Chapter 43
The night had come and gone in what seemed like a flash. After a movie shared between the women of the house, the Williams family and their guests enjoyed a small spot of warm tea and prepared themselves for bed. As promised, Rodeeia had offered the spacious den to the Kanker family, who had spent the night cozied up in their sleeping bags, originally packed for the purpose of impromptu campouts.
After a quiet, peaceful night full of good dreams and cricket chirps, the Kanker family was no doubt prepared for the work they were faced with on this particular morning. After a hearty breakfast, the five women had accompanied Rodeeia back to the community church, with intent to assist her and the congregation in placing the finishing touches on the newly restored building.
The medium sized church was currently bustling with activity. Around fifty or so people had joined the Williams and the Kanker family in the large building, all working together with the common goal of restoring the church back to pristine condition. All of the occupants, with the exception of the Kanker family and Lindsay, came from an African-American background, but varied greatly in age, shape and size. The sounds of drills, hammers, and friendly chit-chat filled the air as amateur carpenters, electricians, and painters conducted their final business.
Near the front of the church, a tall, wooden folding ladder had been erected, with the intent of gaining access to the the fifteen foot ceiling. Tabby, dressed in jeans, a black tank top, and old sneakers, had made her way to the top of the ladder. She had tied her hair back in a tight ponytail, intent on preventing it from obstructing her eyes as meticulously worked on her task at hand.
For the last hour the red headed woman had worked tirelessly at height, installing, wiring, and testing the eight ornamental, hanging , stained glass lights gracing the churches hall. Her tireless focus certainly paid off, for within the hour she had completed the installation and testing of seven of the lights, and was currently working on the last.
As Tabby took hold of the loose wires from the electrical box, using a pair of wire strippers to prepare it for splice with the fixtures wire, Rodeeia approached the ladder from below, placing her hands on her hips as she gazed upward towards Tabby with a smile.
"Sweet Jesus look at this," said Rodeeia, "This girl's working hard and fast as always. Those electricians we tried to hire said it's take three days to get all eight of them up, but you got em up in an hour!"
Tabby took hold of the wires while removing the small electrical connector cradled in her lips in preparation for connection. As she continued, she decided to reply in a playful manner.
"What did ya expect?" asked Tabby, "I asked you what you needed me to do, you said, 'put in the lights', so that's what I'm doing!"
Rodeeia shook her head.
"You are just like your Daddy, you know that?" said Rodeeia.
"Thanks," said Tabby, "I learned from the best!"
Rodeeia and Tabby shared a smile, after which Tabby proceeded to continue with her task at hand. After a few moments, Rodeeia turned her attention toward the wall, where a small work bench of sorts had been set up. Katie had taken up post at the bench, seated in a metal chair as she quickly and meticulously worked on what she called her " mystery project". The scraggly, red headed woman sat with her back to Rodeeia, leaning over the desk as her arms flailed around in a cartoonish fashion, retrieving several common crafting items such as glitter, glue, and old buttons from hammer space as she did so.
Rodeeia lifted her right eyebrow with confusion as she took notice of the hurricane of creativity, inevitably spawned by her best friends eccentric demeanor. Ultimately, she decided to approach Katie's position, attempting to gaze over her shoulder as she initiated a conversation.
"Damn girl, you been working a mile-a-minute all morning," said Rodeeia, "You finish cleaning those old curtains yet?"
"No..." said Katie in a long drawn out and playful manner. She stood up as she did so, turning around while being sure to keep her project hidden behind her skinny body, "But I made something even better."
Rodeeia rolled her eyes.
"Let me guess," said Rodoeeia, "You painted fairies, rainbows, puppies, unicorns or some kinda other similar nonsense on them."
"Even better," said Katie as she reached behind her, singing a tune commonly heard at special reveals as she did so, "Da da da DAAAAA!"
Katie whipped her hands outward, revealing her creations as she did so.
"PUPPETS!" yelled Katie, smiling as she held six custom made puppets out towards Rodeeia, holding three in each hand.
"Puppets?" asked Rodeeia in a confused manner, "You mean to tell me you spent all this time on puppets? Where's the curtain?"
"I used it to make the puppets silly!" said Katie in an eccentric manner, "I cut out all of the gross, musty, waterlogged parts, and used the rest to make the puppets and a curtain for the puppet stage!"
"Mama K..." said Rodeeia in a somewhat annoyed manner, "You killin me."
"Bear with me," said Katie, "I heard the minister talking about ways to make Sunday school more interesting, so I said 'hey you know what would be a good idea?' and he said 'what?' and I said 'how about you make puppets and use them to teach moral lessons to the kids' and he said ' that's a great idea, can you make them?' and I said 'YES!'"
Katie took a deep breath, holding the puppets up once again.
"So now you have puppets!" said Katie, "Aren't they cute?"
Rodeeia smiled, examining the puppets as she did so.
"Alright, you got my attention," said Rodeeia as she took hold of one of the puppets, gazing holding upward as she examined it, "What are their names?"
"You are holding Xavier," said Katie, "He is a mischievous trouble maker, but very nice nonetheless."
Katie lifted a second male puppet, decorated with blonde hair into the air.
"This is Carl," said Katie, "He is very smart and tries to stop Xavier from doing bad things."
Katie placed "Carl" down onto the table, holding two female puppets into the air. One decorated with black hair and the other with sunglasses.
