Mumbo Jumbo

by Ishmael Reed

  14

  HINCKLE VON VAMPTON RESEMBLES the 4th Horseman of Apocalypse as depicted in a strange painting by William Blake: a grey-bearded figure of whom it was written: “Behold, pale horse and its rider’s name was Death and Hades followed him…” Von Vampton works in the copy room of the Atonist voice, the New York Sun, administered by members of the Wallflower Order. He lives in a rooming house located in the Chelsea district of New York City. Never married, he sits with his companions in an Automat on 23rd Street, night after night, discussing European history, drinking coffee and eating bean pie. His companions get into heated arguments as numerous cups of coffee are fetched from the Automat’s spigot. Hinckle Von Vampton, steady, a black patch on his eye from an old war wound, is often referred to by the disputants as “The Grand Master.”

  1 night, Von Vampton’s nosy landlady, who constantly interrupts his meditations by sweeping about the door of his room, peers through his keyhole and finds the man staring at an ugly, hideous bejeweled object: a little black doll. Hinckle Von Vampton is dressed as she is to report later, “like 1 of them Knight fellers. And began kissing some ugly nigger doll.” Spaced-out, his good pupil dilating, sitting in a ragged uniform marked with a Red Cross emblem, a coat of lamb’s wool, he utters a strange cry.

  And then in reverie he leans back into his chair.

  It is A.D. 1118—the Burgundian knight Hugues de Payens is conducting a ceremony before the Temple of Solomon. He is founding the “Knights Templar” the “poor fellows of Christ.” They are a scraggly bunch who look as if they haven’t bathed in months. They are a kind of Tac Squad for Western Civilization; a mighty highway patrol assigned to protect the pilgrims en route to the Holy Land from attack by infidels and robbers.

  1 day Hinckle Von Vampton forgets to keep a headline in the present tense. Word comes from the chief copy editor that “the old man is losing his grip.” He begins to bring Thermos bottles filled with gin to the job.

  That night Hinckle Von Vampton enters his room only to find it ransacked. His clothes have been dumped about. His books lie on the floor, the trunk is empty as are the drawers. Hinckle Von Vampton questions his housekeeper.

  “She don’t know nothin.”

  Hinckle Von Vampton’s housekeeper, intrigued by the scene she stumbled upon—the scene of her tenant kissing this strange looking “statoot”—has invited her Mah-Jongg club to come up and “see the show.”

  Their vantage point is a skylight above the studio. The quality of the glass is such that they can look down without being detected. This time he is standing on the statue of a dog. Lifting his drink and sword and whirling the sword about his head, he utters strange words which 1 of his landlady’s friends is later to associate with “Araby.”

  The reputation of the Knights Templar grows as men who won’t bug out and avoid their obligations. No softies or jellyfish they. No indeed. They are the militia templi, the protectors of the Temple of the Wizard Solomon and all the treasures within. They save the Second Crusade (1146-1150) from annihilation by “Islamic hordes.”

  15

  THE PARTICULAR EDITION OF the New York Sun which is now a collector’s item certainly paid its dues to the Atonist order which demands that it devote so many column inches per month to the glorification of Western Culture. “The most notable achievements of mankind.” A story concerning the authentication of a Rembrandt jumps to page 60 where it runs parallel to a column describing Afro-American Painting which is described by the Atonist critic as “primitive,” at best “charming” and “mostly propagandistic.”

  The managing editor has been meeting all day with “higher ups.” They are deciding what their particular tab can do to crush the Jes Grew epidemic which has now reached Chicago. When he walks into the office and inspects the edition of the newspaper which was done without his supervision, he grits his teeth and blows his top, rushing from the office like a bellowing Bull. There is a colossal mistake in the headlines. 1000s of copies are in the streets and others are en route. It is too late to call them back. Heads with roll.

  He storms into the copy room to find the makeup man drunk on gin. His head on his desk. The managing editor fires the makeup man on the spot. As the man picks up his things the managing editor asks who was responsible for the error.

  “That furriner,” says the makeup man. “Hinckle Von Vampton, that furriner.”

