Henry Dumas

Editor's Note: Thirty-seven years have passed since Henry Dumas, one of the brightest lights in the pantheon of American writers was shot down and killed on the streets of East St. Louis, Illinois. He had he lived, he would have been 70 years old this year. Asili through the good graces of Loretta Dumas and Eugene B. Redmond has attempted to keep this great creative spirit alive in these pages. Dumas' impact on American and especially African American letters is incalculable.

Devil Bird

I think it was Satan the Devil who came first. I was sitting just inside my grandfather's room, reading a comic-book story of David and Goliath. My father heard the knock at the door and let him in. My father must have been expecting someone, because he didn't ask who it was. I heard the door open, heard a scuffling, and felt a rush of hot air. When I looked up from the comic book, I looked into the eyes of a very tall man. He wore bright carnival-looking clothing that shone iridescently. He paused at the door of my grandfather's room, and a shadow fell across my knees, extending to the edge of the bed. My grandfather, who had been quiet all day and who seldom moved, suddenly sat upright, his eyes popping and his thin chest heaving. His groan filled the whole house.

Then the Devil-I am sure it was him now, because of the things that happened afterward-bowed slowly, almost imperceptibly. In his gloved hands he carried a tapering rod shaped at the smaller end like a key. As he passed by the door, his eyes rested on me, and I think I heard him chuckle. At the same time, my mother, who had heard the scream of my grandfather, rushed past the visitor and entered the room. I had stood up, unable to do or say anything. My father followed the visitor into the front room, which we called the Game Room, and there they began to examine carefully our family Game Book.

My mother and I tended to my grandfather. It must have been the sudden rush of air that choked off his breath. Soon he was resting as before. His eyes were half closed and he lay still, making only little grumbling noises now and then, which I had learned--after listening to my father and mother discussing Grandfather's activities in his younger days-were fusses and fights he had had with his deacons. My grandfather was a famous Negro minister in his day, and there were many who were jealous of his closeness with God and his influence as a Christian.

My mother gave my grandfather some medicine and sent me out of the room. Then she turned out the light and tiptoed out.

We were all in the Game Room now. I sat in the corner, watching the tall visitor thumb through the Book. Every now and then he would pause and look up at my father, who would study the page and shake his head. My father called my mother to his side, and they examined the pages together. After looking through half the Book, the visitor closed it and took out a long, narrow cigarette. He touched the end of the cigarette with the key, and instantly flames sprang up. The smoke smelled like burning weeds.

Soon there was another knock at the door, and my mother got up. She asked, "Who is it?" There seemed to be no answer.

"Who is it?" she asked, louder.

There came a voice: "I am here."

My father stood up, and the visitor, laying the lighted cigarette across the Book, also stood up.

"That is my partner," said the visitor.

"Your partner?" asked my father.

"Yes, oh, yes. Didn't you know?"

"Well. .."

"You were expecting someone else?"

"Well, according to the Game Book, we ...are partners.. .

The visitor laughed. "You are a partner," he said. "Are you like the old man in there, who thinks a god is his partner? "

"Let him in, Grace," my father finally said.

I looked at the Devil. He was smiling. He pranced around the room now, and his footsteps shook the floor. I don't know what got into me, but I got mad at him. I could feel my comic book tearing under the pressure of my hands.

"My father doesn't want anybody to put their cigarettes on the Book," I suddenly said to the visitor. He faced me and blew a smoke ring. I pointed at his smoking cigarette. "And besides, it stinks, and Grandfather is sick."

He looked quizzically at me and pranced about heavily. But when I fetched an ashtray from the Game Room supply closet and placed it on the table where the Book always rested, I noticed the cigarette was out and the visitor was waving the key rod around as if he were writing in the air. He then smiled at me, bowed, and continued marching around, stepping so loud I thought the walls would fall and the floor would give way.

Then entering the room was another tall man. He was dressed shabbily, as if he had been in an accident or a fight. His eyes were dreary and his head bent over. He came in, my mother following closely behind him. He sat down at the table and began looking through the Book. In the sick room my grandfather moaned. My father and mother came over to me now, and I could tell that they didn't know exactly what to do.

When the second visitor had finished looking through die Book, he looked at my father and said, "Do you have any good cards?"

"I don't know," my father said, going over to the supply closet. "What about these?" The Book says a game of cards," said the second visitor, "and may the good man and woman of the house accept their hands."

The Devil began to clap his hands and dance around the room. He grabbed God by the shoulders and hugged him, calling him "Partner! Partner!"

