The robot swallowed the baseballs on the floor and quickly exited. The clamps snapped away from my neck and hands. The projector was turned off. Cipher X ran from the office door to the stock to thunderous applause. I could not believe it, the audience was applauding its own doom. I gazed out through my puffy eyelids, as the audience stood on its feet cheering us. Cipher lifted me from the stock and hand in hand we bowed to the audience from side to side. A man crawling on his hands and knees slid up to me followed by a pack of reporters. He dropped his pad from his teeth and with a pencil between his toes began to ask me questions.
He was J. Lapp Swine, jazz critic from the Deformed Demokrat. He tugged my pants cuffs and asked, “How does it feel to have all that rhythm, Mr. Doopeyduk? Tell me, huh? Won’tcha please? Won’tcha?”
Cipher X threw up his hands and said, “Be patient, fellows. I’ll answer all your questions in my news conference.” He took me by the elbows — the fuken elbow grabber with sterling high cheekbones — and escorted me through the throng of well-wishers toward his office. We had difficulty getting through. The Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences from the University of Buffalo with a surfboard tied to his back and a long petition hanging from his hands accosted us.
“Mr. Doopeybuk and Cipher X,” he said, his wife on his arm. “We’re just crazy about BECOMINGS and HOOPLA HOOPS and LOOPHOLES. Why just last week my wife and I rushed to the A&P and bought nineteen of those big black beauties. And just because we’re way up there in Buffalo which is eighty per cent Polish-American doesn’t mean that we don’t keep up with what’s happening in NOWHERE. Why, we read the Deformed Demokrat each week, religiously.”
Cipher shoved the man aside and continued toward the office. “Sir, Mr. Doopeyduk and I have to go into my office to relax. The performance was truly exhausting,” Cipher lisped.
But the man kept talking. “We just thought that you might want to sign this petition concerning the erosion and bastardization of the tongue!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Cipher answered, fluttering his eyelids. “I’m neutral in all things. Besides I have a very nice soft and juicy tongue, so there,” Cipher said, sticking out his tongue at the man and continuing toward the office.
The man and his wife went back to the mayor, Stephen Wolinski, who standing in the corner asked, “Did he say anything about da snowplows and da bombed-out swimming pools?”
Inside the office Cipher pulled the gag off my mouth and then I BLEW MY COOL.
“WHADDAYA MEAN PUTTIN’ ME UP THERE WITH THEM BASEBALLS KNOCKING ME FACELESS AND THEM CRAZY SPEECHES AND STUFF? YOU TRYIN’ TO GET ME BUMPED OFF OR SOMETHIN’? WHY I GOT A GOOD MIND TO HIT YOU RIGHT SMACK IN THE KISSER!”
“Cutey poo,” he said, prancing about the office, the tips of his left and right hands touching. “Sweetheart. Dearest. I’m completely pooped from the BECOMING! You were so absolutely adorable,” he said, “come here. Let me puck you one on the cheek. Let me grease your palm,” he said, applying some Vaseline to my palm which had been bruised. As a Nazarene apprentice I was completely disarmed in the face of such kindness.
“ALL RIGHT, BUT YOU’D BETTER COME UP WITH SOMETHIN’ GOOD, BUDDY.”
“Do come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss the BECOMING,” he said.
“All right. I yield to art this time, but tomorrow I want a full-dress review of this thing.”
I walked down the steps into the streets. Just as I stepped into the area in front of the loft, someone whispered from the shadows. “Psssssssssst, Bukka Doopeyduk, Bukka Doopeyduk. Come over here.”
I walked over to the figure standing in the corner.
“Look, Bukka,” the figure said. “Dose people over there told me dat you knew where I could get some snowplows and some cement. See dim Chinamens came into Williamsville and Snyder last week and bombed out all da swimmin’ pools?”
“I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t help you,” I told the mayor of Buffalo, Stephen Wolinski. “I know that it is an inconvenience and all, but I got troubles of my own.”
I left the mayor of Buffalo looking like a sad sack as he walked holding out the insides of his pockets toward the student and faculty delegation who stood next to sight-seeing buses looking disappointed. I was surrounded by fans holding autograph pads. BECOMINGS’ followers were standing deep in front of the buildings discussing the performance. Ratner’s was filled to capacity.
The next morning I ran out of the house and returned with an armful of newspapers. I nearly fainted dead away when I read the headlines in the ny teeth.
ACTOR CALLS FOR GUERRILLA WARFARE AGAINST SAM.
CALLS DICTATOR A BARN BURNER.
POPE GIVES UP AS BINGO CRISIS ESCALATES. TAKE THE GODDAMNED CARDS, WEARY PONTIFF SAYS.
CHINESE ESCAPE THROUGH DUMBWAITER.
M/NEIGHBOR AND NOSETROUBLE DEMAND PARLEY ON MISSING TOTS.
I put on my shoes and rushed downstairs to the telephone. I would have to call the ny teeth and get an extraction. But before I could pick up the receiver, the phone rang.
“Mr. Doopeyduk,” a voice said. “This is Allen Hangup. I’m emceeing the controversial new Allen Hangup Show. We are going to have a discussion on how the migration of the eastern brown pelican affects the civil rights movement.”
“Man, I don’t know nothing about no birds,” I told the kat.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Tweet, tweet, see you soon.” (Click.)
The phone rang again. “Hello, Mr. Doopeyduk,” another voice said. “This is Poison Dart magazine, the magazine of black liberation. We are having a symposium on the role of the black writer in contemporary society. We will be covering such issues as: Should he glare at Charlie? Should he kinda stick out his lower lip and look mean? or should he just snag at Charlie’s pants legs until his mouth is full of ankles and calves and he gets the sweet taste of Max Factor on his tongue? We shall also be discussing whether the brothers should part their hair on the side or part it down the middle. These are grave issues and you as a friend of the liberation movement shouldn’t want to miss the discussion.”
“Look,” I answered. “I’m not an actor. I’m more of a clown.”
“Good, Mr. Doopeyduk,” the voice said. “So are we, tweet, tweet. See you soon.”
This thing was getting all out of hand. I would have to go to the only man who was capable of setting the matter straight: CIPHER X. I ran out of the house and up the stairs of the factory building and pounded on the door. Cipher peeked out, followed by heavy clouds of smoke.
“Look, Bukka, I’ll see you at the performance tonight. Right now I’m having a press conference, sweetheart.” But before I could answer, the door was slammed in my face. I rushed to the corner and bought the afternoon paper the ny whine.
BUKKA DOOPEYDUK HAS EVERY RIGHT TO KILL, CIPHER X SAYS. JACKIE COUGHS. BOBBY HAS HICCUPS. TEDDY OPENS TOYTALK FAIR.
read growing up in soulsville first of three installments
— or what it means to be a backstage darky
by Cipher (o)
I ran back to the loft. Press conference or no press conference, this kat wasn’t going to get me killed. This time I was trampled by reporters who flew down the steps and out of the loft to file their stories. (Man, I have to tell you that little J. Lapp Swine was keeping right up with them, galloping along like a jet-propelled groundhog.) I rushed into the office where Cipher X was pounding away at the typewriter.
“What’s the matter, my man? Can’t you see I’m writing this jazz review for Buck magazine?”
“Fuk Buk magazine,” I said, jabbing my finger into the very pulp of the ny whine. “Are you trying to get me killed? You said that all a BECOMING was was a fusion of light, sound and film, always expanding, never complete. What are you telling the reporters these lies for? I have a good mind to punch you out, you fuken maypolegrabber with a skinny neck.”