Pastor Needs a Boo (39 page)

Got it,
Marcus texted, and went and found the music Mr. Arvelle had given him for his dance with Miss Roberta. He could not believe that frisky old man had selected “Smokestack Lightnin'” by Howlin' Wolf for his dance.

 

Chapter Twenty-nine

Mr. Arvelle whirled his Hoveround out to the middle of the gym floor. He couldn't believe they let him and Roberta set this thing off. Roberta stood by the Hoveround with her hand on the back of Mr. Arvelle's chair, full of herself and Mr. Arvelle. She believed they were the best-dressed couple—especially since their outfits matched Mr. Arvelle's Hoveround.

Roberta was wearing a black leather miniskirt, black lace tights, flat black suede boots that came up to her calves, a black leather jacket, and a gold satin tank top. Mr. Arvelle was dressed in black leather jeans, a black leather jacket, a gold satin shirt, and black gators. He was also wearing a gold chain with a medallion hanging off it and a black leather Kangol hat.

“Bro man looks like Johnny ‘Guitar' Watson's little cousin,” Charles whispered to Denzelle.

“You wrong, Frat,” Denzelle said, and then asked. “Who told Miss Roberta she was sexy enough to rock a miniskirt?”

“Mr. Arvelle,” Marsha answered. “She has some very pretty legs for a woman her age.”

Denzelle gave Miss Roberta's legs a once over. Marsha was right. Old girl had some sexy legs.

“Shhhh,” Veronica said. “They are getting ready to dance.”

As soon as the first
bem-dem … duh-du-de-duhm … duh-de-duhm
chords of Howlin' Wolf's “Smokestack Lightnin'” blasted out over the system, some of the old heads got up out of their seats and started getting in the groove of the song.

“This has to be the ultimate, old-playah theme song, if I ever heard one,” Denzelle whispered to Obadiah, who, with his wife, had come to stand with his best friend to witness this.

“I heard that,” was all Obadiah could say.

“Shhssh, Obie,” his wife, Lena, said. “It's getting ready to get good.”

The song busted out into those classic lyrics, “Ahhh ohhh, smokestack lightnin'/shinin' just like gold.” And then the best part of the song came on, “whu … ooooh.… hooo … whu … ooooh … hooo…”

“Whew,” Keisha said, fanning herself. “I love myself some rap and hip-hop. But I declare, the late, great Howlin' Wolf is working that thang.”

“I think he would have called it ‘wurhkin','” Marsha said, with a soft laugh laying low in her voice.

Denzelle looked down at Marsha. He liked that sound coming from her. It was the kind of laugh that would make a brother kiss all down her neck just for the privilege of hearing that laugh.

“Y'all are missing this dance,” Lena Quincy said, her expert eyes not missing a thing about the unspoken exchange going on between them. Denzelle was in love with Marsha and not ready to admit it.

Mr. Arvelle had his hands on the control button on the Hoveround. He was moving it back and forth to the beat of the song. Miss Roberta was dancing all up on the chair like she was on the stage of a strip club. When the song got to the part that said, “ahh … wuhhh … ohhh … /stop yo' train and let ahh po' boy ride,” Miss Roberta put her back on the side of the chair and shimmied on down to the ground.

“Wurhkk it, guhl … wurhkk it. Show Big Daddy what you wurhkin' whit,” Mr. Arvelle called out from his chair, right before he pulled a harmonica out of the breast pocket of his leather jacket and started to play on it with the song on the CD.

Miss Roberta backed off of the chair and turned to face Mr. Arvelle. She stood before the chair holding a fancy scarf above her head with both hands. Then Miss Roberta shimmied down to the ground and stayed there a few seconds.

All of the old men in the gymnasium were up, some holding onto fancy hats, giving out catcalls to Miss Roberta's provocative, old lady dance. Somebody yelled out, “I sho' do wish you wuz my woman!”

Miss Roberta looked in the direction the voice was coming from and frowned. She had broken up with Mister Quincey over a year ago, and he was still trying to find ways to get back with her. Mister was too slow for Miss Roberta. She needed a man who could keep up with her, like Arvelle.

“Isn't that your uncle yelling down at Miss Roberta, Obie?” Denzelle asked, laughing.

