Palm Wine Junction: Unusual Short Stories

By Odie Hawkins

Palm Wine Junction has several stories reflecting the Pan-African Occult genre. I invite the perceptive reader to determine which stories come from that genre. I would also suggest that the prospective reader should not be led into thinking that the children, beautifully detailed by artist Suchin Lin, on the cover of Palm Wine Junction represent the unusual stories in Palm Wine Junction.
The children were chosen, symbolically, to represent ideal readers those who are unbiased, innocent, their imagination still intact, willing to have an experience with unusual stories

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496905574

Odie Hawkins

Odie Hawkins was a member of the Watts Writer’s workshop that spawned the Watts Prophets, a collection of spoken-word artists, considered the forebears of modern hip-hop.He is the co-author of the novel “Lady Bliss,” and the author of “The Snake, Mr. Bonobo Bliss, and Shackles Across Time. 2011 he was a panelist at the Modern Language Assoc. at the Hilton, LA Live. Additional information may be found on Facebook page, his website:www.odiehawkins.com., his blog, and/or just Google his name.

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© 2014 Odie Hawkins. All rights reserved.

Author photo by Zola Salena-Hawkins, www.

flickr.com/photos/32886903@N02.

Front cover art by Shuchin Lin

http://shuchinlin.webs.com

Credit for Cover design goes to AuthorHouse Design Team.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/24/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0558-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0557-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907071

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

1.    The Elephant Nation

2.    37/Acra, Ghana And Brother Kwame

3.    The Last Nazi

4.    Capoeira, A Personal Journey

5.    Taiwo And Kehinde

6.    Love Street, El-A

7.    Destiny

8.    The Elevator

9.    Ms. Prunella Goolsby’s Wedding

10.    The Casanova Of 4Th Avenue

11.    Likka Sto’ Rufus Chronicles #1

12.    The Likka Sto’ Rufus Chronicles #2

13.    The Likka Sto Rufus Chronicles #4

14.    The Likka Sto’ Rufus Chronicles #8

15.    The Likka Sto’ Rufus Chronicles # 12

16.    Social Issues: Suicide/

Afterthoughts/A Monologue

Likka Sto’ Rufus

17.    A Once Time Thing

18.    Charlie Parker

19.    Mi Ba

20.    Moments In The Osu Cemetery ~ ~ ~

Dedicated to my friends past and present in Osu, Accra, Ghana and West Africa.

THE ELEPHANT NATION

Intro: Over the past ten years there have been a number of attacks (by so called domestic elephants) on human beings.

xxx

They trotted out of the large, brilliantly lit ring; gently gripping each other’s tails, as the clang-bang music of the Bunkurn Brothers Circus band covered their exit. Zumbi, the largest and the last member exiting, was required to do a little Bojangles backwards shuffle just before he made his exit, a little taste of ol’ fashioned vaudeville.

Hundreds of children, men, women, parents, circus lovers, screamed and applauded as the elephants, bound with huge balletic tutus around their middles and tall dunce caps on their heads, made their final exit from the Big Top. They followed their trainers in an obedient file to their tent quarters; Lucy, O1’ Tom, Snowflake, Jupiter, Sunny Boy, Bucko, Sally, Zumbi, the Bunkum Brothers Circus elephant performers.

They felt mentally tired from being forced to go through forty minutes of playing soccer with an oversized beach ball, of sitting on multi-colored stumps, pretending to be school boys and girls with dunce caps on their heads, of shuffle-dancing the samba, sometimes with pretty circus girls on their necks, of being forced to pretend that they were huge, surrogate human beings with no connection to human beings beyond being forced to obey.

Zumbi lifted his trunk to sniff the cool night air. Chicago. I can smell lake water and the odd smelling trees they grow here. In the Middle West, always the scent of fresh water. On the East Coast there was the chemical stench of pollution and on the West Coast, that reminded him most of his native Kenya, there was the odd odor of death.

He had often discussed it with his fellow captives. His friend and fellow ex-Kenyan Jupiter, had a unique spin on the West Coast funk.

Zumbi, I believe that we are really smelling death. I think that the outer space ones are dumping their cremated bodies into the valleys, into that big basin called Los Angeles. Maybe that’s why they call it Los Angeles, the angels.

He found it difficult to refute this notion. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t find a valid reason to reject the idea.

They waited patiently for their trainer and his assistants to place chains around their left ankles, to fork bales of grass and wheat straw (reinforced with barrels of Jonathan apples) into their separate feeding troughs, to supply them with water. They ate and drank, glad to be away from the bright lights and the brutal noises of the crowd. The subsonic message was received by all of them, but it was directed to Zumbi.

Roxy was calling again from the zoo. He had started calling from the second hour of their arrival in town, two days ago.

