The Minister Primarily

by John Oliver Killens

  Barra Abingiba loudmouthed, “Such a tender and heartwarming scene. So poignant and romantic.”

  Jimmy Jay could not believe his eyes. He, who thought he had seen everything. Slowly Miss O’Malley, of the angelic face, the blue-ribboned pigtails, pulled down his jock underwear displaying now for all to see his great big black protrusion, which she caressed gingerly, momentarily. The cockroach crawled out on Big Stick’s big black member, nonchalantly. The lady slapped him (or her) off impatiently. Then daintily, she put the big black thing in her mouth and went to work on it, hungrily. Like poor little Cinderella starved for affection. Poor poor thing.

  Cool Horace whispered jokingly to His Wife’s Bottom, “What you say, Mr. Vice–Prime Minister? She can’t dance worth a shit!” Horace giggled quietly.

  Now they were on the funky-looking bed and Big Stick was shoving it into the Caucasian lady with adequate gusto, with a bored expression on his face. Jimmy Jay expected the police to break into the art theater of the esoteric any moment and take them all to the slammer. And the Republic of Guanaya would be disgraced forever. He had let his sense-of-humored escapade-oriented nature get the best of him again. All of a sudden, the senator found his voice again. “Sock it to her! Sock it to the bitch, you black motherfucka!”

  The bogus PM thought his eyes and ears had gone completely berserk. He was not seeing what he thought he saw. Nor was he hearing what he thought he heard. But, seated down front with the great fans blowing, he knew he was smelling what he thought he smelled.

  “Sock it to her, I say. Sock it to the bitch, you black motherfucka!”

  Big Black Stick Pritchard raised up from the genteel lady. “Who the hell you calling a motherfuca motherfucka? Did you ever see me fucking your clappy mammy?”

  The bogus PM figured it was time for them to split. Mamadou Tangi had begun to mumble to himself. “And they call us savages! And they call us animals and savages!” Jimmy got up and moved with them swiftly out of the Art Cinema of the Esoteric. Out on the street they walked in shell-shocked silence except for the quiet mumbling. “And they call us animals and savages!” They walked like zombies toward the subway in a state of stupefaction. Past the hustlers, past the winos, past the joyless hookers. Before they realized it, they had crossed Forty-Second Street and had reached Thirty-Ninth. Signs were plastered on the buildings all along the way. Young lads at the corners distributing throwaway advertising:

  BIG PUNK ROCK FESTIVAL!

  MADISON SQUARE GARDEN FELT FORUM

  MATINEE PERFORMANCE—3 P.M.

  Jimmy Jay looked at his wristwatch. It was 2:39. He thought, Why the hell not? They were already in cultural shock. He might as well take them all the way. The Americanization of Oooga Booga. Hugh Masekela. They continued to walk. HWB and Mamadou Tangi were mumbling to themselves. By the time they reached Thirty-Third Street, he saw a line of people extending from Seventh Avenue across Eighth Avenue all the way over to Ninth Avenue and possibly beyond. Stopping the flow of traffic, horns honking, shouted cursing. If he started at the foot of the line, by the time he got to the box office, if ever, the damn show would be over. He paused and pondered. Not to worry. He gathered his flock and headed straight for the front of the line.

  Outside the Garden, bona fide versions of born-again Christians were picketing, heatedly, the punk rock festival.

  “INSIDE THIS DEN OF INIQUITY IS THE HELL THAT GOD PREDICTED,

  THE FIRE AND THE BRIMSTONE!”

  and

  “ARMAGEDDON IS AT HAND! THE RIGHTEOUS ARE MARCHING IN THE

  FINAL BATTLE AGAINST THE EVIL DAYS THAT ARE FINALLY UPON US.

  JOIN US IN THE STRUGGLE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!”

  Over in front of the big hotel were a group of Hare Krishnas jumping up and down, off the beat, as usual. Chaos all around the place. Pickets were picketing pickets picketing pickets who were picketing. It could even get confusing if you really put your mind to it. It was difficult to figure out who was who and what was what, and who was for what, and how come? Another group of avid democrats had their own thing going.

  “PUNK ROCKERS ARE THE TRUE FREEDOM FIGHTERS!

  WE ARE THE ADVOCATES OF FREE SPEECH!”

  Friendly fistfights breaking out all over the place with alarming frequency. Women’s Lib were out there with their picket signs.

