Читать книгу Cruisin On Desperation - Pat G'Orge-Walker - Страница 10

It was Saturday morning and several sweat-stained gardeners were scattered throughout the Pelzer suburbs of the rich and wish-they-were rich population.

Most of the men were young, willing workers, and arrived in small trucks and multi-colored vans. Their well-toned bodies were tanned from the hot sun and dirty from the hard work of mowing lawns and spreading fertilizer. That morning they came prepared to prune and to plant.

Light testosterone whiffs of dripping sweat intermingled with the fragrance of jasmines and yellow lilac bushes that dotted the lawns of several plush homes. The homes of the rich and snooty residents of Hope Avenue were definitely not the homes of the single, but often desperation still came to visit.

As they pushed their roaring lawnmowers, the gardeners’ sleeveless T-shirts clung to their bodies. Although the sight of the young men intimidated the well-dressed men struggling under the weight of their golf clubs, it wasn’t enough to keep them from driving off in their luxury cars and leaving their wives behind.

Standing in the doorway with each hair in its place and nails polished to a shine, the left-behind wives leered at the workers. The sight of the promising young men caused the spoiled wives to daydream of slinging the golf clubs and their husbands over their shoulders, and depositing them at the curb.

A little farther away the intoxicating mixtures of flora and perspiration had wafted towards the corner and into one of the homes on Drudge Road. It was a house where an old flowery faded mat with the furrowed face of a winking cherub, resting lopsided on the front porch, welcomed visitors.

Townfolks always described Hope Avenue as looking “well-off.” They said that Drudge Road just looked “far off.”

Inside the small, cluttered wood-framed eye-sore on the corner of Drudge and Hope avenues, where the smell of Icy Hot for back pain and Clairol plum hair dye was certain to attack a visitor’s nose, lived Sister Need Sum. Her close friends called her Needy. Moreover, even those who didn’t know her at all took one glance and called her that, too.

Needy leaned out of her narrow bedroom window with a chipped pair of binoculars and inhaled the morning air for the umpteenth time since awakening from a restless night. I’m long overdue for some pruning and planting, she sighed as she mentally tore off with her teeth the shirt of one of the young gardeners. With her free hand she began to fan furiously with a torn Aretha Franklin album cover. Her heart fluttered as her mind began to entertain fleshly thoughts that she’d thought she’d overcome at a recent prayer meeting.

Since she had her first kiss at the age of twenty-five, Needy struggled with issues of the flesh. “God’s still working on this building,” she always testified.

“Buenos diás, Carlos. Que pasa?” Needy shamelessly yelled across and up the street at one of the workers who came dangerously close. She prayed her voice rose above the constant high-pitched buzz of the hedge clippers. “Oh you fine, young thing,” she muttered and then quickly looked sky-ward and added, “Lord, please forgive me for that flesh-ridden thought about what I’d love to do with that young man.”

As happy as she was to see the bare chested young Spanish men flexing their toned and sun-kissed muscles, she was even happier to know that God would forgive her for her inappropriate thoughts. She knew this because she’d asked forgiveness far more times than she probably deserved.

Needy was in her late thirties, if she’d been telling the truth. Unlike most of her single friends, she owned her home. There was nothing outstanding about her one-story green and brown frame house except that it sat cushioned between two trailer homes that teetered precariously on whittled cinderblocks.

After a few minutes of inhaling as much air as she could without wheezing from the rag weed in her back yard, Needy shut her bedroom window and went towards the front of the house. Her huge head-wrap, a tattered dark linen towel spotted with hair dye, slowly began to unravel. She moved about as if she were trying to dodge flying objects as she quickly sprayed her living room with long misty streams of Old Spice cologne. The odor of Old Spice was as close to having a man in her home in the middle of the day as she’d been in the past year. And she was not happy about that fact at all.

Needy had barely finished spraying the room with the odor of false hope when the urgent sound of her doorbell clanged though her home.

“Hold your horses, I’m coming,” she yelled, angrily, even though she knew her visitors couldn’t hear her. She quickly looked at her wall clock and realized that her guests were almost thirty minutes early. She was annoyed but certainly wasn’t surprised. Plotting to catch a man was serious business. Blind Betty’s wedding had sent them into overdrive.

The six female club members had become a tight-knit group. They hung out together and even planned their vacations together. They all worked in the same area of town and they still checked in with each other at lunchtime, every day, just in case one of them caught more men than she could handle. That never happened, but they still clung to hope.

“Cill, Birdie and Mother Blister, come on in. How are you ladies today? Excuse the mess.” Needy feigned surprise and the appropriate agitation as the women entered in various stages of desperation, decay, and annoyance into her living room. “Y’all have a seat. Is Petunia parking the car?”

“Yes, she’s outside trying to find a suitable parking space for that mess on four wheels,” Cill said, cheerfully. “We ran into Birdie while we were coming up the walkway.”

“You look wonderful,” Birdie said softly to Needy while giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

Needy returned the kiss, showing her appreciation for Birdie’s thoughtfulness. “Y’all came earlier than I expected. I’ll try to get dressed as fast as I can. After all, one can’t rush perfection.”

She put a little something extra on the perfection comment feeling that she most certainly had to look a lot better than the hot messes, with perhaps the exception of Birdie, she saw seated around her.

Every month for the past five years, Needy led the single and childless meetings in her tiny, cluttered living room. The only thing she’d gotten out of those get-togethers was the title of Madam President and about a twenty-pound spread of unwanted fat on her hips and thighs, along with a bushy mustache on her upper lip that if left alone, most men would’ve killed for. Needy carried around a pair of tweezers that were as necessary to her physical survival as the air she breathed. If she didn’t keep that busy, bushy top lip weeded, she wouldn’t be able to breathe or gossip.

Needy had barely turned to leave before she heard the not-so-subtle whispering followed by snickering begin behind her back.

“Forget about perfection. We don’t have the hundred years to wait,” someone said.

Needy quickly spun around. She let her angry brown eyes spray accusatory bullets at the women and dared them to flinch. None of the usual suspects moved. It was as if whatever words had been spoken were frozen in time.

Needy decided to let the snipe go unchallenged for the time. “Why don’t y’all just go ahead and read the minutes from the last meeting.” A wide menacing grin appeared on her face before she continued. “Birdie, why don’t you do it since you and I are the only ones here that are college-educated.”

Needy gave the insult a minute to hit Cill and then she added, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Cill. I keep forgetting you decided to drop out and play in some Middle-East sand lot.” She didn’t wait for Cill to reply or throw something at her. “It’s only a few paragraphs at the most so y’all decide who’ll do it while I go and change.”

A collective sigh filled the room as each woman, thinking silently of what Cill had said aloud, came back to life.

