Mumbo Jumbo (19 page)

PaPa LaBas and Black Herman listen, indignant.

Their slothful wives and children occupied villas with many servants while our men were used as cheap labor to build plazas resembling a picnic in Sheboygan.

Herman and LaBas laugh—

Deluxe Ice Cream, Coffee, 1 cent Pies, Cakes, Tobacco, Hot Dogs and Highways. Highways leading to nowhere. Highways leading to somewhere. Highways the Occupation used to speed upon in their automobiles, killing dogs pigs and cattle belonging to the poor people. What
is
the American fetish about highways?

They want to get somewhere, LaBas offers.

Because something is after them, Black Herman adds.

But what is after them?

They are after themselves. They call it destiny. Progress. We call it Haints. Haints of their victims rising from the soil of Africa, South America, Asia.

Well at any rate I am getting away from our story. Charlemagne escaped, and soon the cry was “Let all Haitians rise and drive the American Marines into the sea just as our ancestors did the French.” He rallied the Cacos to his banner of Ogoun War Loa. I joined him. We are the 1st to fight a guerrilla war against modern armed forces. It was 1918, a few short years ago. It became a sport of the American Marines to shoot the Cacos on sight, but we countered by moving in small detachments during the night and ambushing many a Marine patrol. Soon the conch horns and the drums informed the people all over the country that we had returned to our ancient religion just as our ancestors the Egyptians the Nubians the Ethiopians did in times of trouble. The Marines became nervous. They didn’t expect this.

Strange, there was nothing about this in the press? Black Herman questions. Even if it was a mystery war it seems that an explosion such as this would reach the ears of the people here.

We received help from the N.A.A.C.P., James Weldon Johnson and his articles in the
Nation
magazine. There was no phone campaign among the rich telephone owners. No receptions in swanky Park Ave. parlors. No ads in newspapers or massive demonstrations. We weren’t only a political cause but a cause that went to the very heart of Western Civilization. You see, there are many types of Atonists. Politically they can be “Left,” “Right,” “Middle,” but they are all together on the sacredness of Western Civilization and its mission. They merely disagree on the ways of sustaining it. If a radio show began touting the achievements of Western Civilization over civilizations of others there would barely be a letter to the station from anyone, anarchist or Calvin Coolidge Republican…

We made a sacred journey to have Ogoun possess us to know our course. By this time I was close to Charlemagne and we went to Arcahaie where in the hills lived 1 Ti Bouton who “conversed with the streams and could produce rain in the dry season and make lightning strike” as someone said. He was so powerful he could make the
Titanic
sink a second time.

Ti Bouton did not like the secretary Charlemagne brought along, a mulatto who was trained in France and possessed by the White man’s loas. He had made some remarks dismissing our ancient faith as “crazy” or “sick” and backward “mumbo jumbo.”

That sounds familiar, PaPa LaBas mulls.

The mulatto was taking black out of blanc. Minstrelsy is not confined to your theaters.

What happened at the meeting with Ti Bouton?

Ti Bouton told us not to go to Port au Prince… Charlemagne did not agree with him because the weather appeared to be favorable and the invasion had been prepared. Ti Bouton told us that we would need a Great White Host in order to force the American Marines, who were rampaging the countryside machine-gunning 1000s of people, to withdraw.

Charlemagne dismissed this. He was a VooDooist but refused to practice the old ways. Ti Bouton told him that a Great White Host had to be captured. “A Star” of the Western occult, as they say in your movies. Their talk ended in a quarrel.

At dawn the next day we entered the Caco Trail of the Bel Air Gulch for our invasion of the city. We fought all night. There were casualties on both sides. But we were routed because the Marines had been tipped off by the mulatto secretary. The people who joined in our massacre warfare against the Marines were killed. Charlemagne was killed by a Southern Marine disguised as a Black woman who penetrated our line and shot him as he stood over a campfire. I went back to Ti Bouton. He told me that I must come here and find this White Host whom he said had been dispatched here on a mission for the Wallflower Order. A Knights Templar.