  They have sent Hinckle Von Vampton to the headline clinic to cure him of his dead and broken heads but Vampton has been unredemptive. Hinckle Von Vampton is sitting in his chair in the little room adjoining the copy room lost in his thoughts:

  Private castles are the Knights Templar’ for the asking. It is rumored that they possess hidden seaports from where they sail to unknown continents. They arouse the envy of Europe’s monarchs who, jealous of their service to the pope, would like to curb their power. They have powerful friends among the royalty however. King Richard 1 of England is a patron and King Alfonso of Aragon and Navarre wills his countries to them; but this plan is foiled by the Moors. King Baldwin 1 grants the Templars his palace as their headquarters.

  16

  VON VAMPTON?

  Hinckle Von Vampton’s 1 blue eye blinks and then fixes upon the swarthy form before him. A man in trousers a few sizes too large, suspenders, hair pasted down with a bad smelling grease.

  We tried to give you a chance, pops, but now you are through. We had orders from the Occupation Forces that no news of this war would be printed on the mainland. You give it a full banner headline. VooDoo Generals Surround Marines at Port-au-Prince. We warned you, pop, but now you’ve really done it. Your style was too fancy anyway. We like strong lively short verbs and present tenses and you can’t adapt to this American style, pops.

  Damn you.

  The people outside, listening through the glass window, are shocked at this use by Hinckle Von Vampton of abusive profanity.

  You are as boorish as your newspaper. Every managing editor is his newspaper. You use ketchup at every meal, you don’t change your clothes and you are a slob, therefore your newspaper is a slob. You put hifalutin stories on the cover but in the rear you carry ads for the cheapest Bijou, scandalous stories about Hollywood and photos which titillate, that despicable cover you carried of the woman’s execution your reporter smuggled from the big house.

  Hey wait a minute buster, s’matta with you?

  You are as lurid as your every page. Your concept of briefness will lead to inaccuracy and ultimately destroy the “boobooise” you represent. You will entice the monsters of your twisted dreams and they will surface like dead fish. Moreover, my friend, your style book is a racing form.

  Red in the face as a baboon’s ass, the managing editor swallows a couple of pills.

  Look Hinckle, I don’t want to argue with you. We have our orders about this Haiti thing. Americans will not tolerate wars that can’t be explained in simple terms of economics or the White man’s destiny. Your headline has done considerable damage. Our switchboard is overloaded with questions from the populace concerning Haiti. Some of them don’t even know where it is.

  Haiti is 21° latitude by 72° longitude, Von Vampton supplies.

  Yes, right…Anyway mobs are checking out books from the 42nd Street Library on Haiti and the lions have been taken indoors for their protection. This is a can of worms you’ve given us and you will have to go.

  The Haitian thing has asked the Cockatrice and Sea Monsters of the Western Psyche to move over.

  Hinckle Von Vampton examines the man. Jowly. A gin-inspired pallor. He glances at the cuff links. A Knight in armor wearing the Red Cross on his breast.

  Where did you find those cuff links?

  I found them around the corner on 42nd Street, why?

  Not only are you a louse but you are a desecrater as well. Death to defilers.

  Hinckle Von Vampton reaches for a short bronze dagger and is about to plunge it into the managing editor’s chest when other employees rush into the office and take him o
ff the managing editor.

  THAT DOES IT. YOU’RE CRAZY. GO PICK UP YOUR PAY AND GET OUTTA HERE BEFORE I CALL THE BULLS.

  With pleasure, Hinckle Von Vampton says, brushing off his immaculately starched collar. You should be able to manage them very well the way you ignore their corruption.

  With dignity, Hinckle Von Vampton gathers his newspapers and walks out of the offices of the New York Sun.

  In the streets, little boys wearing soul caps and knickers are shouting out the headlines.

  VooDoo Generals Surround Marines At The Poor Prince

  Hinckle Von Vampton smiles. That’s America for you. Rumor stacked upon rumor like bricks in the Mason’s Tower of Babel. “Gamalielese,” as Mencken described Harding’s prose. A prose style so bad that it had charm.

  S.R.: A LATE BREAKING DEVELOPMENT IN HAITI. RUMORS CIRCULATE THAT A SOUTHERN MARINE IS VICTIM OF CANNIBALISM. THE ACTION IS TERMED BARBAROUS, GHASTLY, HEINOUS, AN AFFRONT TO THE ENTIRE “CIVILIZED” WORLD. KONGRESS DEPLORES HAITI IN A RESOLUTION WHICH MEETS LITTLE OPPOSITION. WHEN ASKED TO COMMENT JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SAYS:

  THE QUESTION AS TO WHICH IS MORE REPREHENSIBLE, THE ALLEGED CUSTOM IN HAITI OF EATING A HUMAN BEING WITHOUT COOKING HIM OR THE AUTHENTICATED CUSTOM IN THE UNITED STATES OF COOKING A HUMAN BEING WITHOUT EATING HIM. THE HAITIAN CUSTOM WOULD HAVE, AT LEAST, A UTILITARIAN PURPOSE IN EXTENUATION. *

  * Along This Way—James Weldon Johnson.