“We’ll do that while you change,” Cill purred through her clenched teeth. “Take whatever time you need to pull yourself together.”

Needy could feel her chubby fists involuntarily open and close. She suspected that Cill had made the earlier dig. Although this time the comment was said softly, the voice still had the same venom that had spat out the unkind words earlier.

“Girl, you know I love you…all of you,” Cill said, gesturing to Needy’s wide hips.

“You wish,” Needy said as she sashayed past.

Like Petunia, forty-year-old Cill Lee was one of Needy’s oldest sometime-friends. Their friendship was on and off more times than a light switch. They’d reconnected while attending Hampton University.

College didn’t sit well with Cill. She’d always wanted to study automotive design. Although Petunia wouldn’t let her touch her prize Camry, Cill could, back then and even now, take apart and put together any engine. She’d thought it would be an easy degree to obtain in college. After a time, she began to feel differently about school, because it was all books and no hands-on. She thought the studying was too hard and definitely too boring.

Cill decided she’d join the army and spent four years trying to be all that she could be. Then she spent nine months in Kuwait. All the sand, one-hundred-plus-degree days in the sun, and lack of toilet facilities caused her to rethink her choices. She still wanted to be all that she could be—just not in Kuwait.

Six months after Cill had left the army, she returned home. She reconnected with Needy, and moved into a doublewide trailer next door. Somehow, she never noticed that she’d only traded Kuwait for Pelzer, because her trailer sat on a lot that seemed to have as much sand. During the summer, the humid temperatures were unbearable and she was in constant need of plumbing services. Sometimes she’d wished she was back in Kuwait.

Ten minutes passed and Petunia still had not come inside from trying to park her car, but it was enough time for Needy to prance back into her living room. She’d changed into a beige sleeveless housedress that covered her oversized blouse. She always wore something beige or in the beige family because she thought it complimented her muddy-brown skin. Her rather large legs and feet seemed an afterthought as they poked out from an even larger pair of khaki pants that didn’t seem to fit the rest of her body. But that was her normal, indoor, warm weather wear.

With all eyes on her, Needy placed her hands on her wide hips and began to bark at the other women like a sergeant in boot camp. Normally, she wouldn’t speak in such a manner but when it came to the singles meeting, she took on a different persona, and this time she wanted to insult Cill by imitating Cill’s masculine manner.

“Okay, I know you’ve had enough time to poke your noses into whatever I’ve bought lately for my house as well as into my business. Let’s get this meeting started properly because in about twenty minutes we’re gonna bring this pitiful gathering to an end.”

Her skin suddenly sprouted prickly heat bumps brought forth by her rising anger. The other women looked on in horror, as Needy’s dark eyes bulged while her bountiful bosom heaved in and out like jaws on a puffer fish.

Needy pulled together the top button on her blouse when she saw Cill Lee pointing towards her.

“You might wanna handle those,” Cill said, struggling to keep a straight face while pointing to Needy’s escaping breasts.

Needy tried not to act embarrassed. Not only was the top of her blouse unbuttoned; so were several buttons that appeared to zigzag from the uneven fastening. She was showing a lot more cleavage than the other women wanted to see.

“Stop gawking. Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves, you’re just jealous of my two gifts,” Needy laughed, nervously, and laid her hands on her chest. She suddenly forgot that a moment ago, she was barking orders at them.

When Needy was younger, the attention paid to her ample bosom often embarrassed her. She’d learned to cope by embracing them, because that’s all she could do. According to Needy, her size 44DD breasts were a gift that more than made up for her lack of beauty. However, when she wasn’t bragging about her double-D ammunition, secretly she’d complain about her stooped shoulders and constant lower-back pain.

Needy gathered her wits and continued in a kinder and more even tone. “Each of us, in our own minds, is the epitome of womanhood. We’re self-sufficient, with jobs and benefits. So, why is life still giving us the middle finger?” Without realizing it, Needy was ranting again. “Why does life sometimes seem to just toss us crumbs?”

The other women, all of them seasoned and unsuccessful man-hunters, began to nudge one another, nodding in agreement.

They were physically different, yet they had one thing in common; armed with an arsenal of low self-esteem bullets and hair-trigger raging libidos, they were desperate, and extremely lethal.

They were also, with the exception of one, women with their biological clocks locked and set on “Right now, Lord.”

Although Mother Bea Blister was the oldest spinster and should’ve received the most respect, she was often the crankiest.

When she’d responded to the group’s open invitation to join, she’d said that she was in her late sixties or early seventies. This vagueness really depended upon her memory or whether she felt people were just being nosy. Unlike the others, Mother Blister didn’t have a hormonal clock. She’d been on the prowl the longest, so she had a sundial.

With dementia slowly yet daily settling in, she sat motionless with a concerned look etched on her face while the others listened to Needy’s rage. Without meaning to do it, she let her mind wander any place it chose to go. Her wandering mind finally settled on trying to figure out why and where she was.

Mother Blister, who for most of her adult life had worked as a housekeeper for the rich and infamous, continued her mental trip through fantasyland while nestled in a corner. She sat hunched over looking like the letter C. She was sandwiched next to the wall clock, which was shaped like a black and white grinning cat; its obviously broken pendulum hung instead of swinging. On her other side hung an oversize calendar with a grinning Japanese woman pouring tea.

“Do you smell that men’s cologne?” Cill grabbed Birdie’s arm and asked, while pretending to sniff the air. “You know she sprayed it so that we’d think she had a man in her home. Any man that would wear that skunk smell, she can have,” Cill said as she tightened her grip on Birdie’s arm, causing the skin to redden as she laughed at her own joke.

“Ouch! You’re hurting me,” Birdie winced.

“Sorry,” Cill whispered. “You’re so skinny I thought I was holding on to a climbing rope.” She laughed again.

“I’m sure any man that any of us gets is most appreciated,” Birdie hissed, ignoring Cill’s comment about her weight. At that moment it was more important to quickly extricate herself from Cill’s unwanted and too familiar grip.

As usual, Birdie’s observations about life were murky. Some folks laughed behind her back, whispering that she reminded them of the character Rose on the television show The Golden Girls. No one knew what to make of her kindness, generosity or naïveté.

Birdie was also the latest woman to join the singles after their open invitation. This was her second meeting. She was forty-two years old, clueless, and the only white woman in the group. She and Needy were old college friends. They’d met at college shortly after Cill had left to join the army.

Birdie and Needy were also co-workers at the Pinching Pennies Brokerage House.

Birdie stood at least six feet tall in her bare feet, and her body was as straight as an arrow. Although she had more money than the others, with the exception of Needy, and had a bachelor degree in business, Birdie didn’t have a man, so they let her join.

