Mumbo Jumbo

by Ishmael Reed

  Hubert “Safecracker” Gould’s eyes expand.

  Why Hinckle! Of course! You’re a damned genius.

  45

  BUT I DON’T WANT to put that mess on my face. That stuff burns your face. There ain’t nothing in the contract got to do with putting that cream on my face…procuring them old nasty animals is enough for me to be doing.

  Well, I thought you wanted an editor-in-chief position with the Benign Monster, but I guess we overestimated his abilities, Hubert; come on let’s go…

  Wait…wait a minute, Woodrow Wilson calls to the men who are about to leave his suite located at the rear of Spiraling Agony. Bring it back here a minute.

  Hinckle smiles at Hubert and returns to where W.W. sits at his desk. W.W. dips his fingers into the cream from the jar Hubert holds.

  Bring that mirror over here.

  Hubert takes an oval-shaped mirror with a scallop-decorated frame from the wall and hands it to Wilson. W.W. applies some of the lightener to his face and looks into the mirror; Hinckle and Hubert, stand behind him, beaming.

  It don’t look too bad; a little more and I’ll be a light brown and then…

  LAWD! LAWD! LAWD! WE COMES UP HERE TO FETCH THE PRODIGAL SON AND HERE WE IS GOT D WHORE OF BABYLON! LAWD IT’S WORSE THAN I THOUGHT!

  The 3, Hubert, Hinckle and W.W., turn to see a huge man dressed in a black Stetson, Wild Bill Hickok flowing tie and black clergyman outfit and cowboy boots.

  PA!!!

  The 3 deacons accompanying Rev. Jefferson kneel as Rev. Jefferson stretches his hands toward the heavens.

  Lawd we axes you to pray over this boy …mmmmmmmmmmm An’ deliver this child away from these naked womens…mmmm And sweet back mens. And save his soul from torment…mm

  What is the meaning of this? Busting into my estate unannounced like this? Who are these men, W.W.? Hinckle asks, turning to his columnist.

  W.W. is sobbing softly. It’s my paw and his deacons, Publisher Hinckle Von Vampton.

  Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, Hinckle says, slithering over to where the quartet stand, menacing and strong in the doorway.

  O no you don’t. You wants to make 1 of them things out of me as well; I’m not going to stand for it.

  Rev. Jefferson slugs Hinckle Von Vampton with a fist that has toted many a grain sack and tamed many a horse. Hinckle kind of floats to the rug, out cold. Hubert “Safecracker” Gould tries to flee through the door but is grabbed quickly by the 3 other deacons who’ve accompanied their pastor from Rē’-mōte Mississippi.

  That’s right men. Bust him up. It ain’t no use to planting potatoes when it’s hog-killing time.

  In the other room, sure enough, Hubert “Safecracker” Gould can be heard squealing and knocking over furniture trying to escape their grip.

  Pa…I was just trying to get out there.

  Don’t be using none of the city talk at me. We’ve been driving for 1 week. I couldn’t believe it. You told me you were working for a magazine and I was proud and went around telling everybody about it then 1 of the sisters brought me a copy and I knew, son, that you had left the teachings of d church and well son, I’m here going to take you back to Rē’-mōte and try to heal yo’ soul, you up here posing with all types of trash. Come here.

  No, pa! Don’t do that!

  I said come here boy! Raising your voice at me! Rev. Jefferson walks toward his son with an open 12-foot cotton sack and doesn’t stop until he gets him all the way. One squirming shoe shows and he pushes that in too.

  Rev. Jefferson brushes his hands. Puts the wiggling, protesting sack over his shoulder steps over Hinckle Von Vampton and starts out to join his men to begin the journey back to Mississippi. The Rev. Jefferson, his deacons go outside and climb into their T Model Fords which at that time had such a reliable engine you could plow with it.

  Once inside their cars, Rev. Jefferson and one of the deacons ride in the front of their car; the sack is on the backseat.

  Rev.?

  Yes, Deacon Jones.

  Rev., what are you going to tell the folks back at the church when they find out that you resorted to beating on these men?

  I got it all worked out, deacon.

  How’s that?

  John 2:14.

  I don’t understand, Rev.

  Christ and the money lenders. New Yorkers ain’t the only 1s possess a science.

  The deacon scratches his head as the 3 T Model Fords rumble on out of Spiraling Agony’s path toward the highway.

