“Good-bye, son.” Ivan Relevant boarded the plane.
“Son!” The Admiral sat down in the middle of the runway and bawled.
The plane taxied down the strip and lifted into the air. A few moments later, when it had gained altitude and leveled off, the door leading from the pilots’ compartment to the passenger cabin was kicked open. Three men in Russian air-force uniforms emerged, their hands held high in the air. Behind them was a fourth man in civilian clothes. He held a large pistol.
“We have been hijacked!” one of the Russian airmen announced. ,“Three men. The other two are flying the plane.”
“Y’all!” The man in civvies flourished his gun at Ludmilla Skivar. “Into the aisle!” He herded her along with the airmen toward the rear of the plane. He locked the four of them in a compartment of the tail section and returned to Jonathan Relevant. “Leander Pigbaigh, Cee Ah Aih.” He identified himself. “An’ yew must be the gentleman Ah’m heah to fetch.” Deference spread over Leander Pigbaigh’s florid face. “Colonel Relevant, suh?”
“Yoah servant, suh,” Jonathan Relevant replied.
“Mah compliments.” Pigbaigh’s musclebound torso actually managed a bow. “Yoah safe from them commies now, suh. An’,” he added, “Ah’d say that calls foah a snifter.” He produced a pint bottle of bourbon.
“Ah‘ll drink to that.” Jonathan Relevant hoisted the bottle.
It passed back and forth between them until it was empty. Then Leander Pigbaigh fell into a deep sleep. Jonathan Relevant pondered a new discovery about himself : liquor didn’t affect him. He stared out the window. It was some time later that he spotted the formation of six Russian fighter planes, their motors straining, climbing toward the sky above the transport. A moment later the lead plane plunged straight toward the airliner. The other fighters followed close behind.
What was that about “a man trained above all for survival?” The Man from Charisma asked himself.
In a screaming dive, the lead plane came so close that eye contact was established between the Soviet pilot and Jonathan Relevant. The pilot’s thumb flexed to press the button that would activate the murderous bank of machine guns inset into each wing of his plane.
I really am too young to die! Jonathan Relevant i formed Jonathan Relevant. But the protest was purely academic, because-—
Death stared into the face of Jonathan Relevant!
CHAPTER THREE
Afro-American penes, generally speaking, dangle between castration and over-evaluation. From the Rinso’d-race point of view, that is. For most of its 112 years of hallowed existence, Harnell University had -unofficially, of course— leaned to the former attitude. But the times, they are a-changing. Sho’ ’nuf!
The pendulous pendulum was swinging back. Manhood, after all, is in the eyes of the bee-holder. Across the nation, in one way or another, Whitey was coughing up reparations for guilt. And the guilty gray-skins of Harnell U. were paying the piper with a vision altered to perceive a stiffened ebony pecker where once they had focused comfortably on Eunuch Tom, the spunkless Unc, ball-less and shucksy friendly. Yep, black tumescence was slashing through the ivy at Harnell.
With all deliberate speed. Which, naturally, was perceived as jet-pace dangerous by the university trustees, and molasses-smeared turtlefoot by the handful of bright black-ghetto groovies who’d slipped into the student body through the cracks in the crumbling walls of Harnell tradition. Being young, this later group was out of pocket, patience-wise; being black, they had the unscratchable itch.
Time was Redneck Rudyard kippled his pale kopf re the inscrutable—but too screwable — Oriental. But today ’tis the itch of the unscratchable blackable that furrows the paleskin forehead from East to West Coast. Hollywood having finished the Noble Redman right down to the stereophonic Cinerama rainbow of spit on his grave, only the pesky darkies-—X, Double X, Triple X, et al.—remain to thumbscrew the Caucasian conscience-—spell that b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s.
Yeah—b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s-—ain’t that what college is all about?
The unscratchable itch interfered with business. So Whitey tried to scratch it. He tried to scratch it all across the length and breadth of this-1and-is-your-land-from-California-to-the-New-York-Island. But Br’er Ofay couldn’t quite reach it, that itch. And those milkish fingers weren’t reaching it at Harnell University. Also, they weren’t moving fast enough. Those ivory knuckles weren’t even shifting into second. Blackface-wise, Harnell University was more token-y than the IRT.
Such was the considered opinion of twenty-year-old Harnell sophomore G-for-George Pullman Porter, a six-foot chunk of Negritude co-opted by the System for the purposes of integrating the Institution. There were other Afro skins color-coordinating the student body, but G-for-George Pullman Porter stood out among them. He was the founder and president of the recently formed (and decidedly unofficial) Harnell University Society of Afro-American Students. He had qualities of leadership; they were his endowment from the white world.
Sort of, even his name was part of that endowment. Way back when, just after the ex-Confederate Kernel withdrew the corncob halfway, a turned-loose field hand known as Rufe hauled black ass northward and went to work for the railroad as a redcap. Since the plantation had never provided him with a last name, it was only natural that the conductor on the train should give him one.
“Porter!” he called, and Rufe “Porter” was christened. He ate the missionary Wafer, which was pure crow—Jim Crow.
Rufe passed the name “Porter” on to his son, who passed it on to his son, who happened to be the father of G-for-George Pullman Porter. Papa Porter wasn’t as philosophical about it as Ole Rufe had been. Third-generation crow— Jim Crow—leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Papa Porter had been washing it out with whiskey the night his son was born.
“What are you naming the baby?” the nurse at the hospital had asked him as she filled out the birth certificate. The question chased a few pertinent thoughts through Papa Porter’s mind. One: a boy child’s no boon to a black family; more bacon’s apt to come home via the “girl” (womb-to-tomb status of the domestic) yas-ma’aming it through Mrs. Snow White’s kitchen. Two: even if the kid was Carver-smart, there’d be nothing but a GW future for him—he could rise as high as the elevator he operated, push his way to the top of the hand-truck wheelers on Seventh Avenue, shine a shoe or two— or two million. Three: so might as well call a spade a spade from spadebirth; nobody’d know his name anyway (the jig was up, but never high); yeah, so spell out the score right from the start.
“G-for-George Pullman Porter,” Papa Porter told the nurse. Maybe she was bored, or maybe just literal minded, but that’s how she wrote it down on the birth certificate: “G-for-George Pullman Porter.”
Papa Porter didn’t know the times would be a-changing. He didn’t recognize the built-in black lash of the appellation. He didn’t understand that “G-for-George Pullman Porter” was just the straw needed to break the black camelback patience of his son in this new generation of young bucks.
By the time he reached adolescence, G-for-George Pullman Porter had whipped himself with that name long enough to know that he wasn’t ever—not never—going to pilot the white man’s upsy-downsy cage, nor wheel the white dealer’s dress-cart up the avenue, nor spit-polish leather over ingrown white toenails on white cement pavements. G-for-George Pullman Porter was going to die maybe, but he wasn’t going to ever take step one toward living up to his name. G-for-George Pullman Porter was a new breed of cat—and his nails were sharp.