CHAPTER NINE
Abdul Hareem Barenga, alias Tyrone Jackson, didn't give the bellboy a tip because he was a lacky of imperialism, an Uncle Tom and an Oreo. These were the real reasons.
The incidental reason why was that these white mu-fus at the registration desk downstairs had demanded the room fee in advance which had taken the last of the money from St. Louis.
«We outa juice, baby?» asked Philander Jones, looking around the Waldorf Astoria Hotel room, which he figured he could clean out and resell for at least $1,300, if he could get everything past the doorman.
«We not outa juice,» said Barenga. «We beginning to capitalize the revolution.»
«We shoulda waited for the welfare before we begun the revolution 'cause that's two hundred right there.»
«The revolution don't need no welfare. It need capitalization. And we gettin' it.»
«Two hundred is two hundred.»
«You think like a nigger, you always gonna be a nigger, nigger. We listen to you, we do this job for seven, maybe eight hundred. You think capitalization and you know what the man is doing. Gotta think like the man to beat the man.»
Philander Jones had to admit that Barenga was right again. When that Guinea mafioso had been buried in that closed coffin and the money had come out of the wreath and then that candyman Sweet Harold had told them about all that bread on an open contract, Barenga had played it real cool, man. Went right to that white guinea trucking outfit, sitting in the main office like he owned it and had put the man down and down and down.
«I don't need no white mu-fu tell me how to do a mu-fu job,» Barenga had said, sitting with his feet right up there on that guinea's desk and the guinea not saying nothing. Nothing.
«You should see her picture first. To get the right one.»
«Ah ain't here 'cause T love you, honkey. I ain't here 'cause I think you anything but a pale dead meat copy of the original man. Capital. I'm here for capital. My army needs capital. You wanna deal, honkey, you deal capital.»
«How much capital?» asked the vice president of Scatucci Trucking.
«Twenty thousand big ones.» «That would be two thousand dollars, right?»
«Yo ears fulla shit, honkey. I said big one: Twenty thousand dollars.»
«That's a lot of money,» said the vice president of the trucking firm. «You drive a hard bargain. I'll give you four hundred now and the rest when the job is done.»
«You ain't dealing with no jive-ass nigger, honkey. Now break out some of that good scotch you keep around for business deals. And keep your lips off the bottle.»
Barenga and Philander had finished the bottle of Johnny Walker Black in the truck terminal and then they went to the HiLo, where they had scotch and cola, scotch and Seven Up, scotch and Snow White, and scotch and Kool Aid, all from the top of the shelf-Black Label, Chivas Regal, Cutty Sark. The Chivas and the Snow White was the best By morning, the four-hundred dollars up front was exhausted and when they went back to the trucking terminal for more money, the honkey wasn't there, but Sweet Harold pulled up in his hog, a white Eldorado and he said their asses would be in New York City by that afternoon or their asses wouldn't be at all. He showed them the photograph of the white fox with the red hair and said she was the hit and they'd better make a good try or Sweet Harold would cut them up for good.
«We expended the capital,» Barenga tried to explain. «Man, a good hit costs money.»
«You drank it up at the HiLo,» said Sweet Harold.
«We had a taste at the HiLo,» said Barenga.'
«You were buying everyone at the HiLo and then you blew the rest on two foxes, Tyrone. You shouldn't have done that, Tyrone. That is a very nice way to get killed, do you hear me, Nigger Tyrone?»
«We can't get to New York without bread, man. Even if you gonna waste us.»
«You have damaged my reputation, Tyrone. I told the man you were good and you go drinking up your carfare like some field nigger, Tyrone. That is not nice, is it, Tyrone?»
«No. Ain't nice.»
«Is it, Philander?»
«No. Ain't nice.»
«Is it, Piggy?»
«No. Ain't nice.»
«Now it just so happens that the bread you spent was on my foxes and it just so happens that I am going to lend you some money and three tickets to New York City. Now I have been informed that your hit was seen in the Waldorf Astoria so you will check in there. If you are not checked in there before dinner today, I will hunt your ass good. Do you understand, Tyrone?»
«Digit, man.»
«All right, Barenga. Unleash your Black Army of Liberation.»
«That fox is already dead meat, brother,» said Barenga. «You gonna take us to the airport?»
«If I see you touch one of my beautiful leather seats with your scruffy ass, nigger, I will peel the skin from your head.»
It was decided as Barenga went to his sister's home to change into some good threads for New York that after the revolution they would not even try to make Sweet Harold into a new man. He would be wasted along with the honkeys.
Barenga's sister eyed him suspiciously. «I been hearing some weird things about you three. You picking up a contract nobody else gonna touch.»
Barenga told his sister that the Black Army of Liberation of Free Africa did not divulge strategy.
«Ain't nobody touching that contract,» yelled his sister. «You think if it was any good Sweet Harold wouldn't do it hisself? Do you think the guineas would give it to Sweet Harold if they thought they could deliver themselves? Do you know you getting nothing and Sweet Harold and the guineas are getting the bread? Everybody know that but you, Tyrone. Sweet Harold get five thousand dollars just for delivering your ass to the man. He gonna get a quarter of a million dollars if you make the hit, and what're you gonna get? Everyone laughing at you three.»
Abdul Hareem Barenga smacked his sister into the door. On the plane he explained to Philander and Piggy that nothing his sister said was true. It was just the black woman's fear of the black man assuming his role as king that had gotten to her. He had hit her to teach her her place.
«That's right. She gettin' uppity,» said Piggy. And Philander agreed because Barenga sure did a putdown on that guinea honkey at the truck terminal. They all laughed at that and decided that after the revolution they might let some honkeys live, like the stewardess with the nice ass.
When they got to the Waldorf and that foreign guy with the real white-yellow hair had tried to get in front of them, didn't even know how to make a line, why Barenga had put this whole jive hotel in its place. And it had worked. He got served first, while that foreign honkey just stepped back and took it, smiling.
«This the new field headquarters of the Black Army of Liberation,» announced Barenga. «We gonna plan our strategy and tactics.»
«As field marshal,» said Philander, «I suggest we provision the troops.»
«As Major general, I agree,» said Piggy.
«As your supreme commander in chief, I will follow the will of my army,» said Abdul Hareem Barenga and he phoned room service and ordered three of them big steaks and three bottles of Chivas Regal, and what did the Waldorf mean it didn't have any Snow White soda pop? Well, how about Kool-Aid? Okay, any fruit drink? Did he want filet mignon? No, he did not. He wanted steaks. Big ones. And it better be choice meat. He didn't want to feed his army gristle.
Shortly after he ordered, a knock sounded at the door.
«When the man see the Black Army, he move,» said Philander.
Barenga chuckled as Piggy opened the door. The foreign honkey with the white-yellow hair stood in the door, smiling. He wore a purple lounging jacket, soft gray slacks, and slippers.
«I hope I'm not intruding,» he said in that funny voice.