Mosquito

by Gayl Jones

  P.P.P.S. Sophie writes from Paris that she saw Old Man Johnson and his Algerian wife. What’s her name? Mila? Just in Paris for the intellect, he says. He still prefers Spain. He spent enough time in France after the war. Sophie thinks he knows the French better than they know. Anybody colored knows the French. Anyway, Sophie and Old Man Johnson and his wife sitting at one of those little cafe tables when right on the boulevard these France for the French group were having one of they manifestations. Wanting all the immigrants out of France. Old Man Johnson and Mila just watched them. But you know how Sophie is. She pretended she was from one of the islands, Martinique, and started calling them all of their names. Speaking French, but with a Martinique accent, you know. Old Man Johnson and Mila had to rescue the fool. She’s one of those little French women you can’t tell what she is, anyway. I thought she was Algerian myself when I first met her. You know, Sophie, the little French girl. Well, woman, if you must.

  P.P.P.P.S. Somebody wrote me thinking I’m Nefertiti Johnson. Can you imagine? You probably don’t know her writings, so you don’t know what I mean. I’ve stopped writing romance novels, but when I was writing them, well, I’d like to think my readers knew they were satires. But Nefertiti Johnson and her readers believe all that. With them romance is like a secret statement of faith. If you can think of anyone else to send a copy of this letter, please do so, even your guerrillas. Even Nefertiti Johnson if you think this letter will reform her. But it’s our little red bird, my purpose in writing this. Electra.

  Y’all has probably heard some of the names mentioned in this letter. I don’t know whether this is a real letter from Ray’s cousin or whether they hired the novelist Amanda Wordlaw to write a letter that could be used by our hidden agenda conspiracy specialist class. I believe that it’s a true letter asking for the assistance of Ray’s legal guerrillas. I believe that she really wanted the assistance of Ray’s real guerrillas but decided on his legal guerrillas. So when I thought them people at them meetings was talking shit and gossiping about different people, they was really getting messages and codes to each other. Even when Ray was telling everybody about getting deported down in Mexico, even though they really did get deported in Mexico, they was also in the conversation messages from Al and Ray Mendoza. That is, Ray hisself had already gotten out of Mexico, but he needed someone to go down there and get Al and Ray Mendoza out of Mexico. So he was able to tell the people who knew the codes to go down there and get Al and Ray out of Mexico ’cause they didn’t believe that Al and Ray’s documents was legal. And even when them women was talking about talking shit and talking loud in front of them refugees they was giving each other messages. And even the names of Amanda Wordlaw and Cathy and Ern and Koshoo hisself is a code. Because I was wondering myself why they was mentioning them names when we ain’t supposed to mention names. I kinda confused them by mentioning my name Johnson, though, ’cause Old Man Johnson is one of they codes as well as the name of a real man with a real Algerian wife that might even be my own uncle Buddy Johnson. That’s why them women didn’t say anything when I mentioned Johnson, ’cause they’d been told that I was a greenling and wasn’t supposed to know the codes. Then one of them thought I might be a spy or was telling them that there might be a spy amongst us. Even love is a code amongst these people. So when that woman was talking about loving Ray I ain’t know whether they was talking about true love or they code. That’s all I’m allowed to tell y’all, though, about my hidden agenda conspiracy specialist class. ’Cept we are required to read and reread that letter and I still ain’t discovered all the hidden agendas and conspiracies in it.

  Read the letter for us, Nadine.

  I reads the letter for the class.

  What does the letter say?

  Don’t it say what it means?

  I mean, what do you think is the letter’s hidden agenda?

  I didn’t know it had no hidden agenda.

  This is a hidden agenda conspiracy specialist class, Nadine. Every conversation and document and letter we review in this class has a hidden agenda or is the revelation of a conspiracy. Even the name Amanda Wordlaw is a hidden agenda. I’m going to give you a copy of our code manual. It’s thumbnail size, so you can hide it anywhere. We continuously change the codes, but we always keep this letter as a point of reference.

  Nefertiti Johnson I reads her romance novels, I know they can’t be no hidden agenda conspiracy in her name.

  She don’t say nothing. I still ain’t been able to decode what Nefertiti Johnson mean. I’m a fan of her romance novels, but now when I reads them I don’t just read them for literature or entertainment, I tries to discover hidden agenda conspiracies. I does know that they is translated into numerous languages in the world. And maybe she writes them novels that people thinks is just romances in order to disperse the new Underground Railroad’s own hidden agendas to the world. Either that, or the hidden agenda conspiracies of the Daughters of Nzingha, ’cause they has got more of her novels in they bookshop than that of anybody, except for Oprah’s Favorite Books.

