The Minister Primarily

by John Oliver Killens

  “Take me! Take me! For I am guilty, and I want atonement! I am guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” the strawberry-crotched one screamed to our frightened-shitless hero from the wilds of good ol’ ’Sippi. “Take all of me, you noble savage! I want Black roots! I want Black roots! I want Black roots! I want—”

  He sidestepped the dear girl and made a mad dash for one of the long Cadillac limousines that were waiting nearby. He jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off leaving everybody, as the mad crowd chased him down one of the busy landing strips. He dodged in and out of the path of airplanes taking off and landing. Another limousine with sirens blasting caught up with Jimmy just as he was about to take off for the wild blue yonder out at the end of the strip, as if he thought the hog had wings.

  One of the colored newspapers, in describing the incident of the PM’s landing in New York, commented in typical-tongue-in-cheek African American fashion, on its front page, and we quote:

  “OLIVAMAKI FALLS IN BIG.”

  Which was the understatement of nineteen hundred and eighty-something.

  But in the words of the Duke of Ellington, “Our man Jimmy Jay was nonchalant!”

  18

  It had not been easy. To change drastically the parade route of New York’s welcome to the Minister Primarily, the famous ticker tape parade that would go down in history as the greatest ever, even excelling in quantity and quality the welcome to the Iranian hostages and those valiant men who came back from the moon. It had been difficult, damn close to impossible.

  Carson and his SS men, along with New York’s Finest, had outlined meticulously the route of the PM and his entourage. They would be met at Kennedy Airport and be helicopted with adequately helicoptered SS escort to the northern end of Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, where the parade would begin. Then down Fifth Avenue to Central Park South or Fifty-Ninth Street (whichever), right on Fifty-Ninth, then left on Seventh Avenue, down Seventh Avenue through Times Square to the point where Seventh Avenue confluences into Broadway, down Broadway to City Hall, stopping for a brief ceremony in which Hizzoner would give to the Minister Primarily the key to the Big damn Apple, then down to and through the Wall Street area to the Battery. Someone had suggested that they take a boat out to the Lady of the Island.

  The fake PM had laughed aloud at this suggestion. He could not restrain himself, since he remembered vividly when he and a group of artists including Poitier, Belafonte, Odetta, and Killens (Killens’s wife, his mother, and his children included) had been part of a contingent that made a pilgrimage to the green-gilled Lady of Liberty in a demonstration for civil rights back in those old but unforgotten days. Anyhow and furthermore, he huddled privately with his cabinet before they left Washington and attempted to convince them to adopt a different plan. He argued that to begin the parade at the foot of Harlem and move southwardly away from Harlem would constitute an insult to all men and women of African descent throughout the entire nation. “Where is your Negritude?” he demanded of his cabinet. “What happened to your Pan-Africanism? Your native-born socialistic tendencies? Your racial pride?” he shouted at the timid Mr. Lloyd, His Wife’s Inevitable Bottom. “If you’re so quickly willing to sell your people short, what the hell am I doing in this charade?”

  Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangi saw the point immediately, as did Her Excellency Maria Efwa, pridefully, as did Barra Abingiba. Ultimately, His Wife’s Bottom got a brief glimpse of the light that shined brilliantly in the darkness of Her Excellency’s eyes.

  Here is the plan they presented to the SS men of Washington to be conveyed to Hizzoner up in New York. Helicopter from the Kennedy Airport all the way to City Hall, there to receive the keys to the Big Appled city. Begin the parade there, proceed up Broadway against the one-way traffic, around the southern end of Central Park and up Fifth Avenue to 110th, left on 110th to Seventh Avenue, and right up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, ultimately to end in a big meeting at the 369th Armory. After they reached Seventh Avenue, it didn’t matter how they got to the armory, so long as that is where they ended up.

  Well sir! I mean Well-Sir-ree-bob! or prosaic Southern exclamations to that effect. Brother Carson of the delta-ed ’Sippis and the SS almost had a shit hemorrhage. “It ain’t correck!” Carlton Carson sputtered. “It ain’t protocol!” Carlton Carson declaimed vehemently. “It ain’t a goddamn whole heap of other things I can’t even think of right now, and it’s downright un-American!”

