Mumbo Jumbo (4 page)

Woodrow Wilson Jefferson has decided to quit the farm and hit the Big City. He is ready. His grandfather had accompanied his slavemaster to New York in the 1850s and had returned with articles and editorials written by 2 gentlemen: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The old issues of the
New-York Tribune
edited by Horace Greeley had been in the attic all these years. He liked the style. Objective, scientific, the use of the collective We, Our. Therefore there were no illusions and unforeseen events like these country folks in Rē’-mōte Mississippi, believing in haints and things; and spirits and 2-headed men; mermaids and witches. He would abandon this darkness for the clearing. Make something out of himself. The local people had said that he would be a doctor or even a preacher, but what did they know, backward, lagging behind.

He feels some feathery object brush against his heel and turns again.

Now get out of here, damnit. Where’s my stick?

Jefferson goes over to a bush to make a switch. He commences to cut off a branch and whittles the stick so it would leave welts and draw blood. The animals get the message and begin to scamper toward the farmhouse, on the hill, in the background.

He continues on down the road apiece until he reaches the train depot. His bag is stuffed with the newspaper articles (487 to be exact. Wilson didn’t always understand the issues but he certainly appreciated the style). When he reaches the train depot, he comes upon 2 men sitting on the station’s porch, playing checkers. Behind them were ads for Doctor Pepper, hex signs, Chesterfield Cigarettes and Bull Durham tobacco.

Well if it ain’t Rev. Jefferson’s boy. Where you going with your hair all spruced down with butter? Where you on your way to?

Jefferson stands there at the Rē’-mōte train depot. He would ignore these men, lazy, shiftless, not ready. He would do something with his life. Not become just another hayseed whose only recreation is catching junebugs and chirping along with the crickets.

I’m gon on way from this damned town.

Well ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..s..e me! the man answers, mimicking. His companion spits some tobacco against the station house wall.

The train is in sight. The train that would take him to Jackson Mississippi. Then on to New York.

T
HE PARTY IS HELD
at a Townhouse in Harlem. It was lent to the revelers by a wealthy patron. It isn’t an authentic Chitterling Switch but an imitation 1. It is what some of the New Negroes would imagine to be a Rent Party given, to meet the 1st of the month, by newly arrived immigrants from the South. In fact there is nowhere in evidence a delegate from the “brother-on-the-street.” A man is pounding out some blues on the piano. Once in a while he sips from a cup of King Kong Korn that someone has placed on its top. People are moving from room to room; some of them are passing drinks. Ladies are wearing richly colored dresses, earrings, bracelets, brooches and beads and are well-plumed in a style that neuter-living Protestants would call “garish.” 1 woman dressed in an exotic high-gypsy is taking in cash at the door, cash used to supply funds to anti-lynching campaigns.

61 lynchings occurred in 1920 alone. In 1921, 62, some of the victims, soldiers returning from the Great War who after fighting and winning significant victories—just as they had fought in the Revolutionary and Civil wars and the wars against the Indians—thought that America would repay them for the generosity of putting their lives on the line, for aiding in salvaging their hides from the Kaiser who had been tagged “enemy” this time. Instead, a Protestant country ignorant even of Western mysteries executes soldiers after a manner of punishments dealt to witches in the “Middle Ages.” Europe and the Catholic Church are horrified but not surprised at this “tough guy” across the waters whose horrendous murders in Salem led Europe to reform its witch laws.” Until Marcus Garvey came along to rescue the American Negro he was basking in his lethargy like a crocodile sleeping in the sun. The man the Guianese art critic is directing his comments to mutters something about “ringtail” or “monkey chaser”; LaBas and Earline move on to avoid the ensuing conflict this exchange usually brings.

They see Berbelang and a well-dressed young blond White man whom they recognize from the society pages as Thor Wintergreen, the son of a famous tycoon.

O hello…Berbelang greets PaPa LaBas and Earline. Berbelang, what are you doing here?

No time to explain. We’re leaving. I’ll be home later on.

Berbelang and his friend move toward the door.

But…but what
time
are you going to be home?

I’ll call you, Berbelang says, edging toward the exit.

