The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  In the motel room, I reminded him, we couldn’t stay until morning. We had to be careful, because of the campus gossips, but when I clicked the bedside lamp, he turned the light back on.

  “I want to see you, Ailey. Please.”

  He asked me to sit down, and for seconds, I was afraid. Maybe Pat would hurt me, like Abdul had, but he kneeled. Took off my shoes, one by one, and then my socks. He pulled at the bottom of my jeans and slipped off my panties. Slowly spread my legs and touched me. Exclaimed how wet I was, and, oh, I was beautiful. He’d been wanting this for so long.

  “You like me dreaming about your pussy?”

  “Yes, I do, Pat.”

  He opened me further and began licking me as if there were no tests on Monday, anywhere in the world, and brought me to climax twice before producing his own condoms. When he took his time entering me, saying, if he ever hurt me, don’t be afraid to let him know, because he never wanted to hurt me, never in his life, I decided that Patrick Bertrell Lindsay didn’t need to lose any weight. Not at all. Those extra fifty pounds fit him perfectly.

  And when I decided not to worry about the gossips and we spent that night, and then another, in that motel room, my mind didn’t change.

  * * *

  The Monday after Thanksgiving, Abdul was waiting for me on the steps of the refectory. When he saw me, he smiled. His face was calm, guiltless. I was with Keisha, and she tugged on my arm. I motioned that it was okay but stepped back when he moved in for a kiss.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “You seem to be mad about something. I don’t know why. But whatever I did, baby, I’m sorry.”

  I said nothing. I was afraid, if I allowed myself to become angry, I’d blurt out what he’d done. That he’d raped me and hurt me. That he’d given me a disease and made me feel even dirtier than I already felt.

  “Uh-huh. Okay. Can I go now?”

  “This is kind of public, Ailey. Can we go somewhere? I’ll buy you dinner at the waffle place.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Ailey, please.”

  “Fine. I’ll meet you at the apartment. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, baby. I’ll leave the door unlocked. I love you.”

  I waited until he walked out of earshot before I told Keisha I’d buy her dinner at the Rib Shack, because I needed her to ride with me to Abdul’s apartment. In the car, she advised, forget about the stuff I’d left at that boy’s place. I could buy another curling iron and blow-dryer. When we pulled into the parking lot of Abdul’s complex, she wanted to go inside the apartment with me.

  “I don’t trust him, Ailey. He’s not a good person.”

  My heart was pounding, thinking about going into his apartment. But I couldn’t help but laugh at her wise tone.

  “Okay, Keisha. Like you know so much about men.”

  “Just because I go to Bible study don’t mean I’m stupid.”

  “I’m okay, girl. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  She climbed out of the car. “I’ll wait by his door.”

  “Keisha—”

  “—What I say? I’m giving you five minutes. After that, I’ma start banging on the door and screaming and somebody gone call the police. Five minutes, so you better make it snappy.”

  The sound of her voice, the stern set of her lips made me wonder, how much did she know? Maybe I hadn’t been as good at concealing my troubles as I’d thought.

  Inside the apartment, I called out a greeting, and from the back, he answered. Come on, he missed me. He lay on the bed naked and hard: he was that sure of himself. After I put my keys on the top of the television, he reached for me. I told him, let me go freshen up. It had been a long day. In the bathroom, I pulled out the milk crate holding my blow-dryer and curling iron from underneath the sink. In the brand-new box of tampons that I’d purchased, I noticed only two were left. Jesus. Not only had I been sharing a man, I’d been sharing feminine hygiene products.

  When I left the bathroom, I told him I was leaving.

  “Come on, Ailey, don’t be like that.”

  “Like what? Like I don’t want some girl’s sloppy seconds—”

  “—Why you bringing up that bitch? That’s in the past—”

  “Or I don’t want you to hit and rape me—”

  “Man, whatever, Ailey. You don’t know how to forgive. That’s your problem.”

  He picked up the remote from the bedside table and turned on the TV.

  “Abdul, did you know I fucked Pat?”

