Trina scooped the last piece of fish out of the deep fryer and began putting all the food on the table. She tapped on the window for Maurice and Curtis to put out those cigars, gather up the corn, and come in and eat.
“Yvonne, look down in that cabinet and get out my good paper plates.”
Yvonne smiled. Leave it to Trina to have a section in her cabinet for the “good paper plates.”
Trina opened the door so that the aroma of the food would lure Maurice and Curtis into the house. It worked. Maurice plopped the corn on a platter and the two of them came back in the house smelling like Fuente Hemingway cigars. Trina inhaled deeply when Maurice passed by her. She loved the mixture of his Cubans and Eternity for Men cologne. She picked up a paper towel and tried to convert it into a decent fan.
“Hot flashes,” Trina told Yvonne.
“Yeah … right,” was all Yvonne said.
“I do, too, have hot flashes. You know I’m going through this menopause thing.”
“You having a hot something but it ain’t got a thing to do with a flash,” Yvonne said, and took a long sip of the iced tea Trina had just put on the table.
“Go on and tell us what has you flashing heat all over the place,” Maurice said, grinning, delighted that all of this heat talk had everything to do with him. He knew that Trina always had a “flash” when she smelled his cigar intermingled with the scent of his cologne. This was definitely turning out to be a good evening. Maurice couldn’t wait for the finale after everybody went home.
“Boy, please. Nobody thinking about you” was all Trina said.
“Maurice,” Yvonne said, “when is the next game? Trina gave me the schedule but you all made some changes after it was printed up and the games aren’t posted on the website, either.”
Curtis raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that Maurice was holding on to that new schedule. He said, “Our next game is with Bouclair College.”
“Well then, that explains it all,” Trina said. “My baby hates it when y’all have to play Bouclair College.”
Maurice shook his head in exasperation at just the thought of having to deal with those thugs in basketball uniforms. Playing Bouclair College set his teeth on edge. Bouclair was next to impossible to beat. Few teams in the league managed to pull off a win against that school. Most of the players were thugs, and their head coach, Sonny Todd Kilpatrick, always managed to buy off a few referees to guarantee a win.
“We win the game or we win the fight—you choose,” Yvonne said.
“Huh?” Curtis said.
“Lawd, ha’ mercy, Curtis Parker,” she told him. “I cannot believe that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Then school me, baby. School me good,” Curtis told her with just a taste of tight lingering around the edges of his voice.
Oh no he didn’t, Yvonne thought. She said, “I know you have to know Bouclair College’s off-the-record motto. They’ve had it ever since Coach Kilpatrick took over as head coach. And they mean every word of that motto because they are nothing but a bunch of criminals dressed up in some basketball uniforms. “I don’t know how that coach gets away with so much cheating, bullying, and mess.”
“He’s won the conference title ever since becoming the head coach at Bouclair. They never won anything before he took over, and that alone gives him a lot of leverage. Plus, he’s a crook and knows how to bend the system to his will,” Maurice told them, trying not to get upset over the mere thought of that man. He’d been studying Sonny Todd Kilpatrick all during the first semester. He was determined to figure that man out and find a way to kick his little narrow Barney Fife–looking white behind. It didn’t make sense that this racist white boy had beat out several good coaching candidates—black and white—for that position at Bouclair College.
“Okay, Cuz,” Yvonne said, “I know your position on Barney Fife. But I asked Coach Parker.”
Curtis couldn’t believe that Yvonne Fountain was clowning on him like that. What does she know, he thought. She wasn’t even a real faculty member. She was listed as adjunct faculty. She spent all of her time on campus in the Department of Design mixing paint colors, painting furniture, sawing on wood, and figuring out what kind of flooring went where. What did that itty-bitty adjunct construction worker instructor know?
Trina had not missed any of what transpired between Curtis and Yvonne. Pride. There wasn’t anything wrong with that boy but he was puffed up with pride he didn’t need—especially since that pride wasn’t helping the team win any games. She said, “Yvonne, you were at that first game with Bouclair College, right?”
