
“What more proof I need? Everybody in Harlem know it.”
“But my dear sir, N.E.G.R.O. cannot, nor I as chief of N.E.G.R.O., move on such flimsy evidence.” Pimpleton sucked on his pipe as if it were a warm sugar tit and went on. “I mean, my dear sir and madam, things simply are not done that way. The gravity of your charges beg to be substantiated by facts. Facts, not hearsay, are the only means by which N.E.G.R.O.—and I am N.E.G.R.O., to state it bluntly—can move. By the way, do you belong to N.E.G.R.O.?”
“I can’t afford to belong to N.E.G.R.O.”
“A pity.”
He clenched his fist and looked at the little old negro seated in his large leather chair behind his ten-foot mahogany desk. What kinda game this joker think he tryin’ to run on me, he asked himself. He wanted to strangle Pimpleton’s wrinkled little chicken-skin neck.
But instead he said, “You got lawyers suppose to work for us; let ‘em check it out. I’ll show ‘em where to look for facts, evidence as you call it.”
“My dear sir, you can’t expect N.E.G.R.O. to go off on a wild goose chase, as it were; we can’t unleash our lawyers on speculation. We must have reasonable faith that we will be successful. Heavens to Betsy, what would our board of directors say? That is the foundation of N.E.G.R.O., success in the mainstream!”
“Bullshit.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I said, bullshit!”
“Oh, oh, yes. But we must remember that everything has its time and place. We must not become impatient. Justice is certainly not blind; she is sometimes tardy but never blind.”
He smiled as he looked at the shrunken little man, his Brooks suit about three sizes too large for him. He bared his big white uneven teeth and blood-red gums and thundered into Pimpleton’s face, “Pimpleton, fuck justice. I think the bitch needs bifocals. Fuck her! Funny time dressin’ slut. Fuck her!”
Pimpleton sprang up from his chair like a shot, his sunken little eyes jumped to attention and twitched in step,
and
he wiped the spit from his narrow little head with his spotless white handkerchief. He was
shocked. Shocked! Shocked that there were still half-crazed niggers raving about their
mythical grievances, niggers who were beyond redemption, beyond ever swimming in the
mainstream to which he had devoted eighty years of his life. "Well, sir, Washington
was not built in a day, neither was Calcutta for that matter. But we must persevere,
mustn’t we? God-speed and goodday, sir."
And with that, Pimpleton did a quick shuffle from behind his desk and ushered them
past rows of pictures of him shaking hands with presidents and out of his office.
Pimpleton
went back to his mahogany desk and with trembling hands poured himself his fifth shot of
Chivas Regal that morning. He smacked his thin little lips and got back to plotting what
he would say to the Concerned Citizens of Miami Beach in his everlasting quest for funds
to research and eradicate grievances. He wondered about his accommodations; he would
accept nothing but the best. The couple who had stood before him only seconds before were
now faint shadows floating on the dark side of his mind.
The next morning Mae sat stiffly at the kitchen table. She had not touched her
breakfast, and it lay limp and cold on her plate. She sipped some water and was careful to
avoid
looking at the empty chair to the right and her husband sitting opposite her. He lighted a
cigarette, sipped his coffee, and watched the vein jump on the back of her small
hand.
"I don't seem to have no appetite in the morning," she said, trying
desperately to smile through the pain that seemed permanently engraved on her face.
To look at her like this, to see her red-rimmed eyes pleading for answers he could
not give her, lashed his soul. But he managed to smile and say, "You got to eat
something, baby. You ain't get tin' tired of your own cookin', good as it is, are
you?”
She smiled weakly and picked at her food and noticed that he had eaten only half of
his eggs. "There ain't," she said, calmly, evenly, "nothing we can do, is
there?"
"Don't say that, Mae."
"It's like don't nobody care. Like we hangin' off on the
edge
of the world and everybody stompin' on our fingers."
"Don't say that, baby,"
She forced herself to look at the empty chair and said,
“They took our hope away, and ain't nothin’ we can do."
He held his right hand, hoping that she would not see it tremble.
“I wouldn't bring no more into this world; same thing happen to 'em-just like
Bobby."
"Mac, Mae, baby...Don't say that."
“It's all fixed. Nothin' we can do."
“The hell there ain't."
