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Excerpts from Juneteenth
John Callahan, Morgan S. Odell Professor of the Humanities, read the concluding pages of Juneteenth at Aug. 25 Opening Convocation
From: Ellison, Ralph. Juneteenth. Ed. John B. Callahan. New York: Random House, 1999.
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"The Senator started up, trying to answer, but now there came a jetlike blast, nad seeing the machine leaping into furious motion he rolled, turning completely over as he tried to escape its path&emdash;But instead of crushing him, the machine was braking and surging backwards with a blast of red and white light erupting from its rear. And then thundering with a rapid shifting and reshifting of gears it left the street once more and hung above him like a hovercraft, the black passengers above him looking down upon him with grim satisfaction, awaiting his next move. . . . "'Hey Mister Motharider,' the voice called down to him, 'how's this for a goongauge?' "'Hey, Shep,' the man in the middle said, 'don't ask he not'ing! Let's show Charley how de car can curb. I don't tink he believes you cawn drive dis bloody t'ing.' "'No, I don't believe he does,' the driver said. 'Okay Charley boy, watch me snatch the butter from the duck.' "Staring into the grinning faces, the Senator scrambled to his knees, thinking, Who are they? as the machine shot away and shattered the quiet of the street with the flatulent blasts from its dual exhaust. He watched it lunging up the boulevard at a forward slant, seeming to flatten out and become more unreal the farther it receded into the distance. Techniques of intimidation, that's what they're using, the Senator thought. They were waiting for me; they were watching the building for the moment I started across the street so they could intimidate me. So they'll be back and I'd better leave. . . . "And even as he watched the car floating away he was aware that somehow it was beginning to flow backwards upon its own movement, dividing itself and becoming simultaneously both there in the distance and here before him, where now it throbbed and puttered, a miragelike image of black metal agleam with chrome, and there up the boulevard, where it was resonating street and buildings with the thunder of its power. And it came to the senator that he was watching no ordinary automobile. This was no Cadillac, no Lincoln, Oldsmobile or Buick&emdash;nor any other known make of machine; it was an arbitrary assemblage of chassis, wheels, engine, hood, horns, none of which had ever been part of a single car! It was a junkyard sculpture mechanized! An improvisation, a bastard creation of black bastards&emdash;and yet, it was no ordinary hot rod. It was an improvisation of vast arrogance and subversive and malicious defiance which they had designed to outrage and destroy everything in its path, a rolling time bomb launched in the streets. . . . "And now the image of the machine gleamed and quivered and throbbed before him, glowing with flames of luminous red that had been painted along the sides of the threatening, shark-finned fenders which guarded its licenseless rear. Two slender radio antennae affixed to either side of the trunk lazily whipped the air, one flying an enormous and luxuriantly rippling coon's tail and the other displaying in miniature the stars and bars of the Confederacy while across the broad expanse of its trunk he saw the enormous image of an open switchblade knife bearing the words: WE HAVE SECEDED FROM THE MOTHER! "They have constructed it themselves, the Senator's mind went on, brought the parts together and gathered in conspiratorial secret like a group of guerrillas assembling the smuggled parts of a machine gun!&emdash;And they've made the damn thing run! No single major part goes normally with the rest, yet even in their violation of the rigidities of mechanical tolerances and in their defiance of the laws of physics, property rights, patents&emdash;everything&emdash;they've forced part after part to mesh and made it run! It's a mammy-made, junkyard construction and yet those clowns have made it work, it runs! . . . "And now the machine roared back, braking with a violent, stiffly sprung rocking of body and a skidding of tires, and again the men were looking out of the open window. "'Listen, Sunrobber,' the nearest one called, 'what the hell was that you just said about our little heap?' "'Hell, mahn,' the middle man said, 'don't ask he no'ting! I done tole you the bahstard has low-rated our little load! The mahn done low-rated our pride and joy, so don't ask the bahstard not'ing, just show he whadt de joecah kin do! "'And remembah us mah-toe, mahn: Down Wid de Coon Cawdge, "'Then, mahn, I say, KICK HIM ASS!' "'Yeah, man, but not so fas',' one of the others said. 'Not before we give his butt a little ride . . .' "A blast of heat struck him then, followed by the opening of the door. And as a dark hand reached down, he seemed to hear the sound of Hickman's consoling voice, calling from somewhere above. |