Come up to the Kathedral sometime, Berbelang; I’d like to talk to you, LaBas calls after Berbelang.

He and his companion are putting on their coats which have been handed to them by the Hostess.

Yes I will…maybe 1 day next week. I’d like to talk to you too.

You see, pop? He doesn’t seem to have any time for me at all.

This unhappy plea from Earline is a contrast to the gay laughter, the couples dancing, and the sound of glasses touching in the many rooms.

I think I’m going to leave, PaPa.

But we just got here, Earline. It looks interesting.

You stay. I’m going to go home to wait for him. Maybe we can have a talk.

PaPa LaBas helps Earline with her coat. No sooner does she have it on than she rushes from the house, almost tearfully.

Shaking his head, LaBas turns around.
Nothing like an affair of the heart,
LaBas thinks, remembering the bittersweet days of his youth.
They’ll work it out. They’re beautiful young people,
LaBas thinks to himself as he moves through the halls and among the guests and into 1 of the back rooms inhabited only by 2 men and a Kathedral radio resting on a table, where 1 of them is playing cards. PaPa LaBas recognizes him immediately as Black Herman the noted occultist who after a triumphant engagement in Chicago is visiting New York. He sits at the table: the famous batwinged eyebrows, goatee, and narrow mustache which travels from the bridge of his nose to the top of his upper lip. He wears a tuxedo over a white vest and about his neck he is wearing an amulet made in the shape of a triangle. He looks like his picture on his book jacket in which he sits on a globe, 1 booted foot atop a stack of 3 books, the top 1 entitled
The Missing Key
and subtitled
Key to Success.
In the photo his body is framed by designs of an arabesque nature.

A ribbon of black and red travels from his left shoulder to his waist. He sits quietly at a table, sipping from a cup and playing cards. Solitaire. Against the wall Abdul Hamid, the noted magazine editor, stands, his arms folded. He stares in the direction of the merrymakers in the other room. There seems to be a permanently fixed scowl on his face. They are listening to the Situation Report which comes from the 8-tubed Radio.

S.R.: JES GREW ONFLYING GIVING AMERICA A RISE IN THE TOWN OF MUNCIE INDIANA WHERE IT IS ENGENDERING MORE EXCITEMENT THAN THE LAST DENTAL INSPECTION. 800 CASES REPORTED SINCE LAST NIGHT WHICH WERE IMMEDIATELY ISOLATED IN HASTILY BUILT Y.M.C.A. BARRACKS. A HEAVY TOLL OF STRUT GALS AND O YOU KIDS…SIMILAR OUTBREAKS REPORTED IN ST. PAUL MINNESOTA AND WHEELERSBURG PENNSYLVANIA…POTENTIAL VICTIMS GATHER ABOUT THE ALREADY INFECTED REJOICING CHANTING GIVE ME FEVER GIVE ME FEVER…

As the news report dies down the radio begins to blare the song “When The Pussy Willow Whispers To The Catnip.”

Turn off that ofay music, Abdul almost snarls. He walks over to the radio and turns it off himself and then returns to the wall where he has been standing watching the other people dance. He wears a bright red fez and a black pinstriped suit and a black tie emblazoned with the crescent moon symbol.

Black Herman raises his head from the cards and sees LaBas standing in the doorway.

Why PaPa LaBas, you old jug-blower you! I haven’t seen you since the last Black Numerology convention. How have you been?

PaPa LaBas walks into the room; Abdul stares sneeringly at his shoes. Then his face.

I didn’t want to interrupt you, how have
you
been? I hear you’re packing them in at Liberty Hall.

That’s right. 4000 per night; as big as Garvey.

The man stood, a rare and elegantly limbed tree springing from the soil in time-capsule film.

That’s a beautiful medal you’re wearing.

Yes, Black Herman answers, shaking hands with LaBas. It was awarded to me by a foreign Potentate for my ability to perform the trick of the Human Seed. Lying buried underground for 8 days. Looks as if the prophecy you made at the Black Numerology convention is all around us, LaBas. This Jes Grew thing. How did you predict that? Mundane astrology?

No. Knockings.

Knockings, huh? You’re quite good at that. What do you think that this Jes Grew is up to?

