Up at the College (16 page)

And if that Sonny Todd Kilpatrick wasn’t a pain in the butt, Curtis didn’t know who was. Sonny Todd was bold, brazen, and
derisive toward his colleagues until Maurice whispered, “Does he have some kind of brain malfunction going on here and doesn’t
realize that this is 2009 and not 1809? He’s like, say, two centuries off.”

Several other coaches shared this sentiment, and were still in disbelief that a man like this had a head coaching position
at a SNAC school. But these coaches didn’t need to spend any time trying to figure out why Sonny Todd Kilpatrick was at the
helm of one of those prized and uncommon black head coaching spots. All they had to do was think green—not environmental green,
money green.

Money was the sole reason for hiring Sonny Todd. Money the president of Bouclair College didn’t want to pay for the jams he
stayed in. Money the president didn’t want to pay his wife if she got angry enough to bail out and jump ship from what had
to have been a bad marriage due to his trips to scuzzy places located off the nearest exit on I-95 South. Money—lots of money—to
be earned by Sonny Todd’s highly questionable coaching strategies for the school. Money, money, money, money—
money
. This was about money, pure and simple.

Sonny Todd had just finished giving a brief status report on his program. The other coaches were glad he was done, and hoped
he would hurry up and shut up and sit down. But if Sonny Todd was anything, he was shrewd, crazy, and bold beyond belief.
That fool knew his colleagues were sick of him, and he didn’t care that they were. Instead of sitting down, he decided to
talk some more and started speaking about what he considered to be his best qualities.

He said, “I know how to win a game. I know how to pick and coach my players to a win. And I know where every single stripper
shack is, up and down every North
and
South Carolina highway there is to know. And I know that if I catch you in one, and you know you’re not supposed to be there,
you’ll wake up wishing I didn’t know. Because know this—I go to them all.”

Then he frowned and scratched at his head a moment.

“No, I take that back. I don’t go to them all. I don’t make it a habit of going to Rumpshakers Gentlemen’s Club here in Durham.
Because I don’t know what you brothers find so appealing about that club.”

Almost every coach in that room shook his head. What in the world were they going to do with this white boy? With the exception
of a handful of the coaches, they had been looking forward to going to Rumpshakers as soon as this meeting was over. In fact,
most of the coaches at this meeting had come for the sole purpose of having an excuse to go to that club. Rumpshakers was
the best strip club in the entire Triangle, and maybe the best in the state.

“And they charge an arm and a leg for admission,” Sonny Todd was saying, as his voice broke through the reverie of the men
seated at that conference table.

“The drinks cost too much, they serve too much Hennessy and Crown and not enough Budweiser; I can count the long and leggy
blondes with one finger and they are not even white; and the dancers they do hire have behinds that have too much volume,
wiggle, and bounce for my personal taste. Plus, those are some of the snootiest strippers I’ve ever come across. One actually
turned up her nose at me and gave me my money back the last time I was there. Now how is that for service?”

Curtis stood up abruptly and said, “I think we’ve covered everything. Anybody have something they need to share before we
dismiss?”

“Naw,” several coaches said, and got up, with the rest of their colleagues following suit.

Curtis tried not to sigh with relief but couldn’t help it. One more moment of listening to Sonny Todd and he would have hauled
off and pimp-slapped that joker in front of all of the other SNAC coaches.

Maurice and Dave Whitmore went and shook hands with the rest of the visiting coaches, acting as if they didn’t see Sonny Todd,
and left to join Reverend Quincey and Reverend Flowers for lunch at the Chop House Restaurant in Cary. The last thing they
wanted was to be around a bunch of loud-talking, drunk and tipsy athletes at a boob-and-booty bar.

Maurice and Dave made eye contact—they were going to lift Curtis up in prayer on the way to lunch. He didn’t have any business
going to Rumpshakers. Some places, no matter how enticing and popular, were not places folk needed to go to. It reeked of
the world. And as much as someone would want Rumpshakers to be good, clean fun with just a taste of naughty thrown in—it was
anything but that.