What is the Templar’s job? PaPa LaBas asks.

It’s something in connection with the Jes Grew phenomenon, the epidemic. He is supposed to work within the Negro to refine it. For this he needs a Talking Android; a Human Vaccine who will make Jes Grew seem harmful to the J.G.C.s; make certain that they don’t pick up on it.

Do you know this man’s name?

No, Black Herman, we just know that he’s here in the city. You see, our loas adapt to change. We have a new loa with very special appetites. This 1 possesses a technological bent.

You mean you are going to sacrifice him?

No, LaBas, we are going to present him before the loa and the loa will do with him what it desires. We want you to help us in this.

We will be glad to, PaPa LaBas offers. Anything that I can do to help you in your effort to find this man…

We think that he will be working to acquire the Text that Jes Grew needs to thrive, if that’s what it’s looking for; they’re not sure. They have several plans we know, finding the Text and destroying it, creating a Human Vaccine—a J.G.C.’s J. G. Repellent is another.

I will begin to look about. To get on the case.

Fine! Thanks to you and Black Herman we may be able to continue with this…

A tall Python man refreshes their drink after Benoit Battraville presses a button. Benoit Battraville rises and puts a record on a Victrola he has in the room. A recording made by Sweet Poppa Stovepipe: “Black Mud.”

One thing, Benoit?

Yes…

The music begins to waft across the room.

Why if Charlemagne was repulsed by the practice of the Petro Way weren’t you?

He was of the elite, I am a Blacksmith. Besides Petro is my Order. We must always revive the ancient ways if they are to remain effective. Ti Bouton told us these things in a language he spoke: Le Guinee, named after the continent which sank 1000s of years ago. The continent the Greeks called Atlantis which some claim is buried beneath our island, the home of the loas.

The 3 listen. Black Herman’s attention is drawn by a little wooden Erzulie ship which hung from the ceiling.

It’s beautifully done work, the legerdemain Black Herman admires.

Yes, I have to keep an eye on her. She’s in her Petro Moon and if I am not careful she will walk all over this town. I have had my technicians feed her…

That’s a good idea, Black Herman says, otherwise she will “touch” somebody. This Templars thing incidentally. What are they?

It all began in 1118
A.D.
when a man named Hugues de Payens organized it with the aid of 8 knights…

They talk all night. Benoit Battraville explains the Templars’ mission and their employers, the Wallflower Order; they discuss techniques and therapy associated with The Work. Similarities and differences between South American, North American and African rites.

Black Herman and PaPa LaBas leave early in the morning as dawn comes over New York. Just as LaBas is walking down the ramp with Black Herman, he turns to Benoit Battraville standing in
The Black Plume’s
stateroom doorway.

You are very erudite in not only your own history but the history of the world and in a language we understand. What is the reason for this?

You actually have been talking to a seminar all night. Agwe, God of the Sea in his many manifestations, took over when I found it difficult to explain things. In fact this is his ship. He presides over our Navy.

LaBas smiles. That Old Work was some Work.

As he and Black Herman approach Black Herman’s auto, Herman turns to PaPa LaBas.

Of course there was the man alternating with the spirit…didn’t you see him jerk from time to time. Jerk his head. Next time you go to a so-called Holiness storefront watch the soloist who is backed up by the choir of rattling tambourines; see if he or she doesn’t jerk her head at a crucial moment “when the Spirit hits her.”

It’s all over the place, isn’t it. I should have known. Different methods. Different signs, but all taking you where you want to go.

The men climb into the car and head from the pier. Then, into Manhattan.

PaPa LaBas thinks to himself as he rides alongside the silent Black Herman,
Perhaps I have been insular, as Berbelang said, limiting myself to a Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral, not allowing myself to witness the popular manifestations of The Work.

