Never Mind the Pollacks Page 11

  “Die, whitey!” he heard.

  A baton thudded the backs of his knees.

  “Get outta here!” said a cop.

  Two bricks flew out of a fourth-story apartment. The cops raised their Plexiglas. The rocks bounced away harmlessly, smacked Pollack in the chest.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “Goddamn sniper,” said the cop.

  He cocked a rifle, aiming toward the window, and fired. Pollack saw a young black man clutch his chest, teeter, tip out the window, and fall, his body splattering the concrete on contact, an unholy tableau of death. A car exploded. The cops launched a tear-gas canister. A gang of four young black men busted a department-store window with baseball bats. A great dome of unwanted smoke engulfed them all.

  “Jesus Christ,” Pollack said.

  Through the streets of a Detroit he didn’t know, Pollack ran, past marching lockstep phalanxes of armored law, black knife-wielding rebels and cowering mothers. He was maddened by fear and hunger, making mental notes the whole time, thinking that this would make a great feature, or scene in a novel.

  The police advanced in great crawling columns. Three blocks away, toward them, moved black Detroit, slightly less organized but no less in number. Clubs versus bullets, but no one would win. Pollack felt a twinge in his knee. He collapsed in the middle of the street and couldn’t stand. Bullets popped and whizzed. He was going to die.

  Rough-hewn middle-aged hands hooked his armpits and lifted him.

  “Git up, you idiot,” said a voice.

  Pollack couldn’t make out the man’s face in the smoke, but his arms were strong. He lifted Pollack up, flung him over his back, and carried him down a side street while the city raged.

  “Dang, boy, you got to take care of yourself,” said the man.

  Pollack next remembered sitting on an enclosed porch in a two-story graystone. The radio and TV spewed reports of property damage, death, and injury. Behind him, in a shadowy doorway, the man held a glass of whiskey.

  “You need this,” he said.

  He came into the light.

  “Clambone,” Pollack said.

  “I got me a job at the Ford Motor River Rouge plant,” Clambone said. “On the assembly line.”

  “But you’re a musician!”

  Clambone laughed. “Boy, you should know better. Ain’t no way for a black man to make a living as a musician in this country! We’ve got to work.”

  Clambone sat in a porch chair next to Pollack. He shouted into the house.

  “Lois!” he said. “We got company! Bring us some hot dogs!”

  A long-suffering woman appeared.

  “We’re outta hot dogs, Willie,” she said.

  “Damn it, woman. Then go to the store and get me some!”

  “Radio says they burned down the store.”

  “Shit,” said Clambone. “Just bring us some whiskey then.”

  Pollack pressed a damp cloth, dabbed the dirt and clotted blood off his forehead.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s happened to America?”

  Down the street, a group of teenagers ran in terror. An armored tank followed, firing volleys, making deep pits in the street.

  “City’s never gonna fix those potholes now,” said Clambone.

  “Let me ask you a question,” Pollack said. “Where’ve you been all these years?”

  “Philly,” said Clambone. “Philadelphia, PA.”

  “Ew,” Pollack said. “Why’d you live there?”

  “That’s what all the white people say. But they don’t understand that Philly has the vibe.

  “I moved to Philly in 1963. The South had banned me pretty much; they wanted me in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, I had illegitimate children in Kentucky and Arkansas, and a trail of bad debts down Atlanta way. My cousin opened up a barbershop on Girard Avenue, so I had me a job, an apartment up in Germantown, and a woman within a week. And I cut hair but good.”

  “Wait a second,” Pollack said. “You were a barber?”

  “Well, sorta,” said Clambone. “We didn’t really have too many customers, since my cousin made the mistake of opening up next to another barbershop that’d been there for thirty-five years. We had to spend the time somehow, so we started singing, me, my cousin Terry and these other barbers. I brought in my neighbor, this tall skinny guy named John Holland, he was a garbageman who believed in Jesus. A lotta harmony come out of that barbershop at night, I’m telling you. We called ourselves the Soul Cutters, but John objected because that wasn’t very Christian, so we changed it to the Soul Barbers.”