Under different circumstances, the women were usually quite a vocal group. Yet today they continued to sit like a row of dominoes, stoic. Whenever Needy threw a rant their way, each looked back with their chins rising, nodding in agreement. As soon as she moved onto the next person, the last would drop her chin again. They looked like bobble-head dolls as she ranted on about the unfairness of life.

No one in the room would argue that Needy didn’t have a reason to be angry. She’d recently celebrated her thirty-ninth birthday—alone—just as she had for the last fifteen years.

With the exception of Brother Lead Belly, no one called, including the regular yet annoying telemarketers.

Needy was angry when she’d answered and heard him wheezing instead of singing a verse of “Happy Birthday.” In truth, she couldn’t stand the short, box-shaped, chocolate-complexioned, middle-aged man with jowls so fat and long they look like bat wings hanging from both sides of his nose.

The feeling of abandonment left Needy in a lingering foul mood.

Get a grip, Needy, she thought as she inhaled to regroup before continuing. “Soon it will be August,” she spoke softly as though she’d never raised her voice.

“We’ve only just begun our three-week vacations and so far nothing has changed. I’m so sick and tired of us meeting with no new or decent man sightings or dates to report,” Needy whined, quickly abandoning her composure.

“Oh my goodness,” she blurted out, suddenly grabbing the edge of the sofa. She was about to topple over from trying to be cool and collected and realized just how long it’d been since she’d had a date.

Again, Needy tried to play it off and avoided the looks from the other women by pushing away with a dramatic hand sweep a wandering hair-weave track that covered one eye. She knew it didn’t work, because the women were looking on as though hypnotized, and she fought to take control of another escaping piece of hair that had come undone. She finally tossed it back over her ear as she swung her head back and forth like a pendulum.

“It’s a shame,” Needy droned on. “I don’t know about y’all, but I can’t even find a decent man anywhere that’s fit to take out my trash, let alone me.” Needy’s head started to bob and weave again, like she was fighting something invisible and evil in the air. Her eyes suddenly narrowed as her voice rose almost to a shriek.

She continued with her hands still on her hips. “What’s wrong with these men?” She asked the question without really expecting an answer. “When I used to act like trash I got taken out all the time.”

“That’s true. Everyone knows that a lot of men will take out a trashy woman, especially when she begs them to do it—” Cill yelled out from the foyer. She’d only heard part of what was said. She’d left for the bathroom as soon as Needy started her second rant, yet she felt the need to voice an opinion.

“You’re right about that,” another voice added with a little too much confidence. It was Petunia. She’d found a suitable spot and kept parking until it was her habitual twelve inches from the curb.

When did she get here? I didn’t see her come in. Needy’s eyes narrowed so Petunia wouldn’t mistake her anger for anything more than what it was.

Petunia ignored Needy just as she had when she’d opened Needy’s front door and let herself in without ringing the bell. Up to that moment, she’d sat quietly in the corner. Late or not, she still felt a need to put in her neurotic two cents.

“I’ve seen on more than one occasion how Needy and her trashy, trifling ways got her big butt kicked to the curb. It happened, mostly, after the first date.” Petunia, too, had known Needy since childhood and always pushed her buttons. She did it because she knew she could get away with it but she truly loved Needy, in her own way.

Petunia looked Needy up and down, showing her pretend disdain, and then nodded towards the other women for emphasis.

Needy couldn’t respond the way she wanted to because she didn’t want to get blood on her rundown orange carpeting, and because she had bobbed her head in self-pity one time too many, and had come dangerously close to being stabbed in her eye by one strand of her stiff, gelled, artificially plum-colored hair.

“Yeah, you was definitely a bag of trash back in the day; first-class trash at that. And, you were certainly freaky-nasty too, but like you said, you did have a lot of dates.”

Cill had reentered the room and continued down bad-memory lane. “The way I remember it, you even made a decent amount of change from a few of them dates.”

Cill was on a roll; however, she suddenly stopped and threw a conspiring wink at Needy as she pretended to be only teasing.

When Needy didn’t reach over and slap her silly, Cill boldly continued. “Of course, it was a good thing you were getting paid because I remember each time you got locked up for trying to sell what yo’ mama gave you, you needed bail money.”

Cill droned on like a bee with a bad lisp. “But back then you weren’t saved or paying tithes to a church, so you were only doing what came natural to you.”

The room got eerily quiet as if the other women knew a volcano was about to erupt and didn’t want to set it off quicker than necessary.

Cill was satisfied that she’d turned the spotlight off Needy so she turned and nodded towards the others, making sure she still had their attention. She had them by the hairs of their chinny-chin-chins. “Of course, I’ve known you since we were toddlers together,” she said, quickly looking back at Needy before returning her attention to the others. “I remember your mama saying that, even back then she knew you were gonna be a sorry hussy, because you used to tear the slit in your diaper just a little bit higher than it should’ve been, just to show off more of your fat thighs.”

None of the women remembered moving, yet there they were—all bunched together. They looked like an Oreo cookie with Birdie as the white creamy center.

Naïve as she was, Birdie magically produced a set of car keys and dangled them from her hand, ready to move out of harm’s way if she needed to.

Needy’s patience was about to snap. She was so mad she could’ve tossed a pot of hot grits at Cill, and pinned each searing grain into her. Instead, she dismissed the insults to her character when her wandering hair track fell forward, again. She quickly leaned over the arm of her chair and snatched a bobby pin from atop the tall black beehive hairdo of Petunia.

Petunia yelled as if she were singing an aria.

“Ouch!” Petunia winced, grabbing the side of her elongated head. Unfortunately, the bobby pin was the only thing holding together her short au-natural hair that peeked through a ratty, discounted, burgundy-colored weave.

“Dang girl! Do you mind?” Petunia snapped, leaping from her seat as if she’d sat on a pin. She snatched the precious bobby pin from Needy’s hand before Needy could use it. “Everybody knows you got dandruff the size of cornflakes. So don’t put nothing of mine in your hair and then try and give it back.”

Petunia made her move just in time to pin up several tresses of her own coarse, unnaturally black hair that threatened to escape, split ends and all. Every bogus strand of that weave would’ve landed in her lap if she hadn’t.

If there was ever a time that Needy was happy that she knew a little something about being a Christian this would be it. She mumbled a quick “Thank you, Lord” before she glared over at Petunia and thought, she’s a pain in the butt but I need someone around who is even more pathetic than I am. Instead of turning the affront into more of a big deal, Needy decided to let the comment go. She still had bigger fish to fry.

While Needy gathered her thoughts to continue with her self-important oration, Mother Blister, who’d sat motionless and looking completely bored on one of Needy’s matching, wobbly wooden chairs with one missing slat from the backrest, interrupted her.

