THE PRICE OF HONESTY IN AMERICA
Subway Tales
Paul Robeson & Lenny Bruce
The air is cold and full of New York winter. The winds off the Hudson River penetrate every inch of bodily warmth. Especially below ground in the Canal Street Station. Robeson stands out in a long brown mohair coat, a presence that feels like a tall and ancient tree. Lenny Bruce, hands tucked deep into the pockets of a tan raincoat straight off the racks at Gimbels, a camel cigarette between his lips. Soon as he catches glimpse of Paul’s looming figure, he advances. Even for a kid from Long Island, he learned to gravitate towards creative people.
LB: Sure as shit knew the moment I saw your shadow that was you Paul.
PR: And as I stand here, let it rain pennies from heaven, Mr. Bruce, I presume.
LB: Your presumption is sharp as a razor clam, which if you’ve never been to Hong Fat’s on Mulberry Street, we should try before going back.
PR: You come down often?
LB: No. No I don’t. I mean I’d give anything to hear Brubeck with Ben Webster. Or Dinah at Mintons. But this shit is really fucked Paul. I had to see this with my own 2 eyes. A Fucking wrestling promoter turned felon, turned prez of the U.S. with the richest man of the world as his unofficial “advisor.” Yea, I’m down for the weekend. That’s my limit. There was a time I made humor of elected idiots. But this is worse. It’s no laughing matter.
PR: We’ve been here before. The assault on democracy by gangsters with little pricks like McCarthy and his acolytes Richard Nixon, Roy Cohen, and now, this mentee, [Long pause between each word] Commander-in-chief-.
LB: How are you Paul? They did us both bad. We both got the short end of the rope, if I can use an inappropriate metaphor.
PR: That it is. But the truth is I don’t dwell there anymore. If you really want to know, I came to watch the 68th anniversary of my performance at Carnegie Hall, One of my last public performances. 1958. They had the cops stationed outside in case there were rioters. Or reds. Not long after they confiscated my passport.
LB: How was it?
PR: Left me with tears of rage and ones of joy. Specially after hearing some of Terrance Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” If there is hope in America, which there is, Mr. Bruce, it is from these voices who always appear to remind us who we are and why we are here.
LB: Here’s the part that scares me Paul. So now, if you teach in some middle school in Hempstead Long Island. Or Tim Buck 2 Idaho, you have to watch your ass, because you can’t teach about the red or pink scare or blacklisting during the early 1950’s because it might be emotionally disturbing for many students, because that is not in the commander in chiefs curriculum, which by the way is called “Andrew Jackson, The Manifest Destiny: Making The Empire Great Again.”
PR: Don’t get me started Len. DEI. In our day it was commie or red. Facism never went away. It laid low for awhile. Just changed costumes. The word is surreal, as the concentrated and planned assault and sabotage of the democratic republic is underway.
LB: You know we are part of a very exclusive club: the blacklisted. That what we are Paul. Proud to be in that company. Persecuted for how we expressed our views.
PR Justice for all.
LB: Yea. Now that’s an idea worth putting on a coin. Which all? Not us. I always said, the only justice in America, is in the halls of justice.
PR: They had it in for you. Drug busts no? Indecency and Obscenity if I’m not mistaken. When they busted you one night at the 5 Spot and all the New York intellectuals from Mailer to Robert Lowell, to Reinhold Neibuhr wrote an editorial in the Tines comparing you to Aristophanes and Twain. How’d that make you feel Lenny?
LB: I gloated when the NY Post took my picture that morning, haggard and strung out. Just how I wanted the world to see me. But in good company Paul.
PR. In a way what. America did to us is what they are trying to do now. In the dismantling the very structures of the republic. And those who speak out against it are swiftly penalized. We were, as they say, cancelled. They took your club card preventing you from earning a living. The State Department revoked my passport. We lost our Liberty in the land of the free because we spoke up and spoke out. When that senator from South Carolina who headed the House Unamerican Activities Committee on why I did not want to live in Russia, “if I loved it so much”, I told his fat white ass because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country that I was going to stay here, and have a part in it, just like him.
LB: Hey Paul. Check this out: I’m thinking it’s time we do a double bill. The Apollo. Thanksgiving weekend. I warm them up, you agitate their souls. What do you think Paul? One last final gig at the Apollo and then Carnegie. Maybe we get Tupac or Kendrick Lamar to cameo.
PR: Tempting my good man, but I’m too young for that now. Besides its time to let this generation discover what dissent and divergent thinking has to do with living democratically. They have to claim it for themselves It’s getting real late. They will.
LB: You sure about that?
PR: Easy. Wake up before dawn every day, stay clear of narcotics, and work harder than the day before. Try to make a portion of your day a masterpiece.
LB: Which your life was Mr. Robeson. I cannot help but marvel at the scope of your talents. Long before Bill Bradley or Bo Jackson there was you and of course, Jim Thorpe.
PR: Glad you include him. Yes. They are considerable.
LB: Rhodes scholar, all American football player, Singer, Actor and Social Activist. And that’s including a 1920’s Jim Crow America. Remarkable man, really fuckin remarkable.
PR: I appreciate the recognition. Although the removed my name from the official records of my two All American years 1917 and 1918 because of my political views.
LB: No shit. They could do that, like the Chinese and the Russians do with rewriting their history. Just wipe it away, like some shit on a blackboard. Whiff. The Black Panthers. Whiff the Freedom Riders. Whiff the Freedom Schools. Whiff Medgar Evers. Make history disappear like invisable ink.
PR: Yes sir. The way I see it Lenny, is if we were Shakespearean actors, we were both flawed and publicly flogged if you will. No doubt about that Lenny. But like my anthem to the common man Old Man River, we kept on rolling until we were broken. Tragic but true. Creative to our core. What power in America has done to those who question it.
LB: J Edgar, another great American Patriot, stewed over me asking about masturbation in my set when today America just experienced more than 461 mass killings since 1996. How’s that for life in the coliseum? Violence, Xenophobia, Racial Hatred and Antisemitism. Country sure is on a roll. Like someone up there opened a spigot letting all the black waters seep into America.
PR: Its right out of the fascist playbook. The witch hunts and purges. Brown and Black shirts wear ties and white shirts with flag lapels on their coats. Roundin up the miscreants, the gay and transgender, all the enemies of the state. We’d be there too Lenny. For sure.
LB: Listen, It’s a heavy lift to make the empire imperial and pure again.And dig this Paul, we have made the world unsafe for our children. This is the first generation whose legacy is to have jeopardized the possibility of a future for their children.
PR: Lenny, [a long pause as a local train comes to an indignant stop.] Ya hungry? If my memory is as fine tuned as my appetite, there’s a Peruvian-Chinese place on Broadway and 101st where they make a serious roast chicken with friend rice.
LB: Let’s do that Paul. We haven’t touched on Dick Gregory, Redd Fox, and whatever happened to brother Cosby. Or how Soto said fuck you to the Yankees. Much to talk about.
As the uptown train approaches. Paul fist bumps Lenny. With a look of fraternity and brotherhood.
PR: You first brother Lenny
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