A Sea Dream ?

Mikey scrambled to the staked fencing, hoof-clawing at the sides of the enclosure without success. He did not want to be on this side. Not really knowing why he did not want to be here was a fleeting thought as he tried to jump the fence’s height. He could not even get half way up but he tried several more times before giving up and laying there in the trodden clumps of mud. A half of a carrot was sticking almost straight up right near his head. The green top was slightly bent by a cake of old mud. He gobbled it before the others saw it and was satisfied to lay and digest. But, first he looked around for more… then lay back, cooling his stomach in the smoothed rut he had made by falling so many times. He rolled to the left and rolled to the right and fell out of the bed, banging his elbow and dropping his cigarette from his lips, and he exclaimed an ouch.

‘Keep quiet, you. I’s tryin’ ta get some sleep after all dat lovin’ yer puts me true…’.

Mikey rose to sitting and looked at her brown back glistening in the humidity of the room. He looked around the room, first, up at the overhead fan slowly turning with a slight creak and wobble, then to the balconied terrace through the tall shuttered wall of doors. Palm drooped in the heat just at the bottom of the balcony reflected in wet white floor tiles. The sky was greyish, a light greyish.

A wooden straight-back chair was at the side of the bed with its back against the ivory wall. Some moisture and green mould was creeping up the wall from the floor. Clothes lay on the back of the chair, draping down and onto the floor. He could smell the perfume of ejaculations and looked at his naked body and strong erection. It did not look like his penis. It was circumcised and dark. His legs were a deep brown and now his hands in front of his face were brown on the backs and a yellowish fleshy colour on their insides.

He heard her turn, creaking the bed springs. He looked at her large hanging stomach and great gelatinous breasts and very wrinkled face with its lips wet with licking. He looked down smelling the cigarette burning a hole into the pattern of a small oval rug. The cigarette had knocked its ash off and the burning stopped as Mike blinked his eyes to sleep again.

‘Mike!’ she screamed, breaking the silence of evening’s darkness.

He opened then shut his eyes again. ‘What?’

‘You know what time it is? Get up, fool.’

‘Who you callin’ a fool, girl?’

‘You. That’s who. We got to get movin’ if you want to see that movie.’

Mikey tried to remember what movie and who she was. Then he remembered himself from before and knew he wasn’t a pig. He craned his neck to look down at his chest. It was still brown with some tiny knots of hair. There didn’t seem to be any fat. That was good. No fat was good. Mae. Her name is Mae and we live together. Not married. We live together and we are going to the Temple. The Temple Theater down the block around the corner two blocks up. The Flea Box. We’re going to The Flea Box to see some Black Folk movies. Our movies.

Mike looked at his watch on his brown wrist. There were tight balled hairs there too.It was as though he saw everything for the first time. Mike shook his head to clear it.

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘What?’ she called, coming from the bathroom putting her coat on. ‘Get up, man. We got to go. Now!’

Waiting in line for the tickets in a cold but light rain Mike returned nods to others, mainly men huddled with women who made little comments he couldn’t understand but nodded and copied their expressions on what he hadn’t understood.

Mike’s eyes searched for something he could recognise. He looked across the street as street lights came on the early Summer eve. How do I know it is Summer? The barbecue shop, without a sign on across the street, had folk laughing and talking inside the glass front. Everybody, including Cecil, the owner, were elbows up, chawing on the bone. How did I know of Cecil? Is his name Cecil?

‘Cecil’s looking good, Mae,’ he ventured.

She turned in the rain, squinted across the street, ‘That man got ta be ashamed.’

‘Hunh?’

She looked up at him, turning serious with her face catching slick moisture and her gaze direct and somehow sensuous.

‘You better never do that to me, Mike. I will slice you to a high pitched bitch. You hear me?’

‘Look out, now,’ his neck went back like a cobra, ‘Don’t even think about it, woman… and if it does happen, you better not miss, because you know I’ll break your neck. Now, this shit is about nothin’. We are supposed to be out here in the rain going into The Flea Box to enjoy some good down-home humour.’

Her expression changed several times, finally settling on concern. ‘You all right?’

He looked at her sympathetic eyes. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been feeling weird, like I was somebody else. Just weird.’

‘You’ve been talking like somebody else. Maybe you comin’ down with something, honey.’ She smiled, turning her gaze down to his crotch. ‘Guarantee one thing baby, and that is a guarantee that you are Michael H. Waring and you are my bunch of you, man.’

They smiled into each others’ eyes and hugged, then stepped forward and bought their tickets.

‘Feet, don’t fail me now!’ spoke the character Stepin Fetchit played, while seeming to run faster then the 1930s convertible with its white driver laughing and Stepin Fetchit’s eyes growing to be big bubbles on the big screen. His bottom lip on his dark face hung low and bounced as he ran on past the car and The Flea Box audience screamed out with laughter, booed with disdain, yelled jokes and insults, whistled and grumbled.

Stepin Fetchit’s image on the screen said NIGGA in capital letters, thought Mikey. Nigga. The only job you could get in Hollywood was playin’ the Nigga, Mikey thought. The din in the movie house was growing and sounded aggressive. A fight broke out in the back rows, another off to the right side down a few rows. Mikey fumbled in his trouser pocket and pulled out a roll of pennies, reinforcing his big right hand if the fight surged toward their seats. Mae had the closed umbrella held half way up with its sheen of a sharp point threatening.

Most of the audience started laughing and Mikey’s focus went back to the screen as custard pies went into whiter than white Dracula’s fanged face.

About a half hour later and close to the end of the film the lights went on though the moving picture continued.