"What can I, you, anybody do?"
“I'm gonna ..." He caught himself. It was better that she know nothing of
his plans.
"What we need," she said, her voice detached, seeming to come from
outside her body, “is a god or somebody who got us in mind when he plannin' and plot
tin' the way things suppose to go down."
“Come on, baby. If I'm gonna drop you by Sara’s 'fore I go to work, we
better be makin' it."
She did not move, She just sat there looking through Him, beyond him, her eyes
angrily riveted on the picture of the Christian savior hanging above the television set in
the
living room.
"It'll be better for you at your sister's today. She'll be good company for
you."
He took his wife down into the street. The wind, blasting from the west and across
the river, blew the heavy snow into their faces; and for a moment they were blinded by it.
But
they wiped the snow from their eyes, leaned into the west wind, and walked up the street.
On the corner, through the driving snow, they could see the lavender El D parked,
its
motor running, and through the windows they could see the two men seated inside: one a
thin black blur dressed in yellow, a cigarette slanting from his thick lips; the other ,
a
fat ghostly white dressed in dark blue. They walked on. They said nothing. She because she
thought all hope was gone. For him words were no longer of any use.
In front of Mae's sister's house he kissed her, holding her closely and tightly to
him. Mae felt the tightness of his grip and wondered why it had such urgency. She looked
into
his face, but it told her nothing. He gave her an envelope and told her not to open it
until Christmas. She smiled, and he kissed her lovely face again. He watched her walk into
the apartment house and to her sister. He turned and walked quickly home.
He butted the cigarette and noticed that the sun had
crossed
the river and was dropping quickly behind the hills. He rose from the chair and slowly
became aware of the noise coming from the street below. He was not surprised. It takes a
little longer, he thought, when it ain’t nothin' but a dead, nigger laid in the
street. He crossed to the window and saw that the street was filled with people, many
crowded around Dap's body, now that the police and ambulance had come. Four Cops, wearing
white riot helmets, bulletproof vests and carrying rifles and tear gas guns, had jammed a
junkie up against the wall near the Lucky Dollar Bar and Grill. The junkie was talking
slowly and pointing to a building near the end of the block. Bull was not among the cops. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered to himself. Come on, let’s get it on. Then he glanced down to the center of the block,
in front of the record store, and saw a mobile television unit. Its crew was busy shooting the scene. One cameraman was moving in to shoot Dap’s
body as it was being loaded on a stretcher by two attendants from Harlem Hospital. Do it in color, man, do it in color. Maybe some of these other bastards get to
thinkin’ ‘bout how they messin’ with they own folks. He spat out the window.
And then he heard it.
He heard it before he saw it. And he
felt in his bones knew beyond all doubt, that the siren signaled that his man was coming
to him. His head suddenly felt light and
giddy. And only when he picked up the BAR and
watched the police car roar into the block and stop in front of the ambulance did his
excitement leave him.
Captain Bull stepped out of the car. The
brass buttons on his blue uniform pierced the gray twilight like rat’s eyes. He, too, was dressed in flack jacket and helmet
and carried a Thompson submachine gun at high port.
From his window he zeroed in on the gold captain’s bars on the front of
Bull’s helmet and was about to squeeze off a round when a black newscaster, that
station’s roving black reporter in Harlem, stepped in front of Bull and began to
interview him. He lowered his rifle and
cursed under his breath. Time. I got plenty of time, he thought.
Bull, flanked by his sergeant, the newshawk, and his cameramen, walked to the
ambulance. Bull stopped the attendants just
as they were sliding Dap’s body into the ambulance.
Bull pulled back the sheet and looked at what was left of the man called Dapper
Dude.
He had been watching the scene below so intently that
at
first he had not heard the voices. Voices
that were familiar to him.
“Do you know this man, Captain?”
“I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
“Do you have any idea who killed him?”
“No.”
“Why would anyone want to kill him, any idea?”
Then he turned around and saw that the scene below was being televised live and in
color on the evening news. Ain’t that a
bitch, he thought. Good. Let the whole fuckin’ world see it.
“The work of a madman, I’d say.”
“Shit!” he said, “But you right; I’m mad as a bitch.” He turned back to the window and saw Bull nod to
the attendants, and they shoved Dap inside and slammed the door.
