Johnson did remember, knew exactly what Verdi was talking about. He had warned her that the white professors often wanted to get inside of the heads of the black students, as if they were at the university not as students trying to get a degree like everybody else, but as guinea pigs, research subjects, a valuable source of data, and since the university was footing the bill for many of them anyhow, they should be willing to give back in this way. He’d insisted to Verdi that she shouldn’t feel obligated to put out a whole lot of excess effort helping them to understand her, or by extension all black people everywhere, that she didn’t owe anybody shit.
“I’m inclined to agree with your wife, Professor.” Johnson looked at Penda and smiled when he said it. “It is debatable.”
“Let me give you my perspective, young man,” Rowe said, this time he did look at Johnson, his tone more conciliatory. “Not engaging professors in meaningful dialogue because one is afraid that one’s brain might be picked is a practice that borders on being a negligent student. One passes up the opportunity to get a greater insight into the teaching community here at the university, and also, quite frankly, a shot at a better grade.”
“Uh, well, Professor, I guess you would have had to have been privy to the entire conversation, you know, before and after we got to that part in order to get the full gist of what I meant.”
Rowe didn’t answer. He just looked away and scanned the room and moved his shoulders slightly to the beat of the music and smiled as if he suddenly realized that he was enjoying himself.
“Hey, you missed my cousin, Kitt,” Verdi said brightly. “I wanted you to meet her, but she couldn’t stay. I’ve been trying to get her down on campus for the longest and when she does come she only stays for ten minutes.”
Rowe cleared his throat again. “Probably uncomfortable.”
“Oh Rowe, that’s not true,” from Penda, agitation clouding her voice. “That young woman didn’t seem uncomfortable in the least.”
“I’m willing to bet that she was,” Rowe said mildly, trying but not really trying to hide the disdain running through his voice. “How would you feel on a set like this, some of the best and brightest young black people on the planet gathered in this room, and you’re from one of Philadelphia’s rougher neighborhoods with no real aspirations to be part of this set in the first place, now you can’t tell me you aren’t going to experience a level of discomfort. Look at you, and you.” He motioned first to Johnson, then to Verdi, kept his eyes on Verdi then. “You’re in a different league, a very select league, and it’s unfortunate, but you’re on a track where often people can’t follow you, even someone as close as your cousin seems to be to you in an emotional way.”
Verdi didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, Johnson could tell by the confusion trekking across her forehead. “Well.” Johnson reached across Rowe and touched Verdi’s elbow, her cotton shirt was soft and stiff at the same time and more than anything right now he wanted to feel all of her against him. “Uh, that’s a provocative notion, I guess. Definitely more grist for the debating team, I guess. But if you’ll both excuse me, it’s a Friday night and this is a party.” He emphasized “is.” “And I came to dance, so how ’bout it Lady V.”
He led Verdi away from the wall where his self-restraint had just gotten a good workout farther into the center of the room that had become the dance floor. “Hey, hey,” he shouted playfully as he inched between the throngs of moving arms and shoulders and hips. “Can’t a brother get some place on the floor to get a groove on with this sweet, sweet freshman from Georgia?”
Verdi blushed and her cheekbones went so round he just wanted to pull her close and kiss one then the other.
“Awl, Johnson, if you want some room now you got to take it,” someone called from the center of the circle.
“Dig it,” from farther along the edge, “isn’t that what he’s always telling us when he gets his James Brown thing going, talking ’bout don’t nobody give him a thing, just open the damned door and he’ll get it his damned self.”
The room exploded in laughter and they did make room for Johnson and Verdi but the fast song was over and now the Temptations were singing “With These Hands I Will Cling to You.” And Johnson realized that this was his first slow dance with Verdi. They both realized it simultaneously, it seemed, and they went stiff and just stood there giggling nervously. And she put one hand out and he reached for the opposite then she extended her other hand and he reached for the first. And they laughed some more then he took both her hands in his and they swayed to the beat and only their hands touched and their eyes and that’s how they danced their first slow dance together, almost two feet apart.