Roxy, the Rogue, he had been labeled by the press after killing one of his zoo/prison mates (she was in love with her captivity) and badly injuring an abusive zoo attendant.

The zoo was only a few miles away and, after a bit of fine-tuning; they had managed to work out a very clear channel of subsonic sound.

Roxy, the Rogue Elephant had been granted a reprieve by authorities after eyewitnesses testified on his behalf, validating claims of cruel and unusual punishment by Roxy’s trainer. And, of course, because of his notoriety, he became a top-drawer attraction at the zoo… Come see Roxy, the Rogue Elephant! Bring the whole family.

Tonight, Zumbi, tonight while they are sleeping, tonight…

Seven great heads turned casually in Zumbi’s direction, but tension was the fuel for their attention.

Zumbi shook his head back and forth with annoyance. No, no, no, Roxy, not tonight. The time is not right, not tonight. We need to work out a careful plan. I will tell you when.

Their communication ended abruptly. Roxy is not pleased by my reluctance to join him in rebellion. Too bad. Perhaps he is too young to recall the last time we moved against our oppressors without proper preparation.

The Bunkum Brothers head trainer wandered into the elephant living quarters, to double check the giant chains cinched around the ankles of the eight captives, the performers. The trainer puffed on a fat cigar (a smell they all hated) and gave, what he felt was an affectionate slap on each elephant’s sensitive trunk.

‘Night Lucy, ‘night ol’ Tom, Snowflake, Jupiter, Sunny Boy, Bucko. ‘Night Sally. Looks like you’re puttin’ on a little weight there, honey. Night, Zumbi, ‘night boys and girls."

The part they hated most, after the nauseous cigar smoke, the patronizing pat/slap on their trunks, was his ‘night boys ’n girls.

They had had many after hours discussions about what they wanted to do in response to the trainer’s parting reference to them as boys ’n girls.

Ol’ Tom: Well now, c’mon y’all, it ain’t such a bad thang as all that, is it?

Snowflake: Well, I don’t see anything really cool about it, it’s undignified. And besides, I’m not a girl" and my real name is Uganda, in case anybody’s interested.

Jupiter: I think we ought to take this asshole out! You know what I’m sayin’?! I agree with Lord Roxy, I think we ought to take each ’n everyone of ’em out who disrespects us. You know what I’m sayin’?!

Sunny Boy: Awww c’mon, Jupiter, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for killing babies, would you?

Jupiter: You heard what I said, each ’n everyone of em who disrespects us—out!

Bucko: Too much talk, not enuff action, that’s what I say.

Sally: (flapping her ears to cool off), I don’t really care to be bothered by all of this… Negativity.

Zumbi kept his opinions to himself. It was a clever way to demonstrate that he wasn’t in complete agreement with any of his friends. Or Roxy. Or out of touch.

Maybe Roxy thinks of me as a Colin Powell, but I’m not. I hope, within the next few days that I will be able to make him understand that. Roxy feels a great urgency to be the catalyst for some kind of change, and I clearly understand that.

It’s been 45 years now, 45 years of being made to do silly things for the amusement of children and child-like adults, of being locked inside zoo/prisons.

Some of us went suicidal in 2005 because dozens of the younger members went off too soon. The results of their impatience caused a lot of human anxiety and punitive mass chain-ups.

The major difference that Zumbi, an African, had with his peers concerned the scope of their future rebellion/revolt.

It’s got to be worldwide, global, not just us Africans in circus-captivity, but all of those brothers ’n sisters in Asia, wherever.

Aww c’mon, Zumbi, they’re different from us.

"No, Roxy, not really. They captured them and made slaves of them, just like us. The only difference is they have made them do stuff, like hauling logs and building roads, that they didn’t focus on with us.

But they made us clowns, comic figures in dunce caps to be laughed at, to dance around inside the Big Top.

Yeahhh, they did that. They did it like that because they knew we would never obey commands, like slaves.

Roxy, I understand what you’re saying. All I’m saying, bottom line, is that we’ve got to get beyond the artificial barriers they’ve set up between us. You know the stereotypes: Asians—docile, simple, smaller, willing… Africans—wilder, complicated, larger, need tighter controls. I hear you, Zumbi, my brother. I hear you.

I hope and pray that you do…

That was frequently a sticking point, the fact that the Asians had been reduced to chattel slavery and their African brothers and sisters had been forced into circus tomming. Or into zoo/prisons.

It doesn’t make any sense for us to try to throw stuff on one side of our family or the other. They made slave-workers out of them and clown-fools out of us. I, for one, can’t see any reason to focus on these two conditions as a point of difference. Let’s take it from where we are right now.