He saw that Bull and his sergeant were now joined by four cops. They pointed to the junkie. The junkie nodded and still pointed to the
building near the corner. Bull led his men in
that direction. In the gray twilight he
caught Bull’s white helmet in his sights. He
led him, one, two, three, fired. He missed. He missed Bull’s head by less than an inch. Bull dived under Dap’s El D. His men scurried into the dark hallways and
cellars. “Sonofabitch,” he said. He switched the BAR to automatic and laid down a
heavy field of fire at the El D. Nothing
moved. Then he saw Bull rise on the street
side of the El D and squeezed the trigger. Click. Click. Click. He moved to the table. He threw a clip into the BAR and another into his
pants belt. When he returned to the window,
he saw Bull and his men scurry into the apartment house directly across the street.
Well, that’s that, he thought. It gonna go down different than I figured. Bull got to get him some high ground if he figure on takin’ me. But he don’t know I know that. Fool. He think I’m just a crazy nigger. Shit. I got right in my heart, a gun in my hand, and I’m the king of the world. Let’s get the shit on.
He was sure the police knew exactly which window he had fired from. There would be no doubt in their minds; the last shots would frame it there forever. But he would not be in that window. He walked to the kitchen and was looking to the rooftops across the street when he heard Mae’s voice.
“Yes, that my apartment.”
He turned around and saw Mae and the newshawk on
the
television set in the living room. She was being interviewed behind the mobile unit
downstairs. "Baby, whatcha doin' down there? Goddamn"'
"You're sure the shooting came from your apartment?" the newshawk asked.
"I told you once, yeah."
"You also said the gunman is your husband."
"Yeah, he my man. My husband and my man."
"Can you tell our audience why your husband...He has killed one man and is now
engaged in a shoot-out with the police. Why?"
"He doin' what he's got to do."
"Er, er, I don't quite understand."
"He has to do what he's doin'. Nobody would understand."
"What kind of man is your husband? Hold he been distraught, upset about something?"
Mae drew her thin black coat around her shoulders and clutched the manila envelope
to her breast. The snow fell into her hair and crowned it with a strange majesty in the
gray twilight, and she seemed to grow taller than her five feet, two inches, and he knew
she would be all right. Nothing could touch her now. Her eyes were no longer red.
She
looked carefully, clearly, and directly into the newshawk's eyes and said, "He just a
man. Just a man who had a son and lost him and didn't nobody care. He just a man,
my
man."
Mae looked lovely to him, a queen, and he loved her more than anything in this or
any other world. He wished he had told her so more often. And tears came into his
eyes:
not tears or sadness or regret but of a terrible completeness of the order or things,
their rightness in the universe. He saw the envelope in her hand and knew its contents:
his G.I. insurance of ten thousand dollars that he had kept after his discharge; his
paid-up life insurance from the Georgia Life Assurance and Burial Association that his
mother had taken out shortly after he was born; the money he had withdrawn-$252.43-two
days ago from the small bank account he had opened for Bobby to give him the little stake
in life which he had never had; and the broken halfs of his Combat Infantry Badge. Why he
put the medal in the envelope he was not quite sure. It had been in the cigar box in the
bottom of his trunk with his papers, the blue background peeling off, leaving the rifle a
stark white against the silver. And without thinking he picked it up
and
broke it easily in his large hand and dropped it into the envelope.
“Does your husband belong to any organization?” asked the newshawk.
“He don’t belong to nobody but himself…..”
The first volley of shots, coming through the living-room window, hit the
television set, splitting the image of Mae’s head open, and the television was
silent. The next volley hit the picture of the young Christ hanging above the television
set and riveted it to the wall. “Ain’t that a bitch,” he said. “They
done nailed J.C. to the wall with an overdose of America.”
He crawled to the kitchen window and cautiously looked across to the rooftops.
There were two of them, their funny little white helmets pinpricks against the gray sky.
He stood to the side of the window and fixed them in his mind’s eye. The rifleman was
on his left, the tear-gas man on his right. He estimated the range and elevation—kept
in mind that Bull and the other cops would try to break out from their hiding
place—and whipped into the window, caught the rifleman about to squeeze off again,
and blasted him. He knew the cop was dead and did not bother to watch him fall from the
roof; instead, he laid down a sheet of fire in front of the door and into the hallway to
keep Bull at bay until he was ready for him. He turned and caught the last cop in his
sights just as the cop was about to fire his tear-gas gun. As he saw the cop’s head
explode, he smelled the acrid, pungent odor of tear gas in the living room.
