Freaky Deaky

Chris looked at the house again, wondering what they were doing in there, right now. He said to Wendell, "How come Mark went to get the peanuts, not Donnell?"

"Donnell says Mark wanted to do it."

"What if Woody had his own car wired," Chris said, "and sent Mark out to get the peanuts?"

"He couldn't have, he didn't know Mark was there.

The man doesn't seem to know much of anything. Eyes all watery like a skid-row burnout."

"Psychosocially debilitated," Chris said.

"I like that," Wendell said, "I'll put that down. I talk to him, here's his brother blown to shit just a while ago, the man hardly seems to realize it. I don't mean 'cause he's in shock, either. Man has a wet brain."

Chris was looking at the house again.

"What if it was Donnell that set it up? Somehow he talked Mark in to getting the peanuts."

"I'm gonna collect my people and leave," Wendell said.

"I'll tell them on the third floor I interrogated you and found you psycho socially debilitated, couldn't think of nothing but peanuts.

How's that sound?"

Chris was still looking at the house. He nodded and said, "Planters Peanuts, in the blue can." wW hat the man liked to do for his nap time, couple of hours before dinner: turn on the stereo way up loud enough to break windows, slide into the pool on his rubber raft naked to Ezio Pinza doing "Some Enchanted Evening" and float around a few minutes before he'd yell,

"Donnell?" And Donnell, his hand ready on the button, would shut off the stereo. Like that, Ezio Pinza telling the man to make somebody his own or all through his lifetime he would dream all alone, and then dead silence. No sound at all in the dim swimming pool house, steam hanging over the water, steam rising from the pile of white flesh on the raft, like it was cooking.

Donnell had changed from his black athletic outfit to a loose white cotton pullover shirt, loose white trousers with a drawstring, bare feet in broken-in Mexican huarachis, dressed for an evening at home. Donnell stood at the edge of the pool watching the man float past, eyes closed, Donnell thinking, Stick an apple in his mouth. Thinking, I wish Cochise could see this.

Say to Cochise, "What's it remind you of?" Cochise would see it, sure, like the pig cartoons used to be in The Black Panther. Pigs squealing, a big black fist holding them up by the tail. Pigs hanging from a tree, lynch ropes around their necks. Pig in a cop uniform sweating bullets, going "Oink," a brother holding a pistol in the pig's face.

It was Cochise Patterson had brought him into the Panthers, Cochise telling him the basic tool of liberation was the gun. Cochise reading to him from the minister of defense, Huey P. Newton: "Army.45 will stop all jive. A357 will win us heaven." It was all to do with the gun and it was cool. Justify packing. Have a reason. For only with the power of the gun could the black masses halt the bullshit terror and brutality perpetrated against them by the jive racist power structure. Cochise telling him they would never stop till they had destroyed and committed destruction on capitalism.

Except Cochise was back in the slam doing fifteen to twenty-five, saying fuck it and reading comic books. Some had learned, some had come around and joined the other side. Look at Eldridge Cleaver, the most famous Panther of all. After running as a fugitive, hiding out in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, North Africa, over in Asia and then France, he had found Jesus and was praising the American Way as the only way.

Being called a "world-record-breaking belly crawler" didn't seem to bother him one little bit.

Donnell, too, keeping his eyes open to opportunity, had come around since those revolutionary times. He hadn't found Jesus as his redeemer, but somebody who might be even better.

"Mr. Woody," Donnell said to the white mound on the raft, "you haven't told me what you want for your supper."

The man floated in the steam mist with his eyes closed, hands trailing in the warm water. What would he be thinking, his head all fucked up from booze? What would he see in there? Sights maybe from a long time ago still clear, but the recent shit gone, not having made a good impression in his mind. What had the man done lately that was worth remembering?

"Mr. Woody?"

"What?" Eyes still closed.

"You thought about supper?"

The man worked his mouth like he was getting a bad taste out of it, but no words came from him.

Donnell put the tips of his fingers behind his ear and leaned out over the tiled edge.

"Ain't that your tummy I hear growling?"

No answer.

"You upset about your brother, huh?"

No answer. The man was asleep or didn't know what he was talking about. What brother?

"You gonna be hungry you finish your swim. I'll fix you some chicken.

How's that sound?"

No answer.

Call the Chinaman, pick up a load of chicken lo mein and pile the shit on a dinner plate for the man. Order some of that shrimp wrapped in bacon for himself. Sometimes they would eat together in the kitchen, the man calling him his buddy.