by Gayl Jones
I’m standing there thinking ’bout Hollywood Babylon when I realizes that the colored star is the same woman that I met once at one of them trade shows that I’m addicted to. I ain’t think she know me, though, ’cause she probably see all kindsa peoples at them trade shows. I remembers her, though, ’cause I’m looking at her perfection and I’m thinking I’ve seen that perfection before, and then I remembers it that trade show. I starts to go over there and to specify her about that trade show, but then I’m thinking maybe she don’t want these peoples to know that she usedta be a trade show actress, ’cause now she a starlet, and maybe she ain’t even got it in her portfolio that she were a trade show actress, and maybe she do know me but don’t want me to specify her, and tell the folks her origins at the trade shows. So I don’t go over and specify her about meeting her at one of them trade shows. I do wants to ask her have she been to any trade shows, because since I has been working with the Sanctuary peoples I haven’t been to as many trade shows. But then if I asks her about them trade shows she’ll think I’m trying to specify her in front of them peoples who knows her as a starlet.
I know some of y’all wants me to identify that star as a true racist and have one of them scenes where them Hollywood peoples reveals they true selves, or asks me to dance or sing for them, or acts like them people in that movie where Burt Reynolds play the Indian and the people asks him to do a war dance or rain dance and he got to tell those fools he don’t do no rain dance unless they wants some rain and no war dance unless they wants to go to war, and they’s displaying their racism, but displaying it more to be fools than the true racists they probably is, you know, them scenes that pretends that them racists is just innocents. I know some of y’all wants one of them Hollywood scenes, but it weren’t like that. Maybe there was some patrons amongst them, but they was trying to serve me caviar. And don’t think I’m no fool. I knows they’s just treating me the way they’s treating me ’cause of that star, ’cause I met a joker look just like this film director once when I was driving my truck. I’m dealing with this new company, so this joker tries to give me the bum’s rush till he finds out I’m with the Mosquito Trucking Company, but I decide not to let the fool know that I’m Mosquito herself. Course it was just a little trucking company but it had got a good reputation amongst some of his suppliers. I knows the only reason they wasn’t giving me the bum’s rush were because of that star and the only reason the star weren’t giving me the bum’s rush were because of Monkey Bread.
Even gives me one of his independent film productions cards.
They’s real nice people, ain’t they? say Monkey Bread when we’s back in her wing of the mansion. She’s got brocaded furniture that looks like it’s out of a movie and even got gold threads in the sofa and chairs. I love champagne. I still don’t like caviar, though. My star didn’t use to like it herself, till she made that movie that made her famous. Course they’re nicer to us now than they usedta be. That director usedta think my star was a bum.
Say what? I ask. I’m drinking me a Budweiser and sitting on that sofa that musta cost thousands of dollars.
Well, he didn’t think she was a good actress till she was in that movie playing the Navajo. I remember she usedta audition for all of his movies. Now he wants her in all his movies. She the same actress it seem like to me. If she wasn’t no good before that Navajo role, she the same actress now. But that’s the thing with these stars and starlets out here, they’s all the same seem like to me. I don’t see no difference between them that is stars and them that ain’t. ’Cept them that is stars gets treated like stars, people fusses over them and wants to please them. They fusses over me and wants to please me too. But I know it ain’t me. I know it ain’t me they wants to please. It’s just ’cause I’m in her light, and they thinks ’cause I’m her personal assistant that they can get from me to her. It ain’t like that. And they was fussing over you too. I was wondering how they was going to treat you, ’cause if anything you sho ain’t Hollywood. But I was pleased to see them fussing over you and trying to please you. ’Cause that’s what I wanted for you, Nadine. I wanted you to come out here and have people fuss over you and try to please you, so’s you’d know what it’s like.