Yvonne nodded.
“Did you see the fight?”
“Which one?” Yvonne asked. “The one where one of the players’ gangsta grandmothers pulled out a switchblade and started swinging at everybody in Eva T.’s black and red? You know there was more than one good fight, right? Danesha kept count, and she said there were six.”
“Seven,” Maurice corrected. “There was a fight in our locker room involving two of their players and three of ours.”
“Did we win?” Trina asked, hoping in vain that those three boys whipped some Bouclair College behind.
“Heckee naw,” Maurice said in disgust. “They let those boys beat them like they were some hos on the wrong corner, and the resident hos had to teach them a lesson about encroaching on the wrong hos’ territory.”
“Well, I don’t know about what was happening behind the scenes during that game,” Trina said, laughing, trying to ignore Maurice cutting his eyes at her. “But what I do know is that they better be happy that they didn’t have to face off with that octogenarian gangsta in the electric-blue satin jogging suit. That old lady, with those electric-blue highlights in her shoulder-length wig, cleared those bleachers out with a simple flick of her wrist.”
“Yeah, she sliced that switchblade through the air right next to President Redmond’s wife, Grace,” Yvonne added.
“You lyin’, Yvonne. That OG didn’t mess with Grace?”
“Naw, I ain’t lyin, Trina. That original gangsta wanted to put something on Grace Redmond’s mind and it worked, too. Because the second time she took a swing at Grace, slicing off a chunk of that expensive weave, Mrs. Redmond took off faster than a running back on Super Bowl Sunday, and in a pair of black-and-red Manolo Blahniks, too. I didn’t know that stuck-up heifer had it in her like that.”
Maurice and Curtis started cracking up. They would have loved to have seen that. Curtis used to kick it with Grace before she married Sam Redmond back in the early 1990s. She was a lot of fun back then. But she turned into the “stuck-up heifer from Hell” when Sam was put at the helm of Eva T.
Curtis often wondered how Sam Redmond managed to pull that one off. He never liked Sam Redmond because he didn’t act like a man with too many scruples. Sam had spent his entire career at Eva T. brown-nosing, serving as some high official’s henchman, and being rewarded for this behavior by moving from one administrative position to the other—each one a step up the career ladder. But that kind of behavior must have carried more weight at Eva T. than actual administrative, corporate, academic, and scholarly capabilities. Come to think of it, their university had more than its fair share of Sam Redmonds. And that was most unfortunate for an institution with as much to offer as Evangeline T. Marshall University.
About the only decent thing Curtis could say about Sam Redmond’s administration was that it raised a lot of money. Dr. Redmond had raised more money during his three-year tenure as the university’s president than his predecessor had done in the entire ten years he’d been running the school.
Eva T. was established by the second pastor of the original Fayetteville Street Gospel United Church in 1933. It had always been viewed as the “farm school” or the “rural college” when juxtaposed next to the more urbanely placed North Carolina Central University, a mere twenty minutes northwest of Eva T. Whereas NCCU was conveniently placed in the heart of Durham’s historically black community, Eva T. was located in what had once been the country, or the lush farmland right outside the Bull City’s traditional urban limits.
Eva T. alumni always wondered why Central folk were so hard on them. Because the truth was that Eva T. had top ratings and had earned the distinction of offering the best education for a reasonable amount of money. Evangeline T. Marshall University may have started out as a little country college for “farm negroes” but it wasn’t that anymore. And now, with the ever-increasing growth and development occurring on the Durham side of Chatham County, it was rapidly losing its rural identity to a more suburban persona.
The school was positioned several miles southeast of where Fayetteville Road intersected with Highway 751, not too far from Okelly Chapel Road. It was the most scenic campus in the Triangle, once described as the best-kept secret in Durham, North Carolina. And the university had experienced a growth spurt in the past five years, causing it to return to its glorious heyday of the mid-twentieth century, when it had attracted the best and the brightest of black high school students from across the state.
