His (so-called) Excellency rose and moved laboriously to the podium, as an almost ominous silence settled upon the audience. It seemed he could not hear a glass clink or a knife or fork or spoon or a piece of china come in contact with each other. He stared out over the crowd, and the first face he saw at a table to the side was that of the cigar-smoking mogul from Hollywood. Seated right beside Cigar Smoker was his buddy Carlton Carson of the good old SS corps. A premonition created a nest of hornets in his stomach. His eyes wandered nervously around the room. He saw a lovely young woman disguised as Her Excellency who sat there within arm’s reach of him. Debby’s dark face was so beautifully intent, it almost caused his eyes to tear. She was weepingly beautiful. Their eyes met, held, remembered, then his own eyes moved along back again to Cigar Smoker and Carlton Carson. He knew that Carlton Carson was still in constant contact with the old man who had yelled “Jimmy” out at the ’Sippi airport and had been incarcerated temporarily. But what did he have in common with big Hollywood Cigar Smoker?
Someone passed a note up to him. He glanced at it briefly, frowning, and he made a swift decision. He reached for his vodka and tonic, took another drink, took the paper his speech was written on out of the pocket of his boubou and tore it up into shreds, deliberately, and let it fall floatingly from his hands onto the podium, scattering like falling snowflakes.
“Mister President, Madame El Salvadou, His and Her Excellencies, distinguished guests, and I believe that all of you and each of you are just as distinguished as the other. I had prepared a written speech, but tonight I have decided to speak to you from my heart.” He was staring now directly at Hollywood Cigar Smoker. He held the note he’d just received up before them. “But more about this later.” He cleared his throat and took another drink. He looked around at the working crews of television networks. He was on nationwide television. Live!
“Sisters and brothers, I wish to address my brief remarks here tonight to the American people, but most especially to those truly great American people of African descent.” His remarks were greeted by applause. “As you know we have just completed an invasion of Lolliloppi, Mississippi. So many people tried to persuade us not to make the trip, feared for our safety. Even your President Hubert Herbert Hubert advised us not to take the trip. But stubbornly we refused to be dissuaded. We went, we saw, we conquered. We invaded them with brotherhood and sisterhood. Assaulted them with African humanity, bombed them with civilized civility, redundantly, continuously. And we found they were a bunch of paper tigers.” He had to wait several minutes for the applause to die away, the stomping, whistling, cheering, hand clapping. “I’m reminded of a story I read in one of Brother Killens’s novels. It seems that way back yonder in 1954, the Supreme Court of the USA handed down a mischievous decision outlawing segregation in the public schools of America. Brown versus the Board of Education. When a brother deep deep in the cotton on a Mississippi plantation heard about the Supreme Court decision, he didn’t stop running till he reached the Big House.” He paused, as the audience laughed in anticipation. “You know, of course, I’m a student of Dixicana. I have my PhD in Dixicology and Afro-American folklore. Anyhow, when old Jesse heard the news he ran toward the Big House. He usually always went around the back as was the custom in those good old days, when Negroes were happy with plenty of nothing and nothing was plenty for them and all the so-called darkies was a-weeping when Old Massa got the cold cold ground that was coming to him. But this time old Jesse started directly across the front yard where Mister Charlie and Miss Anne were seated à la Willie Faulkner and Tennessee Williams beneath electric fans hanging from the ceiling on the front porch. It was one of those hot spring days in Mississippi. Mister Charlie said, ‘What’s the matter with you Jesse boy, running like that in all this heat?’ He considered Jesse to be one of his truly good friends, one of the hardest-working cotton-picking cotton choppers in that part of the state, or in any other parts. Jesse shouted, ‘The Supreme Court done spoke! The Supreme Court done spoke! Ain’t going around to the back door anymore. Coming right straight up to the front door from now on.’
“Mister Charlie said, ‘What you say, boy?’ Jesse turned to Miss Anne sitting there with her mouth agape. ‘That’s another thing. Ain’t no more calling you Missy Anne. You just plain old common Annie from here on in.’ Mister Charlie lost his cool, which was a rare occurrence with him. Against his will he heard himself shout to his best Black faithful friend Jesse, ‘Nigger, don’t you know you’re in Mississippi?’ Jesse shouted back, ‘That’s another thing. Ain’t no more Mississippi. Ain’t no more Mississippi. It’s just ’Sippi from now on!’” After the laughter and the applauding died away, His (so-called) Excellency assured them, “But don’t you worry, we are not deceived by that rare display of sisterhood and brotherhood, but, hopefully, a little taste of freedom will go a long way. One thing is sure. It ain’t no Mississippi. It’s just ’Sippi from now on.
