Black Chicago Page 11

  The hornshavers were an unscrupulous bunch of people who sought to distort the bull’s thrusts by shaving their horns, the effect would be the same as shortening a boxers’ left jab by two inches.

  The weird thing about the practice, which was supposed to give the bullfighter an advantage, is that it didn’t work too well. There were just as many men gored by bulls whose horns had been shaved as there were by bulls whose horns hadn’t been shaven.

  In Chicago, in the 60s, when I became an aficionado I didn’t know anything about horn shaving, Miuras, Madrid, or a thousand other bits of esoterica connected to the corrida.

  Strange, I thought, in between oles!, the paths that lead us from there to here. The path for me had its beginning in the Drake Hotel kitchen.

  I was a delivery boy-soda fountain helper who was sent to pick up supplies from the kitchen periodically. Fascinating place, the Drake Hotel kitchen. It was as large as a medium sized town and had the most interesting bunch of people I’d ever met.

  One of my favorites was a Mexican cookie baker who looked like Cantiflas, and was proud of it.

  He was one of those rare people who could tell a joke in any language and make you laugh, or simply cock his mustache in a certain way and lay you in the aisle. Hell, he could’ve been Cantiflas, for all I know.

  What made him give me the ticket? Who knows? Maybe I had stolen something from the drugstore and given it to him, I was prone to do stuff like that.

  “Hey, hombre, you ever been to dee bullfight?”

  “Naw, I ain’t never been to no bullfight.”

  I had heard about them of course, I lived on the Southside and we had heard about everything on the Southside.

  The movie ticket was for the Old World Playhouse (the art theatre on Michigan Avenue, near Roosevelt University) and it was the screening of a grainy film featuring Manolete. My friend had dropped me off on the top of the mountain.

  The grizzled old Cuban cigar smokers sitting around me who were not screaming olé each time a bullfighter changed his muleta from hand to hand reminded me of the audience I had shared my filmed intro to the bullfight.

  I was hooked from the first time. If it had been heroin I would be a dope fiend right now, thirty some years later.

  I left the theatre feeling as though I had been privileged to be a part of a great Ritual.

  Where could I find another Ritual, how could I reaffirm my—whatever had happened?

  (Bullfights, live or filmed, were in short supply in Chicago then and now.)

  Chamaco, back in Madrid, was performing a left-handed, natural dripping the muleta so skillfully in front of the bulls nose that he gave the illusion of having the bull smell the hemline of the cloth.

  The old men around me straightened up slightly, one of them blew a soft funnel of smoke in the direction of the fight.

  My introduction was not confirmed immediately, it was years later. In between times I stared at pictures of fighting bulls wherever I could find them, and read like a maniac.

  As a matter of fact, I had become a maniac. It was a wild situation. I was hooked on something that didn’t exist in the place where I lived.

  Months would pass before I’d have another “real” fix (I didn’t consider the pictures and books “real”).

  A “real” fix was “The Life of Luis Procuna,” a Mexican matador who was the bravest and most cowardly of a great heritage of brave cowards.

  I went to see “Procuna” every day for two weeks, staying for the second showing a few days.

  Chamaco profiled, sighted down the channels of the blade and took the bull onto his sword as though he were plunging into a brown mound of horned butter.

  The bull dropped as though he had been blessed with a thunderbolt. A couple of the old men nodded approval and two grunted olé.

  People in my neighborhood looked at me funny. I was the dude going around looking for a bullfight.

  “Hey, man, have you ever been to the bullfight?” I managed to get married, still looking for the bullfight. “Baby, you know what we have to do, we have to go to Spain, to see the bullfight.”

  Chamaco did a quick turn of the ring. This was the day to be as superior as you could be, but not to hog the audience, give that to the memory of Antonio Beinvenida.

  Diego Puerta followed Chamaco, looking serious as he knelt in front of the gate where the bull would charge into the ring.

  Well, as we all know, you can get what you want if you want it badly enough, ’specially in Chicago. The bullfights were being shown on Channel 34, on Wednesday night.

