Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

Looks like you made it, says the voice on the other end.

It is the only man in that bloody mid-Atlantic mess with some sense, Walter Mellon, “the Sphinx,” a cool tycoon who knows the score. He is a practical man. A man who could be trusted. A Pragmatist! A man who isn’t devoted to graphs and theory like a tweedy economics professor but someone who speaks freely of “jawboning,” “bulls” and “bears.” From his “throne-like swivel chair” Walter Mellon the Sphinx conducts the Order of the Wallflower in America. He is aloof and correct. He dresses in black, grey and constantly puffs on an indigo colored cigarette.

Mr. Walter Mellon, thank you, we’ve come through once again.

May I make a suggestion?

Of course. Your counsel is very valuable to us, Mr. Mellon.

This is the way I look at it. Jes Grew tied up the tubes causing Dr. Lee De Forest to cop a plea at the press conference.

That is correct, Mr. Walter Mellon.

At the rate of radio sales, 600,000,000 dollars’ worth will be sold by 1929, correct?

That is true, Mr. Walter Mellon.

Suppose people don’t have the money to buy radios. It will be an interesting precaution against this Jes Grew thing, isn’t that so?

I don’t get what you’re driving at, Mr. Mellon.

The liquidity of Jes Grew has resulted in a hyperinflated situation, all you hear is more, more, increase growth…Suppose we shut down a few temples…I mean banks, take money out of circulation, how would people be able to support the appendages of Jes Grew, the cabarets the jook joints and the speaks. Suppose we put a tax on the dance floors and get out of circulation J.G.C.s like musicians, dancers, its doers, its irrepressible fancy. Suppose we take musicians out of circulation, arrest them on trumped-up drug charges and give them unusually long and severe prison sentences. Suppose we subsidize the 100s of symphony orchestras across the country, have government-sponsored Waltz-boosting campaigns, disperse the art from the Art Detention Center so that if the Mu’tafikah strike again all of the pillage won’t be in 1 place.

But wouldn’t these steps result in a depression?

Maybe, but it will put an end to Jes Grew’s resiliency and if a panic occurs it will be a controlled panic. It will be our Panic.

Being a holy man, these matters confuse me. You know what is best. If you think it will work, by all means activate your plan.

Good! I am glad you see it that way.

The phone rings again and Hinckle’s pet zombie Lester answers.

It’s the Teutonics, sir.

What do they want?

They say they didn’t want to say I told you so about the Knights Templar but with the Templars failure to come through on phase 2 of the campaign you will of course consider another 1 of their candidates for a go at the Grail? Bearing the ancient grudge, arising from the time they were driven by their rivals from the seaport town of Acre, they are eager to show these “daisies” up.

Who is the candidate?

They say they have a housepainter in the balcony.

O.K. Bring him downstairs to front row center. Give him a crack at it. What will be the rouse this time, territorial claims, national honor, for Him, a maiden, or that and more?

A grab bag with a few novelties tossed in. He’s an original.

THE GATHERING IS HELD in a villa located at Irvington-on-Hudson, so named Villa Lewaro, an anagram upon the Hostess’ name, by famed tenor Enrico Caruso. The purchasing price was $250,000 for this place which rests upon a hill overlooking a lake filled with swans and ducks swimming among water lilies.

The hill’s slope rolls down into a mile of lawn. Inside the home, in 1 room, can be heard someone playing an étude by Chopin upon a 24-karat-gold-decorated white piano. The furniture is Hepplewhite and upon the walls hang paintings by Renaissance masters. The whole scene is dominated by a $60,000 pipe organ whose pipes are as tall as the 1s atop the Bethlehem Steel Co. in Lackawanna New York. Mingling among the guests, maids carry trays supporting succulent tidbits in blankets, anti-pasto, gherkins stuffed with nutmeats, marinated oysters in pastry, braised celery and shrimp puffs, cucumbers filled with crab meat. Champagne flows.

Princes of Europe rub elbows with Harlem poets, tycoons from Tin Pan Alley have brought their stables, playwrights, painters, publishers, producers, sports figures, Negro delineators, middle-aged Byron-Shelley-quoting Negro professors thrilled by their newly found Negroness and who remember when this particular revelation occurred, the time the day and what they were doing. Rudolph Valentino is asking a Black poet the pronunciation of the last word of the title of a film he is doing which allegorizes war death famine and pestilence. Race leaders, doctors, dentists and other professionals are also in attendance. Taking his threat seriously, many are wearing Cab Calloway for President buttons.

The majordomo announces the entrance of a woman Countee Cullen called “the Queen of Ubangi”; she is short, stocky and wears white gloves which reach her elbows and an evening gown and white fur cape. On one side of her is Hinckle Von Vampton and on the other…the Talking Android!!

The people, strolling upon Thug-sewn Persian rugs, politely applaud Vampton and his Find as they majestically escort the woman down the winding marble staircase. This is a signal that the cultural program is about to begin and people take their seats in the library where a stand has been set up near the man who is still playing Chopin.

While they await the entrance, a man at the side of the room taunts the elegant tails-wearing red-cravated patent-leather-shoe-wearing musician.

Hey man, tickle out a few hot licks!

I beg your pardon but I only deal with the Classics. Chopin, Liszt, and their imitators are my forte.

Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssss eeeeeeeee me! the man mimics the pianist, arching his nose in imitation.

The glistening party enters the room. Hinckle, the Hostess and the Talking Android face the people now in the straight-back chairs that have been assembled in the living room.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have the pleasure of introducing tonight Mr. Hinckle Von Vampton, editor of a very thrilling delightful and inspiring magazine, the Bombay Master…

Hinckle whispers into the woman’s ear. She continues in a singsong voice.

…O, I stand corrected. The Benign Monster magazine, you know, which was recently banned in Boston and has a colored man writing for it. Mr. Von Vampton has brought with him a man he considers 1 of the most exciting young poets to come on the scene, a man who is the dominant figure in Negro letters today, a man who like no 1 else captures the complexity of Negro Thought…Mr. Hubert “Safecracker” Gould!!!

The Hostess and Von Vampton take their seats as Hubert “Safecracker” Gould, white gloves, blackface, black tuxedo, walks to the back of the stand and begins to read his epic “Harlem Tom Toms.”

HARLEM TOM TOMS

FOR BJF

I

O Harlem, great Negro sea of unrest

Allow me to dip my feet into thy Black

Waters where chippies swim like sad-

Eyed fish

Engulf me, Harlem. Submerge me in thy watery

Cabaret until one hand surfaces only

Yass! Yass!

O Harlem, if you are a sea, why… why

Dat makes Lenox Ave. one of your many

Swift currents, grappling me as I

Beckon to big Black bucks — lifeguards

On de sho. Up on de sho O Harlem

Where jazz is a bather writhing in de

Sand and claw-snapping crabs do dey