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Author Name
ste ve davenp ort
Black Guy, Bald Guy
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he screen test was great, they say ,You two were made for this project. Just perfect together. Shared center, lyrically contrasted contours, ever-changing boundaries. And range? Like the open sea. Ab- solutely global and all to the good. We can make you two fit any setting, any century, anywhere. Globe’s going to love you. We see comedy, tragedy, dramedy, documentary, docu- dramedy. All of it. Everything. We’ll invent new forms. Fill them with you, the two of you, together. The shared thing, between you, the thing and the thing, thesis and antithesis. The this and the that, all of it going and flowing in the back- and-forthing, the buddy synthesis thing. Fruitful as all get-out. The possibilities, copious. The canvas, capacious. The material, sub- stantial and significant. The way? Deep memory with heart. The goal? Historical correction. We will get things right. Failing that, we will pro- vide opportunities for socio-emotional reconstitution via revenge enact- ments. The result? Crazy buzz, network backing for a season’s worth of epi- sodes, star power based on social responsibility driven by ethics and cha- risma. Translation? Future developments forever developing. You two come aboard and we’re talking serious cha-ching. Black Guy looks at Bald Guy. Bald Guy looks at Black Guy. They wrinkle their brows. They shrug their shoulders. They wink at their agent, who holds out the papers for them to sign. They smile. They sign. Black Guy hits Bald Guy on the arm. “We will right wrongs.” Bald Guy says, “Carlos Santana will be our guide!” “That guitar of his better be made by Gatling,” Black Guy says. What they sign is a contract that calls for them to do a two-hour pilot about a couple of buddies who travel through time and space to address, with force when necessary, bad moments in history. They imagine there will be a machine of some sort. Maybe with a conical nose for burrow- ing back through the decades and centuries like time’s a calendar pad. Or maybe the outer shell of the machine simply spins faster and faster, Black Guy and Bald Guy calmly trading quips in the stabilized inner compart-
THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW ment, while everything, machine and man, disappears into a new space in another time. All they know for sure is that they will both be travelers and neither will be the other’s sidekick. Everything depends on it. Equal partners. None of that tired thesis and antithesis. They will be shared purpose. Both and. Death to the sidekick. As their agent is about to leave for a meeting with the head writers, Black Guy repeats what is for him and Bald Guy the key point. “Neither of us drives. The wheel confers power on the hands touch- ing it.” “Usually does,” Bald Guy adds. Black Guy turns to Bald Guy. “Usually. Really? Now that’s helpful at a time like this. Why don’t you, all by yourself, go and grease the rails for the train carrying same-old?” Bald Guy lifts an arm, opens his hand. “What if the wheel were posi- tioned at the center of a spherical time machine?” “Guys,” the agent says. “How does that erase power relations,” Black Guy asks. “Or equally distribute them?” Closing his eyes Bald Guy says, “I’m feeling something here.” “Wait a minute.” Black Guy touches the ring finger of his right hand to his forehead. He can’t know it then, but it will become one of his signature gestures. “Guys.” “What if the wheel were made of meat,” Bald Guy asks. “Or vegetable matter? A rhizome with super-powerful consciousness? Like it could bend forks and shit with its mind?” Black Guy looks at him. “Whoa, cowboy. How about the wheel’s just a wheel, but the pilot seat, center of power, is gone?” “The wheel’s floating,” Bald Guy says. “No beginning, no end. I feel it spinning.” “Park your freaky pony for a second, will you? Simplify. We share the seat of power. Four hands on the wheel. How about a doughnut couch? Wheel in the middle?” “Guys, if you.” “Yes,” Bald Guy says. “Yes. Like a stabilized doughnut couch around a big wheel in the center of a spherical gyroscopic time machine cutting a mean path straight to the heart of stuff that needs fixing. I like the way we think. Carlos Santana!”
THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW ily with that name.” “You don’t want to see it,” Black Guy says. “Unless you’re a film his- torian.” Bald Guy’s looking at his hand-held. “Damn. That’s a lot of minutes for a silent movie.” “And you don’t need to,” Agent says. “They’ll give you a thumbnail sketch, but if the script’s right, you won’t need it. They’re talking prime- time slot, you know.” “I don’t know,” Black Guy says. “Much as I’d like to kick his ass for making such racist tripe, we might end up selling copies.” “Risk and reward, yes?” Agent nods to the door. “I’m late for the meeting. Got to go.” “No pain, no gain,” Bald Guy adds. “Tell them to write a scene for Margaret Mitchell, will you? Says here she would have been a teenager when that movie came out. Or better, we could strap the southern belle to the Liberty Bell and—” “Earth to Dude.” Black Guy points to the door. “She’s gone. Maybe we should just trust the writers. Give minimal input, stand firm on the principle of no sidekick, let them do what they do about the rest.” “Didn’t somebody write Birth ?” “Sure,” Black Guy says. “Why don’t you know this stuff? Thomas Dix- on in a way. It was an adaptation of his novel, The Clansman .” “There’s an excellent argument for trust the writers,” Bald Guy says. Black Guy smiles. Bald Guy doffs an imaginary hat with the flourish of a musketeer and tips his head. “Good point,” Black Guy says. “Still, let’s let them do what they do. Down the road, if all goes well, we’ll have more say.” “Leverage,” Bald Guy says. Black Guy doffs an imaginary hat of his own. “The money we take will be equal,” he says, “to the truth we make.” He bows. “Carlos Santana!” Black Guy straightens up. “The Beatles, man. Sort of.” Bald Guy plays his air guitar. “You think you look like Santana right now?” Eyes closed, Bald Guy plays on. “You think the writers are going to hear you say his name often enough that they’re going to talk him into a cameo?” “I would die,” Bald Guy says, “if that happened.”
Author Name Black Guy exhales. “Be still my heart.” u "this ain't mississippi ,” Black Guy says to the bartender. Bar- tender shrugs and walks a few steps away to wipe glasses with his long white towel. Black Guy surveys the room before looking down again for the extra napkin, the one someone put there while he left to take a piss. Bartender says he saw nothing. Bald Guy, who was talking to the sexy twins, also saw nothing. Black Guy’s blood’s beginning to boil. It was right there, not two inches from the drink he won’t touch now. Probably spit in it, the jackass who left the napkin with the word on it. Black Guy looks down. The napkin’s gone. “Where the fuck’s the napkin?” Black Guy yells. “Cut,” the director says. “What do you mean where is it? Who cares where it is? Pretend it’s there. You’re the actor. Besides, we’re not going to show a bad word on a napkin. This isn’t cable.” “I told you I need to see the word, that word, if I’m going to nail this scene.” “Somebody get the diva a napkin and a pen.” “I’m not writing the word,” Black Guy says. “You going method on me, Diva? Somebody get a piece of paper, write the word on it, and place it gingerly beside Diva’s drink.” “Don’t call me that. And not a piece of paper. A bar napkin. Like the one that was beside my drink.” “Deee-vuh. Deee-vuh. Deee-vuh,” Bald Guy chants. “Props! The meter’s running. Angelique, are you not the set dresser?” “I’m not writing that word,” Angelique says. “I’ll write the word.” If Black Guy hadn’t turned in time, he wouldn’t know which of the twins spoke. Although they’re fairly new to the acting game, their story is well known. Austrians born in Austin to academics hired away from the University of Vienna to teach at the University of Texas, the twins were shuttled back and forth between their parents and their maternal grandmother in Graz. By the time they were twenty, they had made their name in international competition in the biathlon under the Austrian flag, but it was their identical beauty, gestures, bearing, voices, clothes, the
Author Name She picks up a new napkin. “Darky?” Bald Guy slaps the bar. “You got to admit that’s a funny one.” She pushes it forward. MISCEGENATION. “High PFH factor. Potential For Humor,” Bald Guy says. “In case anyone’s wondering. Listening.” “People,” the director shouts. “How about high WTD factor. Work To Do.” Black Guy looks at her. “No.” She slides two more toward him. BODY. BODY. “Am I getting warm?” “2-to-1 odds he’s getting warm,” Bald Guy says to her. “Did you just write something naughty?” She smiles at Bald Guy, writes another word, and slides the napkin to Black Guy. Black Guy tenses and says, “Let’s do it.” “This ain’t Mississippi,” Black Guy barks at the bartender, who shrugs and wipes spots off glasses with a clean bar towel. Black Guy looks around the room to see who put the napkin there. You leave for a minute or two and bam! It happens. The thing. Bar- tender says he saw nothing. Same with Bald Guy, who surely saw noth- ing since he was giving all of his attention to the attractive, identically dressed women sitting alone at a table in the back. He