  I forget who told me or how I found out, but my soul had been saved. Channel 34? Who ’n the fuck has it?

  Nick had it, that’s who had it and that’s where I went to see it.

  Diego Puerta was taking the bull away from the picador after two pics. He was doing the beautiful chicuelina antigua, wrapping himself in the capote like a dressing gown.

  Nick didn’t give a shit about it and his wife didn’t pay the spectacle any mind. I wound up sharing one hour of the corrida every Wednesday night with his mother-in-law and a well bred Boxer, who knew a good thing when he saw it.

  I’m going to call her Miss Essie, the mother-in-law, and Chongo the Boxer. Miss Essie shuffled past the room where I was glued to the TV, she stood there for a spell with a soft drink full of Seagram 7 and, without a word, hunkered down on the sofa nearby.

  “Well, well, will you look at this?! A man wavin’ a red flag in front of a full grown bull. He’s gonna git his drawers in shreds if he ain’t careful.”

  We saw Diego Puerta in better form on TV than when I caught him in Madrid. Miss Essie had espanolized herself to the point of being able to pronounce Spanish names, to a point.

  “Look at that, wid a bull like that Dee-a-go Puta oughta be able to do a better fay-na than that.”

  Chongo always erected his ears at the moment of Truth, as though he were hearing sounds none of us could hear.

  It went on for weeks, months; my wife accused me of having dates with another woman on Wednesday nights after I’d talked so much about Miss Essie.

  “A lot of clever men do that, you know? They talk about the other woman in their lives as though she were legit, you know what I mean?”

  Diego Puerta performed an honest day’s labor with what turned out to be a pedestrian bull and now it was Paco Camino’s turn.

  My woman took up the challenge, she agreed to accompany me to the Wednesday night scene. Lucky sister, it was the night they showed Aruzza dismounting to do what only he could do in the arena.

  Billy never questioned where I was going on Wednesday night after she saw Aruzza (who had been semi-officially retired) perform four aruzzinas and a mesmerizing pendulo’ on a bull that was as tall as a horse.

  She didn’t want to go see this stuff every Wednesday, but she acknowledged, “that’s some deep shit.”

  Manolo Vasques, Juan “Bilbao” Montes and the weirdo who called himself “El Voluntario” tried to give each other “the bath,” but they were overshadowed by an evening with Manuel Capetillo, Luis Dominquin, Antonio Ordonez, Armillita, Alfredo Leal and the shadows of Joselito, Belmonte and El Gallo.

  I couldn’t scream “oles!” enthusiastically, not with the televised memories of those legends in the back of my skull. I swiveled my neck around to take a closer look at the old Cuban cigar smokers. They were perched on the edges of the stone seats as though they were afraid to get too comfortable. Some of them leaned on carved canes, they all had the look of the past in their eyes.

  We often had that look, I imagine, Miss Essie, Chongo and myself, after an evening of staring at the majestic movements of the greatest bullfighters ever televised.

  I Go Come …

  “You got to go away from here and come back to really understand what time can do. You prop your high school album open and stare at all these shining black, brown, beige and ivory shaded faces and re-design the scenarios that you once shared.

  The brother nam
ed King Johnson, who really looked and behaved like a King. Judy Frazier, the perfect high school girl, pep team leader, student body president, destined for the major leagues.

  Fenster MacRoy, class comedian, a delightful person with whom to open the day. Carmen Tolliver, the prettiest girl in the album (some people would vote for Margaret Appliney), snooty as hell and so full of herself you couldn’t even talk to her unless your hair was curly.

  Phillip Harrison, the “egghead.” Oleana Bradshaw, the country girl from Mississippi, who made straight A’s for her last two years in school.

  Bobby Truman, the baddest 100 yard man who ever ran it. You look at the album and try to imagine what they are like now … that’s why you have to go away and come back.

  Thats what they say a lot in Ghana—“I go come.”

