A fact that was verified when his apparition spoke. “Oh, my my my!” She held his member ever so fondly. “Honeybunch has grown to be a great big boy now!” She had opened his pajamas. She began to kiss his body all over, murmuring sweetly as she went. “Oh, my my my my! Daddy won’t need no dildo tonight. But how can him be so big and still so soft? Was him had too much to drink?”
Him was wide awake now and very much alive, leapingly. Himself said groggily, “There must be some mistake here.” As he reached toward the now-remembered night table and clicked on the bed lamp.
She began, “Mr. President, you are so formal, so unlike yourself, I mean—your voice—Oh my my my mymymy! There really has been a mistake. And a very very big one and thank God for all the big mistakes in life. You are His Excellency?” She had released his member quickly as if it were a thing too hot for her to handle, as if a deadly snake had bitten her. Then on second thought she fondled it again. “Oh well, the Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. I thought at first a miracle had been performed. So beautiful and big! And who’s to question the reason why? And I wonder if His Excellency’s excellency can rise to the occasion. What’s a poor little country girl from Texas supposed to do in a situation such as this? Mama never said that there’d be days like this. She just told me, ‘If you see something you want, go after it. Take it in hand.’” She sighed philosophically, as bravely she took matters in her gentle hands again.
Himself panicked, momentarily. He thought, Jail bait! Can’t be more than fifteen years old, if that much. Straw blond, innocently blue-eyed. The eyes of Texas? Statutory rape in the White-damn-House! One hundred years of solitude and hard damn labor. He’d be a disgrace to the African profession, no special thanks to Ossie Davis. But then that part of him influenced by the devil, which was always in him, sometimes catnapping, woke up and exhorted him. “What a prankish escapade, what a caper, to make it with the child mistress of the President of the United Snakes!” the devil whispered loudly to him. His member must have eavesdropped him, as it responded gleefully, boldly instantly steeling itself, rising to the grandiose occasion, firmly, nobly, dignifiedly. The dear girl’s face blushed rubescently with the greatest expectations.
The darling girl explained, “He told me to meet him here after midnight, and everything would be on the up-and-up. He must’ve forgot. He’s freakish for young girls, you know, and they must always wear red ribbons in their hair and be dressed in white, suggesting their virginity. He always sings ‘Scarlet Ribbons’ when he’s doing it to me. Sometimes he makes me put tomato ketchup in my doohickey.
“Oh, my my my mymymy!” she shouted quietly and gleefully, philosophically. “Perhaps he had you in mind, Your Excellency. You’re certainly on the up-and-up and getting more so every second.
“Oh well,” she sighed resignedly. “Like my mama always said, what’s a poor little Texas country girl to do in a case like this?” Now she watched the him of him leaping playfully about, completely out of control now. She cooed and murmured. “My my my mymymy! Him thinks him a toady frog!” She giggled and she fondled.
Himself answered, “You’re going to get the hell out of here and in a hurry, that’s what you’re going to do, and let me get myself some sleep.” The dignity of his Africanness had asserted its priority over his horniness and deviltry. He could feel his member dwindling in agreement with his Pan-Africanism. Who said a stiff one had no conscious? At which point there was a knocking at the door. At which other point Himself closed his eyes tightly and began to snore. He heard the President’s drunken voice.
“Are you ’sleep Misher Prim Minster?”
“Hell yes!” Himself shouted back. “Can’t you hear me snoring?” He clicked off the night table lamp.
“May I come in?” The President was already entering the bedroom. He switched on the overhead light. It was only then that Himself remembered the President’s child-mistress, the scarlet-ribboned demivirgin. He closed his eyes waiting for the President’s outcry. All he heard was silence and a quiet giggling from beneath the bed. It was the kind of giggling that seemed on the verge of erupting into hysterical laughter.
The President looked around the room. “You’re sure you’re ’sleep, Misher Prim Minster?”
“Of course I’m sure. I’m only dreaming that you woke me up.”