I think she’s going to go on and make some meaning out of it, but she don’t. Or maybe explain to me that they’s just fussing over me ’cause they knows I’m close to her, and if she’s in her star’s light, then I might have some influence with them too. And wasn’t her star telling everybody, I want you to meet Nadine, I want you to meet Nadine, and treating me like I’m somebody? Well, I’ma show you your guest bedroom, say Monkey Bread.
You mean I got my own guest bedroom? I says. I thought I was going to bunk with you.
Naw, girl, this is a mansion. Everybody got they own guest bedroom. This is a mansion, girl.
When she show me to that guest bedroom I think I’m dreaming, ’cause it remind me of something out of the Arabian nights. Got one of them canopied-type beds with that mosquito curtain. I think they call it mosquito curtain. And everything else look like it real silk. and there’s those thick Arabian-type carpets, those Oriental carpets, those Persian-type tapestries, and loveseats that looks like they’s out of some Arabian dream.
Ain’t that mosquito curtain, I asks.
Yeah, I think that’s what they call it.
Y’all got mosquitoes?
Naw, girl, we ain’t got no mosquitoes. That’s just for the decor. That’s a reproduction of a bed they used I think in one of them original Valentino movies. I know one of them old movies. This bedroom supposed to look like it belong in the palace of a sheik. All the bedrooms has got they own theme, but I thought you might like this one.
Yeah, I do, I do, I sho do.
We know who we are, though, don’t we, Nadine?
What?
I still know who I am, said Monkey Bread.
That don’t mean you don’t belong here, I say. I starts to tell her about the trade show actress, but I don’t want to specify her even to Monkey Bread, ’cause Monkey Bread be telling everybody she a trade show actress before she become a starlet, and like I said, maybe that ain’t in her portfolio.
I ain’t talking about that. I’m just talking about, you know what I’m talking about. Sometimes I think I’m the only person here who do know who they are.
I got to admit I did like being out there in Hollywood and having them fussing and trying to please me. Course I know if I’d gone out there not in the company of Monkey Bread’s star, they’d’ve given me the bum’s rush. I mean the same people who was fussing and trying to please me. ’Cause I did stop in one of them fancy stores, just so’s I could tell Delgadina I been in one of them fancy store. I mean they’s people in there buying thousand-dollar shoes. I’m there watching this woman put on these silver shoes that’s thousand-dollar shoes. She pretend she ain’t notice me, but this security guard starts watching me real closely. When I starts out of the store seems like I hear him say into that cell phone of his, The one in the blue with the French braids. Now I ain’t bothered nobody in that store ’cept to be there. And already they’s got me under surveillance. ’Cept these ain’t no French braids, fool.
Now y’all know I ain’t going out to California just to meet them movie stars. I tell Monkey Bread to take me to her temple.
Temple?
You know where Nzingha preach at.
It ain’t exactly a temple, Nadine. Unless her home is her temple.
It a nice house, but a modest house. It got a large living room, though, one of them long living rooms, and there’s nothing but African-American women in that living room. They’s a lot of rooms in that house, though. When Monkey Bread show me through them rooms, I feel like I’m in one of them Italian movies I seen once, where you keep going through these different rooms. In one of them rooms, they’s womens sitting at a computer, in another they’s sitting around a table making a quilt, in another they’s reading, not just books but a lot of bound and unbound manu
scripts and Monkey Bread say that some of her writings is in that room. She refers to it as the New African Women’s Writing Room. Then there’s another room that’s got nothing but papers in it, a computer and some of them computer files, you know, and Monkey Bread stops in that room, lifts up some papers and gives them to me. One is The Daughters of Nzingha Complaint Form and the other is The Daughters of Nzingha Not for Members Only Membership Card. I won’t provide y’all with no copies of they complaint form, but y’all can read they Not for Members Only Membership Card. I ain’t included their complaint form ’cause y’all has got to have a guerrilla personality to fill out them complaint forms and I ain’t know which of y’all has got a guerrilla personality. Y’all that believes y’all has a guerrilla personality can contact the following organization for a copy of their complaint form which is similar to The Daughters of Nzingha Complaint Form:
For more information, call, write, or e-mail us:
The New Guerrilla Lawyers
P.O. Box 444
Las Vegas, Nevada USA 89119
Tel: 1-800-NEW-GLAW
[email protected]
I ain’t sure whether they is the same guerrilla lawyers that works with the new Underground Railroad, whether they is guerrilla lawyers that works with the Daughters of Nzingha, or whether they is independent guerrilla lawyers.
