A Tale of Suliman and Hector

By Peter Carnahan

Two New York advertising executives, Hector and John, journey to the inner city streets of North Philadelphia to negotiate with a local leader and guru. This man, Suliman, has initiated a grassroots campaign against a new brand of cigarette, aimed specifically at black smokers, that the advertising agency plans to test-market. When they arrive, Hector and John find a world based on African religion and art, and on survival in the primal streets of an urban environment. Their business negotiations take on a new flavor, and their harrowing, and at times humorous, encounters with people in the neighborhood throw into high relief the differences between the two of them, and have radical results for each mans life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462802968

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A TALE OF SULIMAN

AND HECTOR

Peter Carnahan

Copyright © 2001 by Peter Carnahan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

MORNING

MEETING

AMY

BOBBY

GOING THERE BACKWARDS

PREPARING

MEETING TWO

THE NATURAL LIFE OF ILE IFE

IN THE FIELD

THE REAL MEETING

STREET TALK

LOOKING FOR FRANZWAH

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

THE MORE REAL MEETING

PRAISE-NAMING

BAILING OUT

CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For Lily Yeh and for Arthur Hall.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

September 16, 1991

Dear Sir or Madame:

The new cigarette called Do-Win, that is aimed at Black People, that the Marlboro Man isn’t enough, that the Camel and his Joe aren’t enough, that there must be a cigarette that even the simplest can’t deny is made just for this Brother. Do-Win. Sir, a Mr. Richard Whaley of National United Brands was quoted in your newspaper.

He say Blacks deserve to have the variety of choices afforded to all Americans. That’s what the free enterprise system is all about.

No, what the Free Enterprise System about is to create desire where there is no desire, false dreams that are falsely satisfied, the promulgation of addiction.

I live in Locust Alley, but the plague do not come every seventeen years. It come longer ago than most can remember and it stay. The plague is not drugs, although that come from it. Walk up and down my street at night. Houses that still have glass in the window, you can see him through the glass, the ghostly glow of the television sets. The same glow I would see him in a middle class neighborhood, if I could walk there at night. Or even the rich neighborhood, if I could get that close to the window.

I hear him through the window saying, you need this, you need this, brother, you need this. Endlessly, day and night, turning and turning like the dervishes in their frenzy. You got to have this. And this. Even our beautiful music, the music of Soul, he use to create this False Desire.

Then we step back, and the man with the solemn face in the White House say to us drugs is our number one problem. Where has he been? The Free Enterprise System been working all the time for a hundred years to do this. Where/has/he/been?

Yes, come drive through what you call the ghett-oh. Do you see those little boys dealing little white bags, you see those crackheads standing on the corners, the women sitting in doorways without respect for themselves? That your future. U.S. is US. Come and ghett-it.

Suliman Tree

Philadelphia PA

MORNING

Jesus, how beautiful!

The horse began to gather itself into a gallop; slowly the shoulders collected into great chestnut clouds of muscle; the four hooves, pulled up together, dropped to the earth in a distinct fourbeat, fourbeat; then he saw head on, through the bars of the jump, the horse’s head and the rider’s, rising and falling rhythmically, seeming to come on forever in the long lens of his eye; and then from underneath, the leap out of the frame, (music), leaving him looking at pure sky; and he quick-cut to the landing, the horse’s legs hyperextended, the rider’s torso exploded forward with the impact of the earth through the horse. Was it a boy or a girl? A skinny girl. The kind he liked. He saw the tag line. THE POETS HAD A WORD FOR IT:

Jesus, how fucking beautiful!

Signature slide. Music. Twenty seconds.

A car horn blared and he jumped. The car, a Maserati, pulled around him on the left and made an angry right turn across his bow onto the new road down behind the fairgrounds. He realized he’d been sitting at the stop sign with both feet on the brake pedal. He made a slow right turn after the Maserati and all the way down to the station carried the image of the skinny girl, her chin tilting up as the horse struck the earth, the scene backlit in his memory, early morning sunlight dripping over it like golden syrup. He was fifty-five years old, led a heavy life in the city, had never had a heart murmur. Solid. You gotta make time for beauty in your life.

If he had any religion left it was that. He wouldn’t have called it religion exactly, but like yesterday, Rodney had called about Gunderson coming in from London, to see him first thing Tuesday on the Do-Win campaign. Christ! Do-Win. All the space bought. The outdoor board bought. Whaley’s jitters calmed. Everything set to kick in two weeks. Gunderson. So twenty years ago he’d have had four martinis and worried it all the way home on the train, got M.J. in tears, walked out on dinner, taken a pill. No more. He didn’t do that any more.

He’d left work early and walked to the station, strolled to the station, really, with his hands in his pockets, looking at the little captive trees and the way the sunlight snaked along the street and picked up their leaves. At 48th and Park this black guy dancing on the corner—not exactly dancing, shuffling his feet and singing. Homeless; at least, he had a blanket around his shoulders. Singing slow and high, with this slow motion of the feet, I’m going to gree—eet swee—eet Je-sus, his face like a dark wood carving. The tag line: HOW THEY SURVIVE.

