Killing Johnny Fry (2007)

By Walter Mosley
Excerpt from the novel

Cordell Carmel is a regular African-American man living in New York City where he works as an accountant. His life is thrown into crisis as he witnesses his long-term girlfriend – Jo – having sex with Johnny Fry, a man described as being bigger than Cordell in every way.
   The same day Cordell watches a pornographic movie titled “The Myth of Sisypha”. In this movie a meek man named Mel is tied to a chair and made cuckold and deliberately humiliated as his wife Sisypha has sex with a large Greek workman named Aristotle while he is powerless to intervene. Watching this movie – that he feels mirrors his own life – escalates Cordell’s internal crisis and he becomes obsessed with “The Myth of Sisypha” as well as its star.
   At this point in the novel, Cordell has met the actress playing Sisypha – whose real name is Brenda Landfall – and he has gone with her to an underground sex club in New York City after swallowing a mysterious pill.

The Gym was more than I expected. There was a health bar and many exercise machines; they even had a sports ring for boxing or wrestling. As with every other room, there were lots of naked men and women posing here and there. But there was no sex. People posed and worked out; but that was all.
Sisypha and I sat at a small, white table at the health bar. She had celery juice, and I had Sleepy Helper tea. The drug inside me was like a wide-awake two-year-old looking for mischief in my hands, in my feet. I couldn't concentrate on anything but Sisypha for more than a few seconds at a time.
"What do you like about me?" I asked the woman known as Brenda Landfall.
She smiled and shook her head.
"Please answer me," I said. "I know it's stupid and childish, but I didn't know what this goddamn drug was gonna do to me."
"You're blaming the pill?" she asked with a smile.
"Please."

"Love, I think, is a material thing," she said, taking my hand and stroking the fingers lightly. "It's something made naturally every day, like tartar or blood or skin. Most people I know don't store it up; they give it away as soon as it's there. They give it to ungrateful children, unworthy lovers; to faithless friends, and strangers they meet each day ..."
This was why I wanted to be with Sisypha. The knowledge she passed to me was like fresh, home-baked bread to a hungry man, or like penicillin to a mad fever born of infection.
"... But now and then I meet a man who has never tapped the love he creates. He's like one of those ants in the colony that become giant sacks of honey. All you have to do is stroke his neck, and sweetness just flows out of him."
She was still stroking my fingers. I, for my part, was staring hungrily into her eyes.
"A man like you is a treasure for women like me," she said. "Most people, men and women, only want to take from us. But every once in a while, we meet someone who only has love to give."
“Me?”
“Why not you?" she asked.
"I'm cold and boring," I said. "I'm, I'm commonplace."
"No, Cordell," she said gripping my hand, "You're special. You've had your ability to give love turned off, but never has your ability to make love been messed with. You're like a treasure trove. There's enough passion in you to keep someone rich for their entire life."
"I don't understand," I said.
"I know you don't," she said. "And I wish I could tell you, but ... But I don’t know you."
"What does that mean?" I asked. "Do we have to be friends for a while and then you'll know and then you could tell me?"
"I probably won't ever see you again, Cordell."
"Why not? I mean, can't we be friends?"
"Bren," a man said - a tall, black man dressed in metallic gold pants and a finely spun white cotton shirt. You could see the outline of his huge cock against the tight, shiny fabric.
“Hi, Maxie," Sisypha said, in mock submission. "This is my friend Cordell."
"Nice to meet you," the deadly handsome man said. He was bald, and his head was waxed. "Come on, Sis, let's go to the playroom."
For the first time that night, my date seemed uncertain.

"Um ... I'm here with Cordell," she said.
"I'll bring you back in forty-five minutes ... if you still want to come back, that is."
"Would you mind?" Sisypha asked me.
"Yes, I would," I said, with no hesitation. I wasn't going to be Mel.
"But you said you didn't want to make love to me."
"I want to be with you," I said. "Be with you all night."
Sisypha breathed in deeply and smiled for me.
"Sorry, Maxie," she said. "He needs me to be with him,"
"He can come," Maxie said with a single shoulder shrug. "Maybe he learn sumpin'."
Sisypha shook her head and smiled. You could see that there was a history with this guy; she would have gone with him if I hadn't held on so tightly.
For a moment I worried that I was doing the wrong thing. Maybe I should have let her go off to the playroom and take his big dick up in her ass. But as I had this thought, I imagined Jo asking me if I minded if Johnny Fry climbed into our bed and she fucked him while I sat there and read the New York Times or watched Seinfeld on the TV.
The drug and the thought blended together in my sinews.
I jumped to my feet, shouting something stupid like, "Fuck no! Fuck you, fucker!"
There was actual fear in Sisypha's eyes.
"What?" Maxie said.
"I said, take your pimp pants and your fairy blouse and get the fuck outta here." They were words I would have spoken privately - thinking I should have said them but keeping the thoughts to myself "I don't have to take your shit."
Maxie looked at me and then shook his head, dismissing my threats.
He turned to Sisypha and said, "What you gonna do, Bren? You know you supposed to be goin' wit' me.”
"Didn't you hear me, man?" I said. "I said get the fuck out of here.”
This was the person I always wanted to be. When my father slapped me or humiliated me or told me where I could go and how long I could be there even when I was sixteen - I wanted to be that man. When teachers refused to believe that I was smart and when the police stopped me for walking in
neighborhoods where I had white friends. I wanted to stand up to my father and every racist and bully I'd ever known, but I'd never had the courage until that night. And if I had stopped there, it would have been enough to last me until my dying day. I would have been able to look back and say that, at least once, I was a man in the world - that I didn't let some motherfucker walk up and take my woman without a fight.
Take my woman. The words felt like rats scuttling down my arms. I jumped at Maxie with outstretched fists. I had no idea what I was doing, but the next thing I knew, we were on the floor, wrestling and trying to hit each other.
Looking back on it now, I can see how that was a very bad move. Maxie was four inches taller and at least thirty pounds heavier than I. His fancy white shin was open, showing the highly defined muscles of his chest.
But I fought wildly until hands grabbed my arms and legs to pull me back. I struggled against the men that held me. I almost broke free more than once.
Someone was talking to me. For what seemed like a long time, I couldn't hear him, because there was the taste of violence in my joints. I could feel my hands choking Maxie.
"Do you hear me?" the man's voice asked.
"What?" I said.
"Do you want to fight this man?" the voice asked.
"Yes!"
"Look at me," the voice said.
The command touched me. I turned and saw Oscar the sex clown standing there next to me. His hair was as wild as ever, but now he was wearing a dark suit that fit closely on his slender limbs and body.
"What?" I asked the harbinger of Sisypha's fantasies.
I wondered if this was all on camera. Would I be the victim of her new film? But that question gave way to the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
"You can fight Maxie Allaine in the ring, with gloves," Oscar said.
"Okay," I said, and then I leaped toward Maxie, who was also being held back, but the people holding us kept us from our goals.

I was taken to a back room, where men disrobed me and strapped boxing gloves onto my fists. Except for these I was naked, and breathing hard. Now and then a rush of blood went through my mind, and intermittently I wondered if this was all a show.
They took me to the ring and put me in a corner diagonally across from Maxie Allaine. He was huge. When I think back on that early-morning rage. I'm amazed that I wasn't injured for life or even killed. Maxie was six two and over two hundred pounds. He was, as I was, naked except for large, white boxing gloves. He had one other piece of clothing - his penis was so large that someone had taped it to his left thigh to keep it, I suppose, from being hurt. His biceps were like big stones and his abdomen was just as powerful. His handsome face was contorted into hate-filled desire.
But I wasn't afraid. All I saw was flesh that I wanted to rend. All I knew was that I wanted to kilt this man. There was no reason for my wrath. I wasn't thinking about Sisypha, I wasn't thinking about how he ignored me like I was same kind of inferior being. All I wanted was to kill him for the pleasure of seeing him die.
"When I ring this cowbell," Oscar the sex clown was saying, “that's the end of the round. When you hear that," he hit the flat¬-toned bell with a spoon, "I want you to go back to your corners. The first man knocked off his feet is the loser. May the best man remain standing."
An errant thought went through my mind. I thought that Oscar was trying to give my opponent the edge by looking at him as if he expected me to lose and I wasn't even worth the consideration. But then a rush of blood flooded my ears like loud white noise on a radio.
Oscar was naked too. He was a white man in a white boy's body, but he wasn't really white at all. His skin had an orangish hue. His cock was crooked and pink. It was more than half erect too. He was going to enjoy our fight.
He hit his cowbell, and I ran out toward Maxie's fist, battered it with my face, and almost went down. He grinned triumphantly, but I don't think he counted on Sisypha's drug in my veins. I leaned backward as if I were going to fall, but the pain set off that rush through my brain, and this transferred the momentum of his blow to my right hand.
When I connected with the side of his head, I knew that I would never have a more satisfying sensation. The punch was flush and solid, I heard him grunt, and I knew in my heart that he was going to go down. But when I looked at him, his face only registered surprise.
For a moment I was worried, but then came that rush again.