And there’s a kitchen where the womens is cooking. Few of them even reminds me of Aunt Jemima but I ain’t want to say that. And there’s a room that’s got sculptures and pictures in it. One of them pictures have got two fists joined together. They’s a man’s and a woman’s fists, but they ain’t fighting each other, they’s joined together. Monkey Bread say that that the logo of Nzingha’s Daughters, that although it’s a women’s group, that picture is the symbolism of they ideal. Now I’m wondering why they’s got to be fists. Now you know I ain’t got to explain that, says Monkey Bread. And they’s several other rooms that Monkey Bread shows me. One they calls the Catapus Playroom which is a room for the children’s to play in. They’s got girl and boy childrens playing in that room. They ain’t just got toys in that playroom, though. They’s got things like computers and learning-type toys, and some of them children’s is even teaching each other how to speak languages, like Swahili and Japanese. They’s a room called the Hidden Talents Room where womens can go to find out they different talents. They’s another computer room, and then they’s a room called the Truth Room. I got to tell y’all the truth. When I opens the door to that room expecting to see lots of people in it, they ain’t nobody in it. I gots to tell y’all the truth even about the Daughters of Nzingha. Monkey Bread says they’s a few people in there sometimes, though. She say you don’t just have to be a Daughter of Nzingha to go in that room, and that even mens sometimes goes in that room. It ain’t a well-frequented room, though, she says. It seems like it’s got all kindsa communications equipment in it, but the center of the room is a table with books on it. They’s only a very few books, though, that Monkey Bread calls the Truth Books. I didn’t go inside the room myself, so I can’t tell y’all the titles of them books. One were a large black book, seem like it were about eight and a half by eleven inches, a couple of inches thick. The strange thing about that book were it didn’t have no title written on it nor the name of its author. Monkey Bread said you had to open the book to read it and you couldn’t judge it by its cover. When you opened the book, you couldn’t just read it, you had to keep reading it. [Note to reader: The Daughters of Nzingha bookstore assures you that it is not the book you are currently reading.] And even upon reading it you didn’t always understand it. And most people weren’t even wise enough to open it. Then there was a thick green book and a pamphlet-size green book. There was a red book. Though these had titles on them, I couldn’t read the titles. There was another book that was beige and tan and green. I couldn’t read the title of that book neither. There may have been a few other books in that room, but there were very few Truth Books. Monkey Bread said most of the Daughters of Nzingha, when they wanted to do some reading, would go to the Daughters of Nzingha library or the Daughters of Nzingha bookstore. These places contained the Truth Books but also had other types of literature, which, to tell the truth, didn’t always tell the whole truth.
I asked Monkey Bread whether she’d read the books in the Truth Room.
I reads them and rereads them, she said, but I ain’t grown in spiritual wisdom enough to fully understand them. Sometimes I listens to the tapes, though, and looks at the videos, and gets on to the Internet. A lot of the womens goes in there when they first becomes members, but they don’t stay, ’cause they’s expecting to learn truths about everybody else, and finds out them books teaches them more truths about theyselves. I mean it tells you truths about other peoples and truths that ain’t about peoples at all, but I think it’s the truths about theyselves that keeps a lot of even us Daughters of Nzingha womens out of that room. To tell the truth, Nadine, a lot of us still thinks that this is a political organization or a social club, and though Nzingha don’t exclude the fools amongst us, a lot of us has got to grow to significant wisdom to enter that room. We ain’t all gots to be Mrs. Wisdom, though. ’Cause Nzingha don’t play that.
