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Oh!
Oh, almost didn't make that jump.
It would've hurt something terrible
in a permanent kind of way.
God, damn it.
Messed my shine all up.
They know people trying to jump these trains.
I don't know why they just won't slow 'em down.
Hell, I'd be willing to buy a ticket
if they was free.
No.
They force a gentleman to use these Philistine tactics
and don't even make it easy for 'em to do it.
You know, I, I used to didn't have to take the rails
to get to a show before William decided to-
First off, my name Abel, Abel Green.
Damn glad to meet you.
Sorry if I scared you when I jumped on here.
And mayhaps you've heard of me or us, rather?
No?
Really?
No, no, no. I know why.
You don't recognize me without my face on.
Hey, that's me and William Benson.
All right, come on, kinfolk.
William Benson, the great colored actor, comedian, minstrel.
You heard of Burt Williams, right?
The song, "Nobody"?
Well, think Burt Williams
with a whole lot less money
and a more complex kind of funny.
Yeah, I was his partner,
and we were Captain Davenport's Minstrel Troupe,
featuring two willing and able bonafide darkies.
William came up with that, the bonafide part.
See, and that's how we competed against
the white minstrels in blackface.
That's where our pitch came from,
which was, why hire fake coons when you can hire real ones?
When these boys wipe off the black, the black still there.
Now William Benson,
he had more sense than a little bit,
and made a bundle of money making people
think he ain't had none at all.
Yes Lord, things were real sweet
when William was around.
But,
life is change.
Thing is, sometimes you make the change
and sometimes the change make you.
All the biggest changes in my life,
either William had something to do with 'em
or he was around when I made 'em.
He's the one that brought me into the show business.
Well, getting paid side of it.
See, all Negroes are actors by necessity.
The script is passed down generation to generation,
and the Negroes that know they lines
tend to live longer than the Negroes that don't.
Generally speaking as it pertain to dealing
with white folks.
Now as far as dealing with other Negroes, well,
memorization won't help.
Negroes be changing on the daily.
William, he was privy to one of my best performances,
performed in front of an all Negro audience,
outside of the liquor house
where an angry husband held a straight razor
but inches away from my adam's apple.
Now when William saw I was able to convince said individual
that the black ashy bottom he saw climbing out
of his bedroom window did not belong to one Abel Green,
rather to some other dirty,
derelict defiler of his lady love.
Well, William offered me a job on the spot.
You know, we hit the road the next day,
made money makin' folk laugh all across this nation.
NAACP didn't think we're very funny though.
A lot of Black newspapers didn't appreciate
our brand of humor either.
I got this article right here from the New Negro Gazette.
"The Negro performing in blackface,
dancing and singing like a bubbling fool in front of whites,
betrays the advancement of the entire race."
JA Sutter, publisher.
When I read that to William, he got real, real quiet,
that right before a thunderstorm type of quiet.
Then came the boom.
Why the negrocity of this Negro.
Are we not the race?
Is our skin not Black?
I'm a colored actor doing the best I can,
trying to make a living the best I can,
and for that they call me Judas.
I say with the utmost certainty
that neither you nor I have caused a single crucifixion,
Abel Green, while these Romans crucify us
on their editorial pages every chance that avails them.
Bastards.
William always used too many words
for the point he was making.
Still, he was the smartest man
I ever knew, white or colored.
All them big shows we did.
Them white folks still don't know that Captain Davenport
was really William Benson.
Yeah.
They ever found out they paid a couple of coons
that much money, some of 'em drop dead on the spot.
I'm gonna tell you how we did it.
Yo, William had this cousin from New Orleans
named Alonzo Price who could pass as white.
So he would pose as Captain Davenport
for a small cut of the money.
Get to town a week before us, book the show,
We would come and perform, ha.
I'm telling you, it was beautiful.
That boy William, he always had a plan.
You know he knew everything, read everything.
He'd get drunk, spend the night reciting Shakespeare.
Yeah, he would.
He knew the complete works except for Othello.
He refused to commit that one to memory.
He said Othello was nothing
but a minstrel show without the punchlines.
The only weakness he had was for, shall we say,
ladies of the night.
Now I know some might think I'm wrong for saying that,
but where I come from, if you gonna tell a man's business,
then you tell all of it.
It wasn't that William couldn't get a regular woman,
it's just with the money we were making
and the times being what they were, hell still are,
a man with a dollar or two didn't have to go
to a house of ill repute to find a lady friend.
I asked William why he liked prostitutes so much.
He said, because they were master actors.
He said they knew the secret to managing vacancy
and he wanted to learn it.
Now I ain't know what he meant by that at the time,
but I damn sure understood after Jefferson.
Jefferson was one of those
life-changing moments, like I mentioned earlier.
Shit, it's the reason William
ain't going on this gig with me.
It's the reason why I got less money in my pocket.
It's the reason why I wake up some nights sweating,
which turns into shaking and crying.
It's the reason why I sleep
with a bottle of whiskey on my night table
and a pistol underneath my pillow.
I wanted to drive to town.
Damn some walking.
Jefferson was about three miles or more
from this colored hotel.
And we had us this brand new Ford Packard.
Couldn't even drive it 'cause Alonzo had gotten sick,
and as William put it,
it makes no sense to step in some shit you can step around.
Two colored fellas driving that brand new Ford?
Well, so we walked.
It was hotter than fish grease that day.
You know, it wasn't even noon yet,
but the air was thick, thick enough to cut like cake,
so we cut across this field and,
we smelled the body before we saw anything.
It was a sweet stench like burnt pork.
Once we came down the last dip at the end of the field,
we saw the tree at the edge of the wood where the body hung.
I ain't want to go towards it,
but it drew Will in like he was hypnotized.
I followed behind him and,
it's hard to believe what we was looking at
was once human,
once a man.
He was burnt black as tar,
and parts of him was missing,
his lips, ears, nose,
even his private parts.
