Part 3 of 4
When I got back from Port Of Call it was fully dark. I should have taken my bike. Cycling was safer than walking. Moreover, walking through the quarter was more dangerous than walking through Treme which was flooded with police once the casino had opened in Armstrong Park.. Hummppp, I wondered if they would keep up the policing now that the casino was closed.
It was about twenty minutes to eight. I had casually checked my watch as I turned off Esplanade after crossing Rampart. When I got close to my place, I saw somebody had left a 40 oz. beer bottle on my stoop. I picked it up and routinely checked all around me to make sure nobody was trying to slip up on me as I unlocked my front door. The alarm beeped until I punched in the disarming code—that was my one concession to Kristin. No, I wasn't going to buy a car, but yes I would get a security alarm system put in.
I locked the deadbolt and flipped on the front room lamp. I felt like some Dr. John. I put the empty bottle down, twirled my cd rack, pulled out Dr. John's Gumbo, slid it in the cd player, turned the volume up to six and sang "Iko Iko" along with the good Dr. as I danced to the kitchen after turning off the floor lamp. I was using the empty forty oz. as a microphone and moving with a pigeon-toed shuffle step. I ended with a pirouette and a slam dunk of the forty into the thirty gallon kitchen trash can.
While pulling off my windbreaker and hanging it in the closet, I heard a faint knocking but I thought it was one of the neighborhood kids beating out a rhythm on the side of the house. The knocking persisted, only louder. Who could that be, nobody besides Kristin ever visits me. I jogged into the front room.
"Yeah, who is it?" I shouted out as I detoured to turn the music down.
"I'm Brother Cooper, man."
"Who?" I shouted through the locked door.
"Bras Coupe," came back the indistinct reply.
"I don't want none."
"I ain't selling nothing. I just wanna ask you something."
"What?"
"Open the door, please, mister?" There was an urgency in his voice which I couldn't deceipher. I peered out the window next to the door but the streetlights were to his back and most of his face was in shadows. I turned on my front flood light. I still didn't recognize him. His left hand was empty, I couldn't see his right hand.
"I ain't goin' do you nothing, man. I just want to ask you something."
"I can hear you," I shouted back through the solid wood, dead-lock-bolted door. I continued watching him through the window.
"Look, I'm just as scared as you, standing out here, knocking on a stranger's door, enough for to get shot. I know you don't know me, but I used to live here twenty-two years ago. I left town and I'm just passing through. My people done all gone and I just wanted to see the house I grew up in."
This sounded like a first class line to me. He stepped back so that he was fully illuminated by the flood light. "Look, I couldn't do you nothing even if I wanted to—I'm cripple." He twirled around to show me the empty dangling right sleeve of his sweatshirt. He was probably too poor to procure prosthesis. "If you got a gun why don't you get it and hold it on me, I just want to see the house."
I was in a quandry. Suppose the gun thing was a trick to find out if I had a gun. Suppose he was planning to come back later and rob me. He didn't look like anybody I had seen in the neighborhood before. And there was this tone in his voice—it wasn't fear, it was something else. He pleaded with me, "I wouldn't blame you for not letting me in, but it sure would mean a lot to me to see the house."
"The house has been completely remolded, you wouldn't recognize it now."
"If you don't want to let me in, just tell me to get lost. That's your right. It's your property now..." Renters don't have property rights I thought as I weighed his appeal. "But, you ain't got to handle me like I'm stupid. I know the house don't look nothing like when I lived in it."
I said nothing else. He backed down the steps and stood on the sidewalk. A car passed and he flinched like he thought the car was coming up on the sidewalk or like he feared somebody was after him.
"You white, ain't you? And you afraid to let a one armed, black man in your house after dark. I understand your feelings. Can you understand mine?"
It pained me to realize I didn't and, worse yet, possibly couldn't understand his feelings. I had all kinds of black acquaintances that I knew and spoke to on a daily basis, but not one whom I was really close to. I had been here over a year and still didn't have one real friend who was black and not middle class.