“Getting this note a few minutes before I began speaking sort of gave to me a new perspective on what I would speak to you about tonight, other than to tell you that we Africans think you Afro-American-and-Caribbeans are some of the greatest people on this earth.
“And thus, I am reminded of a story told me by my friend Professor Samuel Yette.” He looked out over the audience. “I believe I saw him here tonight over there with John O. Killens. He told me the story of the preacher who had lost his bicycle, and against his will he was forced to conclude that one of his congregation had liberated it. Another preacher advised him, ‘If you really feel that way about it, why don’t you preach on the Ten Commandments next Sunday, and when you come to the part about thou shalt not steal, perhaps the brother’s conscience will be stricken, and he’ll put your bicycle back unnoticed.’ The aggrieved preacher thought it was a good idea. A week later, the other preacher saw him riding his bicycle. ‘Well,’ the other preacher said, ‘I can see that suggestion worked.’ The preacher on the bike said, ‘Well, yes and no.’ . . . ‘Why what do you mean? You obviously have your bicycle back.’ ‘Well, but you see it was like this, I started out with the Ten Commandments, but by the time I got to the part that said thou shalt not commit adultery, I remembered where I’d left my bicycle.’”
He paused until the laughter had subsided. “It just goes to show you how a word or note or something can put you back on the right track, can give to you a clearer perspective. Like this note here from a Hollywood bigshot that reads, ‘Every man on earth has his price, Excellency, and we think we know what yours is. May we have breakfast with you on tomorrow?’”
He tore the paper slowly into shreds. Then he told them about the Hollywood offer that orbited up to $35 million, which he had rejected. There were gasps throughout the audience. He stared out toward them, until his eyes locked with Hollywood Cigar Smoker.
“Listen to me, Hollywood and all of corporate America. There will be no breakfast with you on tomorrow. You could never meet my price. My price is the liberation of First World people throughout this earth, including especially the people of ’Sippi and South Africa and the Caribbean and Central America, South America, the oppressed wherever they may find themselves. Hollywood, can you pay the price? Can you give me freedom for Ireland, the Lebanese? Will you remake Gandhi and The Grapes of Wrath? Will you make Youngblood and And Then We Heard the Thunder? A Measure of Time? The Man Who Cried I Am? Go Tell It On the Mountain? Will you do the lives of King and Malcolm? and Fannie Lou and Rosa Parks? No! Liberation can be achieved only through struggle. Frederick Douglass understood this, as did Old John Brown of Kansas. And Chaka and Fidel. Our great Black ancestors understood this fundamentally, those Black and unknown bards of long ago, when they sang” (and he began to sing in strong and lusty baritone, a cappella, with his hand up to his ear, à la Robeson).
My old master promised me—
Raise the ruckus tonight,
When he died he’d set me free,
Raise the ruckus tonight.
He lived so long, hi
s head got bald,
Raise the ruckus tonight.
He got out of notion of dying at all.
We’ll raise the ruckus tonight.
In the midst of his singing, he realized he was giving himself away. Surely Belafonte would recognize him now, and many many others who had heard him at the Gate and other places in the Apple. But somehow he couldn’t stop. His voice became even bolder and more robust than ever. He challenged. “Everybody join in the singing. You know the song. It’s from your great ancestors:
Get on board, little children get on board,
While the moon is shining bright.
Get on board, down the river road,
We’re gonna raise the ruckus tonight!
They repeated the chorus over and over again. They sang till they were exhausted, and he fell back in his chair, breathing heavily, almost entirely out of breath. They were standing on their feet now, cheering madly, old, and young, prissy ones, bigshots, dignitaries, muck-th-mucks, and everybody. Even the Big Time Cigar Smoker from Hollywood. Even Carlton Carson of the Secret Service.
Jimmy Jay got to his feet again and held up both hands to them for silence, and quietude ultimately descended. “I just want to say a few more words to you, to all of you. In the words of the Duke of Ellington, I think you’re beautiful, you’re wonderful, and I really do love you madly!” He’d given himself away again.
