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  “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.”

  SIX

  Curtis checked his speedometer. He didn’t know he was going that fast—eighty-eight miles per hour. The speed limit was sixty-five. He was rolling down Highway 40. Good thing it was almost seven in the evening, or else he’d have been in trouble. Curtis checked the rearview mirror just to be on the safe side. No need to drive this fast and not have sense enough to look for the cops.

  He was running late and trying his best to make the thirty-five-minute drive to North Raleigh in as close to fifteen minutes as he could. Curtis couldn’t believe that Gilead had summoned him to an impromptu meeting in the president’s office. He was even more put out when he walked into Sam Redmond’s plush office overlooking the university’s well-stocked lake and Jethro Winters, Eva T.’s newest trustee member, was sitting in a chair sipping on some Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks like it was a glass of iced tea. Curtis knew that Sam Redmond loved Johnnie Walker Blue and always kept it on hand for special guests.

  Curtis did not like the feel of this meeting. Nothing good could possibly come out of a meeting with Gilead Jackson, Sam Redmond, and the rich, white, and very greedy developer Jethro Winters. He thought about all the trouble Jethro had caused his friend Lamont Green, when Lamont would not back down and allow Jethro to roll over him and take the contract to rebuild Cashmere Estates.

  The idea that these three snakes had taken time out of their busy day to slither up together long enough to meet with him was troubling enough. But Curtis
was even more concerned when he remembered seeing Kordell and Castilleo leaving Sam’s office two days ago. Neither one of those two men was in the ranks of faculty members who would have direct access to the university president. Maurice, who was much higher on the food chain than Kordell and Castilleo, had never met with Dr. Redmond in his office. In fact, Curtis hadn’t met with Sam in his office more than four times since he became the head coach four years ago.

  Even more disconcerting was that Kordell and Castilleo left Sam Redmond’s office in a hurry, and then hopped into Rico Sneed’s red Cadillac. Curtis had never taken Rico’s affair with Tangie Bonner at face value like most other folk. He’d always suspected that the affair was a front to give him a reason to be on campus every day. Anyone who understood how affairs worked knew that a man involved in an affair would try to be with his other woman as much as possible. For Rico, it meant that he could come and go as he pleased, and no one would ever think to question his real reason for being at Eva T. all the time.

  Curtis was astounded when Gilead told him that the meeting had been called to discuss pending cuts in his budget for uniforms, shoes, towels, and the water, cups, and Gatorade used during a game. That Gilead would want to buy second-rate shoes and uniforms, only to have to turn around and spend money again when they fell apart mid-season, was stupid.

  In the past he would have been furious and ready to do battle in a heartbeat over something like that. And Curtis suspected that was exactly the kind of reaction Gilead and Sam Redmond were hoping for when they summoned him to the president’s office to tell him this in front of Jethro Winters. Throughout that entire contrived conversation, Curtis had to remain prayerful to keep his cool. Gran Gran kept telling him to get stronger in the Word so that he’d have something to anchor him when faced with a trial like this one. How he wished he’d been obedient. A good Word from the Lord would have blessed him down to the bone, especially when Gilead handed him a spreadsheet itemizing the proposed areas targeted for the budget cuts. But Curtis didn’t flinch or move a muscle. He took the spreadsheet, folded it up, and put it away in his briefcase before saying, “Is there anything else you need for me to know? I’m already late for an appointment.”