The school’s newest programs were fast-growing and rapidly garnering national recognition. The Building, Construction, and Interior Design Program, along with the School of Entrepreneurial Studies and the Crime Scene Investigation Training Program, were innovative twenty-first-century programs. Some of Durham’s most imaginative and financially successful entrepreneurs had matriculated through one of these programs. Unbeknownst to most Bull City residents, Metro Mitchell, owner of the Yeah Yeah Hip-Hop Store, was one such graduate. He was in the first class of graduates from the School of Entrepreneurial Studies, and their valedictorian.
Eva T. boasted pretty dorms, lush landscaping, and good food, much of it grown by the students earning degrees in the Agriculture Development Program. Its graduates came out well trained and had their pick of jobs, as well as graduate, law, medical, and professional degree programs. But the one department that made the university stand head and shoulders above all other schools in the area, including the big three (Duke, Carolina, and N.C. State), was its Department of Architecture, which had been built almost single-handedly by one of the most prestigious early twentieth-century black architects in the country, Daniel Meeting. And the school was now earning a top-notch rep with all of the great things happening in its Building, Construction, and Interior Design Program, an offshoot of this program.
Trina finished tossing the salad and drizzled a heaping helping of homemade bacon ranch salad dressing in the bowl. Yvonne inhaled—Trina’s bacon ranch dressing with fresh peppercorns in it was the best.
Maurice ran his finger over the dressing on top of the salad and licked it off. “Mmmm, baby. I don’t know what you do to that dressing to make it so good.”
“I put my butt in it,” Trina said, laughing.
“You know your self is just as crazy, Trina Fountain,” Yvonne said. “But I don’t know. You may have stuck your booty or feet or toe jams or something in that salad dressing to make it taste so good.”
Curtis shook his head, smiling, and started putting some of that delicious-smelling food on his plate. He was starving and couldn’t wait to finally dig in to the meal he’d been waiting to eat all evening. He took a seat next to Yvonne and picked up his fork, ready to dig in.
“Hold up a second, Curtis, man. We need to bless the food,” Maurice said as he slid into his seat at the head of the table.
Trina put the pitcher of tea on the table and sat down. Maurice reached out his hands. Trina took one and Curtis took the other, and then reached out and wrapped his large hand, which could palm a basketball effortlessly, around Yvonne’s.
Yvonne knew that boy had big hands but she didn’t realize just how big they were until she felt her own lost in the warmth and security of Curtis Parker’s. Curtis wanted to squeeze Yvonne’s hand but feared he’d hurt her because it was so tiny and delicate. But then again, it was also a very strong and sturdy little hand—the kind that cared for babies, cooked delicious meals, trimmed hedges, painted, stripped wood floors, washed cars, and did a host of busy-bee types of things.
Curtis marveled at how this tiny and delicate hand could hold such strength, and yet contain such delicate sweetness. He knew that Yvonne Fountain had been “going through” as his grandmother and her girls would say. But for a woman to come through a crisis, remain strong, and stay sweet was something worth praising God about. Because Curtis was certain that the only way anybody could come through like this was by the grace and favor of God, and with faith in God.
He took a chance and squeezed Yvonne’s hand gently, allowing their palms to touch. What he felt in that second set his heart on fire. He couldn’t believe the power of this woman’s touch. It took a considerable amount of restraint to refrain from lifting her hand up to his lips and placing hot kisses on Yvonne’s fingertips. What an experience that would be—to feel her fingertips on his lips, and then have the pleasure of witnessing the girl’s reaction to him when she felt all of that heat searing through her entire body.
Curtis smiled at that thought, and before he could stop himself, slipped his fingers through Yvonne’s. His smile broadened when she blushed. It felt so good to behold a woman’s simple and honest reaction to the feel of his fingers sliding through hers. Curtis closed his eyes for a second. How had his life become so sophisticated, of the world, and jaded that he’d forgotten how heartwarming such a straightforward response to him could be?
“Lord,” Maurice began in a voice that sounded like he was getting revved up for a very long prayer, “we are some blessed people. And we just wanted You to know that we know it. We also know that everything we have comes from and will always come from You. Thank You, Lord.”
