Just As I Am

by E. Lynn Harris

  Before heading to Tuscaloosa, I stopped at my parents’ home. I’d been so upset by my night in Jersey City with Basil that I’d decided against going to my family reunion. My mama would have been able to detect that something was wrong and wouldn’t have let up until I confessed. I still couldn’t lie or tell half truths to my mama face to face, so I just called and said I was having problems with a former client. They were disappointed but Jared did show up so I guess he took my place. I cut short a conversation with my parents when they were going on and on about how Jared helped and how all the relatives thought he was a member of the family. The phone call and my own jealousy ruined my day. I wondered how Jared felt being at my family reunion without me. I missed Jared something terrible. He and I still weren’t talking, but I was seriously considering initiating a truce. As it was, I wasn’t talking to much of anybody these days. Basil still hadn’t called me to explain or apologize and I definitely wasn’t calling him. (I must admit, though, one of the reasons I didn’t go to the family reunion was because I was afraid I might miss his phone call.) It looked like Basil was off to a super year with the Warriors if the sports pages were correct. He was getting an awful lot of press. Maybe he had visited the sportswriter after all.

  I wasn’t talking to Kyle as much either. At first it was because his phone was out of order but then whenever I did get through, I got his answering machine or else he was asleep. Kyle seemed to be cooling out. I hoped he wasn’t harboring any hard feelings regarding my representing Basil and sleeping with him. He’d changed his mind at the last minute about coming to Atlanta for Labor Day weekend saying he had just picked up two new clients and had a shot at doing some of the costumes for Nicole’s new Broadway show. I worried some that our lack of communication was due to Kyle’s drinking and doing drugs again. He’d been disappointed when I’d chosen not to go to Los Angeles for the beach party on the Fourth of July weekend. It surprised me when he’d decided against going to Los Angeles alone.

  I stopped at my folks’ home before heading back to campus because I wanted to help with the problems developing with my little brother Kirby. My parents had decided Kirby was going to spend his first year of high school at a prep school and had gotten him into the exclusive Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. They were cashing in savings bonds they’d had since I was a little boy. Prep school was an opportunity I would have jumped at, but Kirby wasn’t feeling it. Pops had spoken and so my little brother was on his way East whether he liked it or not.

  My parents had made a deal with him. If he made good grades and showed more responsibility, then he could choose where he went to school during his sophomore year. Come home with anything less than a B average then it was back to prep school or possibly a tougher military school. I guessed my parents were attempting a more politically correct method of child rearing with Kirby. Making deals and talking things out. When I was growing up the only talking that occurred was after I had gotten my ass whipped.

  I talked with my little brother the day before he and Pops planned to leave on their long drive to Andover. He was becoming quite a handsome young man, looking more like Pops than even me. Kirby had a basketball player’s build and shared my pops’s brownish-green eyes that were even more distinguishable because of Kirby’s slightly darker skin tone.

  “What do you think about this prep school stuff?”

  “I ain’t got no choice,” Kirby said.

  “I don’t have a choice,” I corrected.

  “Whatever you say,” Kirby retorted.

  “It won’t be as bad as you think,” I said.

  “You think so. It’s co-ed, you know,” Kirby said.

  “Oh, you like that, huh?”

  “Damn betcha,” Kirby said as he playfully threw a boxer punch toward me.

  “Cool out, little boy, before I have to lay you out. Come here. Do you know what this is?” I asked Kirby as I showed him a gold condom wrapper.

  “Shoot, yeah, it’s a rubber. I got one in my wallet,” Kirby boasted.

  “Do you know what it’s for and how to put it on?”

  “Come on, Ray-Ray, chill. I know that stuff,” he answered bashfully.

  “Do you know about AIDS?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kirby said, hanging his head.

  “Okay, then make me a promise. You won’t put your piece anywhere without one of these on. Deal?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I won’t, Ray-Ray,” he laughed, and playfully punched my shoulders.

  “I’m serious, Kirby. Don’t play around with this shit. Understood?”

  “Yes, big brother. I understand,” Kirby said.

  I don’t know why but I got the feeling my little brother wasn’t a virgin. I’d noticed the change in him last Christmas. The boyish charm was gone and was replaced by a cockiness, which was one of the reasons he found himself headed for Andover. From the questions he asked and the posters in his room—Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes and the little girl from the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”—I assumed he was heterosexual. I hoped I was right. I didn’t want my little brother going through all the pain and turmoil I had and I didn’t think Pops could stomach both his sons not being totally heterosexual. I also realized adolescent heterosexuality was not an indicator of what might happen in the future. My main concern with Kirby going to Andover was that I didn’t want him to come back talking and acting like a white boy.

  I was happy I’d stopped off to see my little brother before he left home for his first extended stay. Not only for Kirby and myself but my mom as well. She broke out into a loud cry when Pops and Kirby pulled out. I thought maybe she would be happy about having Pops all to herself finally. Mama’s quiet tears turned to loud sobs and I held her tightly in my arms until she had gotten everything out. I waited until she’d turned in for the night before I left for campus, turning on the alarm, and locking the door. I’d left her a nice note telling her Christmas was just around the corner and Santa was going to bring her two handsome young men. As I pulled out of the driveway I thought about how it seemed as though it was only yesterday I’d left for college for the first time. I’d begged my parents to let me drive alone and I’d sneaked out during the wee hours of the morning to avoid my mother’s tears.