I turned my back and vomited but
Will just kept starin'.
There were beer bottles, peanut hulls,
cigarette butts everywhere.
Some of 'em even had lipstick on 'em.
And Will,
he looked down and saw this doll,
this little rag doll with hay-colored hair.
Somebody brought their little daughter
to watch that man burn,
brought her like they were taking her to the county fair
to watch the apple bobbing contest.
Anyway,
when William looked down and saw that doll,
a noise came outta him
I ain't never heard come outta any human being.
And he started cussing, throwing bottles in the trees.
I had to put my hand over his mouth,
drag his ass out of there before we ended up
swinging in the wind like the poor fella above us.
We made it to Jefferson later that night.
And you're damn right, we performed.
What was we supposed to do,
take the night off 'cause we was upset?
No, we were supposed to run and tell the sheriff.
No, buddy.
Me and William did what we were supposed to do,
and I'll tell you this,
it was by far our best performance ever.
The laughs came roaring in
from a sea of faces
that looked just like those faces
that watched that man burn.
And I smiled so hard on those faces
I thought my mouth was gonna split from the stretching.
I smiled even harder when I got paid.
And I smiled all the way till I got to the dressing room
and I shut the door behind me, wanting to cry.
Stage lights had dried out my damn eyes.
Later that night, William looked at me and said he was done.
He said I could keep going if I wanted to,
but if he kept going he may never feel clean again.
Hit me like a brick.
And like I told you before,
William the one that brought me
into this here show business.
So I asked him if he thought he was better than me,
if he thought he was a bigger man than me
because he can walk away from all of it.
The show business, the money,
the ability to not have to live like a nigga,
even if he had to play one on stage to be able to do it.
He said he wasn't better than me,
just more tired.
I called him a coward, walked out the dressing room.
I ain't seen him ever since.
Heard he ended up
with one of those ladies of the evening,
drank himself to death.
Me?
I have nightmares.
And in those calamities of the dreamscape,
it's me burnt and hanging from that rope.
Well still, the devils that done that,
they mind ain't gonna change one way or the other
about Negroes 'cause I stopped blackening up.
So I keep dancing and smiling
and they pay me for that.
You know, good money too.
You know what they don't pay me for
is what I'm thinking behind all that smiling.
That's all mine and none of they damn business,
which is good for both parties,
'cause if they really knew what I was thinking
behind all that smiling,
well let's just say I'd probably
wind up in the same predicament
as that fella near Jefferson.
So, I take my instructions from the great Negro poet,
Paul Laurence Dunbar.
And I wear the mask that grins and lies,
hides my cheeks and shades my eyes
and let them bastards dream otherwise.
You know cause reality is just this.
As William once sang so beautifully.
♪ When life is full of clouds and rain ♪
♪ And I am filled with not but pain ♪
♪ Who soothes my thumping bumping brain ♪
Nobody.
♪ When winter comes with snow and sleet ♪
♪ And me with hunger and cold feet ♪
♪ Who says, ah, here's two bits, go and eat ♪
Nobody.
♪ I ain't never got nothing from nobody no time ♪
♪ Until I get something from somebody sometime ♪
♪ I don't intend to do nothing for nobody ♪
♪ No time ♪
Boy, I miss my friend.
It's hard being nobody all by yourself.
That's probably why I talk about Will all the time.
I'm scared, I admit it.
Happen if I get tired like he did?
Happen when I feel like I can't get clean no more?
I'll probably use that 38 underneath my pillow
rather than a bottle like Will did,
'cause I ain't got nothing but this here.
This song, this dance, this jig show.
And the next one, some miles up these here tracks.
Lunceford County Dixieland Theater to be exact.
8:30 this p.m.
Either I'll see you there or I won't.
Either way, I gotta be about the business
of my preparations.
So, if y'all don't mind,
excuse me.
Church, turn to your neighbor and say, neighbor.
Neighbor.
- I know. - I know.
- Jesus. - Jesus.
- Is Black. - Is Black.
Oh, some of y'all scared to do it.
Even though it say right here in the good book,
feet the color of bronze,
hair like wool.
What white man you know got a white face and black feet?
Oh, this earthly journey ain't the end of the story.
That's why I'm focused on building my spiritual house.
See, I know when it snows,
it's white folks jumping outta heaven,
'cause they done found out God is Black.
And now they got to account
for all the trifling shit they done done.
Amen.
Your home is above the clouds, beloved.
These words of liberation drip syrupy sweet
from the lips of the enlightened one.
Reverend William Benson,
founder of the Church of Revelation,
minister to the downtrodden
and those lost in despair from a life lived
behind the walls of Babylon.
Peace be upon him.
Let us bow our heads in a brief moment of silence
as a sign of reverence for God's prophet.
When Abel Green didn't have a pot to piss in,
nor a window to throw it out.
When I was a child digging in garbage cans
and begging in the streets,
Reverend Benson gave me a home, food, clothing, shelter.
And he taught me the ways of a holy man.
He believed God had brought me to him
for the purpose of training for the ministry.
Now I began to accompany him
and his assistant minister Alonzo Price,
on the visits to the sick and shut in.
I was 17 and living in Prospect
when I performed my first miracle.
Her name was Mary Bingham.
She was a school teacher,
and she reminded me of a photo I had of my mother
who died of tuberculosis when I was just seven years old.
Pneumonia had wrapped Ms. Bingham in its death grip,
and the doctor said she would not survive the night.
And while Reverend Benson and Alonzo consoled the family,
I knelt down on the floor by the bed,
placed my hand on Mary's brow,
bowed my head, and I began to pray.
I prayed all that evening into the next morning.
I didn't sleep, I didn't eat.
It was the end of the second day when I knew.
I stood up,
and Miss Bingham opened her eyes, healed.
In a mere few days she was back in the classroom.
And after her healing,
I became the miracle worker of Prospect.