“I’m bored. Let’s get it started before my bladder kicks a mud hole in my behind.” Mother Blister was always straight to the point. She’d tell anyone that she neither had money to spend on frivolous things nor unnecessary words.

“What did you say?” Petunia asked Mother Blister, thinking that perhaps she’d missed something, particularly since the meeting was almost over and she hadn’t had a chance to start her usual drama.

Mother Blister tried to jump up. She couldn’t because of her age, and that mud hole her bladder had started was kicking like a mule on uppers. “Needy, where’s your bathroom?”

“It’s in the same place it was when you last said you needed to use it.” Needy’s voice dripped with agitation. Old or not, that elderly spinster was working her last nerve.

“You know you can lead a horse to a bucket of water but you still gotta show them where to pee,” Birdie chimed in with a wide grin plastered on her pasty face. She’d finally found the nerve to join in but as usual all she got were questioning stares from the others. She ignored the obvious and continued, “It looks like Mother Blister is looking pretty intently at your geranium pot over there as though it might need watering.” Birdie pointed and then leaned her head towards the flowerpot as though no one knew what she meant.

They didn’t.

It took a lot of effort on her part, but Mother Blister finally got up. She claimed her poor posture and back pain was the result of osteoporosis.

Some folks who knew her from way back whispered it was from her years of bending over when she worked as a house cleaner or cleaning out houses. The facts depended on who was telling the tale.

Mother Bea Blister had at one time spent some quality time in minimum security prison for theft and swindling. That well-known fact gave credence to the rumors of her extra-curricular, illegal, income-making ventures, and that the back pain resulted from bending over and picking the locks of several prominent homes where she’d worked.

Of course, there were others that had the misfortune of crossing Mother Blister’s path. They had another theory. They claimed that she was just Rosemary’s baby all grown up.

No sooner had she stood than Mother Blister plopped back into her seat. “Aw, I feel so much better now.” She smiled innocently before adding, “Please stop gawking. At my age, you have to go—when you have to go.”

The problem was that she hadn’t gone anywhere, so where was the pee?

While the others sat dumbstruck and sniffing the air for any tale-tell ammonia smells, Mother Blister dropped her head, which allowed one of her several fleshy chins to rest on her chest as she returned to her self-imposed state of denial.

As was her nature, no sooner had her head dropped than it rose again. She began fidgeting and was wide awake with renewed energy. She pulled a wrinkled, folded paper towel from one of her pockets. She opened it and after rechecking the gummy adhesive on her beige-colored dentures that lay uneven in her hands, Mother Blister replaced the dentures quickly in her mouth and then decided to toss in her two cents.

At her age, her opinion was worth about two cents and a ten-percent off coupon for a box of industrial-strength bladder control pads, but for now, it was all Mother Blister had to offer.

Mother Blister continued staring at the others as she suddenly blurted out, excitedly, “So what do y’all think of my idea?”

Of course, she hadn’t given an idea but to avoid embarrassing her they all nodded and smiled. Everything would’ve been just fine and the meeting could’ve continued if Petunia hadn’t decided to rock the boat.

“Would you please repeat your wonderful idea?”

“I don’t feel like repeating anything,” Mother Blister replied, harshly. Every word she spoke was cloaked with annoyance. “Let someone just read it from the minutes.”

She fidgeted in her seat before continuing. “Y’all go ahead with the meeting. I’ve got to use the bathroom again.”

Mother Blister never moved from her seat but soon, a look of satisfaction spread across her face before she let her head drop back onto her chest.

Like the others, Needy quickly began, again, sniffing the room for any signs of Mother Blister’s real or imaginary watery gift. She didn’t smell anything unusual so she decided to ignore the obvious. “Why don’t we just go ahead and give any reports on dates, good or bad, since the last meeting,” Needy humbly suggested.

It took all the little strength she possessed to act as if she was being considerate and had nothing better to do than to humor and respect their eldest member, especially since she suddenly began to hear a squishing sound every time Mother Blister moved around on her cushioned seat.

So while the other women chatted and bickered, Mother Blister just sat and daydreamed. However, unlike the lonely and desperate women lounging around Needy’s small living room in various stages of hormonal decay, Mother Blister was the only one who really had a date waiting for her back at the Old Ben Gay Arms Assisted Living home. Even in her advanced years, she’d seen more action than a soldier with several tours of duty under his belt.

Every third weekend of the month Mother Blister and her longtime friend and undercover bed-buddy, seventy-year-old Slim Pickens, got together for a little “show me and I won’t tell anyone” inside the home’s fully stocked medicine room. It was where they always tasted the fruit of their illicit rendezvous so just in case they needed medicine or medical equipment to revive each other, it was handy.

The only reason Mother Blister ever left the confines of her secure assisted-living home other than to attend church, a bingo game or the singles club meetings was to keep the other women from nosing into her business. She needed to make sure none of them had any designs on her man.

As far as Mother Blister was concerned, Slim may be old, even a little phobic, since he spent a great deal of time trying to snap his crusty arthritic fingers and click his false teeth for no good reason. And certainly Slim was also quite cranky when he didn’t get his lunchtime prune-flavored apple-sauce cobbler, but he was still more man than the rest of the other women had.

With all the medications she took by mouth and otherwise, it was only fitting that delusions were one of the many side effects.

Mother Blister decided that she’d toyed with the women in the pathetic group long enough. She checked her watch and saw she still had about thirty minutes before she was to meet Slim. She and Slim met at least three times a month. With her memory becoming more and more faulty every day, she wasn’t sure if today was the first time since last month or not. She wasn’t taking chances, so she needed to make sure she had her strength. A nap was in order. She raised her head and then let it drop slowly, making her curly gray wig slide down onto her forehead.

“Have mercy,” Cill mumbled and snickered, using her thumb to point towards Mother Blister.

“Don’t be so mean,” Birdie rebuked her again. “She’s old and we ought to respect the old. We may one day become retarded, too.” Somehow, she always managed to reprimand and confuse, all in the same sentence.

“For you, someday is today,” Cill hissed under her breath. She was too through with Birdie. If Birdie weren’t a white woman with money, I’d have voted her out as soon as she joined, Cill thought.

For the next few moments, Needy continued to bark orders. Birdie tried to sound sympathetic to Mother Blister’s faulty state of mind, Cill sulked and Petunia whined about not being able to find her bra size.

Ten minutes later when Mother Blister awoke from her power nap, the women were still going at it, and they still hadn’t discussed any of their dates, real or imagined.