  Nothing could have prepared me for what would happen at my fraternity reunion. It was great seeing everyone I had pledged with. All of my line brothers had returned for the reunion, the vast majority with wives and children. Everyone wanted to know why I wasn’t married and why I let Sela get away. Luckily there was no hard court press on the marriage question since five of my line brothers were also single.

  Everyone met at the fraternity house, reliving memories of the past and creating new ones with the undergrad brothers who now ran the frat. I had grown up so much through my association with KAΩ, and it was still one of my most treasured associations, but things seemed a bit different with the new frat brothers.

  All of the major black Greek organizations, both sororities and fraternities, had instituted something called risk-free pledging. In other words it was walk right up, sign up, and you’re a frat brother. Gone were the days of nine-week pledge periods, complete with physical and mental hazing. In a lot of ways this was good. Pledging had gotten out of hand all across the country with brutal beatings and accidental deaths touching all the fraternities. The sororities didn’t have the deaths but word was out that the ladies were almost as physical as the men. So in a rare agreement, the heads of all the sororities and fraternities got together and decided to implement rules by which the groups would abide.

  KAΩ had always been selective in the past, but this was soon to change. People used to say the hardest thing about pledging KAΩ was getting on line. That’s the way I thought it should be. Some fraternities accepted guys just to be able to kick their asses during the pledge period—not that I hadn’t kicked a little ass during my undergrad years—but risk-free pledging had its own problems. There didn’t seem to be the brotherhood that we’d shared. After you wen
t through a pledge period in the old days you really felt like brothers and the fraternity meant a great deal to you because you had worked so hard to become a member. The current pledge period was nonexistent; once you were accepted as a pledge you became a member a few days later. There was a marked difference between the new brothers and the old ones. This new risk-free process was even less rigorous than when guys used to pledge in graduate chapter, which was always looked down upon, because it was a lot easier than pledging in undergrad.

  After everybody got together, we started breaking off into groups just like the old days. They weren’t exactly cliques but the people who hung out together in undergrad migrated toward those people now. So I ended up with my former roommate Stanley and his wife Lencola and Trent Walters, president of my pledge class, who was surprisingly still single and was much better-looking than I remembered. Matter of fact, Trent had been pretty square-looking as an undergrad—braces and thick glasses. He’d been an ROTC man, always in the books. I had never really thought about Trent’s looks when we’d first met pledging. Trent Walters had gone through a major makeover.

  We left the frat house and went to the bar at the Hilton Hotel for drinks before heading back to the house for an evening meeting of the alumni and undergrad brothers.

  Stanley was a professor at the University of Kansas and the proud father of two little girls. His wife—one of his former students—was a little frumpy-looking, but really nice.

  Trent was an architect working for a Chicago design firm. He boasted about living on Chicago’s Gold Coast. Stanley and I kidded each other about being the odd couple because Stanley was so meticulous and I was so messy. We reminisced about how we’d come home late at night or early in the morning and raid the icebox, usually eating Captain Crunch, lemon creme cookies, and fried egg sandwiches after a night of drinking KAΩ punch. Stanley asked me if I still talked with Sela and said he’d heard I had come pretty close to marrying a movie star. He had even heard it was Robin Givens. I smiled at the thought of Nicole and how she did look like Robin Givens but only better.

  “Ray, the frat’s pretty boy with all the pretty girls,” Stanley remarked.

  “Yeah, Ray was the lady-killer,” Trent chipped in.

  Boy, if they only knew, I thought, as I accepted their compliments with a guarded smile.

  “I knew he was a motherfuckin’ faggot. I told y’all,” the deep voice said from inside the house. Trent, Stanley, and I walked back into the fraternity house in the middle of a chapter meeting. The brothers were discussing one of the new pledges who was about to become a full member after Sunday’s ceremony.

  The three of us leaned against the back wall listening to the frats talk about the pledge whom they had set up to find out if he was gay. From what I could gather from the meeting conversation, the current members had been looking for a way to keep the guy, whose name must have been Miller, out of the frat. So they’d convinced one of the guy’s line brothers to try to entice the pledge into meeting him for a sexual escapade.

  It appeared their plan had worked. The guy’d evidently taken the bait and one of the members laughed and said, “He had fallen to his knees just about to get busy on Terry when we broke in and cold-busted his punk ass.”

  “You should have seen the look on that motherfucker’s face,” another member chimed in.

  “But do you think national is going to let us keep him out?” a voice quizzed.

  “Damn straight. I don’t think that punk ass Miller Thomas will even show up around this frat house again. If he does we ruin his faggot ass,” the presiding officer stated.