A massive heart attack took Reverend Benson
away from this world not too long after that.
His last act was to name me Pastor,
and Alonzo Price was to support me in that capacity
as assistant,
Assistant Minister of the Church of Revelation.
Can you see the people?
Imagine the multitudes in your mind.
You know Black folk who heard the tale of the miracle
of Mary and her boy healer came from miles and miles around.
Our numbers grew to the point to where
we had to hold services in fields and parks.
I began to spend long weeks fasting,
hours a day in prayer and meditation.
I stopped combing my hair and cutting my nails.
And I began referring to myself as The Instrument,
The Instrument of God.
When I hadn't come outta my room for several days
and members began to whisper about my sanity,
Mrs. Benson had Alonzo break down the door.
And when she saw me, she broke down crying.
Sister, God has called me to build a Zion
for colored people on Earth,
to be the shepherd of his flock
until our Jesus returns.
I am the instrument of God,
and let all bear witness to my power.
Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Mrs. Benson was speechless for a long time.
Before she left, she walked over and said,
"This is not what my William intended.
Satan done stole your mind boy.
And I can't have no more to do with you."
It was after Mrs. Benson left,
that Alonzo Price shared with me what God revealed to him.
God has also told me that you are to be his instrument.
And I, your first bishop,
Chairman of the church's Holy Council.
You know, he has told me that you are to heal
10 sick people at our next service.
He has provided me proclamations
and instructions as to how our church
is to operate from this moment onward.
You are to take a trip with me
dear brother, tonight.
We drove for a long time down a dark country road.
It was late when we got to where we were going.
And I remember this dog tied to a tree in the yard,
his blood-red eyes looking right through me.
Didn't bark, just growled and stared,
drool dripping from the sides of his mouth.
When we went into the house,
I could smell burning curling irons and hair grease
as soon as we entered.
And in the kitchen was a small woman
with unusually big hands holding a straightening comb.
Her name was Esther.
And when she was done,
my tangled jungle was straighter than a horse's mane.
Rather than cut my fingernails, she painted them gold,
each one representing one of the Lord's Ten Commandments.
And she handed me a mirror and
I saw my transformation, I wept.
Esther began to rub my back,
kissed my tears, massaged me in delicate places
with those powerful hands and
in a moment of weakness, I did sin.
When Alonzo found out he had Esther
excommunicated from the church.
Now I hold in my hands the way of heavenly glory,
which also contains the three points of light.
The truth God whispered into Alonzo's ear.
Point one, no woman shall lie with the Instrument of God.
Point two, no man or woman shall speak
to the Instrument of God
if Bishop Alonzo Price is not present.
Point three, no one shall keep the confidence of anyone
who questions of blasphemes against the Instrument of God,
Bishop Alonzo, or the Instrument's Holy Council.
The holy council were a group of men
God pointed out to Alonzo.
The men God gave the strength to bear the physical burden
of upholding the law amongst the people
and delivering the punishment to the law breakers.
As Aaron spoke for Moses, Alonzo said,
"God tasked him to speak for me."
He delivered the sermons from then on out and
the sick and afflicted came to me to be healed,
and the holy council would line them up
and I would step down from the dais as the sweet cherubs,
small children of the church,
dressed in their white suits and dresses,
angel wings pinned to their backs,
gather my robes so I wouldn't trip.
I would close my eyes and lay my hand upon the heads,
and empty my mind of all thoughts
so that I could feel God's energy flow through me.
Mm.
Feel his healing power stretch forth
through the palm of my hand into their afflicted bodies.
They fell out as I touched them,
each one,
and opened they eyes a few seconds later, fully healed.
Our movement grew,
and so did our wealth.
But the Bible teaches us that it's easier for a camel
to get through the eye of a needle
than a rich man to get into heaven,
but a instrument of God is beyond man, amen?
Amen.
As Alonzo explained,
colored people ain't gonna follow nobody poorer than them.
This was a time of high living,
of gold Cadillacs and white rose petals
sprinkled before my feet, wherever I walked.
This is before everything fell apart,
before our summer revival near the town of Jefferson.
Alonzo had delivered the word, offering had been collected.
Cherubs gather my robes.
I stepped down from the dais to unleash God's healing power,
when I looked into the eyes of Deborah Lee,
that's what she told me her name was
when God had used me to cure her
of lameness in Lunceord County, just two weeks before.
Now, she stood in front of me as a deaf mute.
Alonzo noticed the bamboozled look on my face.
The council swooped in like desperate wolves,
seized Deborah, roughly escorted her away.
Alonzo dispersed the gathering
and I was quickly driven home.
Why would this woman fake her affliction?
Now why would God not smite her for mocking his instrument?
That night I couldn't sleep.
Came down to get a glass of water.
That's when I heard 'em.
"You ignorant fool.
How the hell did you pick the same woman twice?"
Damn, boy.
The words hit me like a runaway train.
Everything I was and everything I thought about myself
and my relationship with God was destroyed in that moment.
Soon as Alonzo came into the hall,
I asked him if he knew he's doomed our souls to hell?
You've turned us into false prophets, brother.
Get on your knees.
Now, Alonzo!
We must beg the Heavenly Father for forgiveness.
We must reveal the truth to God's people,
and accept their judgment.
What have you done, brother?
Lord Jesus, what have you done, man?
The entire holy council had been in his study
when they came down on me like they did, Deborah,
stripped me to my under clothes,
cut my hair, my nails, bound my hands.
And then Alonzo towering over my shivering frame,
cast his sentence like a judge from the Old Testament.
"You are no longer the Instrument of God.
You have blasphemed against the bishop and the holy council,
therefore I'm assuming leadership of the church.
We'll tell the flock that you have ascended to return
with Christ at the end of days.
Now take this spawn of Satan
where we'll never hear his blasphemous tongue again."
They threw me in the trunk of a car,
and we drove for hours.
