The Big Familiar Stranger led him down seemingly unending stairs and then through an endless maze of corridors. He thought a couple of times of running down one of them for his worthless life. But he had not gotten over the illusion and the aura of His Excellency’s Prime Ministershipness. And he deemed it definitely undignified for an African Prime Minister to be running down corridors. Besides, the brother had a gun in his holster. Would a brother shoot another brother in the back? He preferred not to be empirical at this moment in his swiftly fading youth. This was not the moment for experimentation, he decided. Finally, they entered a room just as the real Jaja was speaking with a righteous indignation.
“Is this some sort of an example of the so-called American sense of humor? Is this supposed to be a joke?”
“Well here he is,” Familiar Face stated, importantly.
The sloppily constructed cabbie stared wide-eyed at Jimmy Jay and then at Jaja and said, “Wait a minute.”
Great Brainstorm demanded, “What do you mean, wait a minute?” Then he looked from Jaja to Jimmy Jay and back again, and he repeated, “Wait a minute!”
The flabby cabbie said, “This here’s the guy what I was talking about.” He indicated Jimmy Jay. “Not the udder guy.” Then he said, “I dunno who is who or which is which.”
Jimmy Jay’s departed mother’s favorite son had gotten it together by this time. “Your Excellency, you are deserving of an apology from this dastardly ruffian, whoever he is.”
Great Brainstorm said, excitedly. “You know who this bastardly ruffian is. I is, I mean, I am Carson of the Secret Service.”
“Sir, I have no idea who you are. Perhaps some crazed crackpot, more than likely.”
The frightened flabby cabbie said, “Crazed crackpot?” He turned to Carson. “You mean you ain’t who you claimed you was? You mean you been imposting me?”
Jimmy Jay laid it on with a heavy trowel. “Sir, whoever you are, you are perpetrating an international scandal that will be an embarrassment to our great government and its wonderful President. If His gracious Excellency is willing at this late moment to accept your apology, you should consider yourself a lucky individual and be eternally thankful to His most esteemed Excellency.”
Even crafty Carlton Carson, of the famous brainstorms, saw the wisdom of Jimmy Jay’s remarks. He could still hear the last orders the President had given him. “The fuh-fucking security of His fuh-fuh-fucking Excellency is your only fucking responsibility.” Before he knew what was happening, he found himself on his knees pleading His Excellency’s forgiveness. “I apologize to Your fuh-fuh-fucking Excellency from the bottom of my fuh-fuh-fucking heart.” Obviously, the President’s fuh-fuh-fucking fucking was contagious.
The sloppily constructed cabbie said, “Does this mean no TV for me, after you promised me, and after I told my fu-fucking wife and all my fuh-fucking friends to keep it a fucking secret?”
Jaja said, magnanimously. “In that case, old chap, I imagine we can forget about the entire matter.”
“Thank you very very very much, Sir, from the bottom of my humble fuh-fuh-fucking heart.” Carson kissed the PM’s hand, quite slobberly. Meanwhile the flabby cabbie was pulling at the jacket of the repentant Great Brainstorm. Carson turned to the excited and disappointed cabbie. “Will you get the hell out of my fuh-fuh-fucking sight?”
Jimmy Jay had already split the scene unnoticed, after a wink from the big fellow of the famed Familiar Face, just as he connected the familiar face with one of the members of the Black Alliance who had made the trip to ’Sippi with him. He made his way back to the gallery.
* * *
Jimmy Jay felt funny (peculiar) completely out of sync seated up in the gallery of the UN Assembly. The place was jam-packed with people. The entire hall was taut with tension, expectation, apprehension. Thousands were outside the building in United Nations Plaza, formerly First Avenue. Picket lines. Demonstrations. New York’s Finest all along the avenue interspersed with the thronging people. Plainclothespersons, FBIs, CIAs, SS persons. Picket signs that read:
COBANIUM FOR PEACE, NOT WAR
FOR CONSTRUCTION, NOT DESTRUCTION
Also signs that read:
BLACKIES, GO HOME!
CLOSE DOWN THE DAMNABLE UNITED NATIONS!