It’s up to its Text. For some, it’s a disease, a plague, but in fact it is an anti-plague. You will recall, Black Herman, that in the past there were germs that avoided words.

was used to charm a germ in the old days. Being an anti-plague I figure that it’s yearning for The Work of its Word or else it will peter out as in the 1890s, when it wasn’t ready and had no idea where to search. It must find its Speaking or strangle upon its own ineloquence.

Interesting theory.

I don’t quite agree with it, in fact I think it’s a whole lot of Bull.

Black Herman and PaPa LaBas direct their attention to the man standing against the wall. Gradually, Abdul came from the wall.

You both are filling people’s heads with a lot of Bull. Do you think that Harlem will always be as it is now? Poorer people are traveling north and the signs are already showing of its deterioration. The people will have to shape up or they won’t survive. Cut out this dancing and carrying on, fulfilling base carnal appetites. We need factories, schools, guns. We need dollars.

But surely, Abdul my friend, you don’t believe that the Epidemic is a hoax. It is taking the country by storm; affecting everything in its path, PaPa LaBas challenges.

O that’s just a lot of people twisting they butts and getting happy. Old, primitive, superstitious jungle ways. Allah is the way. Allah be praised.

The door is filling with others who’ve been attracted to the discussion. Abdul, seeing them, begins to turn up the decibels.

It’s you 2 and these other niggers imbibing spirits and doing the Slow Drag who’s holding back our progress.

We’ve been dancing for 1000s of years, Abdul, LaBas answers.

It’s part of our heritage.

Why would you want to prohibit something so deep in the race soul? Herman asks.

That’s right, LaBas joins Black Herman. When you reviewed my last work in your
Journal of Black Case Histories—
that magazine whose contents resemble the scrawls the patients compose with their excreta on the walls of those Atonist “hospitals”—you accused me of having a French woman on my staff. I guess your teachings haven’t made you realize your bad manners. The people who support your magazine are no longer available since some of your vitriolic remarks about them, and now you have turned against us. A new phenomenon is occurring. The Black Liberal; a new mark extorted in the manner of your former victims who became fed up with it and have withdrawn funds for your support. You are no different from the Christians you imitate. Atonists Christians and Muslims don’t tolerate those who refuse to accept their modes.

Some of the people who were listening have decided that it’s
1 of those
discussions and have drifted away.

Christianity? What has that to do with me?

They are very similar, 1 having derived from the other.

Muhammed seems to have wanted to impress Christian critics with his knowledge of the Bible, LaBas continues. They agree on the ultimate wickedness of woman, even using feminine genders to describe disasters that beset mankind. Terming women cattle, unclean. The Koran was revealed to Muhammed by Gabriel the angel of the Christian apocalypse. Prophets in the Koran: Abraham Isaac and Moses were Christian prophets; each condemns the Jewish people for abandoning the faith; realizing that there has always been a pantheistic contingent among the “chosen people” not reluctant to revere other gods. The Virgin Mary figures in the Koran as well as in the Bible. In fact, 1 night you were reading a poem to the Black woman. It occurred to me that though your imagery was with the sister, the heart of your work was with the Virgin.

You’d better be careful with your critique PaPa LaBas, Abdul replies. Remember “He that worships other gods besides Allah shall be forbidden to Paradise and shall be cast into the fires of Hell.”

Precisely, Black Herman replies. Intolerant just as the Christians are.

Yes, LaBas joins in, where does that leave the ancient Vodun aesthetic: pantheistic, becoming, 1 which bountifully permits 1000s of spirits, as many as the imagination can hold. Infinite Spirits and Gods. So many that it would take a book larger than the Koran and the Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and all of the holy books in the world to list, and still room would have to be made for more.

And I resent you accusing us of taking advantage of the people, Black Herman joins in. Why have you established yourself as an arbiter for the people’s tastes? Granted that there are as many charlatans in our fields as in yours. Some sell snake oils, others propose the establishment of separate states and countries while at the same time accepting all of the benefits of this 1. I think that what bothers me most is your review of my dreambook in which you call me “crazy.”

Abdul smiles. The smile of sheer mockery that makes you want to pulverize.