When they opened the trunk,
they set upon me with clubs
and left me in a bloody mess on the side of the road
in the middle of nowhere.
I laid there for a long time thinking I was dead.
Then I heard a truck, footsteps,
and I felt a cold barrel of a shotgun
against the temple of my head,
and heard a voice most often associated with those
that hang my kind from trees.
"Explain yourself, nigger."
God has truly forsaken me.
Were the only words I can muster past my busted swollen lips
I passed out.
When I woke I was in a barn.
I was fully clothed.
My wounds had been bandaged,
and there was a jug of water,
and a note that read,
"Have your Black ass out this county by sunset."
Testimony is this.
God is good all the time.
And as you can see,
I embraced my second chance
and got my Black ass out that county by sunset.
So the past few months,
I've been working as a porter on this train.
I hold Bible studies on Wednesday nights
for the other porters and the cooks, too.
I'm no longer performing miracles.
God doesn't trust me in that capacity anymore.
Yeah. I'm just grateful for a second chance,
a chance to show Reverend Benson,
who I know is looking down on me right now
from behind them pearly gates,
that his saving my life was not in vain.
I know I'm a child of God and made in his image,
but I also know.
♪ The devil never rests come day, come dusk, come dawn ♪
♪ You compromise, you wind up sold in parts ♪
♪ So don't it strike you funny ♪
♪ When you look him in the eye ♪
♪ The devil looks a lot like you and I? ♪
When I first met William Benson,
I was handcuffed to a hospital bed
with three broken ribs facing robbery and assault charges.
Shit like that can happen
when you rob houses and run from cops.
Needless to say, I was desperate,
and I ain't seen no future without a cage
and some muscle bound motherfucker with a shiv in his hands
and plans to make me his bitch.
I was vulnerable, you dig?
And Benson,
he knew that shit.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you still go to hell
for making a deal with the devil,
if the devil presents himself like Christ?
Look look, what if an angel ends up dying
during the process?
Ooh, then you best believe you going to hell,
with some groovy gasoline drawers on too.
You know, my thing is this.
Make sure you take the bastard
that put you on the path with you.
When Benson walked into that hospital room
with them suede patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket,
only Black man I ever seen look anything like that
was Greg Morris on Mission Impossible.
He sat down real slow and cool like,
like you could imagine Steve McQueen doing
if he was a soul brother.
Abel Green, I'm William Benson, special agent, FBI.
Then he crossed his legs, leaned back, smiled.
Not that, I got your ass now, kind of smile.
No rather, everything's going be all right bay bruh.
That kind of smile.
"A man's life is like a page in a novel.
In order to have a happy ending,
a man's gotta write sentences
that makes that happy ending possible.
You ain't writing them kind of sentences, son.
Your paragraphs are all fucked up.
And in your current chapter, you're facing time
for armed robbery, assault, possession of stolen goods.
Good gracious, nigga.
The point is, right now your story
ain't got no happy ending and no way to get to one.
I can change that.
You want me to change that."
Then he stood up, walked out the room,
I ain't seen him again till I was ready
to get out the hospital and head to jail.
Told me the deal in simple sentences.
"And I'm sure you heard of this group
calling themselves the Black Panthers.
Yeah, well the FBI heard some things, too."
Needed someone to confirm or deny.
Told me I was to go down to their offices and try to join.
They'll meet me at a place and time of his choosing
once a week.
They chose me 'cause I grew up on the west side
with this cat named Frank Red.
Frank was involved with the Panthers
and 'cause he knew me from the old neighborhood,
Feds figured that might be my way in.
Benson had me feeling like Eliot fucking Ness, you dig?
They never used the word informant.
I never thought of myself as a snitch.
No, I was special agent Abel Green on the scene.
Star of the story, the hero, shiiit.
Hero ain't nothing but a goddamn sandwich.
♪ Revolution has come, off the pigs ♪
♪ Time to pick up a gun, off the pigs ♪
♪ The revolution has come, off the pigs ♪
♪ Time to pick up a gun, off the pigs ♪
I ain't gonna lie.
First time I went to a rally I was,
I was mesmerized.
I ain't never seen no shit like that before in my life.
Talking about the cops like that with the cops right there.
Black people, looking good, too.
Sharp as a tack and comfortable as a broke dick dog
talking that big bad and bold shit.
Black leather jackets, berets, powder blue shirts,
fists raised in the Black power salute.
Baby, those pigs was red as beets wanting to do something,
but scared to 'cause there wasn't no easy way.
Black folks weren't gonna be
the only ones leaving fucked up.
Frank was at the party office when I went in
and asked to join,
and we talked about some people from the old neighborhood,
what I've been up to in the years past
since we'd seen each other.
And then he broke out into this bag about
how I've been locked up,
because I was Black and poor,
which was a result of capitalism that couldn't be reformed,
that had to be torn down for the people and the planet,
and this and that.
I mean this cat could run it down, runnin'.
Then an angel walked in.
Ooh.
Chocolate angel.
Big doe eyes, curly fro.
"Comrade Mary, this here's my man, Abel Green,
from my old neighborhood,
says he wants to join the vanguard of the struggle."
And I was like, nah, I ain't never heard of no vanguards,
I wanna join the Panthers.
They both bust out laughing at my ignorant ass.
But her laugh though,
it's like listenin' to Motown on a sunny day in the park.
I got lost and caught up in it.
And Frank asked me why I wanted to join the party.
Well I was prepared for this,
and I felt like Hank Aaron at the plate
getting ready to knock one out the park.
So I go, "so I can kill honky pigs, brother."
Room was silent.
Frank looked at me
like I was the dumbest motherfucker on Earth,
and then he broke out into his bag.
"The pig is a tool of the power structure
created to suppress and oppress the masses.
The pig is not a color.
It's obvious that you don't understand what we are about.
We are not trying to replace racism with racism,
rather replace racism spawned by capitalism with socialism.
Do not believe what they say about who we are in the press.