Maxie Allaine knew how to box somewhat. He threw jabs at my face and caught me about every third one. His arms were longer than mine, and even when I caught his punches on my gloves or arms I could feel them shudder through my frame. But the pain made me angrier, and every now and then I'd unleash a flurry of punches that would go wild, missing the target nearly every time.
He hit me again and again, but I stopped feeling it after a while.
I had a vision of my father trying to teach me how to fight in the backyard of our tenement building. There he was, a full-grown man, punching me with his fists and knocking me down. And now here I was with a bigger man trying to do the same thing.
I had boxed with my father and then a little at the YMCA in downtown Oakland, but all I really knew how to do was to hold up my hands and put down my elbows when he went for the body. It was working pretty well until he hit me with an uppercut that sent me into the ropes.
I loved those ropes. Their thick, rough fibers abraded my skin like the rough kisses of new love. Without them, I would have been on my back. Without them biting into my elbows, I would have slid down to my knees and then kissed the floor.
The cowbell rang, and when I looked up, three men were holding Maxie back, pulling him toward his corner.
Hands reached out for me, and then I was on a stool, wondering if I could even get to my feet again.
"Cordell," she called.
I turned to my left and saw Sisypha standing there, her red dress clinging to that perfect honey-gold form. She was looking at me, fear in her face, her hands clasped under those perfect breasts.
The love I felt for her turned into that white noise in my brain. I could feel my heart thunder, and then the cowbell sounded. I leaped to my feet and stalked forward with my hands down and my ugly face on.
It was all in slow motion, the whole rest of the fight.
Maxie had tasted my counterpunching, and even though it hadn't hurt him, he was moving counterclockwise around me, throwing jabs. I savored this punishment. Every time he hit me, I felt more powerful. Every time he moved his head back, just in case I threw something, I felt victorious.
But then Maxie landed three jabs an my nose and came in with a left cross that connected with the tip of my chin. I was lifted, still in slow motion, off my feet. I went backward a foot or so and came down like a building collapsing in on itself. I thought to myself as I was going down that if I fell all the way, Maxie would get Sisypha. He'd take that great big cock and fuck her till she shouted for him the way she did for the big Greek workman Aristotle.
By the time I was down in the crouch, ready to fall over, the second phase of the designer drug made its last hurrah.
With all the might in my thighs, I pressed against gravity to rise up from defeat. On the way I had the feeling of weightlessness. I realized that Maxie was just standing there - confident of his victory. But there I was, damn-near flying. All I had to do was put out my glove.
This time his grunt was from pain, not surprise. This time it was he who went backward into the ropes and slumped to the canvas. I was wobbling on my feet but I was still erect. Still erect.
Maxie bounded to his feet and rushed toward me, but half a dozen men moved in to seize him. Oscar ran to my side and raised my gloved hand in victory.

Analysis: Comment and answer the following questions:

1. What is the significance of the sex club being modelled on a gym?
2. Comment on the significance of Sisypha’s name?
3. Comment on the significance of Maxie’s…
a. … name.
b. … manner of speaking.
c. … general physical appearance.
d. … penis.
4. Fighting Maxie:
a. What are the reasons that Cordell choose to fight Maxie?
b. “When I connected with the side of his head, I knew that I would never
    have a more satisfying sensation.” Comment on this.
5. Find references to Cordell’s father. What is this significance of these?
6. “I was wobbling on my feet but I was still erect. Still erect.” Comment on this.
7. Dick lit:
a. How is this text an example of dick lit?
b. Would you categorize Cordell as the apathetic, the aggressive, and/or the libidinous male?
    Substantiate your answer.

Comparison and perspective (1): Compare Cordell to the narrators from Apathy and Other Small Victories, The Average American Male, and Survivor. How is his situation - and the way he responds to his situation – similar to or different from those of the others?

Comparison and perspective (2): If you have read Chapter Six of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) – which can be found in Mette Brynaa and Louise Christensen’s Unsex Me (2016) – contrast and compare how the two texts deal with…
1) … violence.
2) … underground clubs.
3) … fathers.
4) … gyms.
5) … masculinity.