He sat down again and got up almost immediately. He was ready to leave. He was flying high and not from alcohol, he thought, but high on love. He was surrounded now by Guanayan and American SS persons and some from the Black Alliance who had been with him in ’Sippi. The NYPD were clearing the way. He would not let these good feelings give him a premonition of negative forebodings. Somehow Belafonte got through to him and embraced him and whispered to him, hoarsely, “Jimmy Jay! Jimmy Jay! All the way with Jimmy Jay! I thought all along the resemblance was uncanny. But after the singing, there was no question about it. No matter, I still want to come to Guanaya for the concert tour. Talk with you before you leave, baby, I mean, Your Excellency?” Jimmy Jay saw Debby Bostick trying to get to him, unsuccessfully. He called out, “Let her through. Let the lovely lady through!”
She was escorted to him and she went into his arms. She murmured, “Oh I love you. Yes, I love you, you sonuvabitch! Love you love you love you!” He hugged and he kissed her. He whispered, “We have an interview for tomorrow. Call me early.”
* * *
They were alone now in the back of the long black limo, heading toward the lights of the city. The high-beamed lights were burning big holes in the blackness of the night. Her Excellency was nestled in his arms. “I love you too,” she told him. He said, happily, pleased with himself, apprehensively, remembering the time-old proverb that PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL. “Now now, you made a promise you would not make it difficult for the two of us. You do remember?” he asked teasingly. Half-serious, even sincere, almost, at least, perhaps. The tension building, ever building. His thighs began to quake and tingle. He, the “Cool One,” more nonchalant than Horace Whitestick. The essence of sophistication.
She said, “I don’t mean that kind of love. My love for you is neither physical nor romantic. It’s the kind of love that all the people have for you. I love your sensitivity, your superior intelligence, your wit, your zest for life, your daring, your—”
He was so high and happy he could have shouted aloud for all the world to hear. He was afraid to feel so joyful. Was it a bad omen? He muffled his voice. He said, “Oh shut up your blasted babbling.” And took her deeper into his arms and kissed her on her pliant lips profoundly, and he thought hopefully that she kissed him back, profoundly. The entire affair was shocking, to say the very very least.
* * *
Later, back at the Waldorf, with the world locked out of their lives, they all relived the party, reveling in its grandeur and audacity.
“You were magnificent, Your Excellency,” His Wife’s Bottom told him ecstatically. HWB was beginning to believe that Jimmy Jay really was His Excellency the Prime Minister of Guanaya.
“You were out of sight!” Barra Abingiba slapped his palm.
Even Foreign Minister Tangi grudgingly conceded, “You were indeed magnificent, Jimmy, although there were a few anxious moments. Nevertheless, you were great. I’d say you were actually profound.”
Maria Efwa smiled happily up into his face, as she bounced a glass of wine up against his glass of vodka and tonic. She was in a strange and dangerous mood, and he picked up the strong bizarre vibrations. She said, “They all loved you madly, and I love you madly too.”
He laughed nervously. “Which leaves me speechless and in an awesome state of trepidation.” Jimmy Jay was serious.
They drank far into the evening, toasting this, that, and the other, especially themselves. Until Mamadou Tangi said, “Well, I think we’ve done enough tippling, for now. We have a rather heavy schedule for tomorrow. And you, Sire, and Her Excellency have your speech to prepare for the United Nations General Assembly.”
“You are absolutely right, Your Esteemed Excellency,” Jimmy Jay responded, jestingly. And bowed flamboyantly and took Maria Efwa by the hand and guided her down the corridor to her bedroom, after she had bid them all goodnight. Now they stood at her bedroom door as she fumbled in her pocketbook for her key. The vibes here now were devastating, overwhelming. She found the key and reached it to him, her slender hand atremble, a gesture so unlike this very very independent woman. “Kind Sir.” She curtseyed. His hand trembled as he took the key.
“Perhaps, for a brief moment, a cup of tea or coffee before we say goodnight? I mean, to unwind ourselves?” she suggested. They were in her bedroom now.
Jimmy Jay said, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” Then he said gruffly, in a trembly voice, “We’re making it very difficult for ourselves.”
Unexpectedly she said, “Yes! Yes! Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy Jay! How I do love to say that name!”