The press is a tool used by the capitalists
to misinform, spread lies,
and alienate the vanguard from the people.
Boy."
I'm telling you, them ole capitalists were a bitch.
And then Mary chimed in,
throwing me the lifeline I wish she never had.
"Just because the brother doesn't know the time
doesn't mean he can't learn what the time is, Frank."
"Everyone's level of consciousness is not the same.
We have to raise the people up.
We have to educate the people, you know that."
So, they invited me to the political education classes
they held on Friday nights.
I said right on, gave him five and split.
Met Benson at O'Leary's, a dive bar in Old Town.
He just sat, stared into his glass of Scotch.
Soaked it in what I told him.
He smiled that smile of his,
told me I done good, slid me an envelope.
250 bucks.
Yeah, I was on cloud nine baby.
But that night I dreamed about Mary Bingham.
I ain't gonna lie, when I woke up,
them sheets were a little sticky.
That Friday night I had my ass at them
political education classes.
And when I tell you them discussions were heavy,
Lenin, Marx, Mao, Fanon.
I ain't never heard of none of these dudes.
And these cats were talking about 'em
like cats be on the corner
talking about Walt Frazier and the Knicks.
I'm making connections to what was going on
in ghettos of America
to what was happening in ghettos all across the world.
And sometimes Mary would be there,
and whenever she made a point,
the crowd would erupt into chants of right on, Sister,
tell it like it is Sister Mary.
I would leave Mary's name out of it
whenever I reported to Benson.
I told him everything else though.
Who was there, who said what.
We talked about a lot of other things too.
Our lives, our families.
He'd give me advice, the type of advice I wanted
from an older Black man all my life
to fill the void I was trying to fill with nigga logic,
which the only type of knowledge
a blood from the street got,
but listening, learning from Benson,
I really thought my life was gonna be different.
After a few months,
the Panthers started to recognize my dedication,
let me volunteer at the breakfast program
they ran for the kids.
Them hungry kids be in there lined up.
Big eyes, swollen bellies and they would feed 'em man, free.
You know, after I told Benson
how the community was looking at the Panthers
like superheroes and shit,
that's when things started to heat up.
Brothers started to get arrested constantly
on bullshit charges.
My main man, Tommy, who worked at the free health clinic,
the Panthers ran on Jefferson Street, got snagged.
So Frank assigned me to the clinic to help out.
And Mary, she was a nurse prior to joining the party.
So she ran the clinic
along with this other doctor from the community and,
no, no, no, no, no, no.
Come on now, I gotta get to O'Leary's.
And start the fuckin' train man, come on.
Shit!
Damn.
Wanna know how beautiful Mary was?
One night she was bandaging the hand of this junkie,
when the junkie just vamped,
grabbed her and started demanding drugs.
I picked up this metal tray, about to bash him in the head,
when Mary just kneed him in the nuts.
He dropped like a sack of potatoes,
and she motioned me over to help her sit him in the chair.
She said, "Let's make sure we get him something to eat.
Brother looks like he hasn't eaten in a while."
And the junkie, you know, tears coming down his face,
he can't stop apologizing.
And I done seen junkies do a bunch of shit.
Apologizing after being kneed in the nuts
while trying to get a fix, ain't one of 'em.
We became close over the months that followed and,
damn, she was right.
I was getting edumacated, you dig?
In a way I never had before.
Hell, I ain't know shit about Black people, not history.
Something nobody white ain't taught me.
I ain't know nothing about the government either,
so the more I learned about the Panthers
and what they were trying to do,
the shittier I felt for trying to betray 'em.
But what was I gonna do?
You know, come up to Frank and be like...
Hey blood, I hate to drop this on you,
but I've been snitching for the FBI for the last six months,
but I like y'all now so I ain't gonna do it no more.
We cool?
Instead, I thought about Mary.
We began spending the few free moments we had together.
And when I was with Mary, I felt like a man,
not like somebody pretending to be one,
and that was something very, very new for me.
And one night we were cleaning up
and I just came straight out
and asked her what we were doing?
And she took my face in her hands,
she kissed me long and deep,
and I accepted what I knew
from the very first moment she spoke up for me.
It was around this time Benson
started hounding me about these guns.
These illegal guns the Panthers were supposed to have?
And then he started asking me about the clinic constantly,
even had me draw him a diagram where everything was.
So I finally just asked him
if they were gonna raid the clinic.
He was silent.
And that's when I told him about Mary,
and that I loved her,
and I asked him to let me know
if they were gonna raid the place, you know,
to give me a heads up so I can make sure she wasn't there.
And he looked me dead in my eyes and said, of course I will.
Of course, I will.
He smiled,
patted me on the back, slid me an envelope full of cash
and ordered us two T-bone steaks.
Well,
they never raided the clinic.
They burnt the motherfucka down.
It was late.
Maybe they thought nobody was gonna be in there,
but they couldn't have known, right?
Mary,
she had left, came back to do some work, laid down,
fell asleep on the couch and,
she ain't make it out.
She ain't make it out.
It didn't take the Panthers long to figure out who did it.
This drug dealer by the name of Alonzo Price
had been selling drugs in the community,
was getting heat from the Panthers
and given an ultimatum what was gonna happen to his ass
if he ain't stop.
Crazy thing is, I had met Alonzo,
but not in the streets.
I met him in O'Leary's,
and Frank told me they found a business card on him
from a FBI agent named William Benson.
He said he told him some other things too.
Now I seen a couple of brothers move to block the doors,
but they was too slow.
I bust through 'em, they chased after me.
I lost 'em in the city and I just made this train.
I'm a snitch.
I'm a fuckin',
I'm a low life fuckin' rat, that's what the fuck I am.
But even Judas had his reasons.
If you dumb enough to think it's just about
30 pieces of silver,
then you dumb as a box of rocks for real.
Shit ain't that simple.
Nothing is.
