Ishmael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo

Looks like hard times, T Malice says to LaBas as they watch Doctor Peter Pick rush to the luncheonette to spend his handout.

When they walk up the stairs of Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral, LaBas removes his key and begins to open the door. The door opens. Surprise.

Earline! They both embrace her. It is like a family reunited.

I was a sick girl, but I feel great now.

Well at least there’s something to be joyous about, Earline.

You heard about Jes Grew, huh pop?

Yes, Earline, I heard.

LaBas and T Malice walk into the deserted room of the Kathedral.

O pop, here’s a letter that arrived today. The mail is so slow. It’s from Abdul Sufi Hamid, mailed the afternoon of the day his last message came.

Let me see, LaBas says, rushing out and tearing open the envelope.

Censorship until the very last. He took it upon himself to decide what writing should be viewed by Black people, the people he claimed he loved. I can’t understand. Apparently after Abdul burned the Book, Jes Grew sensed the ashes of its writings, its litany and just withered up and died. Better luck next time.

What do you think was eating him, pop?

Earline, who has been standing in the door taking it all in, lowers her head, sorry that LaBas perhaps won’t live to see the thing he ached to see.

I think I understand. He set himself up as a roadblock checking all of the data that passed through the senses of 1000000s. A Patrolman of the mind handing out tickets to any idea or thought that sped or made U turns. This was just too much traffic for 1 man to handle. It drove him into a crisis. He couldn’t stop the influences coming in on 1 people. Multitudinous, individual — like the 1000 1000000000 stars of a galaxy. The energy was just too much for him and he must have known that in the end he would receive the rebellious wrath of those ancient people who will not allow someone to tamper with their Sacred Head. A Head is like a temple in our tradition.

Is this the end of Jes Grew?

Jes Grew has no end and no beginning. It even precedes that little ball that exploded 1000000000s of years ago and led to what we are now. Jes Grew may even have caused the ball to explode. We will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left. You see, life will never end; there is really no end to life, if anything goes it will be death. Jes Grew is life. They comfortably share a single horse like 2 knights. They will try to depress Jes Grew but it will only spring back and prosper. We will make our own future Text. A future generation of young artists will accomplish this. If the Daughters of the Eastern Star can do it, so can they. What do you say we all go down to the restaurant and have a sandwich?

That’s a good idea, pop, Earline says.

She puts on her black felt hat which she wears cocked over her right eye. It’s a handsome contrast to the ribbed grey knit dress and the black belt around her waist. Large black beads rest on her chest.

The trio walk down the stairs and into the street. They walk a couple of blocks until they come to the restaurant. Inside LaBas orders 3 hamburgers. A radio in the restaurant’s rear room, used as a living room by the family who owns the store, is on.

S.R.: A GRATEFUL NATION POURS TELEGRAMS INTO THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE. ACCORDING TO THE WHITE HOUSE POLL THEY ARE RUNNING 20-1 IN THEIR ENDORSEMENT OF HIS STRINGENT METHODS IN DEALING WITH THE JES GREW CRISIS. PEOPLE MAY BE STARVING, PRESIDENT HEEBER SAID, SALES MAY BE DOWN, CABARETS AND SPEAKS CLOSED, BUT DANCING IS FINISHED. THERE ARE HARD DIFFICULT DAYS AHEAD. WE MAY HAVE TO GO THROUGH A PERIOD OF ANXIETY. BUT IF WE PERISH, NO 1 CAN SAY WE DIDN’T PERISH WITH DIGNITY.

…AFTER A WEEK OF RECREATION IN EUROPE, BIFF MUSCLEWHITE, CURATOR OF THE CENTER OF ART DETENTION, SAILS FOR HOME ON THE INVINCIBLE SHIP THE TITANIC; HE IS DISMISSING RUMORS THAT HE WILL SEEK THE GOVERNORSHIP…HAITIAN WITHDRAWALS DUE SOON…A LIST FOUND IN THE POCKET OF THOR WINTERGREEN, A WHITE MU’TAFIKAH WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE IN THE TOMBS, LEADS TO THE ARREST OF THE MU’TAFIKAH, THE NOTORIOUS ART-NAPPERS…

Earline and T Malice have finished eating. The waitress hands LaBas the check.

75 cents for 3 hamburgers?

Don’t look at me, the waitress says. The wholesalers say they have to pay more for beef, the farmers say that the price on feed has gone up, the wheat farmers want more money, the tomato farmers have struck in support of the wheat farmers, people ain’t cutting the mustard the way they used to. At this rate we’ll all be out on the street selling apples before long.

LaBas reaches into his pocket and puts the money on the counter, the 3 people prepare to leave the premises.

What a beautiful doll! Earline cries, seeing the Black god Baphomet dressed in the sheik outfit, the turban with the ruby shining from its center. O isn’t that cute, she says to LaBas and T Malice, pointing out the little doll on a shelf behind the waitress. Where did you get that? Earline asks.

O my mama works for some crazy White man on Long Island. She was “carrying” some stuff the other night and she brought this trunk home the White man kept in his room. Well, we got it open and we found the little colored doll. Looks nice there, don’t he?

He’s adorable, Earline says.

Well, whats say we leave? PaPa LaBas asks.

Pop, can I have the car tonight, you know I’m returning to Lincoln University Monday for the fall semester and this young fox…well she…

Sure take it.

T climbs into the car. Earline stands next to LaBas outside the restaurant.

Pop?

Yes?

I must have really been silly with my carrying-on, my nervous breakdown.

I don’t think it was a nervous breakdown, I have my theory. Nervous breakdown sounds so Protestant, we think that you were possessed. Our cures worked, didn’t they? All you have to know is how to do The Work.

Yes, I want to learn more, pop. I’m thinking about going to New Orleans and Haiti, Brazil and all over the South studying our ancient cultures, our HooDoo cultures. Maybe by and by some future artists 30 to 40 years from now will benefit from my research. Who knows. Pop, I believe in Jes Grew now.

You do?

Yes, she answers as they walk past a fashion store whose inventory of Haitian clothes and jewelry has been drastically reduced in price; down the streets of boarded-up cabarets, past closed-down speaks and out-of-business record companies. The street is nearly deserted, gone now is the zest of the days when people were waiting for Jes Grew to invade and join its jazzed-up scouts already on the scene.

Pop, you know I neglected to replenish the altar’s 21st tray for many days.

That might have had something to do with you being touched that way.

True.

You should have explained to me what that particular rite was all about, pop, maybe I would have respected it. How are young people to know these things unless you older 1s tell us what you’ve been through? Sometimes I think we are ashamed of our experience no matter how loudly we proclaim its beauty. Each generation is condemned to repeating the errors made by the former. It’s a cycle.