The other coaches followed Curtis out to the parking lot.

Curtis found it curious, when he peeled out of the parking lot in his prized silver Escalade EXT truck, that Sonny Todd was
hot on his heels. He checked the rearview mirror and saw Sonny Todd hopping into his white Lexus sedan, starting that car
up, and burning some very expensive tire rubber as he broke the campus speed limit to make sure he didn’t get separated from
the rest of the coaches.

Curtis turned on the radio and hiked up the volume when an old school joint, “Low,” blasted out on 97.5. His favorite hip-hop
station DJ, Brian Dawson, was on the air. When in a mellow, old school mood, Curtis favored Cy Young of Foxy 107. And when
in need of some good gospel on The Light, who could resist the big voice of Melissa Wade, or her colleague Michael Reese,
who made sure that every listener in the Triangle heard “I love you” at least once a day?

That “Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur” was sounding good as Curtis steered his car through the traffic on Highway 55,
heading east. Rumpshakers, and the over-thirty black nightclub, The Place to Be, were both off 55. Whereas you could see The
Place to Be from the street, Rumpshakers was nestled in an inconspicuous and very woodsy spot down in the cut, off of a side
street that intersected with another street off 55. Rumpshakers was near to impossible to find if you did not have specific
directions. Map-Quest couldn’t help you find this place, either. Folks often joked and said that the only way a negro could
roll up on Rumpshakers was with
Blackquest
.

Curtis turned onto the narrow gravel road, and drove a fifth of a mile to reach the Rumpshakers building. He hated having
to drive on gravel for that length of time but understood why Charles Robinson left this section of the road unpaved. It was
a deterrent to folks who didn’t need to be there. Black folk in Durham (or most folk period, for that matter) were not prone
to wandering down a dirt and gravel road out in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. A lot of folk never made it to
Rumpshakers because they got tired of looking for it. And for a few, they found the road but just couldn’t believe that a
black establishment was situated in this location.

One brother, who found the club out of sheer stubborn determination, said, “Man, the first time I rolled up on Rumpshakers,
I got to wondering if I’d taken the wrong turn to the
Deliverance
movie people’s house. I kept hearing that banjo music playing ‘do-do-do-dooo-do-do-do, do-do-do-do-dooooo-do’ in my head.
Then I kept looking around making sure that a bro wasn’t about to get axed or shot, or shot or axed.”

The one group the dirt and gravel road and obscure location held absolutely no deterring factors for was the wives, fiancées,
and girlfriends of some of the patrons. An angry sister, whose man had been lying to and mistreating her, was more dangerous
to a brother than CSI could ever be to a criminal. They could find information that an unsuspecting brother just knew was
hidden and protected.

Charles didn’t know how they did it, but those women would find out that the man was lying and cheating, and then go and find
that man at Rumpshakers. About the only thing they hadn’t found to date was how to get past the ultra-tight security system.
And those praying sisters were the most dangerous because they had some serious backup from above. Charles always told folk
that he didn’t mess with those women. When they showed up, he went and got their man, escorted him out to the parking lot,
and left him to her, her mama, her auntie, her sisters, her missionary group, her choir members, and on occasion her first
lady and pastor.

Rumpshakers was always a surprise for first-time patrons. The SNAC coaches filing out of those fancy, university-leased cars
were no exception. Most first-timers held the expectation that the club would be housed in some kind of 1920s-styled Southern
mansion with roses, azalea bushes, and dogwood trees abounding everywhere. Or they thought it would be a restored warehouse
with steel beams in the ceilings, old-fashioned plank-style wooden floors, and a few large industrial windows that had been
allowed to accumulate dust and soot for privacy and effect.

It was quite natural for folks to presume that a business like Rumpshakers would be housed in a dwelling of that nature. Just
about every TV and book brothel and strip club worth its salt was set in such an environment. But Charles wasn’t having any
of that nostalgic nonsense creating the ambience for his club. Rumpshakers catered to a sophisticated twenty-first-century
clientele. Charles Robinson was way too cosmopolitan and crunked to try and run a hip-hop gentlemen’s club in a setting that
was so outdated and cliché.