  “SEXISM ON THE RAMPAGE! DOWN WITH MALE SUPREMACY!

  THE MOTHERFUCKERS ARE MASCULINE IMPERIALISTS!”

  When he got near one of the ticket booths, he dropped a coin, seemingly by accident, and he reached down to pick it up, and by the time he stood up he was directly in front of the ticket window, with his phony beard in place. He spoke in an African accent. “Please to excuse me, but I am desirous of giving my retinue of cabinet ministers a true American cultural experience. And I’m afraid that if we stand in line, I will be recognized, which might very well cause an incident, a stampede, and so on, the way things are. You do understand?”

  The ticket seller’s eyes popped out with surprise and recognition.

  Jimmy Jay could hear people behind him grumbling and cussing.

  The dark-haired ticket seller looked around him. “I quite understand, sir. How many tickets do you require?”

  Jimmy Jay said, “Seven. How much would that cost us?”

  “No cost at all, sir. With our sincere compliments.”

  “Thank you very much. You do understand of course, we are traveling incognito. Please to help us keep our presence secret.”

  “But of course, sir. Understandably.”

  Once the bogus PM received the tickets, he took off his phony beard much to the astonishment of the ticket seller, whose mouth flapped open, as Jimmy motioned for his retinue to follow him.

  * * *

  Inside now, down near the front in the jam-packed Forum, they had, for a couple of hours, been entertained by THE SAVAGES, THE ANIMALS, THE PRIMITIVES, THE FLAMING FAGGOTS, and “last but far from least, the pièce de résistance of the afternoon, the treat you’ve all been waiting for, the internationally famous MOTHERFUCKERS!”

  They came on electronically, guitars plunking electrifiedly, saxophones honking, jumping up and down, cacophonously. After a couple of endless moments of discordant sounds and antics, they began to sing, and jump about, off the beat like inebriated Hare Krishnas.

  Singing, screaming:

  Eyes right—assholes tight!

  Cankers to the rear.

  We’re the motherfuckas of Punk Rock U,

  And we all got gonorrhea

  Rear rear rear—

  We’re the heroes of the night

  We’d druther fuck than fight.

  We’re the boys of Punk Rock U.

  They repeated the tender little lyric one more time, and then they began to bang their expensive electronic instruments on the floor. A red-haired straggly headed “motherfuckering punk rocker” threw his guitar down on the stage and began to jump up and down on it. Another darker-haired one took his guitar and began to beat another on the head with it, until his head and ears were bleeding, as the audience applauded boisterously, wild with frenzy and approval.

  Now young ladies from the audience converged upon the stage with shouts and screams, stripping off their clothing; they leaped upon the stage, by which time the blond-headed straggly-haired leader of the MOTHERFUCKERS had stripped down to his bare essentials and was beating himself in the head with his own guitar. Then he put the guitar between his legs and jumped around the stage like he thought he was the Lone Ranger riding Silver.

  His Wife’s Bottom shouted feebly, “What does it mean? What does it mean? What are the metaphors and symbolisms?”

  Jimmy Jay said, calmly, and with infinite patience, “It simply means the young people of the USA are rebelling against their great-great-grandparents. It’s the democratic way. It’s like true Americanism. Freedom of Expression. It’s their dramatic way of pleading the First Amendment.”

  “It means,” Mamadou Tangi stated even more calmly, “that we
are witnessing the final gasping symptoms of the decline of Western civilization.” He turned to the bogus PM and said, “Your Esteemed Excellency, we have you to thank eternally for this historic opportunity, for which we are grateful everlastingly.”

  “Oh, think nothing of it,” His Excellency responded. He stared up toward the ceiling, all brightly lit and everything. He mumbled solemnly, “One nation indivisible.”

  Barra said to Jimmy Jay anxiously, “Get yourself some protection in a hurry.”

  20

  A couple of before-day-in-the-mornings later, in the neighborhood of four thirty a.m., the direct line into Himself, the so-called Prime Minister’s bedroom, rang again and again persistently as the Minister Primarily lay there half-awake, hoping desperately that the ringing would go away somewhere and get lost forever, and a couple of centuries thereafter. He wanted it fervently to be a dream he was dreaming, but the ringing phone went on and on and on and on, interminably. He stumbled out of bed and took one of the pillows and tried to smother the ringing phone, but succeeded only in knocking it from the night table to the floor. He put it back in its cradle and back onto the night table and crept stealthily back into the bed, and settled into its seductive solace, and forced a comforting snore, psyching himself off on a peaceful journey into the land of nod, just as the phone began to ring again.