H
INCKLE VON VAMPTON IS
frustrated by Jes Grew. The egregiousness of its invasiveness. Its total catch-on abilities.
The 2 candidates had shunned him as if…as if…they’d caught on. Was the Jes Grew an intelligence which, similar to the Wallflower Order, owned an administrative arm capable of wising people up? Would his attempt at restoring the glory of the Knights Templar be spoiled? Yes, they had received a tentative acquittal but spectators were watching to see if they’d come through; whether they still had what it took. Jes Grew was on the Rise. If it captured New York its total control on the Radio would be complete. Warren Harding had said Let’s End Wiggle and Wobble. But Jes Grew was wiggling wobbling rambling and shambling ringing and chaining. Up. Down. Any which-a-way. Couples were marathon dancing until they fainted in 1 another’s arms. The Teutonics were holding meetings again at a resort called Berchtesgaden. Had they found out that he had failed? No 1 could be found to become his Talking Android, his pet zombie he could use any way he wanted to undermine Jes Grew. Tell it, it was promising but flawed. Tell it that it had a long way to go. Recently in Russia Claude McKay when approached by a liberal to address the revolution on behalf of the Black worker said, “I have no mandate from the Black worker to speak for him.”

Individuality. It couldn’t be herded, rounded-up; it was like crystals of winter each different from one another but in a storm going down together. What would happen if they dispersed, showing up when you least expected them; what would happen if you couldn’t predict their minds? The Holy War in Haiti was going badly. They had broken into the humfos and destroyed the govis, brushed out the veves, killed the houngans in cold blood but as soon as they destroyed 1 humfos another 1 would rise. And what made it so confusing was that the new humfo only resembled the preceding 1 in essential ways so that not detecting a pattern they could have no plan of attack. Everyone, since the newspaper headline, had become an expert on Haiti. The men dressing in white linen suits; the women wearing the most outlandish geegaws and long colorful skirts. The colors blinded Hinckle. He preferred grey and dark colors. They would have to outlaw color this time around. Better make a note of this. There was no 1 and the time was running out. He had said 6 months and there is only a couple of weeks remaining.

He picks up the Aunt Jemima pancake mix box. He studies the picture.
Hey…maybe the Talking Android could be a 19th-century Mammy Juddy on the plantation who would once more serve me, the slavemaster, by scolding his daughters for behaving like tomboys and prevent Jes Grew from continuing its rise. No, that’s too obvious. No, it seemed that the only 1 would be Woodrow Wilson…! Of course he’s too black… hey but wait a minute.
He examines the skin-lightener ads in a Race newspaper he had bought for leads on Talking Android candidates.

H
UBERT “SAFECRACKER” GOULD? COME
in here!

The Peter-Lorre-eyed bunched-up man, about 5’1” enters the room.

Yes Hinckle?

Listen, I got a great plan; by the way, where have you been all day?

I was in Harlem watching the little colored waifs play in the school yard. Some of them dropped their notes which I immediately swept into my briefcase and they would bawl but then I appeased the little chocolate dollops by awarding them peppermint candy. I am sure that some publisher will be eager to accept such a manuscript; some of it is quite good. I’ll dash off an introduction and with the royalties why…why…I’ll be able to buy a summer home in the Berkeley hills of that rising community on the West Coast where everyone goes about saying things like: Well can you prove this? I mean don’t you think we need evidence for this? Who’s your source?

Good for you, Hubert. I think I’ve solved the problem of the Talking Android, someone to…well, you know the assignment.

When did you recruit him? Today while I was gone?

He’s been here all along.

What do you mean? I don’t understand?

W.W.!!

Why he’s too dark, Hinckle; they’ll never accept him. I know, I’ve been to Harlem 3 maybe 4 times and I read the magazines.

Look at this…Hinckle says shoving the Race newspaper in front of his face.

Hubert “Safecracker” Gould’s eyes expand.

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

B
UT 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.