The Free-Lance Pallbearers (11 page)

So you see these were thorny and profound questions not to be taken lightly. I would have to study and study hard.

The time had arrived for the performance. In line were the interior decorators, male nurses from the University of Rochester and the entire student body and faculty of the University of Buffalo holding surfboards, plus the mayor of that great city. Stephen Wolinski was dressed in black-and-white-checkered bow tie, a chartreuse cap, patent leather shoes, and trousers known in the forties as “cootie drapes.” The Society of Mechanical Drawers was also present and they brought along the wives of all these groups who had been posing for underground films all day. Is that all? No, wait! Hundreds of yellow cabs pull up in front of the building. It is the head of the Yellow Cab Company, a true patron of the arts, followed by his entire fleet who remove their caps in respect for KULCHUR.

Inside the loft the people sat on newspapers which were laid about the floor. A movie projector stood in the aisle. I went into Cipher's office.

“Well, Bukka,” he said, doing the hoopla hoop. “Do you feel nervous?”

“Just a little, Cipher meaning Zero,” I said. “Where do I change into my costume?”

He slapped his hand against his forehead as the hoopla hoop slipped down around his thighs. “Can't you learn? Look,” he said, opening the door of the office. “See that stock over there before the front row of audience?” He pointed to a stock-the kind used for punishment in the American colonies. Behind the stock and mounted on a table was a tape recorder. Standing next to the table was a roll-out movie screen. “Just go there and put your neck and wrists in that stock, there's a pillow behind it that you can rest your knees upon. Put this gag on.” He tied a piece of cloth over my mouth, then turned me around so that I faced the stock.

It seemed simple enough so I walked out stepping over the people in the audience as I made my way toward the stock. There was scattered applause. I put my neck and hands through the stock and knelt on the pillow. The stock clamped shut. I looked worriedly at Cipher who only stood in the door of the office with his arms folded and his legs apart. He was immobile in his dark glasses. I tried to wriggle out of the stock making muffled cries through the gag for help. A movie projector showed athletes jumping over hurdles at the 1936 German Olympics. The audience didn't seem to hear me. They were busily exchanging cogent comments.

“Do you think it's Christ hanging off the cross?” whispered a businessman who had made a fortune in pot holders.

“No, I was reading Jessie Weston the other day and it's all about yams,” replied a hairdresser from the East Bronx.

The door of the loft swung open. And the taxi dancers from the BUCK-RABBIT CLUB and their aviation executive escorts moved to one side as a robot with stroboscopic lights for eyes moved around the loft. The newspapers rustled while on the screen the Hitlerjugend marched past the dictator, proudly displaying flags. Finally after rolling about the floor the robot stood before me. It opened a panel in its chest and removed a baseball. It then threw the baseball into my face. In rapid succession it removed baseballs and threw them at me and red lumps began to rise on my face. I looked, eyes imploringly, to Cipher X for relief but he simply stood quietly in the door inspecting the stock, screen and robot. The tape recorder switched on.

The robot swallowed the baseballs on the floor and quickly exited. The clamps snapped away from my neck and hands. The projector was turned off. Cipher X ran from the office door to the stock to thunderous applause. I could not believe it, the audience was applauding its own doom. I gazed out through my puffy eyelids, as the audience stood on its feet cheering us. Cipher lifted me from the stock and hand in hand we bowed to the audience from side to side. A man crawling on his hands and knees slid up to me followed by a pack of reporters. He dropped his pad from his teeth and with a pencil between his toes began to ask me questions.

He was J. Lapp Swine, jazz critic from the
Deformed Demokrat
. He tugged my pants cuffs and asked, “How does it feel to have all that rhythm, Mr. Doopeyduk? Tell me, huh? Won'tcha please? Won'tcha?”

Cipher X threw up his hands and said, “Be patient, fellows. I'll answer all your questions in my news conference.” He took me by the elbows—the fuken elbow grabber with sterling high cheekbones—and escorted me through the throng of well-wishers toward his office. We had difficulty getting through. The Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo with a surfboard tied to his back and a long petition hanging from his hands accosted us.

“Mr. Doopeybuk and Cipher X,” he said, his wife on his arm. “We're just crazy about BECOMINGS and HOOPLA HOOPS and LOOPHOLES. Why just last week my wife and I rushed to the A&P and bought nineteen of those big black beauties. And just because we're way up there in Buffalo which is eighty per cent Polish-American doesn't mean that we don't keep up with what's happening in NOWHERE. Why, we read the
Deformed Demokrat
each week, religiously.”

Cipher shoved the man aside and continued toward the office. “Sir, Mr. Doopeyduk and I have to go into my office to relax. The performance was truly exhausting,” Cipher lisped.

But the man kept talking. “We just thought that you might want to sign this petition concerning the erosion and bastardization of the tongue!”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Cipher answered, fluttering his eyelids. “I'm neutral in all things. Besides I have a very nice soft and juicy tongue, so there,” Cipher said, sticking out his tongue at the man and continuing toward the office.

The man and his wife went back to the mayor, Stephen Wolinski, who standing in the corner asked, “Did he say anything about da snowplows and da bombed-out swimming pools?”

Inside the office Cipher pulled the gag off my mouth and then I BLEW MY COOL.

“WHADDAYA MEAN PUTTIN' ME UP THERE WITH THEM BASEBALLS KNOCKING ME FACELESS AND THEM CRAZY SPEECHES AND STUFF? YOU TRYIN' TO GET ME BUMPED OFF OR SOMETHIN'? WHY I GOT A GOOD MIND TO HIT YOU RIGHT SMACK IN THE KISSER!”

