Ishmael Reed: Mumbo Jumbo

Earline stands in the doorway with an elaborately decorated towel covering her body.

Berbelang glances at the painting on the wall. It was done by J. B. Bottex, a Haitian. A Black Mary Magdalene and Jesus. The 1st thing you see is the woman’s effulgent rump covered by a lime dress. She wears pearls, a string around her neck, and her hair is tied in a bun. She is watching a procession, some Haitians following Christ…Christ has eyes for her. He has stopped and is staring at her as she leans over the banister of her porch.

Berbelang’s trousers sag a bit at the knees. He removes his coat and hat and tosses them across the table. Earline has moved over to the bed and, legs crossed, is sitting on its edge.

What’s that pretty thing lying next to you?

A scarf I bought today.

Berbelang approaches the bed and handles the scarf. Fondles the silk in his hand and smiles.

Some very serious things are happening baby, Berbelang confides, King down next to her. You will see that Jes Grew is no dream of an old man but…dynamic, engrossing—

Earline rises, supports herself by leaning on her hands. She starts to defend PaPa LaBas.

O Berbelang, he admires you so, why can’t you be—

But Berbelang has other ideas. He puts his hands about her waist and they begin some furious necking. He switches off the lights so that only the Fire of Love Brand Oil candles burn. Sputtering candles whose poles have been anointed.

At 3:00 in the morning Earline awakes. She feels warm under the covers, a contentment like bathing in the rich soap, the basil leaves. She turns to her lover. The pillow shows the imprint of where his head once was.

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.”

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.

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.