The Spectacular Luciano Brothers Circus
Short story written for New Philosopher Writing Award. Theme: IDENTITY
“Why hello there!
Nicholas Wilkie? Temperance Johnson, pleasure to make your acquaintance. I do believe you’re in my seat young man, but pay it no mind. How about I sit in your seat, and you sit in mine? It can be our little secret.
No, your ears do not deceive, I am from the United States. Arkansas in particular. That’s right Mr Wilkie I have travelled a very long way to be here.
My sister is coming tonight. Of course she’s late, as usual. Oh your brother too? Well since they’re both a couple of tardy Martys, may I tell you a story you might like? About where I come from.
Thank you.
I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1944. I don’t know if folks around here know that it was named after a Frenchman, but I can tell you that folks there were mighty selective about which countries they liked and which ones they didn’t.
Back when I was a much younger woman, the mayor of Fayetteville walked out of a meeting with the head of the bus workers union, bowed up something fierce. He got into his limousine, and it drove off.
One week later they found the car dumped in the hot springs five miles out of town, along with the mayor’s dead body.
Now Mr Wilkie, you must understand that 1969 was a very different time and I’m from a very different place to yourself.
Myself and my sister wanted to work. A lot of folk didn’t want us to. James Brown was singing “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.” and old folk were terrified. Dr King had just been murdered.
I reckon a whole lot of us just got plain sick of being told who we were all the time.
The mayor was an ornery man. Worse, he was a crook. Of course everybody knew. But nobody said. Folk back then had two versions of themselves. What they thought and what they said. Folk that was sensible did that is.
The town was in uproar. Fit to be tied. Then came the accusations. White folk said it was the blacks. The capitalists said it was the union. Normal people said it was the mob. But don’t you worry, every person had a ‘them’.
Three days later, the police arrested someone. Four people had seen Charlie Luciano, a local low-level mobsters in the front seat of the Mayor’s limo.
Now the police actually arrested two men, named Charlie Luciano and Charlie Luciano. Brothers. Identical Twins. But the same name! Now aint that somethin’? Two people, one person. As I said Mr Wilkie “a local mobsters.”
When you hear the name Charlie Luciano, you might think of an Italian man. But the mob in Fayetteville at that time was Hispanic. Mexican.
Now Charlie and Charlie Luciano weren’t born Charlie and Charlie Luciano. No sir, they was born Nicolas and Alejandro Ramirez. But the American dream aint for everyone and it weren’t for them boys. Their mama was a hooker, them boys grew up poor on the street. Plenty of folk did.
Their mama died when they were four, their pops was what my white grandmammy used to call an abracadaver: dead, gone or both.
Them boys spent the next twelve years bouncing between foster homes and Juvenile Hall. Each place took turns milking every drop of innocence and every last special thing out of them. The men that came out the other end weren’t the same boys that went in. Hell, they weren’t hardly people at all.
Now Nicholas, you are aware that identical twins aint identically identical. There are identical twins and there are i-den-ti-cal twins. And then there were them brothers. They was like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.
My grandpappy was an identical twin. He told me that twins fight hard every day for what every other fool takes for granted. Just to be a distinct person. Unique. He had to fight to cleave his own self from his brother’s self, cause when most folk looked at one of them, they saw the other one too.
Now white folk back then believed one Hispanic was nearabout the same as the other one. So them boys made themselves a choice. If the world was going to treat their folk the same, then hell, they would be the same.
The day o’ their eighteenth birthday, Gabe and Alex Ramirez got on a bus, went down to City Hall, filled out some forms and out walked Charlie Luciano.
Four of the townsfolk had seen Charlie Luciano in the driver’s seat of the limousine. At the same time ten miles away, the other Charlie was at a crowded restaurant with friends.
Now you may have already asked why a man’s who was fixin’ to kidnap the mayor keep their window open in plain sight of Joe public? It’s a fool thing to do that don’t make no sense.
Them boys had a hankering to get caught. That’s clear as day to me. That was their plan.
