eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Award-winning playwright Ed Bullins received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for his play The Taking of Miss Janie, and is also renowned for such works as In the Wine Time and Clara’s Ole Man. In this collection of his early short fiction, he explores themes of loneliness and despair and the African American experience in beautifully crafted stories.
“For true students and fans of American and African American literature of the 1960s and ’70s, Ed Bullins is one of our indisputable heavyweight champs.” —Kevin Powell, author and activist
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781617750915 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Akashic Books |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2018 |
| Series: | AkashiClassics: Renegade Reprint Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| Sales rank: | 909,373 |
| File size: | 603 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
PART ONE
THE ABSURD ONE
To Joe Wooly ... from Mississippi ... to Hate (Haight) Ashbury & death ... filling his belly with life
The Absurd One
I have no understanding of how that absurd being whose lair is centered behind our eyes takes us over, stealing from his cave in our brains to take us over for a sliced second; but, in dream, when dog weary, in the d.t.'s or cold turkey we sometimes glimpse him, or better, his claw flexing, hinting of the Absurd One's eternal presence, his ironic whim for destruction or creation.
Some of us know him and are in an intimate compromise to his capture in that unsuspected interval, for we know he may call once a year in the dawn as we practice our art — that he viciously splashes a shadow of his perfection onto the canvas, upon the page or within the wood, stone or clay, and as soon, swipes back and withdraws and awaits his whim another year or more, and we are left madmen who scream futilely within, screams which reverberate in the Absurd One's hole, screams he gloats upon, screams he draws sustenance, for they are his solemn reverences, given by the devout and reverent believers. We scream inside for that impossible perfection he teased of.
Or the Absurd One may come in the bed and bite with our teeth through our love's nipple or into our manhood and he intimidates us both to lie of it as our love, or the Absurd One may prance with the punch of the needle, popped as he pursues the heart, until he is the heart, pumping, pounding to every portion, and you are he, awesome in absurdity. Or with the lung- scorched joint effect the Absurd One may lift out your mind from its case and insert an endless running bump-and-grind piano roll of creation until he becomes absurdly bored and sprinkles a pinch of depression into his bed, your head, before slamming back the brain, snapping the musical paper toilet roll of the universe, or the Absurd One may one day like the other days but for that day, slide down the out-of-uniform Royal Crowned and processed cowlick of the seventeen-year green sailor, into the fortyyear breathing wide nostrils belonging to the scrawny whore who "moved like she had a propeller in her tail"; the same woman who shed a tear from dehydrated glands forgotten since twelve, the same woman absurdly taken in the crotch so as to have a twitch disbelieved since fifteen, the same who sliced forty-year veins after the boy was gone with his money still to be used for another skinny one, the same who blubbered the entire distance to the psycho ward that she had somehow felt absurdly impure when Joey, or was it Johnnie, or Moe, when it was unknowingly Sam, was with her with the exact mixed amounts of Mississippi sweat, lye, lard and sweet water that someone once had who had had her at ten in some absurd hayloft ... of all places. But there was reality in his bumpkin bounding and pounding.
It then must have been the Absurd One who was there that one sliced second of night or day that you or me or we stood with glass in hand and with unshakable conviction in the arrogance of our convictions that the answers possessed were our own answers. It was he then who pulled the blinds behind our eyes, reversing them, slipping the slats out and back again all at once, as your eyes changed from brown to blue, from grey to white or charred good black in the heat of possibility, when Absurd stood behind you that second that you knew you were a girl or a boy though your Brooks Brothers and Chanel spoke with proper authority otherwise, but the Absurd One whispered in that absurd second that men and women and girls and lads are all one and the same as you and all look boss, to you, for you wanted a man or a woman or a girl or a boy or yourself, which was the best possibility, and you knew entirely, backed up by Absurd, that you could then in that sliced second and at once fuck the world, Sealy Posturepedic or not, for it waited; it waited with mouth wide.