He plunged into the living room, his eyes quickly tearing and put on his gas mask.
While he was doing this, he did not, could not, see Bull and his four remaining men dart
quickly across the street and into his building, their gas masks already on. But he heard
them. He heard their outraged, stampeding feet as they raced up the stairs. And he knew
they could not wait to get him. So he decided to make it easy for them; he unlocked the
door to the apartment; then, threw a fresh clip into his rifle and calmly knelt behind the
overstuffed chair and aimed at the door.
He was somewhat pleasantly surprised at Bull’s methods; even though the door
was cracked, he found it necessary to shoot the lock with his sub Thompson. You anxious,
fool. Well, blast on, man, he thought, blast on in.
They rushed the apartment, firing at everything in sight, which was mostly smoke,
and he caught them as they entered, and he fired steadily and evenly into their blue
coats.
He
rose from behind the overstuffed chair and fired into the four limp bodies without thought
of mercy. Then he looked at them sprawled on the floor, their faces hidden behind green
gas masks. Bull's helmet had been blown off, and he moved through the gray smoke among the
still arms and legs and blown-away faces and saw that Bull had worn a wig. He pulled the
mask from Bull's face and thought that he looked curiously like a fat old woman.
Then he heard the sirens and threw another clip into his Browning automatic rifle,
and he waited as he had done many years ago in a land of unending mountains. Fuck 'em all.
Fuck every goddamn one of 'em, he thought, and moved back to the window.
TONI CADE BAMBARA
My
Man Bovanne
Blind people got a hummin jones1
if you notice. Which is understandable completely once you been around one and notice what
no eyes will force you into to
and it's like you in church again
with fat-chest ladies and old gents gruntin a
So that's how come I asked My Man Bovanne to dance. He ain't my man
me what color dress I had on and how
my hair was fixed and how I was doin
But right away Joe Lee come up on us and frown for dancin so close to the
2.
goin on. And him standin there with
a smile ready case someone do speak he
up on the line to assembly.
"I was just talkin on the drums," I explained when they hauled me into
the
"Mama, what are you talkin about?"
"She had too much to drink," say Elo to Task cause she don't hardly say
"Look here Mama," say Task, the gentle one. "We just tryin to pull
your
"Dancin like what?"
Task run a hand over his left ear like his father for the world and his father
before that.
"Like a bitch in heat," say Elo.
"Well uhh, I was goin to say like one of them sex-starved ladies gettin on in
years and not too discriminating. Know what I mean?"
I don't answer cause I'll cry.
Terrible thing when your own children talk to you like that. Pullin me out the party and
hustlin me into some stranger's kitchen in the back of a bar just like the damn police.
And ain't like I'm old old. I can still wear me some sleeveless dresses without the meat
hangin off my arm. And I keep up with some thangs through my kids. Who ain't kids no more.
To hear them tell it. So I don't say nuthin.
"Dancin with that tom,"
say Elo to Joe Lee, who leanin on the folks' freezer. "His feet can smell a cracker a
mile away and go into their shuffle number post haste. And them eyes. He could be a little
considerate and put on some shades. Who wants to look into them blown-out fuses
that--"
"Is this what they call the
generation gap?" I say.
"Generation gap," spits
Elo, like I suggested castor oil and fricassee possum in the milk-shakes or somethin.
“That's a white concept for a white phenomenon. There's no generation gap among Black
people. We are a col-“
"Yeh, well never mind,"
says Joe Lee. "The point is Mama...well, it's pride. You embarrass yourself and us
too dancin like that."
"I wasn't shame. " Tnen nobody say nuthin. Them standin there in they"
3.
pretty clothes with drinks in they
hands and gangin up on me, and me in the
"First of all," Task say, holdin up his hand and tickin off the offenses,
"the dress. Now that dress is too short, Mama, and too low-cut for a woman your
“Me? Didn nobody ask me nuthin. You mean Nisi? She change her name?"