Rumpshakers was a three-million-dollar, expansive pale yellow brick ranch that was set in the middle of nine acres of scenic,
woodsy land. There was not one rose in sight—especially in the midst of the beautiful sunflowers and colorful daisies and
foliage. This was the kind of playah’s house that could easily qualify for a spot on an episode of
MTV Cribs.

It was late afternoon when they arrived, affording all the newest clients a full view of the house, the pond off to the left,
and the landscaping that would have surely been in
House and Garden
magazine had the house not been in reality a strip joint. Curtis noticed Sonny Todd standing in front of the magnificent
house with his mouth hanging open, almost drooling, before one of his assistant coaches poked him and told him to quit holding
everyone up and go on inside.

Less than an hour ago, Sonny Todd had complained about his time at Rumpshakers. But judging from his reaction, Curtis suspected
that he had lied. There is no way that boy could have been to Rumpshakers on another occasion and carry on like that.

The other SNAC coaches discerned what Curtis had figured out. It was clear to all of them that this joker had never seen a
business of this type that was so classy and beautiful. He didn’t even look like the type of man—black or white—who would
have ever come to a place like this. Plus, he kept taking pictures with his phone and saying, “I wouldn’t have expected this,”
clearly not remembering what he had told them earlier.

They walked into the gigantic foyer of that fabulous, sprawling ranch and waited, while standing on the cream, ruby, and black
marble floor with gold veins running through it. Pierre Smith, Charles’s manager, and the one responsible for making all of
the arrangements for large parties, came into the foyer followed by five fine waitresses holding an assortment of trays weighed
down with shrimp cocktail, caviar, homemade gourmet crackers, and Long Island iced teas.

The men couldn’t take their eyes off the waitresses, who were toned and beautiful enough to be dancers. And their uniforms
could rival anything anybody had ever seen on any TV show, movie, or documentary about Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club.

Sonny Todd clutched his hand to his heart and inhaled and exhaled over and over again while viewing the delectable scenery.
His wife kept telling him that refined white sugar was bad for his health. Maybe she was right. Because this display of brown
sugar was making him feel like a dose of that stuff would do wonders for his constitution.

The waitresses wore black silk stockings with red roses embroidered in them, black silk thongs, black silk bustiers with red
silk ribbon woven through the rich material, and red lace garters on their left legs. Each woman had a perky ponytail held
up by a red-and-black silk ribbon. Their makeup was refined and tasteful, and they walked with so much grace and class the
worst ho in the SNAC group had to put some restraints on and try and act like a gentleman.

All of the women were at least five-nine, full-busted, with long legs and generous curves. They were toned and of a healthy
weight. And they ranged in color from the palest shade of gold to the deepest hue of ebony brown. It was like being in a candy
store, and a few of the men felt as if they were about to get a sugar rush.

Pierre made quick eye contact with one of the waitresses, who in turn gave a signal for the women to start serving the men.
Charles had given him a rundown on the twenty-six coaches who were on the guest list. It didn’t take him long to find Kordell
Bivens and Castilleo Palmer
.

Pierre had not made his final selection of the girls who would dance for this group. But after seeing the coaches, he knew
just whom to pick. He’d pull from the A list for the group dance, and would go to the D list for that white boy taking pictures
with his cell phone as if he’d never been around black people before. He’d also have to pull from the C list for the private
dances ordered by Kordell Bivens and that negro standing next to him with the fancy, overdone name. And as for the rest of
the coaches, the B list would serve just fine.

The B list dancers were very pretty and good. They just weren’t as interested in striving to become professional dancers as
the A-listers. The A-listers had dancing coursing through their veins. They trained and worked hard to be the best dancers
possible. And when they left Rumpshakers, they usually went on to some kind of professional dance job—the dancers for concerts,
the theater, music videos, movies, and the like.

The B-listers were most often students, or looking for a better job. So this was just a job. It paid the bills. And Pierre
knew that most of his B-listers would be up and out of there as soon as they either finished school or could find a decent-paying
job.