Next Semester

by Cecil R. Cross

  “K-Town.”

  “Oh, well that explains plenty. That neighborhood is full of pimps and hustlers. Yeah, I know that area well. It can be pretty rough.”

  “Certain parts,” Fresh said.

  “Well, you two are definitely cut from the same cloth as far as your upbringing is concerned. As I’m sure J.D. has told you, Oakland is no walk in the park. I’m glad both of you made it out and are doing something positive with your lives. I wish more of our young men would do the same.”

  I don’t know whether or not my uncle continued to speak after that sentence. It didn’t matter. Nothing could have been more important than the girl walking through the parking lot. She was pecan-complexioned, with dimples, a short, Halle Berry-like hairstyle and the body of a goddess. Her sleek, hourglass figure seemed to glide across the asphalt in her black patent leather heels. Her ass was so big, it looked out of place on her tiny waste, leaving the belt loops on her True Religion denims bunched in the back.

  “Who the hell is that?” I asked Fresh, grabbing him by the arm, my eyes fixated on her body.

  “I don’t know. Wish I did, though. She must go to Elman, because I damn sure ain’t see her around here last semester.”

  “Well, if she goes to Elman, why is she going down the steps by our dorm?”

  “That’s a hell of a question,” Fresh said. “I would chase her down but I’ve got my hands full already. You know I’m single now, so I got chicks lined up for days! Rashida from Detroit. Tiffany from Houston. Sandra from L.A. Man, the list goes on, fam.”

  “Y’all young boys are something else,” my uncle said, his eyes glued to the same treasure as ours. “I need to get outta here before I get into trouble. You got all of your things from the trunk?”

  “I’ma see what ol’ baby is talkin’ about,” I said, speed-walking in her direction.

  “Get her!” Fresh growled.

  There were a lot of pretty girls going in and out of the dorm, but none close to as fine as the one I was chasing. The closer I got, the faster my heart pounded. Normally, I may have just waited until the next time we crossed paths to try to get at her. I’ve never liked the idea of chasing a girl down. Ladies generally assume those kind of guys are too thirsty. But with Uncle Leroy and Fresh watching, I had to at least give it a shot.

  “Excuse me,” I said, reaching out and caressing her elbow.

  “You’re excused,” she said, pulling her arm away, and looking back with an expression of disgust, as if I was aggravating her.

  “You don’t have to be that way, sweetheart,” I said, still trailing her. “I was just trying to find out your name.”

  “My name is Leslie,” she said without looking back, still walking a few paces ahead of me.

  “Well, my name is James,” I said, careful not to drop my nickname on her right away, in case she’d heard any rumors. “What school do you go to?”

  “I thought you just wanted to know my name,” she said, stopping abruptly, then finally turning toward me.

  Her beauty was on a whole ’nother level. Other than lip gloss, it didn’t seem like she was wearing any makeup at all. And still, she looked like she could be walking the red carpet at the Grammys. My eyes scanned for imperfection and found none. That was, until she moved her head slightly to the left. That’s when I noticed a fresh scar just below her bottom lip. Upon further examination, I saw that her mouth was a little puffy on that side, too. I tried not to stare.

  “Actually, I just wanted you to stop so I could properly introduce myself,” I said. “So, thanks. You look great from the back, but you are so much more beautiful from the front. So now that I seem to have your attention, what school do you go to?”

  “What school do you go to?” she asked.

  “University of Atlanta.”

  “I knew it. Gotta go,” she said, turning and walking away.

  “What’s that about?” I asked, flat-footed.

  “I’m done with U of A guys,” she said. “I only date Lighthouse men now.”

  “Who said anything about dating?”

  “Maybe I’ll see you around, James,” she said, as she turned to wave goodbye. “It was nice meeting you.”