Moonwriter
On rainy Saturday ... and there I was at one of them thar scary lit-ar-airy beer busts with real writers and he-man things ... with sandals and beards and handlebar moostashes and tweeds and pipes ... and agents and contracts and credits and the moon and mountains and in Mexico were in the room ... with beer belches.
We put down all mutually known writers not there ... unless, of course, they came later.
And there I was saying ... "Yeah ... and after bein' a bouncer in Naples and a bodyguard in Sicily I got to ..."
"Yeah ... you and the Mafia in Palermo ..." someone said.
"... and I got to Spain," I continued, "and ran into a hassle with the lightweight champ of that part of the world ..."
But then I sighed fuck-it inside and didn't tell them that I've had a lot of odd jobs, my father ain't Italian, and all the champ and I did was get to like each other finally; he drank me under the table.
People dream of goin' to the moon ... I'd just like to get back down into livin' ...
Should I have dropped my pants and flashed bullet blister, round and pus pushing, sometimes sore on snowy days.
Should I have shined stiletto slash seam of stitches skimming jugular vein, or pursed pulled together punctures in back. Should I have flexed my scars and screamed:
"But ... mah pain is in mah brain ... yawhl!"
Should I have said: "Check with J. Edgar ... sweetie!"
But I shouldn't be blowin' 'bout the past; the past is with me each night hobbling on cloven hooves holding hands with dead dream masks that even drugs can't dim. They dance to goat songs sung until dawn in spirals about my head.
I lived by the gun ... and know those who live will die ...
I live a lie ... and know those who live die ...
I have notches on my soul ... and know those who have ... have ... have need of death ... for sleep has dreams and handholding songs.
I've met Death on ageless corners and died in streets without corners in Brooklyn, in Philly, in Hollywood, in Boston, in Nice, in Marseilles ... on corners without streets.
I've woken up dead in drunk-tanks, on hospital slabs ... never ever in bed.
I've notches on my soul ...
the gun ...
Notches ...
the knife ...
Notches ...
You want to go to the moon, writer?
Go via Harlem, Dante.
Muses of mountains, poet, with sprinkles of waiting solitary secrets?
Sip a random sample of meatless everyday soup in solitary stir with visions of tits, arse and better ... scorching steel cells.
Romance in Mexico, hombre ... with advaanture ...
Tell your analyst elephant jokes, men, the punch line being: "Elephants don't fuck with analysts!"
The gun, the knife, the dream, the lie; notches behind my eyes.
My Id can lick yours anyday, moonwriter.
The Enemy
To Norm Moser
I am an enemy of the State. I do not mine bridges nor take over the national airways or private airlines at gunpoint. I do not preach revolution against the Republic in its overt dialectical forms. I do not even care what political elements make up the State at the moment, unless these factions jeopardize my personal desires, caprices or concerns. Nor do I care who holds the balance of power within the government. I simply do not care for he presence of the State; it is the supreme evil to my existence, for I am against all factions, groups, agencies and alliances which make up the State, and I know, not so secretly, that they are against me. For I am their constant threat, for I am in essence against everything the State purports to be. I stand against the institutions of the whiteman.
One can easily find me. I am on the streets of the cities. I walk and wait on streets with names like Broadway, Market, Central and Main. I stand huddled in stupor in the doorways of transient hotels, occasionally freeing myself from the shadows and pleading for pennies from pedestrians. I am found asleep in the early mornings, in the waiting rooms of bus stations, last night's newspapers my sheets, the black-booted policemen tapping upon the soles of my shoes with nightsticks, awakening me to arrest or sending me on my unknown way. I am seen peering for minutes at the billboards under the marquees of four-bit, all-night movie houses; my fingers in my last holeless pants pocket, rubbing my last two quarters together. Sometimes I look like a man, sometimes a boy, sometimes a woman, sometimes a girl. Sometimes I am none of these.
