Read Online Tales of the Out & the Gone by Imamu Amiri Baraka - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Imamu Amiri Baraka
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times heavier than making that last dead man hill and trudging but floating at the same time toward the stadium finish. A thousand-thousand times. Hey, for a minute it seemed like I was brothers with all the people I could see. Like maybe even all the life and color that was inside me, that I carry (and you carry too), could come on out, just like how we all flowed together toward Robert Treat. That what was inside me could flow on out and mingle with all the other insides that could flow out. Because, I don’t know, it was amidst all the screaming and jumping up and down, absolutely safe to reveal your feelings. You know?
I feel like laughing now. No, I am laughing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No, it’s nothing. I just thought of something. Not thought of something. The park, the running. We’ve gotten so far away from that, it seems. Wake-wake Park. Gee, I think of old Henry Deel, who just died. He was almost the mayor, but we thought … There was some kind of minor scandal or something. I don’t even remember. And “Sweets” Towne, that old Democratic hustler, was always in it. He even threatened me specifically one night for talking bad about Johnnie Walker Black and trying to rip off his own meal ticket. But he was alright too, actually. Boy, did we talk bad to and about white folks in those days. I saw this one dopey woman recently that we put out of the theatre. She was trying to pass then as a Russian Indian. A sister told her she had to leave the Russian outside. I saw her, that same woman, walking down the street with a guy who actually looked like a Russian Indian, just a couple of days ago.
The park? The running, really. I miss that. Doesn’t time fly? No, I don’t run too much—I switched from Wake-wake awhile ago. Started running from my house, about four long blocks, to get the newspapers, then I even stopped that. I dunno. The guy we elected, Kent Winston. Yeh, you know him? Yeh, now you got it. Well, he never came out to the park too much until after he got elected. Then he’d come out often. One time, I remember seeing him running before the election and I zoomed past him, not maliciously, but he was running much slower than my pace. He said something to me as I passed, like “cross country.” He’d grown up in Noah too, and he knew why I could set such a hot pace. It was funny.
But a couple of months after the election, I’m running around the lake. I’m still not up to the dead man’s hills, but I hear a horn honking like it’s right out on the road. And guess what, there’s Winston, running the opposite way. I mean, he’s running so the hills are reversed, running downhill most of it instead of that killer uphill climb the hills represent if you’re running those three miles the regular way.
Winton’s running the wrong way, but it’s a little different. Just behind him was this big black Lincoln and inside are two cops—two plainclothes Negroes, Winston’s bodyguards. They’re all “jogging”—Winston, the two cops, and the Lincoln. I had to step off the side of the path and run in place while Winston waved and passed. I think I ran in place for a few seconds, think I just stopped. Flat out.
But I don’t think that’s why I stopped going to Wake-wake to run. Maybe, but I don’t think so. What stopped me from running there, early in the morning by myself, was when those two Muslim brothers got killed, supposedly as payback for knocking off this minister of the Muslim temple in Noah. There were always rumors about that temple. It was even said that Malcolm X’s killers had come out of there. And there had also always been rumors about the various “renegade” Muslims who sold drugs and ran the numbers, who’d turn the money in at the Noah temple.
Later, there’d been some breakaway movement. I think it was called Brothers of the New Age. Some folks said it all had to do with the pushers and gamblers not wanting to turn the money over anymore, so that a
I feel like laughing now. No, I am laughing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No, it’s nothing. I just thought of something. Not thought of something. The park, the running. We’ve gotten so far away from that, it seems. Wake-wake Park. Gee, I think of old Henry Deel, who just died. He was almost the mayor, but we thought … There was some kind of minor scandal or something. I don’t even remember. And “Sweets” Towne, that old Democratic hustler, was always in it. He even threatened me specifically one night for talking bad about Johnnie Walker Black and trying to rip off his own meal ticket. But he was alright too, actually. Boy, did we talk bad to and about white folks in those days. I saw this one dopey woman recently that we put out of the theatre. She was trying to pass then as a Russian Indian. A sister told her she had to leave the Russian outside. I saw her, that same woman, walking down the street with a guy who actually looked like a Russian Indian, just a couple of days ago.
The park? The running, really. I miss that. Doesn’t time fly? No, I don’t run too much—I switched from Wake-wake awhile ago. Started running from my house, about four long blocks, to get the newspapers, then I even stopped that. I dunno. The guy we elected, Kent Winston. Yeh, you know him? Yeh, now you got it. Well, he never came out to the park too much until after he got elected. Then he’d come out often. One time, I remember seeing him running before the election and I zoomed past him, not maliciously, but he was running much slower than my pace. He said something to me as I passed, like “cross country.” He’d grown up in Noah too, and he knew why I could set such a hot pace. It was funny.
But a couple of months after the election, I’m running around the lake. I’m still not up to the dead man’s hills, but I hear a horn honking like it’s right out on the road. And guess what, there’s Winston, running the opposite way. I mean, he’s running so the hills are reversed, running downhill most of it instead of that killer uphill climb the hills represent if you’re running those three miles the regular way.
Winton’s running the wrong way, but it’s a little different. Just behind him was this big black Lincoln and inside are two cops—two plainclothes Negroes, Winston’s bodyguards. They’re all “jogging”—Winston, the two cops, and the Lincoln. I had to step off the side of the path and run in place while Winston waved and passed. I think I ran in place for a few seconds, think I just stopped. Flat out.
But I don’t think that’s why I stopped going to Wake-wake to run. Maybe, but I don’t think so. What stopped me from running there, early in the morning by myself, was when those two Muslim brothers got killed, supposedly as payback for knocking off this minister of the Muslim temple in Noah. There were always rumors about that temple. It was even said that Malcolm X’s killers had come out of there. And there had also always been rumors about the various “renegade” Muslims who sold drugs and ran the numbers, who’d turn the money in at the Noah temple.
Later, there’d been some breakaway movement. I think it was called Brothers of the New Age. Some folks said it all had to do with the pushers and gamblers not wanting to turn the money over anymore, so that a
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