Every time Satan the Devil touched God's shoulder with his long gloved fingers there was a sizzling sound. A cool wind was blowing the smoke out of the room. Suddenly a light came on in my grandfather's room. My mother hurried to the room. I could see my grandfather's thin arms wavering across the sheet, as he was trying to reach and pull it over his frail body.

"The Book is right," said the Devil. He prepared the table for a game, ushering my father around as if he was a child. I didn't like the way he did things, but then, a person isn't supposed to like the Devil. It doesn't matter whether or not he really is the Devil, or whether he does good or bad things. If he looks like what you think the Devil is supposed to look like and if he acts like the Devil, then you are supposed to fear him and hate him.

Soon God Almighty and Satan the Devil were sitting opposite each other at the card table. They were partners. My father was sitting opposite the vacant chair. Our family played cards often. I had seen my father and uncles, aunts, and relatives play late into the night, often sending me to bed before the games were finished. There was something about the way they played that made me stand for hours, watching the plays and the expressions on their faces. They played as if everything counted on the game. Sometimes I believed it did. When I played with my friends, I found myself putting on the same expressions and acting with the same intensity, whatever the game was. I went to the table. God was still studying the Book. My father had his head in his hands. When he heard me climbing into the chair, he looked up.

"Little fellow, that's not your seat."

"But who's gonna play with you?"

He looked at God, fumbled with the Book, and cleared throat as my mother turned out the light in Grandpa's room.

"But I want to play," I said.

"I know, son, but when Mother comes you'll have to get up"

"Why?" I asked. "She's taking care of Grandpa."

The Devil, reaching out for the ashtray, looked at my father and said, "Do you want to play or forfeit?"

"Let him choose," said God. "Let him make sure he wants to do what he does." He looked at my father. "I will allow you another chance."

My father began to shiver. I wanted to help him. Here were God and Satan, playing against him. It was against everything I had learned in Sunday School. I got mad at both God and the Devil, but I felt ashamed and tried to keep quiet. I was waist high to my father then, and I wasn't supposed to know as much as he did. Yet I remember everything that happened as if it were only yesterday. Father thumbed nervously through the Book.

"There are some mistakes," he began, "because, according to the Game Book--"

The Devil cut him off. "Is it not true that he is your father and that for twenty years he was the spiritual leader of ten thousand Negro Christians from allover this nation?"

"Moreover," added God, "you and she have played the game of cards. You know the game, and it would be unfair for us to use another method. Am I not true?"

I heard my father whisper "Yes" under his breath. He withdrew his hand from the Book and watched as my mother took the seat opposite him.

"And so," said God, suddenly seizing the deck of cards. After shuffling them deftly three times, he handed them to the Devil, who looked them over and asked, "Why are you giving them to me?" Still holding them, God reached and touched the extended edge of the key rod to the deck, and immediately there was a flash. Then God shoved the cards in front of my father and said, "You shall deal your hand."

It is the rule in whist that the opponent to the right of the dealer shall cut the cards. My father, forgetting this rule although he was an expert whist player-began to deal out the cards. As soon as my father had given God and my mother their first cards, the Devil held up his hands. "Halt."

"What is wrong?" asked my mother.

"The Book says that I have to cut the cards."

My father looked dumbfounded. He knew the rules, and he dropped the cards on the table and prepared to reshuffle them.

"No, no," said God. "Let him cut as they stand. You will learn that you get no second chances in this game. Mistakes are costly."

The Devil cut the cards, and I am sure that the cards he got from then on were better than the ones he was going to get, for I could see his hand from where I stood and it was a very good one.

"But the Game Book doesn't say you can cut after the cards have been dealt," protested my mother. She was angry.

Then God and Satan the Devil put their heads together, whispering and thumbing on the table as if they were in deep concentration.

From Grandpa's room came a stirring about and a series of grunts.

The Devil took out his key rod and waved it. He touched the Book with it several times, pointed it around the room. When he pointed it toward my father's clothes closet, the door opened and a hat fell out. Before anyone could react to this, the Devil jumped up and seized the hat, putting it on and stomping around the room, growling and fuming as if he were the meanest Devil in hell. While he was doing this, God was thumbing through the Book, making funny marks in the Book with his right finger.

Then the game resumed, and when my mother brought up the same protest, she was allowed to examine the Book to find the rule she was quoting. While she searched, God toyed with the hat the Devil had been wearing, twirling it around and around in his right hand.

When my mother found the rule she read it:

Upon the failure of opponent to cut cards before the commencement of dealing, the opponent shall halt the dealer and perform the ritual of cutting as prescribed without the reshuffling of dealt cards.

