Gather Together in My Name - Maya Angelou [41]
Our routine was honed to a fine point, our flashes and stashes and hand movements coordinated in machinelike precision. My costume fit passably well, my hair was done beautifully, and I had on enough make-up to stave off a winter cold.
The orchestra struck up our music and I led “Poole and Rita” out on the dance floor.
Dum dum te dum dum dum.
“And now, breaking in their new act, from way out Chicago way—Poole and Rita!”
I was miraculously in the center of an empty floor, with lights blazing down and I felt nearly naked. Just out of the glare I saw what appeared like a thousand knees and legs around small tables. I couldn't make out faces in the gloom, but I was sure they were there and probably all staring at me.
R.L. glided onto the floor, tap-tap-tapping away, flashed by me and I wanted to grab his hand. He pulled away to anywhere, but I was frozen in the spotlight.
Boom boom boom rah boom rah, boom rah brah, brah.
I realized that I was frightened and I nearly panicked. My God, what was going to happen? I'd never be able to leave this place. A stake had been driven down through my head and body, rooting me forever to this spot.
R.L. flashed by again.
Boom rah boom rah.
If he would only stop that silly tap-dancing and take my hand, we could leave.
He marched up and spoke to me under the music.
“Come on, Rita. Break. Break!”
Break what? I looked at him as if I had never seen him before.
He put his arm around my shoulder like Astaire did Rogers in one of their military parodies.
He looked at me and gave me a push that almost sent me into one of the tables, and hissed, “Break, goddammit, break!”
I broke.
I started dancing all over the place. Tapping, flashing, stashing up and down the floor. I threw in a little Huckle Buck, Susie Q and trucking. Our routine had completely disappeared, but I was the world's dancing fool. Boogie-woogie, the Charleston. When the band was moving into the last chorus, I was just getting warmed up.
R.L. pursued me across the floor. He finally put his arm around my shoulder again, and by brute force led me off the floor, flashing to the end.
The audience clapped and I pulled away and raced back, booming and boom-rahing R.L. joined me and again pulled me back to the wings.
I loved it. I was a hungry person invited to a welcome table for the first time in her life.
The costume rental and transportation had diminished our take to fifteen dollars apiece. I was exhausted and had the long bus ride ahead back to the city. But all was better than well. It was supercolossal. I had broken in. I was in show business. The only way up was up.
CHAPTER 23
As I scrambled around the foot of the success ladder, Mother's life flowed radiant. Fluorescent-tipped waves on incoming tides. Men with exotic names, slick hair and attitudes of bored wisdom came into Vivian Baxter's large dark house, stayed awhile and went, making room for their successors.
Good-Doing David, with his silky black skin (Mother always preferred very black men, saying they were the cleanest folks in the world) and silk foulard tie, sat around the kitchen table for a few months. His eyes monitored her movements carefully, and when it was nearly too late she repaid him with a sultry look, thrown over her shoulder, and a smile that promised secret delight. Good-Doing forfeited his tenancy because of a misjudgment in logic. He thought since he was her man, it followed that she was his woman. He shouldn't have been so wrong.
One afternoon a seaman friend called her from the dock and she invited him over. They maintained a brother/sister relationship.
“John Thomas is coming,” she said to me. “Please go get a couple of chickens from the kosher poultry store. Tell them to cut them up.” She had pulled out the wooden bowl, and laid her diamond rings in an ashtray. “I'll whip up a few biscuits and give him some fried chicken.”
I knew that although the store was only two blocks away, she would have the bread in the oven and the oil heating