Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down by Ishmael Reed Page B

for?
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    You know why bitch. When she georgiaed me, you had to follow. She made a fool of me and now you and that other one with the fur trapper who’s always handing me subpoenas. All of you made fools of me. I walked the streets and ate ugly soup. Only wallpaper of zigzag designs kept me company. And you wanted to go and party time. Even when she left I thought you might still be loyal—but when I called you that night for a sandwich you hung up the phone and I could hear you in the background, the glasses clinking, the laughter, and to add to the insult it was Christmas Eve.
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    He removed a long brand from the black bag he carried. He went to the fireplace and returned to where she lay on the floor, trembling and naked. Her feet were about ten inches apart and a forest lay between her thighs.
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    O Loop my mitt man. How I missed your good good loving. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as the poker pressed against her abdomen. Saliva formed around her lips, her tongue shot out over her lower lip and she yelled, no longer able to contain the pain and beauty of being branded with a Hell’s bat.
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    LOOP GAROO GAROO! LOOP GAROO GAROO! LOOP GAROO GAROO!
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    What’s going on upstairs Drag? the Doc asked.
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    The way things are going on around here it must be the barnyard crawling into the house, Drag answered.
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    At the wedding the next night Drag interrupted the festivities to make an announcement:
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    The likker was fine, folks, the fiddler really cooking and you’ve met my wife who I think is going to turn out fine, the last one being so cold she give one frostbite of the penis haw haw.
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    Skinny McCullough the foreman, red-eyed with tears chortled—too much boss, frostbite of the penis that’s really rich.
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    Someone requested that Chief Showcase read some of his militant poetry. Everyone applauded as the savage made his way to the front of the dining hall.
    The Wolf-tickets of Chief Showcase
    eat out of me backwards paleface!
    like, your mind is a prairie dog’s hole ;
    your soul the wild cat’s squall. like ,
    may you fill the yawn of boothill’s sigh ,
    and coyotes trample the fence of your grave .
    may goats dine on the black grass of your
    plot and the evil one skin your genocidal
    hides and sell it as old clothes to serpents
    of the sea .
    my people gave you roots and berries ,
    showed your trains the perilous cliffs ;
    taught you how to rope a steer and bled
    themselves to salute you. monsters that
    you were you knifed them in the back ,
    sent their children off to die;
    made their squaws chew your boots ,
    paved over the forests with cold concrete .
    eat out of me backwards paleface ,
    like, your mind is a prairie dog’s hole ;
    your soul the wild cat’s squall .
    Hear that injun! Did you hear that injun! What bitter and tortured Americana. Hey Injun come over here and look up my dress, said one of the hurdy gurdy girls from the Rabid Black Cougar.
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    The injun was tipping over to this tall broad amid healthy applause when all at once a Japanese semanticist came out of the curtains.
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    I enjoyed your poems dear child of nature, but I must say your people have a tendency to overuse the word ‘like.’
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    The injun was about to bring his imported tomahawk down upon the little man when a crash was heard at the garden door.
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    O I thought spade poets had gone up in tinder, said the town Preacher Rev. Boyd with his sideburns electrified. But before he got out of the house altogether he turned around. But I guess it’s the puff of smoke that bewitches.
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    Because standing in the doorway in full regalia was none other than the LOOP GAROO KID.
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    Drag Gibson, wicked whiskey drinker, your Hoo-Doo Death will be a collector’s item, your head will lie in excrement, the flies will feast upon it and their wings will drop off. The maggots will eat and turn blue. Only your own kind will savor you and even