Mosquito Page 12
I remember when I first heard that video I be in my truck sometimes and I just starts singing that song my ownself.
Hold on to de big truck.
Hold on to de big truck.
Hold on to de big truck.
Hold on to de big truck.
Hold on to de big truck.
Then I be hearing us preacher saying, Reverend Wolf of the Perfectability Baptist Church of Memphis saying, I knows that some of y’all has got the spirit so deep, that y’all is drawing y’all strength and y’all spirit and y’all wisdom from a well so deep that y’all thinks that y’all is crazy. Every time I resanctifies people they thinks that they is crazy. Y’all ain’t crazy, y’all is just resanctified. Then the peoples starts singing. I knows the people ain’t supposed to be singing no rap song, but instead of singing ’bout de river or even de well so deep, dey’s singing ’bout de big truck. Hold on to de big truck hold on to de big truck hold on to de big truck hold on to de big truck hold on to de big truck. Resanctify.
Then I’m sitting there in the cantina trying to remember something I learned about jazz. Something I heard in one of them documentaries or read somewhere. It ain’t say that jazz is in a warfare with classical Western music, but it say that jazz is a music in conflict with classical Western music ’cause they is the opposite of each other in scales, intervals, and chords. They say that they is even jazz musicians that don’t even use Western notation system anymore that that is just how much they considers they music in conflict with Western classical music and how much they wants to free they music from classical Western music. They’s got they own scales, they own intervals, they own chords, and they don’t need Western music to tell them of the intellectual complexity of they own music, nor do they judge the intellectual complexity of they own music by how much it resemble classical Western music. They might judge the intellectual complexity of everything else, even they language, by how much it resemble the Western traditions, but that ain’t how they judges they music.
I know I read it somewhere, about that jazz music, ’cause if I heard it I be remembering all of it, so I musta read it somewhere. Be saying every jazz musician is a composer ’cause that what jazz is. Them classical musicians they’s got to interpret the music, they has got to interpret the music the way them classical composers have wrote that music for them to interpret it. But them jazz musicians they composes it as they plays it. They might all be playing “Chitlins con Came” but they gets to compose it for theyselves. I be wondering if it be possible to tell a true jazz story, where the peoples that listens can just enter the story and start telling it and adding things wherever they wants. The story would provide the jazz foundation, the subject, but they be improvising around that subject or them subjects and be composing they own jazz story. If it be a book, they be reading it and start telling it theyselves whiles they’s reading. For example, if they gets to a part of the book where I talks about my daddy, say if I was the storyteller, then they ain’t just have to read about my daddy, they can start talking about they own daddy or other people daddy or even they Spiritual Daddy or if I be talking about my real mama or my Spiritual Mama, if I be the storyteller myself of such a novel, they could start talking about they own real mamas and they Spiritual Mamas and maybe they own mama and they Spiritual Mama is the same mama or anyplace in the novel they wants to integrate they own story or the stories of the peoples they knows, so they be reading and composing for theyselves, and writing in the margins and ain’t just have to write in the margins, ’cause I ain’t wanting my listeners to just be reserved to the margins, but they writing between the lines, and even between the words, and be adding they own adjectives here and there, and if I ain’t described something they wants described, they be describing it they ownselves, and be composers they ownself. And they ain’t even have to read the novel word for word ’cause they be as much creators of the word theyselves. And they ain’t even have to name the peoples same as I names them. Maybe they’s got they own names for the people. Like maybe I have a character name Nadine like myself and they be saying Nadine that ain’t the proper name for that woman. And they be saying us want to name her something other than Nadine. Course I ain’t want nobody to just name me who they wants, even if I were a character in a novel. But some peoples is like that. They names you who they wants anyway. I ain’t know if I wants them peoples to be changing names, though they can compose around the themes, but they could still bring they own multiple perspectives everywhere in that novel, and they own freedom.
Then I’m still drinking that Budweiser and trying to remember something that Delgadina said. We were looking at something on television, I think BET or a talk show, and somebody was talking about the growing popularity of African-American literature amongst white readers, and then Delgadina starts saying something about because they have figured out now that they can put African-American literature into the category of Entertainment. That before writing books was considered a European intellectual achievement and just mostly white people could read and write or during slavery when it was criminal for blacks to even know how to read or write. So then she’s saying something about only those types of books that whites can put into the category of entertainment are popular, novels, autobiographical writings, popular essays, mostly about race or white man done us (or me, for those writing from a personal rather than a collective ethos) wrong scenarios, poetry, but that ain’t the same as building an intellectual literary tradition. Plus, now the white man considers the sciences and technology the intellectual arena so it’s okay to be a little more generous about literature, that is a certain type of literature that don’t provide no intellectual competition.
I figure when they figure how to commercialize Chicano literature and put us into the category of Entertainment, we’ll get some popularity. Well, there are some publishers who are publishing more Chicano-oriented books and books in Spanish, but that’s mostly because of the numbers of Chicano readers. We aren’t as popular as African-American writers with white readers, though. And mostly we’re published by little publishers, like E. D. Santos.