My mind ping ponged from point to point searching for an answer to his softly stated albeit deadly question. Could someone like me—someone white and economically secure—ever really understand the feelings of a poor, black man? Especially since I wanted honesty and refused to settle for the facade of sharing cultural positions simply because I exercised my option to live in the same physical space with those who had little choice in the matter.
My pride would not let me fake at being poor, walk around with artifically ripped jeans and headrags pretending I was down. Besides when you get really close to poverty you understand that poverty sucks big time. You see how being poor wears people out physically, emotionally and mentally.
These neighborhoods are like a prison without bars and a lot of these people are doing nothing but serving time until they can figure a way to get out, which most of them seldom do. Especially, the men. They just become more hardened, callous and emotionally distant. My stay was temporary. I was not sentenced by birth, but visiting, one step removed from sightseeing. Regardless of what I like to tell myself about commitment and sincerity, it was my choice to come here and I always have a choice to leave—a real choice backed up by marketable skills that would be accepted anywhere I may go. I know that most of the people in this neigborhood have no such choice.
As if to distract myself from the meaning of this moment of conflict, I looked at the disheveled man on my sidewalk and wondered had his father ever played him music and told him that "love was mad"? Obviously his father had not sent him to college. Could not have. But the conundrum for me had nothing to do with poverty in the abstract, or even with letting this man into the apartment. For me the deep issue was stark and cold: was I mad for trying to love the people who created jazz? If this man had appeared at my father's door, would dad have let him in?
I overcame my fear and my better judgement, pulled out my key and unlocked the deadbolt. I started to throw the door open, but realized that there were no lights on in the front room and the hall door was wide open exposing the rest of the house. "Wait a minute," I said firmly through the door.
I turned around, flicked on my black lacquered, floor lamp, turned the cd player off in the middle of Dr. John singing "Somebody Changed The Lock" and then closed the hall door. I quickly surveyed the room to make sure there was nothing lying round that... wait a minute, why was I worried about the possibility of a one armed man being a thief?
I returned to the door, peeked out the window—he was still standing there—and then released the lock on the doorknob. I cautiously opened the door. "I guess you can come in for a minute." I felt my pulse pounding and struggled to remain calm.
He started up the steps slowly. His hair was the first thing I noticed as he stepped into the doorway. It was untrimmed, it wasn't long, but it was uncombed. As I surveyed him, I instinctively stepped back from him and then I reached out my hand to shake, "My name is David Squire"—suddenly I was assaulted by a distinct but unidentifiable pungent odor that I had never smelled before. He reached out his left hand and covered my hand. I realized immediately that it was a faux pas to offer my right hand to a man without a right arm. He seemed to sense my embarassment.
"I'm Bras Coupe. Lots of people call me Brother Cooper." His hand was rough and calloused. His skin felt leathery and unyielding. I looked down at his hand. His claw like fingernails were discolored and jagged. When I withdrew my hand and looked up at his face, he was examining the room. He said nothing more and just stood there looking around.
Finally, I stepped around him to close the door. The scent that I had caught a wiff of in the doorway, engulfed me now and wrestled with the oxygen in my nose. I had to open my mouth to breath. I was certain I had made a mistake letting him in, now the question was how to get him out.
"You want to sit down," I asked in a weak voice?
He slowly sank to one knee right where he was. After swivleling around so that he was facing me, he locked into what was obviously for him a comfortable posture. He leaned his weight on his left arm which was braced against his upraised left leg. It was almost as if he was ready to jump up and run at a moment's notice.
"You do not use the fireplace." He raised his head slightly and audibly sniffed twice, his nostrils flaring with each intake of air. "No windows open." He sniffed again. "You don't cook." He rose in a surprisingly swift motion. And then for the first time he stood up to his full height. He was huge.
I backed up.
He laughed.