When the song was over he squeezed her hands, said, “Thank you, pretty freshman from Georgia. That has got to be the most unusual and by far the most satisfying slow dance I have ever taken part in.”
She blushed through her cheeks again and this time he did lean in and kiss her right on her fleshy lips; it wasn’t a long kiss but definitely intense and then they just stood there communicating with one another with their eyes and he didn’t even have to ask her if she was ready to leave as he covered her hand in his and led her away from the dance floor in the center of the room. And if people said anything more to him as they headed for the double glass doors, he didn’t know it. Didn’t stop to do another black handshake or lightly kiss another young lady on the cheek. And though he did want to turn around and look back in the direction of the professor and his wife, see if the professor was watching them—watching Verdi really—he didn’t. Just squeezed Verdi’s hand harder inside of his and led her; he so loved—so needed—to lead her and rightly sensed that she thrilled in his being her guide. And he knew this for sure tonight, that Verdi was his for tonight, and he was hers and whatever she wanted, if he could, he’d do.
Johnson was surprised at how easily, how quickly Verdi came. He’d never been with a virgin, even his first time when he was in high school was with a woman four years his senior whose flat tire he’d changed late one night when he was walking home from a party. She was so grateful that he’d come along and rescued her on that deserted stretch that she offered him a ride to wherever he wished, plus a half-hour detour through the park where she’d more fully expressed her gratitude by drowning him in her experience. After that episode there had only been two others, one had been a grade-school crush who was rebounding from a relationship with a running-around football player and used Johnson to take out her revenge. He didn’t mind being exploited in that way; he was eighteen and perpetually aroused and though this was the seventies the sexual revolution hadn’t made an impression on the girls he knew. His only other conquest had been nicknamed Scamp, and he’d felt sorry for her and spent time with her only to give her some relief from the brutish treatment she’d become accustomed to from the more low-life neighborhood thugs. At least that’s what he’d told himself the summer between freshman and sophomore year when they’d do it standing up in the alley behind her house where ivy grew wild and curtained them. He was glad that none of his couplings prior to Verdi were virgins because of the low-level emotional attachment. He’d heard often enough what an arduous time it could be when it was the first time for the girl; that they’d cry and bleed and just want to be held.
Not Verdi. Though she’d started off shyly enough, squeezing his hand and giggling the four-block walk from the party in the high-rise back to her dorm, blushed each one of the half a dozen times when he turned her face to his and gave her an openmouthed kiss and said that he just needed momentary relief from the October chill and her lips were like a furnace. She giggled some more when they got to her room and as soon as she closed the door he had her all up against the wall breathing double time as he whispered how badly he needed her, that she filled spaces in him that he never even knew were lacking; that she had gotten inside of his head, put a spell on his mind, that he was emotionally ensnared and all he did anymore was think about her, that he didn’t thro
w the love word around lightly. “But damn, baby,” he said as he started undoing the buttons on her soft and stiff white cotton blouse, “did I forget to tell you that I’m falling in love. Verdi Mae, I’m falling in love with you.”
She got really innocent then; blushed and looked away as he undressed her, didn’t want him to see all of her at once, even coughed nervously and sighed out a “I’m so fat,” as he clumsily attempted to peel off her tight black jeans. But then she caught his face; it was so unconnected at that moment, as if he couldn’t control his mouth that was drooping to his chest, and his eyes that were threatening to bulge from their orbits, even his nose that she loved because it was such a strong nose, defiant, was flaring uncontrollably. He looked so shamelessly vulnerable, so starved as if he was about to break out into a pant. And seeing that her bareness was affecting him so gave her confidence that began as a dot glowing from her center and then spreading out in ripples and then waves until they were both standing on top of their clothes, lips and fingers finding each other’s pulsations, their passion lifting them up and tossing them all over the blue-and-white-flowered bedspread that had been handpicked by her mother to match the rug.