GET THEM UN COMMIES OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!
Jimmy felt acutely now he should be down there with the delegation. He should be there with Maria Efwa. It would take him much longer to get used to the idea that he was no longer center stage. He was a spectator, no longer an actor or an activist. And Maria Efwa was lost to him forever.
When the crowd saw that the Prime Minister and his delegation were arriving onstage, the folks stood up, as if by signal and started shouting:
“LONG LIVE JAJA!”
“LONG LIVE JAJA!”
Which conduct was unheard of in the UN and certainly was not to be condoned or tolerated. Uniformed guards ran from place to place trying vainly to quiet the crowd. It was an impossible chore. This continued for more than fifteen minutes. Downstairs at the entrance to the Assembly you had to go past a security apparatus like out at the airport. They apparently thought somebody would try to highjack the United Nations, Jimmy Jay thought amusingly.
When relative order had been restored, the language interpreters at their stations, electronic equipment adjusted, the secretary of the General Assembly, in a softened voice, quietly introduced His Excellency Jaja Okwu Olivamaki, Prime Minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya. And the disorder began all over again.
“LONG LIVE JAJA! LONG LIVE JAJA!”
Ten or fifteen more minutes of cheering and applauding with the real Jaja standing at the podium in front of the microphone clapping his own hands, applauding the beautiful audience, reciprocatingly.
Someone from the gallery yelled, “Sing RAISE THE RUCKUS TONIGHT!” The audience laughed and applauded. Someone else yelled, “Sing WE SHALL OVERCOME!”
He shook his head. He started to tell them, “I can’t sing. I’m not a singer.” But then he remembered Jimmy Jay, a man of various and varied accomplishments. A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS.
A distinctly Dixified voice shouted, “Sing ALL THE DARKIES AMA WEEPING.” And a fight broke out up in the gallery with shouts of “Hunkie motherfucka!”
When bedlam was frustrated or quiet was restored, whichever, His Excellency began to speak. He was a little shaken by the previous occurrences backstage. But now the descending and respectful quietude, and His Excellency began to speak in a clear and resonant voice, combining the sounds of Africa with Harlem Town and jolly London.
“Sisters and brothers. I address you as sisters and brothers, because I believe in the sisterhood and brotherhood of humankind throughout the entire universe. It is in this sense that I speak to all the people on this earth, and bring you greetings from the people of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya, and pledge to you that the natural resources of the little country I serve will be used only and entirely for peace and prosperity and the pursuit of happiness for all the peoples of this earth.”
There was a smattering of scattered and restrained applause, as the Prime Minister continued.
“Every nation in Africa stands at the crossroads of history at this very moment and must answer the burning question for themselves. How can we as nations make use of the revolutionary technology of the West, and still maintain our African humaneness, our system of values, which has always been revolutionary, a process always in becoming, developing, evolving.
“So that even as we associated ourselves unreservedly with the dreams of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and Mister Malcolm X and Medgar Evers and Robeson and Du Bois and Jesse Jackson, the dream they all shared with each other for an America in which freedom is in the very air we breathe, even as we share the revolutionary dream of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah for a United States of Africa, we must deal seriously with the question of Western technology vis-à-vis our innate and revolutionary Afr
ican humanity.”
All during this part of his speech his audience was in a quandary. There was a gradual building of murmuring applause. Muted shouts of “Like it is!” and “Amen” and “Right on.” The people wanted to applaud him at the end of every other word or sentence. At the same time, they did not want to miss one iota of the full impact of the words he spoke. They had waited for the words so very long. It was somewhat like the days of Jesse Jackson. Even more so.
Now his voice softened, and one could hear the quiet and dramatic tension in it. “We have considered very carefully, and sometimes even painfully, and heatedly, the genuinely generous offer from the United States government of invaluable technical assistance, and after much agonizing and soul-searching, debating almost violently the pros and cons, the answers did not come easily. Momentous decisions that shape world history never come easily.