The President came in and sat in the ancient rocker near the bed. Himself kept his eyes shut tight.
The President rocked back and forth. Himself could hear the squeaking rocker. It needed lubricating. “You know, Mr. Prim Minster, I’ve really taken a liking to you. I seems like I’ve known you for the longest time. Like we grew up together or something.” The President’s voice was slurred. “Of all the stinguished visiters to the outhouse. I mean the White House, I’ve never taken to anyone as mush as I’ve taken to you. You are magnicifent, Mish Prim Minster. I like you very mush.”
His prankish nature was surfacing again. He thought, What if I called the President “Snot Rag”? What would happen? Then he tensed again, as he imagined he heard the giggling underneath the bed clearly now, and he thought, The President must surely hear it also. He began to perspire. Perhaps it was a game the two of them were playing with him. He imagined the girl underneath the bed was laughing raucously now. He closed his eyes even tighter than before and began to snore deliberately, boisterously.
“Whatsamatter, Misher Prim Minster? You got a girl underneath your bed?”
Bullets of perspiration covered his forehead, leaked from his armpits. He began to snore louder than ever. To drown out the laughter coming from under the bed.
The President said, “I really do like you a lot. I don’t understand it. You’re just like a long-lost buddy.”
Himself said, “Thank you very much,” and continued to snore.
Suddenly it became fearfully quiet in the bedroom, except for the giggling beneath the bed, an awesome silence, which acted as an amplifier to the noise beneath the bed. He opened, tentatively, his eyes and sneaked a peek at the President. He had to find him first. His eyes took in, at first, the tall windows with the white lace curtains flanked by dark-green silken drapes tied back and trimmed with golden edges and topped by swagged valances. (Where was the President?) Surely he could hear the giggling now amplified as if she giggled through loudspeakers. He finally located the portly gentleman standing before the antique vanity staring at himself before the mirror at the dressing table. He thought he heard the President mumbling to himself.
“You’ve come a fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking long ways, baby. You and old fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking Abe Lincoln.” Himself closed his eyes again, but he still heard the President. His speech was louder, clearer now.
“They used to call you Puddin’ Head Jones in school, said you was fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking fat and funky. You wasn’t smuch to look at, allergic to book learning, made you breakout in spots. But where’re they? And look at you now. Smost powerful somebitch in the whole fuh-fucking universe, ’eluding the moon. Have the prettiest women in the world at your becking and calling. You smost powerful somebitch in the whole wide world. You can get more pussy than Jack Fitzgerald Kennedy. You can snap your pinkies and end life on this fuh-fuh-fuh-fucking earth in sixty seconds. You the fuh-fuh-fucking Presidence of the Uniney Stace!” He was screaming at the mirror now. Then everything got quiet again. Himself could hear the giggling clearly now underneath the bed, and he could feel the drunken President moving toward the bed, and he could hear his own heart beating up in his sweating forehead like an exaggerated stethoscope.
The President stood at his bedside now, hovering above him. “You’re sure you don’t have a pretty lady underneath your bed?”
“What the hell would I be doing with a woman ’neath my bed, when I’m fast asleep? Can’t you hear me snoring?” He began to snore louder than ever, snoring, snorting, wheezing, spitting.
The President started to squat down to look under the bed, but it required too much effort, physically. His (so-called) Excellency co
uld hear the Prexy’s bones creaking like a squeaky gate that needed lubricating. Like the rocking chair beside the bed. Instead, he straightened up and said, “All right then. You take care. I’ll leave you alone with the Great Emancipator, hear? Sleep tight. Don’t let the fuh-fuh-fucking bedbugs bits, as they used to say where I come from.”
Himself repeated, “Thank you very much. And do me a favor old buddy. Turn off the light as you leave the room.”
The room went dark as the President departed. And the young mistress rolled out from under the bed breaking up with laughter. She jumped into the bed of the Great Emancipator. Between the giggling and the raucous laughter, Himself heard her say distinctly: “I want to be emancipated! I want to be emancipated!” Excitedly.