and Black Guy had planned it. They asked the bartender what the two women were drink- ing.Vodka martinis.They ordered the drinks. Black Guy left for the john. The plan was for Bald Guy to bring the twin martinis to the women, ask if they’re also twins, act surprised, say he’s a twin too, and when they ask where his twin is, point to Black Guy as he returns to the bar. Their response would predict the rest of the evening. Now it’s the napkin that’s doing the predicting. Someone’s left him a note. He’s looking for the person. A single word, a fighting word, on a bar napkin right there by his glass of beer. It’s 1961, dammit.This ain’t Missis- sippi.This is Los Angeles. Folks re-invent themselves out here. Black Guy clenches his jaw. He knows he’s being watched. He knows it’s not time to say anything. He’s not touching the note or the beer. He orders another,
THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW which he notices the bartender is slow to draw. White bartender. White patrons would expect no less. When he turns with his beer, he bumps into a retreating Bald Guy. “Whoa, cousin.” The women are indeed identical, down to their matching Jackie Ken- nedy outfits. Even their smiles, both of which are directed at him, are mirror images. “Cousin?,” Black Guy asks as he nods his head and shakes the hands of The Twin. “They didn’t buy the twin routine. Seems they accept only the identi- cal variety,” Bald Guy answers.The women laugh, not at exactly the same time but in the same basic way. In the five minutes it takes the four of them to flirt their way through introductions and empty pleasantries to another order of drinks, two small groups of people walk out. Black Guy feels the coldness, the disap- proval, and he thinks maybe he hears the word, the one on the napkin, the one Emmett Till must have heard two, three hundred times that night. Black Guy reaches out to touch a dangling earring and whistles just loud enough for anyone who’s listening in. And who isn’t at that mo- ment? The bar’s as quiet as an open casket. “Those earrings look like they cost an arm and a leg,” Black Guy says. “Are you two actresses?” The one who’s giving every indication that she’s leaving with Bald Guy answers with a question. “Are you two actors?” “Do we look familiar?,” the one next to him asks. Black Guy looks at her, then at the one snuggling into Bald Guy, then back at the one beside him. “I like to think we’re warriors. But yes, you look like someone I’ve kissed before.” “Really? Where?” “On the mouth.” He touches her neck. Black hands. White skin. “You know what I mean,” she says. “A year ago today. Fifth anniversary of a horrible event.” Black Guy drains his beer in one big gulp and picks up the napkin with the word on it. “It’s spelled -er, not -ar. And there are two g’s, not one.You could at least learn to spell.” “Was it a good kiss?” “It was a necessary kiss. A group of us got together, black, white, walked into a Chicago bar, Oak Park, white bar like this one.” He looks at Bartender, who’s looking at him. “We paired off, guy, gal, black, white,
THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW “Who’s the bird?,” she asks. “Whose hand?,” Black Guy answers. u Dead go the flowers of Coweta County, Georgia, the morning after. Dead go the voices singing the song of those flowers. Two men walk along a road at noon. One black. One bald. Black Guy’s carrying a couple of fishing poles, Bald Guy a bag of catfish. It’s April 24, 1899. The men have been down to the water. They will clean, fry, and eat the fish they caught before they leave the county for good. They will figure it out as they go. Dead goes the gulley where the colored flowers grew under the tele- graph line that carried the news. Dead goes the road that carried the mob that carried the man they called boy. Die, boy, die. Dead go the embers from the fire they built in the field to the north to make their point. Black Guy and Bald Guy will leave Coweta County for better years and spaces. A better century. They won’t find it for decades, but they don’t know that as they slip off the road into some trees. There they find the path that takes them to their campsite not ten feet from a creek. Dead goes the time. Today’s not a good time to come or go. Better to hole up in a cave with a month’s supply of food, water, and diversions than to stay on a road around here too long. Right now anyway, given what happened to that poor man. Whether he did what they said or not. You want to kill a man? Kill him. Bam. Dead go the roads and those who travel them badly. One of the men gathers twigs to start a small fire. The other finds a flat rock along the creek, a place to sit, packs some chaw in his bottom lip, and sets to cleaning the fish. The labor divides not by ability. They can both make a fire and coffee, and they’ve both learned enough from the sharp spines of a catfish to know how to clean one in the dark if they have to. They’ve had to. Dead went Die Boy Die a thousand deaths. With quick, practiced movements, the man sitting on the flat rock slices through the skin on both sides of the body just below the head.