Mother Blister’s patience was growing shorter than a flea’s facial hair. There didn’t seem to be an end or an answer forthcoming to the women’s plight. With one dark leathery hand sporting long veins forming the shape of a road map, and age spots resembling routes, exits and all, Mother Blister pulled back her tatty wig. She fumbled around and picked up the Bible beside her that lay open to the “Song of Solomon,” resting with her other hand on the end table. She could tell that it was a passage that Needy must’ve read often because the ink was faded, the page folded repeatedly, and the verses highlighted while the rest of the Bible looked brand new.

Mother Blister grinned as she remembered the essence of the erotic verses before she hurriedly closed the Bible. She didn’t want to let the words of love go, so she hugged the Bible tightly to her sagging breasts as if to bring heaven a little closer.

Mother Blister’s pink rubbery gums supporting her dentures looked like two thick pieces of hard Bazooka bubblegum, laying one atop the other as she smiled and nodded, “I agree with Needy. I want to hear about your dates; if you’ve had any.” She squinted over her bifocals and pointed around the room. “I’m hoping that somebody in this room had a chance to be with a man lately—”

Needy interrupted Mother Blister that time, not caring that the woman was the senior member. Needy needed to regain control of the meeting so she added impatiently, “In addition to relating or lying about your dates, please for once let’s not give the man’s last name. We don’t need another fight like the one at the last meeting when Petunia and Gracie Charles thought that they were going after the same man.”

“I agree,” Cill butted in. “Y’all know it’s a shame that it wasn’t until Gracie was released from the emergency room that we found out that she and Petunia were actually chasing father and son.” Cill sat back proudly and pointed at Needy. “I’m sorry. You were about to get somewhere with this sordid trip down memory lane.”

Needy’s muddy brown skin was beginning to turn beet red but she was also determined to show a little decorum and not sink to Cill’s level. “Now, let’s get down to it,” she said with her lips curling, “because our common denominator is the we still need a man factor.

After all, it was Needy’s house and until things changed, she was the man of it.

While Needy began to recount the several imaginary encounters she would’ve had with men she’d never met, which was unnecessary because none of them had a man, Birdie found herself looking over at Petunia.

As physically challenged as Petunia might’ve looked at thirty-six, Birdie wasn’t much better at the age of forty-two, with just a little more meat on her bones.

Birdie suddenly started feeling uneasy. A twinge of jealousy was invading her spirit, and she wasn’t comfortable about it. She sat farther back in her chair and started to sulk when she realized why. She was afraid that Petunia might get a real date before she did.

Petunia wasn’t aware of Birdie’s discomfort as she rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth at Needy. She held up one skinny palm so Needy could talk to it, instead. With her position silently stated, Petunia wiggled in her seat, eager to start the lying fest. Looking like a nervous and anemic worm on a hook, she was so busy trying to be dramatic that she didn’t see Birdie jump from her seat, trying to be the first one to set it off.

Birdie shuffled her feet from side to side, ready to deliver her news. “While Petunia is getting her act together, I’ve got something to tell.”

Knowing that she had all eyes upon her, Birdie took time to flick away an invisible piece of lint from her green couture dress. She wanted to give the other women a chance to envy her new matching green Manolo Blahnik shoes. Which was something she’d never have done before joining this very vocal group.

The way the other women, including Needy, smiled and gave appreciative nods towards Birdie now angered Petunia. No, this heifer did not dismiss me, Petunia thought, as her eyes narrowed into two slits. Evil thoughts of what she’d like to do to Birdie weighed heavy on Petunia, causing her to sink lower in her seat. She sank until she almost disappeared into the cushions. Any farther and she’d have looked like a needle stuck in a pincushion.

Making sure she had everyone’s full attention, Birdie’s voice took on a phony seductive tone as she spoke her words, hushed and raspy. “It was simply amazing—”

“Say what!” Cill blurted, her words tinged with a taste of jealousy. She’d decided that just a nod of acknowledgment would not do. “Please don’t play with us.” She leaned forward while twirling a stubborn chin hair. “How did that happen? Are there any other details?”

The room was quiet as everyone leaned forward. Birdie thought they were about to hang on her every word but the other women’s attention was really captured by Cill’s unyielding chin hair that she twirled like a baton.

No one was ever sure if that was the only chin hair Cill had, or just a hair that she’d missed while shaving. But then again, the women were never sure exactly why she attended the singles ministry meeting since she looked like she loved being a switch-hitter in the game of life and a good one at that.

“Well, until he recently contacted me, it was about two years ago since I’d seen him,” Birdie said slowly as she watched the other women’s attention return from Cill’s stubborn chin hair back to her. “I’d gone to the prison—”

“You mean to tell us that you got a date and a marriage possibility while up there at the prison?” Petunia interrupted. Thinking there was more drama coming, she was giving Birdie her full attention. She could hardly contain her excitement as she thought, Imagine, meeting a man working in the prison? Why didn’t I think about going to prison?

“Anyway, like I was saying,” Birdie continued with a little annoyance in her voice as she tossed her long brunette hair over her shoulders with an exaggerated head shake, “it was while I was talking to one of the guards and he was commenting on how nice my outfit was—”

“Now, ain’t God good? You wore something decent for once and you were rewarded by meeting a nice man with a job,” Mother Blister quipped, cutting Birdie off as she stood to answer the nonstop urge from a non-cooperating bladder. By the time she realized it wasn’t sweat dripping between her legs she really needed to go. All those false alarms finally caught up with her. She was rushing out of the room so fast she looked like a speeding shadow.

Before Birdie could reply, Needy quickly picked up where Mother Blister left off. “You sure are blessed. You went up to that prison—no doubt to do some prison ministry—and as a reward you got a date two years later with a guard with job benefits. Do you know what that means?”

“If she doesn’t know then I certainly do,” Cill answered for Birdie. “That means that Birdie gonna be able to use some of those benefits when she marries that guard. She can get gold crowns placed on her teeth so that she’ll look like she belongs. And, of course, that will take care of that halitosis she got.”

Cill was proud of herself for taking the opportunity to throw that mention of bad breath into the mix. She could tell by the sneaky grins on the other women’s faces that she’d said what they’d been thinking.

At the mention of her having bad breath Birdie cupped her hands to her mouth and blew into them. She was stunned. No one had ever mentioned that she had bad breath. When people leaned away from her, she always felt it was because her essence was so overpowering and folks wanted to give her space. Now she knew, and the foul-odor truth was trapped in her hands, floating up her nostrils and momentarily making her dizzy. She clutched the end of the bookcase for balance and continued speaking with one hand covering her mouth as if she suddenly had a toothache.

“That’s not exactly what happened,” Birdie murmured into the palm of her hand. She didn’t want to take a chance of speaking too loudly and having more of her bad breath escape.

Mumbled or mangled, the words were clear to the others as the sudden, revised revelation spread around the room. In an instant, the women stopped their chatting and envying.