  “I thought you were a bluesman!”

  “Boy, it’s all black music from the mouth of the Nile. Now listen up. We got our first paid gig at this big old crate of a boxing gym called the Blue Horizon up on Broad Street, which has been there, I think, since the 1920s, maybe before. It’s got all these rows of wooden chairs hanging down over the ring. Retired fighters sit up in the balcony keeping score every night. You’re always afraid they’re gonna drop their cigar ash on your head. They serve beer for a quarter out of big kegs, white man beer, from the Schmidt’s Brewery on Girard, and it tastes sweet during the undercard. You got the finest-looking women in their furs and they’re with men who are fat as moose, with sweat soaking their shirt collars. Quite a scene.

  “The ring girls in their slinky dresses were circling, and the ring announcer says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, to honor America with our national anthem, please welcome the Soul Barbers of Germantown.’ And the crowd went crazy for us, because we’d filled the cheap seats up with all our friends. When we’d finished that ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ we sang a beautiful song that I had written for just this occasion. It went like this…”

  Clambone rose from his porch seat. Pollack imagined the lights low in Blue Horizon with a sweet coating of soul in the air as the Clam and his Soul Barbers in their gilded shirts made the blues into something deeper. Clambone sang:

  She’s my sweeeeeeet love

  She sings a lovely song

  She’s my sweeeet love

  She sings a lovely song.

  I come home from the factory

  And the rain falls all night long.

  I’m a poor man

  And I work hard all day long

  I’m a poor man

  And I work hard all day long.

  My sweet wife takes my loneliness

  And nothing can go wrong.

  I was a haaaaard man

  And I sang a sad, sad song

  I was a haaaard man

  And I sang a sad, sad song

  Until my wife done saved my life

  I was crying all night long.

  Men

  Let me tell you something.

  If you’ve got yourself a woman

  And you love her.

  Don’t let nothing lead you astray.

  You have to take that woman in your arms

  Every night

  And squeeze her tight

  And tell her,

  Baby, I love you more than anyone alive

  Because it’s a cruel world out there,

  And a woman is the only thing

  That can set the bad things right.

  So if you see yourself a sexy lady on the street

  Or you feel yourself straying after that

  Last whiskey you shouldn’t have had

  Just remember what you’ve got back home

  And never, ever do something bad.

  Because you know her

  And you love her

  She will never leave you

  She believes in you

  And you work hard

  And you love hard

  And you live with your woman until you die

  Because when they lay you in the ground

  What do you want them to say?

  He was a good man

  And he loved his woman

  And she will cry real tears.

  She’s my sweeeeeeet love

&
nbsp; She sings a lovely song

  She’s my sweeeet love

  She sings a lovely song.

  I come home from the factory

  And the rain falls all night long.

  Clambone eased himself back into his porch seat. Pollack wept.

  “That’s the most beautiful song I ever heard,” he said.

  “Why, thank you,” said Clambone. “But it’s not the end of the story. We finished the song, and the whole place was bawling. The ring announcer came up and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there will not be any fights tonight. All our boxers have gone home to their women, because they know that real lovin’ is good lovin’. We will refund your money. Now go home and love each other.’

  “A bottle of Wild Turkey flew out of the crowd and hit the announcer in the head. Someone shouted, ‘Shaddup! I wanna see da fights!’ This was Philly, after all.

  “So after the main event, the place was clearing out, and a man came up to me and said he was from Detroit and he wanted to fly us out and record that song for Revilot Records, which was his label. Well, we weren’t doing anything much at the barbershop, so we said yes, and that’s how we came to record our hit ‘Sweet Love (Love Your Woman).’ But as soon as the profits started coming in, the label renegotiated our contract without asking us, and we didn’t get a dime.”

