Even More Bad Men

By Howard Rambsy II

       "[Stack]...is said to have done bad man things, but we never actually see him doing it." (Cindy Reed)

This is evidence that he is a quintessential bad man. No one actually saw Shine swim from the Titanic or before that nobody saw Stagolee shoot a white policeman, and long before that, no one really saw John De Conqueror smack both the Devil and God. Black folks told each other those things happened. Only black folklore nonbelievers would question the truthfulness of any of those sacred tales.

In Sinners, everybody has heard about the twins. In fact, early on right before getting the little girl to watch the truck, Smoke asks, "You heard of the Smoke Stack twins?" She's like of course. She would've been too young to know them when they were there, but she's heard of them, meaning, they were already firmly in the local lore.

I love Etheridge Knight's poem about this bad man "Hard Rock." Well, I love the first part, the idea of him, and then I get sad when I learn that the system has diminished him. It's the hearing about how bad he was that draws me in and has me wondering. 

And Lord oh Lord, don't even get me started on Morrison's Seven Days. You know, what? We never actually see those guys commit any murders, do we? It don't matter. But you already know when you cover the novel in class, students, especially the young brothers, are going to come to you, and in a whisper, go, "The Seven Days: were they real?"

By the end of Sinners, Stack is still bad. He ain't aged after 60 years, got a B-girl on his arm, and only comes out at night. What folks say? Boss moves. Look, as someone who's thought too long about bad men, I gotta give the duo of Coogler and Michael B. Jordan a lot of credit in this regard. Between Killmonger and Smoke/Stack, they've done outstanding work.

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners