A season of fun turned painful.
The distinguished majority leader of the nation's Senate laid in his
bed past noon. He
didn't want to get up. He knew what day it was -- that these times
maybe were like
old times but they were not quite old times. The senior senator lay
in bed waiting for
Old Redd to come to collect the prize sheets that the senator
had inherited from
his daddy. These were not regular sheets. They were peculiar ones and
had been
in the senator's family for generations. His daddy got them from his
daddy. His
great grand daddy, who fought with General Robert E. Lee, had
worn those sheets.
The Senator had planned to have fun today, to attend a gathering of
the good old
boys. He really loved those gatherings. The boys always had a
swell time. The
younger boys bonded with the older ones, and customs and
culture were passed
between the generations. The senator especially liked standing among
his peers,
kin and kindred in the darkest field the boys could find on the nights
of no moon,
lighting crosses and chanting the mantra handed down from generations
past.
The senator mumbled something that sounded much like something mumbled
off
the top of a person's head, but this came from deep down in his gut.
"Since those
people got voting rights, they've been a pain where the sun doesn't
shine."
Soon the door opened and the senator's overweight black maid, Mable,
who he
loved in the proper way a gentleman loves his servants or his old nanny,
poked her
head into his room.
"Sir, are we going to get up today? The sun's been long up and the
moon will be up
presently, I suppose before you, sir, if you don't stir."
The senator didn't mind a little sass from Mable, as long as she played
her role,
stayed in her place, knew her position, and looked the way he wanted
her to always
look. He got a kick out of having her dress in an old black mammy get-up.
He gave
special attention to the rag that she wore around her head. Every Christmas
he gave
her a new head rag to wear. The rags were always the same color, white,
a sign
that subtly said: no matter how sassy she got, she had surrendered
her will to his.
"Mable, I don't think I'm able to get up this morning."
"Are you ailing, sir?"
"I am, Mable."
Mable crossed the room, and before the senator could object, she lay
her hand on his
forehead. "You don't have a temperature. What ails you, sir?"
"I'm--" The senator mumbled something.
Mable didn't like the sound of the mumble. She pulled back his blanket
as though he
was a little boy. She wanted to feel his hands to see if they were
warm. She noticed the
blanket was wet. "Senator!" she gasped, but she didn't draw away. She
and her family
have been looking after the senator and his family for generations.
She even once took
care of one of the senator's old relatives, an uncle or something,
well into his nineties,
who had to be put into diapers. She wasn't sure what to make of the
wet blanket. She
couldn't believe the senator had an accident in bed. "Sir," she asked
softly, "what's the
matter?"
"I wasn't crying," the senator said sharply.
"No, sir."
"Mable, hear me, girl. Don't you dare tell anybody, I was crying."
"No, sir."
"Though you've been with my family a long time, even served my dear
mama, I'll turn
you out on to the street, into the cold, and you will be like an old
colored woman who is
all crippled and bent over that she can no longer sweep with a broom."
"Sir, I don't talk about this family's business. Yawl my family, and
I would never speak
anything anybody could use against you."
"Good!" the senator snapped, and picked himself up from the bed and
carried himself
into his bathroom, to wash and dress.
A half hour later, the senator was down stairs looking for his
breakfast, though it was
well past noon. He was spruced up, looking very senatorial and strong.
"Sir, I see, you're yourself again," Mable commented, with a grin.
The senator smiled, "I guess the old crow had his claw in me."
"Well, you're yourself again, sir."
The senator seemed to have gotten over his glum. He resigned himself
to what he
had to do. He thought that he might as well put on a strong face. He
was doing fine
until he got to his office and found waiting for him a honorable and
distinguished member
of the House Judiciary committee. As soon as the senator closed his
office door, the
honorable congressman asked, "So how did you sleep buddy?"
The senator didn't answer. The distinguished congressman wasn't bothered
by the senator's
silence. His friends have been that way lately, as sad as old hound
dogs who have lost
their mamas and daddies, and their will to hunt. Since no-good--lousy-out-right-
unAmerican-wacko-liberal media punks, orchestrated by the White House,
broke the story
of the good old boys membership in THE committee [the Konservative
Kitizens Kouncil],
there have been little joy in certain halls of the capitol town. The
congressman said, "I
know how much you are hurting."
The senator mumbled, "I'm not feeling too bad." Well, a senator, especially
the majority
leader, has to always appear strong.
"Well good, " the congressman smiled. "We're not going to give up our
fun, just our
sheets today".
"The sheets our daddies gave us," the senator cleared his throat.
"Do you feel like kicking a liberal teeth in? I do." The congressman grurred.
"Did Redd collect yours?"
"Senator, he's going to keep them for us until this mess blows over."
"He hasn't been by yet."
"They haven't whipped us. It will be business as usual. All we have
to do is to have
another name change. Changing the names of our groups is the new norm."
"A name change? Is that all?"
"Sure, senator. I mean, we can call ourselves the Kool Knights of Kangaroo.
As
Shakespeare said, a rose by any name smells as sweet."
"Sure," the senator nodded, "just a name change." Then he paused. "But
why
must we get rid of our daddies' sheets?"
"Old Redd will keep them in storage for us, that is all."
"Storage? For future use, later?" the senator sounded a little relieved.
The two of them got to talking about how bad things won't necessarily
be, about how
they could cope with their daddies sheets in storage, and about what
they would do that
day to show that nothing would change, that they talked right on through
the afternoon
into the night. They would have kept on talking, nonstop, if Redd hadn't
come. Old Redd
let himself into the office. The senator's staff had long gone home.
The minute they saw
him, the distinguished majority leader and the honorable member of
the House Judiciary
committee stood up respectfully.
"Boys, boys, my boys," Redd greeted them warmly. He wanted to kiss them
both on the
lips, the way an affectionate father kisses his very young boys.
"Sir," the Senator said. "I left my sheets at home."
"I dropped by your house on my way here, bundled your daddy's sheets
myself and I
have them in my truck parked across the street."
"Thank you, sir," the senator replied, boyishly.
"We're going to get new uniforms after a while; something American,
red, white and
blue, and nice to wear," said Redd.
The senator tried not to show it, but he wasn't happy about wearing
anything but
his daddy's sheets to the meetings, and he didn't want to think of
shopping for
something new, especially for something his daddy didn't wear. Redd's
face turned
red very quickly. He was always saying that he could read his boys
like the Chinese
can read tea leaves. He didn't like what he was reading in the senator's
head and
his red eyes rained down the brown stuff. He made the senator squirm,
made him
turn away and try to avoid looking back at him, in the eye, made him
feel completely
naked, like a kid stripped for a whipping, made him feel like he was
being dressed
down in a cold room with no one but his leader, Old Redd.
The congressman flinched and cleared his throat. He took the senator
aside. "Have
you sat down on your head?" he whispered. "The boys will drop you without
a word
of warning. Redd won't have to say a word, just give the signal. Now
raise that chin
high in the sky and don't stray from the boys."
The senator stopped resisting, nodded, "yes".
"Yeah," Redd grinned. "Boys, this idea I have for us is the best thing
I thought of since
I got the boys to bankroll gangsta rap."
The congressman grinned, "That was brilliant, Redd, just brilliant,
as you are always
brilliant."
"Yeah," Redd grinned wider. "Better than crack cocaine."
"But that --" the senator whined.
"Shut up!" the honorable congressman cut the senator short.
"Boys," Redd shook his head, gently. He smiled towards the senator.
"I have nothing
against a little compassionate conservatism, but remember: the more
of them we
arrest, the more of them we kill, the less there are of them to vote
against us."
"Sir, we can turn some of them -- a few"
"How?"
"Well, that colored boy from Okie land, what's his name? And the other
one,
the darkie on the high court supremo? You know who I mean. Er --"
"Don't fool yourself. We won't get enough to make a difference." Redd said.
"We don't want them!" the congressman shouted. "Why share power with
the coloreds!"
Redd smiled, "Now, son."
Sir," the senator wanted to make a point.
Redd stopped him and lectured. "What's wrong with America is that we've
got too
many people who think they are Americans. Well, Negroes, well negroes
are okay
as long as they know their place. Jews, they have to go! Asians --you
would think we
lost a war! Russians-- Russian gangs are threatening us! Next they
are going to try to
have a Russian President!"
"We have a communist one, " the congressman said. "A real socialist."
"Sure," Redd nodded. "Well not only is the problem, the Asians, Jews
and Negroes
who don't know how to behave, but we must be strong against the papist
Catholics, not
the American patriotic ones. Did you know the Pope is trying to tell
us to quit executing
murderers? The Pope thinks he can tell us what to do! Some body ought
to go over
there and kick his foreign, polish butt!"
A few days later, the distinguished majority leader stood in the press
gallery of the
largest room in the capitol building on the senate side and in an even-tempered,
senatorial voice replied to questions shouted at him by rambunctious
members of
the press, pests in the employ of the other party, rating seekers,
raking and ranting
too for the sake Niesen numbers, and dogs, barking to hear themselves
bark. They
wanted him to explain his attendance at the gatherings of the
good old boys of the
kool knights. The senator was careful. The questions and demeanor of
press stun
him, but he showed them. He pretended well that he didn't feel a thing,
not even
annoyance. He wanted to wrestle the whole room of them, to kick
each and every
one of them in the a--!
"I am in the mainstream. We are a club like, ...like the Elks. We like
to dress up in
funny clothes and shout our mantra. In no way are we a hate group.
I represent
everyone in my state and, as a national senator and the majority leader,
I serve the
nation."
The next night, the senator entered a darken hall where ten thousand
men like
himself had gathered for a good old boys meeting. The boys now met
in-doors, away
from prying eyes, news cameras and long-range photographic lens.
The good old boys
even hired a security firm that posted Negro guards on the parameter
of the meeting
hall building.
The meeting had already started, the good old boys were chanting the
mantra. The
senator was delayed by a briefing of the national security council
on the possible chance
of a foreign flare-up turning into a shooting war that could involve
the sending of sons
and daughters of the country into harms' way. He put all that aside
and immediately
joined in the chant --
"HATE! HATE! HATE!"
back
to the trash pile