  “It might very well not be a whole lot of other things,” the fake PM acknowledged, “but it is very proper and respectful, and it’s dignified.” The bogus PM spoke nonchalantly. “What’s wrong with paying our profound respect to the brethren and sorors of African descent?”

  Carson answered, “It just ain’t the way we do things in the good old USA.”

  His Excellency turned angrily to his Foreign Minister, Mamadou Tangi, and went into one of his typical tirades of daddle-do Hausa all mixed up with drips and drabs of Afro-Americanese. When he ran out of steam, Tangi turned to Carson and said firmly, “His Excellency says that is the way we do things in the old countree, in Africa, and specifically in the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya.”

  Carson argued, “Our nigrahs are different from ‘all nigrahs.’” Then he remembered Parkington’s wise admonition, and thus he waxed philosophical, confidentially. “Y’all ain’t no nigrahs nohow. Y’all dignitaries. We start putting our nigrahs first and things would surely git out of hand. God in Heaven knows where it would lead to. And besides the mayor of New York would not stand for it.”

  His Excellency almost went into a temper tantrum. He pounded his right fist into his left palm and raged and ranted in some raggedy-arsed Hausa. He waved his hands above his head. Carson cowered beneath the PM’s wrath. Tangi turned to Carson and said calmly, “His Excellency says if we cannot have the plan this way, we will change our schedule and proceed forthwith to Lolliloppi, where they know how to treat men and women of African descent.”

  His Excellency growled in rapid-fire Hausa one more time. “We will go forthwith and immediately to sample some of the good old southern hospitality,” the Foreign Minister interpreted.

  Carson paled visibly, as the saying goes, but actually he turned carrot colored. He was withering in the heat of the bogus PM’s wrath, even though the place was air-conditioned. He said, “Perhaps the route of the parade can be altered. I see His Excellency’s point, I reckin.”

  His Excellency said, “Thank you very much.”

  * * *

  And now he had received the keys to the city from jovial-faced Mayor Harold Funkley, made his brief speech of acceptance, and was heading uptown. Ticker tape and confetti floated down from the windows like snowflakes in a driving blizzard, as they drove through the canyons of steel and stone and brick and glass and concrete. The fake PM sat on the back end of the open limousine, his handsome head almost entirely covered with red and white and blue confetti. He thought smilingly, Uptown it will be red and black and green. He stared up through the man-made Technicolored snow at the tall stone-and-brick-glass-and-concrete buildings. Smiling, waving back at the crowds at the windows and those who thronged the sidewalks. Hawkers all along the route, in the spirit of free enterprise, were selling buttons and sweatshirts with the PM’s picture emblazoned thereon. Every now and then a woman of the pale complexion would come out of the crowd and turn her back to the PM and flip her dress up to show the fake PM her flat and plump and pink behind, as if she thought her orange-sherbet-colored arse was a shuttered candid camera. All the while our man from ’Sippi was thinking that any moment some hit man-woman-person with a contract would emerge from the crowd with his roscoe (handgun) aiming at the PM point-blank. The image of John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Dallas kept unfolding itself before his consciousness. And Malcolm X and Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King. Now and then he would imagine he saw a strange object protruding from a window high above him. Nothing of the sort would happen to him, he assured himself, with
out conviction. It happened only in spy novels and films of the James Bond variety, he told himself, but then he remembered John Fitzgerald Kennedy again and again and again. And Martin, Medgar, and Brother Malcolm. He had been active briefly in the Organization for Afro-American Unity. He felt a queasy premonition in his stomach that refused to leave him. He told himself to think positively. And yet at any moment it could happen, the entire world could end for him in one split second. It could all be over for the Minister Primarily.

  They were going up Fifth Avenue now with Central Park to the left of them. The excitement building every moment, every ticktock of a second, he could feel it building in his heartbeat, the color of the sidewalk changing now, peoplewise, blending now, white-black, black-white, Black-brown, brown-Black, light brown, beige-brown, yellow-brown-Black, his people, homecoming, the feeling building in his shoulders up into his throat now filling up his foolish sentimental face. A thrill dancing back and forth across his shoulders, tears spilling from his shame-faced eyes. Forgotten were his premonitions. Nothing could happen to him. Within minutes he’d be home! Home to Harlem! All praises due to Claude McKay.

