* * *
He reached again for Maria Efwa’s kind of warmth and went again with her in a kind of ’Sippi dream sequence. He was brought back from his ’Sippi “paradise” (with Maria Efwa) by the old familiar rebel shouts that had always meant bad news for him and his kind of people. He thought his daydream had become a nightmare as he heard the familiar strains of “Dixie.”
Out on the streets a couple of blocks away, the band was playing “Dixie.” People who could not afford the price of a bogus invitation lined each side of the street, waving their confederate banners together with Guanayan flags, as the band swung into another tune, the people singing, shouting:
Colonel Reb’s gonna shine tonight.
Colonel Reb’s gonna shine.
Colonel Reb’s gonna shine tonight
Out on the line.
When the moon comes up
And the sun goes down,
Colonel Reb’s gonna shine.
Down the street came the unbelievable sight of a caravan of cars with police escort, and in the lead car Colonel Reb himself, the man of the moment on the U. of Miss. campus, standing tall and handsome. He was an academic, all-American halfback, 90 average in scholarship, dressed to kill in a confederate uniform, cap and all, and standing beside him in an open car was a lovely young southern lady, very white and very blond, “Miss Ol’ Miss,” the homecoming queen.
Now they were entering the big tent, as the rebel yells continued. Jimmy Jay could not believe what his eyes beheld. He thought surely he had gone back to his daydream changed to nightmare, nor could he believe his ears, as he heard them shouting:
Colonel Reb, we love you.
Colonel Reb, we love you.
We love you in the springtime and the fall.
Colonel Reb, we love you.
Colonel Reb, we love you.
We love you best of all.
Now the motorcade was coming up the middle aisle, Miss Ol’ Miss and Colonel Reb with their arms around the other’s waist and waving with the other hand. There’s something incongruous about the picture before me, Jimmy Jay thought. His eyes were playing tricks on him. When he thought, But then, I’m in hot-weather sun country. He remembered words attributed to the venerable Sterling Brown by the equally venerable Margaret Walker. Together in Jackson, she was reputed to have said, “It’s really a hot one today.” To which Sterling is said to have responded, “Where in the hell did you think hell was except in Mississippi?” He remembered the words of his buddies, it seemed a hundred years ago, at the swimming hole outside Lolliloppi. He’d seen lots of swarthy white men in his growing-up days in ’Sippi, deeply tanned ones. But this young Colonel Reb was somehow different. The closer he came toward the platform the darker, deeper the tan, deepening every moment, a tan turning now to darkening brown, with broad nose and wide thick curvaceous sensual lips. Colonel Reb was a young handsome Black man all togged out in a confederate uniform, a contradiction in the flesh. The so-called Prime Minister thought to himself, ironically, Your Excellency, you just ain’t ready yet. He watched them, mesmerized, as they came hand in hand up the steps to the platform. He made sure he was daydreaming, as the blond one held out her hand to him and curtsied, “Your Excellency!” in a breathless voice. He took her hand, kissed it, tremblingly. Then he turned to the nonplussed face of the handsome young Black man, who embraced him and kissed him briefly on each cheek, as the young man whispered. “Don’t believe a word of it, Your Excellency. It’s all as bogus as confederate money.” Which did not rescue Jimmy Jay from his state of shock, as he watched the young confederate Black man take a seat beside Miss Ol’ Miss. Mayor Rufus Hardtack was beaming proudly.
He leaned toward the Minister Primarily and whispered, “Each year the University of Mississippi selects the most popular senior on the campus. They take everything under consideration. Scholarship, athletic ability, service to the community, popularity, good citizenshipness, everything. And he is proclaimed ‘Colonel Reb.’ ‘Man of the Year,’ and he gets to escort Miss Ol’ Miss to the homecoming game. It’s a tradition that goes way back.”
All His so-called Excellency could say was “That’s nice.” He remembered the old tradition. He’d stood on the streets many times and waved and enjoyed vicariously the feeling he imagined Colonel Reb was feeling, never dreaming of a Colonel Reb in blackface. He wanted to believe that he was the one who was dragging his feet. He simply wasn’t ready for the so-called New South.
