by Gayl Jones
The folks are getting tired,
A-waiting on you partner,
Now its time to play our part.
Now you take me by the hand,
And a kiss on me you’ll land,
Dance a jig to beat the band,
Allaying a game of romance.
Hoochie, Coochie, Cancha, Ochie,
A peck, a hug and a kiss,
Hoochie, Coochie, Cancha, Ochie,
Take me in your arms, like this.
Grab me partner and let’s go,
Listen to the radio,
While the lights are turned down low
Allaying a game of romance.
That the little song in the play. Monkey Bread got to play the love interest, though, ’cause me I ain’t no songstress. The play ain’t about love being no game, it’s about true love, though, except the woman in it sings different songs about love, I mean different songs about different kinds of love. I ain’t going to do the whole play for you. But the woman that wrote the play is the one who helped me to learn my hidden talent.
What’s your hidden talent? he asked.
I gots what they calls a auditory memory. It something like a photographic memory, except I remembers everything I hears, whereas them photographic memory peoples remembers everything they reads or in photographs.
He said nothing for a moment. But now y’all know why he don’t allow me to come to none of they strategy meetings. Not that he don’t trust me not to repeat things they says in them meetings, ’cause it’s against the rules to repeat them strategy meetings. But maybe he thinks I won’t know what to repeat and what not to repeat. ’Cept the first time when I asked about them strategy meeting he had him another reason.
How come I don’t get to go to none of y’all’s strategy meetings? I asked.
We was in the basement of one of them houses. I was supposed to wait there to load some of them refugees to take them to a certain farmhouse. Then I heard somebody say. Strategy meeting. Saying it to different people. Saying it to Al. Saying it to Ray. Saying it to the other Ray. I thought Ray be the one to tell people about the strategy meetings, but it weren’t. Saying it to the woman claimed not to be the guerrilla lawyer. Saying it to the Grand Panjandrum, who I think the woman works the comedy clubs in South Texas. Or maybe it the woman deny being the guerrilla lawyer the Grand Panjandrum. Anyway I starts in with them to this part of the basement that looks like a classroom. Ray’s standing at the door.
Where are you going. Mosquito?
Strategy meeting, I says.
No you’re not. I don’t want you to come to the strategy meetings. I don’t want you involved in that.
’Cause I’m a greenling.
We need you to do what you do, to transport our refugees. It’s better you just have your assignment when the border patrols stop you. You’ve got a lot to learn about the border patrols and you don’t need to come to our strategy meetings.
I would like to sit in on a strategy meeting just to know what y’all’s strategies is.
I don’t want you involved in all that, Mosquito.
Don’t you trust me with y’all’s strategies?
He said nothing. Then he said, Anyway, I thought you would prefer not to come to our strategy meetings.
Why would you think I’d prefer not to come to your strategy meetings? I asked.
I don’t want you to come to our strategy meetings, he said.
But why would you think I’d prefer not to come to y’all’s strategy meetings?
I’d prefer that you don’t come to our strategy meetings, he said. Then he said. You can start going to class if you want.
What class? I asked.
To become one of our, well, we call them hidden agenda conspiracy specialists. It’s kind of a joking name, but what you do is you review letters. Sometimes we receive letters from various people, but because of the regimes, the lack of free speech, we have to be able to decode what’s in the letters. You would read of course the translations into English and the letters written in English. Do you want me to sign you up for one of those classes?
Is it at the Community Center?
What? No, one of our people teaches it. This same strategy room. I’ll sign you up for it.
Okay. I ain’t know whether I wants to be no hidden agenda conspiracy specialist. Will that make me grow in wisdom so’s I’ll be able to attend y’all strategy meetings?
You are far more useful to us in the work that you do, Mosquito. I don’t think you need us to grow in wisdom.
Yes, I does. You needs everybody and everything to grow wise, least that what my mama say. You needs the whole universe and everybody and everything that in it. My daddy has his say on wisdom. He used to tell me the story about wisdom itself, the story about how wisdom itself first come into the world and were dispersed amongst all the world’s people. That ain’t one people got a right to claim wisdom for theyself. I don’t tell anybody that story of wisdom. Perhaps that is a flaw in my character, because I keeps that story of wisdom for myself. Of course there is people all over Africa that knows that story of Wisdom, so whether I keeps it to myself or not, there’s them that knows it. And what else do my daddy say about wisdom? He say that everybody have got the right to wisdom, but they is some people that just do not know how to handle wisdom. ’Cept if you’s a true Daughter of Nzingha you gets to also read from they wisdom books. I mean, if you is one of them that has enough wisdom to read them wisdom books.