  I Go Come Back

  Forrestville School had some shadows in it that night that will never be seen again and a full moon that was a waxy face. Karen lifted up her blouse and invited me to kiss her breasts.

  “Go ’head, Jimmy, kiss ’em, make me feel good.” I stared at them for a long time. Karen’s breasts were so beautiful. They weren’t big like a lot of the other girls, but they were perfectly shaped pears with blueberries in the center.

  I made both of us feel good. How old were we? Fourteen-fifteen? Hormones were driving us like slave cylinders and the soft-sappy winds that fan passion in the spring, in Chicago … were everywhere.

  Karen was perfect for me that Spring-Summer. Nothing meant anything, no one else mattered but Karen. I went to sleep dreaming about her and woke up thinking about her. I still think a lot about her.

  She lived a half block from Forrestville and had strict parents, which meant that she could only steal an hour or so with me whenever.

  I had to be ready always.

  “I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow evenin’, Jimmy but if I can it’ll be at 9:15.”

  I was there at 8:15. I was so feverish about her and she was so romantic.

  “Jimmy, look up there. What do you see?”

  “I see stars, baby, but I also see a star down here.”

  She was food, music, art, strength, vision and one night in July she became satisfaction.

  We had kissed and fondled each other to the point of tactile madness over the course of May and June. It was July 9th and she had managed to steal an hour (9:30—10:30, at her “girlfriends house”) for us to share.

  “How did you know I was goin’ to be able to get away?”

  “I don’t know, I could just feel it in my bones.”

  Tropical Chicago, a breeze shifts a single leaf and dissolves. We wedged ourselves together in the doorway at the rear of the school, yards of school gravel and other couples meeting filled in the distance.

  Karen was so natural, so warm and sweet. I had the feeling that every bone in her body met mine, every push against her was met by the right counterpush.

  “Jimmy, do you want to?”

  I held her so tight I must’ve mashed the breath out of her.

  “You know I do baby.”

  “Go ’head do what you wanna do.”

  She moved a few inches away from me and pulled the front of her skirt up. She didn’t have any panties on. I tried to be as suave as possible trying to reach down inside a pair of tight blue jeans to pull out an engorged penis.

  “Karen, what happens if you get pregnant?”

  Her eyes looked like full moons and her voice was so low she sounded like a woman.

  “I don’t care, I love you, Jimmy.”

  Somebody a whole lot wiser than me will have to explain why I just didn’t plunge right in and fuck up.

  “I love you, Jimmy” may have struck a chord.

  I wedged my dick between her tight young thighs on her clitoris and masturbated us to a climax.

  “Oh, Jimmy,” she moaned when she felt me pump a summer’s worth of cum between her legs. “Oh, Jimmy.” she shivered.

  She leaned back from me on unsteady legs, holding her dress up like a Can-Can dancer. Both of us stared at our cum sliding down her thighs (a friend from later years called it “Love Snot”) in the moon light.

  “Jimmy, you didn’t put it inside of me.” She spoke as though a miracle had happened, and embraced me.

  Years later, at a conference in Oakland, California (The role of the African-American woman in Contemporary life) Karen stood in front of me and saluted.

  “Captain Karen DuMangier, at your service!”

  We smiled and laughed and hugged each other for fifteen minutes before we could talk.

  “What’s this Captain stuff?”

  “That’s my retirement rank, I’ve just spent twenty years in the military. What’ve you been up to?”

  We diced that up a few ways and took the elevator up to her room to talk.

  “Jimmy, make yourself a drink, I want to change into something more comfortable.”

  The Hyatt Regency Hotel in Oakland, California is a helluva shot from Forrestville School. I poured myself a small cognac and settled myself into the standard hotel room sofa.

  Karen Delphine DuMangier, Army Captain? I shook my head in disbelief. What the hell had happened to take her from where we had been in the Forrestville School yard to being a Captain in the Army?

  I sipped my cognac and stared out of the window. A full moon stared back at me. I smiled at the memory of the times we shared. The sister looked good.

