A true sport, the Mayor of New Orleans, spiffy in his patent-leather brown and white shoes, his plaid suit, the Rudolph Valentino parted-down-the-middle hair style, sits in his office. Sprawled upon his knees is Zuzu, local doo-wack-a-doo and voo-do-dee-odo fizgig. A slatternly floozy, her green, sequined dress quivers.
Work has kept Your Honor late.
The Mayor passes the flask of bootlegged gin to Zuzu. She takes a sip and continues to spread sprawl and behave skittishly. Loose. She is inhaling from a Chesterfield cigarette in a shameless brazen fashion.
The telephone rings.
The Mayor removes his hand and picks up the receiver; he recognizes at once the voice of his poker pardner on the phone.
Harry, you’d better get down here quick. What was once dormant is now a Creeping Thing.
The Mayor stands up and Zuzu lands on the floor. Her posture reveals a small flask stuck in her garter as well as some healthily endowed gams.
What’s wrong, Harry?
I gots to git down to the infirmary, Zuzu, something awful is happening, the Thing has stirred in its moorings. The Thing that my Grandfather Harry and his generation of Harrys had thought was nothing but a false alarm.
The Mayor, dragging the woman by the fox skins hanging from her neck, leaves city hall and jumps into his Stutz Bearcat parked at the curb. They drive until they reach St. Louis Cathedral where 19th-century HooDoo Queen Marie Laveau was a frequent worshiper; its location was about 10 blocks from Place Congo. They walk up the steps and the door’s Judas Eye swings open.
Joe Sent Me.
What’s going on, hon? Is this a speakeasy? Zuzu inquires in her cutesy-poo drawl.
The door opens to a main room of the church which has been converted into an infirmary. About 22 people lie on carts. Doctors are rushing back and forth; they wear surgeon’s masks and white coats. Doors open and shut.
1 man approaches the Mayor who is walking from bed to bed examining the sleeping occupants, including the priest of the parish.
What’s the situation report, doc? the Mayor asks.
We have 22 of them. The only thing that seems to anesthetize them is sleep.
When did it start?
This morning. We got reports from down here that people were doing “stupid sensual things,” were in a state of “uncontrollable frenzy,” were wriggling like fish, doing something called the “Eagle Rock” and the “Sassy Bump”; were cutting a mean “Mooche,” and “lusting after relevance.” We decoded this coon mumbo jumbo. We knew that something was Jes Grewing just like the 1890s flair-up. We thought that the local infestation area was Place Congo so we put our antipathetic substances to work on it, to try to drive it out; but it started to play hide and seek with us, a case occurring in 1 neighborhood and picking up in another. It began to leapfrog all about us.
But can’t you put it under 1 of them microscopes? Lock it in? Can’t you protective-reaction the dad-blamed thing? Look I got an election coming up—
To blazes with your election, man! Don’t you understand, if this Jes Grew becomes pandemic it will mean the end of Civilization As We Know It?
That serious?
Yes. You see, it’s not 1 of those germs that break bleed suck gnaw or devour. It’s nothing we can bring into focus or categorize; once we call it 1 thing it forms into something else.
No man. This is a psychic epidemic, not a lesser germ like typhoid yellow fever or syphilis. We can handle those. This belongs under some ancient Demonic Theory of Disease.
Well, what about the priest?
We tried him but it seized him too. He was shouting and carrying on like any old coon wench with a bass drum.
What about the patients, did you ask any of them about how they knew it?
Yes, 1, Harry. When we thought it was physical we examined his output, and drinking water to determine if we could find some normal germ. We asked him questions, like what he had seen.
What did he see?
He said he saw Nkulu Kulu of the Zulu, a locomotive with a red green and black python entwined in its face, Johnny Canoeing up the tracks.
Well Clem, how about his feelings? How did he feel? He said he felt like the gut heart and lungs of Africa’s interior. He said he felt like the Kongo: “Land of the Panther.” He said he felt like “deserting his master,” as the Kongo is “prone to do.” He said he felt he could dance on a dime.•
Excerpted from Mumbo Jumbo, by Ishmael Reed. Published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. © 1996 Ishmael Reed. All rights reserved.
Join us on April 17 at 5 p.m. Pacific time, when Reed will sit down with CBC host John Freeman and special guest Justin Desmangles to discuss Mumbo Jumbo. Register for the Zoom conversation here.