  He dropped the remote and pulled the sheet over himself: he wasn’t hard anymore.

  “I sure did. After I took the antibiotics and got rid of the gonorrhea you gave me, I fucked Pat. And let me tell you, I have never had such an incredibly satisfying sexual experience.”

  He swung his legs to the floor, and I stepped back quickly. If I had to, I’d drop my stuff and run. Or Keisha and I could beat him up: he was naked and defenseless.

  “I also sucked Pat’s dick. Unlike some people I could name, he did me first. Oh man, did he do me! Talk about ‘Sweet Lick Papa.’ Wasn’t that his Gamma line name? A very accurate description, and I thought, Hey, why not be polite and return the favor to that brother? So I did.” I shifted a couple of my belongings to the crook of my arm and picked up my keys from the television. “You know, fellatio is surprisingly yummy, especially when somebody’s not slapping you upside your head and trying to choke you with his penis.”

  “You’re lying, Ailey. You’re just mad and making up stuff. You’re not like that. You’re a good girl.”

  “I am? Why don’t you ask your sands about that? Tell Pat I know what a true gentleman he is, but I give him permission to spill the beans, this one time.”

  At the bedroom door, I paused.

  “Who’s the bitch now, Abdul?”

  All Extraordinary Human Beings

  When Pat called me at the old man’s house, he apologized for tracking me down, but he was worried. He’d looked me up in the student directory and called my parents’ house and had a wonderful conversation with my mother. Initially, she’d been suspicious, until he told her his parents had been freshmen during her senior year. She’d given Pat my granny’s number, and Miss Rose had kept him on the phone for a half hour. Before they hung up, she’d invited Pat to visit the farm, any time he liked. Miss Rose had told him I was probably at Uncle Root’s. Here was the number, and don’t be no stranger. He was always surely welcome.

  “Ailey, I haven’t seen you since . . . Thanksgiving . . . and everything.”

  “Pat, I just saw you on the yard.”

  “You know what I mean, girl. Let’s meet up at the Rib Shack. You were looking like you had fallen off some. You need a good meal.”

  “Pat, I’m not anybody’s skinny. And we can’t be seen together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people would talk.”

  “Ain’t nobody thinking ’bout them niggers.”

  “But what about Abdul? He’s your sands.”

  “Ain’t nobody thinking about him, neither! You know he tried to get up in my face about you.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything to him. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, baby. I’m glad he knows, but I told him, if he tried to dog you out in public, he’d be the one looking bad, ’cause he couldn’t keep his woman. Plus, I’d beat him up.”

  “You’re so sweet. I mean, not that I condone violence, even toward assholes.”

  We laughed.

  “Don’t you miss me, too, Ailey?”

  “You know I do. I’m . . . I’m crazy about you, Pat.”

  “Oh, girl! I want you, and not just like that. I want you to be my lady. I’ve been trying to tell you that for three years, Ailey. I’m dead serious.”

  “I want you, too, Pat. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Oh, baby, et moi aussi! And I’m not trying to hide that shit no more! Let’s do this.”<
br />
  I wanted to see him so badly. To have him kiss my forehead and my fingertips. To hold me, whisper his tender, pretentious French phrases, and have sex with me, leisurely, for hours. But I told him I had to think about making us public. Give me a while to get myself together.

  That evening, Uncle Root needled me into a chess game, though my skills hadn’t improved. I refused to protect my queen, the most powerful figure on the board, whom Uncle Root called his “Lady Love.” Shortly, he castled me, his hands blurring. On my side of the board, I moved my knight out of harm’s way.

  “Ailey, are you going to introduce your new beau to me, or are you keeping him a mystery?”

  “Who told you I had somebody?”

  “No one. But I assumed it was Rob-Boy’s grandson, because you lit up like a Christmas tree when I called you to the phone. So tell me, is he your beau?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “All right, you’re entitled to your secrets. You are an adult.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes, you are, and if the sound of Brother Patrick’s voice is any indication, he thinks so, too.”