  They had passed 109th Street. Approaching 110th. As they turned leftward at the northern tip of the park they were met by a group of young folks, Wilbert Burgie’s Cadet Corp, with fife and drum already yet. They fell in line in front of His Excellency, as did a contingent of Black Masonry and Elks and Muslims, the Sons and Daughters of Marcus Garvey, and the Grand Lodge of this and that and especially the other. Just as he had anticipated, the confetti from the windows now was black and red and green.

  He could hear the chanting clearly now.

  “JAJA!—JAJA!—OLIVA-MAWKEE!”

  “JAJA!—JAJA!—OLIVA-MAWKEE!”

  The chanting now building into a wild climax. The tears spilling freely down his cheeks. It wasn’t dignified, he thought. A prime minister from Africa weeping, as slyly he blew his nose and wiped his eyes. He felt the softness of a hand reach out and take his hand and squeeze it warmly. And then release it.

  They had turned rightward up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, a.k.a. Seventh Avenue. Photographers were everywhere. Television, ABC and CBS and NBC and all the others vying for advantageous points of view. There was dancing in the streets. Premonitions gone forever. Nothing could happen to him now, baby. He was home! Home to Harlem! Relax! You’re home! Laid back for all eternity, for days. Home! Home! Safe and sound! Perspiration of relief poured from him. Then suddenly it happened.

  “POW! POW! POW!” The sound of gunfire from the crowded sidewalk. Shouts and screaming filled the air. “Lord have mercy! They’ve killed him! Killed him!” . . . “Somebody done killed Jaja!”

  “Jesus save us!”

  “Lord have mercy! Don’t let him die!” . . . “Don’t let our Jaja be dead, Jesus!”

  SS men rushing here and there, stumbling over one another.

  “He’s dead! He’s dead!”

  But the fake PM did not feel dead, even though he almost put a small pool in his underwear.

  They rushed toward the crowd whence came the shooting. And there was a drunken bearded brother of the middle ages dancing among a group of folks, shooting up into the empty air and shouting.

  “JAJA!—JAJA!—OLIVA—MAWKEE!”

  SS men seized him and disarmed him and began to rough him up and were dragging him away when the PM got himself together and leaped from the limo and got to the happy drunken brother. “Turn him aloose,” the PM ordered. “Leave him alone. He’s harmless. Let him ride with us.”

  The bewildered SS man in charge asked, “Are you sure, Your Excellency?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” the Minister Primarily answered. “He’s a friend of mine, part of the welcoming committee, aren’t you, comrade?”

  The drunken comrade hiccupped. “What can I tell you, Your Highness?”

  “You see?” the bogus PM said to the one in charge of the Secret Service. “He agrees with me completely.”

  “I don’ know about all this ‘comrade’ business. Sounds too much like Commonism.”

  “That’s the trouble with you democratic capitalists. Everything halfway decent and humanistic, you attribute to communism. You sure give them a lot of credit. It’s a wonder that more Black people don’t join the Communist Party.”

  By this time, the PM had his inebriated brother seated in the limo with him. No matter, it took them a little over half an hour to get the procession started again. As they passed the world-famous Hotel Theresa, where Fidel took his lodging, and were crossing 125th Street, the folks were shouting. Bars and churches and funeral parlors lined the boulevard. At least one of each in every block. Bars and churches and mortuary establishments.

  “VIVA JAJA!” “VIVA JAJA!”

  It was clear by now to everybody; His Excellency had not been assassinated. All the way up the boulevard, the crowd grew larger and larger and noisier and noisier. They turned right into 143rd Street toward the 369th Armory, where a veritable Black army four persons deep ringed the entrance to the fortress of a building.

  Thousands of Black humanity were there waiting for the PM’s entourage. Sidewalks, stoops, porches, windows jammed with Black folks. As the PM and his retinue came in sight a deafening roar of cheering began, gaining in crescendo every second.

  “JAJA! JAJA! VIVA JAJA!”

  “JAJA! JAJA! LONG LIVE JAJA!”