Why not? Himself thought. Why not emancipate the poor little scarlet-ribboned demivirgin from the Long Star State? His missionary spirt was aroused with Quaker pity for the girl. The devil in Himself demanded, “Why the hell not? Why not make it with the President’s young mistress with the scarlet ribbons in her yellow hair?!” He could almost hear his member (of the wedding) giggling at the idea of it. Even as she held his stiffening member in her tender and caressing fingers, the devil in his prankish member advocating. To cuckold none other than the Prexy of the Caucasian-powered USA. He thought he heard his swollen member laugh uproariously.
But then he knew that Lincoln’s room was haunted when he heard his member speak to him distinctly now. “You are the Prime Minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya. You are a great man of enormous dignity and commitment. And what makes this little blond chit think you have a craving for her alabaster body?” He was frightened witless for a moment, to hear his member speaking to him thusly. His entire body lathered now with perspiration like Seattle Slew coming into the home stretch. But then he Himself felt indignant and insulted, remembering Daphne Jack-Armstrong, and her “big black stud” named Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson of the ’Sippis, and it was like a thousand years of experiences ago, a person he no longer knew, hardly remembered. Even his member (of the wedding) had acquired a new intelligence, hardly recognizable, from the other fellah he had known, which is probably why he felt it dwindling now, losing interest at the moment.
He switched the bed light on and got out of bed and took Scarlet Ribbons up in his arms, as she held on for dear life to his softening member, even as she kicked and squealed.
Scarlet cried out, “What y’all doing?”
“You’ll find out very shortly,” the devil in him advocated.
Scarlet gigged now, delighted. “Oh!” she said, “a good idea! I should have known—all nigger men are kinky! You want to do it on the floor! You want to do it on the floor!”
“You got it, girl,” His Excellency responded. “On the floor, outside the door. On the floor, outside the door,” His Excellency repeated.
And that is where he left her, on the floor outside the door, kicking, squealing, cussing, as he quickly closed the door and turned the latch and went back to Lincoln’s rosewood bed. How dare she take for granted the dignified prime minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya?
* * *
Back at the Waldorf the KKK kept up their continuous vigil, and likewise did the Black Alliance, along with the well-intentioned “Freedom Fuckers.” The Grand Coalition was ever ready in the Combat Zone. The crank phone calls increased, along with letters and telegrams threatening Himself’s immortality. He was becoming a piece of nervous wreckage. He jumped at every sudden sound. One day he had all phone calls shut off, except his private line. He gave instructions to the main switchboard. “No more phone calls until we leave for Lolliloppi.”
It was drawing close to the time when all this would be ended. His feelings were one great twisted bundle of agonized ambivalence. Was he ready to give up all this phony power, this undreamed-of popularity, this adulation, this unheard-of celebrity, this outpouring of love his people gave unstintingly to him? Sometimes he told himself the love they gave to him was to Himself and not to his Prime Ministership. And he wanted desperately to believe it, almost made himself believe that this outpouring was for him and him alone. He told himself he wanted to finish his schedule, which included the trip to Lolliloppi and a speech to the United Nations General Assembly afterward, and then get back to the Old Country, and to be himself Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson, and the masquerade would be over for all times. But nobody could ever take this couple of weeks away from him. Sometimes he thought they should forget about the trip to Lolliloppi. It was fraught with too much danger. It was crazy. It was idiotic. One day he told his group they would not go. Who needs it? he demanded. He saw the relief flow into their faces. It had been said that Lolliloppi was so damn deep in the darkness of the delta, the Supreme Court decision had never reached them. Lynching Blacks was fashionable, chic. James Crow was in the driver’s seat, ensconced forever.
He said, “I know all of you are keenly disappointed at not getting a chance to see the dear old Southland of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers and the Confession of Willie Styron.” He went deep into his Southern accent. “I was going to show you that cat sitting on a hot tin roof and that streetcar named Desire, where all the darkies ama weeping, when ol’ Masser gits the cold cold ground that’s coming to him.” He got out his brand-new guitar and began to plunk on it, singing à la Al Jolson:
How I love you, how I love you.