“On the one hand, there was a serious and convincing argument for accepting from the United States government such a generous offer of partnership to extract the cobanium ore from the earth of the Northern Province as expeditiously as possible. On the other hand, there were those in our cabinet that argued persuasively against such a partnership for fear that we might gain the world’s great wealth and riches and lose our African soul. Somehow the offer of Guanayan citizenship to all Black people on this earth got into the heated dialogue and was earnestly discussed.” He could hear the awesome murmuring quiet now, a quiet that was tangible. “We will deal with this question when we get back home. We will call a national referendum and a plebiscite on the question. And back to the question at hand, i.e., the cobanium in the Northern Province, we have decided that, with all due respect to the United States of America and its magnanimous President, nevertheless we have reached the decision to rely on our own Guanayan technicians to extract the cobanium out of the Northern Province at our own rate of speed, as we listen to the beat of our own indigenous drums and drummers.”
The impact of the PM’s words cast a tomb-like silence on the entire Assembly. Then gradually the growing understanding kept pace with a growing crescendo of agreement and a thunderous applause. Whistling, stomping, standing, wildest cheering, men and women embracing, hugging, kissing one another, weeping for joy, shaking each other’s hands, high fives, low fives, slapping palms. What was the matter with these crazy African Americans? What happened to their patriotism?
“LONG LIVE JAJA! LONG LIVE GUANAYA!”
“LONG LIVE JAJA! LONG LIVE GUANAYA!”
At which point our patriotic hero, proud protector of the North American Republic, who had just experienced another sudden and divine revelation (like Saint Joan of the famous Arc, he had seen a vision like Moses when his stick became a snake or was it the other way around?), a brainstorm which exploded in his so-called brain like a stick of nitroglycerin, charged upon the stage screaming, “This man is an imposter! This man is an imposter!” Followed by the flabby cabbie demanding, “What about me? What about me? Am I gonna be on television? I got my rights in this here mess.”
Brainstormed Carson seized the mic still shouting that His Excellency was an imposter. His brainstorm had suddenly convinced him that, since he had never seen the PM without a beard, and the so-called PM at the UN podium wore a beard, then obviously he had to be the real PM pretending to be James Jay Hot Shooter Johnson, of Lolliloppi, near-the-Gulf, since naturally the beard he wore had to be phony, or else how could he be the real PM pretending to be Jimmy Jay from Lolliloppi? It was plain to Brainstormed Carson as the bageled nose on his friendly face, since Jimmy Jay could not possibly be His Excellency. It made a helluva lot of sense if your name was Carlton (Secret Service) Carson. It made no sense at all if your name was something else. It made no difference anyhow. When a brainstorm struck our man, he acted. His so-called brain was programmed that way. He reached for His Excellency’s elegant beard, with the firm conviction that if he tugged at it even gently, it would come off, or at the very least become in obvious disarray. Jaja pushed our patriot firmly away from him, which made Carlton Carson surer than ever that international hanky-panky was afoot. Ultimately, he seized hold of Jaja’s beard again, convinced religiously of the glorious rightness of his cause. He tugged away, but nothing happened. Our born-again Christian patriot pulled harder with no better results. Suddenly another brainstorm struck him, as if a flash of lightning came in sharp contact with a second streak of lightning, which caused a growing and frightening suspicion in Brainstorm Carson’s befuddled and enfeebled mind that the PM’s beard would not be disconnected from his chin without the aid of shears or shaving equipment. No matter, Carlton Carson persevered. Now he was fumbling around in the PM’s beard, understanding by now, reluctantly, that the hair of the beard was more or less permanently attached to His Excellency’s formidable chin. Brainstorm Carson panicked. More than that, his mind flipped out and went along its merry way. He began to jump around and giggle.
“Just a little joke, he-he-he, Your Excellency, he-he-he, sir. A little example of the great American sense of humor.” Giggle giggle he-he-he—
The dignified Prime Minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya pushed the SS patriot away from him forcibly. “Are you out of your mind? Have you completely lost track of your senses?”