  We don’t just learn how to decode letters, though, like I said, we learns how to decode conversations. There is also another code strategy that I can tell y’all about. They uses ordinary books that they calls they code manuals. These is books that might be written by them that ain’t even in the new Underground Railroad, but they builds codes around the names and conversations, so that they might send you a copy of a certain book and all you’s got to do is get out your thumbnail code book which looks like a little dictionary to decode the book. For example, one of their official code manuals is a ordinary book of poetry called The Cat Island Poems. If I were to send Monkey Bread, for example, a copy of that book she would read it just as a book of poetry, but if I was to send one of us hidden agenda conspiracy specialists that book of poetry along with an ordinary-seeming letter, then that hidden agency conspiracy specialist could read that book of poetry along with the letter and then with the use of they thumbnail code book and the knowledge that they have learned from they hidden agenda conspiracy specialist class to read the messages and hidden agendas and even conspiracies in the book.

  I won’t quote from that book of poetry for y’all, but those of you that has read The Cat Island Poems, I knows that most of y’all think that them is just poetry and that them is just the names of people, I mean the people that is introduced in the book of poetry, but if y’all was hidden agenda conspiracy specialists that wouldn’t just be a book of poetry. (If I’m allowed to quote them poems for y’all I’ll quote them here. If I ain’t, y’all can read my discussion of them.)

  And a lot of it sounds like ordinary language and ordinary people’s talking, but to tell y’all the truth they is even hidden agenda conspiracy specialists that can’t decode that book. Along with the letter from Amanda Wordlaw to Ray, The Cat Island Poems is the principal book that I learns from. When they mentions star that’s supposed to be a code word, and crazy supposed to be a code, and magic a code, and Mandinka a code, and even love, like I said, is a code. The way it works is they always keeps the same official code manuals, but they changes the codes in the thumbnail code book, so that the codemaster can use the same book to decode different messages. That also allows us to use almost any book as a official code manual, so that if a certain regime confiscates certain books, we can use books that the regime don’t confiscate, and even them writers whose books is banned in they countries can send they books out to us just by sending us copies of books that ain’t banned. Or the peoples in them regimes that don’t got the freedom of speech, they can get they free speech to the new Underground Railroad. They says that it is okay for me to tell y’all this, unless they is countries that starts banning every book and newspapers. But the countries always allows official books and newspapers, but we can even make official books and newspapers subversive. We’s even supposed to practice writing coded letters usselves and sending them to peoples we know as if they was ordinary letters. This the code letter I sent to M
onkey Bread, though it is also a real letter to Monkey Bread which I wrote when she asked me to describe my truck.

  Dear Monkey Bread,

  You have told me to send you a description of my truck. I wished that you had asked me to describe my truck when I first got my truck. You know how much I would like to tell you all about my truck. You know how I tries not to be a materialist and to rise above materialism, but I does like my truck and it has proven to be useful not only to me but to other peoples. But they is security reasons that I can’t describe my truck. I can’t tell you the reason for even the reasons for they being security reason is a security reason. It’s a big truck, though, and its got a 800 number on the side of it for them that wants to learn how to drive a truck just like my truck. It also is painted with my favorite colors, and I painted it myself. Don’t tell nobody my favorite colors. It used to have Mosquito Trucking Company printed on the side of it in big letters, but I don’t print nothing on it now. Them that knows Mosquito knows my truck. Sometimes I has apprentices to ride with me, so’s they can learn about the type of transporting that I does, which, if you has forgotten, is industrial detergent. There is still them that thinks I shouldn’t be driving my truck, and whenever I has a male apprentice with me they thinks that the male is the driver and I’m the apprentice. Of course the only apprentices I gets is them that has the capacity to drive my truck. So that even though they is named apprentices they has the same capacities that I has. And there is some apprentices who has greater capacities in other areas, but they is still learning from me how to drive a truck. I’ve got several mirrors on my truck to make sure that everybody sees my mirrors and to make sure that I can see everybody. You know how my mama likes mirrors, so that is the best thing on my truck according to her lights. (She asked me to describe my truck before but for security reasons I am unable to describe my truck ’cause I don’t take my truck when I goes out to Covington, ’cept for that time I took Maria and her baby Journal to Middle America, which is really a part of the southern commonwealth but people refers to it as Middle America. She had to go there to get her cousin out of jail. They don’t know what to do with immigrants there like they do in South Texas. So they put her cousin in jail like a common criminal and denied her even more rights than they denies peoples in the detention camps. I am still angry about Maria’s cousin. They’s people that tell me I ain’t supposed to be angry, ’cause it ain’t like she my cousin.) I have learned more about the true meaning of America since I began driving my truck. When we was in this warehouse where I goes sometimes to get my supplies. Well, we has American and we also has foreign buyers that buys them industrial detergents. So this man says, All the American get in one line and all the foreigner get in the other line. So this Asian-American man gets in the line with the Americans. And this man gets angry and he repeats, I said all the American buyers get in this line. I said all the foreign buyers get in the other line. So this Asian American says, I am an American. And this make the man more angry. There is people who still don’t know what America is.