Say what?
Daughters of Nzingha.
Oh, yeah?
But he ain’t say what he mean by that oh yeah, he just let some more of the peoples come into the strategy room, gives me a map with my assignment, a newspaper and documents that I’m supposed to give to them border guards if any of them stops my truck, and then he stand at the door of the strategy room looking kinda like he a border guard hisself, then he go into the strategy room. Y’all know I wants to cross that border and go into that strategy room, but I don’t. I stands near the door of the strategy room, though. It a soundproof strategy room, so I can’t lie and say I overheard nothing. I started to tell y’all about my learning how to be a hidden agenda conspiracy specialist, but y’all gots to remember that I can’t tell y’all everything for security purposes. If this were just my own story and I ain’t become involved with the new Underground Railroad as well as the Daughters of Nzingha, I could tell y’all everything, except for all the love scenes, ’cause I don’t believe in being too sexually explicit. But this new Underground Railroad have got to be maintained like the old Underground Railroad. When y’all is reading them slave narratives, y’all that reads them slave narratives, them fugitive and escaped former slaves don’t tell y’all everything.
I already told y’all you don’t tell everybody every story, and you don’t tell everybody everything in the same story. Even that Frederick Douglass didn’t tell y’all everything in his first narrative which were written when there was still slavery. He comes to a point in the narrative where he tells y’all that he can’t tell y’all everything because if he tell y’all everything he be giving the slaveholders advantage, ’cause they would learn all them fugitives’ secrets and it would prevent some of them other fugitives from escaping. There is some fugitives that tells everything, ’cause they wants to tell a interesting narrative, and there is probably some others that will write about the new Underground Railroad and even take y’all to one of them strategy meetings, but I ain’t one of them. Of course my excuse is that Ray didn’t allow me in none of them strategy meetings, and especially when learning that I have a auditory memory which has even been certified by the Church of Perfectability in Memphis, none of Ray’s people wants me in they strategy meetings. I guess if y’all wants to go into one of them strategy meetings, y’all has got to join the new Underground Railroad for y’allselves and prove that you is reliable and truthworthy peoples. And even then they might not allow y’all in they strategy meetings. If any of y’all has got photographi
c memories and is a descendant of the victims of the African Diaspora Holocaust, the Daughters of Nzingha might be interested in having y’all work in they archives. If y’all has all the other qualifications. They likes peoples with auditory memories also, but the peoples with auditory memories has got to read all the documents in they archives aloud.
I does have the permission of the teacher of my hidden agenda conspiracy specialist class to read for y’all the letter that we uses to learn about how we uses letters to become specialists in hidden agenda conspiracies. We also uses other documents that seems like real documents but is just confabulatory documents. But here’s the letter I has permission to quote. Y’all ain’t going to understand everything in this letter, and I’m still decoding it myself, but y’all has probably heard some of the names mentioned already in various conversations amongst the new Underground Railroad conductors.
Dear Ray,
Are you somewhere being a revolutionary? I saw your guerrilla girlfriend in Quebec with another general. Or the same general. All generals look alike. Still it was good to speak another language. You remember when I used to love English. I used to love “my language.” Now I prefer any other language. Sometimes I go to Miami just so’s I can speak Spanish. Cathy is teaching me Japanese. You know, she spent some years there and still writes to her sensei of Japanese aesthetics. I’ve learned a few phrases in Chinese and a little Swahili. I’ve begun to write a little in French, although that’s the same as English. The French don’t understand my French, but Quebec French is freer. My Quebec friends understand me. Madame la Sagesse is there. From the islands. I wish I still remembered the Indonesian you taught me when we were kids. Apa kabar? And ya I still remember. But that could be ya in any language. Even Russian, ain’t it? And some of those Scandinavian languages. Except I remember you said that ya in Indonesian sometimes means no. Very Kafkaesque. Can you imagine being in a country where you don’t know whether the people are saying yes to you or no? But I guess it really is like that.
