The Portable Promised Land Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2002 by Touré

  Reading Group Guide copyright © 2003 by Touré

  and Little, Brown and Company (Inc.)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  First eBook Edition: June 2009

  Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  “You Are Who You Kill: The Black Widow Story” originally appeared in The Source;“The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot, the Man with the Portable Promised Land” originally appeared in Callaloo;“A Hot Time at the Church of Kentucky Fried Souls and the Spectacular Final Sunday Sermon of the Right Revren Daddy Love” originally appeared in Zoetrope.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-07699-9

  Contents

  Applause For Touré’s

  Copyright

  Prologue

  The Steviewondermobile

  A Hot Time at the Church of Kentucky Fried Souls and the Spectacular Final Sunday Sermon of the Right Revren Daddy Love

  The Breakup Ceremony

  The Sad, Sweet Story of Sugar Lips Shinehot, The Man with the Portable Promised Land

  Afrolexicology Today’s Biannual List Of The Top Fifty Wordsin African -America

  Blackmanwalkin

  Attack of the Love Dogma

  My History

  The Playground of the Ecstatically Blasé

  The African -American Aesthetics Hall of Fame, Or 101 Elements of Blackness (Things That’ll Make You Say : Yes! That There’s some Really Black Shit!)

  Solomon’s Big Day

  It’s Life And Death at the Slush Puppie Open

  How Babe Ruth Saved my Life

  We Words

  Soul City Gazette Profile: Crash Jinkins, Last of the Chronic Crashees

  A Guest!

  You Are Who You Kill

  Young, Black, and Unstoppable, or Death of A Zeitgeist Jockey

  Once an Oreo, Always an Oreo

  The Commercial Channel: A Unique Business Opportunity

  Falcon Malone Can Fly No Mo

  The Sambomorphosis

  They’re Playing My Song

  Yesterday Is So Long Ago

  Shout-Outs

  A Preview of "The Black Utopia A History of Soul City"

  The Portable Promised Land

  A Note about Touré

  Touré on the Origins of the Portable Promised Land

  Reading Group Questions and Topics For Discussion

  Applause for Touré’s

  The Portable Promised Land

  “An audacious and inventive debut....A mix of ancestor worship and irreverent wit.... The reader feels a bracing, biting gust of literary fresh air....Touré has a broad, idiosyncratic imagination.... His stories have a conceptual virtuosity....He not only acknowledges the ticklish no man’s land between vulgar stereotype and observable reality, he revels in it.... “Sambormorphosis” is a masterpiece of racial satire.... The Portable Promised Land is hugely enjoyable, and a spectacularly odd duck.... Buy the book.”

  — Jake Lamar, Washington Post Book World

  “Another Langston Hughes in the making?...Touré introduces us to Soul City — a wholly imagined utopia where magic happens and black is beautiful — in his debut short story collection.”

  — Dan Santow, Chicago Tribune

  “One of the best short story collections since Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! Touré anchors the volume in Soul City, a place not unlike the Land of Oz, where anything can happen and humanity reigns supreme.”

  — Patrick Henry Bass, Essence

  “Hip-hop culture gets both glorified and sent up, sometimes in the same sentence....Agreeably shocking, sharply perceptive, quite funny.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “Touré’s writing is fresh and exhilarating.... The Portable Promised Land mixes the everyday black experience with magic realism to create thought-provoking and oftentimes laugh-out-loud selections that will surely appeal to a broad audience.”

  — Mondella Jones, Black Issues Book Review

  “This collection of stories, vignettes, and essays is a sharp celebration of black urban life, filled with characters at once surreal and familiar....Touré has given life in Soul City a comic edge, revealing the humor and absurdities behind the seriousness of race. Even the author’s note and acknowledgments are fun to read.”

  — Ellen Flexman, Library Journal

  “Perhaps staking out new ground for magical realism, Touré creates in his short stories a vibrant African American metropolis where stereotypes are reclaimed and transformed to artfully address the politics and construction of race.... These delightful works practically beg to be read aloud....Touré is a talent to watch.”