Obadiah closed his eyes and said, “Lord, give me strength.” His uncle Mister was the child Obie's grandfather didn't know he had until his children with Obie's grandmother were all grown. Mister's mother, Miss Mary, had been Mr. Quincey's woman in the cut for years. Obie's grandfather had been so slick with that affair, nobody knew about it until Mr. Mister showed up at Grandpa Quincey's funeral with Miss Mary. That funeral had been so wild and crazy it could have been a reality TV show.

“Obie,” Marsha said, “what is Mister's first name?”

“Mister.”

“No, his first name,” she asked him again.

“Mister.”

“Mr. what?”

“Mr. Mister, Marsha,” Obie said. He hated his uncle's name. What kind of fool gave their child a title for a first name?

“And his name is Mister because?” Keisha asked.

“Because his crazy mama wanted to make sure white folk couldn't get out of calling her son Mister,” Obie told them.

“Roberta, Baby. Why come you dancing like that for him? Why come, Baby? I want you to dance like that for me,” Mister shouted out again. He knew Roberta was trying to act like she didn't hear him. But Mr. Mister Quincey wasn't having any of that. Arvelle had stolen his woman from him, and that joker was going to pay.

“Shut up, Mister!” Roberta hollered out. Miss Roberta was standing in the middle of that gymnasium floor looking like she should have been standing down on the steps of a liquor house, waiting for her man to come outside after she caught him up in there drinking with his other woman.

Mister was too through, and he was not going to let Roberta front him like that in front of all of these people. He should have been on that dance floor with Roberta, not Arvelle, who had to do the dance in a Hoveround.

Mr. Mister started coming up to the dance floor. Mr. Arvelle swung the chair around to face off with him. Miss Roberta pulled some hot pink lipstick out of her skirt pocket, put some on real quick, and posed next to the Hoveround.

Denzelle was about to go out on the dance floor and tell those old playahs, and that geriatric hoochie they were fighting over, to act like they had some daggone sense and get off the floor so that the real competition could take place. Miss Roberta and Mr. Arvelle were not even doing any of the dances that were on the list for the competitors.

He started walking forward when Charles put a hand on his shoulder and said, “You are going to have to let this play out, Frat. You stop this, and folk are going to get up and leave.”

“But this is a church function,” Denzelle began.

“That it is,” Charles told him. “But when has the Gospel United Church ever had an event for a campaign for bishop and something crazy didn't jump off? Does ‘WP21' mean anything to you, Denzelle?”

“I hope nobody gets cut out there,” Marsha said. “'Cause all three of them look like they are carrying a switchblade. You know, that kind with the fancy mother-of-pearl handle.”

“Nahh, those two old men are carrying a straight razor,” Keisha said.

“I can't wait for this to start up,” Pierre whispered to Bay, who slapped his palm. “This puts the G in ghetto and a capital H in Hood.”

The Howlin' Wolf song had finished playing in the midst of all of their ruckus. Marcus started the song again, so the dance could continue. As soon as the first cords of “bem-dem … duh-du-de-duhm … duh-de-duhm” and the Wolf proceeded to start singing, “Ahhh ohhh, smokestack lightning, shinin' just like gold,” the whole gymnasium started swaying and clapping and getting down with the song.

“Are we at church or the club?” Denzelle asked.

“How 'bout asking if we're at the liquor house?” Obadiah said.

Denzelle sighed, and then looked up and whispered, “Lord, please be patient with us this evening, 'cause it's all the way live up in here.”

The folk were clapping and hollering out and laughing, watching those three seventy-somethin's work that old playah song. As much as Denzelle and Obadiah hated to admit it, the beat was wurhkin' and the music was sounding good.

“You know, some of these old and funky blues songs have the same feel as some of the hot, old-school gospel songs,” Veronica said, while shaking her shoulders back and forth to the beat.

Charles couldn't take his eyes off of Veronica. He didn't know she had it like that. Charles always thought Veronica was a bit too much on the prissy side to really get down—especially on a song like “Smokestack Lightnin'.” But the way the girl was working that rhythm with her head and shoulders was making him want to find out how she worked that kind of beat with the swing of her hips.

By now Miss Roberta was walking one of those back in the day hoochie mama struts between Mr. Mister, who was standing, facing opposite of Mr. Arvelle, who was staring Mr. Mister down from his chair. Marcus, who loved all kinds of music, searched his computer for another song to kick in when this one ended. He found the perfect one—“Shake It Baby” by John Lee Hooker.