And they got a rhythm going then, a back-and-forth that he was sure must have been the primal rhythm before there was music, or sound, or the universe. And she thought a similar thing. And he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out as they kept tasting each other’s mouths. He was just going to have to burst, he told himself, didn’t even know if his condom could contain it, it would likely be so profuse. But right then it happened for her; felt as if her center had shattered into a burst of iron filings so that there was no longer a rhythm, just chaotic spasms as the iron filings shimmered throughout her being, from her toes to her scalp to her soul, and she cried out then. “Mercy Jesus,” she cried. And at first he thought that he was hurting her so he eased up until she mashed her heels into the tops of his thighs and then he exploded and cried out too.
Her shyness returned afterward. As they lay facing each other on the dorm-sized single bed tingling all over and limp, she pulled the blue-flowered sheet that matched the bedspread up around her shoulders. He breathed out a laugh at that move and when she asked him what was funny he didn’t tell her that she’d just worked him like he’d never been worked before, hollered and squeezed and held on as if her raison d’être was to bring a man to unsurpassable ecstasy, and now she was covering herself up like a timid neophyte. He didn’t try to explain that it was the contraries of her nature that attracted him so, the tight black jeans and demure white shirt, her unbridled self and then covering with the sheet, that she was both virgin and harlot, and such a surprise package that he just wanted to be with her all the time to see what other sides she could show. He didn’t say any of this. Just kissed her nose, traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, then got under the blue-flowered sheet too and they kissed and touched until they were both pulsing all over again, and got back to that rhythm that was primal and loud.
They were famished after the second time and Verdi asked if there was a chance that Ronnie’s Sandwich Shop might be open, said that she’d take the half-a-mile walk up there with him right now if it meant that she’d be able to devour a big fat juicy cheese steak with sweet peppers and fried onions and ketchup.
“No need, baby,” Johnson said as he jumped up and pranced across the room to where he’d kicked off his jeans. “I’ve got a surprise that I’m going to whip on you right now and the timing couldn’t be better.”
Verdi marveled at how comfortable he seemed with his nakedness as he slowly unrolled the condom that hung like a sac filled with heavy cream. He took his time as he balled it up in a Kleenex and then wiped himself meticulously. She’d never seen a man’s naked front before and now she was staring so that she would be able to describe it to Kitt who, when she asked what did he look like—as she was bound to do—wouldn’t be referring to his face. She hoped Kitt wouldn’t be angry, she thought as she tried to memorize all the ridges and textures of Johnson’s manhood; she had promised her that she would take her time. “Always make a man wait a year,” Kitt had insisted over and over since they were thirteen. “That way you can tell whether it’s real love or bullshitting horny.” This may have been horny but it certainly wasn’t bullshit, she smiled contentedly to herself as she watched Johnson step into his jeans and heist them up in what seemed like slow motion. This was love, she wanted to sing right now, wanted to jump out of the bed and dance around the room the way her aunt Posie used to, wanted to stare at his manhood forever.
“Hey, what you looking at, baby?” he asked softly as he noticed her staring. “You looking at Andy, huh?” he said as he walked toward her, his jeans wide open.
“Andy?” She laughed and blushed and looked away. “Come on now, Johnson, you can’t be telling me that you actually have a name for—for—um—for—”
“For my penis?”
“Yeah, for your penis.” She was propped on one elbow and when the sheet fell and exposed her breasts she held back the impulse to cover herself again.
“’Course I do, got to know what to call him when I’m trying to talk him into behaving.” He jiggled it around playfully. “You know, when I see your face in a crowd, ol’ Andy gets all riled up, and I have to tell him, ‘Hold on, now, Andy, calm down, just calm down.’ And hell, don’t let my eyes even begin to fall on your beautiful behind.” He sat on the side of the bed, leaned over, and squeezed her butt. “Then I have to leave the room so I can yell at him you know, ‘Andy, sit your rebellious ass down right now.’ Then he embarrasses me, starts pouting so the whole world can see he don’t know how to behave.”
Verdi laughed hysterically and he savored the sight of her right now. Though he wanted to touch her some more, to feel her unrestraint drip between his fingers, he wanted more to watch her, sprawled back on the bed, the sheet kicked almost completely off she laughed so hard, her brown-on-gold skin glistening with muted perspiration, her hair out of the barrette and standing every which way and making her appear wild and tameless, almost erotic.