He took her into his arms and his mouth sought her mouth feverishly, when suddenly she froze, her entire body going rigid, even as she shivered. It was as if he made love to a mannikin in Macy’s window on a wintry evening. He thought, at first, he’d apologize and beat a swift retreat. He was that awesomely respectful of her. But his wanting for her was too strong and swept away before it all manner of resistance. He kissed her cheeks, her nose, her chin, her eyes. He sought desperately her lips again. But at first she kept her even alabaster teeth fiercely clenched, then slowly she opened her ample rich curvaceous mouth to receive the almost violent thrusting of his eager tongue, as her own tongue withdrew from the conflict, darting from side to side in an attitude of unrelenting self-defense. But too late were her defenses, and finally her inexperienced tongue reached out to be caressed by his. It was like an Indian wrestling match, in which neither wished to be the winner, or both, perhaps, it didn’t matter. He felt his hardness growing, pulsating up against the throbbing middle of her. He was ashamed of himself. Actually. Truthfully. Abashed with guilt was Jimmy Jay, as if he took advantage of an innocent and nubile maiden.
She shouted softly, “Please, Jimmy. Jimmy! Jimmy! I cannot handle this. I am a faithful married woman. Please leave me now or I shall scream for help. I mean it!”
It was all as if she’d said, “Undress me, Jimmy! Please undress me!” As he fumbled at the buttons in the back of her dress. She beat both fists against his palpitating chest and shoulders.
“Damn you, Jimmy! Damn you!” It was the sweetest strangest case of déjà vu he had ever in his life experienced. He somehow knew all along she would say, “Damn you, Jimmy! Damn you!” Then finally she would unloose the collar of his boubou, and that they would undress each other. Ultimately, they would stand facing one another, and her loveliness and majesty would take his breath away. She was a work of art, a breathing piece of African sculpture, of ebony come alive and glowing.
He looked away and stared at her in full-length profile in a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Her long sl
ender roundish legs, her shapely buttocks reaching high up on her back and beamingly curvaceous, so slimly roundly and divinely formed, and as tight and tender-looking as a brand-new baby’s backside. Her rounded fulsome glowing ebony breasts with red burgundish undertones and overtones, so sweetly and blackthornly nippled. And all that formidable intelligence housed in such devastatingly stunning architecture. Maria Efwa was an incredible creation. He thought the African Gods must have looked upon her and smiled and said, “That’s good!” That is damn near perfection.
Somehow, he knew he would take her up in his happy arms and lay her, trembling, down beneath the sheets. He knew the bed would be four-poster. She was naked in his arms now, as he had known and even dreamed of, and he’d known that it would be as if he’d never made love before. A rookie and an amateur. All else had been screwing, fucking, fornicating, but this was making love, a holy thing of inspiration. It would inspire in him an articulateness that he never knew existed. As if his tongue had been divinely lubricated. It was as if the African princess-goddess inspired him clear out of his element. Between her legs she twitched and throbbed. It had never been like this before. Her toes were tingling. She was tightly wet between her thighs, as she felt a sweet and undeniable love potion pouring magically from the middle of her. Her body glowing with excitement, which she fought against, in vain, even now at this final moment. Cool, slim, aloof; it was as if she had waited since remembered time for him to light her candle. To pour fuel into her lonely lamp. Stirring the hot flames of her sleeping passion.
Penetrating her was deliciously difficult. At each thrust, back and forth, like he was out of his mind, he began to murmur, as if he were suddenly possessed with tongues, religiously Jujued was Jimmy Jay. Again, he felt he was on automatic pilot now, as the words poured forth from him effortlessly. “Dear African princess, you are the River Nile, in its passionate and compassionate journey from Lake Victoria down north past Khartoum past the ruins of ancient Thebes past Cairo all the way to the Mediterranean. You are the Niger making its way back from deep in the delta at Bonny on the Gulf of Guinea past the mangroves making its torturous way back up past Onitsha past Bamako and Segu all the way to the nearby south of Timbuktu and beyond. You are the loveless Transvaal of South Africa. You are the subtle sleepy Congo. Your deep dark sultry eyes have known the loneliness of the Bedouin in his desert tent. Your sloe-shaped soulful brilliant eyes have laughed, your lovely eyes have cried. You are the majesty of Mount Kenya. You are the chill of early desert mornings. You are the heat of midday Timbuktu. You are Africa incarnate, and I love you as I have never loved another. I love your physical you, your spiritual and your intellectual you. Nor is it possible that any human being could ever know a greater or a profounder love.”
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