Miss Roberta heard the first set of chords of the song and hollered out, “That's my song.” She put her hands on her hips and started shaking down to the floor and back up, in perfect sync with the music's liquor house beat. She looked from man to man, shaking her shoulders back and forth, waiting for them to catch up with her dancing.

Mr. Mister started doing the cool, old-black-man dance walk. He stared at Miss Roberta real hard, pursed his lips together, and pointed at her. He then moved his shoulders up and down, and then back and forth, one shoulder at a time. Mr. Mister got to walking to the beat and moved his feet to the beat, heel to toe, one step at a time. He looked like he was doing the old playah's version of the Crip Walk.

“Gone head, Mr. Mister,” one cute old lady in an usher uniform called out from her post. She was waving her white gloved hand all around and dancing in place.

Obadiah looked up and said, “Lord, Lord, Lord. Please forgive these old people at this church.”

Not to be outdone by a man who could walk good, Mr. Arvelle reached back and got a good whiff of his oxygen. He gave Mr. Mister a stern look and maneuvered the Hoveround so that it scooted forward in the direction of where Miss Roberta was standing to the beat of the music. Then he backed the scooter up and turned it around. After that, Mr. Arvelle moved his feet off of the scooter's foot guards and started dancing in his chair like he was standing up on the dance floor. He moved his shoulders back and forth and shook his narrow hips around in that chair.

Mr. Arvelle was working it so until Miss Roberta danced back up to the chair and shimmied down to the ground. She shimmied back up and took Mr. Arvelle's hand, and started dancing with him like they were at a sock hop.

The crowd went crazy when John Lee Hooker's voice rang out, “Shake it, Baby./Shake it, Baby./Shake it, Baby./For me./For me./One time./One time./For me./Come on heah!/Come on heah!” They were up dancing and jumping around like they were on
Soul Train
or
American Bandstand
.

Denzelle would have tried to get control of the crowd if they were not having so much fun, and at church. He looked down at Marsha, who was getting it and shaking her head and hips to the beat. Mr. Mister, Mr. Arvelle, and Miss Roberta finished out the song by walking together to the beat. Folks started clapping and whistling and gave them a standing ovation.

“Okay,” Obadiah said. “Soooo, what dance were they doing? Or, to be more precise, what dance did they put on the registration form? Rumba? Jitterbug? The Bop?”

“The Hoveround?” Lena said, and started laughing.

“No, all joking aside,” Obadiah continued, “folk are ready to crown them the queen, king, and kang of the dance, and we don't even know what the heck they were out there doing?”

 

Chapter Thirty

The crowd was still up laughing and clapping several minutes after they walked off the dance floor. Keisha looked at the program and said, “Yikes.”

“Yikes,” Marsha said. “What do you mean by ‘yikes'?”

“You and Rev are next.”

“To dance?” Marsha asked, hoping in vain the answer was a flat-out no.

“Naw, to ride around the city of Raleigh in matching Hoverounds,” Keisha answered and rolled her eyes upward.

Marsha's flip-phone cell buzzed. It was Marcus.

“When are you going to get a real cell phone?” Keisha asked Marsha.

Marsha shrugged and flipped open the cell. She liked this phone and was going to keep it as long as she could.

“Mom. I can't find the music you gave me.”

“It's the Charlie Wilson song, ‘Life of the Party.'”

“It's not in my system, and the backup CD is gone,” Marcus said.

“What about YouTube? I don't think it will be that noticeable.”

“The signal isn't that good in the gym, and I don't want the song to freeze right in the middle of you and Rev dancing.”

“I thought you checked all of that before the event.”

“Mom, I did. And you know me. You know I take my DJ work seriously. Somebody tampered with it.”

Marsha sighed. This was the second time something had happened to mess with them and their performance. At first she thought it was Tatiana. But as crazy and a trip as Tatiana was, this was not in her bag of tricks. She looked around the gymnasium, searching for someone who was watching Marcus and looking amused.

Xavier Franklin was sitting in the back next to Camille, wishing he were sitting with Tatiana. He dared not try and sneak a look over at her. Camille was watching him intently, and he didn't want a scene.