Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed Page A

it, he thought, snapping his fingers—40s would know what to do. 40s lived in a houseboat down near the river.
    When he climbed onto the old rusty houseboat, it was dark. He went to the door and knocked.
    “Who’s there?”
    40s opened the door on Quickskill. He had a shotgun aimed at him.
    “Aw, 40s, put it away. We’re not in Virginia no more.”
    40s spat. “That’s what you think. Shit. Virginia everywhere. Virginia outside. You might be Virginia.”
    All the same he put the shotgun down and took Quickskill inside. “You ought to get your own home instead of watching them for peoples. I got my home. Nothing like having your own home. Don’t have to take care nobody’s plants and they cats or forward they mail.”
    “How can a ‘fuge’ have his own home, 40s? Why, I’d be a sitting duck. Swille’s claimants and catchers could find me any time they wished.”
    “I got something for them. This rifle. You and Leechfield have nothing but dreams. Your Canada. His ‘show business.’ You writing poems. Leechfield with that Jew …”
    “Listen, I’ll have none of that.”
    “He is, though. He is a Jew. He call me a Mint, why come I can’t call him a Jew? He call me a Mint, don’t he?”
    “But—”
    “Don’t he! He call me a Mint, and a black man suppose that’s what I don’t want to call myself. Huh! Suppose I don’t.”
    “You sound like a Nativist.”
    “The Nativists got good ideas. So do the Know-Nothings. I’d join them if they let me. Matter fact, let me show you.”
    He pulled out a hand-spun crude-looking medallion. It was mixed up with symbols that couldn’t possibly go together. Strange letters. What ragged band of Bedlamites could this be? “The Order of the Star-Spangled Banner.” The “S” was backwards and the “Spangled” spelled with an extra “g.”
    “They right. Immigrants comin over here. Raggedy Micks, Dagos and things. Jews. The Pope is behind it. The Pope finance Ellis Island. That’s why it’s an island. Have you ever noticed the Catholic thing about islands? The Pope and them be in them places plottin. They gettin ready to kill Lincoln so’s they can rule America.”
    With this he pulled out some filthy saddle-stitched rag printed on paper, which looked like the kind of paper towels they have in the men’s room at the Greyhound Bus Station in Chicago. It had the same symbols he had on his old nasty medallion, which germ-infested thing he stuck back into his pocket. The Know-Nothing Intelligencer it was named.
    “Why, that’s outrageous,” Quickskill said. “What fevered brain could have thought that up?”
    “Okay, you watch it. Lincoln is courtin destiny. Look how he went into Richmond like that. Got to be a fool. Going to Richmond before Jeff Davis was fresh out of his chair. It say Lincoln sat in his chair … sat in Jefferson Davis’ chair, mind you, with a ‘serious dreamy look’ it say here. Now what kind a fool is that? He is tempting the reaper.”
    “Listen, ah, 40s, I have to go. I just wanted you to know that Swille knows where we are.”
    “You come all the way down here to tell me that? Come here.” He takes Quickskill to the window. “Look up there.” He points to the mountains above the river. “I can hide up there for twenty years and don’t have to worry. If you got caught, you wouldn’t know what to do. Spent too many years in the Castle. I seed you. Sittin at the piano, turning the pages for the white man, admiring his tune. His eyes highbrow. Yours highbrow. Look like twins. If you had to go to the woods, you wouldn’t know what to eat and how to find your way around. You’d eat some mushrooms and die or walk into a bear trap and crush your leg or the elements would get you. No, you let Swille send his dogs, both the four-legged and the two-legged ones. You the one’s going to have to hide. I’m already hidin. You don’t see me, you don’t know me. I’m hidin myself from you right now.”
    “I … I can’t