Dying Inside

“I think so,” I say, reaching for my pen. “It shouldn’t be any trouble at all,” especially since there resides in my files a paper of my own, vintage 1952, covering this very same hoary old humanities theme. “I’ll need some information about you for the heading. Exact spelling of your name, the name of your professor, the course number—” He starts to tell me these things. As I jot them down, I simultaneously open the aperture of my mind for my customary scan of the client’s interior, to give me some idea of the proper tone to use in the paper. Will I be able to do a convincing job of faking the kind of essay Yahya Lumumba is likely to turn in? It will be a taxing technical challenge if I have to write in black hipster jargon, coming on all cool and jazzy and snotty, every line laughing in the ofay prof’s fat face. I imagine I could do it: but does Lumumba want me to? Will he think I’m mocking him if I adopt the jiveass style and seem to be puffing him on as he might put on the prof? I must know these things. So I slip my snaky tendrils past his woolly scalp into the hidden gray jelly. Hello, big black man. Entering, I pick up a somewhat more immediate and vivid version of the generalized persona he constantly projects: the hyped-up black pride, the mistrust of the paleface stranger, the chuckling enjoyment of his own lean long-legged muscular frame. But these are mere residual attitudes, the standard furniture of his mind. I have not yet reached the level of this-minute thought. I have not penetrated to the essential Yahya Lumumba, the unique individual whose style I must assume. I push deeper. As I sink in, I sense a distinct warming of the psychic temperature, an outflow of heat, comparable perhaps to what a miner might experience five miles down, tunneling toward the magmatic fires at the earth’s core. This man Lumumba is constantly boiling within, I realize. The glow from his tumultuous soul warns me to be careful, but I have not yet gained the information I seek, and so I go onward, until abruptly the molten frenzy of his stream of consciousness hits me with terrible force. Fucking Jew bigbrain shit head Christ how I hate the little bald mother conning me three-fifty a page I ought to Jew him down I ought to bust his teeth the exploiter the oppressor he wouldn’t charge a Jew that much I bet special price for niggers sure well I ought to jew him down that’s a good one Jew him down I ought to bust his teeth pick him up throw him into the trash what if I wrote the fucking paper myself show him but I can’t shit I can’t that’s the whole fucking trouble mom I can’t Europydes Sophocles Eeskilus who knows shit about them I got other stuff on my mind the Rutgers game one-on-one down the court gimme the ball you dumb prick that’s it and it’s up and in for Lumumba! and wait folks he was fouled in the act of shooting now he goes to the line big confident easy six feet ten inches tall holder of every Columbia scoring record bounces the ball once twice up, swish! Lumumba on his way to another big evening tonight folks Europydes Sophocles Eeskilus why the fuck do I have to know anything about them write anything about them what good is it to a black man those old dead Greek fuckers how are they relevant to the black experience relevant relevant relevant not to me Just to the Jews shit what do any of them know four hundred years of slavery we got other stuff on our minds what do any of them know especially this shithead mother here I got to pay him twenty bucks to do something I’m not good enough to do for myself who says I have to what good is any of it why why why why