  — Keir Graff, Booklist

  “A comedic, sarcastic, yet serious, open look at the experiences of being black in America.... These fictional tales are rooted in what has shaped the way we talk, walk, love, fight, laugh, and live....Touré stamps The Portable Promised Land with his trademark wit and lively descriptions that ensure a funny, fast-paced, and thrilling read.... Even if you are not able to personally relate to the characters, they will still keep you turning the pages.”

  — Ines Bebea, Caribbean Life

  “Charismatic, riotous, and impeccably original prose.”

  — Meredith Broussard, Philadelphia City Paper

  “A refreshing, humorous look at African American life.”

  — Crisis

  “A vibrantly imagined African American metropolis.... Infused with energetic wit and ever-resilient humor, Touré’s collection of stories turns stereotypes inside out to celebrate the soulful heart of black culture.”

  — Sarah Gianelli, Portland Oregonian

  “As supple as a Bootsy Collins bass line thumping out a ’77 Oldsmobile, The Portable Promised Land isn’t so much a collection of stories as a freestyle riff on the ways of black folks. A mix of urban folk tales, essays, and lists, this zesty debut by Rolling Stone contributing editor Touré boasts the social provocations of a Gil Scott-Heron song, while capturing the celebratory lunacy of a four-hour P-Funk jam. Touré, long respected as a music journalist, establishes himself as a vital new voice in fiction. Popping with energy and edginess, The Portable Promised Land is an inspired ode to the methods and madness of those who know that black isn’t just a matter of race — it’s a state of mind, a state of grace.”

  — Renée Graham, Boston Globe

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for an African-American to write inventive, edgy, sexy, magical, whimsical, funny, and smart stories that challenge the form, stereotypes of black people, display the beauty of black speech, and in a very subliminal manner, through it all, manages to sneak in and address the politics of race in the fabulously imagined utopia called Soul City. Touré has broken new ground with this collection because he breaks all the rules, which makes it that much more refreshing. He’s a smart, edgy, risking-taking young writer, so watch him. The ride is wild!”

  — Terry McMillan

  “Whimsical... funny... satiric....A lively brand of social commentary.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “Vivid urban folktales....A debut collection that limns with a fine confidence and cheeky humor the fabulous, the fantastical, the incantatory....In Soul City, the sublime and the ridiculous knock boots...
. The stories here — with their flip-o’-the-script comeuppances and Technicolor folly — could be called morality tales. Except judgment and superiority get tossed on their butts by the vibrant, the messy, the absurd. Not that the author’s wry fondness for his characters stops him from wrestling with their contradictions.”

  — Lisa Kennedy, Village Voice

  “Fantastic tales.”

  — BookForum

  “Now Black Male Posturing is truly a marvelous thing. Yet do I marvel at it every day. Where would hiphop or jazz be without it? Basketball is defined by it, and the streets of downtown New York would be looking mighty shabby for its absence.”

  —Greg Tate

  “Niggas just have a way of telling you stuff and not telling you stuff. Martians would have a difficult time with niggas. We be translating words, saying a whole lot of things underneath you, all around you.”

  —Richard Pryor

  Again there was some silence as Mitchell Sanders looked out on the river. The dark was coming on hard now, and off to the west I could see the mountains rising in silhouette, all the mysteries and unknowns.

  “This next part,” Sanders said quietly, “you won’t believe.”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “You won’t. And you know why?”

  “Why?”

  He gave me a tired smile. “Because it happened, because every word is absolutely dead-on true.”

  — Tim O’Brien, “How to Tell a True War Story”

