The Last Days of Louisiana Red (5 page)

LaBas was sitting in his office reading the
Berkeley Gazette
, a newspaper that carried Max Lerner's column. A different kind of politician, indeed a “radical” politician of the “new politics,” Berkeley Congressman Ron Dellums was buying a $150,000 home in Washington, D.C. So read a report with the dateline Washington.

Outside LaBas' window could be seen the motorboats of fishermen, some small yachts, sailboats, and people fishing on each side of the Berkeley pier. Outside his office-door window he could see the Workers going about their Work. The incense was floating in from beneath the door. LaBas continued reading. He always read the
Berkeley Gazette
. Its feature, “About People,” with its announcements of The Business and Professional Women's Groups' meetings: “Mrs. Mabel Speers will read an old-fashioned Christmas Story”; its recipes for “Kung Fu Clusters,” told you more about Berkeley than the Telegraph-Calcutta Street (only three blocks) of runaways or Mario Savio.

LaBas' thoughts were interrupted by Wolf, who entered the room wearing a white double-breasted suit. LaBas looked up.

“Yes, Wolf.”

“Pop, I just wanted to say that you've done a good job here. Why, after Dad died we didn't have anyone to turn to. Street and Minnie—they're so ragged in their ways. They would never have been able to manage the household and this place too. Now that we've built ourselves back to the top, it's time to liquidate our physical assets as my father Ed wished.”

“The Board of Directors told me that there would be a phasing out, but I didn't know when you were going to decide to begin it.”

“The Workers are taking an inventory of our goods and will be having meetings over the coming weeks on how to inconspicuously place them where they won't be noticed.”

“We'll take care of that back east, Wolf. We will have them go to up-and-coming Businesses. These Businesses will have to go through the same phases as your factory, Solid Gumbo Works. They will need time to gain enough knowledge to do with only token physical assets. We have to be fast. Physical assets weigh us down.”

“Good, then it's decided. We will begin to dissolve the Solid Gumbo Works the world has come to know and disperse, communicating only through the post office box.”

“I'm glad you made the decision, Wolf. I admire the way it was handled. If you had liquidated after your father was killed that would have been interpreted as a sign of failure, and it would have made all of us look weak in the eyes of the competition, for what is the situation in their other Businesses if this particular west coast franchise buckled under, they would ask. They would have put pressure on us at the T.C. Institute and branches throughout the world. This way, since they know we're ahead, our disappearance from the public scene will be interpreted as meaning that you've found a lucrative market elsewhere. So-called legitimate businesses make these kinds of decisions all the time.”

“Thank you for seeing it my way, LaBas. No word of this is to be said to anyone. I've only told the Workers. We'll just continue to operate as we always have, then one day, our mission accomplished, we will have up and gone. I have to go now, Pop. Must send our Going Out of Business cards to our customers. Don't have to worry about them. They're discreet and won't talk.” Wolf went out. LaBas returned to reading the
Berkeley Gazette
. His eyes scanned the television listings. Inaccurate as usual.

Chorus is seated in an outdoor café.

“‘The Chorus has gone too far,' they said. ‘He has upstaged our pretty actors.'

“Cheap makeup peels off their faces. They stumble and forget their lines; ‘Please cue me,' some of they say. To put it in the language of old American slavery days, the Chorus, me, was a fugitive slave who wanted his aesthetic Canada, but the Claimant and Sambo wanted to bring me back to the Master.”

Imagine that. “The people downstairs” wanted to can his strophes, his delightful twists and turns. “The people downstairs.”

“One woman led the pack. She had an 'tigone on her. 'Tigone, the beginning of my difficulties, hogging all my good lines. Couldn't be cool, that wench.

“Like, the elders of Thebes and Creon didn't give a damn if she went out into the woods to fuck, drink and prance about a huge goat. Creon and the elders were interested in the spirit of the law and not its letter. They weren't finicky. Each to his own God, as they use to say in the Congo.

“No, she had to brag about her malady and boost it.

“‘Go marry Hades,' Creon had said. ‘You are his bride.'

“He could see Hades grinning behind her like she was ghost-photographed because she, like Core, had tasted of Hades' fruit and had been touched by this loa. The burial of her brother was just a cover-up. All those speeches, ‘the wisdom of man vs. the wisdom of God.'