Dear ol’ Swampee—
Then he went into
Summer Time—
And the cooking is greasy—
He was perspiring freely now, with a mad gleam in his eyes. It frightened all of them excepting Horace and Abingiba.
Way down upon the Swampee Ribber—
He stared around at the frightened looks on their faces. Yet he knew they were relieved at his decision not to go. He said, “On the other hand, I wouldn’t feel right depriving you of experiencing that fundamental slice of Americana. So historic, so nostalgic. So much like the real America.”
His Wife’s Bottom assured Himself, eagerly, “It’s perfectly all right with us. We understand, and we agree—”
Himself was working himself into a bizarre frame of mind. His face wore a whimsical expression, his great dark eyes a twinkle. The prankster in him winning out again, as per usual. He was the devil’s advocate and him personified. “Why the hell not go to ’Sippi? So, what if something happens out of the way down there? Suppose two or three of us do get lynched? It’ll simply expose the deceitful mama-muckers.”
His mind was leapingly alive. He saw his people now deep deep in the darkness of the delta of despair, heads bowed, cowed and afraid. If he could give them one brief moment with their heads up, one hundredth of a second of self-pride and assurance, it would be worth the trip, well worth the danger that would be involved. If they could glimpse their sisters and their brothers from across the ocean. See them face-to-face. Speak with them. Shake their hands. His brothers and sisters in the delta were more African than any others in the country, closer to their African culture, their African humanity. They were the honest-to-goodness diasporated Africans. With their mojo and their voodoo and their belief in “haints” and roots and their music and their churches and their shouting and their dancing.
He remembered now his last trip to Lolliloppi. Belafonte had subsidized a trip for him back home to research the folk songs of his people. He’d been taken by excited students from a school founded more than a hundred years before by the United Missionary Association, taken deep into the delta bush to this seventy-five-year-old great-grandmother who lived in a two-room cabin. She was a folk singer and guitarist with twelve children and twenty-seven grandchildren and God knew how many great-grandchildren. She was in strong voice and she sang for him, to him, and she told him ghost stories of things that hang about her bed at night, great big beasts that slid under and out of windows with them pulled down tight. She was born with a veil over her eyes, and she could see th
ings others were unable to see. She told these stories with a profound conviction. It was only after he had been in Guanaya a couple of months and was reading everything he could lay his hands on written by African writers that he had come across a novel written by a Nigerian writer, Amos Tutuola, author of The Palm-Wine Drinkard. He had been reading from a scene in the novel that had a strange feeling of déjà vu. He read the scene again and again until he realized it was the same ghost story told to him by this illiterate Black Mississippi great-grandmother almost verbatim, word for word. It sent a shiver along his spine.
His Wife’s Bottom said, “But surely—”
HIMSELF went on. “But surely, if I risk everything for the love of Africa, what was it you said, HWB? I might be exiled from my country, shot at sunrise, or is it electification in this country? I mean, the least you can do is to take this risk along with Yours Sincerely.”
The next morning, he got a call on his direct line from the President of the Uniney Snakes! “This is the President of the United States, your good buddy, Mr. Prime Minister. I just want to say that we’re doubling the security around you. We got word recently that there will be an attempt on your life by international assassins smuggled into this country from Africa and paid for by persons of your own country! So, don’t you trust nobody’s body, as my mama used to say. Furthermore, we have been approached by members of your opposition party offering us preferred status in the cobanium situation, if we would lend ourselves to your undoing.” The President lowered his voice. “There were members of my cabinet who wanted to go along with the proposal. I had to put my foot down. I told them that, under no circumstances whatever must you be allowed to be murdered in my country. Let them do their fuh-fuh-fucking dirty tricks somewhere fuh-fuh-fucking else.”
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