But, Judas did try to make it right when he hung himself.
I know putting a bullet through Benson's head
isn't gonna bring Mary back.
But I'm still gonna do it.
Have to, it's the least I can fuckin' do.
Ah fuck!
Fuck they get on the train?
It's Frank.
He got three other Panthers with him.
Ah,
I guess Abel Green still don't get no happy ending.
Fuck you too, William Benson.
Fuck you.
You're staring at me like that because you've seen me,
but for the life of you, you can't remember where.
I would tell you to stop, but you won't.
I've just done the most difficult thing
I've ever had to do in my life,
so I don't feel like engaging you.
But um, If I don't say something,
you're just gonna keep staring at me
until I get off the train.
So here it is, I'm Abel Green.
You probably recognize me as Donny Diamond
from "The Revenge of the Killer Pimps."
Oh, you also could have seen me in "The Death Merchant"
or the "Take Back the Street" series,
but I haven't done any films like that in a long, long time.
But I see you have your paper there ready to be signed.
So I'll take it from you.
Oh wow, you went to go see a play?
That's awesome.
All right, have a great night.
Oh man.
You wanna know what it's like
being a Black actor in Hollywood?
In 1988 it's about being killed by white men
with raspy voices.
Yeah, I've been shot a lot.
You know, Magnums, shotguns, Uzis.
Been blown up quite a bit too.
You know, grenades, rocket launchers, twice.
In "Death Merchant 3", the white vigilante hero
strangles me with his shoe strings.
In "Take Back the Streets" the white vigilante hero
throws me out of a skyscraper.
In "Take Back the Streets Again",
the white vigilante hero douses me in gasoline
and sets me on fire.
And in "Take Back the The Final Chapter,"
the white vigilante hero's daughter
cuts off my testicles
and stomps 'em with her ruby red high heels.
Yeah, I stopped doing movies after that.
Didn't stop acting though.
I took a job over at Alonzo's Hard Bodies,
it's a vitamin and supplement shop.
Alonzo Price was this steroid freak,
competed in a couple Mr. Universes,
and he liked to hire actors as salesmen
because you had to be able to act to sell that bullshit.
Sir, can I be honest with you?
Take a look at yourself.
Now, would you fuck you?
See? But that's not your fault.
I know you care about your body.
I know you like to work out,
but to get the results that you need,
you need this, my friend,
Price's Big and Swole Protein Powder.
For just 19.95, you too can be ridiculously ripped
and stupendously stacked
and as a side effect, it makes your penis grow three inches.
And then one day while stacking the shelves,
I heard, "Does man love art?
Man visits art, but squirms.
Art hurts.
Art urges voyages, and it's easier to stay at home.
You wanna stay at home, Abel Green,
or you wanna come up with me to New York,
make some money and do some acting that means something?"
I looked up,
and standing there by the creatine,
was the baddest, boldest,
best writer, actor, director, I ever knew,
my friend William Benson.
I hadn't heard from him in years
and he just shows up when I need him most,
quoting Gwendolyn Brooks, the Chicago Picasso,
offering me a role that changed my career.
Will,
a beautiful human being.
I met him in college.
There were three African Americans
in the theater department,
William Benson, Mary Bingham, and yours truly.
Will was a couple years ahead,
and the first thing he asked me when I met him was,
"What do you want your legacy to be?"
And I was like, "I'm 18, man."
He responded, "Exactly."
This dude, not only was he deep, but he was like Shaft, too.
You know, Jim Kelly minus the fro.
I had a couple of football players after me once.
They had me cornered in this bar,
I thought was done for sure.
And then I hear (yelling).
They took one look at Will and took off.
I believe one of those big white boys shitted himself.
Will, he was that type of friend. He always had your back.
You know, a hell of an actor, too.
Everyone said he was gonna be the next James Earl Jones.
Instead, after he graduated,
he got offered the same roles I did.
And that's when he started
the African Roots Theatrical Concern.
Will cast me in this amazing play called,
"The Whispering Dream."
It's this love story about this soldier
returning home from Vietnam,
and I played the lead, Ulysses James.
Boop.
"Abel Green is brilliant.
He takes us on an emotional rollercoaster
without the sentimentality and overreach
a lesser actor would employ.
It is indeed his understatement
that makes the horrors of Ulysses James even more riveting
and gives this production five stars."
JA Sutter, "Main Stage Magazine."
It's pretty awesome, right?
Yeah.
Wanna know how I repaid Will for this opportunity?
When he needed me,
I turned my back on him and ran as fast as I fuckin' could.
It was late.
I got drunk in a bar not too far
from Will's place on Jefferson Ave.
Had a key to his place, he was supposed to be outta town.
I was too drunk to drive home,
so I headed there and when I was on the stairs walking up,
this guy brushes past me,
almost knocks me down he's so upset.
And the front door to Will's place is open.
Will is standing in the middle of the room,
shirt ripped, furniture overturned.
I was like, "Will, what the fuck? Are you okay?"
And Will goes,
"My ex-boyfriend just found out he's HIV positive."
And he sat down on the couch
and didn't say a word like he was in shock.
Eventually he asked me if I would go with him
to get the test and I promised him I would.
I lied.
I didn't even know he was gay.
He dated Mary Bingham.
How the hell you go from that to loving on some dude?
And the betrayal of it all is that
he knew everything about my life.
I mean, he knew things about me.
What kind of person can compartmentalize like that?
God, I was mad as hell,
and he might have AIDS,
this shit that's going around that ain't no cure for.
Know how many times I had drank something after him?
Used his shower, hugged him, shaking his hand.
I was like, this motherfucka.
I'm telling you I had no love for Will right then.
The company season was over so I got ghost like Swayze.
Back in LA almost a year later,
Mary Bingham flew out to see me and she was pissed.
She asked me why I hadn't been to see Will and
I told her Will's a liar.
I got nothing to say to him, and you shouldn't either.