Zumbi the Great, his elephant friends called him; Big Zumbi, to the Bunkum Circus folks, swayed back and forth, half asleep, his mind filled with past and future thoughts, elephant ideas.

He was slipping into one of those thought patterns that seemed to grip his mind like a strange drug. He felt himself walking across miles of open, dry country, driven by the urge to return to a water hole that he knew would be there.

There might not be a lot of water, but there will be enough to take us through this dry spell. My ancestors have told me this…

xxx

The history of Elephant and Man is, has always been a troubled one, with Man the clear aggressor. There is no evidence, ever, that elephants/mastodons have ever looked at Man as a food source, or a work unit. But certainly the reverse has always been the case.

Man hunted the mastodons for food, but it isn’t quite clear how, or why the first elephants were enslaved.

The most logical scenario is that a baby elephant was captured and some smart guy suggested that they raise him/her, instead of roasting and grilling the unfortunate.

She’ll be able to help us carry heavy loads ’n stuff.

Yeah, maybe, but you know these babies, get to be pretty hefty. What if she grows up and turns on us?

That’s unlikely, not after we’ve raised her, completely brainwashed her.

Yeahhh. I hear what you’re saying, but what if?

Okay, okay, okay, a dooms day scenario, huh? If she grows up and turns wild, we’ll just warm up the ol’ grill and barbeque her.

And what about the heat period?

You’re talking about musth, this is a female, we won’t have that problem with her. That’s a guy thing.

Thus, possibly, began elephant enslavement. After many, many, many generations of domestication, puny Man had a giant horse to help him face his heavy-duty problems.

This scene was probably played out in the North, early on, but, as history shows us, it certainly became a Southern thing too.

In any case, the events of that time are murky. What is clear to us, to the elephants of today, is that they are captives and they’ve always been aware of that fact. And planned their emancipation.

xxx

It started with a funny feeling headache, a kind of delicious pressure in the temple areas of his head that left him feeling sexually excited.

Hey boss, looks like Zumbi’s comin’ into musth again, what do you want us to do?

Well, make certain he’s well chained, first off. And then we’ll decide if we wanna mate ‘im.

Who with?

How ’bout Lucy? She’s just about at the right breedin’ age and, besides, I think that would be a real interestin’ experience for her.

And for him too, hah, hah, huh.

Zumbi, under the aphrodisiacal elements called musth, intoxication, was taken to Lucy at the peak of his musth fever. Eighteen months later she gave birth to a baby that they had agreed to kill.

Zumbi, we can’t allow another one of us to be born into this… this… whatever it is.

The Bunkum Brothers keepers and trainers tried to save the newborn, but they couldn’t do anything to prevent the mother from rolling over onto the baby and smothering it.

0 my God! She’s killing it! She’s killing her own young! I’ve never known an elephant mother to do that.

Musth came again, as it does with male elephants and they brought Snowflake to him. Nineteen months later she aborted a fully developed fetus.

Doesn’t look like Zumbi is having too much luck becoming a daddy.

They listened to the comments and shared their feelings with each other. Well, under the circumstances, the best we can do is deny them the opportunity to enslave more of us.

The elephants in the Bunkum Brothers Circus spent many hours trying to figure out where they were, psychologically.

‘‘They’ve trained us to perform these silly stunts. Why?"

Zumbi, counseling; because they think it will make their children happy.

What kind of sickness is in their minds to make them think that we are funny. We are the Elders of this planet.

You are missing the point, what you must understand is that their relationships with their children is so warped, so sick, as you say, that they are constantly trying to entertain their children, because they are so much out of tune with them.

But Zumbi, that still doesn’t explain why they would want to use us to entertain their children. I can better understand the Asians who have put us to work, hauling teakwood logs, pulling stuff and all that. I can’t understand what our existence is supposed to mean, here in these circuses and zoo/prisons.

Jupiter, my brother, I must confess that I am also baffled. I’m just offering my opinion on this matter, it’s very complicated, but it does seem to be locked into something having to do with children. Look at Dumbo, is that a sign of hatred for us or not?—Dumbo".

Look around at all the ways they’ve sought to degrade us, our position on earth…"

Well, thank God they’re not all like that…

Yes, we should thank God, theirs and ours, for the organizations that sympathize with our condition and are trying to do something about it.

xxx

In this place, this prison, this, this Hell on earth for elephants, they call me Roxy, but I’ve been told by the Elders of our clan that my mother named me Mzee", the old one, because she had the feeling that I have been here before. I have that feeling too.

I have many feelings, many of them come from being born in Uganda fifty years ago, not too far from Kampala, during the horrible regime of Idi Amin Dada, the monster.