“Well, Norton was supposed to tell you about it. Nisi wants to introduce you
and then encourage the older folks to form a Council of the Elders to act as an
advisory--"
“And you going to be standing there with your boobs out and that wig on
"Elo, be cool a minute," say Task, gettin to the next finger. "And
then
"What's my age?"
"What?"
“I'm axin you all a simple
question. You keep talkin bout what's proper for a woman my age. How old am I
anyhow?" And Joe Lee slams his eyes shut and
his glass like the ice cubes goin
calculate for him. And Elo just starin at the top of my head like she goin rip the wig off
any minute now.
"Is your hair braided up under that thing? If so, why don't you take it off? You always did do a neat cornroll."
"Uh huh," cause I'm
thinkin how she couldn't undo her hair fast enough
"Sixtee-one or--"
"You a damn lie Joe Lee
Peoples."
"And that's another
thing," say Task on the fingers.
"You know what you all can
kiss," I say, gettin up and brushin the wrinkles out my lap.
"Oh, Mama," Elo say,
puttin a hand on my shoulder like she hasn’t done since she left home and the hand
landin light and not sure it supposed to be
4.
me and not very pretty, but a warm
child. And how did things get to this, that she can't put a sure hand on me and say Mama
we love you and care about you
"And then there's Reverend Trent," say Task, glancin from left to right
like
"Didn nobody tell me nuthin. If grass roots mean you kept in the dark I can't
use it. I really can't. And Reven Trent a fool anyway the way he tore into the widow man
Up there on Edgecomb cause he wouldn't take in three of them
"Look here," say Task. "What we need is a family conference so we
can get
"You want me to belly rub with the Reven, that it?"
"Oh damn," Elo say and go through the swingin door.
"We'll talk about all this at dinner. How's tomorrow night, Joe Lee?"
While Joe Lee being self-important I'm wonderin who's doin the cookin and how come no body
ax me if I'm free and do I get a corsage and things like that. Then Joe nod that it's O.K.
and he go through the swingin door and just a little hubbub come through from the other
room. Then Task smile his smile, lookin just like his daddy and he leave. And it just me
in this stranger's kitchen, which was a mess I wouldn't never let my kitchen look like.
Poison you just to look at the pots. Then the door swing the other way and it's My Man
Bovanne standin there sayin Miss Hazel but lookin at the deep fry and then at the steam
table, and most suprised when I come up on him from the other direction and take him
"Where we gain, Miss
Hazel?" Him knowin all the time,
"First we gonna buy you some
dark sunglasses. Then you comin with me to
“That be fine. I surely would
like to rest my feet. " Bein cute, but you got to let men play out they little show,
blind or not. So he chat on bout how tired he is and how he appreciate me takin him in
hand this way, And I'm thinkin I’ll have him change the lock on my door first thing.
Then I'll give the man a nice
5.
warm bath with jasmine leaves in the
water and a little Epsom salt on the sponge
Nisi mother sent over last
Christmas. And then a massage, a good face massage
“I imagine you are a very pretty woman, Miss Hazel.”
“I surely am," I say just like the hussy my daughter always say I was.
1972
From Campfires of the Resistance
BY: Christopher Z. Hobson
Martin Luther King
Praise from the politicians for this
man
praise in the newspapers concerned
for their sales
praise from the college Deans on
their land expanding
clearing the jungles where his
people lived
pushing them ever into the darker
forest. Praise
from all directions like a flight of locusts but truth
in these storewindows vying to cover
their nakedness of glass
with the largest possible
portrait--not the banner
of pride but the talisman, token of
fear.
No praise at all for this man
who led thousands and left them
standing
telling them Wait, for the maker of
deals
no one thought would be honored:
need we say
he left nothing behind but his
honor, no instrument
for his people, taught them no way
to fight
but by following, left them no way
but by burning?
He was shot as any black man may be,
casually
maybe with an assist from the cops:
no different
from any of his people except in
massiveness
in publicness of insult; except that
someone
will be caught and put to death, an
unusual thing
in the shooting of black man.
Chicago burned: from the start no
hope
that praise would lead to a single
program
burning bring a program, troops
withdraw from Chicago and be
replaced by programs.
Chicago burned: we were supposed to
bless
the troops who came to preserve the
city
McCormick Place the showplace of
machinery
West Madison Street the showplace of
despair.