  A tunnel of Black men and women had been formed extending from the ringed entrance all the way out to the sidewalk. When the limo with the PM stopped, two Black men wearing black and red and green armbands stepped forward, militarily, from the waiting ranks to escort His Excellency through the human tunnel to the entrance. Four SS men leaped from the custom-ordered running board and blocked the Black men’s progress. A brief scuffle ensued, which would have reached serious proportions had not the PM also leaped from the car and intervened.

  “It’s all right,” he assured the SS men. “Everything’s under control. They’re also friends of mine,” he lied. “I was expecting them. Everything was prearranged.”

  They marched in a military fashion, the two Black men in the lead and the four white SS men bringing up the rear. As they came closer to the entrance, Jimmy Johnson saw the fiercely proud Black folks, men and women, begin to close ranks, as they crossed their arms in front of them and joined hands with one another all along the line. Jimmy thought, WE SHALL OVERCOME SOME DAY. He imagined he could hear them singing. They had reached the entrance now and nothing barred their path except the great phalanx of Black humanity. He thought now he knew what was meant by “Black and beautiful” in the profoundest sense and context.

  There was a brief and earnest discussion at the entrance between those Blacks who obviously were in charge and the white men of the Secret Service. Ultimately it was clear that the Blacks had no intention of allowing whites to attend their welcome rally.

  The SS men explained to them with extreme patience that as long as the Prime Minister was in the country the Secret Service was responsible for his safety, absolutely, positively. The Alliance of The Sons and Daughters of Garvey, the Elks, the Muslims, and the Greater Grand Lodges of New York were equally and patiently adamant that no white folks were entering the Armory on this bright day in late September. They had a standoff. Even the glib ersatz PM could not persuade them away from their position. What to do? What to do?

  There was running back and forth, gesticulating. Finally, the SS man in charge pointed to the fact that there were SS men armed to the teeth and at the ready with their telescopic machine guns at the chimneys on every rooftop in the neighborhood. “So, you see we have y’all covered.”

  Whereupon the Alliance chief responded, “Kindly observe also that beside every Secret Service storm trooper you will note, if you look sharply, there is an armed member of the Black Alliance.”

  The red-faced SS man in charge turned about and kindly noted and observed. His face and neck became lathered with sweat.

  “We simpl
y cannot have a race riot here with His Excellency here and everything, and the whole world watching. And furthermore—”

  The Black Alliance Chief agreed. Calmly smiling. “Precisely. So why don’t you stormtrooping peckerwoods get back downtown. We are perfectly willing and capable of taking care of our own up here.”

  “It simply cannot be handled like this. It isn’t protocol, and besides, we are under orders of the Commander-in-Chief of this entire nation.”

  “That’s your problem,” the Black Alliance Chief responded. He was ebony of color, medium height, broad shouldered, darkly wide of eye, fortyish, and exuding dignity, fiercely.

  Back to the head car went the SS man in charge and finally after frenzied discussion by phone to Washington with officials at the Department of the Treasury, the Secret Service, after the State Department, after the FBI, after the CIA, after the this and the that and especially the other, the perspiring SS man in charge ultimately got through to the big man in the Big White Mansion.

  “What in the hell’s the matter with you, Carson? You can’t handle a little problem like that without bothering the president of the United States? I got a goddamn fucking nation to run.”

  Carlton was sweating bullets. “Yes sir, that’s what I’m saying, and I’ve been trying to get to you, Mr. President for the last forty-five minutes. I’m not dealing with dignitaries up here, Mr. President. I’m dealing with our own nigrahs.”

  * * *

  Just a little more than two hours later, the skies above Harlem were dark with helicopters, as if uptown were under siege. A sudden deafening roar of silence lay upon the land, despite the droning sound of the copters, as people crowded into the streets, necks were craning, and all eyes were focused on the skies above them. They watched silently as the copters circled like predatory vultures and landed on the roofs, a couple of them coming down into the street, as the people watched in a solemn awesome quietude. Armed Black men from the Alliance aimed their guns upon the copters. Jimmy Johnson felt a queasy uproar in his belly and his buttocks. Things were getting out of control, as were his bowels. The word seemed to spread out through the crowd like a contagious and dread disease. Black folks came running toward the center of the conflict as if drawn there by a magnet that was irresistible.