He betrayed you most of all.
"Always knew Will was gay.
We had an arrangement.
And you of all people know how hard it is
for a Black man to get a leading role.
A gay Black man? Times that to infinity."
So you was part of this lie?
You know what?
You and Will can both go to hell.
"I'm so sick of these faggot producers
always running everything.
What I gotta do, suck a dick to get a role?
You remember saying that?
Probably not.
And that's not the worst thing you've said over the years.
The fact that Will loves you so much
is something I will never understand."
Will lied to me!
"Like you lying to yourself?"
I didn't say anything after that.
Mary went on to tell me that Will had full blown AIDS
and she didn't know how long he had.
I spent that night after Mary left
trying to prove to myself that she was wrong about me.
But the fact is,
I can't even hug another man
without having a forearm in between us.
I loved Will,
but I've never said that to any man,
and I've never had any man say it to me.
In my old neighborhood,
you'd rather have somebody talk about your mama
than call you a faggot or a punk.
It was a code, and I thought a lot about those
that followed it and what they had done for me,
which was absolutely nothing.
Will on the other hand.
That night I couldn't sleep.
I stayed up channel surfing
and I came across this religious program
called Reverend Frank Red's God's Truth Christian Hour.
"Christian family,
the Bible teaches us that when a people get away from God,
when they engage in filthy, nasty ways,
God will punish them,
and that is why we have AIDS.
Now that is not hate.
I hate no one, and I pray for everyone,
but my Bible teaches me that homosexuality is a sin
and the wages of sin is death.
Amen."
Fuck you, Rev.
God doesn't have anything to do with this shit.
Fucked up people.
People who bring suffering into the world,
seem to live forever.
And the dreamers, the lovers, the people
who actually make this hell worth living in
seem to die too soon
and in fucked up ways that nobody deserves.
That can't be God's plan.
Next day,
I got my ass on a plane
and I flew to New York to beg my friend
for what I knew no way in hell I deserved,
his forgiveness.
I saw him, he had just gotten out the hospital.
His body was covered in these purple splotches,
leach-looking like things.
It's a type of skin cancer AIDS patients get.
The fact that he was gonna die finally hit home.
He opened his eyes and held out his hand.
"Does man love art?"
He tried to laugh, but the pain,
I took his hand in mine and-
"Art hurts."
"I knew you would come."
I moved into Will's apartment
along with some other members of the African Roots and
we took care of him.
Mary said she was gonna come by to feed Will at noon,
so I'm sure she's found the body by now
and called the proper authorities.
At first I didn't think I could do it,
but how could I not?
What would you do if your friend said, help me?
I'm tired of hurting, I'd do it for you.
I tell you what I did.
I kissed Will on his forehead and
I gave him the overdose of morphine that he asked me for.
And if that condemns my soul to hell, then so be it but,
I don't think it does.
This is me.
My mother and father didn't always try to kill each other,
just on the 1st and 15th of the month.
I would go into my bedroom
and turn the TV up as loud as I could.
"Star Trek, the Next Generation" was my show.
Now I dreamed of traveling to brave new worlds.
And in these worlds, higher pursuits took precedence
because food, clothing, and shelter were the given.
and not the daily struggle to acquire,
and not the root cause
of cut lips, black eyes, broken coffee tables.
Now I stopped believing in the existence
of those worlds when my father lost his job
and committed suicide.
Now, I never watched "Star Trek" again,
'cause even if those worlds did exist,
what the fuck did they mean to Abel Green?
Did you know on Saturn people live to be 205?
They have orange snow too.
Imagine snowboarding on sherbet.
Now I've seen it in my dreams.
Wilma Benson told me it was real.
That's what these cans are about,
leaving here, getting to Saturn.
Wilma says, if you can imagine an elsewhere,
you can build it.
Now the problem is most of us
don't want to build an elsewhere,
we'd rather just figure out a way to be on top here.
It took the murders of four people for me
to get to Wilma's understanding of things.
You probably read about it or saw the special on "Dateline."
Then again, you may not have paid any attention.
You know shit happens so much these days
you can turn it into a drinking game.
Every time somebody goes off into a school or workplace
and shoots up a bunch of people, take a shot of vodka.
But, when you're in the center of it,
vodka shots won't help.
You might find yourself beaten half to death
in a ditch outside of Jefferson Park,
which is where I was when Wilma saved me,
so don't do that.
Before I began my studies with Wilma Benson,
I didn't have a picture of my parents
or a girlfriend on my dresser.
I had an 8x10 of Warren Buffett
that I talked to each morning while preparing for work.
"Good morning, Mr. Buffett.
Today I'm gonna do something to make you proud."
I had pocket sized pics in my wallet
of Bill Gates and Bloomberg.
I named my fantasy football team Greenspan.
I voted Republican because that's what rich people did,
and I intended to be rich.
I made love to my girlfriend while listening
to David Bach's "Automatic Millionaire" on CD.
And when I really wanted to get kinky, I played Suze Orman.
Y'know money has always been at the
core of the American dream.
Before the housing bubble burst,
I made a shit-ton of money selling that dream
to folks who look just like you.
The crooked broker who suckered people
into loans they couldn't afford.
I was that guy.
Started at the bottom, worked my way to the top.
Went from working for the banks to contracting with them.
It was the wild, wild west,
and I was Clint with the Stogie hanging out
the side of his mouth, trigger finger itching.
I came to collect the bounties.
That's what I called subprime loans,
'cause we got a bonus for each one we made.
And Black and Latino communities were the best targets.
And we pushed those fucked up loans there the hardest
because nobody gives a damn about what you do
to Black and Latino communities.
And as far as my conscience, I found that new cars,
sex with beautiful women, good coke, single malt Scotch,
and Cuban cigars can clean the conscience
better than ammonia can eradicate piss from a toilet seat.
I met Alonzo Price at a church picnic.
