“It’s all about the hips and hands. And?”
A back row exceptionally tall woman named Sueng Hee—we call her Beyoncé—yells out “Shoulder dips!” without my calling on her, which sorta pisses me off, because I find her outburst threatening to my authority, but I appreciate the unbridled enthusiasm, so I let it slide.
“Shoulder dips. And?”
The oldest KDFC, a wrinkly grandmother we know as Ella, waves at me, so I point at her.
“The souls clap,” she says.
“The super-duper soul clap. That’s right,” I say, and then start clapping slowly, soulfully.
All of The KDFCs follow suit, because they are all frickin’ pros.
So I add a shoulder dip and a step to the right—clap!
The KDFCs don’t miss a beat and move with me.
Shoulder dip, and a step to the left—clap!
We repeat this for a few times, and then I yell, “Work those hips, ladies! Work what God gave you—meaning yo’ apple-bottom booties!”
So we all let our booties snap with our heads.
Left—slide—clap!
Right—slide—clap!
When we are nice and warmed up, I yell, “Hit those keys, Chee!”
Father starts playing piano, and then The KDFCs are rocking “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes. The way they sing sounds very staccato, because they are Korean and don’t know English all that well, but they sell the song with the moves I gave them, and I have to say that I am proud of these chippies today, because they are sorta rocking my socks off.
Before we all got so damn good at soul singing, Father had the church buy us twenty copies of The Supremes Complete Songbook and then—using Korean-English dictionaries—the Korean Divas for Christ and I translated all the songs, writing the Korean under the English, so that my students would know what the hell they were singing. Then we worked on pronunciation, and then finally, selling the songs onstage.
I didn’t know that Father Chee could play piano when I thought up the singing-to-learn-English idea, but on the day that we were first going to start singing, the piano magically showed up in the church. When I asked him where the piano came from, Father Chee said that God had put it there. When I asked him who was going to play the piano, Chee said God would play through Father Chee’s fingers. Maybe some corny hooey to you, but I like the way Chee keeps God magical, sorta like Santa Claus when you are a kid. More priests should take this approach, because there is a frickin’ reason why Santa is more popular than Jesus nowadays.
I take The KDFCs through “I Hear a Symphony,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “Baby Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” and a few other classics, before we make the power circle, which is when all the women put arms around each other’s shoulders so that we are all linked up in a super-powerful woman circle, and then I yell some empowering hooey I made up a while back.
“What are we?” I yell.
“Strong!” The KDFCs yell back.
“Who are we?”
“The Korean Divas for Christ!”
“Who loves us?”
“JC!”
“Who wants us to be happy?”
“God!”
“Who rocks?”
“The Korean Divas for Christ!”
“Who are the best Korean soul singers in the world?”
“The Korean Divas for Christ!”
“Hell yeah?”
“Hell yeah!”
“HELL YEAH?”
“HELL YEAH!”
And then I break off and run around the inside of the power circle giving each Korean Diva a super high five, which is a two-handed slap above the head. The KDFCs go crazy for this sorta pumped-up ending. They like to hug me before I go, and since I really dig hugs, I go wild with the hugging too. Every KDFC gets a big old hug from me, which takes like ten frickin’ minutes.
When it’s time to go, it’s usually dark, so—in his penguin suit—Father Chee jogs next to me and BBB as I ride my bike through the ghetto. He likes to make sure I get home okay. I smile at damn near everyone in his neighborhood and do the “Hope you are having a great day!” trick, which makes Father Chee laugh and glow in a fatherly proud sorta way.
While I’m riding, I usually confess my sins.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” I say to Father Chee.
“Confess your sins and Jesus will forgive you,” FC says.
“I kicked Lex Pinkston in the shin yesterday and slapped his face today. But he called me a disgusting single-syllable word for a woman—which I’m not even going to repeat—said he had sex with my mother, and made Ricky say something sexual to a classmate.”
Still running, Father Chee nods wisely—like—a million frickin’ times. “Jesus offered us an example. Turn the other cheek, He told us.”
“That’s why I’m confessing. Do you think I haven’t read the Bible?”
“You are forgiven.”
“No penance?” I ask.
“You’ve done it already. Teaching English to my church members.”
“But I enjoy doing that.”
“God wants us to be happy!” FC says, which makes me smile.