  It was obvious that her twenty years stint in the Military had kept her in good shape. I patted my flat stomach and made a silent vow to commit myself to more health club hours.

  I subconsciously raised my glass to toast her when she made a gorgeous-naked appearance in the bathroom doorway.

  She leaned against the door frame, a Mona Lisa smile on her mouth, and folded her arms under her beautiful breasts. They weren’t pears anymore, they had become cantaloupes and I felt my mouth suddenly water.

  She held her arms out to me … “Jimmy, I think I owe you something …”

  I carefully placed my drink on the cocktail table and moved toward her, the thought of that old saying buzzing in my head … “the melon you wait the longest for is often the sweetest.”

  I go come back.

  “Romona Spelling?! Ramona Spelling?! Isn’t that Ramona Spelling?”

  “Looks like her.”

  Fred and I stared at the heavy bottomed woman with the mountainous breasts doing a down ’dirty on the dance floor with a brother who was clearly overmatched.

  She was wedged into a blood red dress and her head was obviously smoky.

  A rivulet of perspiration flowed from her face and neck, down the tightly bunched cleavage. The sister was hot. She loved to dance, you could see that from the way she used the music. And she was good. Her hips went one way, her breasts the opposite way as she flung her head back and flailed the smoky air with her arms.

  Romona Spelling. I glanced at Fred’s profile.

  “Y’all had a thang goin on fer awhile, didn’t you?” He stared at the woman doing obscene gyrations on the dance floor and took a long sip on his drink.

  “Yeahhh, we had a heavy number going on for two years, from, July 1990 to July 1992.”

  “It must’ve really been a thang for you to remember it that precisely.”

  “Yeahhh, it was,” he answered slowly. Fred wasn’t the kind of brother who ran his mouth a lot. Ramona had found a new way to clench and unclench her buttocks in time to the beat.

  A wild eyed type strolled past us mumbling to the general public … “that sister got a helluva turd cutter on ’er! A helluva turd cutter!”

  The blast of the music ended for a few counts before going on to a slower piece, a bona fide Chicago belly rubber. Ramona Spelling grabbed her partner’s arm as he tried to lead her off the floor, spun him around and plastered her thighs against his thighs.

  “C’mon, man, lets see what’s happenin’ at Reese’s.” Fred and I, friends since high school, were doing a number that br
others on the southside do quite often. You get together for an evening of evaluating the current talent.

  The Other Place had been the third stop of the night. It was 1 AM and Reese’s would probably be the last stop of the night. We were pleasantly high.

  The brother seemed a bit preoccupied as he drove thru the friday night streets.

  “Damn! Of all the people to see, why would it have to be her?”

  I was staring out of the passenger’s side at a trio of lovely Black women getting out of a Mercedes.

  “Who? Who you talking about?”

  They looked like jungle birds in their electric oranges, bright greens, slashes of red and burgundy, I could almost smell the perfumes from their gorgeous bodies as we drove past.

  “Ramona.”

  We managed to get a space in the crowded parking lot and started the slow stroll toward the club. Fred wanted to talk about Ramona, I could tell. I decided to give him the opening.

  “What happened between you two?”

  Reese’s is in a lively mood. The bartender was leading a section of the bar in a Happy Birthday song, several couples were having animated talks at both bars (Reese’s split down the middle during the summer of ’91), people were having the kind of good time that gives the atmosphere a sparkling feeling.

  Mrs Burnside was on the scene, as usual, chitchatting with friends and making certain that the festivities were kept within reasonable bounds.

  “Hi ya doin’, Anna?

  “Hi Fred, Jimmy, how’re you guys doin’?”

  We captured a couple seats and ordered Martell …

  “What happened between us?”

  We had to turn for a serious look at two wonderfully designed sisters making a slow parade to the dance area-bar in the rear. Chicago has the finest collection of African-American women in the country, and most of them know it, thats why they walk the way they do.

  “Well, first of all, I’m not goin’ to take you back into ancient history or anything but you remember Ramona from high school?”