“Do you suppose that Zeus really gave a hang whether Polynices was buried? Zeus was too busy chasing tail to be bothered with such trifles. No, this woman wanted to die and she was going about it in a roundabout way—all that blather. This woman was demanding. Sophocles edited out many of my good lines because of this woman and her big mouth.”

Inside one of the apartments of the Yellings' house sit Minnie and Sister. It is decorated in the psychedelic style of the sixties: attractively decorated pillows for seats, oddly shaped chairs and an old table picked up from a flea market. There are posters on the wall. One reads, “Visit Bulgaria,” another, “Free Anything,” under which is drawn the picture of a rattlesnake preparing to strike. Minnie, however skinny, has matured into a good-looking woman: A little mama; worldly, sophisticated and often impatient with her ignorant followers who believe anything she tells them. Sister is a “wee plump,” modest legs, butt and breasts. She is solid and in the old days would have been called a red hot. Sister is wrapped up so in long skirts, jewelry and a white turban that much of her original self is hidden. Minnie, this time out, is in denims, sandals, and wears an unassuming sweater. She doesn't wear just one thing. Her fashions change as much as her mind. Sister doesn't belong to Minnie's cult, though Minnie has been working on her over the years.

“I saw our brother this morning, driving that old Oldsmobile of his down Shattuck. He didn't even honk his horn.”

“He's probably mad at you because you and them Moochers tried to close down his Solid Gumbo Works.”

“Well, what were we suppose to do? He's so aloof, so jive. And that LaBas. Where did they get him? From the east, huh. Talking about ‘our profits are intangible and so we don't have to keep any books,' and then he had the nerve to point to his forehead, ‘The books are in here.'”

“He must know something, though. Your Moochers couldn't get past his guard, even when they tried.”

“We'll get him sooner or later. Nothing can stop my Moochers. Next time the sacrifices will be more terrible, bloodier.”

“Why is there always the need for blood, Minnie? Why do you always see ‘many casualties' as being victorious?”

“We Moochers understand nothing but blood. Blood is truth. Blood is life. Drink blood, drink it. Blood. Blood.” (With this, a distant gaze)

“I … I … understand, I think, Minnie, but it's still …”

“O Sister, you're so dense. You know, I was always the one in the family who was good for theory. Our father was the poet. You and Wolf were the ones who didn't fit.”

“Minnie, let's not go through that again. I sympathize with your aims as far as I can understand them, but why are you so hard on Papa LaBas and Wolf? People say that he prevented the Business from going under with Dad.” (Minnie nervously mashes out her cigarette in an ashtray and swings around.)

“Now look here, Sister, don't you dare say such things even if you mean them. LaBas and our kïnd will be locked in interminable struggle against the fascist insect! It's inevitable.”

“See? There you go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Minnie talk (bites into a fruit). It sounds the same whoever says it. Who says everything has to be that way?”

“My slogans.”

“Your what?”

“My slogans (distantly). They tell me. My slogans know everything. With my slogans I can change the look of the future any time I wish.”

“Aw, Minnie, that's sick. How can you change something that's only about to be?”

“We have our tested ways. Tried and true; now with my slogans we're able to match wits with the best of them. All this, due to our slogans. My slogans be praised.”

(Sweet lovable Nanny enters the room.)

“I jus hears you chirren carrin on, so I knows I jus had to bring yawl some good ol cream of wheat. Piping hot. Now dig in, girls.” She rests the service on the table.

“O Nanny, how sweet of you.” (Minnie goes over; kneels and hugs this lovable old creature by the legs.) “What would I have done all these years without your counsel.”

“Now, dear (comforting Minnie), my souls ache when I hears you worrin your brains so. You knows your brains will bust if you keep worrin yo sweet heart about these things. These is white folks' matters you's worrin so about.”

“We're not arguing over anything deep, Nanny. She just needs to get out more. Party some. They're beginning to call her, well… cold. Her own Minnies say her speeches put them to sleep.”

“That's not true,” Minnie shouts, knocking the cream of wheat bowl to the floor.

“Chile, you so nervous. Look what you'z done done with my flo. Lawz be.”

“I'm sorry, Nanny … Sister loves to tease me.”