His daughter and son-in-law had died in a car accident
not too long before,
and now he and his wife,
both in their sixties, were raising their boy.
And so I talked to Price about securing the boy's future,
a college education, a nest egg the kid could have
to start life with something to lean on
when Price and his wife had transitioned.
Once I had the hook in, I talked Price
into taking a second mortgage out on his home.
And you know what he said to me
after we made that deal?
Mr. Green, I know your parents are mighty proud of you.
Four years later, he lost the house,
and the stress of which caused his wife
to have a heart attack, so.
"There are other worlds they have not told you of.
Okay?
There are other worlds they have not told you of.
Wrap your mind in the peace that is Saturn.
Peace, Saturn.
"Abel Green, you lousy son of a bitch,
get your ass out here now!"
I heard Price from the men's room.
I was in the stall doing a line of coke
and it wasn't even 12.
My secretary Mary Bingham was dead.
There were three more shots.
Frank Red in accounts,
Tom Pedelton, our IT specialist,
and Esther in Human Resources, all dead,
as I sat, hiding in the restroom.
Felt like two lifetimes passed
before Alonzo finally walked in.
"I know your ass somewhere, Green."
He began going through the stalls.
But when the sirens howling from the street grew louder,
he knew he didn't have much time.
He ran past the men's room and there was one more shot.
The police found his body outside of my office door.
When I met Wilma Benson,
I was trying to end my life.
I rented a room at a cheap motel,
drank an entire bottle of Johnny Walker Red.
My plan was to hang myself in the closet.
I stood on the chair, put the noose around my neck,
when I heard this banging and crunching noise
coming from the alley outside.
And I got down to look,
and there was this homeless woman
with a bunch of coats on
rummaging through the dumpster for cans,
stamping them flat, putting them in a large trash bag.
And I yelled down,
would you stop making all that damn noise?
And she looked up and hollered back.
"I freed a thousand slaves
and I could have freed a thousand more
if they only knew they were slaves."
And she went back to smashing cans
and putting them in the bag.
Now I raced down after her.
I don't know what I was thinking
or what I was planning to do, but I followed her.
And when we reached the outskirts of Jefferson Park
where a lot of homeless lived,
I realized I was being followed too.
And right before Wilma made it over
the last dip in the field,
my stalkers announced themselves.
One administered the beating,
while the other went through my pockets.
I started to lose consciousness but,
I felt so relieved.
If they killed me I no longer had to see the faces
of my dead friends or Alonzo or his grandson,
who is now in the foster care system.
But they didn't kill me.
Someone lifted my first attacker off the ground,
and threw him face first into a pine tree
like a paper airplane.
The other attacker swung, my hero ducked,
lifted that guy, twirled him a couple of times
and tossed him too.
I squinted through my swollen eyes to get a better look and,
it was Wilma,
this little bitty Black homeless woman.
And she picked me up, threw me over her shoulder,
and I blacked out.
When I woke, I was in a lean-to tent.
There were a couple of cots and books scattered about.
And the one lying on her pillow
was a biography of Harriet Tubman.
I got up and went outside
and there was this structure like 14 feet high,
made outta tin cans hammered into wooden beams.
And there was Wilma hammering on the platform.
And she told me her Earth name was Wilma Benson,
that she was from Saturn
and the structure she was building
was a spaceship to return home.
So yeah, like you, I thought she was batshit crazy.
But when she called me over and handed me a hammer, I went
and while I hammered away at those cans,
I didn't think about Price,
or the death of my friends
or drugs or alcohol.
The only thing that mattered
was hammering those cans into that wooden frame.
And from the time I nailed the first can
to the moment we stopped,
I existed in a complete state of calm and peace.
Peace like I never felt before.
And I didn't understand why,
but the only thing that mattered was, it was.
Then it began to rain.
I spent the night with the woman in the lean-to,
and she told me about Saturn.
Delusional, deranged, I don't know,
but that night I dreamed of Saturn
like I was dreaming in HD.
I spent the next three weeks living with Wilma in that tent.
In the morning we'd collect the cans.
In the afternoon, we hammered them onto the structure.
And out of the blue one day, she said to me,
"You have to forgive yourself.
If you don't,
Saturn will always be beyond your reach."
I began to cry.
Wilma picked me up,
rocked me in her arms until I fell asleep.
When I woke,
Wilma was gone.
I got up and went outside and
the structure we had built had disappeared.
I mean, this thing was huge.
There's no way it could have been moved
without making hella noise.
I never said what the fuck
so many times in a single day.
I went and asked the other homeless people
who slept there, what they saw.
And they all looked at me like I was crazy,
even the crazy ones,
like there was never a Wilma,
like there was never a big ass wooden edifice
with tin cans hammered onto it.
I went back to the tent,
and I saw this written on it in big gold letters.
Let me show you.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer.
Always remember, you have the strength,
the patience and the passion.
Reach for the stars
to change the world.
I left Jefferson Park that night.
The next day I liquidated all my assets.
I closed all my accounts.
The wealth I had left over,
I anonymously sent to the families I destroyed,
the ones I could locate anyway.
And then I went back to my McMansion,
beautiful home bought with money
stolen from people's dreams.
I went through every room,
doused the curtains with gasoline, struck a match,
walked away from my burning house and didn't look back.
That was seven years ago.
Today, I live on the streets.
I, um,
I work odd jobs.
I have everything I need to survive.
I'm free now.
And somewhere in this purging,
I found the courage to forgive myself,
not forget what I've caused, but to move beyond it.
And some nights, I sit out underneath the stars
and I wonder what Wilma's doing.
I'm tired of that now.
I've decided to go visit her,
to visit Saturn.
Not to stay,
just to see for myself
and thank Wilma for all she's taught me.
That's what these cans are about.
I'm gonna build a spaceship just like Wilma Benson,
and then I'm gonna sit down in the middle of it,
let my drums speak my heart,
and wait for the universe to answer.