  He called the phone all varieties of obscenities, he cursed, he swore, very un-Prime-Minister-like, even as he picked it up again. “Hullo—goddamn—goodbye.” And started to bang it down again when he heard an unfamiliar voice:

  “I have a collect call from a Mister Horatio Whitestalk. Will you ac—”

  A quivering voice interrupted. “Whitestick, nu-nu-not Whitestalk! Huh-huh-huh-Horace, not Hu-huh-Horatio. Huh huh-Horace Junior Frederick Whitestick!”

  Jimmy was still half asleep. “Operator, do you realize what time it is? Tell them to call back later.”

  At which time he heard a strangely familiar voice, getting more familiar every moment making its way into his slowly awakening consciousness. It was moreover a voice of unquiet desperation.

  “Hey! Please! Don’t hang up, Hot Shot, Himself, I mu-mu-mu-mean, Your Excellency, Please, sir!” The half-asleep Minister Primarily recognized the desperate uncool voice of the Cool One, the one and only Horace Frederick Whitestick. It was difficult to understand him. It sounded like his teeth were chattering. Like dice dancing around in an empty tin bucket.

  “I’ll take the call, operator.”

  “Cu-cu-cu-come and gu-gu-gu-gu-get me!”

  “Where in the hell are you this time of morning? Where’s the car?”

  By now, his teeth were making like castanets.

  “Cu-cu-cu-cu-catch a cab and cu-cu-cu-cu-come and get me. I’ll explain everything when you gu-gu-gu-gu-get here.”

  The shivering Cool One said he was somewhere in Jamaica, Queens, somewhere just off Sutphin Boulevard near the corner of 359th Street in a “fu-fu-fu-fucking phone booth.” Bring him some clothes and bring an overcoat, “inclu-clu-clu-cluding some underwear. I’m freezing my fu-fu-fu-fucking ass off!”

  Shucking to himself, the Minister Primarily stumbled around his bedroom, sleepily dressing, washed the sleep out of his eyes, his drowsy mind trying to create an image of Cool Horace’s predicament. He went tippy-toe down the inside corridor to HWB’s bedroom, woke him up, and got some of his clothes together, including underwear and overcoat. He figured they were about the same size, HWB and Cool Horace. The two of them stole past the sleeping snoring guards. Jimmy Jay picked up one of the rifles from the floor where it had fallen. Put it back in the sleeping sentry’s lap. Then went down the hall to one of the back elevators and out on Lexington Avenue into the lifting darkness, where day was slowly breaking all over the eastern skies. New York City was finally fast asleep, almost.

  They stood there for fifteen or twenty minutes, as cabs would pull up to the curb, stare at the two of them, and pull away with “Sorry, I’m heading home.” . . . “Been out here all night long.” . . . “I’m going the other way, sorry about that.”

  He remembered years ago when he used to run with great Black cats like Lonne Elder and Belafonte and Godfrey Cambridge, Sidney, Ossie, Ruby Dee. Such a long long time ago, it seemed. Godfrey, when he answered you via the telephone: “Cambridge residence. God speaking.” He stood there smiling through his anger. Himself had appeared at the Vanguard and at the Village Gate under Belafonte’s sponsorship. Lonne and God and Bobby Hooks. His truly wild and crazy days. Julian Mayfield. The cabs would pull up, and when the driver saw they were Black, would pull away again. Sometimes they threw bricks at the taxis (alley apples). He stood there feeling a sense of déjà vu. The night Himself and Harry B. stood in front of the very same Waldorf, where Harry was appearing in the Empire Room. The cabs would pull up, then pull off again. Harry was fuming, livid. He was the very biggest in show biz. Mr. Big, himself. Our very first Black movie idol.

  He’d laughed bitterly at Mr. B. “I’m glad it’s happening to you, booby. Keeps you honest. If it can happen to a great dude like you, what do you think happens daily to us ordinary people?” In his hoarse voice, Harry B. said, “Yeah.”

  Finally, the Minister Primarily went, uttering unmentionable curse words to himself, followed by bewildered HWB, sleepwalking through the by-now-awakened hotel lobby to the front entrance. Jimmy Jay walked up to one of the white bellmen near the front and demanded belligerently that goddammit he hail them a cab.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Now they piled into a Yellow Cab, HWB nervously, His Excellency aggressively. “Queens, I think it’s Jamaica, or something. Three Hundred and Fifty-Ninth and Sutphin Boulevard.”

