The Truth About Planking

Lil' Wayne, disrespecting his ancestors.

It was late the other night and, if I remember correctly, the day had been unconscionably hot. The heat had given me leaden arms and legs. I lay face down on my couch blinking my dusty eyes and drifting between sleep and wake when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I looked up and swore I was hallucinating. There in my living room stood an old man, brown-skinned with creases on his forehead and beneath his eyes. He wore a crumpled brown suit straight out of faded sepia-toned pictures from the late 1800’s. The hair on his face and his head was silver and the light behind him, I thought, made him glow like an apparition.

“Boy, just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Huh?” I sputtered in reply, confused and barely able to make a coherent statement.

Flavor Flav's existence regularly embarrasses his ancestors. Now he's dragged Chuck D down with him.

“I know what you doing. You’re planking, huh? You think lying face down, stiff as a plank, with your arms at your side is all fun and games. Don’t you know where this lying down game came from? ‘Planking’ is how they used to stack your ancestors during the middle passage. Now, 152 years after the last recorded slave ship brought slaves onto U.S. soil, somehow this thing has returned as a fad.”

“Planking? I was just trying to go to slee— Say, who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“Who am I? Ain’t that something? Boy, don’t be ignorant. I’m one of your ancestors, Rebus Scott. Most of us ancestors, we’re tired of seeing you people disrespect us with your lying face down and photographing it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, somewhat embarrassed. “I didn’t know. Can I make it up to you with a cup of tea?”

The old man nodded, proud he had taught me an important lesson. We made small talk in the kitchen while the water heated on the stove. He regaled me with tales of his friends Frederick Douglass, Tupac Shakur and Gary Coleman. When the kettle sang out, I poured two cups of black tea and began spooning sugar when my ancestor bawled as if in pain.

“This boy is just about as ignorant as a rat’s tit,” Rebus said. “Now Rion, your parents are from the Caribbean, yes?”

I nodded.

“Then you must assume that your ancestors were too. Just some basic common sense, right?”

Again, I nodded.

“How you gonna disrespect the folks who spent their life on a plantation chopping down sugar cane by putting sugar in your tea? First you planking and now this? Use your head young negro.”

Some random baby, disrespecting his ancestors.

We downed bitter black tea, which he seemed to enjoy. The drink annoyed me and I grimaced at every sip. This is the sort of tea that springs to life with two or three spoonfuls of sugar, but I drank without complaining as to not further offend my long dead ancestors.

Though I had learned a lot for the night, I found this whole situation stressful. I grabbed a box of Newports and invited the ghost to my balcony. He chattered briskly, but I wasn’t really listening to him. I took a deep breath of the fresh air and then lit a cigarette, sullying the air for the calming buzz of tobacco.

“You are just the ignorantest, ain’t you?” my ancestor said.

“What this time?”

“We used to pick it now they want us to smoke it?”

I sighed and dashed the cigarette over the balcony. I was still exhausted and I couldn’t take anymore of this man’s chastisement so I figured announcing my intentions to go to sleep would make Rebus leave.

This young woman can soon expect a visit from her ancestors, as can this fiberglass cow.

“Look,” I said. “I appreciate you showing up like the Ghost of Christmas Past to educate me. Each one teach one and all, but I’m tired and I’ve got a pretty long day ahead of me. I’m going to get ready for sleep. I’ll lie face up; I promise.”

The man nodded and I went into my room and changed into my pajamas, hoping that when I returned, he would have crossed back over to the other side. I had no such luck, however. When I came back into the living room he crumpled his face and sneered as he looked at me. Then he covered his face in embarrassment.

“Cotton pajamas?” he yelled. “Cotton pajamas? Cotton, Rion? Cotton? Wearing the cotton your ancestors used to pick is just as bad as lying face down. Why don’t you just whip me right now? Come on. Whip me. Go ahead. Whip me.”

I hung my head. I had let down the ancestors again. I quickly stripped down to my draws to prove that I in no way meant to disrespect the dead and it was a lucky thing that I had put on silk draws that morning or I would have been downright bareassed. Still, I felt plenty foolish even though Rebus was just a ghost. I slunk into the couch and flicked on the television.

Rebus must have realized how silly I felt because he said: “Don’t be embarrassed. We ancestors watch you living people all the time when you think no one is looking. When you’re using the toilet, having sex, taking the shower. It’s entertainment to us.”

His reassurance offered me no comfort.

“So,” he said. “Whatcha doing tomorrow?”

“Probably a little exercise in the morning—“

“Hope you ain’t planning on skipping no rope?”

“Yeah, a little to get me warmed up.”

“As many black men been hung with ropes?”

The ancestors actually find this one kind of funny in a "laughing-at-her-not-with-her" kind of way.

That was all I could stand. Something in me snapped. Ancestor or not, Rebus had finally taken it a step too far. I snatched the old man by his collar and escorted him to the front door as he hollered, calling me ignorant and complaining about my shabby treatment of those who came before me. I opened the door and shoved him into the hallway, letting the swinging door slam in Rebus’s face as he turned to protest. It was the best I had felt all night and I fell asleep easily, sleeping well past noon the next day.

Later, I found out that Rebus wasn’t my ancestor at all, just some crazy old man from next door.

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.