“ . . . the impervious being crazed by his absolute power and by his fear of losing it, no longer remembers clearly

that he was once a man . . .”

reading that line perplexed him

if a being is impervious

if a being is crazed by his absolute power

                                                                                                               why would he fear losing it

there would be nothing restorative to inform him of his manhood or humanity

he is beyond reproach

beyond conditions

isnt he

it had been forever since he ran into a good oldfashioned blasphemer whose black spit susurrated between his broken or missing teeth whose cheeks and nose were corrupted by black heads and who beneath unruly eyebrows winding like suspicious antennae or snaking tentacles peered into him with milkyblue irides

they had coffee and donuts for lunch  the old mans treat

he ate them because they werent going anywhere else  ever  the one time he asked if he could order milk the old man berated him  You still at your Mammys tit boy  I got you black coffee Drink up

the old man smoked Camel straights while he dunked his donut and noisily sipped his coffee

he was a hardcore John Bircher

 

as a teenage boy I watched him almost split a Unionmans skull with a roofing axe

he shrieked before he struck his blow and the shriek was enough warning that the fat man on top an aluminum ladder tossed himself backwards avoided the blow but took him with the ladder off the side of the house

he rode it down to the ground like an ungainly failed pole vaulter and injured one of his legs landing on the neighbors lawn

denied his scalp Bill the John Bircher howled and like an outraged mangy ape threw himself from the roof they were on across the gangway onto the neighbors house into whose front yard the Unionman fell

howling the whole time he dropped down onto its front porch roof scrambled down its pitch and hurled himself into a tall pine just beyond its eave and gutter grabbing at it like a nutsy squirrel at its boughs and limbs to slow his fall

in same time the Unionman unencumbered himself of the broken ladder and gimped hobbled across the public sidewalk to the parkway where his black sedan was parked under the green Dutch Elms and their cathedral-like arches and leafy canopy

Bill hastily groped and shimmied his way down the old pine and landing hard on the grass bowled over  he quickly made his feet again as Union slammed his car door and gunned its V8 to life  the sedans tires spun on the wetted concrete caught squealed but seemed to squeal even louder when Bill buried his roofing axe in the carhood above
the fat mans head
 

as the car began to speed away Bill was yanked off his feet
he hadnt let go of the axehandle
 

irate  beside himself  he screamed
then he screamed up at me pierced me with his eyes even at that distance
You saw you saw You saw that sonofabitch break my goddamn ladder steal my axe an try an fuckin run me over

he lunged wildly back around as the car took a distant corner its tires crying again and as it went around and disappeared he screamed after it   

Ever come back here Ill kill you you motherfucker Ill split your skull and feed your brains to the dogs

Bill Hemmings seemed always to be feeding his dogs human beings
 

then he threw his head back hands clenched at his side  and shrieked
 

I thought he had taken leave of his mind  I never saw an man act like that before  unhinged

Bill told me he was connected  knew Sammy G

when he was younger he hung around with some of the boys of the Forty-Two in Melrose Park and Elmwood and when he worked as a garage attendant in the loop he washed Mr Riccas car when Mr Ricca had business on the northside

all he did he said was he keep his eye on the car  there was no funny business while he watched it
    

Mr Ricca genuinely liked Bill he said

on occasion when he was asked to do a favor he obliged  tossed it out to me as if he was really doing a favor  he turned extra scratch and made his ends meet far better
he said he ran crates up to Milwaukee and left them off at seemingly deserted warehouses

I didnt give a fuck what was in em that wasnt any of my business when you learn your business boy when youre making your own money you dont let anyone fuck with it

the Unionman he tried to kill was probably a lesson
 

I asked Bill if he worried the man might come around again try and get even with him  You tried to hurt him

Hurt him  You fuckin idiot  Did it look like I was trying to hurt the bastard 

he laughed suddenly  sardonically
He ran pretty good for a fat man thought for sure I had him  No I aint worried though he might be once he starts asking around and finds out who the fuck chased him off the job  Im protected boy and you working for me youre protected too

Should make you feel safe huh

I felt safer up on the roof with him crazy on the ground threatening murder out loud   and the ladder broken

2232,  Thursday,  29  10. 15
 0008,  Saturday  --  Halloween!  31  10. 15

 “The reason is simple, the impervious being crazed by his absolute power and by the fear of losing it, no longer remembers clearly that he was once a man; he takes himself for a horsewhip or gun; he comes to believe that the domestication of the ‘inferior race’ (the Other) will come about by the conditioning of their reflexes.”
Sartre’s 1963 preface to Frantz Fanons The Wretched of the Earth