  Hinckle Von Vampton comes to. He looks about W.W. Jefferson’s suite. That preacher had a pretty solid punch to be a man of the cloth. Hinckle climbs to his feet and staggers out to the front of the mansion. The place is a mess. Chicken feathers are all over the floor. Brogan prints. Half-chewed chunks of tobacco. How had 1 man put it? “Quintessential Americans.”

  Well that’s what these Southern preachers are; man, could they bop you one! What was that? The sound of moaning coming from the front yard. Hinckle walks out to see Hubert “Safecracker” Gould lying face down in the mud, groaning. He goes into the kitchen and returns with a pitcher of water. He walks over to where Gould lies and turns him over. His face is covered with the black mud. Why of course, Hinckle thinks, why not? Hinckle is desperate and would resort to any means in order to come through with the flying colors. He pours cold water on Hubert’s face, and Hubert wakens from his unconsciousness. Hinckle helps Hubert to his feet and then goes into the house to make a phone call to a woman he knows.

  46

  AN ANDROID IN MINT-GREEN long johns which cover everything but his face rolls into the room and salutes the Hierophant 1.

  Yes?

  Trouble, sir. Everything has been confirmed. He just entered the Lincoln bedroom, locked the door and removed a clandestine Victrola from under the bed…he then…he then…the thing muttered in its vocal monotone, flashing its eyes.

  Well, go on.

  He put on a record entitled “The Whole World Is Jazz Crazy” and began to tap his “pedal extremities” as Fats Waller would say.

  Fats Waller? Who is this Fats Waller?

  He’s a piano player, sir. He wrote “Soothin’ Syrup Stomp,” “Stompin’ the Bug,” “Hog Maw Stomp,” “The Rusty Pail” and one the boys down in central control enjoy called “Abercrombie had a zombie.”

  How did you become so familiar with this Jazz? The Hierophant gives the assemblage of wires and aluminum metal a steely questioning look.

  You told us to keep an eye on Jes Grew, sir.

  O, yes…true.

  The Android turns about and leaves the room.

  He thought it was antiseptic up here. He’d have to watch that Android in case the Germ was about. Warren Harding. Him too? Of course there had been rumors during the campaign, the book brought to Washington by guarded express car, written by 1 William Eastbrook and based upon interviews with Harding’s neighbors of Marion Ohio who said that they had never treated his father as a White man. The books had been secretly destroyed in a bonfire.

  Even the plates were destroyed. Another book, Warren Harding, President of the United States, worth $200,000 per copy, is available only from the “Rare Book Room of the New York Public Library.”* 250,000 copies of a book which asserted Harding’s Negro ancestry had previously been ordered destroyed by Woodrow Wilson. (It seems that the Haitian minister to Paris requested an audience with Woodrow Wilson to complain to this lying, hypocritical champion of “self-determination” the pain the American occupation was inflicting upon the Haitian people. The envoy was rudely dismissed by Wilson’s Secretary of State Robert Lansing. Wilson later lay ill, helpless, exhibiting the symptoms of VooDoo vengeance, for example, lassitude, the inability to concentrate more than 10 minutes at a time.)* When Republicans approached Harding with these rumors and asked him to deny them he said, “How should I know. One of my ancestors might have jumped the fence.”* What kind of answer was that? They had received reports from Hinckle Von Vampton that he had attended a Rent Party where he m
ingled with J.G.C.s and now this.

  The author Mark Sullivan paints a picture I would imagine to be prolific with shadows, a waning witch-moon covered with shiny oil, 1 dark figure darting through a deserted street. The subject is the mysterious Harry Daugherty of whom the biographer wrote, “one of his eyes was imperfect, and the other, at the beginning of an acquaintance, seemed to circle round the man rather than focus on him, as if he was getting his impression, not from a physical man, but from some psychic aura about him, not visible to an ordinary eye.” Harry Daugherty is not only Harding’s poker partner, the man who was to put up with the Presidents’ swearing and drinking, but he is also the man “who pushed into the water” this reluctant candidate who would have preferred to remain in the Senate. You guessed it. Harry Daugherty is an agent of the Wallflower Order.

  They thought that Harding would be perfect for the job of Jes Grew stopper. Hadn’t he earned his 1st dollar cutting corn? Didn’t he assist local farmers in painting their barns and thrashing? As a printer hadn’t he learned the art of “sticking type, feeding press, making forms, and washing rollers?” Hadn’t this man maintained William McKinley’s flagpole on his lawn as a good luck symbol? Didn’t he sprinkle his conversation with such wholesome expressions as “pleased as punch?” Wasn’t his favorite reading matter “the funnies?” And his contribution to building the Ohio railroad; what about that?