Author Name He’s careful cutting around the dorsal fin not to break the backbone. All in due time. Something in him likes the absence of scales on a catfish, likes the grip and pull of the pliers as the skin gives way, peeling off one side of the body, then the other, down to the tail, reversing like a sock going inside out in shreds. Knife in hand, he slits the fish ass to throat and, his favor- ite part, cuts through the backbone so he can snap the head off, straight down, entrails sliding out and chasing the head off the side of the rock. He sees Black Guy watching him. We’ll be gone before the stink, Bald Guy says. Why bury what the critters’ll dig up anyway? Easier all around. Generous of you, Black Guy says. Bald Guy wasn’t generous the night before. Not with details. Fire, knives, and rope was all he said when he got back from town with some hard biscuits, lard, corn meal, and coffee. Sticks of dynamite too. Enough for a post office or a small courthouse. He left the details out. He didn’t say a thing about the knuckles, how they chopped them from the fingers and thumbs they cut from the man’s hands while they were putting the rope around his neck. Bald Guy got close enough to see they left the hands. He didn’t share that detail. You got to love the cracker trinity, Black Guy says. Fire, knives, and rope. Fucking overkill. How’s that not a major sin? Any one of the three would be enough. Black Guy, shifting the skillet to get the lard the right degree of hot, turns and kicks at nothing. Whatever happened to the mercy in a well- placed bullet? F, K, and R. Practically spells fuckers, Bald Guy says as he turns back to the catfish. Get it? F. K. R. Not bad. You’re clever for a bald guy.You point that out, did you, during all that majority advertising? Fuck that majority noise. Let’s eat and get out of here, Bald Guy says. Ain’t no place to be. Bald Guy didn’t say a thing about the skin they peeled from the guy’s face while he screamed. He didn’t say a thing about how the guy quit screaming when they cut off his dick. He had no visual confirmation of the latter, but his ears heard what they heard. Hard to mistake that for something else.That’s when they lit the fire around the big stone the man stood on, still alive but lifeless, a noose loose around his neck. Bald Guy looks down at his hands, the catfish and the knife they’re
Author Name chunk of hot, greasy fish with coffee. A church at daybreak then? Which one? Too many to choose from here in the Belt. Plus, same thing. That innocent janitor. Black Guy eats his last piece of fish. Who says he’s innocent? Shit, the best thing that could happen around here is fire. County line to county line. Dead go the flowers of Coweta County. Forty days and nights, Black Guy says. Burn, baby, burn. Purify. Given the size of the crowd yesterday, only some of which were folks rolling in on the train from Atlanta, Bald Guy knows there’s a good chance the janitor was there too, knife or rope or match in hand. Dead go all the roads leading in and out. Bald Guy wipes his knife on his shirt tail again, inspects it, the knife, sticks it in the ground, inspects it again. Dead go forgiveness, the sky above, mercy. Black Guy clears his throat. Filthy people and sad thing is you’re proud of it. Black Guy points to the fire. Purify that knife, brother. Dead go the general store, the porch, the pickle barrel, and the good old chairs around it. Purify, Bald Guy spits. Ain’t no such thing and you know it. Here’s what I don’t know, Black Guy says. Tell me about yesterday’s knives. Help me make up my mind. Dead go a few of the fists and most of the janitor six hours later when Bald Guy lights the long fuse he hid the night before where he bought the coffee, the lard, and the corn meal. On their way out of Coweta, they set the field on fire. Die, field, die. Bald Guy worked on the melody as they walked. Black Guy worked on the words.