  “Same old story,” Pollack said, “wherever you go.”

  Lois came on the porch and sat on Clambone’s lap. She was a good woman. The helicopters flew overhead, searchlights strafing the projects for survivors. The sounds of gunfire and breaking glass continued to echo into the night.

  “So me and Lois were in Detroit without any money and any prospects. I’d been working at a barbershop for years, but didn’t have the money to start my own shop. Thank god for the auto industry, which will always provide me with a stable income. I got that job at the Ford plant and started playing nights on Hastings Street for a little extra money. Looked like I was gonna be a part-time bluesman until the day the good Lord called me home.”

  “So that’s it?” Pollack said.

  Clambone broke out into a long, loud laugh, which grew louder and longer as it stretched out into the night.

  “Lois, he wants to know if that’s it,” Clambone said. “Hell no, that ain’t it. Tell this boy what happened as soon as we moved into this house.”

  “We saw the spaceship,” Lois said.

  Willie and Lois Jefferson were sitting on their front porch at 3727 Cass Avenue in Detroit one night in September 1966. They’d just watched the premiere of Julia on ABC, and were feeling flush with race pride. “At long last, one of our own is being accurately represented on network television,” Lois said. “This should go a long way toward removing black stereotypes from popular culture.”

  The sky above them flooded with great beams of colored light. The air shimmered with a sonic roar. The porch door flew open. A shiny disc topped with spikes descended.

  “Sweet Jesus!” said Clambone.

  The ship touched down. No one else on the block came out to look. Clambone knew, somehow, that this ship was meant for him, and him alone.

  A ramp opened. In a wash of white light, a man emerged. He was eight feet tall, his skin deep brown. He wore a red spangled top hat, and a spangled tuxedo in an American flag pattern. Behind him, a music played unlike any Clambone had ever heard, a great cacophony of instruments, horns, guitars, percussion, electric sounds from another galaxy. Somehow all the instruments stayed on the same beat. Clambone felt himself compelled to rise and move to the one.

  “Damn!” he said.

  Behind the man, a backup band danced out of the spaceship. They wore the coolest costumes imaginable, an array of spangles, rags, and wide-bottomed pants, long rubber noses and feathered hats. They played their instruments in time.

  “Willie Clambone Jefferson?” said the ambassador from space.

  “That’s me.”

  “Well, glory be! And this is your lovely wife?”

  “Oh, yes!” Lois said.

  “Please permit me to introduce myself,” the man said. “I am P. Amazing Frankenbooty, the Cosmic Ambassador of Style. I have flown all this way from the far reaches of the Groove Galaxy to trace the nappy smell of funk to its roots here on Planet Earth.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Clambone said. “But what does that have to do with me?”

  P. Amazing Frankenbooty sang:

  Underwater Dog

  Number One in The United States

  Of Underwater America

  Making that doggy noise

  Let me drool all over your booty!

  Get my muzzle wet.

  Doggypaddle

  Doggystyle

  In my doghouse

  It’s all right.

  P. Amazing Frankenbooty here

  Cosmic Ambassador

  Of the eternal chocolate boogie

  20,000 Leagues

  Under the chocolate sea

  We are living

  In Underwater America

  California!

  Underwater!

  New York City!

  Underwater.

  Can you hear me, Ohio?

  You are swimming

  Underwater.

  Glowing nuclear fishy dogs

  Swim on by

  Your open swimming hole

  Come on.

  Wind it up.

  Let me hear you now, my cosmic knights!

  All the musicians, together, sang a very catchy chorus:

  Underwater son and daughter to the slaughter well you oughter get with me.

  Undercover be my lover I’m a rock star cosmic cock star chicken of the ea.

  P. Amazing Frankenbooty brandished his spangled cane, circled it in the air. An array of cartoon stars sprayed forth from its tip, swirled in the air into a funnel shape, and enveloped Clambone, who felt a warm tingle deep in his guts. He opened his eyes to the stars. The rhythm of the one flowed through his veins.