“If that’s ‘not exactly what happened,’” Cill asked as she slowly stood, “then what ‘exactly’ did? And you can remove your hand so we can hear you clearly. You can’t help your medical condition. Check out Mother Blister,” Cill continued. “Her breath can stop a Mack truck.”

Cill wanted to know the real story, so she decided to sacrifice Mother Blister’s reputation since the old woman had finally gone to the bathroom and couldn’t defend herself. “Go ahead and tell us what really happened.”

Birdie wasn’t sure if she believed Cill’s sudden interest and particularly the part about Mother Blister since she’d never smelled the old woman’s breath. But then again, she hadn’t smelled her own either. With her dignity hanging by a thread, Birdie continued explaining.

“Like I said, I was talking with one of the guards.” Birdie stopped. She was momentarily distracted by Mother Blister reentering the room and sitting down. “As I was saying, the guard only mentioned my outfit once as he wrote out my visitation pass. No doubt he knew class when he saw it.”

“We already know you went there to visit. So if you didn’t get a date with the guard, who was it?” Needy asked with a touch of agitation in her voice as she dismissed Birdie’s mention of class.

“It’s not that I couldn’t have had a date with a guard; but it was with a guy that was being processed for release,” Birdie replied almost apologetically. She let her head drop in shame.

“Say that again,” Petunia said, rising like a stalk of wheat from her seat. “You got us all riled up and hopeful and your date was with a man that was just getting out of jail?”

“It wasn’t exactly that simple—” Birdie hesitated before going on.

It was starting to get ugly as if ugly wasn’t already present in the room.

“I didn’t know at that moment that he was a guest of the state.”

“I betcha they didn’t treat him like a guest,” Cill snickered.

Birdie let that remark slide. She needed to hurry and finish telling her side of the story. “It was while he was waiting for his papers to leave, and I was waiting for mine to go in, that we started talking. He seemed so nice. All the guards that passed by seemed to know him and they called him by his first name. I didn’t find out until many months later that at that time he was being released from prison. On that day, we just never talked about it.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Cill said as she slumped back in her seat. “What in the world were you thinking?”

Birdie’s face reddened as she tried to explain. “At the time, with him being so popular, I figured he just came up there a lot.”

“You mean came in there a lot,” Needy snickered while getting high fives from Cill and Petunia.

It was like watching a speeding car wreck waiting for Birdie to finish. There would be casualties but it would have to wait for the story to end.

Birdie ignored Needy and continued. “Anyway, after about ten minutes of sweet conversation that day, we exchanged telephone numbers. And, he also gave me a snapshot. I’ll show it to you—”

“A snapshot or a mug shot?” Mother Blister interrupted. She had returned around the time Birdie mentioned something about a man in prison.

It was only about the second time that Mother Blister had bothered to interrupt because Birdie’s story was too familiar and she wanted to see how much so.

While the others snickered and nudged one another Mother Blister leaned forward in her seat to hear better. Although the clicking sound made by her false teeth distorted some of Birdie’s words, she listened anyway. Mother Blister only mildly began to feel sorry for Birdie’s apparent predicament. She wasn’t sure if Birdie would know the difference between DeCon or an ex-con.

“I think I have it right here in my pocketbook,” Birdie said, rumbling through her purse still searching for the questionable photo and, hopefully, a Tic-Tac.

“Don’t feel bad honey,” Petunia said, “I had one of those experiences too. I even went so far as to accept some collect calls from a fella in prison. He sent my phone bill up so high I thought I’d have to use a carrier pigeon to keep in touch with folks.”

“Been there and done that,” Cill added.

Needy was the first one to ask Cill what the others were suddenly thinking. “You had a man in prison, too?”

“Girl, please. No way. I was talking about having a high telephone bill,” Cill said, laughing so hard her chin hair was starting to wiggle. Her laughter seemed to lighten the tension that was starting to build.

“Here it is!” Birdie said, excitedly. It wasn’t just because she’d found the photo, it was also because she’d found an old dinner mint. She quickly popped the mint in her mouth and continued.

“It will be difficult to see his entire body because it’s only a side-view shot of him from the waist up. Although it’s his left side, you can believe he is a fine-looking man.” Birdie used the photo as a fan to show just how hot she thought the man was before handing it to Needy.

Needy’s reaction was hard to read. Her jaw fixed, she looked at the picture of a young, honey-complexioned man with jet-black wavy hair. He looked to be somewhere in his late thirties. She studied the photo long and hard before she finally spoke. “Birdie, dear. I know this is only a side view but why does his eye look so teary?”

“Oh, I ain’t no ordinary fool. I asked him the same thing. He said he’d had some drops put in his eyes because they were dry,” Birdie replied, impatiently.

It looks more like he’d had drops of liquor. This man looks high, Needy thought before continuing. “Birdie, dear. What is he being measured for? There are height measurement lines on the wall behind him.”

“I asked him about that too,” Birdie replied in a huff. What had started out to be a brag session was quickly turning into an inquisition. “He said he took the picture in a doctor’s office. He said the doctor’s office was really small so instead of a scale with a height pole on it the lines were drawn on the wall.”

“Birdie, dear,” Needy asked, slowly that time. “These numbers along the bottom of this photo, I guess they are his medical identification information?”

“In fact, Needy, that’s exactly what it is.” It dawned upon her that the others might start to think that she wasn’t hip so she quickly added, “Well you know I’m quite sharp. Like I said before, I ain’t no fool so I asked him about those numbers on the bottom of the photo, too.” Birdie was quite pleased with herself. Apparently, she’d asked all the right questions.

“And why is the last name smudged off?” Needy asked. She ignored Birdie’s last enthusiastic response. “I can still read the first name. It looks like his name is Lyon,” Needy added while holding the picture at an angle to see it better.

“Oh that. I asked about that too because I wanted to know his last name.”

While Needy and Birdie carried on with their foolish question and response routine, the other women looked on, totally captivated by what was happening.

“So, what did he say? How did he explain it?” Needy asked, slowly. Suspicion was riding her like a jockey with his butt glued to the saddle trying to sprint in the mud. Each step, like each question, was getting dirtier and harder.

“He said that they had misspelled his last name so rather than leave it that way, he decided to erase it.” Birdie was starting to get an eerie feeling like perhaps they thought she wasn’t telling the truth. “But, he did tell me his last name,” she offered.

“Really,” Needy pushed. “Care to share it?”

“L.I.P.P.S.” Birdie recited each letter slowly. “His last name is Lipps.”

“Lyon Lipps? Is that his name?” Needy asked while still studying the photo. She was about to ask another question when the quiet in the room was suddenly disturbed by the sound of rustling and scurrying. She looked up just in time to catch Cill, Petunia and even Mother Blister rambling through their purses and pockets, as if their very lives depended upon it.