Re my principal reason for writing to you. We’re trying to get national maybe international legislation which we hope to call Electra’s Laws. Right now, these sorts of people, they’re above the law. You hear about the rule of law. But there’s no such thing. It’s all discretionary. And jury nullification? This controversy about jury nullification. What about the nullification they practice from the get-go? I remember listening to a Geraldo’s special called “The Color of Justice.” Some of the things he said, he oughta know better. Remember when we usedta watch the old Geraldo, his investigative reports, and him reminding you of that Nicaraguan friend of yours. Nullification begins from the get-go. And the nullifiers? Well, you know what I mean.
I won’t go into detail, because my mail is probably being opened and I don’t know who to trust. I’m trying to think of the Chinese philosopher who said he’d meet trust with trust and even distrust with trust. Lao-Tse, yeah. I would meet trust with trust: I would likewise meet suspicion with trust. I used to think that was quite how I wanted to be. But now I just distrust. Especially so-called official information. The voice of authority. I remember Cathy used to tell me about things like that, but I just had that ideal of the Chinese philosopher, you know. Anyway, we’ve recorded, well you know how many constitutional, civil, criminal, citizen’s, and other abuses, I won’t list them here, including the laws, the statutes, and the local officials are still saying they can find no wrongs. Kafka? I know one of us must have written a book like that, so I don’t have to keep calling it Kafkaesque. Aren’t there some scenes in The Invisible Man like that? The official lie? But you know about official lies, I don’t have to tell you.
Cathy and Ernest are somewhere in the Caribbean with the mosquitoes. One of those little islands. I think Cat Island again. I think they honeymooned there. On account of Sidney Poitier. I mean, that’s how she first heard of the island, and he’s her favorite actor. She still wishes . . . well, you know the eternal complaint of the colored woman. I shouldn’t say that. Love’s love, right? I know Cathy sends love and kisses. Ernest, I think, is your alter ego. ’Cept he’s Cathy’s revolutionary. I guess, if you’re married to a woman like Cathy, and you want to be a revolutionary, you’ve got to be a revolutionary devoted to the cause of Catherine herself. But he’s still his own man. He still don’t take nobody’s shit. He’s still his own Ernest. Though you remember when there were all those rumors about Ernest and me when Ern and Cathy and I were all staying on the island of Ibiza? Love’s love, right?
I know you won’t understand all this letter, Ray. You haven’t read all my books, so there are probably things in this letter that only Cathy and Ernest would know what I mean. But give it to the people you know. Someone should also forward a copy to the Daughters of Nzingha. I don’t trust to send a copy directly to them for security reasons. I know one of your people has their address.
My cause is Electra. Cathy usedta say my problem was I didn’t have a cause. Fool don’t know me. We’ve known each other for decades, before Ibiza, and the fool still don’t know me. But my cause is Electra. Cathy’s designing some buttons for us and some slogans. Some say, Only in America. You know, Don King’s famous slogan, but with our double-entendre meaning. Or maybe his double-entendre meaning. He’s a sly one. They think he’s saying one thing and he’s saying another. They’re sly themselves. . . . They’re human rights abuses whatever the name. You know, to put them in their real context. They’re human rights abuses. And then Cathy’s doing a new sculpture. Good she’s got something else to work on besides “The Birdcatcher.” Should I call them birdcatchers? Our little red bird? Working with that image I told you someone gave us, about the wagons circling, it ain’t historical, the wagons always start circling, except they could never convince us, could they, that the true savages weren’t the ones inside the circle, not the Indians. We always played Indian. Never them cowboys. Or in South Africa—they’ve got the same cowboys and Indians motif, except it’s the Zulu. . . .