  There were ten-inch white platform shoes on his feet. A shaggy suit of white synthetic fur had replaced his overalls. On his head was a turban of fabulous colors, and he held a bright blue guitar.

  “Hallelujah!” he shouted. “I am Clamzilla!”

  He played.

  I Am Clamzilla!

  Not the friendly clam

  But the holy clam

  And I’m here

  To fill your days and nights

  With funky creamy delights!

  Because glory be!

  The cosmic light I see!

  I’m gonna hitcha now

  With everything I got

  Get ready,

  Git up and dance with me

  Because the party has begun.

  We’re gonna have some

  Interstellar

  Cosmic fun

  Whooooooo!

  Another wave of the wand. The stars formed into an enormous pair of cartoon lips that planted themselves on Lois Jefferson’s mouth. She found herself transformed into a beautiful star-child in an electric green one-piece pants suit, slitted at the neck into a V. Suddenly, she found herself at a keyboard, playing with both hands.

  “Hit me, boys!” she shouted.

  Well, back in 1955

  Me and my girls were barely alive

  But it’s no lie

  I do not occupy

  the back of the bus no more

  I’m a chocolate sister,

  Mister

  So bow before me

  When I get you on the dance floor!

  “Willie Clambone Jefferson,” said P. Amazing Frankebooty, “I appoint you the ambassador of my message here on Earth.”

  “I’ll do it!” said the Clam.

  “You have the power. Just shout ‘Hallelujah!’ and you’ll feel it in your bones.”

  With that, the cosmic god retreated to his ship, swallowing the light up with him. Then the craft was gone, with no sign it had ever arrived. Clambone and Lois sat on their porch again in their civilian cl
othes. They were spent.

  “It was an extraordinary dream,” Clambone told Neal Pollack almost a year later. “But it was very real.”

  For some reason, Pollack believed him.

  Down the street, a pickup truck crawled. In the back were the dirtiest greaseballs Pollack had ever seen. They were murdering their instruments in a gory symphony of screeching, idiotic noise. Ahead of the truck walked a white man, hair shaggy as jungle brush. His beard went down to his chest. Small round glasses accentuated his wily, beady eyes. The man held a joint in one hand and a megaphone in another.

  “Attention, brothers and sisters!” said John Sinclair. “These riots show that a peaceful solution to the world’s problems is not upon us! The methods of Dr. King have been rendered meaningless in the burning hellfire instigated on our city by the vile pigs of our police force! Join me now in violent revolution against the class system and those who oppress us! Join the MC5, the ultimate band, feel their Trans-Love Energies burst through the dissonant mainstream in the final overthrow of the square! Undo your shackles and commit total assault on the culture by any means necessary, including rock ’n’ roll, dope, and fucking in the streets! If you’re a woman, you don’t need to wear underwear!”

  Pollack rose.

  “I must follow this man,” he said to Clambone. “And write about him.”

  Into the street, Neal Pollack marched, joining the unholy blaze of revolt. His respite in the arms of the Clam had ended. Rock would soon become his void.

  In the summer of 1967, Neal Pollack and Wayne Kramer from the MC5 entered Cobb’s Corner, a bar on the edge of Ann Arbor where all the revolutionaries went to drink cheap. Pollack wore a T-shirt that proudly read “DETROIT: THE MURDER CITY,” and Kramer wore an ammo belt, a hunting rifle strapped across his back. The lumpen revolt could break out any minute, John Sinclair had told them, and what good would rock ’n’ roll be against the pigs? They needed guns, especially in bars.

  At a table was a longhaired sleaze in a leather jacket. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a Camaro.

  “This is my cousin Barry,” said Wayne Kramer.

  “Hi, motherfucker,” said Barry Kramer. “You’re an asshole!”

  “Barry has a magazine called Creem,” Wayne said.

  “Screw your magazine!” Pollack said. “Let’s get loaded!”