* * *
The President had just rushed in out of breath from a top-level meeting into the presidential TV room when Carson had charged upon the stage. He could not believe what his eyes beheld on the wide screen at the White House. Neither could the audience at the General Assembly, where bedlam again had been set in motion. He reached for his direct line to the UN. “This is the President speaking. Get Carlton Carson out of there. What? The fucking President of the fucking USA. Get that fool out of there on the fucking double!”
Meanwhile the Guanayan SS persons had sprung into motion. Almost simultaneously, so did the SS of the USA. To make a long story short or the other way around, it was a proper mess. Hell and bedlam breaking loose as if they were in collusion. Screaming people swarming from all over toward the center of disturbance, the great eye of the hurricane. From the gallery, from the mezzanine, from especially all over. They leaped from mezzanine to mezzanine, from one floor to another. The Guanayan security persons pulling Brainstorm Carson leftward, the SS of the US pulling him to the right. A riot at the United Nations! Shades of Lumumba and Adlai Stevenson. Not since the murder of Patrice had there been such an uproar at this august body. Even so, the Lumumba incident was subdued, by comparison.
* * *
When the smoke cleared and the storm abated, our Secret Service hero had been secreted away, some say, to live out the rest of his faithful patriotic life under the bountiful aegis of Saint Elizabeth of the DC. Some say he was on a funny farm that wasn’t very funny. The President went on a worldwide hookup and apologized to His Excellency and to the people of Guanaya and to the nations of the world. The Assembly was adjourned, to give them adequate time to get themselves together, to renovate the quarters, which seemed to have been victimized by a typhoon in collusion with a tornado. Members of the UN insisted that His Excellency be invited to speak to the opening session of the next Assembly.
Demonstrations against American embassies broke out all over the world.
* * *
About 1:30 a.m., two nights later, a heavily secured back-and-front caravan moved through the city to John F. Kennedy Airport. In one of the long black limousines (one in which things were visible from the inside but invisible from the outside) near the middle of the convoy were Her Excellency Maria Efwa and the erstwhile bogus Prime Minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya.
There was a sense of urgency in her usually calm voice. “You’re going with us. You simply must go with us. We need you. Africa needs you. I need you. If you’re not going, neither am I.” There was a note of hysteria in her voice he had never heard before, nor could he have imagined it.
Trying to envision a world without her almost brought h
im to the brimming brink of tears. He fought hard to keep the tremor from his voice. “I’ve been in love with you ever since those first days you spent at my bedside in the hospital back in Bamakanougou, which is where it all began, even before.” He made himself smile. “The first time ever I saw your face, in the words of the great one, Roberta Flack. I was mesmerized. I thought you were a Juju priestess working her magic. A magic I was helpless to resist.”
She said excitedly, “You and I co-chairpersons of the ministry. How beautiful it would be—how wonderfully we could work together!”
He said firmly, flatly, “It could never work. Sure, they love me back in the old country, but how about the Great Africanization Program? How could my appointment to the ministry be justified? Of course, I am an African, but I’m an African with the stigma and taint of four hundred years of Americanization. I’m an African American whether I want to be or not. You cannot live in a ruthless jungle for four hundred years without being infected by some aspects of jungle fever. And what about your legendary husband? Your commitment to him and to your country? You belong to Africa. It’s so much greater than just you and me. You know that better than I do.”
Maria was not accustomed to pleading. “Come with us, darling. We could figure something out. Something for you and also for our country. You could make a contribution.”
The big Guanayan jumbo jet stood there in a private isolated section of the airport silhouetted glowingly like silver in the moonlit darkness. Slim and streamlined like a giant metallic suppository. The door to the limo opened. Maria Efwa stepped out of the car with those long slimly rounded dignified legs of hers. She turned back to him and said in a husky unfamiliar voice, “Of course. You didn’t really think I had forgotten my commitment to my country, did you? And my husband?” She made herself smile at him, mischievously. It was a face-saving gesture, as he understood it. She was on the verge of tears. “I was merely testing you, to see how profoundly you actually understood the meaning of unselfish. I—” Her voice choked off. She bent toward him and kissed him quickly on his lips, her tear-stained eyes spilled gently now upon his cheek; her wide sloe-shaped eyes, narrowing now, seemed at half mast.
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