And at times I can be discovered inside, inside green and grey painted jails, pacing off the days and years in my dirt-colored cell. I sleep fitfully and wake screaming with nose bleeding, trembling, in drunk-tanks, until hauled desperately out and straitjacketed by annoyed guards in tan and grey uniforms. I lie awake inside of one-dollar-a-night flophouses, dreaming of old loves and clean smells. I sit up all night scratching bedbug bites and stalking juicy roaches in lonely rooms on skid row. I hear the bump bump de bump of the strip joints under my tenderloin window, the visions of the aging showgirls grinding and rolling up to my window like the din. From across the tracks the whistle of no longer scheduled trains reaches me, and the DIN din of the life buoy in the harbor and the bellow of ships shoving off to sea and the shrill work whistle at the plant that does not shriek for me, all this comes to where I sit, inside my deserted soul.
The Excursion
The wind was blowing that day. Not in high puffing breaths but steady, snatching at the woman's taut skirt as she sauntered along the street, stopping occasionally to straighten her stockings or to look back over her shoulder at a passing car, then begin walking again when the auto did not slow.
In the length of a block, several would draw up to the curb and the drivers would signal or honk their horns.
Sometimes she would walk over and whisper with them and shake her head and step back upon the curb and begin her slow walk once more. Finally, she chose one and stepped inside as the car pulled away from the curb and spun around the first corner like a quick rodent. She sat huddled against the door, far from the driver who spoke to her with curt jerks of his head.
The car headed east driving through the sunny afternoon streets and turned onto an on-ramp of a freeway and moved into the flow of traffic. It speeded up and wheeled to the outside lane and speeded to the limit and took the bridge turnoff.
At the tollgate the cashier took the quarter and the car passed through. The driver headed over the pass with the mist spewing down from the crest like phantoms diving from the heights of the peak to the crystal bay at the base of the landscape.
Within an hour the car reached the park at the summit; a gate of huge redwoods welcomed them with twin signs carved from living wood. Deep into the six-foot signs were cut elongated NO's, standing vertically to the left, and smaller words lined up on the right side: smoking, fires, necking, spitting, feeding the animals, drinking, molesting visitors, cutting vegetation ...
After parking, the couple followed a footpath leading into the interior of the park. Sounds of cheering and play came from behind a grove of trees and when the two circled the woods a ball park was found filled by people with bats and balls and gloves.
Hefty, crew-cut fathers, their bellies hanging across their belts, directed their sons and stepped forward when the young ones failed to perform superbly and took the bats away, smashing the small balls to sing across the field, with the young boys in sulking pursuit.
The man and woman sat in a cleared area and watched, but before an hour were made to move on by the stampeding lunges of the heavier ball players. The two walked down a wider path above a gully that had a large pool carved into it; signs were posted above the pool's fence. ALL THE FISH YOU CAN CATCH — NO LIMIT! — $1.00 AN HOUR WITH FREE EQUIPMENT. WE RE-STOCK OUR POOL HOURLY WITH LIVE GAME FISH! The woman looked down over the fenced pool, seeing the tee-shirted fishermen waiting patiently for a nibble. She and the man continued on up the hill to the pony ride.
The small animals were tethered to a wheel that turned as they dragged their hooves about the small rink. Small children were tied upon the saddles, after parents bought tickets, and the ponies were whipped to canter slightly faster at the beginning of each ride.
On the way back to the car the woman saw one of the fishermen pull a bright silvery thing from the pool; a crowd surrounded him and several hands patted him upon the back.
Dropping down through the redwood country the mist thinned and warmth broke the day's greyness.
It didn't take the auto long to reach the city. The Sunday traffic allowed the driver to reach the woman's street quickly. The machine swung to the curb and she stepped clear.
"Next Sunday?" the driver asked as she looked back.
She shook her head and started away.
"But we'll have longer," the driver called after her.
"And the sun might shine all day."
She stopped and looked back. She shook her head again. The man stared and seemed about to speak.
"I just feel so filthy afterwards," she said. "Don't you understand?"