She said other things about that Truth Room, but y’all got to be a member to hear it. We went into the Daughters of Nzingha Library and she got she other papers that she give me. The papers said Not for Members Only and like it said were only for those that weren’t members. I suppose members had they own secret literature. However, she give me the Not for Members Only Daughters of Nzingha Newsletter, the Not for Members Only Daughters of Nzingha brochure which described the organization and its mission and the Not for Members Only Daughters of Nzingha membership card. Y’all ain’t supposed to share even the Not for Members Only Daughters of Nzingha literature with just anybody. Then they was Our Inspiration Room, which contained portraits of peoples of color. It weren’t one of them rooms there they puts portraits of all the firsts like in a lot of them exhibition, where even they tells you that Beethoven were a person of color. A lot of them portraits in that room I ain’t never seen before, ’cept there were a portrait of Malcolm X, Garvey, and Martin Delany. There was a portrait of Nzingha, the original Nzingha, someone who looked like a Hawaiian queen, Sojourner Truth. And they were portraits of other womens I ain’t never heard about. So it weren’t like one of them typical exhibitions, like I said, that has everybody you’s ever seen in the media no matter who they is. But you know me, I keeps looking around for the folks I’ve seen on television or read about in them books telling you about the first colored people to do this or that thing. Even the first colored person to play Jim Crow is in exhibitions like that. Didn’t even see no entertainers in that room, ’cept as soon as Monkey Bread got in there she started singing. But y’all know how Monkey Bread is. She is who she is.
To tell the truth, I thought there would be just women in that Our Inspiration Room, as I thought there would be just books by women in the Daughters of Nzingha Bookshop, ’cause I knew there were a lot of African-American women reading groups who had started to read just books by other African-American women. But the Daughters of Nzingha Bookshop contains books by men and women, and even books written by children themselves. And it contains a lot of what the Daughters of Nzingha refers to as the noncanonical literature, which is literature by persons of color which is often not written about by academics nor even reviewed in the mass media. Which ain’t to say it excludes the canonical literature, though it has a few buyers that only buys the noncanonical literature, though knowing the Daughters of Nzingha the way they does, they knows a lot of them ain’t gonna read a book unless they’s heard about it in the mass media. They also has a section containing all of Oprah’s favorite books, whether or not they’s written by persons of color. In fact, that section of the bookshop even have a banner that say OPRAH’S FAVORITE BOOKS.
They’re not all my own favorite books, said the manager of the bookshop, but I value several of them
and they gets the ones of us to come in here who would not ordinarily read a book but believes that everything they need to know they can get just by asking somebody. Course the men who frequent our bookshop, the few that realize that this is a shop for them too, and who don’t devalue the Nzingha name and know that we carries their own canonical and noncanonical literature and wisdom books, don’t go over to that section of the bookshop at all. I suppose it’s because they’ve seen too many fools amongst them on the Oprah show. . . .
But I’ve seen fools amongst us women on the Oprah show, said Monkey Bread.
Yeah, but we’re always presented as being fools for men, whilst the men are presented as being fools for who they are themselves, at least that one one of the gentlemen who don’t go to the Oprah section told me. And you very rarely see men on there who are fools for some woman.
Well, I still gots to watch my Oprah, says Monkey Bread. Although Nzingha prohibits it now whilst we has our meetings. But I notice she don’t schedule no meetings whilst the Oprah show is on, ’cause she knows that there is many of us, I got to speak the truth, that wouldn’t come to the Nzingha Center, and there is still those of us that when we gets here still spends us time telling everybody how we came to the realization that we ain’t the only fools amongst usselves. I don’t think we should stop watching Oprah myself, ’cause there’s some that says we’s been infiltrated by the FBI and the CIA and that even some of the womens that comes here trying to help us to assist them to get off welfare is actually on the payroll of one of them groups or the ones who claims they is using us organization as a bridge between jail and the world, or maybe even it’s the bankers amongst us.