For love was good, as they’d remembered, and love was sweet and even sweeter, and love was love’s blessed fulfillment, love was love’s own raison d’être.
Notwithstanding, nothing had been settled between Jimmy Jay and Debby B. And they both realized it. Like the man from France said (or the Frenchwoman just as likely), “plus ça change, plus ça devient la même chose” . . . “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”
* * *
Now they lay there basking at the seashore on their private sunbaked beach. Breathing deeply into the essence of them all the feeling-good-about-themselves love smells, transported in another world of smug entrancement. Fully awake but dreaming. Blissful. The chimes of her doorbell could not possibly reach them, could not penetrate this transport. Seven more minutes of pounding on the door finally broke through the quietude of Eden’s blithesome garden.
Ultimately, they heard, repeatedly, “Open up in the name of His Excellency The Prime Minister of Guanaya.”
Debby Bostick said, “I can’t believe that this is happening.”
“Believe it,” Jimmy Jay advised her, as he draped the bedspread around his naked body and trudged toward the door, where the banging continued unbated.
“Just a goddamn minute,” Jimmy rumbled.
He finally negotiated the numerous locks, opened the door, and stared down into the nonplussed face of His Wife’s (inevitable) Bottom, as Guanayan SS persons stood behind him, their guns drawn and at the ready.
Jimmy could not contain the laughter that quickly mounted in him and came from him in loud guffaws. He almost lost the bedspread that covered his stark nakedness.
HWB squeaked indignantly, “I say, Your Excellency, this is highly irregular. This is not a laughing matter.”
24
LOLLILOPPI, MISSISSIPPI, NEAR-THE-GULF. Meanwhile, numerous phone calls had continued back and forth between the White House in Washington and the mayor of Lolliloppi, who was also chairperson of the White Citizens Council deep deep in the darkness of the ’Sippi delta. In fact, it was the only council remaining in that benighted state of unenlightenment fondly known throughout the recent world as “’Sippi,” thanks to an obscure novelist by the name of John O. Killens, until the mayor was finally convinced he must assume the role of host to the fabulous African Prime Minister and his dignitaried entourage. The President, himself, after continued failure on the part of his numerous secretaries, Justice Department officials, State Department, the FBI, the CIA, took the bull by the horn or by his balls, whichever is your earthier preference in metaphors, and spoke directly to Mayor Rufus Hardtack.
“I don’t give a fucking damn if he marries all of your funky steamy-tailed daughters, Olivamaki is coming down there and there’d better not be no fucking racial incidents, or heads will fucking roll! His Excellency is my good fucking friend, and besides, he represents the richest fucking mineral output on this fucking earth. It’s more valuable than fucking gold or diamonds, or heads will surely fucking roll! Money! Rufus Rastus fucking Hardtack! Money! That’s what I’m fucking talking about, or fucking heads will roll.”
All the while the poor mayor of Lolliloppi was thinking, Could this really be the fucking President of this fucking USA with all that fucking “fucking” in his fucking conversation?
Also meanwhile, His so-called Excellency called an extra-private meeting of his own security persons (from Guanaya) and put them together with a few of those Harlemites of the Black Alliance, who had secured the 369th Armory on that memorable day that would go down in history and never be forgotten.
The idea was to send an advance guard a few days ahead to Lolliloppi to clear the way and to secure the place against untoward surprises. Jimmy Jay had told his entourage so many horror stories about “’Sippi” and the rest of dear old Dixieland that his cabinet members were a little nervous, perhaps even a big nervous and overly apprehensive, which would prevent them from conducting themselves with their legendary African dignity. And the fake PM would stand for nothing short of absolute undiluted unadulterated dignity.
“Follow the lead of your Harlem sisters and brothers,” he admonished the Guanayan SS persons, gathered in his Waldorf suite. “They know what to look for. They know the landscape of the southern jungle. They know where the rattlesnakes and all the other wild beasts hang out . . .” He spoke directly to the Harlemites. “Most of you dudes are originally from down home anyhow.” He almost said, “just like me,” but he caught himself in time. “Take nothing for granted. Pile it on. Embarrass the hunkies! Disconcert the white-robed bastards! But always do it diplomatically and with gentleness and tact.” He had forgotten who he was again and had resorted to the jargon of the streets. The Harlem sisters and brothers stared at him in honest wonder. His Excellency spoke their language like an honest-to-goodness down-home brother. He was truly one of them! One hundred and ninety-five percent!