  “We’re not a couple. Not yet.”

  “And why is that? Is he not a gentleman?”

  “Uncle Root, he totally is. He’s, like, so nice and so wonderful and just perfect. But the way we started seeing each other . . . it’s kind of scandalous.”

  “My favorite! Do tell.”

  I kept my eyes on the board when I reminded him, I used to go out with Pat’s fraternity brother. Not just his Gamma fraternity brother. His line brother, his sands.

  “I remember now. This is that rude boy you brought to the reunion last summer? Raheem or something or other?”

  “Abdul.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t like him, not in the least. And as I recall, your mother and Miss Rose didn’t, either.”

  “I thought you took to him.”

  “I just have manners. But if you two broke up, what’s the problem? These intrigues happen all the time. I’m sure that Raheem is pining for you—”

  “It’s Abdul—”

  “Whatever his name is, I’m sure he’s devastated. You’re a prime catch, but it is not for him to decide your romantic future. That decision is up to you.”

  * * *

  Keisha didn’t blink when I told her that Pat was courting me, though I was trying to keep it secret. Even with the reefer smoking and the wine, she’d always thought he was a nice guy. And Keisha acted as go-between when he gave her notes in French in the refectory, whispering to her to pass them on to me. She giggled, “Ooh, girl,” when I pulled out my dictionary and translated for her. I was glad Pat kept his messages Christian-friendly.

  Though my other roommate had approved of my dismissing Abdul, she was less than excited about my new romantic direction. She rolled her eyes at the increasingly tall stack of Pat’s notes I kept on my desk.

  One Wednesday, when Keisha was away at Bible study, Roz warned me, this was dangerous. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get a bad reputation. I knew how vicious the gossips could be.

  “You can’t be dating two Gammas on the same campus,” she said. “And definitely not line brothers.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “Abdul and I broke up.”

  “You know what I mean! Ailey, you have to leave Pat alone.”

  “No, I don’t. I can do whatever I want to. I’m grown, and this is America.”

  “All right, then. Keep on with it, with your American ass. You gone be at Bible study with Keisha and the rest of them Jesus-freak bitches who can’t get no man.”

  “Keisha is gorgeous! She can date whenever she wants to!”

  “But the rest of them heifers can’t. They ugly, and that’s why they saving it for the Lord.”

  * * *

  On Valentine’s Day, Keisha handed me a red envelope. Inside, there was a fancy card covered in velvet and a snippet of a poem by Léopold Senghor. She whispered, Pat was waiting for her in the library stacks, in case I wanted to respond. While she giggled, I scrawled quick, English words on notebook paper, and handed it to her.

  Thirty minutes later, Pat and I met in the parking lot of the waffle place on the highway. When Pat drove up, he rolled down his window, signaling me to follow him. After another forty minutes driving toward Macon, he pulled off to a dirt road.

  The trailer in the clearing belonged to his family, and so did the surrounding twenty acres. Pat’s grandfather used to go out there to clear his head. Since his passing, the trailer had sat there, unused. Inside was dusty, and though there weren’t any roaches, a few large, anonymous bugs of the woods had found their way in. But the baby-blue sheets on the double bed were clean. They were the thick, all-cotton kind you used to see in homes of the elderly, before they gained popularity with the wealthy.

  I pulled him to the bed and stripped off my pants and underwear. Closed my eyes when he began to rub his face between my legs. He licked and hummed, and whispered, he wanted to live down there. I tasted so sweet. I tasted like candy. Then I watched as he pulled on a condom. His look of joy, his startled laughter as he entered me. When he declared that he loved me, I told him that I felt the same way. When he asked, was I really sure? Please don’t play with his feelings. Please, and I reassured him: I loved him so much.

  Afterward, there wasn’t a television to keep us company, but we wouldn’t have watched anyway. We cuddled tightly, as Pat recited from memory the poem by Léopold Senghor he’d slipped into my Valentine’s card. He’d told me that it was supposed to be political, about Africa’s independence, but every time Pat recited the line in French about the nude Black woman, I’d get a naughty thrill. The way he rolled his Rs elated me.