When she finished reading she gasped, for obviously the rule was different.

"He did something to it!" I said, pointing at God. "He did something to it!"

"Now, now, young man," the Devil said to me, "when your turn comes to playa game of cards with us, I hope you have learned the rules yourself." He smiled and turned his back on me.

My father frowned at me.

Mother looked at her cards now in wonder and fear. My father dealt out the entire deck.

"Love," said God, "is the ultimate rule. If you love the game, there is no rule."

"The Book speaks in many languages," said the Devil. "A lifetime can be spent in the worthwhile pursuit of the wisdom of the Book. There are special situations with no rules, and special rules for no situations."

The game progressed. I could not tell who was winning, but the Devil and God had two private conversations. My parents looked at each other rarely and kept their heads down. On each hand they looked at their cards with less and less enthusiasm. And 1 guess 1 can say that since they had no enthusiasm in the very beginning, their faces were vacant and without hope. 1 was not only sad, but scared. 1 had never

heard of folks playing a game with God and the Devil. Then the two visitors seemed to get into some kind of an argument. They were on their third private conversation in the corner by the supply closet when their voices grew loud and vexed.

"Let the father," screamed the Devil.

"Let the son," persuaded God.

"And what about the other?"

"She will come in time."

"No."

"I want them all. Did we not make an agreement when he arose?"

"That was for their sakes. Even he knew that. How many more races do you think we can afford to the Promised Land?"

"Ask him if he really loves her."

"Let the son do it."

"Why should we tarry over this issue? Did not Jesus prove they cannot live without grace and there would be no grace unless he died?"

"Then we will take him?"

"It is written. He served his purpose. His love shall justify their hate. He has overstayed."

They went on like that for some time. I sat down with another comic book, because I had begun to believe that the visitors were imposters. But all that changed soon enough.

Suddenly from the sick room my grandfather appeared, I standing in front of the table like a ghost. He heaved and wavered, a stack of bones held together by withered black skin. He had wrapped a sheet around himself, and under his arm he carried a replica of the Book.

"Blasphemy! The smell of blasphemy is abominable. In my own house my children curse me and Jesus."

"So," the Devil said, turning to my grandpa and smiling at him, "Uncle has arrived and can speak for himself."

"Let him speak," said God.

My grandfather seemed not to see them. He directed his whole attention to my parents and me.

"You allow this young one to learn the vocabulary of evil. For twelve years I have pastored this flock, and never have I heard anyone blaspheme against the Holy Ghost! God is no respecter of persons, and His love is free to Negroes as well as whites. When we get to heaven there won't be any racial trouble, because those risen in Christ are free of the flesh."

While he preached the Devil motioned to God. They both tiptoed out of the room and then turned shortly. At first I didn't notice anything, but when they took their regular seats I noticed something peculiar. The Devil was twirling the hat with his left hand and God, smiling wryly at my grandfather, examined the key rod. There was no mistake. They had changed clothes.

Soon my grandfather was down on his knees, witnessing and beseeching God and Jesus to save the souls of all the Negro Christians who had gone astray. My mother was down on her knees, trying to get him back into bed. But he was wild. My father sat in his chair, his head in his hands, shuddering. I thought he might be crying. I hoped not.

Then the Devil cracked the key rod on the table. When he did that, a long-beaked bird that cawed like a crow flew from the hat God was twirling. It flapped around and left droppings on the Book. Finally it balanced itself on the shoulders of my grandfather and began to bow, repeatedly, at its audience. I hated that bird. It was funny, but the moment I saw it I disliked it and what it was doing. It was bad enough for Grandfather to. be wallowing on the floor, but to see the bird make fun of us was too much.

"How beautiful is the dove of peace," smiled Satan.

The next thing I knew, my grandfather was sitting on the chair opposite my father, and my mother was trying to get him to rest. Then they began another game.

This time, after my father cut, God dealt. The Devil lit up a stinking weed, and the smoke began to fill the Game Room.

My grandfather tried to hold his cards, pleading with God to forgive him.

"Lord, forgive Thy servant. My daughter has just in. formed me that you are here. Lord, Lord. .."

No one spoke. Several times the Devil made quick, angry motions with his hands, pointing to the center of the table for my grandfather to play his card and stop running his mouth. The game was on, and that was all there was to it. You play the game or you get out of the seat. I knew that much about it myself. My father was getting restless.