Mayor Rufe informed him, confidentially, “All these people here on the platform around you are founding fathers. They’re real big shots. Course most of them out there in the audience is big shots too. Special invitations.” Mayor Rufe had a habit of elbowing you in the ribs when he was making a point, a habit that Jimmy Jay did not take kindly to.
Then he remembered the words of Colonel Reb, man of the hour. “It’s all as bogus as confederate money.” The devil made him ask Mayor Rufus, “Where are the African founding fathers? The Black big shots?”
Sweat leaked suddenly from Mayor Rufe’s beaming forehead. “They’re a little late getting here. Excuse me a minute. Omma see what’s holding em up.”
Mayor Rufe went over to three or four of the Caucasian founding fathers already seated, gesturing to them frantically. They left the comfort of their seats and followed Mayor Rufe hurriedly toward the kitchen, which had been constructed several feet away from the Big Tent like an army mess hall.
Mayor Rufe ran into the mess hall shouting, “You’re free! You’re free! Or heads will fucking roll!” He ran up to the chef. “You’re free! You’re free! So, act like it or heads will fucking roll! Get over there and meet His Excellency. He wants to meet alla y’all, or fucking heads will roll!”
One of the cooks, a young Black brother, with dark wide eyes demanded, “If I’m free, where is my forty acres and that fucking mule?”
“You’ll get them tomorrow! Get them tomorrow! Or fucking heads will roll.”
The chef was a six foot roly-poly man, seemed in the last months of pregnancy around the midsection. “Like this?” the dark brown-faced man asked, skeptically. “Go out there like this? In this cook’s outfit?”
Mayor Rufe looked around frantically. “Lend him yours! Lend him yours! Mine would be too little for him. Besides, I have to be out there with everybody. I’m the mayor, someday I might be president!”
All over the kitchen the erstwhile founding fathers were taking off their tuxedos and putting them on the cooks. There was laughter and shouting and applauding, as the Black cooks came up the steps to the platform dressed in ill-fitting tuxedos, some of them too long for short and some too short for long. You could see the chef’s white apron showing beneath his tuxedo jacket.
Mayor Rufe went flush-faced to the lectern. “These are the rest of the founding fathers of the fair city of Lolliloppi. And we want to ask our most foundering of father, Deacon Amos Roadhouse, to lead us in a special prayer. Ladies and gentlemen, Deacon Amos Andrew Roadhouse.”
Amos Roadhouse sat there quietly for a moment, with Mayor Hardtack gesturing at him excitedly. Ultimately, Amos rose from his chair and ambled behind his pregnant stomach toward the lectern. He stood there, staring down at the noisy and expectant crowd, momentarily, waiting patiently for the noise and chatter to subside. He bowed his head and cleared his voice, menacingly.
“Lord, we come before you tonight, you who is ruler of the universe, with heavy heart and contrite spirit. You, who know every thought we ever thought of thinking, you above all things know I ain’t nobody’s founding father of this here Lolliloppi, Mississippi. You know it and everybody in the sound of my humble voice know it.” He paused.
The mayor was shuffling in his chair, wiping the pouring perspiration from his plumpish face. His so-called Excellency heard the murmurs from the crowd below them and heard a smattering of “Amens” and “tell the truths.” He fought hard to resist the temptation to get up and go to the lectern and put his arms around his brother. Great God Almighty! Glory h
alleluyah! He was in a trance again and he reached beneath the table and took Maria’s reaching hand.
“Your humble servant, Lord, I ask from you a special blessing for this young man who has come thousands of miles across the ocean to bring us great tidings of peace and love and brotherhood. For he is blood of our blood and he is flesh of our flesh. We ask your blessing upon all who have come with him. We ask you to go with them and stand by them. We ask you to give this congregation gathered here tonight a new understanding that thou have made of one blood all the nations for to dwell in peace upon this earth. You knows, Lord, that Mississippi ain’t near ’bout what it ought to be, and without your help, Mississippi ain’t never gonna be what it oughta be, but with all of us pushing together, and with your divine guidance, Mississippi gon be what it ought to be, someday soon. And when our sojourn on this earth is ended, we ask you for a seat in thy kingdom, free and equal and unsegregated. We ask all this in the name of thy son Jesus, world without end, AMEN.”