He pulled away from the curb; the big car was gone. She sauntered along the street, stopping occasionally to straighten her stockings or to look back over her shoulder at a passing car, then begin walking when the auto did not slow.
An Ancient One
Under a grey sky the ancient woman feels like an insect along the cement walk in front of the cream and green building. The building wears a green tiled roof and green trims the windows and the maple door, and the old woman searches at its base with her slender brown cane, feeling forward with head bent low from her humped spine, hovering over her feeler, a grey spider.
She passes the house's grey speckled steps, the black specks contrasting with her long dark grey coat almost sweeping the ground. A matching colored hat — a brimless grey straw hat — with a black felt ribbon pushes over her white head, and no green curtain or shade in the house flutters, shakes or raises as she passes.
It is an olive-green building she creeps up to, stopping briefly to peck her stick at a tumbling brown paper blowing by. Then she continues up the incline to the stoop of the olive-green building with its twelve marble stairs, and crawls secretly up each, clasping her cane under right armpit and strangling the rusted iron guide rail to claw her way up.
Her house is trimmed in white; white curtains wait at each window like poor relatives. She stoops at the top landing, peers into the mailbox, and feebly inserts her dark brass key and flutters through the nest's opening.
The Reason of Why
My coffee is cool. I sip at my cup and carry my plate into the kitchen, placing it in the newly scrubbed sink. With lukewarm coffee filling my cup, I walk from the kitchen, cross the living room, back into my tiny sleeping area, and pull the covers across my mattress. I grab up my loose socks, towel and other garments lying about the edges of the mattress, and stuff them into a partially filled pillow case in a corner at the head of my pillow. A frown is fought back as I return to the front room.
I sit at the old, borrowed Underwood. The paper waits blank in the carriage. To the right of the machine lies a clipboard, empty, ready for the day. Above the clipboard is a clothbound dictionary, closed, also ready, grimed and frayed. Beside the dictionary, a pocket thesaurus. To the left of the machine are an eraser, a typecleaning brush, a beer can opener, an ashtray that I never use, seven assorted books — one The Canterbury Tales — and the cold cup of coffee which I shall drink within the hour.
It is secure here. Today is my day; perhaps, I might do something worthwhile today. But how many mornings and nights have I sat eating breakfast, dinner, sandwiches and coffee, drinking beer, wine, whiskey and cola, scribbling letters to nearly forgotten friends, relatives and loved ones, reading envied favorites, regretting, despairing, waiting to begin? How many have I spent? Straining back the sloth and fatigue, getting back to the string of ideas let go the night before or cursing, scolding, crying secretly to snatch it up again.
There is but one question and that is why I await each morning to try to write or watch it pass with bitterness, with hate, without making a mark upon paper, passing as a signal that the death of one added sun and moon nears my work to its final completion, though there is little upon paper as testimony of the passing. Why do I eagerly, but with dread, await these mornings, cursing the evenings my fingers are clumsied by doubt, my mind fogged by drink, drugs or the lust for a woman who is late? Each day without working is surrender to death. Sixty I see myself, sixty with nothing upon the paper, the pages all blank, as empty as a life without smudges. What will I have for it then? Blank pages? A life spent in searching for that unknown something that is seldom found. Things better found between the lines upon blank pages?
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Hungered One"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Ed Bullins.
Excerpted by permission of Akashic Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Copyright Page,
Preface by Amiri Baraka,
Introduction 2009 by Ed Bullins,
Part One: The Absurd One,
The Absurd One,
Moonwriter,
The Enemy,
The Excursion,
An Ancient One,
The Reason of Why,
The Real Me,
The Drive,
He Couldn't Say Sex,
THE RALLY or Dialect Determinism,
The Messenger,
Part Two: The Hungered One,
The Hungered One,
The Saviour,
In the Wine Time,
The Helper,
In New England Winter,
The Reluctant Voyage,
Travel from Home,
Mister Newcomer,
Support Your Local Police,
DANDY, or Astride the Funky Finger of Lust,