He stared around at them into their worshipfully surprised faces. One of the very one of them who sat there staring so innocently back at him was probably the selfsame one who had called him a couple of nights before and knighted him for “martyr-dam.” He listened sharply for the gravelly voice that would sound like a rusty knife scraping on a big blackboard.
“We will kill you and blame it on the American government in collusion with the Klu Kluck Klan!”
He would never forget that voice. The memory of it now made his flesh crawl. He questioned each of them, even one or two of the deep-voiced women, just to find out how their voices sounded. Was he becoming paranoid? Perhaps he had gone too far, he thought, with his jargon of the streets. Perhaps he had exposed himself. He tried to clean it up with “You cats know, of course, I attended Lincoln U. for four long years, which is situated just above the Mason-Dixon Line, and I spent a whole damn year up south here on Brother Piri’s mean damn streets of the Big damn Apple. I got my third degree in Dixicology.” He thought, I’m overdoing it again, but he laughed heartily. And they laughed with him, though in mild confusion. Even as he laughed he wondered, Which one is the hit man here?
A few days later, the advance guard literally descended upon old Lolliloppi. They had moved into Lolliloppi County beforehand the most sophisticated antisabotage equipment known at that time, from a state just above the Mason-Dixon. Beginning at the airport of a nearby city, give away an inch or two, where the PM and his retinue would deplane, they swept across the airstrip of the little airport all the way out to the state highway with two prehistoric monsters that seemed that they might have very well been the amazing result of a cross-miscegenation between armored tanks and New York City sanitation trucks. The two mechanical monsters picked up everything on the highway between the airport and old Lolliloppi. And they stopped and inspected every time an alien object got in the path of these giant and voracious vacuum cleaners, which made the monsters blast forth like the sirens of fire engines going up Lenox Avenue during soapbox oratory at 125th Street. Even when they’d pick up a nail or a stick or a rock. Would they ever get to Lolliloppi? Mamadou Ben-Hannibala, né Robert Joseph Williamsburg, was the appointed captain of the advance guard. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up on the streets of Harlem Town on Seventh Avenue, a.k.a. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, just about three blocks away from Smalls Paradise.
Mamadou Ben-Hannibala was ex–poet laureate of the Black Experience, all you unbelievers ask him, formerly and briefly a bodyguard for Malcolm X, did a two-year stretch at Howard University during the good old Stokely days, staunch leader of the Black Alliance, clear eyed, darkly clear, stockily constructed five feet eleven, had been a semipro football cornerback for the Harlem Detonation Squad for Black Liberation. Sorry. That was the name of the football team, during the glorious sixties.
The advance guard was convoyed into town by a special police escort made up of every squad car in the county, who had instructions to come back and gather around the monsters every time the sirens sounded off. They would drive back hurriedly, get out of their
cars, and stand around and scratch their heads and stare wonderingly at these curious-sounding-and-acting people who looked so much like their own Negroes.
Big Mamadou Ben-Hannibala spoke with a strange accent, which sounded like an unearthly combination of West Indian, British, African, Pakistani, Harlem American, with a southern accent thrown in for good measure, or bad, all rolled into one, clashing and blending, mostly clashing. Mamadou Ben-Hannibala would complain, politely and growlingly, about everything encountered by the gleefully gregarious monsters. Big rocks, gravel, unfortunate pole kitten, pot holes.
Mamadou climbed down from one of the mechanical monsters. “Hey, you, old boy, come over hyah. You, old boy. Don’t stare around at the others. I wish to address my remarks to you.”
The little sawed-off pink-faced white man came toward Mamadou. His face was drenched in sweat with circular stains of perspiration clearly evident, undignifiedly, under each armpit of his khaki shirt.
“You’re the HCIC, are you not, old boy?”
“Suh? HCIC?”
“You’re the Head Cracker in Charge, are you is, or is you aren’t?”