John Armstrong gave him twenty, stuck it into the leathery hand like it was part of a handshake, hidden, palm to palm. The guy had whipped John’s hand around, palms up, thumbs locked, like a fraternity handshake, then dropped it. Bless you, brother. He should worry about Gunderson?

He pulled his GX into the station parking lot, swore ritually as he saw Frohnmehier’s Cadillac in his favorite spot, went down the line and squeezed in between a van and a blue Infiniti over its line. He opened his case and made a note of the Infiniti’s license number. He strode past the younger commuters on the platform. There were more every year, and more women; now a battalion of the younger generation, in their dark, smart suits with their papers, waiting. They looked wrong. They looked like kids dressed up as parents in the high school play, the headlines they held, BUSH DEFENDS GULF TACTICS, too heavy for them. He nodded to the thinning numbers of those he recognized. Hegins, who was asleep until New Rochelle. Margolis, with whom he’d been drinking last night. They nodded back, they knew the drill. He stopped at the front end of the platform and stared southwest, through the black branches of the electrical poles at the canopy of gray cloud peeling back, revealing a blue sky with thin bands of cream-colored cloud. When the train arrived he took his seat, second car, right hand side, scrunched down, put his knees up on the seat in front and continued to stare at the morning sky. The others ignored him. This was his creative time.

This is the way we wash our clothes, Wash our clothes, wash our clothes, This is the way we wash our clothes, So early in the morning. The original, he remembered, was On a cold and frosty morning. Research had dug that out for him. Well, nothing much there, but the tune might still have some subliminal punch, overlaid with other beats the way they do it in Creative. This is the maiden all forlorn, the clicking of the rails said to him, That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, That tossed the dog, That worried the cat, That killed the rat, That ate the malt, That lay in the house that Jack built. His knees began to slide down toward the floor as the train picked up speed over the bridge, out of Pelhingham Station and the white masts in the back-harbor flickered through his closing eyelids. The house that jack built, he smiled stupidly to himself. Then more seriously, disco beat, maybe rap beat, as he fell asleep.

***

Two hours earlier, Hector Lake had rolled the blind rod between his creaky fingers and peered between the slats at the world out there. It was one sheet of gray at six in the morning, the top part sky, the bottom part Sound, the line between them the thinnest of pencil lines. One of those slow-moving days when nature itself doesn’t seem to want to get up. He raised the blinds all along the glass wall, a series of ragged clacks like a local firing squad, then turned and padded into the kitchen for grapefruit juice, hearing the voice of his wife, Jean, always in his ear: you do everything the same, blinds, grapefruit juice, coffee, bowels, high fiber, desk. You do it the same every day. You’ve become your grandfather.

But you always loved my grandfather.

The desk was full of papers, Hector’s piles, and yellow stickies. Book to Rud. Reservations Coq d’Or. Re-do terrace edge. Call Twitty re Oct. It’s really the greatest advance of the decade, he thought to Jean, this little yellow sticky, forget the binary code, this is pure technology. All right, sorry, no Hectorisms.

The clock by the bed said 6:17 and for a moment he stared at it as if it were in roman numerals. No more quarter afters, no more half pasts. Broken into pieces. Digital life.

He was looking for something, what was it? He went to the back hall closet—there was not much in it now, just whatever Bridget kept there to clean—and slid the door open and something fell plop into his arms, long, thin, light, the cover olive cotton so old it felt like silk, a fishing rod. He took it back to the desk, got out a tag and wrote, This fishing rod was smuggled across the straits at Sault Ste. Marie by Hector Lake in a rowboat, on a wonderful camping trip, in the summer of 1934. Genuine almost antique. Do not use. Tied it on.

Caleb, he said in answer to Jean’s question in his head. I’m writing to Cal now. You don’t write for your children, they’ve had enough of you; your grandchildren can imagine you young.

He put the rod back and went into the bedroom and opened the second drawer where his white shirts lay side by side like headstones. Took one out, took the plastic off, opened it up. Hoops Dri-Clean still did that great starch job, still did stand alone white shirts that almost creaked when you put them on. But that morning it felt like it was all edges, cutting into his skin. For some strange reason, he was going into the city.

***

John Armstrong awoke ten minutes later as the train slid into the station at Green Harbor and for a moment he thought he was back five years as he saw the large, ovoid shape of Hector Lake, dressed in his familiar gray tweed topcoat and gray fedora, standing on the platform. The thought what’s he doing here? mingled with Jesus, he’s gotten old, as he watched Hector line up for the steps, noticed the now pure white of his hair under the fedora, the fully-weighted jowls that gave his face an even more melancholy look than it had been famous for. Basset profundo one of the guys in Copy had dubbed it.

What’s he doing here? John thought again, at the same time straightening up and preparing himself for the intrusion. Hector’s generation had always maintained a rigid friendliness toward anyone in the firm. It was an hour yet into the city. Fuck.

The bulk of Hector lowered with an easy rush of air into the seat beside him, seeming to take up the whole three dimensional space between him and the aisle, and the Morning, John was like the last part of the exhale.

Hi, Heck, he heard himself say in a twenty-nine-year-old voice, How’re things going?

Dining on the fruits of retirement, was the amiable reply.