  At least she remembered my name, I thought to myself, as I watched her sashay out of my life. After her little comment about exclusively dating Lighthouse men, it would be fair to assume that she definitely went to Elman. Since Lighthouse was the all-male school right across the street from Elman, and both were considered black Ivy League institutions, they tended to prefer dating each other over us. I don’t think my Uncle Leroy or Fresh cared to hear that whole explanation. To them, it would sound more like a poor excuse of why I didn’t get her digits. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and started fooling around with it, to make it look like I’d gotten Leslie’s number and spare myself the embarrassment. As I approached the parking lot, I didn’t see my uncle, but Fresh was standing there with a big grin on his face, both hands hoisted in the air like a referee signaling a made field goal. I responded with a hand gesture that signified me slitting my throat. His hands dropped immediately and confusion riddled his face.

  “No?” he asked.

  “Not this time,” I said.

  “Damn!” he said. “I just knew you pulled her when I seen you walking with your phone out. What was she on?”

  “She was talking ’bout how she only dates Lighthouse dudes.”

  “Who said anything about dating?”

  “That’s what I said!”

  “Damn,” he said. “She was fine! You’ll probably see her again.”

  “Yeah. That’s what she said.”

  “Next time, tell her you transferred to Lighthouse,” he said, laughing. “Or better yet, lie, and tell her you’re Greek.”

  “Greek? You mean, like fraternity Greek? Why would I tell her that?”

  “Trust me, she would’ve never shot you down if you had letters, G. Greeks never get turned down.”

  “How you know?” I asked. “You ain’t Greek!”

  “Not yet.”

  THREE

  ROOMY

  The smell hit me before the door swung open. It was a familiar stench. One of x-chromosome overload, musty armpits, feet, Raid, dirty clothes hampers and corn chips, mixed with humidity. Aaaah, Marshall Hall—the only all-male freshman dorm on campus. My home away from home. Much like an acquired taste, the foul aroma drifting through the hallways took some getting used to.

  “Somebody needs to spray some Febreeze up in this piece,” I said to myself, grimacing as I lugged my suitcase through the hallway behind me.

  The trek from the front door to my room was also familiar. I could always tell who’d made it to their rooms and make an educated guess about where they were from by the music blasting from their stereos. And by the sounds of the reggae tunes blaring from some guy’s stereo system in the middle of the hallway, I figured we had at least one new guy living on the first floor this semester. As I neared my door at the end of the hall, I expected to see my neighbor Lawry come flying out of his room asking to borrow something. But his door, which was right before mine at the end of the hall, was shut and I couldn’t hear any music playing. I started to bang on his door, just to let him know I was in the building, but I decided to drop my things off in my room first. I still remember the horrific experience I had last semester when I opened my dorm room door for the first time, and an overgrown roach was waiting for me, doing the two-step in the middle of my floor. I hadn’t been inside my room for a while, so as I turned the key, I braced myself for the worst. Who knew what would be waiting for me inside this time?

  I wish it had been a roach.

  One step inside, and I thought I had entered the wrong door. My room looked like the international Alpha Mu Alpha frat house. There was paraphernalia everywhere. Timothy’s half of the room was painted gold. He had the black-and-gold Alpha Mu Alpha floor mat. The black Alpha Mu Alpha comforter, with gold sheets. He had paddles hanging on the wall. His line jack
et hung neatly over his computer chair. An Alpha Mu Alpha mouse pad. An Alpha screen saver on his laptop. And a large poster of a black guy’s arm reaching down to pull another black man up by his forearm, with the phrase “He’s ain’t heavy, He’s my brother” inscribed underneath. This was a classic example of going Greek, then going overboard.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said to myself, precariously walking into my room in awe. “Ain’t this about nothing. I can’t believe this fool.”

  Timothy wasn’t there. But I could tell he’d been there. And by the looks of things, I knew this would be a long semester. After thoroughly sweeping my side of the room, hanging my clothes and arranging my shoes, I called my mom to let her know I’d made it in safe.

  Just as I hung up with my mom, my roommate—Timothy McGruden III—came waltzing in. Timothy couldn’t have weighed more than a buck thirty soaking wet with bricks in his pockets. But one look at him, and it was evident he wasn’t the same Timothy I’d roomed with last semester. He was missing the Coke-bottle glasses. His pants weren’t hiked up to his underpits like they used to be. And it was the first time I’d ever seen him wear anything other than penny loafers. Granted, the Adidas shell-tops he wore were laced extremely tight, which looked lame as hell. But he’d made a complete swag transformation. As miraculous as when Steve Urkel morphed into Stefan Urquelle on Family Matters. Timothy’s parents hadn’t changed a bit though, dressed in their Sunday’s best, as usual. All of them were carrying Wal-Mart bags.

