Walter Mosley Ventures into the Underground

Crisis, The, Jan/Feb 2004 by Wellington, Darryl Lorenzo

Walter Mosley Ventures into the Underground The Man in My Basement By Walter Mosley (Little, Brown, $22.95)

Underground shelters play a large role in African American letters. Freedom stories of the Underground Railroad; the journey of Henry "Box" Brown; the man beneath the street of Richard Wright's The Man Who Lived Underground', mosi famously, the cloister of the unnamed narrator of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Time and again African American protagonists have retreated "underground": to cellars, escape holes and surreal, subterranean worlds. For Black, usually male, desperadoes accustomed to running all their lives, the most subterranean universes are familiar.

Mystery, science fiction and social essay writer Walter Mosley knows his literary history. As author of the wild adventures of Black detective Easy Rawlins, he likewise knows a good plot twist. There's no doubt he was aware of the ironic reversal in his latest novel, The Man in My Basement, It's not a Black man, but rather a White one, who is living a symbolic lifeinside-death underneath the ground.

"I want to rent this cellar for sixty-five days, starting on july one," says Anniston Bennet, offering $48,750. "I will remain here for the whole time, and I expect no one to enter except for you. You will prepare and bring food and you will dispose of any materials that need disposing of."

Bennet is not merely a White man. He is, symbolically, "the man." he is wealthy, powerful, a person who thinks nearly $50,000 is peanuts, a man of the kind who "defined good and evil for most normal folks." From the beginning, Bennet hints at a life of immense excess - possibly a life of crime.

The basement is the property of Charles Blakey. The two men are a study in opposites. Bennet talks as though he controls the world; Blakey can barely control his own thoughts. Blakey is Black, middle class by birth, currently unemployed. he disappointed his parents by never graduating from college. He's 33 years old, and time is running short for him to find himself. Now orphaned, he needs Bennet's money - or else he might lose the inherited family home. Blakcy is also the tale's bitterly honest first-person narrator.

The Man in My Basement matches Bennet, the man with a dark history, against Blakey, the champion of missed opportunities. "Not a single day went by that I wasn't lost in daydreams. Teachers talking at you, my mother or father telling me what was right or wrong. The reason 1 didn't watch TV was because I couldn't sit still for a movie or sitcom. Halfway through a war film, I still wasn't sure which side was which." But at least Blakey has never hurt a child, killed a man, ruined a life. Has Bennet? What does Bennet really want? What is the motivation for this self-imposed incarceration?

The sadomasochism Bennct exhibits certainly encourages one to think the man has a bad conscience. Once the basement is procured, Rennet's first request is that Blakey construct a ninefoot-high steel cell, complete with several locks and a brass key. Then Bennet crawls inside. "Have you figured it out yet" he asks. "This is my prison. And you are my warden and my guard." Bcnnct will remain caged like an animal all summer, dependent upon Blakey for food and water. Moslcy shows daring by presenting American readers with such a racially charged image.

The Man in My Basement has elements of a parable - one of ambiguous significance. The racial and class differences between Blakey and Bennet are in sharp relief. Is the book therefore a parable about slavery? About the color line, or the world situation? all possibilities, but certainly The Man in My Basement reflects the social concerns of Mosley's previous book, What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace.

The story, as it develops, reads like a two-character play. Blakey moves from blase acceptance of the situation, to resentment, to fear. Can he really have power over a man like Anniston Bennet? The two main characters explore each other's weaknesses, exchange thoughts, philosophies, identities. Who is really the prisoner, and who really understands the meaning of freedom?

Walter Mosley is a professional to his fingertips. he writes clear, lucid prose -maybe a little too lucid. Despite the surreal quality of the plots of his Easy Rawlins stories, his straightforward writing can lack color. The same is true here. The prose misses the deeper currents of existential mystery.

But The Man in My Basement is engaging as it is. It's also more than a page turner. It's intelligent and perceptive. If his style reflected his skewered, fantastic literary vision, Mosley's books would easily equal those of the dean of Black thriller writers, Chester Mimes. The Man in My Basement comes close. Given the book's recognizable qualities, that's close enough.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a poet and critic. He resides in Charleston, S.C.