  17

  UNEMPLOYED HINCKLE VON VAMPTON hobbles through the streets. His hat is turned down. It had become too much. He didn’t mind setting heads for the rubbish Americans called a newspaper. Tabs, with their “Torch Murders,” “Love Nests,” “Sugar Daddies,” and “Heart Throbs.” He didn’t mind the cheap stock, the lack of eloquence, the inclination for synonyms, he had accomplished what he set out to do. Now his ancient employers would have to turn to him. If the Jes Grew thing didn’t convince them they would trace the Haitian leak to him and then they would want to bargain. Heh heh. He laughed. Heh heh, Hinckle laughed. Passersby stopping to watch this man double up on the street HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH

  Dance is the universal art, the common joy of expression. Those who cannot dance are imprisoned in their own ego and cannot live well with other people and the world. They have lost the tune of life. They only live in cold thinking. Their feelings are deeply repressed while they attach themselves forlornly to the earth. *

  That night, bubbling with success, a happy Hinckle Von Vampton attends a lecture at the Knights Templar building which boasted such distinguished charter members as De Witt Clinon, 1-time Governor of the State. The members give him a standing ovation and invite him to the platform where he quietly sits in a hard back chair as a lecturer describes the tributes paid the ancient discredited Order by a grateful Europe. The burial grounds, churches, farms and villages and pastures that were awarded to them. They become the bankers of the Mediterranean and trade with both Christians and Muslims. Serving no monarch, they answer only to the pope himself. At 1 point their income amounts to $90,000,000 sterling and by A.D. 1128 they are declared by the pope immune to excommunication.

  That night, joyously weeping over his victory, Hinckle Von Vampton says praises. Ancient words spoken by only 10 people in the whole world to the little black doll with the black curly hair. “He who made us and has not left us.” The landlady giggles so she almost reveals her strategic position outside the door.

  That morning Hinckle Von Vampton is on the way to the bank to withdraw money to pay his rent. A car pulls up and before the startled daylight shoppers, its occupants leap out and whisk Hinckle Von Vampton away by gunpoint. The witnesses are not able to give clear descriptions of the men. Later that afternoon when Hinckle Von Vampton’s housekeeper lets herself into his room to clean she finds it in disarray. She is surprised. “He may be nuts but he’s neat,” she says to a Mah-Jongg companion later on.

  Christianity has never been worldly nor has it ever looked with favor on good food and wine, and it is more than doubtful whether the introduction of jazz into the cult would be a particular asset.

  Carl G. Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East

  …the African deities were fond of food, drink, battle and sex.

  David St. Clair, Drum and Candle

  The headquarters of the Wallflower Order. You have nothing real up here. Everything is polyurethane, Polystyrene, Lucite, Plexiglas, acrylate, Mylar, Teflon, phenolic, polycarbonate. A gallimaufry of synthetic materials. Wood you hate. Nothing to remind you of the Human Seed. The aesthetic is thin flat turgid dull grey bland like a yawn. Neat. Clean, accurate, and precise but 1 big Yawn they got up here. Everything as the law laid down in Heliopolis 1000s of years ago. (Heliopolis, the Greek name for the ancient city of Atu or Aton.) You eat rays and for snacks you munch on sound. Loading up on data is slumber and recreation is disassembling. Transplanting is real big here. Sometimes you play switch brains and hide the heart. Lots of marching. Soon as these Like-Men disappear walking single file down the hall here comes another row at you. The Atonists got rid of their spirit 1000s of years ago with Him. The flesh is next. Plastic will soon prevail over flesh and bones. Death will have taken over. Why is it Death you like? Because then no 1 will keep you up all night with that racket dancing and singing. The next morning you can get up and build, drill, progress putting up skyscrapers and…and…and…working and stuff. You know? Keeping busy.