“Got it!” Petunia yelled out ahead of the others. “She’d pulled out a frayed Polaroid picture and within seconds both Cill and Petunia had joined Birdie with their own photos in hand.

“Hold up,” Mother Blister pleaded and continued searching through her bag. “Give me a moment.”

“No time to wait,” Petunia cried out as she held her other hand out towards Needy. “Let me see that picture, please.”

Needy looked at Birdie, who gave her a nod of permission.

“I want to see it too,” Cill chimed in.

“It had better not be that same fellow that tried to scam me about two years ago,” Mother Blister snapped under her breath while still searching. I can still see that sun-burned, greasy-looking, wavy haired…” Her voice trailed off as she continued her search through her messy pocketbook.

“That shameless son of a monkey who tried to rip me off had pitch-black wavy hair,” Petunia said, shaking with anger while still waiting for Needy to hand her the other photo. She was anxious to confirm her suspicions.

“The one that sent my sister Jessie and her credit sky-high and off into outer mental space was a Creole-looking piece of—” Cill stopped short of cussing. She’d prayed hard to be delivered from a foul mouth but it didn’t mean that at that moment she wouldn’t feel better letting out a few choice words. However, it was the pained look on Petunia’s face that had her momentarily unnerved, and saved her from an unscheduled trip to the altar for forgiveness for that particular sin. “What’s wrong, Petunia?” Cill asked, this time with real concern.

“It’s just that your sister’s scallywag of a man sounded just like that piece of honey-complexioned garbage that sent me free-falling into Chapter 11,” Petunia said as she glanced down at the worn photo in her hand. She’d rubbed the picture so much until the ink was one layer away from being a smudge. Needy needed to hurry and hand her that other photo before she exploded.

Not one to waste a moment, Petunia’s face suddenly reddened. It was a clear sign that time was up and she was out of control. She suddenly snatched the bobby pin that held her weave intact and started stabbing the photo in her hand as she yelled, “That man got my credit so messed up until I have a hard time getting the stores to even accept my coins.”

None of the women had ever seen Petunia explode and it wasn’t pretty, particularly when her weave started flying off its track, again, from the lack of bobby pin support.

The women never claimed to be rocket scientists but they didn’t need to be to connect these dots. Lightbulbs started going off under wigs and weaves like candy Pez’s from a Pez dispenser.

Cill reached over and snatched the photo from Needy’s hand, which still seemed frozen in time. Heated anger shot from Cill’s body, colliding with the anger of the other women, causing another explosion in Needy’s living room.

“That reprobate!” Cill shouted after snatching the photo. It wasn’t a clear picture of his face, but it was enough for her. “If I ever get my hands on this slime-ball, I’ll pull out every hair on his body, one by one, with a rusty pair of tweezers.”

Cill’s chest heaved as she held up the photo for the other women to see. “Why would any woman let this piece of jackal flesh touch them?”

Birdie wanted to be the first one to explain Lyon’s allure but the silence and awe of the other women at Cill’s ridiculous question silenced her. The sight of Cill ripping the photo to shreds kept her quiet.

“What the ham and cheese!” Mother Blister finally added, after remembering why she’d gotten involved with Lyon Lipps. She wanted to cuss, too, but decided that the others knew that already. It took her a moment but she finally caught on to the full magnitude of the situation.

“I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool,” Birdie whined as she lowered her head in shame. She’d really been looking forward to the date. “I didn’t mind that he’d done time, I could’ve forgiven him about leaving that bit of information out. But I’ll be doggone if I’ll be happy about him serving time and serving all of you.”

Birdie’s hair started fanning as she pounded Needy’s thrift-shop coffee table until it almost splintered.

“Well, what are we gonna do about it?” Petunia asked. She didn’t care if her weave totally derailed. She was out for blood.

“I still have the telephone number he gave me. And I know the number is good because he and I are supposed to get together soon,” Birdie said as she massaged her aching fists.

“Soon, you are seeing him soon?” Needy echoed while visions of whacking off the man’s heads, both of them, top and bottom, danced in her head.

Needy went over to the corner of her living room and lifted a telephone book from a shelf and started thumbing through the smudged pages so fast her fingers looked like wings on a hummingbird. She’d never met the man, Lyon Lipps, but she didn’t need to do that to issue a little payback.

“What are you doing? Why are you rifling through a telephone book at a time like this?” Cill asked, suspiciously. “We got a situation that needs fixing.”

“Back in my day”—Mother Blister hissed and wobbled while pounding the side of her stool, which made the hanging skin under her upper arms flap so hard they sounded like a helicopter taking off—“we’d send his trifling butt straight to hell and then have a party to celebrate.” She stopped abruptly and furthered her point by pointing one of her fingers downward.

As Mother Blister moved, her sagging breasts fell forward, releasing a fluffy piece of cotton that suddenly floated out. She’d been looking for it earlier that morning when she’d dusted her body’s nooks and crannies with talcum powder. The sight of the free-falling cotton suddenly seemed more interesting, outweighing any embarrassment she should’ve felt, and she lost her train of thought, again.

“I second that motion,” Petunia said before adding, “I say throw a pot of hot grits on him and a pail of glue to make sure it sticks!” She’d forgotten how vicious she could be, and the feeling of revenge made her feel good and important.

“How about we just catch him in a back alley and we’ll each use a bag of marbles to crack his bones? I say we clock that sucker from his tooter to his rooter. We can say that he fell or tripped, if anyone walks in on us,” Cill chimed in. She became animated to the point of pulling her stubborn strand of chin hair straight. If she hadn’t looked over at Birdie with concern, she might’ve yanked it completely out, which would’ve made her look less masculine.

“Birdie, are you okay?” Cill asked. “Don’t be ashamed. We’ve all been made a fool of by that mangy piece of masculinity.” She stopped to amend her declaration. “What I meant was that all of you have been made a fool of by that lying Lyon.”

“What do you mean? That dude has never made a fool of me,” Needy barked as she continued to thumb through the pages of the telephone book. She’d recovered just in time to retain her phantom reputation as a classy lady. “I don’t even know him, so get your facts straight. After all, y’all still carrying around your torn and smudged photos, so he must’ve either set your sails a-flapping or all of you are just gluttons for punishment.”

Of course, Needy failed to mention that perhaps not that particular man had made a fool of her, but rather there were others who had.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I guess you and me are the only ones untouched by masculine deceit,” Cill replied.

Needy ignored Cill’s apology and reference to her lack of sexual activity as she stopped thumbing through the pages she’d taken from Mother Blister’s hands and cried out, “Okay. I think we should take Mother Blister’s suggestion and send that supposed lover boy to hell. And I’ve found the perfect way to do it.”