“Yes, thank You, Lord,” Curtis said hurriedly, hoping that this would push Maurice to focus on blessing the food so they could eat. He was hungry.
Maurice ignored Curtis. He could wait. “And, Lord,” Maurice continued, “I just want to thank You for this basketball season. I want to thank You for the victory You have in the wings for us. I can’t see it but Your Word has given us permission to call things that have not yet come, as if they are already right here in our midst. So, Lord, I’m calling for a victorious and blessed season in spite of what I see. Because Your Word does not return void. Thank You, Lord, in Jesus’s name, amen.”
“In Jesus’s name,” Trina and Yvonne said together.
They all sat there waiting for Curtis to say something to affirm that he was in agreement with them. When Curtis remained silent, Maurice frowned at him and said, “You need to get in that Word and come back to church. God just gave us a victory but He is not going to bless you in a tangible way, dawg, if you’re not in line with His Word and will for your life. We’ve been hanging in there by God’s grace. And I’m sure the only reason you and I are still employed at this university is because God wants us there, and He has kept us there so that you can get it together, so that He can bless you and the team. But, dawg, I hate to tell you this—God doesn’t leave those windows of opportunity open forever. He does close them after a season.”
Curtis acquiesced and said, “In Jesus’s name.” He then let go of everybody’s hand, picked up his fork, and dug in to his food, stuffing a hefty piece of fish in his mouth. Curtis couldn’t believe Maurice had clowned him like that—even though he knew in his heart that Maurice was right. Still, it hurt like heck to hear it, and especially in front of Trina and Yvonne.
“Baby,” Trina said, “we’ve been praying so about the team and winning, I’m thinking that we might want to say a word lifting up the cheerleaders. ’Cause Lawd knows those little girls need somebody praying over them.” She shook her head. “You know,” she continued, “I almost hate to see them coming, when they bust up in the Sheraton Imperial at Eva T.’s fall reception, sashaying up to everybody who thinks they are anybody in black Durham.”
“No, not all of black Durham, all of the black Triangle,” Curtis said, his mood on the upswing after that Holy Ghost–inspired smackdown from the Lord. Maurice would have never spoken to him like that and especially in front of others unless he himself had received a nudge from the Lord to handle some heavy heavenly business. “’Cause y’all know,” he continued, “that every ed-u-mu-kay-ded individual with visible African ancestry will be at that reception.”
“True dat,” Maurice said and scooped up a hefty forkful of salad, stuffing it in his mouth. “You know something, I’m sick of those little girls, and in particular that ShayeShaye Boswell and her partner in crime, Larqueesha Watts. I’m sick of having to deal with all of the mess they keep going with my players. Always something up with those two heifers.”
Maurice finished chewing and then stuck some more salad in his mouth and proceeded to start talking again, as if the food in his mouth were helping with his ability to hold a dinner conversation. “You know, about the only thing I can think about lifting up on their behalf is that not a one of those baby skeezers in training gets knocked up by June Bug Washington or DeMarcus Brown this academic year.”
Curtis shook his head in disgust. He said, “I’ve never seen young men act the way they do. In fact, other than Kordell Bivens and his boy Rico Sneed and dem, I really don’t think I’ve seen any other brothers acting like those two overprivileged thugs. It’s like they are running in some kind of pack of hos like they are in a pack of wolves.”
“Who are the men running around with Kordell and Rico?” Yvonne asked, feeling bad that Marquita’s husband was out in the streets embarrassing her and making a mockery of their marriage.
“Larry Camden, Castilleo Palmer, naturally, and Paulo Yates,” Curtis told her.
“Are you kidding? Paulo Yates is in the ho pack with them?” Yvonne asked.
“Umm … hmm” was all Curtis said.
“But …”
“But what, Yvonne,” he responded sternly. “You thought that because Paulo has a family and is on the usher board at the church that he was okay?”
She really wanted to say “Yes,” but didn’t want to let on that she was that naïve.
