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      Praise for

       THE TERRIBLE TWOS

      “Ishmael Reed…has been called the best black writer in America today. Reed’s mastery of crosscutting techniques and his extravagant inventiveness keep the madness on the boil and help disguise this novel’s essential commitment to savage social criticism…. This is matchless comic invective. Ishmael Reed is a one-of-a-kind writer.”

      —Saturday Review

      “Reed’s gift is for the outrageous, for giving vivid expression to cultural controversies very much in the air…. He is one of the most underrated writers in America. Certainly no other contemporary black writer has used the language and beliefs of folk culture so imaginatively, and few have been so stinging about the absurdity of American racism.”

      —New York Review of Books

      “His mind is one of the great creations of this era…. He’s beautiful!”

      —Washington Post

      “Reed follows modern masters as diverse as James Joyce and Alain Robbe-Grillet.”

      —The Nation

      “Reed’s muse barks so wildly in The Terrible Twos that it unraveled the silk in my Edmund Wilson pajamas.”

      —Tom Robbins

      “A great writer.”

      —James Baldwin

      “The Terrible Twos moves from satire to farce as Reed takes current American politics to ultimate conclusions…. [The author’s] fragmented style permits several simultaneous plots and a hilarious interchange of characters as the plots overlap.”

      —Library Journal

      “This satirical fantasy by playwright, poet, essayist and novelist Reed is incredibly energetic and imaginative…. The action is madcap, with touches of A Christmas Carol merged with Rastafarian mythology.”

      —Publishers Weekly

      BY ISHMAEL REED

      ESSAYS

      Writin’ Is Fightin’

      God Made Alaska for the Indians

      Shrovetide in Old New Orleans

      Airing Dirty Laundry

      NOVELS

      Japanese by Spring

      The Terrible Threes

      Reckless Eyeballing

      The Terrible Twos

      Flight to Canada

      The Last Days of Louisiana Red

      Mumbo Jumbo

      Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down

      The Free-Lance Pallbearers

      POETRY

      New and Collected Poems

      A Secretary to the Spirits

      Chattanooga

      Conjure

      Catechism of D Neoamerican Hoodoo Church

      PLAYS

      Mother Hubbard, formerly Hell Hath No Fury

      The Ace Boons

      Savage Wilds

      Hubba City

      ANTHOLOGIES

      The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology

      The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology

      Calafia

      19 Necromancers from Now

      Multi-America: Essays on Cultural War and Cultural Peace

      THE TERRIBLE TWOS

      ISHMAEL REED

      Copyright © 1982 by Ishmael Reed

      First Dalkey Archive edition, 1999

      All rights reserved

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      Reed, Ishmael, 1938-

      The terrible twos / Ishmael Reed. — 1st Dalkey Archive ed.

      p. cm.

      ISBN: 978-1-56478-226-7

      1. United States—Politics and government—Fiction. I. Title.

      PS3568.E365T4 1999

      813’.54—dc21

      99-35665

      CIP

      This publication is partially supported by grants from the Lannan Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

      Dalkey Archive Press

      Illinois State University

      Campus Box 4241

      Normal, IL 61790-4241

      visit our website at: www.dalkeyarchive.com

      DEDICATION

      For Bill Cook, James Earl Jones, Jerry Lieber, George

      Clinton, Brian Whitley, and the late Charles Davis, without

      whose patronage this book would not have been possible.

THE TERRIBLE TWOS

      WASHINGTON (UPI)—Confirming what many people already felt in their bones, the Commerce Department reported Sunday the rain-poor winter of 1980–1981 produced a slew of records and near records for the nation and nearly half the states.

      Contents

      A Past Christmas

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      A Future Christmas

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

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