Chicago burned: I could not bless
who brought
preservation of Chicago no one
brought
a new Chicago there was nothing to
say Yes to
but it seemed necessary to choose
sides
Silence is what the politicians
wanted so I spoke
marching to the Armory to tell the
troops to leave
knowing no way to fight but by
marching
forging no instrument, gaining
nothing
but my honor, which was scarcely of
value
busted and let out quickly like any
white man
returning to a week of meetings, to
white kids
already forgetting their fear, to my
bed
guarded by realtors guarded by
troops:
indeed there was nothing to say Yes
to.
From Appalachia from closing coal
mines
from bankers shaking their heads in
Mississippi
soft-voiced and blue-eyed from the Greyhound bus
from steel workers who had to fight
for thirty years
for a home with a lawn from the Welfare Office
from the Projects towering over
lawns of broken glass
from the building of McCormick Place
from Continental Bank and its maps
of America and the world
Chicago came.
Chicago rose Chicago burned Chicago
remained
rising from its ashes with blood
dripping from its wings
and I could say Yes only by saying
no
Appalachia closing coal mines
Mississippi bankers
the bus straining North along
rain-swept highways
the Continental Bank hovering like
an eagle
over America and Africa
the unending fight of the steel
workers
must come to an end.
1968
TOM WAYMAN
Picketing Supermarkets
Because all this food is grown in
the store
do not take the leaflet.
Cabbages, broccoli and tomatoes
are raised at night in the aisles.
Milk is brewed in the rear storage
areas.
Beef produced in vats in the
basement.
Do not take the leaflet,
Peanut butter and soft drinks
are made fresh each morning by store
employees.
Our oranges and grapes
are so fine and round
that when held up to the lights they
cast no shadow.
Do not take the leaflet.
And should you take one
do not believe it.
This chain of stores has no
connection
with anyone growing food someplace
else.
How could we have an effect on local
farmers?
Do not believe it.
The sound here is Muzak, for your
enjoyment.
It is not the sound of children
crying.
There is a lady offering samples
to mark Canada Cheese Month.
There is no dark-skinned man with
black hair beside her
wanting to show you the inside of a
coffin.
You would not have to look if there
was.
And there are no Nicaraguan heroes
in any way connected with the
bananas.
Pay no attention to these people,
The manager is a citizen.
All this food is grown in the store.
DIANE Dl PRIMA
Revolutionary Letter #8
Every time you pick the spot for a
be-in,
a demonstration, a march, a rally,
you are choosing the
ground
for a potential battle.
You are still calling these shots.
Pick your terrain with that in mind.
Remember the old gang rules:
stick to your neighborhood, don't
let them lure you
to Central Park, every time. I would
hate
to stumble bloody out of that park
to find help:
Central Park West, or Fifth Avenue,
which would you
choose?
go to love-ins
with incense, flowers, food, and a
plastic bag
with a damp cloth in it, £or tear
gas, wear no jewelry
wear clothes you can move in easily,
wear no glasses
contact lenses,
earrings for pierced ears are
especially hazardous
try to be clear
in front, what you will do if it
comes
to trouble
if you're going to try to split stay
out of the center
don't stampede or panic others
don't waver between active and
passive resistance
know your limitations, bear contempt
neither for yourself, nor and of
your brothers
NO ONE WAY
WORKS, it will take
all of us
shoving at the thing from all sides
to bring it down.
Page 31
From Sisterhood is Powerful: An
Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. Robin Morgan, ed. NY:
Random House, 1970
KNOW YOUR ENEMY: A SAMPLING OF
SEXIST
QUOTES
The glory of a man is knowledge, but
the glory of a woman
is to renounce knowledge. -Chinese
proverb
Do not trust a good woman, and keep
away from a bad one.
-Portuguese proverb
Women are sisters nowhere. -West
African proverb
Whenever a woman dies there is one
quarrel less on earth.
-German proverb
Never trust a woman, even though she
has given you ten
sons.
-Chinese proverb
In childhood a woman must be subject
to her father; in
youth, to her husband; when her
husband is dead, to her
sons. A woman must never be free of
subjugation.