“I thought so,” Curtis said evenly. “You and half of the folks who don’t pay enough attention to people like that thought the exact same thing. But just ask Mr. Tommy, the head usher at Fayetteville Street Church—he’ll tell you all about them.”
“Okay, so now we all know that Paulo and the rest are out there ho’in’ themselves out,” Yvonne said. “But seems to me that they would want to ho alone, not in a pack where folks know way too much about your business.”
“Okay, Cuz,” Maurice said patiently. “First off, Paulo, Larry, and Rico are all married. They can’t just up and go out without some kind of cover or excuse. They need that ho pack to get out of the house.”
“All married to some good women who look a whole lot better than those scuzzleducks they out there in the streets with,” Trina added.
“Baby, have you ever seen their women? We don’t know that they look like scuzzleducks. They probably do. But we don’t know that, baby,” Maurice said.
“Maurice, you know good and well that tricks like that don’t look like much. Even if they are technically cute, the way they live is bound to show up and make them looked used and hard—like scuzzleducks.”
“And kinda ugly, too,” Yvonne added.
“Plus, Mr. Tommy told me when I was talking to him after church that he saw pictures of those women, and that they didn’t look like nothing.”
“Trina,” Curtis asked, “I know Mr. Tommy gets around. But when did he see those women?”
“At the new IHOP in Apex. Mr. Tommy said that he ran into Rico, Kordell, Larry, Paulo, and Castilleo at that IHOP. Said they were all huddled up over Rico’s new laptop pretending like they were admiring it but what they were really doing was looking at those women. Mr. Tommy told me …”
“Baby girl, at first I was going to just stop by their table and say hi. Even though I ain’t got much use for them, I believe in speaking to people. So I went on over to their table. But those fellows were so deep into what was on that computer screen they didn’t even notice that I was hovering around. So, you know me,” Mr. Tommy said, his eyes getting big like they do when he’s giving you the 411. “I just kinda eased over closer and looked, too. And Lawd, those girls weren’t nothing but some cheap nothings. They were the kind of women who get up from laying up with a man, and then spray themselves with perfume instead of going somewhere to take a decent bath.”
Trina wrinkled up her nose.
“Uh … huh … I knew you know what I was talking about,” Mr. Tommy said, and scratched at his head for a moment. “I almost blew my cover and told them that I hoped they took some rolled-up newspaper with them when they met up those gals. ’Cause they were going to need plenty of it when those mutts started acting like the untrained dogs in heat they were, and the only thing that would calm those heifers down was a hard tap on the nose with some newspaper.”
At that point, Curtis doubled over with laughter and almost fell out of his chair. He said, “Mr. Tommy is crazy.”
“Yeah,” Maurice added, “Mr. Tommy knows he is on some different stuff. Who knew that ho’in’ had gotten so organized and high-tech?”
“I hear you, man,” Curtis added. “I just wish Kordell and Castilleo were as serious and organized about their jobs as they are about planning those ho junkets they are always running off to.”
“Question,” Yvonne said. “Why did Castilleo’s mama and daddy name him that? It is way too fancy for a lil’ broke negro running around Durham County thinking he’s a bona fide pimp. Y’all feeling me on that one?”
“Yeah, we are definitely feeling you on that one, Cuz,” Maurice said. “Because I can’t imagine why anybody would want to name their child Castilleo.”
“You’re right on that one, baby,” Trina seconded. “Because even Metro Mitchell and Dayeesha Hamilton’s children don’t have names like that.”
“They sure don’t,” Yvonne said.
“They may not have names like that,” Maurice began, “but still, I’m kinda scared to find out what their names are. We are talking about Metro and Dayeesha, right?”
“Their names are Joseph, Jeremiah, and Jeneene,” Yvonne told them evenly.
“We really are in the last days,” Curtis said. “’Cause those names are relatively normal.”
“They have middle names, too,” Yvonne replied with a big grin on her face.