“Yassah,” the chief of Lolliloppi’s finest replied. He was hopelessly confused by now. He was reddening by the seconds behind the ears, which were larger than Clark Gable’s and lacked Clark Gable’s sex appeal, his ears, that is, or that are, whichever. He’d never dreamed of such biggedy colored people in all of his born days. But he had had his orders from one on high. There must be no “nigger” incidents, or “heads will surely fucking roll!” He’d rather roll his eyes instead.
It was a hot day in October even for Mississippi and green everywhere lay over the land like summertime. “What in the hell is it that so despoils the atmosphere?” Ben-Hannibala demanded. “By Jove, we must’ve scooped a skunk.” Ben-Hannibala sniffed haughtily at the atmosphere around him. “Mississippi is not always redolent with stink like this, I mean, hopefully.”
The big bad chief said, “Nawsuh.” He had a reputation to uphold of being the baddest meanest cracker in Lolliloppi County.
“We’ll need to deodorize the whole damn county before His Excellency arrives. The Prime Minister has very sensitive and dainty nostrils, don’t you know? That’s the way it is with the aristocracy.”
The big bad chief said, “Yassah.”
“They told us Mississippi was aromatic with pleasant odors. What happened to all of those magnolia trees and honeysuckles? This is some strange-fucking-smelling fruit.”
Meanwhile Mamadou Ben-Hannibala dressed in his miniskirted boubou with high glistening boots up to his knees, a white turban atop, riding crop in hand, was strutting and stomping around like he was imitating Charlie Chaplin doing an exaggerated imitation of Herr Schickelgruber imitating Charlie Chaplin, ad infinitum.
“You gentlemen will decidely have to clean up your act. You’re not so deep down here in the delta bush that you have remained untouched by the civilizing influences of the twentieth century? I mean, you do have radios, tellies, running water, sanitation, and all the other ultramodern amenities? I mean, otherwise you wouldn’t’ve presumed to insist that His Excellency visit your humble province.” He lapsed back into his Alabama roots. “I mean y’all folks ain’t ready yet for people of His Excellency’s ennobleness.”
The big bad chief shuffled his feet, batted his eyes, scratched his head, and muttered, “Yassah!”
Mamadou Ben-Hannibala stomped and strutted and goose-stepped again. “All right, old boy. Let’s get the show on the road.”
By the time they reached the Rob Lee Hotel, with the prehistoric monsters intact, the town was in an uproar. Naturally, the advance guard, under the leadership of Mamadou Ben-Hannibala, insisted politely and diplomatically on inspecting the proposed so-called hotel accommodations. Ben-Hannibala strutting and goose-stepping with riding crop and issuing orders even to those of the local police. “Make it look good, goddammit! Make it look good you buggering buggers.”
They invaded the so-called presidential suite with every kind of antiespionage equipment that had ever been invented, and with some that had not been invented yet. They upturned everything, couches, beds, chairs, seeking out lurking and unfortunate bugs and buggers, took down pictures, pulled up carpeting. “Look sharp, boy,” Mamadou Ben-Hannibala ordered. He tapped a local red-faced copper on the shoulder with his riding crop. They looked into the toilet tanks, flushed the toilets continuously, and the local policemen stood around, their mouths agape, and scratched their heads. Some of their heads were steaming by now, literally.
“Look sharp, lad,” Mamadou Ben-Hannibala ordered, as he rapped a steamy-headed local copper on his shoulders. Rolling fucking heads or not, the steamy-headed one could take no more. He went to the water basin in the toilet, put his head under the water spigot, and soaked it to his heart’s content.
When they had finished, the place looked like a cyclone had made a sudden visitation, with a bad tornado running interference. Then to add insult to injury, or the other way around, whichever, Ben-Hannibala had the unmitigated temerity to complain though tactfully. Ben-Hannibala strutted around with his riding crop. “This place needs tidying up a bit, especially before His Excellency arrives.”
