Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

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.

HINCKLE 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? № 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.