"These are Roxanne and Kim," said Katie, "They are like Bert and Ernie, with one being silly and one being serious."
Finally Katie retrieved the two remaining two female puppets.
"And finally, these are Emily and Tanya, Kim's roommates" said Katie, "Emily is really shy and is nice to Kim, but Tanya is very strict. She's always yelling at Kim and criticizing her ideas, no matter how good they are. I guess she's just mad that she can't come up with any ideas of her own."
At that moment, Tabby interrupted Kate, yelling downward from the top of the ladder.
"She probably can't because she is too busy fixing all of the problems caused by Kim's bad ideas!" yelled Tabby.
Katie remained silent for a few moments, after which she playfully leaned towards Rodeeia, placing her hand up to her mouth as if to hide her lips as she whispered into her ear.
"I'll tell you the rest when we can be alone in a more creative environment," said Katie.
"Whatever, I'm down with the puppets " said Rodeeia, "You keep on working on that, I'm gonna go see how they're doing with the pews. Let me know if you need anything."
In response, Katie lifted the Kim puppet into the air, placing her hand inside it and moving her mouth as she responded in a cartoonish voice.
"Whateva ya say, Mama Dae," said Katie.
"Save it for the stage nutzo," said Rodeeia, after which she turned away from her friend, and began making her way towards the front of the pews.
Elsewhere, the three Kanker sisters and Lindsay had taken a position near the front of the church, where they had gone about assisting with the renovations in their own way. The girls had climbed onto the small stage, and were diligently working on organizing the instruments and sound system. Lee and Lindsay had positioned two stands on each side of the stage, on top of which they have mounted moderately sized PA speakers. After running the cables, Marie connected the the black cables to stand-mounted microphones, and performed a brief mic check to ensure that the cables were in working order. Near the other side of the stage, May had opted to work on setting up the five piece, Prussian blue, Pearl drum set.
As May placed the final crash symbol onto it's stand, she decided to turn towards the girls with a smile.
"The drums are all done!" said May in an exuberant manner, "I don't have any idea how to play em, but they sure do look pretty!"
"They do, huh?" asked Marie as she gazed upon the drum set, after which she turned her attention across the stage. She soon laid her eyes on the item she had dreamed about playing all night; the beautiful walnut case of the Hammond B3 organ and its accompanying Leslie speaker.
"But this is even prettier!" said Marie as she made her way towards the organ, with May opting to join her sisters side.
As May approached the instrument, she quickly took notice that the organ was much different than the piano she had become accustomed to seeing Marie play at home. In lieu of one 88 key keyboard, the organ sported two separate 61 note keyboards stacked on top of each other; these keyboards were complemented by a 61 note pedal board, located at floor level. In addition, several sliders similar to that of a DJs mixer graced the top portion of the console, and a small analog switch was mounted to the base of the bottom keyboard.
After staring at the instrument with a bought of confusion, May decided to continue the conversation.
"Wow, this sure has a lot of buttons!" said May, "What do all of these switches do?"
"Beats me," said Marie as she took a seat on the bench, "The technician just had me play each note and tell him if it sounded right so he could make the adjustments. It should be in tune now, but I have yet to try to play it."
At that moment, Lee and Lindsay stepped up onto the stage, joining the girls at the organ.
"Well, what are ya waitin for?" asked Lee, "Play something for us."
"Okay," said Marie as she lifted her hands towards the lower keyboard, "Here goes nothing."
At that moment, Marie placed her fingers on the white keys and began playing a small excerpt of a simple baroque organ piece; a piece that she had acquired a few months ago, and had been practicing on the piano.
In an instant, the black haired girl noticed that the organ was quite different than her usual instrument of choice. Although the notes were perfectly recognizable and sounded just fine, Marie could not seem to achieve the smooth sounds she was used to hearing from the organ at church; it was as if the instrument was forcing her to play in a dry, expressionless manner.
Eventually, Marie ceased playing.
"I don't get it," said Marie, "It just doesn't sound right."
"I thought it sounded great!" said May, "It's way better than I could ever do!"
"I guess..." said Marie, "It's definitely WAY different than the piano, but I absolutely love the timbre. It's so pretty, especially with the acoustics in the church."
Marie turned towards May.
"I wish I could play better," said Marie, "It just doesn't sound like an organ should. I don't k ow if it's my technique, or I'm just not hearing things right."
Marie paused, prior to continuing.
"I told Double Dee that my New Years resolution was to learn to play the pipe organ at church.", said Marie, "Ever since I was little, I have always been fascinated by the organ...the size, the architecture, and most of all, that beautiful rich, harmonic filled sound. It sends shivers down my spine, in a good way."
Marie turned back towards the organ.
"It's time to keep my promise," said Marie, "When we get home, I'm going to be brave and ask Father Sevino to introduce me to the organist. Maybe they'll be willing to teach me."
"Wow!" said May, "Just think, if you start playing at mass, when people say how awesome the organ sounds, I can say..."that's my sister, yo!"
As May and Marie shared a slight giggle. After a few seconds, the girls stare was broken by the sound of the ministers voice, announcing the arrival of several pizza pies he had procured for his hardworking and very hungry congregation. The girls, along with Tabby, Katie and Rodeeia, wasted no time, quickly abandoning their tasks at hand in anticipation of a hard earned meal.