Like a man sleepwalking, His so-called Excellency moved bleary-eyed toward Amos Roadhouse, and took him in his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. “Thank you, Deacon. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much!” he said in a shouted whisper, amid the shouting and the weeping and amening from the crowd below. Jimmy Jay led him to his chair and then went back to his own. The old man sat there for a moment, then stood up and took off the tuxedo jacket, left it on the chair, and went back to the kitchen with his white apron wrapped around him. Shouting, stomping, crying, weeping, was the crowd he left behind him.
The moment was upon him. He felt everything had been said by the deacon. All else would be counterproductive, entirely anticlimax. He vaguely heard Mayor Hardtack introducing him. People were giving him a standing ovation, as he sat there in another time, another space. He heard the anxious mayor’s voice. “Your Excellency.”
He now moved toward the podium. He stood there quietly staring at the shouting madness. He keenly felt a sense of déjà vu. It had all happened before, perhaps in one of the dreams he had dreamed. He had stood beneath this tent on this platform before this very crowd perhaps a thousand years ago.
He was startled when he heard himself say, “It’s all as bogus as Confederate money. I’m no Prime Minister, I’m Jimmy Jay Leander Johnson, born right here in Lolliloppi in the Big damn ’Sipp.” They gasped, they smiled tentatively. Some of them fainted. Policemen dashed toward him from all over, pistols and guns drawn, as did the men of Secret Service. He could hear Carlton Carson shouting gleefully, “I knew Denmark was rotten! I knew Denmark was fishy!” He was profoundly relieved when he realized he had not really spoken yet. Even the honest fantasy was bogus. Then he began actually to speak.
“Sisters and brothers, after Deacon Roadhouse, what is there for me or anybody else to say? I merely want to bring you greetings, especially to my African sisters and brothers from their sisters and brothers residing on the Mother Continent, but to all of you who, in the words of Deacon Roadhouse, have been made of one blood all the nations to dwell upon this earth in peace and brotherhood, and sisterhood. I want all of you to know that I feel a deep sense of homecoming here in this place that reminds me so much of Mother Africa, the sun, the earth, the sky, the bright green of your rain forest, the overall fertility, all this reminds me of Africa. Your struggle, your hardships, your determination to be free, through struggle.” He listened to them cheering him. He made the same speech he had made at the 369th Armory in Harlem, a shortened version, much shorter, with variations on the theme from time to time. The special greatness of his people in this country, the contributions they had made to the greatness of the country, oftentimes unappreciated. He spoke of Billie Holiday and her southern fruit. He agreed with Sam Cooke. It had been a long time coming, but he believed a change was going to come. He had finished.
* * *
And now the mad dash for autographs, with Mamadou Ben-Hannibala solidly in charge of security. Autograph-seekers had to run the gantlet of a long tunnel constructed by armed guards on each side, with somewhere along the middle an apparatus (similar to those at airports) to pick up any form of metal instruments. Black and white formed long lines, integrated, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, mostly women. Some of them who had no paper for him to write on, went to the makeshift latrines and brought forth toilet paper, which proved to be too thin for autographing. Not to be outdone, some went back and took off their slips and bras and offered them up for His Excellency’s signature. One handsome buxom blond woman who had neither slip nor bra, offered up her bare-assed baby boy for his pink backside to be autographed. “He already wet his diapers,” the embarrassed young lady explained, gigglingly. Mayor Hardtack had been standing there next to him all along, pretending that they also lined up for his autograph. After all, there were signs around the town out there on the main stem, that read
Rufus Hardtack for Governor
and
All the way with Rufe to the White House!
Just as Jimmy Jay went to autograph the baby’s pink backside, the pen slipped from his hand. And as he stopped to pick it up, the baby let go a jet stream of piss into the mayor’s beaming face as if his little thimble-size pinkish pecker was equipped with gunsight and with time precision. The gathered crowd broke up with laughter. Mayor Rufe did not grasp the humorous aspect of it, at first. But after he wiped his face with his handkerchief, he too cracked up with laughter. His so-called Excellency laughed so hard he had to sit down. He apologized. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mayor, but—” and he went off into gales of laughter again, especially when the young mother of the baby said, “Just think, Honeybunch, you may be able to say one day that you pissed in the President’s face!” After which the autographing party ended.