  Shocked at the proceedings, I continued to stand against the wall. There had always been rumors about gay members in all the fraternities. They were supposed to be service organizations, but that was just a cover. Sure we did a couple of service projects a year but the majority of the activities centered around the social. I still didn’t understand what a person’s sexuality had to do with his ability to serve the fraternity, provided he didn’t force himself on other members or do anything to embarrass the fraternity. In theory that should be the only question, but deep down I knew better. It just hadn’t hit me how homophobic fraternities were and continued to be.

  Trent seemed to be annoyed at the ongoing dispute and pulled one of the current members over to find out more information about the situation. I stood close to Trent and listened as the current rush chairman explained that Miller had been accepted as a pledge because he had a 3.88 grade point in Chemical Engineering and was the number-one tennis player on the university tennis team. In addition his father was a judge in New Orleans and a KAΩ alum, making Miller a legacy. We always accepted legacies. It seemed all the guys in the fraternity were crazy about Miller until the rumor got started.

  Only a few current members had come to his defense and when they did their own sexuality came under question. Since Miller had already been accepted, they couldn’t just kick the guy out. So instead the plan was to blackmail him into quitting before the formal induction service.

  My stomach churned. I was thinking about this young guy whom I didn’t know and what would have happened to me if people had discovered my doubts about my sexuality before pledging KAΩ. Or, more important, if I had been found out after my affair with Kelvin during my senior year. What would have happened had I defended somebody I didn’t know; what shadows would it have cast on my reputation as one of the better-known and better-liked members of KAΩ?

  “It sounds like this guy would be great for the chapter. I mean with his father and all. And he’s on the tennis team,” Trent said.

  “Yeah, you’re right, frat, but he’s a punk. We can’t have no punks in KAΩ. After a while they’ll be taking over,” a guy who identified himself as Dale said.

  “Yeah, but if he’s the number-one player on the university tennis team then he’s very likely to go pro,” I said, trying to interject a business perspective.

  “I think it’s a dead issue. He ain’t gonna show his face around here again,” one of the ringleaders of the protest said.

  It seemed as if Trent’s and my arguments were falling on deaf ears. The members seemed to have already made up their minds and since we were not active members of the chapter, our opinions were just that, opinions.

  I did take note of Trent’s posture toward the case. It seemed he was really bothered by the entire situation and that made me feel good. The more I thought about it, Trent had seemed open-minded and levelheaded for as long as I’d known him. He always had a girlfriend, but he was always so quiet. Could my line brother and fraternity brother be in the silent frat too?

  The rest of the weekend went according to plan, at least until the end: beer drinking, barbecue eating, and re-creating the past with men who were like family. But like a family reunion, there were relatives I wasn’t as excited about seeing and new relatives I was sorry I ever met. The weekend also made me realize I could still love and be close to Jared and not have to sleep with him. I mean I loved the majority of these guys. Maybe not the way I loved Jared, but I still loved them. It also helped me understand how important my friendships with men were. Saturday night after the football game I got a little full of the spirits and, I guess, emotional. So emotional that I called Jared to tell him how sorry I was for being such an ass wipe and to tell him I had to see him once I got back home. Jared, being Jared, was quite receptive and told me over the phone he’d missed me and looked forward to renewing our friendship. He warned me not to drink too much and to drive safely back to Atlanta. Right before I hung up there was an awkward silence and then before saying good-bye, I said, “Jared, you know I love you. I mean like a brother.”

  “Yeah, I know, Ray. That’s why I put up with you. ’Cause I love you too. Stay strong,” Jared said.

  “Talking to one of those sweet Atlanta peaches, frat?” Derrick Hall asked. Derrick was the current president of the fraternity and leader of the gay witch hunt. He was probably also a card-carrying member of the all-bo
dy, no-brain club.

  “Naw, just talking with a good friend,” I said. I wondered if Derrick overheard my conversation and was just being nosy.

  “So tell me, Ray. You’re not married. From what I’ve heard you always had the finest girl in the frat,” Derrick said.

  “Yeah, but things change, Derrick. You’ll learn that as you get older,” I said coldly.

  “Okay, frat. Well, I just wanted to thank you for coming up and for the checks you send. They really help out,” he added.

  “Sure, no problem, Derrick. Nice talking with you,” I said as I looked to see if Trent was in the area.

  I thought about how cold I was toward Derrick and how he really didn’t have a clue that I was treating him coldly. Nor would he have known why if he’d been aware of my feelings. I thought about the checks I sent in support of the fraternity and the house and how my money was helping to perpetuate this hate. For the first time since I knew about KAΩ I felt embarrassed about being a member of one of the most prestigious organizations for black men.

  Sunday arrived and before leaving, Trent and I had breakfast at the Hilton Hotel. We talked about what a wonderful weekend it had been and promised to do a better job of keeping in touch. The evening before somehow managed to end on a good note even after my stoic conversation with Derrick. After seeing KAΩ perform at a jamming step show and singing the fraternity hymn with over one hundred brothers all in perfect pitch, I realized it wasn’t KAΩ I was ashamed of, just some of the members. Just as I knew you couldn’t diss your entire family because of a few relatives.

  While Trent and I ate toast and eggs I asked him what he thought about the “gay issue” within the frat. Trent pulled his coffee mug up to his lips, took a sip, and slowly placed it on the saucer.