One of them boys had done it. The other one didn’t. For justice to be done, the police only had to do one thing. Tell them apart.
They wanted to be caught. So they could stare the system that made them deep in its blind eyes and dare it to do the one thing it couldn’t never do. See one of them from the other. To treat them special, even if it was just to send them to the chair.
Them two boys forced folks to look deep inside and ask themselves a lot of questions they didn’t like their answers to. What makes a man who he is? The colour of his skin? Or whether he’s murdered someone? Could justice be blind if it couldn’t see? Or wouldn’t.
Now them boys didn’t have no education, but they had horse sense. Smarts. They made the trial a circus. Every day, them boys would wear different matching outfits. The media was falling over each other to tell folk how bad them boys were. But good, bad or terrible, the honest God’s truth was that only one of them was a murderer.
Them boys wouldn’t tell no one, not the judge, not their lawyer, no-one which of them was which. And the police couldn’t tell either, bless their hearts.
There weren’t no DNA, no email. Them boys even burned their fingerprints off. Same haircuts, same clothes. To the eyes of the police, they were each other.
Police and the judge all het up arguing, looking like fools. A lot of folk like myself, folk who knew what that felt like, we was laughing. On the inside of course. Laughing out loud back then, that was a dangerous thing to do.
Eventually, the judge gave them three months jail for contempt of court on account they wouldn’t say who they was. But that didn’t fix nothin’. The trial would start again, them boys wouldn’t say boo and that was that.
The whole commotion was a big embarrassment to Fayetteville and Arkansas. The governor gave the judge an ultimatum. The case went away, or he did. So the judge went back over the case, and charged each time they’d stonewalled as one unique contempt of court.
Them two boys spent the rest of their life in jail, serving three-hundred three-month terms. Aint that absurd? But neither of them was ever convicted of that murder. No-one was.
When I’m in my bed and I open my eyes, before I make out the hairbrush on my dresser, or my mama’s vase on the mantle, there’s a moment before I don’t see any of those things. Where all I see is lights and colours. One thing blurs into the next, and aint nothin’ clear yet, because my eyes have been closed for too long.
Them boys forced the town to look at that world. Where a murderer and an innocent man was both in jail, and the world we’d made couldn’t make it right. Its eyes had been closed for too long.
Sure, it was wrong. Unjust. But that happened every day back then. No, it was that them boys made it impossible for folks not to look. Because of that, some folk, for the first time in their lives I do believe, for a moment, truly asked themselves who they was.
I think that’s the way them boys planned it. All the while, they never said a word.
Aint that a tale Mr Wilkie? What’s that? Is it true? Well…
Young man, I’m a old black lady and I’ve been alive for a long time. Nowadays you might call me a person of colour. I don’t mind that, but when I was a girl folk called me very different things.
Folks like to chop the world up in their mind. Cover it with imaginary lines. Borders. You can ride in the bus. You can’t. This man is respectable. This man’s a fool. They don’t see the world how it is. They see it how they are.
The world is like a mirror. When folk stare into it, who do they see? A lady like me? A blind man such as yourself? Or do they only see theyselves?
But every now and then, folk come along. Dr King, Ghandi and Jesus Christ hold our hands and say “We don’t need them lines no more.”
And we kill those people. Because getting’ to meddlin’ with a line in a man’s mind. Well that’s questioning who they is and who they aint. Most folk don’t like that.
Young’uns know them lines aint real. Hell, we even let them believe it for a few years. But eventually, folks insist on the lines. Enforce them. Especially folk on the right side of them. Sometimes you just plain forget that they’re made up. It’s easier that way.
Why Nicholas, you are a wonderful listener. That’s a rare and undervalued skill in this world. Thank you for putting yourself in my place and listening. Speaking of places, do you want your seat back? I know it’s nearabout the same, but even a small change in perspective can make all the difference.
Well maybe the good Lord fated us all to meet after all, here’s my brother and your sister talkin’ like old friends! That’s the great thing about these twin conventions, it’s very easy to tell!