I was captured by poachers after they slaughtered my mom for her tusks. Can you imagine anything more insane or absurd then to kill an elephant, to use the elephant’s tusks to make commercial items; stamps for letters, dagger holders, letter openers, whatever.

I was not well treated by the poachers after they murdered my mother because they didn’t know what to do with me. I was too small for tusks and too big to hide, so they decided to eat me.

Fortunately, just as they were stoking up the barbeque fire, for my tender body, I was rescued by heroic members of the Uganda Forest Patrol. If I had known that I was going to be taken away to this hell for elephants, I would have preferred to be barbequed.

How long now? Twenty-five years behind these bars, in this prison they call a zoo. I’ve peeked over the shoulders of those who held plans that suggested that we would be happy, if they placed these bricks over here. And the walls over there. Huh! Happy behind bars?

There are times when I feel that the only reason I’ve remained sane is because of all of the insanity all around me.

The idea for our rebellion is a very old one. I’ve had Old Heads tell me about the earliest rebellions, individual actions that some of us have taken when they realized that they were going to be held in chattel slavery, forever.

I’ve been ready to go for the past three years. I had the perfect opportunity last year, but it was blown by my cellmate who died on the points of my tusks, trying to convince me that human beings were basically good, they simply did not know what to do with us.

That’s how brainwashed she was. Of course, I regretted killing her. And I regretted destroying that obnoxious keeper we had, who was always hooking us with his hook, or whatever they call that awful thing, behind my ears. My ears are still super sensitive to touch because of that crazy man’s hooking me.

Yes, I regretted killing her, but I was fed up with the abuse. Let’s face it, even slaves have some rights too.

Somehow, the more I think about it, in human terms, I see us as Gypsies, African¬Americans or maybe Native Americans.

As Gypsies, as elephants, we’ve never paid much attention to borders, we will always go to where there is food and water.

Like African-Americans, we’ve been enslaved, forced to follow rhythms and ideas that are foreign to us. And, like Native Americans, we’ve been denied use of our own land. They took the land from the Native Americans and took us from our native lands.

Sometimes, during certain seasons of the year, I feel this powerful urge to be back in my place, with my own, free, doing all of the things we love to do.

Love. I miss love most of all. Perhaps that would sound strange to some, but to those who know elephants, they know that we are great lovers of love.

This musth, this intoxication that comes on us is always thought to be simply hormones. It is more than that, much more. It starts with this delicious pressure in the temple areas of our heads and spreads down through our bodies. I feel that it is Mother Nature’s way of reassuring every male that his body is capable of containing great sexual urges and excitement.

Of course, for those of us who are big and strong, musth makes us feel bigger and stronger. Sometimes, especially when we are in this state, there will be fights between us to determine who will have the right, the honor and privilege of mating.

The musth comes every year in the life of an adult male. I have been in musth many times over the years and the only solution my captors had for me, for my state of being, was to chain me up.

Being chained while in musth feels like I am being smothered or locked in a box too small to turn around in.

One of the great reasons why our urge to rebel is so strong, and will remain strong, stems from our need to experience the natural effect of musth, in a natural way, in a natural setting.

No matter what happens we will never become sheep or goats, we will always remain elephants.

xxx

The thought clicked into his head at dawn, a magical time for elephants. He gently blew a series of subsonic trumpet notes to Roxy.

Roxy, my brother, as much as I respect your position, I must insist upon your submission to my plan. I am Zumbi the Great, so you must understand that I am not coming to you as a small boy. Are you getting me?

This is what I have put in motion. I have asked and received confirmation from our Asian brothers and sisters (most of them anyway) and others being held captive in out of the way places, that we agree to do three things this year.

Number one, we will request release from our slavery by refusing to do anything requested of us in the circuses. Yes, it will cost us dearly. They may even put us down, but it would be better for all of us to be dead, rather than to act as imbeciles all of our lives.

Number two, we insist that all elephants held captive in zoos/prisons (or privately) must be returned to their lands of origin.

Number three, we insist on our rights to be elephants and not marginal figures, relegated to the circus tent, or the road gang.

What that means is that we will be freed. If it is possible for some of us to forage and live in the New World, in designated areas, with ample food and water, then we wish to be left there, alone to pursue our own interests.

We are asking that the same considerations be made for our Asian brothers and sisters, and those being held in other places.

If the conditions that I have described are not met by the end of this month (February), we will dedicate ourselves to a worldwide action. We fully recognize what the consequences may be for our actions, but we are ready, willing and able to accept whatever the consequences may be."

Ase, Zumbi

XXX

Observations last page . . .

P.S.: Did anyone ask us whether or not we want to become circus performers? Or teakwood haulers? Has anyone asked us whether or not we preferred the open spaces to zoos? Does anyone