Mojo (Page 55)
A lot of people kept laughing, but she still didn’t give a crap. She didn’t even look at the crowd—she stared over them. Then she march-danced to the edge of the stage and looked me straight in the eyes—I was the only one she ever looked at directly—and I gave her the thumbs-up. She smiled back, a cunning little smile that said, You see the kind of people I’m dealing with here, don’t you. Then she whirled around and marched back to the middle of the stage.
As the song soared toward its big overblown ending, she dropped to her knees and whipped her head like wild. I half expected the pink wig to fly off, but luckily it never did. As the last notes crashed down, she popped up to her feet, threw back her head, and jammed a fist into the air. The crowd hooted and laughed, but that didn’t matter. She knew she was good, and that’s all she cared about.
After she left the stage, Rowan came back out, and I had to hand it to him—he didn’t make any wisecracks about her. In fact, he seemed authentically impressed. “Now, that was something,” he said into the mike. “I don’t even think you asses can appreciate what you just saw. Nash, you screwed up your pick for this contest—she’s way too good.”
“Don’t be bitter, Rowan,” Nash called. “Just because your day is over doesn’t mean it is for the rest of us.”
“Ouch,” Rowan said, holding one hand over his heart like Nash had just shot him. “It’s funny how your friends will treat you at the first sign of a little trouble.” He seemed different from usual. Maybe his dad’s financial problems had knocked a little humility into him. But then the master-of-ceremonies smile came back, and he rattled off another long introduction, this time ending with, “Let’s hear it for the sexy, the stylish, one-of-a-kind Miss Chastity!”
The thump of another dance song cranked, and out pranced this extremely bony and pale redhead with heavy eye shadow, a blue-and-red bikini, and—wait for it—a very obvious baby bump. There was no doubt about it—this girl was way pregnant. She looked like a drinking straw with a cherry caught in the middle.
Her reanimated-skeleton dancing style was nowhere in the same league with Melody’s, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy packing that belly around. The crowd didn’t laugh at her the way they did Melody, though. They booed. Especially when she sort of creakily scrunched to the floor to do a spin on her back. I thought for a second she’d never be able to get back up. At the end, she grabbed at her lower back in pain and gasped for breath so hard you would’ve thought she was ready to have the baby right then. There was definitely no sense of triumph.
The crowd was still booing when Rowan took the stage. “Calm down, calm down,” he said. “Just remember, this time I didn’t have anything to do with either of these acts, so don’t kill me over it.”
Miss Chastity remained onstage, still trying to catch her breath, and Melody came back for the final vote. I hated this part. I just hoped the girls didn’t know the vote was for worst dancer instead of best. Rowan singled out Miss Chastity first, and the crowd howled their opinions. Next came Melody, and the howls cranked to a whole new level. Sure, I bet on her and everything, but I still hated to see her win a contest like this. It didn’t faze her, though. She just stared over the crowd like she could see the girls of the V in the distance giving her all their support.
Nash slapped me on the back. “See there, Dylan. You’re already raking in the cash. Now let’s go roll that over on the next wager.”
“Uh, okay,” I said, but I couldn’t help looking back to see Melody struggling down the stairs and then making her way to the hall. Whatever I made on this bet, I thought, I ought to give half of it to her.
CHAPTER 35
I didn’t even know what the next bet was about, so I just put my money on Nash’s pick and waited to see what new weirdness came up. The lights brightened a little, and Rowan leaped off the stage and waved his hands to move the crowd away. Everyone knew exactly what to do—they huddled back into a large ring and started chanting, “Rumble, rumble, rumble!”
“That’s right,” Rowan said into the mike. “It’s that time. We’re gonna rock. We’re gonna roll. We’re gonna throw down a showdown. May the mighty survive and the weak slink back into the slime. Right here and right now we’re gonna go for the glory. Don’t you cry, little babies. It is time for the—fifteen-minute ruuuuuuummmmmmmble!”
The crowd cheered, and I leaned toward Nash and asked him what a fifteen-minute rumble was, but he just goes, “You’ll see.”
Rowan waved his hands to quiet the audience. “Okay, okay. All bets are closed. Let’s do it to it.” He glanced at a card he held in his hand. “First, from east Oklahoma City, the bad, banging brawler Markelle Thomas!”
Out of the darkened corridor jogged this wiry little African American dude with his hair knitted into cornrows and lightweight orange boxing gloves on his hands. When he got to the center of our human ring, he raised his hands and hopped around the way you see boxers do in the real ring, soaking in the cheers and the jeers. I was never a fan of watching fights. Who wants to pay to see someone get hurt? It seemed even more stupid to want to be one of the fighters. I figured, for Markelle, it was all about the money.
“Is this the guy I bet on?” I asked Nash, and he’s like, “No way. You bet on the next guy.”
“And our second fighter of the night,” announced Rowan, “is that fiendish phenom, the Lilliputian powerhouse who has never lost a rumble at Gangland, the incredible Huy ‘The Mangler’ Pham!”