Up at the College (18 page)

Charles didn’t want her messing with Coach. He went over to Sweet Red, slipped a C-note right inside the thong, and twisted
it into a neat bow. He then gave her instructions to go over to the table of coaches where Kordell Bivens and Castilleo Palmer
were busy chowing down on huge tiger shrimp, stuffed grilled portobello mushrooms, spicy wings, potato skins, and the house
specialty—deep-fried, red-pepper-coated string beans. He also made sure there were plenty of complimentary pitchers of Rumpshakers’
famous homemade Mojitos, created with the finest imported Jamaican rum, fresh-ground sugar cane, and mint leaves that Charles
grew himself in his private garden out back.

Sweet Red left Curtis alone and turned her attention to the two men the boss had schooled her on an hour before the SNAC coaches
made their way down that dirt-and-gravel road. She bounced her fat but exceptionally toned booty around a few times. As soon
as Castilleo saw the tattoo he stood up, pulled off his suit coat, dug in his breast pocket, and pulled out a wad of bills.
He couldn’t wait to throw money her way because he was dying to discover all that Sweet Red knew how to do. And he secretly
hoped he could play “daddy” to Sweet Red and spank that thang.

Charles made quick eye contact with Sweet Red to take all of Castilleo’s money and keep the house’s part as a bonus for handling
her business right. He had every intention of sending that negro home flat broke because he didn’t like the way he’d tried
to run some raggedy game on his frat’s niece—a sweet and beautiful assistant principal at the gifted elementary school who
deserved far better than that FNN (fancy-name negro) with barely a pot to piss in.

Sweet Red pulled a cherry Dum Dum lollipop out of her low-cut bra, which was red with black lace running through it, took
the candy out of the wrapper and began sucking on it with those sparkling ruby-red lips. She licked her lips and held a hand
out toward Castilleo, who promptly put ten dollars in it. Sweet Red frowned and started to walk away. Castilleo pulled off
nine more of those tens. She slowed her roll, smiled, slurped on that Dum Dum, turned around, put her behind right in Castilleo’s
face, clapped her booty a few times, and stood still until he put another set of ten tens in her hand.

Happy, Sweet Red dropped down and didn’t come back up until “to the window … to the wall” was blasting out of the sound
system. She bent over and jingled a single cheek. Castilleo started hyperventilating. Kordell handed him one of the paper
bags that were on all the tables. They looked like the barf bags on airplanes. Castilleo took a few slow, deep breaths, sat
back in his chair, took another swig of his Mojito, and put another hundred dollars in Sweet Red’s outstretched hand. She
looked back at Castilleo, crunched the Dum Dum, and jiggled the other cheek.

Both Castilleo and Kordell broke out in a cold sweat. Kordell grabbed a red linen napkin and mopped the top of his bald head.
He always bragged to his posse that the ladies called him Herr Doktor because he had the cure for what ailed them. But sitting
here watching Sweet Red work that thang like that gave Kordell cause to pause a moment, and contemplate if he was the one
who needed to see the doctor.

Kordell winked at Sweet Red, who pretended that she was moved by this football-player-looking basketball coach with the gleaming
pomegranate-shaped head. She knew that he fancied himself a ladies’ man and believed his own hype that he had some serious
game. Sweet Red had taken one look at Kordell Bivens in that JCPenney special and quickly discerned that he was cheap. It
was clear that this Kordell planned to bamboozle the younger coach into spending all of his money on the dance Kordell was
dying to see.

But that was just fine with Sweet Red. She knew that the boss was settling a score with the younger coach and had decided
to hit him where it hurt—his pockets. On the other hand, the big pomegranate-head negro just needed to be played. She could
look in his eyes and tell that he thought he had special powers where the ladies were concerned. Sweet Red knew men who sincerely
had it going on with the sisters—her boss, Pierre Smith, and Coach Parker just to name a few. This joker, however, didn’t
have anything close to the class and down-home dap that those three men possessed.

Sweet Red knew that this negro was hoarding his money for a private dance. She was going to give him a private dance he’d
never forget. And just when he thought he had her right in the palm of his hand, Sweet Red was going to collect all of her
money and then give him her gangsta cousin Lil’ Too Too’s cell phone number when he asked the inevitable question, “When can
I see you again?”