Mamadou Ben-Hannibala’s booming voice announced, “That’s it for the night, folks. His Excellency is exhausted. That’s it, folks. That’s it. Sorry about that. Perhaps something can be arranged for tomorrow. We’ll announce it on the radio and television.”
* * *
During most of his stay in ’Sippi, he felt as if he were under house arrest, as indeed he was. He had risked everything, risked unmaskment, even, to come down to his own hometown to spend his few days in a two-by-four hotel, overrun with bugs. They spent most of the time fumigating the place of antiquated listening devices. He wanted to be out on the streets among his people, listening to the stories they had to tell. When he got back, he would compose and sing folk songs to the grandeur of his people. As it was, he had to sit in all day and listen to Cool Horace rave about a foxy sister by the name of Lottie Jefferson. “Man, she was a natural fox. Pretty as a speckled peach from Georgia. Sweet, petite, and ready for Freddie, which was me, Cool Horace Frederick Whitestick. I mean she was a little piece of leather, but she was well put together. I sure would like to see that chick one more time, and she’s right here in this little old one-horse town. Goddamn old Rose!”
Sandwiched in between his ravings about fine Miss Lottie Jefferson were His Excellency’s meetings with the press, interviews on television, always fearing instant recognition and exposure by some sister or brother from his bygone days of yore in the times of his great innocence, no harm intended. His great nerves were shipwrecked and going down slowly, more swiftly than the great unsinkable Titanic. His right eye was developing a twitch. Were it not for Maria’s soothing glances, he would have been in terrible shape. The next day after the Grand Visitation a couple of Hollywood bigwigs flew into town. Now and then he thought of Debby Bostick.
Over lunch and heavy drinking they offered the PM a $5 million contract for a three-picture deal to be paid in five installments over a five-year period, so that the tax hit would be softened, though the three movies would be shot within the year.
Jimmy Jay turned the offer down with the proper indignation of an authentic African Prime Minister, as his heart beat wildly. He thought perhaps they could hear his poor heart thumping, palpitating! Five million dollars to become a movie actor, a star! A thing he’d dre
amed of all of his remembered years. Five million green ones! He’d never get a chance like this again. He reached for his drink and tried desperately to keep his hand from shaking, in the little country tavern room. He thought of the fact that in less than a couple of weeks he would be back to singing jive highlife and calypso songs at Club Lido in little old Bamakanougou.
He took another drink and shook his head, negatively. “I appreciate your offer, gentlemen, but you see I have a country to serve. I suppose I should be flattered, in American terms, but in African terms, I feel insulted.” His indignation was not faked.
They thought he was angling for more money. The one with the bulbous nose and thick glasses and the Havana cigar said, “All right, Your Excellency, you’re a hell of tough negotiator. Okay, how about ten million dollars? We can fix it so you’d hardly have to pay any tax at all.”
The cigar smoke was almost mesmerizing Jimmy, that and the $10 million offer. Jimmy was flattered, tempted, and insulted, simultaneously. His mind was leaping crazily about.
“You did not understand me, sir. I said I have a country to serve. And no amount of money could sway me from my duty.” He sounded phony even to himself.
The more sensitive thin-faced Hollywood one said, “I can understand your POV, Mr. Prime Minister. Your duty to your country, etcetera and so on. A very admirable sentiment. A man of rare integrity and so forth, unheard of in these days of rugged individualism and rabid opportunism.”
“Then you do understand where I am coming from, sir,” Himself said, gratefully.
“Oh yes indeed,” the sensitive thin-faced one replied. “But we can arrange a coup and get you overthrown. That way you will no longer owe your country any duty.”
His Excellency stared at the thin-faced one, incredulously.
Thin Faced said, “Furthermore, why should you limit yourself to a little insignificant country like Guanaya, when you can have America and the whole world at your feet? And who knows how long it’ll be before that combanium is exhausted? You can be the biggest movie star that ever was.”
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