Read Online The Last Days of Louisiana Red by Ishmael Reed - Free Book Online Page A

Ramparts and The Rolling Stone . Max stared at them contemptuously for a moment, then slammed them down.
    â€œWOULD YOU BROTHERS AND SISTERS LIKE TO HEAR SOME LEON BIBBS?” Rev. Rookie asked.
    Big Sally made a sound like spitsch , lifted her head and stared evilly, stopping her knitting, staring disgustedly at Rev. Rookie for a long time.
    â€œI don’t feel like hearing no music now,” she said.
    The door opened and in walked Cinnamon Easterhood, hi-yellow editor of the Moocher Monthly . He walked in all tense and hi-strung in a nehru suit, clutching a wooden handbag which the men were wearing or carrying these days. He looked so nervous and slight that if you said boo, he’d blow away. Accompanying him was Rusty, his dust-bowl woman of euro descent, wearing old raggedy dirty blue jeans, no bra and no shoes. She immediately got all up in Sally’s face.
    Big Sally showed the whites of her eyes for a real long time. “Uhmp,” she said. “Uhmp. Uhmp.”
    â€œSally, lord, you sure is a mess,” Cinnamon Easterhood’s wife said, looking like the history of stale apple pie diners, confidante to every Big-Rig on the New York State freeway.
    â€œHEY, PEOPLE. I FEEL GREAT NOW. ALL MY PEOPLE ARE HERE. WHY DON’T WE LIGHT THE FIREPLACE AND ROAST SOME MARSHMALLOWS? MY UKULELE AND PETE SEEGER RECORDS ARE OUT IN THE VW.” Ignored. And here he was the chairman of the Moochers, second only to Minnie herself.
    Cinnamon was over in the corner, congratulating Maxwell Kasavubu on his startling thesis, now being circulated in literary and political circles, that Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas wasn’t executed at all but had been smuggled out of prison at the 11th hour and would soon return. Cinnamon was doing most of the talking, saying that he thought the idea was “absolutely brilliant,” or “incredibly fantastic.”
    Max examined his watch.
    â€œWell, I guess it’s about time we began the meeting,” he said in his obnoxious know-it-all New York accent. As usual Max talked first.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about our problem and think I can put some input into the discussion. After Ed was murdered, we thought it would take people’s minds off gumbo and renew the interest in Moochism, but this hasn’t been the case. The community’s infatuation with cults and superstition should have run its course by now. But now we have this LaBas. A name that isn’t even French and so you can see how pretentious he is.”
    â€œIt’s patois.” Big Sally, expert on Black English, put in her input.
    â€œWhat say, Sally?” Max said, smiling indulgently.
    â€œI said it’s patois.”
    â€œWell, whatever, the man has presented us with some problems.”
    â€œ Spitsch! ”
    â€œDid you want to say something, Big Sally?” Max said, mistaking this sound for comment.
    â€œNothin, Max. ’Cept to say that I concur with your conclusions. Things was moving nicely till this LaBas man come in here, but it seems to me that we ought not be sitting here talking bout our problems but bout our conclusions, I mean about our solutions.”
    â€œTELL IT, SISTER. TELL IT,” Rev. Rookie hollered all loud.
    â€œOur solutions is an inescapable part of our problems, and they are one in the part the woof and warf of what we’re going to be about. Now, are we going to be about our problems or are we going to be about solutions?”
    Hi-yellow, pimply-faced and epicene, rose to speak.
    â€œBut—”
    â€œI ain’t through. Now, I ain’t through. Let me finish what I’m saying and then you can have your turn to talk, cause ain’t no use of all us talking at one time, and so you just sit there and let me finish.”
    Maxwell signaled him to sit down.
    â€œWhen it comes your time, then you can have the floor, but long as I’m having the floor I think everybody ought to treat me with the