First Semester (4 page)

The lady behind the counter flashed a genuine smile and said, “Welcome to University of Atlanta, Mr. Dawson. According to your paperwork, it looks like you are on academic probation this semester. That means you will have to maintain a 2.5 GPA in order to return. So, good luck, and stay focused. You never get a second first semester.”

MOVING IN

T
he door to Marshall Hall was propped wide open. There were eight dorms on campus, but Marshall Hall was the only all-male dorm. I would have preferred to stay in the coed dorms, but they were for upperclassmen. The small parking lot outside the four-level brick building was full of cars with their trunks popped. All of the parents were helping their kids move in. When I spotted my uncle, he was leaning up against his car, staring like a pervert at some girl walking up the steps. I grabbed a box from the trunk, and looked at him like he was R. Kelly at an eighth grade winter ball. His eyes were still fixed on the girl with the ridiculously large ba-dunk-a-dunk, walking up the steps.

“Help a brotha out, Unc,” I said. “Grab a box.”

“Man, if I was about ten years younger—”

My mom cut him off. “Leroy, if you were ten years younger you would be an overweight thirty-two-year-old with a GED, and still old enough to be that little girl's daddy. Now grab a box and come on.”

“Sugar daddy,” he said under his breath with a chuckle as he grabbed my stereo from his trunk.

I looked in my pocket to check my room number on the sheet of paper the lady in the registration line had given me. Room 112—where the players dwell. When we got inside Marshall Hall, a relatively buff brotha wearing a purple T-shirt with Bloody Beta Psi sketched in gold across the front was waiting at the front desk. He was sitting behind a sign-in sheet and motioned for us to come over.

“How y'all doing?” he asked.

“Hot!” my uncle said. “It feels like somebody's got the heat set on Africa outside.”

“Well, we try to keep it pretty cool in here,” he responded, while laughing. “My name is Varnelius Mandel. I'm a graduate student here at U of A and the head resident assistant in Marshall Hall. And you are?”

“James,” I said.

“James who?” he asked with an authoritative tone.

“James Dawson.”

“And you, ma'am?” he asked my mom.

“I'm Valerie Bremer, J.D.'s mother.”

“Who are you, the police?” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?” he asked in that same fatherly tone.

I didn't think he'd heard me. I had to think of something quick.

“This is a relief,” I said. “I've been waiting to get down here and get settled in since I found out I got in.”

“Well, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you stay in. This little asterisk next to your name means that you're on academic probation. Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, that's supposed to be a little indication to let me know that I don't have to put up with any crap from you. But truthfully, I don't expect any. I mean, in my eyes, you've got a clean slate. But your teachers will have this asterisk next to your name on their roll books as well, so they will be paying extra-close attention to you. But so long as you stay out of trouble, me and you ain't got no problems. And if you maintain a 2.5 for the entire year, you won't even have to worry about that whole academic probation thing anymore. Cool?”

“Cool.”

“All right. Well, Mr. Dawson, here's your key. Find your name on that list and sign next to it.”

I couldn't pinpoint exactly what I didn't like about Varnelius, but right away something told me he was a couple of tacos short of a combo. Besides, I figured anybody named Varnelius was bound to have some self-esteem issues. I signed my name and grabbed my envelope off the counter.

“Take a right, go down the hall and room 112 is the last door on your left-hand side. If you need anything, just let me know.”

“Thanks for your help,” my mom said.

I picked up my box and took a couple of steps forward, apprehensively looking around. There were red signs everywhere that read Distinguished Men of Marshall Give Respect to Get Respect. It looked like something out of Spike Lee's
School Daze.
By the time I made it to my room my arms felt heavy. I let the box thud to the floor, and grabbed my key out of the envelope I'd stuffed in my back pocket. I had taken two steps inside when I felt something scatter across my foot. I dropped my box, jumped onto the bed and screamed. My mom jumped back.

“What is it?” she asked in a high-pitched voice.

Just as I was about to sound like I'd lost my mind and say “I don't know,” it came out. It was a roach about the size of Texas. It was so big I was waiting for it to bark at me.

“That ain't cool,” I said as my knees shook uncontrollably.

I had never seen an insect that big in my life. And the way it just aggressively sashayed to the middle of the floor like it was auditioning for
America's Next Top Model
made it look even more intimidating. My mom stood outside the door laughing at me.

“That ain't nothing but a little roach. You'd better get used to it. You're down South now. I know big, bad J.D. ain't scurred,” she said as she cracked up. “Wait till I tell your sister about this!”

As she was laughing like she was watching
The Kings of Comedy,
my uncle walked into the room with my stereo hoisted over his eyes. He was clutching a honey bun in between his teeth, and he was headed straight for the roach. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. He took about three steps before it sounded off.

Crack!

My uncle gently sat my stereo on the bed and looked at my mom. She was laughing so hard, tears began to fall.

“What's so funny?” he said, looking around.

He took one more step, looked down, and saw bug guts stretching from his elevated foot to the floor. That roach was a goner.

“That's cold,” my uncle said as he opened his honey bun. “Y'all could've said something.”

I went to the bathroom and got a soapy paper towel to clean it up with. After finishing the despicable chore, I followed my uncle to his ride to get the rest of my things from his trunk. While I went back and forth to the car, my mom was busy unpacking my things and rambling on and on about me staying focused.