-The Hindu Code of Manu, V
I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast
not created me a
Woman, -Daily Orthodox Jewish Prayer
(for a male)
There is a good principle which
created order, light, and
Page 32
man, and an evil principle which
created chaos, darkness,
and woman. –Pythagoras
We may thus conclude that it is a
general law that there
should be naturally ruling elements
and elements naturally
ruled...the rule of the freeman over
the slave is one kind
of rule; that of the male over the
female another...the slave
is entirely without the faculty of
deliberation; the female
indeed possesses it, but in a form
which remains inconclu-
sive… -Aristotle {Politics)
If thy wife does not obey thee at a
signal and a glance,
separate from her. -Sirach
25:26
When a woman thinks...she thinks
evil. –Seneca
Creator of the heavens and the
earth, He has given you
wives from among yourselves to
multiply you, and cattle
male and female. Nothing can be
compared with Him.
-Holy Koran of Islam
And the rib, which the Lord God had
taken from man,
made he a woman and brought her unto
the man. And
Adam said, This is now bone of my
bone, and flesh of my
flesh; she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out
of Man. -Genesis 2:22-23
How can he be clean that is born of
a woman?
-Job, 4:4
Suffer women once to arrive at an
equality with you, and
they will from that moment become
your superiors.
-Cato the Elder, 195 B.C.
Let the women learn in silence with
all subjection...I
suffer not a woman to usurp
authority over men, but to be
in silence. -St. Paul
Wives, submit yourselves unto your
husbands...for the
husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head
of the church. -Ephesians 5:23-24
Page 33
The five worst infirmities that
afflict the female are in-
docility, discontent, slander,
jealousy, and silliness…Such
is the stupidity of woman’s
character, that it is incumbent
upon her, in every particular, to
distrust herself and to obey
her husband. -Confucian Marriage
Manual
God created Adam lord of all living
creatures, but Eve
spoiled it all. -Martin Luther
All witchcraft comes from carnal
lust, which is in women
insatiable. -Kramer and Sprenger,
Inquisitors (Malleus Maleficrum, c. 1486)
A man in general is better pleased
when he has a good
dinner than when his wife talks
Greek. –Samuel Johnson
The whole education of women ought
to be relative to men.
To please them, to be useful to
them, to make themselves
loved and honored by them, to
educate them when young,
to care for them when grown, to
counsel them, to console
them, and to make life sweet and
agreeable to them—these
are the duties of women at all times
and what should be
taught them from their infancy. -Jean Jacgues Rousseau
Women have no moral sense; they rely
for their behavior
upon the men they love. – La Bruyere
Most women have no characters at
all. -Alexander Pope
I never knew a tolerable women to be
fond of her own sex. -Jonathan
Swift
Man for the field and women for the
hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle
she:
Man with the head and women with the
heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion. -Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Page 34
Men are men, but Man is a woman.
-G. K. Chesterton
Nature intended women to be our
slaves...they are our
property; we are not theirs. They
belong to us, just as a tree
that bears fruit belongs to a
gardener. What a mad idea to
demand equality for women!...Women
are nothing but
machines for producing children.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
To men a man is but a mind. Who
cares what face he carries
or what he wears? But woman's body
is the woman.
-Ambrose Bierce
Regard the society of women as a
necessary unpleasantness
of social life, and avoid it as much
as possible.
-Count Leo Tolstoy
A woman who is guided by the head
and not the heart is
a social pestilence: she has all the
defects of the passionate
and affectionate woman, with none of
her compensations;
she is without pity, without love,
without virtue, without
sex. -Honore de Balzac
And a woman is only a woman but a
good cigar is a smoke.
-Rudyard Kipling
Women have great talent, but no
genius, for they always
remain subjective. -Arthur
Schopenhauer
One must have loved a woman of
genius to comprehend the
happiness of loving a fool.
-Talleyrand
If the feminine abilities were
developed to the same degree
as those of the male, her (woman's)
maternal organs would
suffer and we should have a
repulsive and useless hybrid.
-P.J. Moebius (German scientist,
1907)
The great question that has never
been answered, and
which I have not yet been able to
answer despite my thirty I
years of research into the feminine
soul, is: What does a
woman want? -Sigmund Freud
Page 35
The woman 's fundamental status is
that of her husband's
wife, the mother of his children.