He did watch her until her laughter settled down to a cough and a sigh and a smile. And she reminded him then about the surprise. “Oh yeah, shit,” he said as he got up and zipped his jeans. “I guarantee that you’ll love them both.”
She turned into a little girl then, wrapped herself up in the flowered sheet and looked like a Roman goddess at a toga party as she jumped up and down on the bed, begging excitedly, “Tell me, let me see, come on, Johnson, tell me, let me see.”
“Okay, give me a minute, baby, just get comfortable.” He laughed as he pulled his undershirt hurriedly on. “I’ll just give you two hints, one of the surprises is stuffed in the fridge in the lounge. And the other, aha, my little pretty, the other one is tucked inside the concealed pocket of my safari jacket.”
He ran out of the room and took a quick detour into the men’s side of the dorm to use the bathroom, used the toilet, scrubbed his hands, sang out loud as he worked up a lather that he must be falling in love. He laughed and did a two-step out of the bathroom, bumped into a white boy on his way in. “Yo, sorry, man,” he said, still singing and dancing back down the hall into the lounge. The lounge was chilly, a marked lowering in the degrees, he thought as he smiled to himself at how warm Verdi’s room was right now, how burning up that sturdy twin bed. “Bed’s damn sure sturdy,” he said to the chilly lounge air as he whistled and pulled the double-bagged food from the refrigerator. He found baking tins under the sink, a small pot to go on top of the stove, really more a one-burner hot plate than a stove, but it would do for the string beans he thought as he turned the electric burner to high. He whistled louder as he assembled utensils, a knife to cut the meat loaf, a spoon for the rest, two forks for them to eat with. He stuffed the meat loaf and rice and gravy into the baking tins and got them warming in the toaster oven; filled the pot with half of the string beans and set it over the glowing circles of electric heat. He rubbed
his hands together and blew into them and warmed them over the pot that started to bubble almost immediately. He stirred around in the pot and suddenly felt his mother’s sadness billow through the lounge and take over. He swallowed hard. “Not now!” he said to the lounge air. “Not here, not now. Shit! Damn! When do I get a chance to be happy?”
He headed back to Verdi’s room, loaded down with the food, saw Verdi’s next-door neighbor going in her room hugged up with the white boy he’d just seen in the bathroom. “Hey, Johnson, let me get that for you,” she said as she turned the knob to Verdi’s room. He just nodded, couldn’t say thank you trying so hard to hold the lump in the way he had been holding it in since he’d said Verdi’s name to the back of his mother’s pink crocheted sweater, and then later when he exposed his poverty to the el cashier, the way he had held it in at the roof-top lounge party when he was struck by how easily Verdi fit in with the professor and his wife, and even as he and the professor sparred academic phrases. And now when he should be the most ebullient, having just consummated his love in a divine way with the woman that would have been his dream woman had he ever given himself over to dreaming, at the point when he should be running across the campus shouting through a megaphone that he was in love, so much in love, with a sweet southern miss named Verdi Mae. He was fighting to restrain this lump in his throat that he thought was his mother’s sadness. He was all the way in the room now, Verdi wasn’t here, and he put the food on the desk and now he realized standing in this empty room that this wasn’t his mother’s sadness he was feeling, it was his own.
Happy-go-lucky, gregarious as he appeared on the exterior, he’d always had a side to him that was so lonely—even before he lost his brothers—so absent anything that looked like joy, that he sometimes worried that he’d be consumed and taken over by this forlorn self. But he’d always been able to distract himself: his studies, his BSL activities, a bottle of wine and a good party, always moving, had to be doing something, or on his way to doing something. But tonight he was in love. And with this sadness that was threatening to drizzle down his face right now as he plopped on Verdi’s bed, was an enveloping fear that his dispirited self might destroy his round at happiness, and in the process, destroy him. And Verdi too.
Blues Dancing Page 5