  PROLOGUE

  There is a certain kind of moment that happens in life from time to time. A moment of strangeness that makes you say truth is stranger than fiction, a moment that, if it occurred in fiction, you might say, oh that writer is being lazy, her imagination didn’t work hard enough. I love these moments. And they happen every day. In a single day’s New York Times I found these: “Several [NBA basketball] players are continuing to discuss using their flesh as human billboards.... [that means] putting temporary tattoos of brand logos on their arms.” And this: “A former NASA employee... plunked down $20 million for a spin aboard [the Russian Space Station] Mir.” And: “Scientists say evidence is mounting that... cloning is more difficult than they had expected....In one example that seems like science fiction come true, some cloned mice that appeared normal suddenly, as young adults, grew grotesquely fat.” And: “Once a month Didier, a clean-cut thirty-seven-year-old government worker, stops by a little shop called Growland [which] sells hemp products and is listed in the telephone directories under Cannibis.” And this one which I wish I’d written: “Charles K. Johnson, president of the International Flat Earth Research Society... who stubbornly and cheerfully insisted that those who believed the earth was round had been duped, died on Monday....He was 76. Jill Fear [my kinda name!], secretary of the society,... said she would try to carry on his mission of promoting the view that the world was actually a flat disk floating on primordial waters....Mr. Johnson, who called himself the last iconoclast, regarded scientists as witch doctors pulling off a gigantic hoax so as to replace religion with science.... [He once told Newsweek magazine], ‘If Earth were a ball spinning in space, there would be no up or down.’” It seems that Mr. Johnson believed sunrises and sunsets to be optical illusions and the moon landing an elaborate hoax staged in a hangar in Arizona. There is nothing so strange that it’s unrealistic. Magic realism lives among us.

  TOURÉ

  Soul City, USA

  July 2002

  THE STEVIEWONDERMOBILE

  Every day downtown Soul City saw Huggy Bear Jackson smooth by in that pristine money-green 1983 Cadillac Cutlass Supreme custom convertible with gold rims, neon-green lights underneath, and a post-state-of-the-art Harmon Kardon system with sixteen speakers, wireless remote, thirty-disc changer, and the clearest sound imaginable. If during the recording of the song the guitarist had plucked the wrong string, he could hear it. If someone had coughed in the control room, he could hear it. If the singers were thinking, he could hear it. Everyone in Soul City waved as he crept slowly by, cruising at fifteen miles an hour or less, passed by joggers, and as he turtled into the distance, people said with awe and condescension, “There goes the Steviewondermobile.”

  Yes, Huggy Bear’s ride elicited an encyclopedia of emotions because, despite an eye-paining beauty that would’ve put the vehicle directly into the African-American Aesthetics Hall of Fame, there were significant problems with the ride.

  First off, he drove slowly because he had to. No matter how long and hard he pressed the gas the thing would not go above twenty-five miles an hour. Also, the electrical system was so taxed by the sound system that there were brownouts when the car would only go ten or fifteen miles an hour, and blackouts where the car would just stop cold, maybe right in the middle of Freedom Ave or Funky Boulevard. And that $25,000 sound system only played songs by Stevie Wonder. He’d had it built like that. There was a special sensor they sold at Soul City Systems and when you put in a non-Stevie record it was promptly spit out. He didn’t know if records that Stevie had written and not performed or records such as “We Are the World” on which Stevie had had a tiny part would work. He didn’t ask and he never tried.

  The ride had attained its vehicular elegance and superior sound because Huggy Bear had put a bank-draining amount of cash into it. It had massive problems because he was very picky about what he spent his money on. If the carburetor was falling apart and needed only $600 to be like new and Dolemite Jones from Soul City Systems called and said he had a new subwoofer, the best ever made, just $2,000, you can guess what he chose to do. Huggy Bear was what your momma would call “nigga-rich.” Someone with, say, a multithousand-dollar neck chain and nothing in the bank. Someone with a hot Lexus who lives with they moms.

  So he cruised with Stevie every day. Stevie fit every mood. If he felt upbeat and wanted to groove, he pushed button number one and Stevie preached: “Very supa-stish-uuus.. .” If he felt sad it was number seventeen: “Lately I have had the strangest feeling... .” When he had his sweet, late mother on his mind he soothed her memory with number twelve: “You are the sunshine of my life. . .” When thinking politics, number seventy-three: “Living for the City.” Every June first, as the sun sang out and the days got hot, number 129: “Ma cher-ee a-mour...” When he started a new relationship, number ninety-seven: “Send her your love... .” Yes, he loved Stevie’s entire catalog, even the 80s shlock like Jungle Fever, loved it with the unquestioning devotion the faithful reserve for their God. Huggy Bear was a devout Stevie-ite. To him Stevie was a wise, gifted, mystical being, most definitely from another planet and of another consciousness, part eternal child, part social crusader, part sappy sentimentalist, an unabashed lover of God and women and all things sweet and just. When he cruised down Freedom Ave blasting Stevie, he was taking lessons on life. He was meditating. He was praying.