“Cutey poo,” he said, prancing about the office, the tips of his left and right hands touching. “Sweetheart. Dearest. I'm completely pooped from the BECOMING! You were so absolutely adorable,” he said, “come here. Let me puck you one on the cheek. Let me grease your palm,” he said, applying some Vaseline to my palm which had been bruised. As a Nazarene apprentice I was completely disarmed in the face of such kindness.

“ALL RIGHT, BUT YOU'D BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHIN' GOOD, BUDDY.”

“Do come back tomorrow and we'll discuss the BECOMING,” he said.

“All right. I yield to art this time, but tomorrow I want a full-dress review of this thing.”

I walked down the steps into the streets. Just as I stepped into the area in front of the loft, someone whispered from the shadows. “Psssssssssst, Bukka Doopeyduk, Bukka Doopeyduk. Come over here.”

I walked over to the figure standing in the corner.

“Look, Bukka,” the figure said. “Dose people over there told me dat you knew where I could get some snowplows and some cement. See dim Chinamens came into Williamsville and Snyder last week and bombed out all da swimmin' pools?”

“I'm sorry, Jim. I can't help you,” I told the mayor of Buffalo, Stephen Wolinski. “I know that it is an inconvenience and all, but I got troubles of my own.”

I left the mayor of Buffalo looking like a sad sack as he walked holding out the insides of his pockets toward the student and faculty delegation who stood next to sight-seeing buses looking disappointed. I was surrounded by fans holding autograph pads. BECOMINGS' followers were standing deep in front of the buildings discussing the performance. Ratner's was filled to capacity.

The next morning I ran out of the house and returned with an armful of newspapers. I nearly fainted dead away when I read the headlines in
the ny teeth
.

I put on my shoes and rushed downstairs to the telephone. I would have to call
the ny teeth
and get an extraction. But before I could pick up the receiver, the phone rang.

“Mr. Doopeyduk,” a voice said. “This is Allen Hangup. I'm emceeing the controversial new
Allen Hangup Show
. We are going to have a discussion on how the migration of the eastern brown pelican affects the civil rights movement.”

“Man, I don't know nothing about no birds,” I told the kat.

“That's fine,” he said. “Tweet, tweet, see you soon.” (Click.)

The phone rang again. “Hello, Mr. Doopeyduk,” another voice said. “This is
Poison Dart
magazine, the magazine of black liberation. We are having a symposium on the role of the black writer in contemporary society. We will be covering such issues as: Should he glare at Charlie? Should he kinda stick out his lower lip and look mean? or should he just snag at Charlie's pants legs until his mouth is full of ankles and calves and he gets the sweet taste of Max Factor on his tongue? We shall also be discussing whether the brothers should part their hair on the side or part it down the middle. These are grave issues and you as a friend of the liberation movement shouldn't want to miss the discussion.”

“Look,” I answered. “I'm not an actor. I'm more of a clown.”

“Good, Mr. Doopeyduk,” the voice said. “So are we, tweet, tweet. See you soon.”

This thing was getting all out of hand. I would have to go to the only man who was capable of setting the matter straight: CIPHER X. I ran out of the house and up the stairs of the factory building and pounded on the door. Cipher peeked out, followed by heavy clouds of smoke.

“Look, Bukka, I'll see you at the performance tonight. Right now I'm having a press conference, sweetheart.” But before I could answer, the door was slammed in my face. I rushed to the corner and bought the afternoon paper
the ny whine
.

I ran back to the loft. Press conference or no press conference, this kat wasn't going to get me killed. This time I was trampled by reporters who flew down the steps and out of the loft to file their stories. (Man, I have to tell you that little J. Lapp Swine was keeping right up with them, galloping along like a jet-propelled groundhog.) I rushed into the office where Cipher X was pounding away at the typewriter.

“What's the matter, my man? Can't you see I'm writing this jazz review for
Buck
magazine?”

“Fuk
Buk
magazine,” I said, jabbing my finger into the very pulp of
the ny whine
. “Are you trying to get me killed? You said that all a BECOMING was was a fusion of light, sound and film, always expanding, never complete. What are you telling the reporters these lies for? I have a good mind to punch you out, you fuken maypolegrabber with a skinny neck.”

“Relax, my man, relax. I thought that you were hip. That you were into somethin'. But you're turning out to be as lame as all the others. Those headlines bring in the bread, my man. We couldn't eat without those headlines. Look at this,” he said, pulling a wad of dough from the desk drawer big enough to choke a horse. “Why man, these rich kats are coming down here busting their nuts over you.”

“But I'm not interested in fame or fortune. I just want to correct certain loopholes in the Nazarene manual. Sort of fortify the faith, so to speak.”

“Well, man, you're interested in loopholes. I'm interested in hoopla hoops. I can't see why we can't collaborate-they both have diphthongs. This morning those diphthongs brought me twenty-five grand from some top government officials.”

“GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS?” I said, tearing to the window and looking to the street below for suspicious-looking cars.

“What's your worry, my man?” Cipher X said. “They were in here all morning hopping around my er … er … maypole in the nude. They paid me twenty-five grand for twenty hoopla hoops.”

“Government officials?” I asked again, astonished. “What government officials?”

“Why, those kats across the Black Bay at the motel. They were up here this morning posing for some of my underground films. Didn't you hear them panting in the rear of the audience last night? Why, they all thought you were raw and powerful. And ‘a little cute too' as one of the high officials put it.”

“But didn't they get upset at all the invective from that tape recorder? And what about the news stories?”