  Now some problems. Jes Grew. Mu’tafikah, Teutonic Knights who’ve done it again making such a mess of things that Carl Jung wrote:

  The catastrophe of the first World War and the extraordinary spiritual malaise that came afterwards were needed to arouse a doubt as to whether all was well with the white man’s mind.

  * Joost A. M. Meerloo, The Dance: from Ritual to Rock and Roll, Ballet to Ballroom (Philadelphia: Chilton, 1960), p. 39.

  18

  THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE Wallflower Order, backbone of the Atonists is, due to the Jes Grew contagion, bustling with activity. Aides run about like ants scurrying across a white telephone. They use a new invention Television to scan the U.S. for Jes Grew activity at this moment stirring Chicago.

  Wearing sandals and dressed like a Cecil B. De Mille extra, Hierophant 1 paces the floor, his long, grey beard touching his waist. His yellow eyes dart from screen to video screen as he watches the progress of the epidemic. Watching it Fade Out of Kansas City only to Fade In in St. Louis. Various wooden, metallic and plastic figures shaped like human beings, pet zombies and creatures whose mothers were scared by computers speak to 1 another in code. Gibberish. Sounds of tape recorders of its human voice at high speed. Jes Grew is compounded by the Mu’tafikah who are responsible for art thefts now ravishing the private collections of Europe and America. 1 of their number, an international Mu’tafikah, has lifted the sacred Papyri of Ani stored in the British Museum and returned it to “Brothers in Cairo,” so read the “illiterate” “contradictory” “scrawls,” product of “a tormented mind,” which was left behind at the scene of the theft.

  The Far Eastern Museum of Cologne has discovered several items from its Chinese collection missing. To add to this, the war launched by the Order against the Haitian nation has been exposed by a well-planted headline in the New York Sun. More books concerning Haiti have been checked out of American libraries in a week than in the previous history of the library system. To add to that, people walk all over New York speaking Creole and wearing tropical clothes; the women long white dresses, the men linen suits. As the war drags on it arrives upon American shores. The Wallflower Order launched the war against Haiti in hopes of allaying Jes Grew symptoms by attacking their miasmatic source. But little Haiti resists. It becomes a world-wide symbol for religious and aesthetic freedom. When an artist happens upon a new form he shouts “I Have Reached My Haiti!”

  Dance manias inundate the land. J. A. Rogers writes, “It is just the epidemic contagiousness of jazz that makes it, like measles, sweep the block.” * People do the Ch
arleston the Texas Tommy and other anonymously created symptoms of Jes Grew. The Wallflower Order remembers the 10th-Century tarantism which nearly threatened the survival of the Church. Even Paracelsus, a “radical” who startled the academicians by lecturing in the vernacular, termed these manias “a disease.”

  The Wallflower Order is well aware of what Jes Grew wants and what Jes Grew needs. In case they’re wrong they have other techniques. Their diagnosis is the same as PaPa LaBas’, a “so-called” astrodetective they have under surveillance.

  You must capture its Celebration and then it will dissolve. It’s a new age. 1920. Sword fighting only interests the kids who attend the matinees. Douglas Fairbanks can sell Liberty Bonds and act but he is of no aid to you. The Teutonic Order is of no use. You must use something up-to-date to curb Jes Grew. To knock it dock it co-opt it swing it or bop it. If Jes Grew slips into the radiolas and Dictaphones all is lost. Luckily your scientists are working on microorganisms; minuscule replicas of yourself capable of surviving the atmosphere of any planet. Your inventors are preparing a Spaceship that will transport these microorganisms to 3 planets you’ve had your eye on. You wish all of your subjects were like them. Loyal, passive, “just doing our jobs.”

  You must get your hands on Jes Grew’s hunger. That text. Last reported in the hands of a surviving member of the Knights Templar, that discredited order which once held the fate of Western Civilization in its hands until the scandal.

  When Hinckle Von Vampton is shoved into the round revolving room he interrupts the Hierophant’s speculations.

  This round room’s ceiling is a dome of glass through which the Hierophant can keep track of the Heavens. The 1st thing Hinckle sees is a man suffering from a condition know as kyphosis angularis standing on a ladder marking a huge map. It is his species count; the name and number of life near extinction. Dots of a dead white color are placed in Birds Reptiles Amphibians and Fish. The phone rings. The man climbs down and answers. The man grins, resumes his position, then places a dot in the watercress darter.