last name was Milkin. She had some of the most inviting…you figure it out for yourself. Precious Milkin. And they say, what’s in a name? Her name spoke of her assets. You just know Thumper had to get to know her. So, they kept in touch until we graduated, and here they are twelve years later, still happily married, with two beautiful kids and in love with each other on top of that.
Charlie “Fingers” Williams is one of our homeboys from the old neighborhood. There isn’t a man dead or alive who can or could have caressed the eighty-eights like he does. Fingers is a natural . He was almost an idiot savant when it came to music. The sad part was that Fingers took the idiot part of that quasi-compliment to heart. I say that as affectionately as one human possibly can. Fingers was smart as all get out. He was always on the honor roll; he was the Spelling Bee champ, and a star runner on the track team. His only shortcoming was that he could not keep his hands off stuff that wasn’t his.
One night we were down at the church hall attending a going-away party for all of the recent graduates from the local high schools and the junior college. Man, that party was L-I-V-E! Thumper, Fingers and I were getting much attention because the girls knew where we were headed, FAMU to become members of the world famous Marching “100”. The babes were swarming like bees to pollen. Everything was perfect…but nooo Charlie Williams had to sneak off and climb into Old Man Jimmison’s bedroom window and steal some old antique playing cards with naked women on them. Ya see, God don’t like ugly. Charlie thought he had gotten away Scott-free. He put all the loot on the ground outside the window, and climbed out, his hands still on the window sill. That’s when the window gave way and closed on Charlie’s pinky finger on his left hand. That window nearly took his fingertip off. The doctors were able to save it, but Charlie has the most unattractive pinky finger, this side of the Arctic Circle. So, that’s where he got the name “Fingers”. Well, he got caught, and his parents were so mad they were going to make him join the Army instead of allowing him go to college. He’d better be glad he earned that scholarship. They said that they wouldn’t pay for their son to become an educated thief. Still, his parents did restrict him from bringing his car to the campus his entire freshman year.
Next, there is Bumbatta Smith, one of my former students. He graduated from Freedman six years ago. This boy is one on whom God placed some extra blessings on the day he was born. He has the soul of an old African drummer living inside of him. His ability to play drums and percussion is uncanny. His sense of rhythm, interpretation and expression must be witnessed in order to appreciate them fully. As far as prodigies are concerned, I rank him with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis, Rachelle Ferrell and Savion Glover. Over the past five years he’s played with the likes of Joe Sample, Joshua Redman and Earth, Wind & Fire. I think Earth, Wind & Fire picked-up some deeper spiritual grooves from him. Most brothers would be thrilled to work with such musicians, but he just walked in one day and said to the musical director for EWF, “My work here, is done.” He left after the next show.
Bumbatta receives calls all the time asking him to go on tour or work in the studio. I asked him why he changed half of his name and not all of it.
He said, as only he can, “Prof, the ancient African spirit which resides in me moved me to change my first name in order to reconnect me with the giver of all gifts, the Creator, and to keep my last name so that my children never forget the sting of rejection brought about by the periods in my people’s history that were not so pleasant.”
I always joke with him and tell him he never changed his last name so that all his paychecks won’t get lost in the mail.
Last, but not least in the band are the twins, Randi and Randy Timson. I call them either “I” or “Y”. When I first met them, I thought I was hearing things. Now, I don’t get high and I have never been high in my life, but my first reaction to these two was that they must be out of the Twilight Zone. (Don’t act like you don’t know ‘bout “The Zone”! Rod Sirling─sharply dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, string bean tie, stiff upper lip, arms folded, cigarette in his right hand, and his stiff monologue leading into a metaphoric socio-economic statement played out in an altered state of mind, dimension or on another planet past or present). I had never in my life seen a black set of twins, twenty-five plus years old, dressed in matching outfits. I thought to myself, “A black Barbie and Ken.” I was surprised to learn that they were from Jump Off, Georgia or some other lil’ bitty town. Actually, it was Hinesville, GA. They had been a gospel / jazz act back home. That must have been a real serious marketing nightmare. Whatever! They used to perform on the chitlin’ circuit during the summers so they could pay tuition in the fall. They graduated from Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. I asked around in Jacksonville, they told me I’d hooked onto two gems. The word is that the twins were Bee Bee and Cee Cee Winans on a budget.
Back to the start
It seemed as though I didn’t even know Terri any more. I came home every day. I worked hard and I even listened to her stories no matter how many times I had already heard them. Soon after our wedding, we embarked on our honeymoon to Freeport, Grand Bahamas. You talking about a good time, it seemed as though it couldn’t have been any better. I was with the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and we were legally hooked up and she was on the pill. You know what that meant, this brother didn’t even have to spend a quarter on condoms. I know the sales of Trojans dropped off dramatically after Terri and I got married. Because believe me, we used to single-handedly keep the company afloat. It was perfect.
We cruised over to the Bahamas on what I like to think of as the “Love Boat”. I had never been on a ship before. I was so excited I could barely contain myself. Terri was cool as always, until the ship began to move, which was the moment we set foot on board. She said it felt like it was going to capsize. I kept trying to reassure her that no such thing would ever happen, but in the back of my mind I kept replaying clips from the movie Titanic and The Poseidon Adventure. This was my first pressure play as a husband. I hadn’t been married seventy-two hours, and there I was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean trying to calm the nerves of my brand new wife. I had absolutely no clue about how to calm her down. My thoughts were racing like Secretariat when he won the Triple Crown. Eureka! I jumped up from my seat and dashed out the door. When I reached the purser’s desk, I was bent over like Usain Bolt after he crossed the finish line at the Beijing Olympics. “Sheww. Ooh Lord.”, man was I tired.
I was caught in the hooplah of being on a cruise ship for the first time I completely forgot to pick up the key to our cabin. A cabin seemed like the answer to our problem (okay, my problem). Pulling my face together, I handed my boarding pass to the purser and with great shame, asked him for our cabin. Trying my best to act like cruising was something I did all of the time. I figured when I returned with the news of a comfortable place to lie down, I would be rewarded with warm hugs and kisses. No such luck. Okay, I dropped the ball big-time, but she is an understanding woman─I hope. Shiiit! She just grabbed the key from my hand, opened the door, dropped her bags, and slumped down across the bed. The last thing she said before she jumped up to puke her guts out was, “Go away and leave me alone.”
You know that messed my head up. You gotta understand, you know, me trying to be the smooth new husband and all. Preparation is what I was all about. I’d read every issue of Essence for the past twenty years. I’d taken notes on all of that good advice Sister Susan Taylor was givin’ brothers in the name of help. I stepped out of the door and there I was; a confused mass of manhood standing in the hallway with my Essence cheat sheet and no one to drop my technique on. This was my first clue that the game had severely changed. Little did I know but the next three days would reveal that the woman that stood by my side had begun a metamorphosis like some alien; yet attractive creature from outer space. Finally, the dock that seemed non-existent appeared on the horizon like the speck in one of those Dr. Suess books. The water in the port was as clear as blue toilet bowl water. As we disembarked and looked around, it warmed my heart to see people who looked just like my Aunt Granny, Uncle John and my Uncle Vernon’s twins. As far as the eye could see, black folks
