Church Folk - Michele Andrea Bowen [7]
Theophilus smiled to himself as he watched the waitress walk away, deliberately giving him an eyeful of her fat, fine behind just swinging and swaying all for him. He thought to himself, "Boy, get yourself together, carrying on like that. Just a few hours ago you were all down on your knees at church and glad to be there, too. Shame on you, Rev. Simmons."
The waitress brought his tea just as the band performing tonight, Big Johnnie Mae Carter and the Fabulous Revues, finished setting up on stage. The Fabulous Revues was a good-sized band—bass player, lead guitarist, tenor saxophone player, trumpet player, pianist, and drummer. These men, who were anywhere from the ages of thirty to fifty, looked good in crisp black pants with razor-sharp creases, light purple silk shirts, shiny black Stacy Adams shoes, and slick black straw hats cocked on the side of their heads. When everybody was in place, the drummer raised his drumsticks high in the air, brought them down hard on the first beat, and Pompey's Rib Joint got to jumping.
Big Johnnie Mae Carter, a tall, husky, square-shaped woman with big breasts and a headful of coarse, bleached blond hair piled high on top, was in rare form tonight. Decked out in a long light purple evening gown with splits up to the knee on each side and rhinestones glittering in her ears, she strutted her stuff to the funky Delta blues rhythms of her band, from the front door of Pompey's all the way up and on to the stage. Then she finally stepped up to the microphone, throwing back her shoulders and whipped out the words of the song:
"If you was a bee baby, I'd turn myself into the sweetest flower.
"And if you was the rain, Daddy, and me the Mississippi? I'd flood this old Delta 'cause I couldn't keep all of your sweet lovin' all to myself.
"And if you just happened to be the devil. Then, Lawd, Lawd, Lawdy, just help me please.
" 'Cause see, I'd be tryin' to up and sell my soul just to make sure you kept on lovin' up on me.
"I said, Lawd, Lawd, Lawdy, Help, Help, Help me please.
" 'Cause I know I'd be doing so wrong just to keep you lovin' up on me."
Big Johnnie Mae looked like she was feeling that music from head to toe as she stretched out her arms, snapped her jeweled fingers, and moved her hips from side to side. As the lead guitarist stepped forward to pick out his solo, she shifted aside, still dancing, rolling her hips in a sinuous way, and finally shimmying on down to the stage floor. The guitarist looked down at Big Johnnie Mae and smiled. She, in turn, smiled back up at him, pulled that dress up to her knees and rolled her hips some more. All the other musicians stopped playing and just let the lead guitar, accompanied by Big Johnnie Mae's dancing, carry the song.
Now Big Johnnie Mae began to weave her way back up, all the while crooning around the melody, stretching to her full height in front of the microphone. Then the band rose up behind her full and strong, as she reached for a note that sounded like it had started way down deep in the basement and came on upstairs to blow the roof off the joint.
A man sitting only a couple of feet from the stage jumped up and shouted, "Damn, baby. You sho' 'nough is hot tonight! Lawd! What I wouldn't give to be that there micro-ro-phone you holdin' on to right now."
The freckled face man leaned over toward Theophilus and said, "Now, that Negro don't have no sense. 'Cause the way she was movin' down on that flo', any fool would know he need to turn hisself into some wood."
Theophilus could only smile at this observation and raise his tea. He stopped short of nodding his head in agreement. He wasn't so sure he wanted to "turn hisself into some wood" because he wasn't so sure he was man enough to hold all of the woman that was Big Johnnie Mae Carter. Theophilus thought that perhaps he could be the sound system that carried her voice