“I thought you were going on a date. What's wrong with you teasin this chile!”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Sister says, making that derisive defiant gesture standing on one leg and fixing an earring. (She exits into the bathroom.)

(Minnie is lying on a sofa, weeping. Nanny goes over and comforts her.)

“Now, now, baby doll. Don't cry. Yo Nanny won't like that. Yo Nanny's got a strong chile. Come to my heavy black bosom.” Minnie really bawls then.

(Sister comes out of the bathroom, pins some baroque-looking earrings to her ears, picks up her pocketbook.)

“Well, I have to be going; this Nigerian brother is taking me out on a date.”

“Where you going this time of night?” Nanny asks, frowning fiercely.

“We thought we'd go to eat at the Rainbow Sign and then down to Solomon Grundy's to hear Art Fletcher. He plays a soft piano, and you can sit about the fireplace. People can hear what each other say. Across the way you can see the skyline of San Francisco.”

“Well, don't be coming in here all time of the nite like you grown. You ain't grown yet. Got a long way to go if you ask me. Yo Daddy thought he was so smart and look what he got. Mr. Bigshot. Where is he? What happened to him? He dead, that's what. And your brother Wolf, who got some sense, put you in my charge and so I'm gon see about you. I raised you.”

“You old mangy dog; you never liked us—me, Dad, Street and Wolf. It was always Minnie. Minnie this. Minnie that. Always taking her side. You hated the rest of the family and you know it, so don't you be telling me how much you loved us and how you raised me.”

(Minnie leaps from Nanny's lap to her feet.)

“How can you defend him, Sister? He didn't care what happened to us; he was always down at that factory making Gumbo. If it wasn't for Nanny here, we would have perished.”

“That's true. That's so true. The man wasn't nothin,” Nanny says.

“If it wasn't for Nanny, we would be in the bay.”

“Well, she was paid enough. Always poking into Dad's Business.”

“Sister, you apologize.”

“Apologize for what? I use to see her poking into his papers.”

“I was only looking for change to pay the paper boy,” Nanny said.

(Sister examines her watch)

“Look, I have to go. We'll argue later. There's always later.” (Sister exits.)

“Don't you mind her, chile. Would you like some beer? I feels like having my nightly quart. Share a can with me? Then I'll tell you some stories like I use to.” (Nanny rises as Minnie lifts her head)

“Will you, Nanny?”

“Yes, we'll pretend that you're still the little child. And I'll read you my Louisiana Red stories.”

Minnie was glad seeing Nanny's faithful old big behind going out of the door. That would be fun. She hadn't heard those stories for quite a while. She knew them by heart; in fact it was those stories that prepared her for leadership of the Moochers: the Louisiana Red stories. All about the wonderful Marie of New Orleans and that diabolical fiend Doc John. As for Sister:

What does she know? The mind of a little bird. She allows her life to be controlled without knowing the source, but my Minnies and I know what's going on. Our chapters are spreading. Sisters and Brothers are going into every part of the nation carrying the good word. Our name is on everyone's tongue, and after that most recent shoot-out in which our brothers fled into the arms of glorious Hades, our popularity has increased manifold. Only LaBas stands in my way and that reactionary will be dealt with in due course
. (pause)

What they have down there must be very special to have so many people to cater to. But he will fail. It's history's law; he will be engulfed by his contradictions and swept away like the swimmer in strong current. The current of history. What would I do without Nanny? My only friend. I'm glad she stayed on at Wolf's request. Every other Thursday. Where does she go on Thursdays? This has been her only secret for years
.

She stepped out of her dirty jeans. She wasn't wearing any panties. She removed her blue-collar shirt. She wore no bra either. She took off her sneakers last. She had a fine body in the sense that a panther moving with those fine limbs has a fine body, and like the panther this was the kind of young woman's body that could eat you up, if you know what I mean. (She had a panther's reach and its grip, that is if you invaded her bush. She'd snap at you, squeeze you and hold you tight.) She stretched out on the sofa and, her teeth protruding, eyes closed, she began unconsciously to writhe. But she stopped that. She was embarrassed because Nanny was standing in the doorway with the quart of beer. Nanny smiled.

“Ready for the stories, Minnie?”