-Talcott Parsons
Man's superiority will be shown, not
in the fact that he has
enslaved his wife, but that he has
made her free.
-Eugene V. Debs
Women should receive a higher
education, not in order to
become doctors, lawyers, or
professors, but to rear their
offspring to be valuable human
beings.
-Alexis Carrel, Man, the Unknown
Woman as a person enjoys a dignity
equal with men, but she
was given different tasks by God and
by Nature which
perfect and complete the work
entrusted to men.
-Pope John XXIII
The only position for women in SNCC
is prone.
-Stokeley Carmichael, 1966
It would be preposterously naive to
suggest that a B.A. can
be made as attractive to girls as a
marriage license.
-Dr. Grayson Kirk (former President, Columbia University)
Women, in general, want to be loved
for what they are and
men for what they accomplish. The
first for their looks and
charm, the latter for their actions.
-Theodor Reik
My secretary is a lovable slave.
-Morris Ernst, attorney, on the 50th Anniversary
of his having hired Paula Gross, secretary.
The only alliance I would make with
the Women's Libera-
tion Movement is in bed.-Abbie
Hoffman
Women are usually more patient in
working at unexciting,
repetitive tasks...Women on the
average have more passiv-
ity in the inborn core of their
personality...I believe
Women are designed in their deeper
instincts to get more
pleasure out of life-not only
sexually but socially, occupa-
Page 36
tionally, maternally-when they are
not aggressive. To put
it another way I think that when
women are encouraged to
be competitive too many of them
become disagreeable.
-Dr. Benjamin M. Spock, Decent and Indecent
Women? I guess they ought to
exercise Pussy Power.
-Eldridge Cleaver, 1968
AND
A woman's place is in the
home/Housewives are such dull
people/Women's talk is all
chatter/Intelligent women are
emasculating/If you're so smart why
aren't you married/-
Can you type?/lf you want to make
decisions in this family.
go out and earn a paycheck
yourself/Working women are
unfeminine/ A smart woman never
shows her brains/It is a
woman's duty to make herself
attractive/ All women think
about are clothes/Women are always
playing hard to
get/No man likes an easy woman/Women
should be struck
regularly, like gongs/Women like to
be raped/Women are
always crying about something/Women
don't understand
the value of a dollar/Women
executives are castrating bitch-
es/Don't worry your pretty little
head about it/Dumb
broad/It is glorious to be the
mother of all mankind/ A
woman's work is never done / All you
do is cook and clean
and sit around all day /Women are
only interested in trap-
ping some man/ A woman who can't
hold a man isn't much
of a woman/Women hate to be with
other women/Women
are always off chattering with each
other /Some of my best
friends are women...
THE JAILOR
Sylvia Plath
My night sweats grease his breakfast
plate.
The same placard of blue fog is
wheeled into position
With the same trees and headstones.
Is that all he can come up with,
The rattler of keys?
I have been drugged and raped.
Seven hours knocked out of my right
mind
Into a black sack
Where I relax, foetus or cat,
Lever of his wet dreams.
Something is gone.
My sleeping capsule, my red and blue
zeppelin,
Drops me from a terrible altitude.
Carapace smashed,
I spread to the beaks of birds.
O little gimlets!
What holes this papery day is
already full of!
He has been burning me with
cigarettes,
Pretending I am a Negress with pink
paws.
I am myself. That is not enough.
The fever trickles and stiffens in
my hair.
My ribs show. What have I eaten?
Lies and smiles.
Surely the sky is not that colour,
Surely the grass should be rippling.
All day, gluing my church of burnt
matchsticks,
I dream of someone else entirely.
And he, for this subversion,
Hurts me, he
With his armoury of fakery.
His high, cold masks of amnesia.
How did I get here?
Indeterminate criminal,
I die with variety-
Hung, starved, burned, hooked!
I imagine him
Impotent as distant thunder,
In whose shadow I have eaten my
ghost ration.
I wish him dead or away.
That, it seems, is the
impossibility,
That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would
he
Do, do, do without me?
Copyright @ 1964 by Ted Hughes
Barbie doll
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of
cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a
classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat
legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual
dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
everyone saw a fat nose on thick
legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she
lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics
painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty?
everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Marge Piercy from To Be of Use
A work of artifice
The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be sma1l and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.