Little Panda—well, she ain’t exactly little now—says hi and so does Lantis. We’re back together, you know. I thought my name for my daughter was unique, then I was surfing the Net and found out there’s another Panda, a writer of science fiction stories. I remember when my little Panda said that’s what she wanted to do. Got back together in Cuba, when Panda was there for the Americas games, representing “her” country, and I was trying to get an interview with Castro, the man himself, although my Miami friends. . . . Well, you know my Miami friends. They tell me their stories and I tells them other stories. At least tales from those still trying to keep their faith in the Revolution. But they’re polite about it, my Miami friends, not like those you told me about when some of your friends were trying to get foods and medicines into Cuba. Panda says hi. Did I say that? Well, she says to tell you hi every time I write to you, Cousin Ray, so I am. I think you’re her ideal, next to Lantis. You know, our little athlete-intellectual. She’s returned to Miami now, where she teaches astronomy. She’s making a new chart of the stars, a new chart of the heavens, calling the stars by their true names. At least our names for them. She flirted with Oceanography for a while, but didn’t like the idea of being the only “colored girl” on those expeditions. She’s still the only “colored girl” in her Astronomy Department. Now they’re wondering how she got hired, writing astronomy articles for “colored magazines” and not those prestigious journals. I think she still writes a few articles for those prestigious journals. She doesn’t like being middle class and doesn’t look like a professor, is wearing braids or one of those new-style Afros—not our Afros, but that new style; least we combed our Afros, most of us—and has started going to her classes looking like a rap artist, or at least like that young woman in the Fugees, who she kinda resembles. The first time I saw one of those videos with the Fugees I said, Panda? Thought maybe she was moonlighting as a rap artist or something. Don’t like being middle class, though. I think she’s read too many satires. Some of my own. I tell her e
very race gotta have a middle class. And even some mandarins like her. Africa’s got nobility. I don’t just mean them elites you think I know. It’s just what you do with it.
I have much more to say, much more, but only when I can talk to you in a secure place. Are you in love? I hope you are.
As for our Electra, our little red bird—I’ve been editing some of her writings. Some of them now seem quite mystical and prophetic. The Daughters of Nzingha are keeping copies of all of her writings in their archives and publishing selections on their ftp site on the Internet. (Our little Panda works with them on the Internet.) I’m dreaming of some of the characters she created. And those that I’ve created. They want in on this too. Like a certain private investigator. Even a character named Nadine. I don’t have a book for her yet. I’ve been working on my Sojourner Truth book. But I’ve been dreaming of a character named Nadine. In the dream, she is quite real. I know she is only a character who wants to be in one of my books, but in the dream she’s quite real. And maybe little Electra herself. You know, the writings she did about when she was a little girl. It seems like just when we almost forget who the enemy is, they remind us, don’t they? Dear Electra. Our dear Electra.
Your cousin,
Amanda Wordlaw
P.S. I just received The Guerrilla’s Notebook. Well and good that you send me your friends’ books on the other regimes. But this is the regime now, Ray. This is the regime. Don’t let them sweet-talk you that it isn’t. Even that Viking woman, that friend of Cathy’s. You know, when I wrote you what Cathy said of her and I found it impossible to believe. I know who she is now. I know who they are now. But I needn’t tell you, Ray. You know who they are yourself. What I need is a good group of legal guerrillas who can’t be coopted. (Even de facto.)
P.P.S. I was almost named Iris, you know. Not the flower. In Greek mythology, Iris is the daughter of Electra and a messenger of the gods. Maybe Electra meant to almost name me for the flower and didn’t realize she was also almost naming me, her own daughter, for her own mythological daughter. . . . But why should I think she didn’t know when “colored people” had to read all that Latin and Greek literature in those days. You know, those little colored schools in the South had them learning all that Latin and Greek literature, all that Latin and Greek mythology and shit. And all that colored people’s mythology of who they were supposed to be themselves. Who am I. . . . I mean, in our own African mythology? Cathy said when she first met me she thought I was named after that South African freedom word, Amandla! Or Ananda. From the Buddhist. You know Ananda, don’t you? Buddha’s favorite disciple. Where does Amanda come from? I know it means worthy to be loved. Maybe she thought better to name me the name that means someone worthy to be loved. Messenger of the gods? Me? We spend so much time wanting to be worthy of others. Sometimes we just need to learn how to be worthy of ourselves. Of course being a woman worthy of Lands ain’t so bad—or other worthy men. I mean, or other women and other worthy men. Anyway, Cathy’s convinced that the only thing I still like about the Caribbean is they call me Mrs. Wordlaw. You know, instead of the feminist’s Ms.