She'd been in my shoes before, so I tried to listen without letting it go in one ear and out the other. Plus, she was kind of young. My mom was only thirty-eight. She had me when she was twenty. She was in her first semester as a junior at Florida A&M University when she found out she was pregnant with me. Her parents had just moved from Arkansas to Oakland to find better jobs. When she went there to give birth to me, she ended up moving in with them. With my pops nowhere to be found, she had to work full-time to take care of me and never got a chance to finish college. Since I was basically the man of the house, my mom and I had grown close and shared a special bond. I could talk to her about anything. She was cool like that. She always warned me about how sneaky and conniving girls could be. When she talked, I listened.

“I just don't want you to make the same mistakes I did,” she said. “Don't be down here doing the most, letting these little girls run over you. I seen the way they were looking you up and down. If you're gonna be running up in these girls down here, do it safely,” she warned. “I bought you an economy-size box of Trojan condoms. That doesn't mean I want you running around like Deuce Bigalow the male gigolo. I'd just rather you have 'em and not need 'em than need 'em and not have 'em. All of them come with spermicide on them, so there ain't gonna be no little James juniors running around. You ain't got no excuses, and neither do them little fast-ass girls. If they tell you they're on the pill or on the shot, don't believe them.”

“C'mon now, that's common sense.”

“Hey, if common sense was so common, everybody would have it.”

I laughed.

“I'm serious, J.D. You know what I always tell you, opportunity knocks once—”

“But temptation leans on the doorbell,” I said, helping her finish her favorite quote. “I know. You've said that a million times.”

“Well, I'm glad you know it,” she said. “Now all you've got to do is act like it. This is a great opportunity for you, but there's going to be a lot of temptation along the way. And I don't want you coming home with nothing but a good report card. Youhearme?”

“Yeah,” I said.

I heard a knock at the door. It was weird because my door was wide open. Why would anyone knock? It was my roommate and his parents. I wondered how long they'd been standing there. My roommate's mom looked like she'd seen a ghost, so I figured they'd heard my mom's little sex-ed spill.

“Lawd, have mercy,” my roommate's mom said as she walked into the room with a bottle of blessing oil. She was wearing one of those large church hats with the huge brim and hella flowers scattered all over it, and a purple dress. She looked like she had just gotten out of Sunday morning service. My roommate's father was checking the number above the door to make sure he had the right room.

My roommate's mom extended her hand to my mother's. “My name is Sister Betty and this is my husband, Pastor Timothy McGruden the Second,” she said, pointing toward the man in the black and gold Alpha Mu Alpha T-shirt. “And this is our son, Timothy the Third.”

He looked as nervous as a prisoner meeting his cell mate for the first time. I was just waiting for the urine to trickle down the side of his pants.

“Yes, my name is Timothy, and you must be James,” he said in a second grader's voice.

“You know it,” I said.

“Hello,” he said, sounding like a kindergartner meeting his school bus driver for the first time.

I stretched out my balled-up fist to give him a pound, and he slapped it like he was trying to give me a high five. It was an awkward exchange, but I could tell he was an awkward type of cat.

“It was nice to meet you,” my mom said in her fake PTA voice.

“God bless you,” Mrs. McGruden said.

I thought her reply was a little odd, but I shrugged it off. My mom and I walked to the car, waking my uncle from his slumber on the couch on the way out.

The parking lot was more packed when we came out than before we went inside, and it was hot enough to cook a Thanksgiving turkey on the concrete. I missed the Bay Area breeze already. My uncle cranked up his car as my mom leaned against the side of it. She was nervously fidgeting with the strap on her Louis Vuitton purse.

“Want to spend tonight at the hotel?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Nah,” I said, looking around at the parking lot full of fine girls I'd never seen in my life. “I'm straight.”

“I bet you are,” my mom said, flashing a fake smile. “Forget you, then. I'm going out with one of my girlfriends anyway.”

As far as I knew, she had no girlfriends in Atlanta. I knew she wanted to cry. After I thought about what I had just said, I did too. You could've heard an ant burp. I tried to smooth over the awkwardness of the moment.

“I need to just go ahead and get settled in here,” I said. “I might as well get used to it. Feel me?”

“I feel you,” my mom said, switching her purse from her left shoulder to her right. “I guess you're all set up now. You don't need your mama no more. Did you hang up that suit that I bought you?”

“Yep.”

“What about that Rocawear polo I got for you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have the Bible your grandmother gave you?”

“Got it.”

“Well, don't forget to take your earrings out and clean those lobes with some alcohol every once in a while. I didn't buy you diamond earrings for your birthday for you to smear earwax all over them.”

“I got you.”

“And don't stop going to church just because you're out here in school. You find a good church to go to, and don't be out in the clubs so late on Saturday you can't get up Sunday morning.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, looking around. There were more prospects in the parking lot than a McDonald's high school All-American basketball game. I saw this girl wearing a skirt so short it looked like a belt. I figured her parents must've been gone already. Just as I had estimated her bra size, my mom's voice interrupted my lustful trance.

“And make some new friends too,” she said. “Start hanging around some ambitious guys who have dreams, and guys who take school seriously. Don't be hanging around that same riffraff you got caught up with back home. You see where they can get you. I mean, look what happened to T-Spoon.”

“Mom, I got you,” I said, cutting her off.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Just making sure.”

“Clean my ears, go to church and make new friends. I got it.”

“I know that's right. My baby boy is a big college man now. These next four years are supposed to be the best years of your life, so you have some fun too,” she said, pulling me close. “I'm so proud of you. I love you, J.D.” She hugged me as tight as a boa constrictor for what felt like five minutes straight. I heard her sniffle. I was trying to maintain some sense of coolness when I heard my uncle yell from the car.