"I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted to, I could have killed you by now."
As I measured him from head to foot, I couldn't hide my shock when I saw that he was barefoot.
"You wear your fear like a flag." He nonchalantly watched me inspect him and laughed again when my eyes riveted on his bare feet. "Show me the rest of my house, David Squire."
I was glued where I stood. I couldn't move. I had never felt so helpless before. "Do you understand what you feel? You should see yourself. Tell me about yourself," he commanded.
I stammered, "What wha... wha-what do you want to-to know?"
"I already know everything I want to know. It's what you need to know about yourself that matters. Why are you here? What do you think is so cool about all of this mess?"
I couldn't answer. Somehow to say "I came to New Orleans because I wanted to get to know the people who created jazz" seemed totally the wrong thing to do. He turned his back to me and looked at my stereo system. "Do you have any of my music?"
"Wha-what?"
He stomped on the floor three times in rapid succession with his right foot, shouting "Dansez Badoum, Dansez Badoum, Dansez Dansez." Then he spun in slow circles on his left foot while using his one hand to beat a complicated cross-rhythm on his chest and on his upraised left leg. Somehow, simultaneously with turning clockwise in a circle, he carved a counterclockwise circle in the air with his head. His agility was breathtaking. He dipped suddenly in a squat, slapped the floor and froze with his piercing eyes popped out in a transfixing stare. I felt a physical pressure push me backward.
"I thought you liked my music." He looked away briefly and then returned his full and terrible attention to me. I was quaking in my Rockport walking boots. Neither of us said anything and a terrible silence followed.
"Talk to me, David Squire."
"It's, it's about life." I stammered quietly.
"Eh? What say you?"
"Black music. Your music. It's about life. The beauty of life regardless of all the ugliness that surrounds... usss...." Instantly I wished I hadn't said that. It was true but it sounded so much like a liberal line. Just like when Dad had introduced me to Mr. Ellington, I couldn't think of anything right to say. So, I said the only truth on the tip of my tongue, "I love your music."
"Am I supposed to feel good because you love my music? Why don't you love your own music? Why don't you make your own music?"
I had never thought about that. It didn't seem right. There was no white man I could think of who could come close. Even Dr. John was at his best when he sounded like he was black. When I looked up, Brother Cooper had his eyes steeled onto me like an auditor who has found the place where the books had been doctored. My mouth hung open but I had no intentions of trying to answer that question.
"After you take our music, what's left in this city?"
"I'm not from here." Words came out of my mouth without thinking.
"You're from the north."
"I'm from Normal, Illinois."
"Where did you go to school?"
"In Boston."
"Where in Boston."
"Harvard."
"Sit down David Squire." Still in a squatting position, he motioned toward my reading chair with his hand. "You look a bit peaked."
I sat.
In a swift crablike motion, he scurried quickly over to me without rising. He touched my knee. There was nothing soft in his touch. It was like I had bumped into a tree. "Harvard eh, your people must have a little money."
"Most people think going to Harvard means you're smart." I blurted out without thinking. Putting my mouth in motion before engaging my brain was a bad habit I needed to loose.
"Smart doesn't run this country. Does it?" He looked away.
I began sweating.
"Go relieve yourself," Cooper said without looking at me.
As soon as he said that, I felt my bladder throbbing. I almost ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I turned on the light, the heat lamp, the vent. I unzipped my pants, started to urinate and felt my bowels stir with an urgency that threatened to soil my drawers. I dropped my pants, hurriedly pulled down the toilet seat, plopped down and unloaded.
I wiped myself quickly. I washed my hands, quickly. I threw water on my face, quickly. And then I looked into the mirror. My face was pale with terror.
"David Squire, come, I must tell you something before I go." At the sound of Cooper's voice, my legs gave way momentarily and I fell against the wash basin. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't go back out there and I couldn't not go.
"David Squire," the powerful voice boomed again. "Open the door."