  Wasn’t this a sedate businessman, newspaper editor and family man, a devoted husband of Florence, a dashing husband who campaigned often, dressed in white trousers, blue coat and saw-tooth hat? Here was a man whose opinions were those of Muncie, Indiana and now he had been exposed as Black.

  They can’t use the lone psychopath emerging suddenly as the President’s party enters the train station. They used that with Garfield. No, they must use something different this time. Poison. It all adds up to guilty. He attended a Rent Party, exposed the Holy War in Haiti and now this. And when he was quoted as saying, “The Negro should be the Negro and not an imitation White man,” what did he mean by that? Was that some kind of code he was giving to Blacks? You know, how they talk sometime you don’t know what they’re saying and as soon as you find out they done gone on to something else.

  The Hierophant phones Harry Daugherty to tell him of his decision.

  * The Five Negro Presidents US.A.—J. A. Rogers.

  * The Harding Era—Robert K. Murray.

  * The Five Negro Presidents US.A.—J. A. Rogers.

  47

  …JES SMITH, A FRIEND, attempts to warn Harding but “commits suicide”* in Harry Daugherty’s apartment. As soon as Warren Harding boards a train for what has become known to historians as “Harding’s mysterious journey West,” they begin injecting the poison. By the time he reaches San Francisco by way of Alaska on the morning of July 29 he is described by reporters as “gray and worn.”

  They finish the job at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Harding had the last word though. It is contained in a message he was to deliver before the Hollywood Chapter of the Knights Templar, entitled “The Ideals of a Christian Fraternity.”* (In this way, he points his finger at his killers. Few historians have understood this clue.—I.R.)

  * Our Times, vol. 6, The Twenties—Mark Sullivan.

  * Our Times, vol. 6, The Twenties—Mark Sullivan.

  48

  THAT EVENING PAPA LABAS sits in the office of Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral. He has closed the place until further notice. He is thinking of the deaths of his assistants Charlotte, Berbelang; and of Abdul Hamid. Was there a common thread which united them? If he could only find the Text. Abdul must have had it. He must have really been on to something. The Text must be somewhere in New York because wasn’t Jes Grew headed this way? Jes Grew would smell it out. He studies once again the epigram on cotton.

  T Malice enters the room.

  I went to see Earline over at Black Herman’s.

  How is she?

  She’s her old self. She took Berbelang’s death hard they say but got over it. The sisters will take care of her for a few weeks. Think I’ll go take in a show.

  LaBas rolls a pencil in his fingers.

  Where are you going? To a talkie?

  No, thought I would go to the Cotton Club. There’s a terrific comedy team called the Warp and Woof formerly of the Diastole and Systole who imitate 3rd-rate literary critics with a passion. They are hilarious. Then there’s the Dancing Bales; that tap dance group taps so that the floorboards begin to creak.

  Excited LaBas looks at T Malice. Say that again.

  The Dancing Bales they dance so…

  Come on let’s go.

  But where?

  No time to explain. LaBas flies down the stairs to the car, T Malice gasping for breath as he tries to keep up with the old man.

  49

  THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN interviewed by Hinckle Von Vampton for Talking Android don’t have very much longer to wait. The 3 black Buicks bearing Haitian license plates pull up to the intersection of what is now 8th Ave. and 125th St. The men climb into the 3 cars and are driven to the pier near the blind pig where recently a series of amorous adventures culminated in a 1 night stand which nearly lost an innocent trolley car operator his happy home. They board The Black Plume and wait in the stateroom until Benoit Battraville (so bad that he isn’t mentioned in the index of one of the few books which cite him) enters the room.

  Several aides have brought Dictaphones.

  The men start to rise but Benoit Battraville signals them to keep their seats. He sits down and begins smoking a cigar; the men are served some white rum.

  Gentlemen, thank you for your cooperation. Our request may sound a bit eccentric to you but my friend Nathan Brown tells me that you will cooperate. When Nathan Brown visited our Island last summer we got in contact with him to inform him of a strange plan the Wallflower Order had devised for putting an end to what has become known here as the Jes Grew epidemic. They were to dispatch a man here to groom a Talking Android who would work within the Negro to purge it…I enlisted the cooperation of Nathan to tell all of you to be on the lookout for such a man. He is a candidate for a plan we have. He has failed in his plan so I don’t see how he would object to aiding the completion of ours.

