Page 103 of Never Flinch

8

The first full rehearsal for the Sista Bessie Revival Tour happens at ten AM on Tuesday, May 27th. Barbara is okay with the arrival of the four-man horn section, even exhilarated by it. She’s also okay dressing as one of the Dixie Crystals, in a high-necked white silk blouse and black leather pants; it’s fun being one of the girls, and in uniform. She’s okay until Frieda Ames joins them, then it becomes real. Because Frieda Ames is achoreographer.

Tess, Laverne, and Jem have worked with her before, and take Frieda’s fine-tuning as a matter of course. For Barbara it’s different. Before, the idea of performing with a superstar in front of five thousand concertgoers (and a hometown crowd, at that) was strictly academic.Frieda coaching her on how to move with the Crystals as they sing backup brings it home in a practical way. The seats of the Mingo Auditorium are all empty this morning, but Barbara is hit with stage fright just the same.

“I’m not sure I can do this,” she tells Frieda.

“Youcan, girl,” Jem Albright says. “The steps are simple. Show her, Dance.”

Frieda “Dance” Ames is older than the Crystals, eighty if she’s a day, but she moves with the grace of a twenty-year-old. She points to the Tupelo Horns, which now includes Red Jones on sax, and tells them to “do the disco thang.”

They start playing the intro to KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Boogie Shoes,” which will be the kickoff number of Sista Bessie’s first show.

Frieda grabs a mic to be heard over the horns and begins to sway her hips. She points stage left. “You girls come on from there to center stage. Applause-applause-applause, yeah?”

Barbara nods along with Tess, Laverne, and Jem.

“Show plenty of strut-n-wiggle. Barb, you’re last. Right foot, andcross. Left foot, andcross. At center stage, hands up, like a ref sayin the kick is good.”

They all put their hands up.

“Now swing your arms left… and clap. Swing your arms right… and snap your fingers. Keep the footwork going.”

The band is still playing that intro:Bump-BAH-BAH-bump, bump-BAH-BAH-bump, bump-BAH-BAH-bump.

“Sista Bessie comes on from stage right, doing her moves. Applause-applause-applause. Screaming. Standing O. She slaps hands with each of you girls. You just keep on. Left foot, right foot, swing left and clap, swing right and snap. Move those hips. Back up to give her the stage…turn… slap your asses… turn again. Come on, let’s see it.”

Feeling like she’s in a dream, Barbara backs up with the other “girls,” clapping and snapping and turning and slapping. The Dixie Crystals have good-sized boots to slap, Barbara not so much.

“One more turn, thengo get it.”

Tess, Laverne, and Jem sing the intro.

“Barbara?” Frieda asks, still on the mic. The horns continue to repeat the intro:Bump-BAH-BAH-bump.“Cat got your tongue, girl?”

They sing it together this time, and all at once something hits Barbara. Something good. She feels, God help her, like a Crystal.

“Stop!” Frieda shouts, and the horns quit. “Let’s do it again and put some fuckingsoulinto it. Go to your number ones!”

Barbara follows the Crystals to stage left. Her anxiety has been replaced by a kind of nervy anticipation. All at once she wants to do this. Like the song says, she wants to do it til the sun comes up. At stage right she can see Betty talking and laughing with Don Gibson, the Mingo’s Program Director.

“Ready?” Frieda asks.

Tess gives her a thumbs-up.

“Okay, let’s see those hips! And…band!”

The horns start up,Bump-BAH-BAH-bump, and the Dixie Crystals—now four of them—strut onstage, face the empty seats, and raise their hands over their heads.They will applaud, Barbara thinks,and it will be cool. Very.

She expects Frieda will tell the band to quit and command “the girls” to do it again, but instead Betty comes from stage right, and although she’s wearing her mom jeans, a smock top, and sloppy loafers, when she slip-slides and does a twirl to center stage, she’s Sista Bessie. She grabs the mic Frieda was using, falls in perfect step with the Crystals behind her, and begins to sing the lead.

By the time the song is done, Barbara knows two powerful things. One is that this is not her world; poetry is her world. The other is that she wishes she could be a Dixie Crystal forever. She gave Betty Brady her poems; Sista Bessie gave her a gift that’s both precious and ephemeral.

The two things make something new and powerful; the two things also cancel each other out.

9

Trig is eating lunch in his office, an egg salad sandwich in one hand and a can of iced tea in the other. The radio is tuned to WBOB. Usuallyfrom eleven AM to one PM it’s the Glenn Beck show, but today Glenn has been pre-empted by a news conference coming from the Murrow Building. The occasion is the Surrogate Juror Murders (the authorities have given in and started calling them that, as well). Present at the microphones are Buckeye City Chief of Police Alice Patmore and State Police Lieutenant Ganzinger. Trig knows the names of the BCPD police detectives assigned to the case, has actually met Jaynes and Atta, but neither of them are present at this meet-the-press event. The State Police have taken over the case, it seems.

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