  “Hello Mr. and Mrs. McGruden,” I said. “Timmy.”

  “It’s T-Mac, now,” he said, placing his bags on his bed.

  Now, I’m no expert on Greek fraternities or sororities, but I overheard some Kappas on campus last semester ganging up on one of their new members, talking about him for wearing a hat with their fraternity letters on it and a matching T-shirt at the same time. They called it “double-nalia.” When I saw Timothy bust through the door in his Alpha Mu Alpha T-shirt, matching hat, tube socks, dog tag and key chain, I immediately wondered what the rules and regulations are for “quintuplet-nalia.” Something told me Timothy had to have been breaking some of ’em. Even though he joined a fraternity last semester, he was still as lame as he could be, I thought.

  “Hello, James,” Mr. McGruden said. “Great seeing you again, buddy. How was your winter break?”

  “It was just fine,” I said.

  “And your mother?”

  “She’s fine, too,” I said.

  “Well, that’s good to hear. I plead the blood of Jesus over you and your entire family and wish you nothing but success this year. Timothy told me about your little academic probation situation last semester. How were your grades?”

  I cut my eyes at Timothy.

  “I got a 2.67,” I said proudly. “Good enough to come back.”

  “Well,” Ms. McGruden said, with a hint of disapproval in her tone.

  “You made it, son,” Mr. McGruden said. “That’s all that matters. Now, it’s time to take it up a notch. I’m not going to preach to you. I do enough of that on Sundays. And by the way, you’re always welcome to come to service with Timothy the third, anytime you please. Just remember one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s something I tell Timothy the third all of the time,” Mr. McGruden said. “Never let good enough be good enough. Or as one of my favorite college professors used to say, ‘Always shoot for the moon. That way, if you fall short, you will still land on a star.’”

  “I know that’s right,” I said.

  After helping Timothy unload all of his school supplies and restock his snack drawer, his parents dipped. As they were leaving, Fresh was coming in.

  “Yeah!” Fresh said, walking in. “My nigga J.D. is back in the…”

  He stopped talking and walking in midsentence. His feet frozen, he just looked around the room, his eyes carefully scanning Timothy’s side in disbelief. The face he made was identical to the one I made the first time I walked in—pure shock and disappointment.

  “Gaaatdamn, joe!” Fresh screamed, with Timothy’s parents still well within earshot.

  I could hear Mrs. McGruden in the hallway.

  “Lord, have mercy,” she said.

  “What the hell happened up in here?” Fresh continued, looking around in awe. “This looks like something straight outta School Daze. What is this, a mural on the wall?”

  “I am actually just proud to be a member of Alpha Mu Alpha,” Timothy said in a defensive tone. “Thank you.”

  “Well, somebody must’ve dropped a pair of nuts in your Christmas stocking,” Fresh said.

  I started cracking up.

  “Ol’ Timothy standing up for himself,” Fresh continued with more sarcasm. “I ain’t mad at you. But on some the real though, folk, you deserve some kind of Greek fraternity interior decorating award or something. This is extraordinary, fam.”

  Timothy rolled his eyes, sat down at his desk in front of his laptop and logged on to the Internet. Facebook, to be exact.

  “Can you believe this guy?” Fresh asked me, nodding to the decorations.

  I just shook my head with a slight grin.

  “Hey, at least my roommate don’t stink,” I said. “Last time I was in your room, I damn near died trying to hold my breath.”

  “You got a point there,” Fresh said. “He does smell like horseshit.”

  “You wouldn’t know class if it was staring you in the face, Lamont!” Timothy yelped, without looking away from his computer screen, apparently still annoyed by Fresh’s comments.