John searched the voice for any sardonic overtones, for he, himself, had been the architect of that retirement, but there were none. Just that eternal, Midwestern, soybean solidity.

Keeps me regular, Hector added; then, confirming John’s worst fears, What do you suppose Gunderson wants?

***

Hector kept him waiting. He could see the fingers of John’s hand drumming against the lining in his overcoat pocket, but he wanted a good look, a good old, upward-craning, nineteen-forties tourist pork-pie hat look at that damn building. Sixth Avenue used to be a nice undistinguished street, an easy valley full of cigar stores and cafeterias between Fifth and the midway over there at Times Square. Then they started putting up these glass towers and the firm couldn’t wait to move in, couldn’t wait to desert their signature street, good old Madison. She was a stylish old dame, Madison, even if her fox furs were getting a bit tatty, but this, this is jackboot alley.

They entered the jungle atrium of the lobby. Give me the tour, he said to John, but John turned on his heel and headed for the elevators.

On the fiftieth floor, the reception area was a little better, gray and salmon, a lot of broad, low furniture. Luxury liner lounge, they caught it very nicely, he thought, they are so good on periods these days, at least recent periods. Waiter, bring me a schnapps and soda. But wonder of wonders, it was all a stage set. John led him through a wall and behind it was this prairie, gray, upholstered partitions, just at throat height, spreading across the floor like the patterns of a crossword puzzle. When his gaze finally got to the walls it kept going right through them, to infinity, to God or, in some directions, into the transparent buildings across the street. What a view.

Along the outside wall the partitions were glass and actually went up to the ceiling, so that behind big wooden desks, looking like items in department store windows, were the executives. There was Charley Congdon and old Brad Tennis. Behind them, looking around the Magritte-like pictures and drapes, he could see sky. People work here? Well, Charley did seem to be reading something, and old Brad never did anyway. And all over the block-long floor, above the throat-high partitions, were blond heads bobbing along. Oh, give me a home.…

John steered him to a house standing up on the prairie, and inside it the walls seemed thicker and everything was familiar again and the corridors of power were quiet, like the days when everyone had noiseless typewriters in their offices. Hector Lake had written the copy for Remington in 1940—Here at Breckinridge, we can hear ourselves think—so we do a lot more of it.

MEETING

Hector? Hal Gunderson. Good to meet you at last.

It was one of those English voices with an echo behind it, Scandinavian childhood, so long ago he thinks in English. Hector had expected everything else, the bulk, the reddish blond coloration, the handshake springy as a medium rare steak, warm smile, cool eyes. How glad I am, he thought as he grasped the steak and automatically met the eyes, to be through with this business. For a moment, the relief was so strong he felt young and light-headed and ready for the road.

Hal Gunderson had been the name on every tongue that last year before his retirement. Half-way out the door, he had been immune to the virus, and whether the orders came from New York or London, or Tokyo for that matter, mattered not at all to him. Hal Gunderson remained a black and white photo in The Times. Now he just found himself mildly interested to see the original, in color, and mildly wondering if this fellow knew any good restaurants in London, the kind he and Jean had liked, formal but not starched.

It took Gunderson about thirty seconds to get there, and Hector’s appreciation went up several notches as he watched the process. Begin with a mutual friend, Adolph Henry, now retired to a water mill in Berkshire, cultivating trout and becoming an expert on Izaak Walton—Adolph always had a scholar gene—(Gunderson smiled at that), and somehow there they were running down a list of their favorite restaurants in Knightsbridge. Eh voila! Quite a performance, getting on someone’s wavelength that fast—only politicians and young people desperately in love. He had seen the trick on television once, a man who listened so closely and could repeat your words so quickly, it gave the impression he was speaking your words with you. Reading your thoughts. Gunderson was reading his thoughts, so Hector told him no, he hadn’t visited London recently, not since his wife died.

Hal Gunderson didn’t blink. He said, Your wife was Jean; I heard; I’m sorry. And pressed Hector’s arm just enough. And they all sat down in the furniture grouping at the living room end of Rodney Fox’s office.

Gunderson spread himself out at one end of a beige sofa. John Armstrong took an Empire armchair, so he could sit, Hector thought, higher than everyone, his body leaning forward like he was about to take off. God, he can look uncomfortable. Hector himself found a great overstuffed chair for his overstuffed body. It was delicious.

He turned his attention to the two people in the room he knew only by reputation. At the other end of the sofa, Darren Francavilla, the one who had come up with those spots for the Day-rite Corporation, the ones where you have to turn your head away from the set because even with the mute on they attack your eyeballs. Well, he thought resignedly, they all do now, but this is the fellow who brought it over from MTV. And he did sort of look like a rock musician, shoulder-length greasy hair, one leg up on the sofa, a bit too much belly over the belt or he would have looked twenty-five. Nicely laid back. He just sprawled there with his leg up and his dark hazel absolutely incurious eyes staring at the forest painting over the fireplace.

And Mayhue, Russell Mayhue, in the other Empire chair, high, grasshopper knees one over the other, and folded on top of the knees, oversized black hands. College basketball star? Hector thought he remembered. Mayhue listened to Gunderson, some