Mumbo Jumbo Read Online Free

really see something. And then they will be finished.
    Earline slams the papers down on her desk.
    What’s wrong, daughter?
    There you go jabbering again. That’s why Berbelang left. Your conspiratorial hypothesis about some secret society molding the consciousness of the West. You know you don’t have any empirical evidence for it that; you can’t prove…
    Evidence? Woman, I dream about it, I feel it, I use my 2 heads. My Knockings. * Don’t you children have your Knockings, or have you New Negroes lost your other senses, the senses we came over here with? Why your Knockings are so accurate they can chart the course of a hammerhead shark in an ocean 1000s of miles away. Daughter, standing here, I can open the basket of a cobra in an Indian marketplace and charm the animal to sleep. What’s wrong with you, have you forgotten your Knockings? Why, when the seasons change on Mars, I sympathize with them.
    O pop, that’s ridiculous. Xenophobic. Why must you mix poetry with concrete events? This is a new day, pop. We need scientists and engineers, we need lawyers.
    All that’s all right, what you speak of, but that ain’t all. There’s more. And I’ll bet that before this century is out men will turn once more to mystery, to wonderment; they will explore the vast reaches of space within instead of more measuring more “progress” more of this and more of that. More Increase, Growth Inflation, and they don’t know what to do when Jes Grew comes along like the Dow Jones snake and rises quicker than the G.N.P.; these scientists, there’s a lot they don’t know. And as for secret societies? The Communist party originated among some German workers in Paris. They called themselves the Workers Outlaw League. Marx came along and removed what was called the ritualistic paraphernalia so that the masses could participate instead of the few. Daughter, the man down on 125th St. and Lenox Ave. on the stand speaking might be mouthing ideas which arose at a cocktail party or from a transcontinental telephone call or—
    Earline puts her head on the desk and begins to sob. PaPa LaBas comforts her.
    O there I go, getting you upset…
    She confesses to him. O it isn’t you, pop, it isn’t you, it’s…
    Berbelang?
    O pop, he thinks you’re a failure, he felt that you were limiting your techniques. He thought you should have added Inca, Taoism and other systems. He felt that you were becoming all wrapped up in Jes Grew and that it’s a passing fad. He isn’t the old Berbelang, pop; his eyes are red. He seems to have a missionary zeal about whatever he’s mixed up in. I get so lonely, I would like to go out; tonight for instance. I’m invited to a Chitterling Switch.
    A Chitterling Switch? What’s that, Earline?
    She shows him the card.

    We’re attempting to raise money for anti-lynching legislation; James Weldon Johnson is supposed to speak… It’s like a Rent Party, you know?
    You and T use so much slang these days I can hardly communicate with you, but your Chitterling Switch sounds interesting. Do you mind if an old man comes along?
    O pop, 50 is not old these days.
    You flatter me; just wait until I lock the office.
    And I must change, pop. I’ll be right with you.
    PaPa LaBas glances into another office toward the main room of Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral.
    Where’s Charlotte?
    Earline has entered the ladies room.
    You know pop, she’s been acting strangely these days. She’s listless and cross. She had an argument with a client this morning and began to swear at him in French; isn’t that a sign?
    He pauses for a moment.
    I must speak to her. Perhaps she’s upset about Berbelang leaving as he did. You know, they were fond of each other. My activist side really charms the women; I suppose this is how he was able to woo such a beautiful thing as yourself.
    O cut it out, pop!
    Earline looks at her features in the mirror. Something has come over her. She finds it necessary to go through the most elaborate toilet ritual