Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2)(47)
A wisecracking yippie type bounced onstage, the MC. He shared a few nasal cracks about mayor-elect Beame (“You have to admire a man who runs for captain of the Titanic”) and introduced Roscoe Pope. Pope took two steps onstage, gasped at the crowd in mock horror, and pretended to retreat in fear. He adjusted the microphone stand. He was disheveled, in wrinkled green corduroy pants and black satin baseball jacket.
“Great to be back in New York,” he said. “The Big Apple. Catch up with some friends. See my man Christian. He’s a smooth cat, always a good time with Christian. But—why do parents name their kids after stuff that’s about them? It’s great that you have God in your life, you don’t have to bring your kid into it. I like a lot of things. Should I name my kid Eating Pussy? ‘Here’s my son, Eating Pussy.’ That’s not right. Hang a sign on a child for some shit you like.”
The audience laughed and Pope’s face changed: They had passed his test. Now he could do as he pleased. It was like when you impress bystanders or hostages with the fact that you’ll hurt them if they get in your way, Pepper thought—they grant permission. Pope pressed on, taunting a couple foolish enough to sit in the front row: “Your man eat your pussy? No?” Relishing the mischief. “These two going to be fighting all the way home now. Why don’t you ever eat the pussy, dear?” He let them off the hook and struck up a bit about a black crime fighter named the Red Conk, who gains superpowers after applying radioactive hair straightener. He has various adventures until he gets lynched by Super Cracker for using his X-ray vision on a white lady. “Strung his ass up. That’s why I don’t mess with white women—when anybody’s looking.” Followed by an autopsy of Gone with the Wind. “This white bitch talking about, Oh, no, they’re going to burn my house down. They should burn your house down, bitch, you’re a slave master. I had a match, I’d burn it down myself.”
He reached for the glass of water on the little stool beside him. “We get movies like that because they don’t teach history right. In school? All sorts of shit you don’t know. ‘George Washington crossing the Delaware.’ It’s a famous moment in American history. They don’t tell you he was crossing the river because he heard there were some slaves on sale. Row, bitch—I got that Founding Father discount!”
A white lady up front yelled “Preach!” and a hulking, potbellied man in hepcat sunglasses along the back wall guffawed in anticipation of every punch line. Knew all the routines. On that coke, probably. He was a fan, but also part of the gang, a generation that took for granted that a black man could talk like that and not get his ass shot. What kind of rooms did Pope play in the South—mixed places like this, or chitlin joints, or not at all? Pepper had heard the comedian was far-out, picturing one of those button-down Bill Cosby types, but a bit rougher. This was a new-type Negro before him, and a room full of people tuned in to his wild style. The Nefertiti film crew, the college kids, now this hip downtown assortment—he was up to his ears with this new breed and their new shit.
Like at this table with the white couple. The man jotted notes, but also laughed along with the room. He wasn’t a Fed; he probably worked for The Village Voice or one of those underground rags where they teach you how to make your own bootleg bomb. (Pepper’s opinion on this matter obeyed the Fried Chicken Principle: Why make it when you can buy it?) Pope must be on a government watch list or two. How many times did they arrest Lenny Bruce? For running his mouth. Treat a white man like that, what would they do to a black man?
Pope chuckled at something he said, like he, too, couldn’t believe he hadn’t been strung up yet. “A lot of folks in the ’hood don’t like white people,” he said. “Because of history. But how could you not dig them? They’re everywhere. Like dirt. Can’t hate dirt. You may not want it in your house, but it does good stuff. Plants and trees live in it. For instance.”
Pope sipped his water. “White dude in the back is like, I liked his comedy routine until he started getting racial.” He snickered.
A pale, skinny chick in overalls and a bright green cardigan weaved her way through the bodies. She elbowed a man in the stomach or stepped on his foot and he barked at her. No, it was too packed for Pepper’s taste. Fire breaks out, a crazy son of a bitch with a pistol or a switchblade, cops on the hunt—there was no easy escape if something popped up. Hazel had dragged him to these tiny places a few times, to see music or have a drink, and she made a point of making fun of his skittishness. “What’d you, rob a bank?” He’d grin. It was nice when someone got your number. Not that she knew what he did for a living, but she got a general handle on him pretty quickly. Probably why she split on him.
Roscoe Pope’s body turned plastic—stout and militant, then wilting in cowardice, then staggering half in the bag—and his voice equally supple as he cycled through guises and characters. Preacher, white dude, ghetto dude, angry sister, the neighborhood wino, as if he were a transmitter hooked up to the private thoughts of a cramped subway car. Also Richard Nixon: “Get that nigger Khrushchev on the phone!” Despite Pepper’s certitude that the man was a jerk, he admired the fearlessness. It was like what he felt about Zippo—the kid was tedious but it took guts to fight inside the white man’s system. You had to believe in your invincibility. Be a superhero, like the Red Conk, like Nefertiti. The Red Conk got strung up. Pepper hadn’t read the screenplay so he had to wait to find out what happens to Nefertiti.