“And I can surmise that you know what those names are,” Curtis said, now curious about the middle names and how Yvonne came across this information. She was good and that scared him a bit. Made Curtis wonder what she knew about him—even though he wasn’t so sure he really wanted to ask her that question.
“Yep.”
“And they are?”
“Joseph Crayshawn, Jeremiah Crentwan, and Jeneene Crystawn.”
“Whew,” Curtis said, as if in sheer relief. “Just when I thought that the predictability of everyday life was in jeopardy, I discover that all is well after all. Crayshawn, Crentwan, and Crystawn. I can sho’ sleep good tonight.”
“Yes, Lawd,” Maurice stated. “Dayeesha had me scared there for a moment with those first names. I was on my way to Kroger to take the baby to the hospital to get her ghetto-fabulous genes checked out until I heard the middle names.”
“I love Dayeesha Hamilton,” Trina said with a hearty laugh. “That baby is definitely cut from the same cloth as her daddy.”
“Who is Dayeesha’s daddy?”
Trina, Maurice, and Curtis all looked at Yvonne like she had just told them she wanted to be Kordell Bivens’s new boo.
“What? Why y’all looking at me like that?”
“I cannot believe that your retarded butt don’t know who Dayeesha’s daddy is. She looks just like him. Don’t look a thing like her mama. The mama is a little underweight, brown-skinned woman. And Dayeesha is kind of red and thick just like her daddy,” Trina said, shaking her head. Sometimes she didn’t know where Yvonne’s head was. Probably stuck down in a bucket of paint, trying to make sure it was the perfect shade of lemon yellow, avocado, or pumpkin.
“Okay, Dayeesha’s daddy is short, thick, and red. Does he also have three-inch nails with tiny silk-screened pictures of his grandbabies on each thumbnail?” Yvonne asked.
“Pictures on the thumbnail? Who has pictures on their thumbnails?” Curtis inquired. “And where would a woman find someone who knew how to do that?”
“Now see, Coach Curtis Parker, that is why the two of you belong together,” Trina said, not even cognizant of what she’d just said. “First off, Yvonne, Dayeesha Hamilton’s daddy is Big Dotsy Hamilton, the cohost of Apostle Grady Grey’s Half an Hour of Holy Ghost Power on the cable access TV station. And secondly, Curtis, they do some kind of special silk-screen process for nails over at Yeah Yeah Hip-Hop Store, and you can have your children’s pictures put on your nails. They are the only store in the Triangle that can do this on nails.”
“Is there anything they can’t do over at Yeah Yeah?” Maurice asked his wife.
“Yeah,” Curtis told him, “there really is something that they don’t do at Yeah Yeah. They don’t do church hats, they don’t take personal checks, and they definitely don’t print up church fans with the funeral home name on one side and pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, and JFK on the other.”
Yvonne laughed and hit Curtis on the shoulder. “Boy, you are so crazy.”
Curtis drenched a fresh piece of fish with Texas Pete hot sauce before he said, “Yeah, I’m crazy all right, crazy about you, baby,” and then gave her a fresh wink.
“You know what,” Yvonne said, deliberately changing the subject at hand between her and Curtis, “how can Kordell Bivens, who is one broke-down negro, be such a player? It takes money and some dap to be a real player—like, take Charles Robinson. Now, Charles qualifies as a bona fide player.”
Curtis was a bit put out with Yvonne over that statement. Didn’t she know that a bona fide player was sitting right next to her?
“That negro ain’t broke,” Curtis snorted out, suddenly feeling better when it occurred to him that Yvonne was not into players. “But he is always walking around campus acting like he is so down on his luck, and playing on the sympathies of the unsuspecting women who are stupid enough to feel sorry for him.”
“You are so right, Curtis,” Maurice added. “Those women are always bringing Kordell lunch and packaged-up dinners to take home when he gets off work. And one fool was outside the Athletic Department washing his car.”
“Why?” was all Yvonne could say to that craziness. There was nothing about Kordell Bivens that would make her want to do anything but walk the other way when she saw him coming. And in fact, there were a few times she’d seen him on campus and done just that.