  “Queens? Jamaica?” the white cabbie mumbled irritably. “How do you get there?”

  “How in the hell should I know?” Jimmy Jay growled. “You’re the cabdriver. You’re supposed to know the city forwards and backwards.”

  “Sounds like a very expensive trip. I tell you in front.”

  “Don’t worry about it, buddy boy.”

  The white cabbie mumbled under his breath and started up the motor and shot off down Park Avenue, through the early-morning traffic, which was getting busy and frenetic already, horns honking, even at the traffic lights. About fifteen minutes later they were on the parkway, going along at a lively clip, dipping from one lane to another like a halfback broken-field-running for a touchdown. The sky was an almost cloudless and translucent blue, one of those chilly clear October days when you could see forever, that is, if you were that full of curiosity.

  The bogus PM leaned forward, speaking with a very British accent, “I say, old chap, it’s damn hospitable of you, a free trip to Jamaica, is it? A new courtesy you extend to distinguished visitors to the city. Quite sporting of you. It’s quite civilized, really.”

  “What’re you talking about?” the cabbie responded, nervously, irritated.

  “I see you don’t have your meter going, so I imagine you’re taking us out there for nothing. Gratis. Thank you very much.”

  The cabbie cursed aloud this time, as he clicked on the meter.

  “The first few miles you gave to us for nothing,” HIMSELF rambled on with great enthusiasm. “That’s really quite Black and sporting of you, old boy, I really mean it. It’s civil of you.” The PM kept up a continuous chatter in praise of New York cabbies, that extraordinary hospitable breed, practically unheard of in the Western world, how incredibly nice of them. “One might say it’s almost African of you.” Who said New Yorkers were not warmhearted people? And absolutely free they were of stupid racial prejudices. Such unheard-of civility and generosity, eh? Hearts of gold, and so forth and so on, even as the cabbie continued mumbling curses to himself. Finally, the cabbie cried out for mercy. “Please! I mean, would you mind if, I mean, I’d appreciate it greatly for just a little bit of quietudeness. I mean I really hung one on last night. I got a terrible headache this here morning.”

  “I quite understand, my boy.
I shan’t say another word. I’m a firm believer in the axiom that silence is absolutely golden. Silvery and diamondy even. I shan’t utter another sound, so help me, Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, and all the patron saints of Africa. You should have spoken up at once, old boy. Knowing what a lonely and reflective life a cabbie leads, I thought to keep you company for your kindness and your unheard-of civility. I had no idea, sincerely, I did not. I am usually the silent type. A very private person am I, and always was. I was just so overcome by your hospitality, your generosity, which is legendary, and actually incredible, so to speak, as the saying goes, if you get my drift, old boy. However, and nevertheless I shall not utter another word, not one solitary sound, excepting to observe that we have passed this corner at least several times in the last few minutes. Sutphin and Three Hundred and Fifty-Ninth. Turn here, right here, mate. Here we go now—” Jimmy Jay said pleasantly, as the angry cabbie braking madly, screechingly, turned the corner on two wheels.

  “Sonuabitchin’—!”

  “Right here, sir,” Himself sang out cheerily. “Right over there near—that phone booth on this end of the quadrangle where the police cars are . . .” His voice trailed off, as he saw the three squad cars gathered near the phone booth and watched two policemen leap from their car and hurry toward the phone booth, which was obviously occupied. The Minister Primarily hastily donned his phony beard, which he kept with him for all occasions and especially emergencies. Cops were leaping from every squad car now, revolvers drawn. HIMSELF leaped from the cab, pulling a woefully bewildered HWB along with him, gave the astonished cabbie a twenty-dollar bill and waved for him to keep the change. The cabbie pulled off his cap and scratched his head and murmured, “Goddamn!—It’s Olivamakeee!”

  Jimmy Jay hurried over to the phone booth where the cops surrounded a shivering Cool Horace, as he stood there in the suit of his nativity, as naked as a jaybird in whistling time, as they are wont to say back in old ’Sippi. Goose-pimpled, Cool Horace was, from head to feet. The Minister Primarily fought hard to keep a straight face, as he threw HWB’s overcoat around the Cool One’s quaking body. The cops had already pulled him naked from the phone booth.