The smoke got thicker, and all that could be heard in the room was the whining of my grandfather and the cawing of the silly bird. It was flying all around the place now. Once it tried to light on me, and I slapped it all the way across the room. I watched the table. I was planning on getting a hold of the Devil's key rod, and if that bird came again, I was going to set it afire.

The game went on. "Please, forgive Thy humble black servant, Lord, for sin did lurk in the innermost parts of his soul, but Lord Jesus, with Thy cleansing power he shall be washed white as snow. .."Somebody's voice came through the smoke-"He is not here, Reverend."

My mother coughed and went out of the room. I couldn't see anything except that silly bird flying around the room. I looked for the key rod that God had been playing with. The bird cackled and screeched, as if it were making fun of my grandfather. And even if my grandfather did sound a little crazy then, I didn't like any silly crow making fun of him.

The smoke got really thick. My grandfather coughed every time he said two or three words. Nobody was talking except him and that bird. Every now and then I could hear the two visitors snorting. I couldn't tell whether they were laughing or emphasizing some point in the game. I could hear the cards hit the table. My father wasn't saying anything. I rolled up my comic book as tight as I could so I could hit that bird if he tried to settle on my head again, and I eased my way toward the game table.

"Lord...aggh ...if I had only. ..aggh ...known You were coming. .." My grandfather's thin shadow showed itself through the smoke. When I eased a bit closer, I saw the craziest thing. That bird was hopping around on the table. My grandfather's head was bowed. He was on his knees, holding onto the edge of the table with his hands.

"Lord God, I have been Your servant nigh unto seventy-five years. Why are Your ways still mysterious to me, Lord? I fast. I pray, Lord. But I must still have a little sin lurking somewhere. Your will be done."

He kept on like that. And all the time he was talking, I could hear the game going on. I saw the cards hit the table, WHACK!

"What have I done, Lord? What have I done? At least I thought that my onliest son here would deserve Your blessings? "

The cards were hitting the table more now, WHACK! The smoke got thicker. And I came right up to the edge of the table.

Then I saw what was going on. My father was leaning over his hand, shaking. I got scared just looking at him. He was playing cards out of his hand. The Devil was playing cards from his own hand. God was playing cards from his own hand. But that crow bird was playing from my grand. father's hand, which was face down on the table. He was kicking the card into the center of the table with his beak and then on the next play, he'd use one of his feet. He was showing off and strutting about. I raised the comic book to knock him off.

"Boy! What you doing?" It was my father.

"Look at that bird! He's messing up Grandfather's cards'Grandfather! Grandfather!" I yelled.

Before I could say anything, one of the visitors said something to me through the smoke. I couldn't see their faces any more.

"It's all right. It's part of the game. All you have to do to be careful when we come back again."

I didn't hear them. I was furious. I called my mother, and I could feel tears swelling up. It wasn't fair. I called to Grand. father, who was still talking. Suddenly he seemed to get angry at me, at Father, at everybody except that bird and the visitors.

"Blasphemy! In the House of God! I won't stand for I Lord! I have told them. I have told my son and my daughter ...these children. They have strayed, Lord. Forgive me, Lord. I waited so long for You to be my partner, Lord. We are partners, aren't we, Lord Jesus? We are partners, aren't we Ask me, Lord. Command me. I want to be in Your name. ..

I shook Grandfather and told him that my father was his partner, and that he should play. "Please, Grandfather." But they laughed at me.

It was funny, listening to them laugh. It sounded far away. Then I could hear my grandfather moaning. The smoke got in my eyes, and all I could hear was my grandfather asking God to change places with my father. He tried to make everybody change places so he and God could be partners. And when this happened, I felt a hot rush of air, then a cold one. Then the smoke cleared.

I saw the Book, burnt, and the key rod lying there which I quickly snatched-and I saw the visitors leading Grandfather away past his room. They looked over their shoulders at all of us, and just before they went out, one of them said, "I'll be back."

We sat tight, but nobody ever came back. I think it was Satan the Devil who said it, but I'm not sure.

I had a lot of fun chasing that bird around the house, trying to set his tail afire with that key rod. Finally I caught up with him, and just before I set him afire he cawed,

To profit by what is heard,
You must remember that
I am a prophet,
And not a bird.

I didn't pay any attention to it. I jabbed him, and when I did he burst into a stinking smoke.

My father took the key rod out of my hand, and I think he was getting ready to say something to me, but we heard it again:

To profit by what is heard,
You must remember that
I am a prophet,
And not a bird.

I have been trying to figure it out since. Whose voice did that bird's sound like?

©2005 by Eugene B. Redmond and Loretta Dumas