The Nigger Factory Read Online Free PDF Page A

thirty hours a day in the library reading Emily Dickinson and shit like that. He’s a brown-nosed jackass as far as I’m concerned. I go to the SGA meetings sometimes and see him rapping. He’s a junior class senator. Calls himself filibusterin’ when he gets up with a little Robert’s rule book on parliamentary procedure and starts hangin’ everything up with points of order . . . thass whatdemocracy has done for niggers. They lay in that idealistic crap all day and smell like shit all night.’
    ‘What about Baker, the football player? He’s runnin’.’
    ‘Yeah. So what? He’s a maniac as far as I’m concerned, although he’ll prob’bly win unless you or someone like you goes against him. I never heard a sound political thought come from his direction. Him and King go through political issues like they’re runnin’ an off-tackle play. Everything that they don’t like is wrong. I can’t . . .’
    ‘I understand,’ Earl said thoughtfully.
    ‘Good!’ Lawman said as he got up. ‘You give it some thought, brother, and I’ll be talkin’ to you.’
    That was the beginning. Earl and Lawman talked about it again the next day. Earl admitted that he had often thought about things that would be done differently if he were president. Somehow it had never gone any further than that. Together, the two men constructed a platform for Earl to run on. Odds, Earl’s best friend, was drafted as a campaign manager. They were on their way.
    The memory of all the things he had been through with Odds and Lawman brought still another question to the surface. Why hadn’t either one of them called to say anything about the meeting with MJUMBE and the students?
    Earl came out of his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He checked his pocket for the keys he needed. Door key and car keys were there. It was then that his light sweater and slacks almost collided with Zeke’s khakis and T-shirt.
    ‘You got troubles?’ Zeke asked.
    ‘No,’ Earl lied. ‘Why?’
    ‘You in such a durn hurry yo’ leavin’ shavin’ cream stuck behin’ yo’ ear,’ Zeke pointed out.
    Earl wiped at the spot and Zeke nodded.
    ‘Dumplin’s t’night?’ Earl asked mischievously.
    ‘Naw, but we’da had’um if I’da wanned ’um.’
    ‘Yeah. You an’ Miz G. runnin’ a game on me an’ Ol’ Hunt.’
    ‘Shit!’ Zeke waved. ‘Mosatime you ain’ here an’ Hunt could be eatin’ cobras an’ drinkin’ elephant piss fo’ all he know. May as well have chicken an’ dumplin’s since I lak ’um.’
    ‘Naw,’ Earl laughed. ‘That ain’ it. Tell me, man, whuss happ’nin’ wit’yo’ kitchen thing?’
    Zeke played the game. He looked both ways down the narrow hall and then lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. ‘I shouldn’ be tellin’,’ he admitted, ‘but since you an’ me s’pose to be boys . . . I, uh, sneaks down to the galley wit’ Miz G. every other day o’ so an’ we gits high on Barracuda wine. Then I starts talkin’ ’bout hi’ I been all over the worl’ an’ still ain’ dug nothin that tastes as good t’me as her chicken an’ dumplin’s. Jus’ lak that they out there on the table. Same as when you talk ’bout banana puddin’.’
    ‘Without the Barracuda wine.’
    ‘Wit’out that.’
    Earl laughed aloud. Zeke maintained a straight face somehow, but the thought of Mrs Gilliam drinking anything stronger than iced tea was too much for him. Zeke was notorious for drinking anything that could be classified as liquid and Earl had often met the handyman at O’Jay’s, a local bar, but Mrs Gilliam? A pillar of Mt Moriah? Sacrilege!
    ‘We love dem grapes!’ Zeke said as Earl scurried down the stairs.
    ‘Right!’
    Zeke was a good man as far as Earl was concerned. The older man had never had a family or a real home until Mrs Gilliam had started renting rooms. There was nothing that could be described as his real profession either. He mowed lawns or shoveled snow or worked on cars at Ike’s