Sweet Red and Lil’ Too Too had an understanding—she paid him one hundred dollars a month just to threaten and cuss out everybody
calling his number looking for “that fine thang from the strip club.” Lil’ Too Too stayed in trouble at school and relished
the opportunity to act bad for the right reason. Plus, Sweet Red didn’t even sleep around. Her man was in the Navy, and she
was dancing to pay the bills and help them save money to buy a house when he came back from his tour of duty.

Sweet Red winked at Kordell, and then clapped her booty real close to Castilleo’s face. When he picked that barf bag back
up, she dropped down and then went into a split and came back up with such grace even Charles wanted to see her do that move
again. Castilleo was still breathing in the bag and Sweet Red was now popping her booty to the remainder of the song, and
kept popping right into the new song, “Big Things Poppin’” by TI.

She clapped her booty one more time, and held that clap until she saw Castilleo pull out a hundred dollars. This time she
frowned and made as if to walk off. Castilleo reached back into his wallet and put what was left on the table. Sweet Red smiled
and plopped her butt on that table and picked up the money with her behind.

The coaches were beating on the tables and giving wolf calls. Sonny Todd had moved from his spot over in the cut on the window
seat to a chair with a much better view. And Kordell was now on the lookout for another mark to pay the sweet red thang enough
money to keep the floor show going. This girl was good—she was doing all that dancing and there wasn’t a pole in sight.

Charles, smooth as can be, clapped Curtis on the shoulder. He had gotten up and stood next to Charles so he could get an eyeful
of this incredible floor show.

“Coach,” Charles said. “I need to speak to you for a minute.”

He made sure the other coaches were so deep into Sweet Red that they had absolutely no interest in anything Curtis was doing.
Curtis glanced backward at Sweet Red for a hot second and followed Charles. He was relieved that he didn’t have to stay in
the room with the other coaches. Not that Sweet Red wasn’t entertaining—the girl was putting a hurting on that dance floor.
Good or not, though, Curtis found that he wasn’t in the mood to be up here today. He was glad to go and hang out with Charles.
As good as Sweet Red was, the last thing he wanted to look at was some woman popping her butt around—especially a woman he
did not know.

Charles knew Curtis didn’t have any business in Rumpshakers. If Eva T. had not been the host school for this meeting, he would
have told his boy to go home, go see his grandmother, go and try to talk to that fine Yvonne Fountain over in the Department
of Design at Eva T. Go and break off that foolishness with Regina Young. Go and do anything but hang around up here.

Plus, Charles knew Regina because he had tapped that tail on several occasions before she got hooked up with Curtis. That’s
how he knew, firsthand, that Regina wasn’t worth the thread used to tie in the hair on that fancy weave.

She couldn’t even be classified. The girl wasn’t a gold digger—she had plenty of money of her own. She had just enough class
to get past being a skank. She was a skeezer of sorts, but again had too much class to remain in that classification for too
long. And she was too stiff and boring to qualify as a hoochie.

That made the girl dangerous. A brother could get an angle on a woman with one of the above classifications. But a woman like
Regina could get you twisted up in a foul game that was hard to end because you couldn’t dig into a little bag of tricks and
pull up a simple formula for handling gold diggers, skanks, skeezers, and hoochies.

These groups of women may have had high drama indexes but they could be handled. Furthermore, they could handle what you dished
out. They knew they fit a high-drama index classification, and were well schooled concerning what could happen between them
and their man at any given time.

Regina, who thought she was above all of that, demanded everything she didn’t deserve from a brother. She expected to be treated
with a level of respect she wasn’t in any way inclined to give back. And she insisted on a brother being loyal and honest
at a level she wasn’t even capable of thinking about giving back to him. That was why the girl could be all up under Curtis,
block his ability to find the right kind of woman, and then go off and sleep with his boss, Gilead Jackson, when she felt
the need for some variety in her life.

Sometimes Regina Young reminded Charles of his cousin Marquita’s trifling husband, Rico. His sister, his mama, and his Aunt
Margarita could not stand Rico, or any of his people. Aunt Margarita always said that those Sneeds thought they were so much
better than everybody else, even when they were still living in the old Cashmere Estates, using food stamps and eating government
cheese just like everybody else.