  Sincerely,

  Mosquito

  P.S. I gots to tell you the truth. When the man got in us line, I started to tell him, He said the foreigners in the other line, mister. But then I realizes for myself that he a American just like I am. I was glad I realized it for myself, rather than tell the man to get in the other line with them foreigners, and be the fool of that other fool. But you know the further truth, when I seen that man again at one of them other warehouses—they didn’t have no line there for the foreigner and the Americans, ’cause we all stood in the same line—he asks me, What African country are you from? Except when I told him, I’m an American, he nodded and said, For sure, for sure. (I started to tell him a African country, though, but they is customs fees, and I didn’t want to lie to the man, however I coulda told him like you Daughters of Nzingha “Africa in the New World.”)

  P.P.S. Delgadina is writing what she calls a border novel for her border art project. She has a long and involved first chapter because she wants it to be like the people who reads the novel has to cross a border to get into the novel. I tells her that they’s a lot of people that ain’t going to want to cross that border to get into her novel. I tells her that she can make that first chapter a little intricate but ain’t too intricate so’s the people won’t want to cross the border to read the novel. But she wants the novel to be in the form of you know like them immigrants moving back and forth across the border and dodging them border patrols and moving from one border to another. So the reader is always coming to different borders in the novel and has got to cross them borders. But I tells her that she has still got to make them borders sincere. I ain’t mean sincere, I means honest, the word that the man used in that play I told you about, that Rubén Sierra, when he talk about one scene moving honestly into another scene, or something like that. I reminds her what he say about one scene got to move honestly into another scene. I think she going to contradict me, but she say, You right, Nadine, I mean Mosquito. I guess honesty a form of sincerity, though, and sincerity a form of honesty. ’Cept with them fugitive slaves, though, they had to be sincere about they desire for freedom, but at the same time they couldn’t be honest with them slaveholders. I mean when them slaveholders would come and ask for they free papers, and if they had falsified free papers they had to show them they falsified free papers. I think that Delgadina is going to revise the beginning of the novel so’s that it’s intricate like crossing a border but still is interesting for the reader to want to cross that border.

  P.P.P.S. I am enclosing a copy of The Cat bland Poems which I think you’ll like. Please let the Daughters of Nzingha bookshop know about this book of poetry. I think they might like it for they catalogue.

  Now I knows that that is a ordinary letter, but Monkey Bread said that she gave a copy to her priestess and they reprinted it in the Daughters of Nzingha Anthology of Noncanonical New World African Literature, which has been translated into a number of different languages, including Japanese. I ain’t know what they means by noncanonical literature myself, said Monkey Bread, when I asked her, but our priestess says that there’s plenty to reprint the canonical literature so that at least in her anthologies she is committed to reprinting the noncanonical literature. Some of them Cat bland Poems is also reprinted in The Daughters of Nzingha Anthology of Noncanonical New World African Literature.

  I wanted to tell Monkey Bread everything about the new Underground Railroad, but y’all know I ain’t even tell Monkey Bread everything, so y’all know I ain’t going to tell y’all. I got to kinda brag, though, ’cause they is designing for me a custom truck. I told y’all I wanted me a custom truck. I was telling Ray about when them immigration officials stops me all the time and they examines my truck and wishing I had me one of them custom trucks that a magician could help design, so’s when they opens my truck whatever is in my truck disappears, and when they closes the truck they reappears, so the new Underground Railroad people is getting me a custom truck that sorta works like them magicians. I ain’t got that custom truck yet ’cause they ain’t found the magician to work on the design. I uses documents, they’ve provided me with and a folded-up newspaper. They don’t stop me all the time, but when they does stop me, it like this.

  Tour name and registration.

  I tells them my name and gives them my registration.

  What are you transporting.

  Farmworkers, sir.

  That’s when they looks like farmworkers and they’s all dressed to look like farmworkers and they’s all got they documentation to prove that they is migrant laborers. They’s all got to get out of the truck and show they documentation. The ones you can’t convince them is farmworkers is my apprentices.

  I can’t tell y’all where they is in the custom truck.

  Or when I ain’t got them farmworkers it’s them Industrial Detergents.

  I gots to know the exact name of them farms. I gots to know what them farmworkers is going to them f
arms to do. I can’t say that they is going to that farm to pick potatoes when it a pecan farm. I gots to know the exact names of all them farmworkers.

  There is some of them border patrols that when they stops me and asks me my name and registration I’m supposed to give them that folded-up newspaper. When they receives that folded up newspaper, then they don’t open the back of the truck. There are others that I must never ever give that folded-up newspaper. I must know exactly who they is. They’s others that when they asks for my name and registration I’m supposed to take out a map and pretend like I’m asking them how to get to a certain farm. And after they shows me how to get to the farm. I’m supposed to give them the map. And the new border patrols, the border patrols I ain’t never seen before or them gringos that decides they’s going to pretend to be border patrols when they ain’t. I gots to use my own imagination and reason and judgment, say Ray, to learn how to handle them border patrols.