The meeting had taken a sudden strange and dangerous turn. They were riding high from the drama. The smell of a jive-talking, lying man’s blood became their driving force.

Needy had their attention. Even Mother Blister stopped concentrating on the piece of cotton to raise her head and show an interest.

“How are we going to send him to hell?” Petunia asked. She leaned forward in her seat, which made her look like a leaning banana stuck into a pincushion.

“And what’s your definition of hell?” Cill asked. She was in the mood to pay Lyon Lipps back for what he’d done to her sister, Jessie, her friends and to the whole human race.

“What’s with the telephone book?” Birdie asked as her pride and courage slowly began to return. “You ain’t trying to hire a hit man, are you?” From the looks on the other women’s faces, she wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to do just that and of course, make her pay for it.

“Of course not,” Needy snapped. “Why kill him quickly when we could make him suffer slowly? I said let’s send him to hell, not to the grave. I ain’t trying to do jail time.”

“It ain’t all that bad.” Cill had spoke out before she thought. “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Well, it made me the woman I am today,” Mother Blister said proudly. “Don’t nobody wanna mess with me.” Her voice trailed as she took another peek at the Polaroid that lay with its sides bent, secreted in the palm of her hand. She didn’t want to tell the others that she’d found the photo she sought. She was almost certain that it was that same Lyon Lipps that had sweet-talked her out of three months of her pension. At the time it happened, she felt it was payback because she’d stepped out on Slim with a much-too-younger man.

“I thought nobody messed with you because you were old and you had God on your side,” Birdie said, interrupting Mother Blister’s sudden silence. She’d never heard Mother Blister get so riled up.

“It is because I’m old and I have God on my side that demons, spiritual and human, will try,” Mother Blister answered and balled her wrinkled fists. “Who do you think gives me the strength to knock somebody out if they mess with me?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she concentrated on the cotton ball that lay at her feet as she eased the frayed photo back into her pocketbook. She didn’t know why she’d continued to keep it. It was barely recognizable.

“Can we please get back to my plan?” Needy shouted. Her patience was about as thin as a piece of thread. “Think about it. If we want someone to wish they’d never been born, and to be left without a shred of dignity as they drown in payback hell, what should we do?”

A smile started to spread across Needy’s face as she saw the looks of understanding come forth, one by one, from the other women’s faces with the exception of Birdie. “Who do we know who is so cold-hearted that when she walks into a room the furnace kicks on automatically?”

“You wouldn’t,” Cill said without much conviction, as a wide grin appeared on her face.

“I wanted that Lyon Lipps to suffer, but do we have to go that far?” Petunia asked as she started to chuckle.

“Come on now, Needy. What that man did wasn’t all that bad to put him in that situation, was it?” Mother Blister had reached down and grabbed the cotton ball from the floor. She smashed it repeatedly in her hand as she started to giggle as her memory and some sanity returned. “Have mercy.”

“I don’t know if I want any part of this,” Birdie said as she nervously rubbed her hands together. “I don’t know if we, as praying women, should be involved in something that’s evil. After all, vengeance does belong to the Lord.”

“Well, I tell you what. When it’s all over we’ll pray for forgiveness,” Needy replied without conviction. “We’ll just make four reservations at the altar. After all, God knows our hearts, and He knows that we’re just weak sometimes.”

“Aren’t you talking about premeditated sin?” Petunia asked as her smile started to fade.

“Connect the dots, Petunia,” Needy said, exasperated. “If it wasn’t planned or premeditated, would we need to make reservations at the altar for forgiveness?”

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you but I haven’t used up my seventy-times-seventy quota yet. So, I guess I’m down with the plan.” Petunia went back to grinning; this time with a smile that threatened to split her face.

“Anybody that wants to back out should leave, now.” Needy looked at each of the others. Not one foot moved. The look on Needy’s face went up a notch past diabolical as she folded her arms over her double-D arsenal and continued. “So the plan to destroy Lyon Lipps is a go.”

Even the temperature in the room seem to rise as it finally set in that they were about to go where most women will when disrespected by a man.

“Simply destroying him ain’t good enough for me, but if it’s all we got then it will have to do,” Petunia replied as the other women nodded in agreement.

“Good.” Needy put down the telephone book and reached for the phone. She started pushing the buttons. “You know once we start this there’ll be no turning back.” She let one chubby finger rest in the air for a moment before letting it slowly come down to push the last button.

“I don’t care. Let’s just do it! I don’t know what the plan is but I’m in,” Birdie said. “Let’s get it started so I can go home and anticipate the final date with Mr. Lyon Lipps.”

Suddenly, the old broken clock in the corner started to vibrate instead of chime. The entire room took on an atmosphere of urgency as Needy finished dialing. Several flies dashed themselves against half-opened windowpanes as they tried to escape as if they, too, preferred to die than buzz around those lethal women.

“Ooh, he’s gonna get it!” Petunia whispered to no one in particular as she twisted her skinny hands into the shape of a pretzel.

“Shush. It’s ringing…Hello. May I speak to Sister Ima Hellraiser please, if she can receive phone calls?”

A few seconds later Needy turned towards the other women as she cupped the telephone receiver. “We’re in luck. She made bail but she hasn’t left the precinct yet, so she’s available. When I hang up we’re gonna have to hold hands to pray and thank the Lord for helping her to get out.”

“You know that woman has her own private suite at the jailhouse,” Cill whispered to the others. “She’s a regular there.”

Needy raised her finger again for silence as she spoke.

“How are you doing, Sister Hellraiser?…That’s wonderful. I’m glad you’re going home. How much probation time did you get, this time?…A year? That’s not too bad. Anyway, listen. I have a problem. It’s a man problem…Can we come over in about an hour?…That’s great…Of course, I know the address.”

Needy winked and raised one thumb as a sign of success to the other women. “By the way, do you now take credit cards for your services? No. It’s not my credit card.” Any other time she’d have been insulted but she’d taken this one on the chin. “It belongs to Sister Birdie Tweet—she’s that new white woman in our group.”

Needy gave the women the “okay” sign instead of giving Ima specifics over the precincts telephone. She hung up. Apparently, everyone knew that Ima Hellraiser always thought that a white woman’s ice was always colder than a black woman’s.

That reprobate Lyon Lipps didn’t know it but he was in for the fight of his life. Ima Hellraiser, the gorgeous and only daughter of the infamous Sister Areel Hellraiser, and the niece of the infamous Mother Sasha Pray Onn, was one of ole Satan’s prizefighters and her record was still 100 to 0. She was so dangerous that it usually took an act of Congress and a huge monetary deposit just to get permission for her to visit another country.

If the women of the Oh Lawd, Why Am I Still Single Singles Club had never been on a manhunt before, they were now.