these days, using some very expensive imported soaps, embroidered towels, and she has taken a fancy to buying cakes even though she never before possessed a sweet tooth. She glances at the sign above the marble sink.
REMEMBER TO FEED THE LOAS
O, that reminds her. She hasn’t replenished the loa’s tray #21. On a long table in the Mango Room are 22 trays which were built as a tribute to the Haitian loas that LaBas claimed was an influence on his version of The Work. This was 1 of LaBas’ quirks. He still clung to some of the ways of the old school. Berbelang had laughed at him 1 night for feeding a loa. This had been 1 of the reasons for their break. Of course she didn’t comprehend their esoteric discussions. PaPa LaBas hadn’t required that the technicians learn The Work. The drummers, too, were clinical; their job was that of sidemen to PaPa LaBas’ majordomo. They didn’t know PaPa LaBas’ techniques and therapy. Didn’t have to know it. As long as they knew the score LaBas wasn’t interested in proselytizing. But feeding, she thought, was merely 1 of his minor precautions. It seemed such a small thing. She would attend to it tomorrow or the next day.
I’ll be with you in a moment, she shouts through the door to LaBas.
We have plenty of time, no rush, PaPa LaBas answers her. He is inspecting the trays. He stops at the 12th tray, then returns to join Earline who is ready to go.
The pair moves down the steps. Outside T Malice is talking to a young woman who has her hands clasped behind her back and is swaying coquettishly. When he sees PaPa and Earline he pulls down the brim of his chauffeur’s cap and looks straight ahead. They tease him and of course being a good sport he can take it.
* B. Fuller terms this phenomenon “ultra ultra high frequency electromagnetic wave propagation.”
11
E VERY TIME WOODROW WILSON Jefferson chases the dogs, chickens, hogs and sheep, the animals recoup and follow him. W.W. turns on his pursuers.
Go on now. Heah. Go on before I chucks you good with a stick. I told you to go on back to the farm before daddy comes back from the deacons’ council and finds you gone, Woodrow Wilson Jefferson threatens his 4-footed friends. His head resembles that of a crocodile wearing granny glasses.
Woodrow Wilson Jefferson has decided to quit the farm and hit the Big City. He is ready. His grandfather had accompanied his slavemaster to New York in the 1850s and had returned with articles and editorials written by 2 gentlemen: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The old issues of the New-York Tribune edited by Horace Greeley had been in the attic all these years. He liked the style. Objective, scientific, the use of the collective We, Our. Therefore there were no illusions and unforeseen events like these country folks in Rē’-mōte Mississippi, believing in haints and things; and spirits and 2-headed men; mermaids and witches. He would abandon this darkness for the clearing. Make something out of himself. The local people had said that he would be a doctor or even a preacher, but what did they know, backward, lagging behind.
He feels some feathery object brush against his heel and turns again.
Now get out of here, damnit. Where’s my stick?
Jefferson goes over to a bush to make a switch. He commences to cut off a branch and whittles the stick so it would leave welts and draw blood. The animals get the message and begin to scamper toward the farmhouse, on the hill, in the background.
He continues on down the road apiece until he reaches the train depot. His bag is stuffed with the newspaper articles (487 to be exact. Wilson didn’t always understand the issues but he certainly appreciated the style). When he reaches the train depot, he comes upon 2 men sitting on the station’s porch, playing checkers. Behind them were ads for Doctor Pepper, hex signs, Chesterfield Cigarettes and Bull Durham tobacco.
Well if it ain’t Rev. Jefferson’s boy. Where you going with your hair all