* * *
For weeks Lolliloppi had been preparing for the Grand Visitation, or “A Day,” as one ’Sippi advertising genius dubbed it. People were converging into the little three-horse town from all over the Big damn ’Sipp, as some Black sisters and brothers were apt to refer to it, affectionately. The governor, lieutenant governor, state legislative people, White Citizens Councilors and Councilettes. Mayor Rufe had suddenly become the most popular politician in all of the Big damn ’Sipp. Letters and phone calls, telegrams poured in from all over, and even beyond all over, pleading for invitations to the Grand Visitation. Big white folks. Great big white folks. The word was out. Olivamaki was undoubtedly the most important colored man who ever was or ever would be. And the richest! A natural-born colored human bean! Mayor Rufe was being mentioned as gubernatorial material. A man like old Rufe might make it all the way to the White House.
First of all, Mayor Rufe, who was a churchgoing two-or-three-times born-again Christian, and a family man, had to get his own house in order. “Charity begins at home” had always been his motto. Therefore, he called the Hardtack clan together and read the riot act to them. He had first consulted the buddy of his childhood days of playing with themselves and with each other and smoking rabbit tobacco behind the old barn, Secret Service expert Carlton Carson, a dyed-in-the-cotton-patch Big damn ’Sippian.
“Here is the way it was explained to me, Rufe ol’ buddy. These Africans ain’t like our nigrahs. They human beans. They dignitarians. They look just like our nigrahs, but they’re nacherl-born human beans. You got to treat em like they’re white folks. And another thing, they’re really bugged by bugs. So, don’t be bugging their living quarters with no bugs, cause their juju helps them to track them down, like hunt and destroy. Them boys is death on bugs and buggers. It ain’t easy to figger the damn thing out, especially the human bean part, and particularly the buggery. But you can do it if you put your thinking cap on and keep it on. Hell, I been around them so much, I done just about got used to them. Course you know me. I still think there’s a rotten fish in the woodpile in Denmark some damn where.”
Which is exactly, more or less, how the mayor interpreted it to his family, especially to his pretty and retarded daughter, sweet-faced blue-eyed Evaline Gertrude, “or heads will fucking roll!” Obviously, the President’s fucking fetish for fucking conversation was highly contagious. Mayor Rufe slobbered, pounded on the dining room table. “Treat em like human fucking beans and white folks!” And the same went for the police force and the fire department. “There must be no racial incidents, or fucking heads will fucking roll!” Evaline Gertrude had never seen her papa in such a mad state of excitement.
Announcements in the newspapers, on the radio and the television admonished the Lolliloppians that th
ey must be on their best behavior, in the spirit and tradition of good old southern hospitality. “They look like our nigrahs, but they are human beans. You will know our nigrahs from the Africans by the long white robes the Africans will be wearing. They call them ‘boobies.’ If they should happen to visit our restaurants, the picture show, and other places of amusement, in their long white flowing boobies, they will not be members of the Klu Klux Klan. Heh-heh-heh.”
All over the county, Black folks began to get their own “boobies” together. They started sewing on those white bedsheets. It looked like it was going to be difficult to tell the local “nigrahs” from the authentic African human beans, due to the outright treachery of their tried-and-trusted local “nigrahs.” It was getting to be a helluva how-de-do when humble local nigrahs couldn’t be relied upon.
Meanwhile and moreover even, the so-called city of Lolliloppi was becoming jammed with some of them un-Mississippian foreign accents, an entire week ahead of A Day, the time of the Grand Visitation. It became clear that Lollie’s two so-called hotels could not provide adequate lodging. Tents were being thrown up on Main Street, heretofore all of three blocks long, which extended it several blocks longer, and all over every which a where. Big tents, little tents, wigwams, teepees. Free enterprisers came by the hundreds from all over, from as far as Chicago and New York City. Hucksters, hustlers, whores, pimps, all in the spirit of free enterprise, which was what made America great, or words to that effect. Green and black and red Black Nationalist flags and pennants, African banners, Olivamaki buttons and sweatshirts, Guanayan flags, on sale up and down those happy streets. Main Street suddenly was as busy as Forty-Second Street in the Big Apple between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. A carnival atmosphere, like Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. It was something to behold. All of a sudden Black folks were in vogue. Crackers walked up to nigrahs and hugged and kissed them on the streets, publicly! Strange! Strange! Ripley was right.
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