  Each Sunday morning Huggy Bear rose with the sun to wash, wax, buff, and pamper his cathedral on wheels. He walked to the gas station to fill his portable can (walking ended up being faster). And then he sat and chose the day’s album, carefully matching it with his mood, spending as much time on this as many women take to get dressed for a big night. When he found the perfect album he laid back, way back, and placed the first finger of his right hand on the bottom of the wheel so that his hand rested between his legs (there was something phallic about it, but he chose not to follow that line of thought). Then he eased away from the curb and cruised into downtown Soul City and onto Freedom Ave, looking for his homeboys Mojo Johnson, Boozoo, and Groovy Lou. They were all Stevie-ites and they all had they own little chapels. Together they would turtle down Freedom Ave, all four rides blasting the same Stevie song at the same time.

  It was essential to ride down Freedom Ave in a pack on a Soul City Sunday afternoon because on a Soul City Sunday afternoon Freedom Ave was awash in music. Everyone in Soul City was devout, but not everyone was a Stevie-ite. At last count there were at least twenty religions in Soul City besides Stevieis
m: Milesism, Marleyites, Coltranity, the Sly Stonish, the Ellingtonians, Michael Jacksonism, Wu-Tangity, Princian, Rakimism, Mingusity, Nina Simonian, P-Funkist, James Brownism, Billie Holiday-ites, Monkist, Hendrixity, the Jiggas, the Arethites, Satchmoian, Barry Whiters, and Gayeity. Soul City was a place where God entered through the speakers and love was measured in decibels.

  So Huggy Bear smoothed down Freedom Ave looking for his crew. He passed Hype Jackson, DJ Cucumber Slice, and Reverend Hallelujah Jones, passed the barbershop, the rib shack, the Phat Farm, the Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles, the Baptist church, the weave spot, the Drive-Thru Liquor Store, passed Cadillac Jackson talking to Dr. Noble Truette, chief planner and architect of Soul City, and passed Fulcrum Negro’s Certified Authentic Negrified Artifacts, a strange little shop, more like an open closet really, filled with his unique antiques: a pair of Bojangles dancin shoes, a guitar played by Robert Johnson, a sax that belonged to Bird, some of Jacob Lawrence’s paint-brushes, Sugar Ray Robinson’s gloves, a Richard Pryor crack pipe, and all sorts of things from slavery, including actual chains, whips, and mouth bits, as well as Harriet Tubman’s running shoes, Frederick Douglass’s comb, and Nat Turner’s Bible. Purportedly, the stuff had magic residue left over by the Gods who’d handled them, but no one ever found out because Fulcrum Negro refused to sell anything to anyone, even if they had more than ample money.

  The streets were more crowded than normal because the Soul City Summertime Fair was on. There was free food, step shows, dominoes, spades, and a shit-talkin clown with a small pillow for a nose who walked up and dissed you, playfully but pointedly, persistently talking about your clothes, your ears, and your momma until you buried a stiff fist right in that big old honker. Then he laughed and thanked you and walked away. And then there were the contests everyone loved. The Neck-Rolling Contest in which contestants were judged on how fast they could whip their head around, how wide of a circle they could make, and how many consecutive 360s they could pull off. Contests for sexiest lip-licker, most ornate Jesus piece, best pimp stroll, who could keep a hat on their head while cocked at the sharpest angle, and everyone’s favorite, the Nut-Grabbing Contest, a slow-motion Negrified marathon really, wherein contestants simply hold their nuts as long as possible. The city record holder, Emperor Jones, had stood there holding his nuts for six days, fourteen hours, and twenty-eight minutes straight. He slept standing up, his right hand securely gripping his nuts. Incredible. Sadly, this was the first year in many that there would be no CPT Contest because the Summertime Fair organizers had finally given in to reason: despite immense anticipation each year, the contest never ever really got off the ground because none of the contestants ever arrived before the contest was canceled.