I know that that is true ’cause I remember that us school went to this big auditorium at one of the white schools and we gave readings and Monkey Bread—she’s the one I told y’all about who works for the movie star in Hollywood—read a little poem that she wrote, ’cause she were considered to be the best by us English teacher. Myself I thought it were the best little poem amongst the peoples that read including the white students from the white schools. Monkey Bread didn’t get the prize, though, but I remember that one of the judges at the table that were all white—they allowed the black schools to enter students in the contest but not to be among the judges. They got to judge the students before they come to what was considered the real contest. I mean, all the little colored schools got to judge the students from their own schools, but then when it came to the real contest, there were only white judges. But the white judge says to Monkey Bread that she a good entertainer and although Monkey Bread didn’t claim the prize for being the best poet, she claimed the prize for being the best entertainer, and that wasn’t even supposed to be a legitimate prize, even in the real contest, but because Monkey Bread was in the contest and her poetry was so legitimately good that they had to acknowledge the goodness of her little poem, and even though they didn’t give her any of the real literary prizes, they created a special category of prize for Monkey Bread that they called the Best Entertainment Little Poetry Prize. And there is still colored children in the area that they gives the Best Entertainment Little Poetry Prize but not the Best Poetry Prize or even the Best Little Poetry Prize. I remembers that before when all the prizewinners were getting their pictures taken and Monkey Bread was the only little colored child in the group, I overheard someone say, You ought to hear her. She’s a good little entertainer. She gives a good little performance. And I thinks that now they even allows students—not just colored students—to enter the new category called Entertai
nment Poetry, as if it were a whole new genre. (Some people will say that Monkey Bread invented that genre because of her protests; I don’t remember Monkey Bread protesting; nor was the little poem she read a protest poem.) Anyway, the judges, they calls the new genre Entertainment Poetry ’cause they ain’t want to call it Colored People’s Poetry, and it wasn’t Protest Poetry.
It is only colored people’s childrens that wins the prize in that category, though. I ain’t known them to win in any other categories, even though the school ain’t as segregated. When they seemed like one of the colored people’s childrens was going to win in one of them other categories, them people invented yet other genres—the Best Entertainment Lyric Poem, the Best Entertainment Haiku, the Best Entertainment Narrative Poem, the Best Entertainment Sonnet, even the Best Entertainment Free Verse. They retains the epic and have decided not to create a category called the Best Entertainment Epic. Even now when I hears of people of color winning literary prizes, even on television, and not some little auditorium in Covington, Kentucky, I wonders if they is only the Best Entertainment Little Literature Prize, only the white judges that distributes most of the prizes is more subtle than when Monkey Bread won her Best Little Entertainment Poetry Prize, ’cause at least they told the colored girl the truth. (Monkey Bread likes to tell people, when showing them her poetry prize, the confabulatory lie that the Little in the name of her prize is named for Malcolm Little before he become Malcolm X. Even though there ain’t no chronological logic in that confabulatory story about the origins of her little poetry prize, there is peoples that believes it. There are even those who credit Monkey Bread with being the first colored people’s child in Covington, Kentucky, to write a protest poem. But I’m here to tell you that the poem she wrote was not a protest poem at all, but was even of the dubious title of “Why I Likes Little Black Sambo.” Needless to say, it was a substitution poem and not the poem that the English teacher had originally approved of to be read before the white judges. The poem that the colored school approved for reading was called “Chicken Soup with Garlic”:
My mama makes the best chicken soup with garlic
And the bestest sweet potato pie
Would I lie?
Of course there was a bit of controversy about whether she should use best or bestest; they decided because she was a child she could use bestest, because didn’t even the children characters in Mark Twain use bestest; they were sure that the white judges would realize that the colored children were taught better English and that bestest was there because it was the best word for the little poem. They wished that their colored children would write longer poems with longer lines, though, because they were sure that the white children writing for that contest had written longer poems with longer lines. Monkey Bread said she liked writing poetry that the audience had to answer. In the colored school whenever she read that poem, the colored students would answer Yes, but once when a white superintendent was visiting, and Monkey Bread was sent to the front of the class to read her poetry, they answered No, because they didn’t want the white superintendent to doubt the credibility of colored people. None of the children actually expressed that formally, nor had our teacher told them to say No, but I just think that they instinctively knew to say No in front of a white person. I was the only person to say Yes and the other colored children looked at me, so I changed my Yes to No. But the truth was I had tasted both Monkey Bread’s mama’s chicken soup with garlic and her sweet potato pie, and though they is good, I can’t truthfully say they is the bestest. Plus, when I thinks about that poem I thinks why it ain’t consistent, ’cause she do use best in the poem’s first line, so how come she ain’t use best in the poem’s other line, or use bestest in both lines of the poem. And sometimes when Monkey Bread would quote that poem to peoples she would change other different words in it. Sometimes she say “My mama she make the best chicken soup with garlic” instead of “My mama makes”: other times she say “My mama make”: other times the poem say “the bestest chicken soup” but “the best sweet potato pie.” And I be thinking that ain’t like no poetry I’ve heard, ’cause all them other poems if them poet say it one thing, they’s got to read it as that thing and say all the words as they is in the original poem, I mean unless they revises the poem. But I remember when Monkey Bread would read that poem, she would have it written the way I told y’all it is, but she would change the language in it just like I says, ’cept she would consider it to be the same poem. And garlic don’t even have to be garlic in her poetry, ’cause in some of her versions of that poem the garlic is chives.)