  My fears were not dispersed, though. That if I was seen with Pat in public, shame would be splashed on me. That I would be called a frat freak, hopping from one Gamma to the next, though Abdul had moved on since early January. He was dating a sophomore girl, but for weeks, I spent far too much on gas money, following Pat down the highway, instead of riding along in his car.

  When Mrs. Stripling confronted me one morning, asking where had I been sleeping nights, I told her I was experiencing a family emergency. I produced a teardrop to lend my story veracity, and she took my hand. God was able, she assured me. He would work everything out.

  One morning during spring break, I woke up in the trailer to find Pat lying beside me, a troubled look on his face. When I nudged him and asked what was wrong, he asked, was I embarrassed by him?

  “I know I’m not like Abdul, all diesel and everything.”

  “I don’t want him, Pat. You are way cuter than him, and you make a great cup of instant coffee. The coffee is actually why I dig you so much.”

  “Don’t you make fun of me, Ailey. You want me to eat you out in private, but you’ll pretend you don’t know me in public.”

  “That was such a rude thing to say!”

  “You’re the rude one! You hurt my feelings, Ailey! You really do!”

  Before we headed back to Thatcher, I told him, don’t turn right off the highway. Keep going and follow me. Since he thought I was ashamed of him, I had something to show him. At the front door of Uncle Root’s house, I introduced Pat as my new boyfriend, and the old man exclaimed, this was a lovely surprise.

  There were lots of smiles, and when the two exchanged their Gamma fraternity handshake, I turned my head to preserve their mystery.

  “Patrick, it’s so good to see you! You are the spitting image of your grandfather!”

  “Everybody says that, Dr. Hargrace.”

  “Rob-Boy would be so proud of you. I haven’t seen you since his homegoing. That was a lovely funeral.” He nodded his head for a few seconds. “And now look at you! How you’ve grown.”

  “I’m fatter than him, though.”

  “Not at all! That’s just good living! Isn’t that right, sugarfoot?”

  “Uncle Root, I keep trying to tell him how handsome he is.”

  Inside, we y
oung folks sat on the sofa and the old man brought us cold sweet tea. We caught him up on campus doings, which buildings needed alumni donations for repairs, and which were holding up, and he asked, what did we think about the new president, that fellow that used to work on Wall Street? The old man didn’t approve of these corporate types to run colleges. They didn’t understand the classroom, let alone the moral and spiritual work of teaching. It was only about the money to those people, but if the new president could track down where half the school’s endowment had gone, then bless that man’s journey.

  Then he dived into Frantz Fanon with Pat. It had been some years, but Uncle Root was working his way back through the postcolonial canon. He liked to read things at least three times, and now that he was retired, he had his leisure moments. But he hoped Pat knew that so much of Fanon’s ideology was stolen from Du Bois. It was true, and when the old man turned to his ancient story about meeting his hero, the tale changed. This time, the great scholar had entered Miss Fauset’s room as Uncle Root sat there drinking his tea.

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “That’s not right.”

  “This is my story, Ailey,” he said. “I think I know how it goes.”

  “You’ve told me this story six times, and you never said you saw him again. You only said he was an asshole.”

  Both men shouted my name.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You can’t call him that,” Pat said. “That’s like cussing in church.”

  “Last I heard, W. E. B. Du Bois was not Black Jesus,” I said. “But I see the two of y’all are getting along.”

  “And why wouldn’t we?” the old man asked. “This young man comes from very good stock. Now let me get back to my tale. You didn’t hear all the facts, Ailey, because you were barely a teenager when you first heard this. I didn’t want to shock you. But yes, indeed, the great scholar walked into Miss Fauset’s room, without knocking. He called her ‘Jessie.’ And she called him ‘Will.’ And then . . .” The old man mustered a longer-than-usual dramatic pause, before flinging his arms wide. “They both began speaking in French!”