Somebody was saying something at the rear of the theatre but it was drowned out by moans, groans and an occasional shout with a little laughter. Mikey turned to make out two uniformed cops at the head of one aisle and three at the head of the other. They all had billy clubs held at their chests and one of the three was calling out to the audience. The audience was quieter and Mikey could hear what he was saying.

‘…but youse all wants trouble, ya gots it. Now, keep yer hand where we kin see ‘em and file out one by one.’ He looked down at somebody near his left hand, then raised his club and brought it down hard. People started standing and Mikey could see no more but he could hear scuffling, cussing and some screams. He grabbed Mae by the wrist and they pushed through to the side exit where only a few were leaving.

As she turned her head she yelled, ‘Mike, look out!’

He turned too late, feeling himself fall before feeling the sharp pushing pain making his head sling to one side. Darkness and sparkles dulled the pain, then suddenly brilliant light played with anger as his hands instinctively held him from the concrete.

Mikey looked to the side of the pain to see a whiskered older guy with a brick still in his hand looking around while trying to pull Mikey’s wallet from his rear trouser pocket. Mae hit the man with the umbrella but the sounds of words were muffled. With all the strength his anger could harness Mikey swung his right hand around, catching the man in the stomach. He thought he felt the man’s spine connect with his knuckles. The guy crumpled, dropping his brick to hold his stomach with both hands while trying to take in the air of his falling.

Mikey got to his feet, looked over at Mae who was smiling at him, then sneering down at the man. Mikey picked up the man’s brick and looked down at him in his foetal position. The guy was moaning and writhing a bit. Mikey started to feel a strong throbbing on the right of his head. He squinted his eyes, touching that side of his head with the back of his hand. He could hear better now. He had blood sparkling on the skin on the back of his hand.

Anger flooded the back of his eyes as he saw the brick in his hand slamming down on the guy’s trousers and he could hear the guy screaming. The brick in his hand went up and down again and again on different parts of the guy’s body, arms and head. A scream was yelling words at him and the words were stop stop stop Mike.

Mikey looked up at Mae’s horrified expression.

‘You are killing the fool, Mike,’ she was trying to soothe him, ‘He just broke and a fool is all, honey.’

Mikey stopped his hand, looked down at his and let the brick fall. He looked back up at Mae and saw a pitiful expression now. Her arms were open wide and he went to them, hugging her fiercely, willing this night to have left them alone. He was crying and she was saying it was all right.

‘Everything will be all right, honey. It will be all right. Everybody saw what was happening, how he attack you and it will be all right. We just got to get out of here.’

He felt her leading him, stumbling, somewhere.

‘It don’t matter much no way. Everybody has gone crazy, Mike. They are all a bunch of animals going at each other.’

He looked around at people running and pockets of fights. Two by fours were being swung and people covering their heads. He smelled the barbecue and felt pain and a craving for Cecil’s hot sauce barbecue pork ribs. It wasn’t just the hot sauce; it was the whole thing. He used only Kansas dry-lands mesquite and hickory for his charcoal. He slow-cooked those racks and you couldn’t get any until they were perfectly cooked. He shot a man once who tried to come around the counter to grab a rack. Having it cooked just right then adding that touch of mayonnaise and sweet pickle potato salad in big chunks, and cleaning your fingers with that white bread and eating that like dessert. It all made him feel like he was in his Big Mama’s bosom. and that made him cry and smile.

‘This way, honey. Keep up , honey.’ She stopped pulling him to circle behind and start pushing him. ‘What chu smilin’ about, nigh. These people are like zombie from Hayti or something evil like that and we gots to move faster, baby. It must hurt something awful, honey, but you could be dead so let’s keep it alive now and move one foot faster’n then the other.’

His grandmama was divine. Big Mama. Always cooking, always stirring some pot, lifting some lid with a clunk, hummin’ some church music from the radio. Every now and then he would see her stop and look out the window into the sunlight and she would have a glow on her face that would make him smile and grin. She always knew he was there during those moments and she would beckon him to come to her side by just moving her fingers a few times. He would be there and she would swoop him up without taking her face away from that sky outside. She would hug him and say, ‘Mikey, I’s soon be from all dis here pain an’ in da hands of da lord God Jehovah to be in bliss wid no woik an’ my hands so soft… they’d feel like flowers in the wind.’

When she finally did leave him he cried for days. He only had his most-of-the-time drunk aunt to take care of him from then until he was old enough to join the Marines.

‘You cryin’ now,’ Mae took him in her arms and for a second he thought she was his Big Mama. ‘We can probably rest here a bit. We’re almost home, honey, and I can take care of that wound, baby.’

Mikey wished he had had kids. Maybe he did have some somewhere and didn’t know it.’

‘Get up Mike. Mike, honey, get up. Mike, don’t leave me. Don’t die on me. Shit.’

Mikey, mate.’ a man’s voice was speaking. ‘You all right, man?’

Mikey looked up at the sky. A clear blue rolled a bit of cloud as he felt himself roll a bit without moving his body. He looked at the skinny white guy smiling at him.

‘What?’ Mikeys voice sounded different, like an English movie character. What the fuck?’ he looked around and saw an horizon of ocean and a long wooden cap rail shining of varnish. There was the run of deck beneath him and a dark bottle of beer on its side nudging a cabin side.

‘Mikey, you sure had a fitfull dream, mate.’ the skinny guy was almost whispering. “ almost got scared ta wake ya, but, Cop’t wants ta parlay with us, man.’

Mikey was back aboard the schooner and his hands white again with a little sunburn on their backs.