That Native American with all them Indian tribes in him, I would dream about him again, years later, when I was in Cuba, New Mexico. I ain’t know if it a daydream or a dream. He would come to me playing his wooden flute, one of them wooden flutes that some Native Peoples plays they music on. He be playing traditional music on that flute, then I go with him to what look like some type of fantasy landscape—I knows about them fantasy landscapes. I thinks it be the Chisos Mountains, but it some type of fantasy mountains. It be dawn in them fantasy mountains; it be in the Southwest, and he show me this steel horse riding. He call it the steel horse, I think ’cause it the color of steel. I ain’t say it a horse made of steel, but he call it the steel horse and it just be riding, it seem like it be riding all over the nation and all over the world. It ain’t got nobody riding that horse. This horse be leading itself. It be riding in real landscapes all over America and the world. It be dawn on that fantasy mountain. And Saturna, he be playing that flute and be calling that the steel horse, or he say Steel Horse, and it be riding everywhere. I ain’t say it a wild horse ’cause it be a self-disciplined horse, but it discipline it ownself. It be dawn on that fantasy mountaintop, but it be like we is inside a sacred space and time watching Steel Horse ride and the music he be playing be sounding like that Steel Horse galloping everywhere. Watching that Steel Horse galloping I be thinking about Revelations first and then Revolutions. And then I’m in a room he call the Wisdom Room and I’m reading from a book he call The Wisdom Book. I ain’t just reads it silently, I reads it aloud.
What’s the name of your social psychiatrist? Delgadina asks. Or social psychologist? Is he a psychiatrist or a psychologist?
I’s sitting up at the bar, like I said, though I’s thinking about Saturna (once I did ask Delgadina whether he a shaman, that Saturna that sometimes come to the cantina one always wear that red shirt and white deerskin, and she say she don’t know, but she do know the Hoyas who is his family—his name Saturna Hoya—and they is all strange types so they could be shamans or he could be a shaman, but they don’t belong to any tribe; some of them make sculptures out of copper, iron, and silver in the shapes of bears, foxes, deer, beaver, panthers, even ground squirrels and other kinds of animals), drinking Budweiser, and looking at that menu and wondering who comes into a Mexican restaurant and orders German pancakes. I’m thinking about that cantina in the Cheech movie and wondering if they serve German pancakes. Then I’m thinking ’bout the Cheech cantina got a pool table in the cantina, and also got musicians in the cantina. I be wanting to ask Delgadina ’bout the archetypal cantina, but us talking about the psychiatrist or psychologist. I know they’s a cantina named El Turko’s, ’cause people say the owner look more like a Turk than a Mexican, where they’s got them pool tables and’s got them musicians that calls theyselves Bigotes, which is they names ’cause they’s all got theyselves whiskers. They’s also a cantina that call itself California Gold Rush, but it more a cowboy-type saloon than a cantina. They’s also a cantina called Comancheros named after them Mexican bandits, ’cept Delgadina say they wasn’t bandits, they was merchants, it’s just that they was merchants that traded with the Native Peoples, the Comanches, that’s how they got they names Comancheros, so the whites would call them bandits. But I remember all them cowboy movies that ain’t got Native Peoples in them, they’s got them Comancheros selling rifles and whiskey to the Native Peoples. Thing about that hi
story, it depend on who tell the history whether somebody a bandit or a merchant. I knows a lot of white merchants is bandits, but they gets to call theyselves merchants. This cantina got a mural. I be thinking they be a Texas or Mexican scene with cactus, but somebody painted musk-ox, elk, and brown bear. I guess they’s some cactus for scenery.
I think he a psychiatrist and a psychologist. ’Cause he ambitious. I think he both, I say, talking about that psychiatrist or psychologist.
I tells her his name. She look like she interested in that name more than whether he a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I goes to the bathroom and when I comes back, she writing in her notebook. I told y’all she always writing in her notebook. Then a vato come in and she serves him a drink, then she come back to the bar and writes in her notebook.
You didn’t tell him nothing about Miguelita, did you? she asks.
Naw, just that she Mr. Delgado’s wife. I didn’t want him going over there bothering her, ’cause she crazy, and then I knows how these vatos like to protect her, and them thinking he immigration and shit, I don’t know what they be doing seeing him talking to Miguelita. He mighta been a expert witness for her like he say, ’cause I know she crazier than shit. She need somebody to expert witness for her. I couldn’t be no expert witness for nobody myself, ’cause you don’t know the monkeys from the men.
Say what?
That just a expression they uses in the Perfectability Baptist Church. I ain’t know why they uses that expression, since they believes that people is perfectable. But maybe they means that although they believes that people is perfectable, it don’t mean that they is knowable.