  “You wouldn’t know a dime if it was staring you in the face!” Fresh retorted. “You might wanna keep cyber surfing, sending friend requests and anonymous honesty box messages and maybe…just maybe you’ll get lucky this semester. Oh, and for the record, I go by Fresh. From now on, when you address me, that’s what you call me, choirboy.”

  “Well, my name is Timothy. But everybody calls me T-Mac, now. So from now on, that’s what you call me.”

  “Oh, it’s T-Mac now, huh?” Fresh asked, cracking up. “Okay, J.D., I’ve heard enough. I’m outta here. What you on? What’s demo?”

  “What’s demo?” I asked. “What the hell does that mean, blood?”

  “Oh,” Fresh said, laughing. “My bad. I thought I was back in the Chi for a minute. When I say, ‘What’s demo’, I basically mean, ‘What’s up’? Or as you would say, ‘What’s crackin’?”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “Well, tell me something, man. I thought we had a lot of slang in Cali. Just when I figured out that ‘joe’ really means ‘homie,’ here you come with ‘what’s demo’? I got it now, though.”

  “Good,” Fresh said. “So, what’s demo, G?”

  “I can’t even call it, blood,” I said, laughing. “To tell you the truth, I’m feeling kinda jet-lagged right now. I think I’ma lay it down until our meeting with the RA’s at eight.”

  “Damn, that’s right,” Fresh said, removing a brush from his back pocket, stepping in front of the mirror and touching up his waves. “I forgot all about that. Well, I’ll see you there. I’m ’bout to meet up with Tiffany in the caf. I’m starvin’ like Marvin, joe.”

  “Tiffany who?” I asked.

  “Big booty Tiffany from Houston,” he said. “I’m kinda feeling her right now.”

  “You’sa fool, blood,” I said, bending over to pick up a flyer that someone had just slipped under my door. “The semester just started, and you already got too many for me to keep up with.”

  “Hey, I’m single,” Fresh said, grinning wide and throwing his hands up. “Anyway, what’s that?”

  “A flyer for some back-to-school party,” I said.

  “Man, I had about eight of them under my door when I first got to my room,” Fresh said. “I damn near slipped and busted my ass when I came through the door.”

  “That’s a bad look,” I said, checking out the flyer.

  There was a superthick, caramel-colored chick on the front of it, w
ith no shirt on, covered in soap suds, sucking a red lollipop.

  “They say the foam party is gonna be going down tomorrow night,” Fresh said. “That’s our last night of freedom before classes start. Plus, Ludacris is performing!”

  “I think…” I said, flipping the flyer over, and seeing Ludacris’s album cover. “Yep, this is the flyer for that party right here. You think it’s gonna be crackin’?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods and wipe his ass with a rabbit?” Fresh asked. “You already know! We there, joe.”

  “I don’t know if I’ma be able to make it,” I said. “I don’t wanna be all sluggish on our first day of class. You know I gotta buckle down this semester. Plus, my money is kinda funny. So…”

  “So you’ll have your ass ready by ten, so we can get in for free!” Fresh said. “You got the rest of the semester to study and worry about class.”

  “You got a point there,” I said, still weighing my options. “But you know me. I ain’t really a morning person as it is, blood.”

  “That’s why I’m glad this party is at night! I don’t care if you miss every other party this year, you know we gotta make this one. It’s the first party of the year!”

  I hadn’t even been on campus for a week, and already I was going back on the promise I’d made to myself before I came back to campus—to get my priorities together, and put school first. Just when I thought I could resist the temptation, I succumbed to it.

  “Well, since you put it that way, I guess I better find something to wear,” I said. “But I’ll tell you right now, the only way I’m going is if we catch a ride. I need to check with Lawry and see if he’s driving, because catching the shuttle is what I ain’t gon’ do! You remember what happened last semester, when the shuttle left us and we had to walk home from the club.”

  “Nigga, I’ll walk to the club I have to,” Fresh said. “You see the girl on the front of the flyer?”

  “She is fine,” I said. “Yeah, fools are probably gonna be going dumb up in that thang! I already know there’s gonna be hella breezies there. Plus, it says you get in free before eleven-thirty, with this flyer.”