“I guess they are aching for a taste of the Dentist,” Maurice said, rolling his eyes.
“I think it’s the Physician,” Curtis corrected.
“No, it’s Herr Doktor,” Trina told them. “Kordell calls himself Herr Doktor.”
Yvonne rolled her eyes and stuck her finger in her mouth like she wanted to puke.
“You can roll your eyes all you want to, Cuz,” Maurice said. “But there are some women on that campus who consider it a privilege to be able to say they’ve had an appointment with Herr Doktor.”
“Maurice is right, baby,” Curtis said, adding baby on purpose just to get under Yvonne’s skin. “Prudence Baylor loves to be able to call him by that name.”
“We’re talking about the same Prudence who is now all hugged up with your very married athletic director, right?” Trina asked. She couldn’t help but wonder how that was going to affect Gilead Jackson and Kordell Bivens’s relationship. But then, maybe it just didn’t matter. People like that did those kinds of things to each other. The world was something to deal with if you were entrenched in it.
“Yep—one and the same. Prudence was with Kordell first, and dropped him for Gilead when she learned that Kordell couldn’t override my decision to keep her son off of my team.”
“But, Curtis,” Yvonne said, “why do those women call Kordell Herr Doktor? He’s big and thick. His legs are thick, without a defined muscle in his calves, and they are actually kinda girly-looking, if you ask me. Plus, he has too much hair all over him, except on his head—that hair be foaming all over his shirt like an afro. And then, when he grins, he looks just like the Grinch in Dr. Seuss. Maybe it’s me, but Kordell is 180 degrees from being cute.”
Curtis was hollering with laughter. He’d heard women say a whole lot of stuff about Kordell Bivens. But he’d never heard one call him ugly, or say that he reminded her of the Grinch. Yvonne was right. Old boy did look just like the Grinch when he grinned. Curtis had always thought he was the only person in Durham who saw the striking resemblance. It was good to know that somebody else saw it, too.
The kitchen was quiet. It was a shame that there were people out there doing so much dirt, and into so much lying and deception at the expense of other people. Curtis felt a powerful revelation tug on his heart. He knew in that moment that the team would not progress and be blessed with victory as long as Kordell and Castilleo worked for him. He realized that what he knew about these two men was merely the tip of the iceberg, and God couldn’t honor anything harboring this kind of sin, greed, and debauchery.
“You know something,” Maurice said solemnly, “if those men don’t stop what they are doing and repent, they are going to have to answer for all that they have done in the worst way. God will not be mocked. And as much as I know y’all don’t want to hear this, we need to pray for those men and their families.”
Trina sucked on a side tooth, rolled her eyes, and said, “Before or after I stick my pistol up Kordell, Castilleo, and Rico Sneed’s nose?”
“Girl, you don’t even own a pistol,” Curtis told her.
Trina snapped her head back, raised a finger in the air, got up out of her chair, and then did a 180-degree twist before she went to the study and came back with a red lacquered box with TRINA written on it in bold, gold cursive letters. She put the box on the counter, snatched her purse off the chair it always sat on, took out her keys, and proceeded to open the box. She then whipped out the thirty-eight and held it at the gangster angle—tilted to the side rather than pointed straight toward an intended target.
“Whoa,” Curtis said and made to move out of his seat.
“Now,” Trina said with a whole lot of attitude, “what were you saying about me and my pistol?”
“Baby, put that away,” Maurice admonished. He didn’t know what possessed him to let that girl buy that pistol the last time they were at the gun show. He knew he shouldn’t have let Trina, Yvonne, and Rochelle go with him. They were running around the gun show like some little kids, scaring a few of those hard-core gun enthusiasts in American flag fitted caps. One of those men had eased over to Maurice and said in the most polite Eastern North Carolina–laced accent, “Man, you got somethin’ on yo’ hands with those three. I’d hate to think what them there lil’ ladies would be like running around all excited with some steel in their hands.”
Trina waved the gun around with her hand on her hip and said, “You need to recognize, Curtis Lee Parker. I’m tired of people doing raunchy stuff to decent folks and then getting away with it.”