Charles didn’t like any of those Sneeds, either. They were the meanest, nastiest, and coldest people he’d ever met. Charles’s
folks were hustlers and hood rats. But the Sneeds were hateful, and they talked to folks any kind of way—just saying anything,
no matter how nasty, spiteful, and hurtful it was. Aunt Margarita made it her business to stay away from those people. Said
she’d never met such a bunch of plain and mediocre negroes who were always prancing around being mean and acting like they
were the cat’s meow.

Whenever Charles and his sister, Charmayne, talked about Rico and his mean family, they couldn’t help but think about the
need to be in church and getting right with God. If there was ever a reminder of what people acted like when they didn’t know
the Lord, it was the Sneed family. Even though the two of them were out in the world, they knew about church and living for
the Lord. They had been visiting Fayetteville Street Gospel United Church for so long, folks didn’t even know that they were
not members.

Charmayne had once told him that there were times when she thought about getting saved and making Jesus Lord of her life while
she was still ahead. That day Charmayne had put her arms around her baby brother, whom she loved so much, kissed him on the
cheek, and then popped him on the back of his head like she had when they were kids and he was getting on her nerves.

“I feel like we are running out of time, Charles. We can’t keep running from God and think that things will continue to work
for us.”

“You really think we are running out of time?” Charles had asked his sister, looking at her with the same expression in his
eyes that he had had when they were home alone and he’d asked her when their mama was coming back home.

She hugged him tight with tears in her eyes. Truth was their time to be in the world was almost up. But she didn’t have a
clue as to how they could let go of all that they were gaining in the world to live for God. She didn’t ever want to be broke
again, and neither did he.

Charles steered Curtis down a few corridors far away from the music, conversations, and coarse jokes going on in the main
section of the club. As far as Charles was concerned, Curtis needed to be as far away from Kordell Bivens and Castilleo Palmer
as possible— especially when all of that gyrating and booty-popping was going on.

Charles didn’t like Kordell and Castilleo, and he didn’t trust them, either. Actually there were very few people Charles Robinson
liked, and even fewer that he trusted. Curtis Parker was one, and the others were Maurice Fountain, Obadiah Quincey, and Yarborough
and Denzelle Flowers. They weren’t his boys, even though he liked and respected them all. But Charles knew that they had integrity
and could be trusted.

On the other hand, Charles knew that not one of the men he had left salivating over Sweet Red could be trusted. And out of
that group, Kordell Bivens and Castilleo Palmer were the least trustworthy—especially where Curtis was concerned. Charles
had good instincts and he always trusted what his gut told him.

He knew, just by watching both Kordell and Castilleo, that they wanted the head coach position at Eva T. so bad they would
do anything to get it—including trying to use one of
his
girls to help them get some bogus dirt on Curtis Parker. He didn’t know what made those two second-rate coaches believe they
were capable of doing Curtis’s job. But that is exactly what they thought.

Charles had figured out that Gilead Jackson wanted Kordell and Castilleo to make it hard for Curtis to succeed. And he wanted
to know why Gilead didn’t want the basketball team to prosper and grow when he stood to gain so much with a winning team—especially
one that took a conference title. And it didn’t make any sense that Sam Redmond was sitting back and allowing this to happen.

Charles’s cell buzzed a text from Pierre that read “Check this out, Boss.” Charles turned back to Curtis and said, “Wait here
a minute.” He opened the door to a private dance room and nodded toward a comfy sofa. “I’ll only be a second, man.”

“No problem,” Curtis answered and sat down, wondering what happened in this room. It didn’t necessarily look like the kind
of place where the only thing that a brother received was a lap dance. There wasn’t even a chair in the room, and he knew
that the best lap dances were done with sturdy chairs. At least the best lap dances he’d ever been a party to were done with
a sturdy chair.

This room had gold-painted walls, a plush red-and-gold shag carpet, a cushy gold leather sofa, a dark cream Ultrasuede fainting
or reclining couch that resembled a daybed, a red silk throw on the reclining couch, a small, high window, and several novelty
items in a big red wooden basket with cream silk moire ribbons all over it. Now, Curtis was a grown man who had gotten down
and dirty on a few occasions with the kind of girl the late R&B singer Rick James used to sing about. But he’d never, ever
been in a room like this, and it made him very uncomfortable. He thought about how Gran Gran always tried to get him to carry
a small vial of anointing oil.