My hand trembled as I flicked the latch and turned the knob. I pulled the door open and there he stood directly in front of the door. "Every future has it's past. What starts in madness, will end in the same again. My name is Bras Coupe. Find out who I am and understand what made me be what I became. Know the beginning well and the end will not trouble you." He looked through me as if I were a window pane. I couldn't bear his stare, I closed my eyes.
"Look at me."
When I opened my eyes I was in total darkness. I shivered. I felt cold and broke out sweating profusely again when I realized I was laying on my back on my bed. Now I was past scared. I was sure I was dead.
Then that voice sounded again, "You fainted."
His words wrapped around me like a snake. I felt the mattress sag as if, as if he was climbing into my bed. All I could think of was that he was going to fuck me. All the muscles in my ass tightened as taut as the strings on my tennis racket. From somewhere I remembered the pain and humiliation of a rectal exam when I was young.
My mother was sitting on the other side of the room and the doctor made me lay on my stomach. The last thing I saw him do was put on rubber gloves. They squeeked when he put his hands in them. And they snapped loudly as he pulled them snugly on his wrist, tugged at the tops and let the upper ends pop with an omnious clack on his wrist. "This might hurt a little but it will be over in a minute." And then he stuck his finger up my rectum.
It felt like his whole hand was going up in there. I looked over at my mother. She didn't say anything, she just had this incredibly pained look on her plain face which always honestly reflected her emotions. "It will be alright, David. Yah, it will be alright," she said, sounding the "y" of yes as though it were a soft "j"—her second generation Swedish background was generally all but gone from her speech except for the stubborn nub that stuck to her tongue when ever she was under duress.
What had I done? What did I have? The pain shot up from my anus and exited my mouth as a low pitched moan. I was watching my mother watch me. I resolved that I was going to be strong and I was going to withstand whatever this man was going to do to me.
The man with his whole hand up my butt wasn't saying anything. He just kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing. I don't remember him stopping. I don't remember anything else except that despite my best efforts, I cried.
And now, here I lay in the dark awaiting another thrust up my ass. The anticipation was excruciating. My resolve to remain stoic completely crumbled and I started crying—but not loudly or anything. In fact there was no sound except the impercible splash of my huge tears flowing slowly down the sides of my face and falling shamlessly onto my purple comforter.
Suddenly the bright light from the table lamp illuminated my perdicament. He was standing next to the bed. I recoiled, rolling back from the sight of him. "Are you Ok?" he questioned me. "You look..." he stopped abruptly and cocked his head as if he heard something. After a few brief seconds he returned his attention to me. "They're coming." Without saying anything else, he turned and walked away toward the kitchen. A moment later, I too could hear a police siren.
And then it seemed like nothing happened. Just hours and hours of nothing. No sound from the kitchen. Nothing at all. My heart was pounding.
I tried to make myself sit up. It was like a dream. I couldn't move. I told myself to get up. But I couldn't move. I wanted to move. I wanted to run. But I couldn't move.
Eventually I made myself stop crying. It took so much effort, I was almost exhausted. Suddenly there was a loud knocking at my front door. The rapping startled me. I involuntarily let out a brief whelp of fear, "Ah."
Cooper appeared soundlessly at the foot of the bed. "Go."
I jumped up.
I was in shock.
The knock was louder. I don't know how I got to the front door, but when I got there, I didn't say a word as the insistent tapping started again. It sounded like somebody beating on my door with a club. Suppose this was one of Cooper's friends come to do me in.
I glanced over my shoulder at the back of the house. Cooper had turned the bedroom lamp off.
I glanced out the front window. Two policemen were outside. One on the stoop, one on the sidewalk. I hadn't done anything wrong. Why were they knocking on my door?
"Yes," I said meekly without opening the door.
"It's the police, sir."
I cracked the door—I had forgotten to lock it when I let Cooper in—"Is anything wrong, officer?"
(end of part 3 of 4)