  The men laugh.

  I am in a buoyant mood. My Ghede is getting the best of me tonight because I am happy to say we have success. PaPa LaBas called me a short time ago to tell me he had evidence to link a gentleman named Hinckle Von Vampton to the plot and he will arrest him and his assistants tonight at a gala affair at Irvington-on-Hudson. He will then deliver the gentlemen to our little ship and then we shall return to our Island. There is 1 other man who is associated with this pair, too, but our elder statesman Houngan Ti Bouton wants to handle this 1 himself. So if you would just cooperate, all of the men who were approached by Hinckle Von Vampton are welcome to remain in here and the others may depart. I thank you for your cooperation.

  About 9 men finish their drinks and leave. Those remaining wait for further instructions from Benoit Battraville.

  Now, as 1 of your theoreticians has already said, no 1 knows how a new loa is formed. But we know that when 1 comes about it must be fed, similar to the way you feed your Ragtime and Jazz by supporting the artists and making it easier for those who are possessed by those forms. Buying records and patronizing those places which are not in the hands of Atonists. You know that if you don’t do this, Ragtime and Jazz will turn upon you or unfed they will perish. Similarly we have a Radio Loa who just came about during this war. It loves to hear the static concerning its victims’ crimes before it “eats” them. I know this is a strange request but if you will just 1 by 1 approach the Dictaphone, tell just how Hinckle Von Vampton propositioned you, the circumstances and the proposals he made to you, we will record this and then feed it to our loa. This particular loa has a Yellow Back to symbolize its electric circuitry. We are always careful not to come too close to it. It’s a very mean high-powered loa.

  There is no furthe
r persuasion needed for these sensible hardworking artists. As the others drink rum and eat mangoes Major Young approaches the recording.

  I walked into the cabaret 1 night. I was in the company of a mixed gathering and no sooner had I sat at my table than Hubert “Safecracker” Gould approached me and said that he wanted to introduce me to Hinckle Von Vampton. I joined this man who was wearing a black patch over his eye…a…

  Excellent! Excellent! Benoit Battraville said as 1 of his attendants began to play it back. Soon the voice came on again

  I walked into the cabaret one night…The voice comes across loud and clear. Major Young tells his story. He is followed by Nathan Brown. It goes on until the 10 or so men who had been approached by Hinckle Von Vampton have completed their narratives. It is close to 9:00 P.M. when they finish. They start to leave the ship, each of them being given an honorary houngan license. Nathan Brown pauses at the door leading from the stateroom.

  Benoit?

  Yes, Nathan.

  You said you were going to teach me how to catch it.

  Catch what, Nathan?

  Jes Grew.

  O…I think you ought to ask PaPa LaBas or Black Herman. You see the Americans do not know the names of the long and tedious list of deities and rites as we know them. Shorthand is what they know so well. They know this process for they have synthesized the HooDoo of VooDoo. Its bleeblop essence; they’ve isolated the unknown factor which gives the loas their rise. Ragtime. Jazz. Blues. The new thang. That talk you drum from your lips. Your style. What you have here is an experimental art form that all of us believe bears watching. So don’t ask me how to catch Jes Grew. Ask Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, your poets, your painters, your musicians, ask them how to catch it. Ask those people who be shaking their tambourines impervious of the ridicule they receive from Black and White Atonists, Europe the ghost rattling its chains down the deserted halls of their brains. Ask those little colored urchins who “make up” those new dance steps and the loa of the Black cook who wrote the last lines of the “Ballad of Jesse James.” Ask the man who, deprived of an electronic guitar, picked up a washboard and started to play it. The Rhyming Fool who sits in Rē’-mōte Mississippi and talks “crazy” for hours. The dazzling parodying punning mischievous pre-Joycean style-play of your Cakewalking your Calinda your Minstrelsy give-and-take of the ultra-absurd. Ask the people who put wax paper over combs and breathe through them. In other words, Nathan, I am saying Open-Up-To-Right-Here and then you will have something coming from your experience that the whole world will admire and need. But your musicians are dying your novelists are exiled for telling the truth your poets are pawning their coats for 10 dollars your people are talking of the New Negro movement but they can’t discuss more than 2 writers or a single painter or when they talk about Scott Joplin the Apostle of Ragtime I see shame in their eyes. Look, Nathan, our nation did not heed the prophecies of its artists and it paid dearly. We will never make that mistake again.