“Baby, we are sick of it, too,” Maurice said calmly. “But this is something only God can handle. This is His battle, not ours. So please put the gun away ’cause not a one of those negroes are here to do any target practice on.”
Trina sighed heavily and said, “Oh, all right,” and put the pistol back in the red box.
Yvonne was now laughing so hard tears were rolling down her cheeks. She said, “Y’all are killing me. If I knew there was this much drama going on over here in Garrett Farms, I woulda been camped out on the front porch a long time ago.”
“Well,” Trina said, “I kept telling you that you needed to get out more and come and chill with us. But you kept saying, Nawwww, I got the girls, I got to work, I got to … blah, blah, blah …”
“And now I’m here, so you can put a sock in it, Trina.”
Trina raised an eyebrow, thinking, Umph, Miss Lady is kind of testy. Most times I say some mess like that, she just shakes her head and tries her best to ignore my crazy self. But tonight is different and I know why.
Trina locked the pistol box. She looked Yvonne dead in the eye and said, “Why you trying to get cute on a negro all of a sudden? You showing out because Curtis is here?”
When Yvonne’s mouth dropped wide open, Trina smiled. Yvonne was so easy to mess with because she made it so much fun.
“Trina,” Yvonne began, groping for a good comeback. “I … I … No, I ain’t trying to be cute on account of him,” she managed to say in a relatively calm voice, hoping that she was reppin’ some decent amount of cool. Curtis Parker had enough women clamoring for his attention as it was. And he didn’t need to add her to the list of wannabe boos.
Yvonne and Curtis had been crossing paths with each other for years—back in high school, during college, at concerts, and whenever he took a notion to come to church. And until very recently, whenever they encountered each other, Curtis was always cool, calm, collected, and apparently unmoved by her presence. There had been a few occasions when Yvonne had run into Curtis on campus and greeted him in the most respectful and friendly of manners. But she always felt it necessary to cut those brief encounters short. She had no desire to be bothered with one of his women, who could pop up from out of nowhere to run off any potential competition.
“Okay,” Trina began, voice breaking right through Yvonne’s thoughts, “so we need to pray for the team, the cheerleaders, and as much as I hate to say it, Kordell and dem.”
“Yeah … I guess we do have to pray for dem people,” Maurice said dryly. He sucked on his tooth, deep in thought over this matter. He said, “You know something, what I think I really need to pray for is this: I need to pray that the good Lord will stop me from going over to St. Joseph’s AME Church, where all of those upscale, six-figure-earning-looking negroes are strapped, and borrowing a piece ’cause, baby, yours is too prissy. And then I’m gone pray that I don’t get carried away enough to go over to Eva T. and bust a cap in Gilead Jackson’s rusty behind, Sam Redmond’s jive tail, Kordell Bivens’s lazy butt, Castilleo Palmer’s triflin’ tail, Rico Sneed’s conniving, crusty butt, and some of those lil’ negro children who call themselves members of our basketball team. I think that is what I need to be praying on.”
“Oooo … ouch, dawg …” Curtis said, knowing that he was in full agreement with everything Maurice said. “Did you really have to go there with St. Joseph’s like that? There are some good people at that church. And I know that our pastor, Reverend Quincey, and their pastor, Reverend Cousin, are boys.”
“Oh,” Yvonne interjected, “they are definitely some good people over at St. Joseph’s. And Reverend and Mrs. Cousin are the best. But don’t ever forget they are AMEs. And AMEs don’t play—they ain’t played since Richard Allen and his boys walked out of that white Methodist church back in the 1700s and started the AME church. They ain’t never skeered, and they ain’t never played. And they are strapped. From the top to oldest little old people on those rolling walker thingies—they are strapped. I’m telling you, I know those negroes with eighty-five college degrees apiece are strapped.”
“Yes, Lawd,” Trina said, patting her gun box and laughing. “They will pop you like some popcorn if you get crazy and mess with them and their pastor.”