Next Semester (13 page)

After my heart-to-heart with Kat, I decided to head back to Marshall Hall to finish up the rest of my homework. As I was walking out of the library, I saw Fresh walking toward me, smoking a Black & Mild cigar.

“What was Katrina talking about, folk?” he asked.

“A whole lot of nothin’, blood,” I said. “Hella apologetic and shit. Tryna get back on my good side.”

“You think she’s sincere?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “She’s a good person. She just made a dumb-ass decision. She gotta pay for it her whole life, though. I overheard her telling Destiny how many pills she has to take a day. That HIV ain’t no joke, blood.”

“Just be thankful you didn’t get that shit,” Fresh said.

“
Thankful
ain’t the word.”

When we finally made it back to Marshall Hall, I let out a big sigh of relief. Somehow, operating only on the forty minutes of sleep I snuck in during biology, I managed to get through my first day of classes, run the errands for the Kappas, knock out my homework assignments and meet with my public policy group. I was off to a good start. Everything was going according to plan, except for the fact that I hadn’t heard from Leslie since our incidental run-in inside the library. No text messages or missed calls from her at all. After kicking off my shoes, I tried to call her to smooth things over, but she didn’t answer. I figured that kind of thing is always better to do in person rather than over a voice mail, so I decided not to leave a message. Instead, I shot her a simple text message that read:
Good night, gorgeous.
Meanwhile, Timothy lay curled up in his bed next to mine. I was so tired, I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t in it alone. At first, when I heard what sounded like a girl giggle, I thought he was just under the covers talking to his girl on speakerphone, as he usually did for some weird reason. But the second time she did it, I heard some tussling, so I peaked my head up in curiosity. And sure enough, I saw an extra hump in his bed lying next to him. T-Mac was definitely in rare form. Not only was he in bed with a girl, but he was also in bed with a girl after visitation hours. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like a Peeping Tom as I peeked over at his bed from under my covers, interested to see what would happen next. I didn’t see much action, but I heard a few things.

“Not with your roommate in the room, baby,” she said. “I think I’d better go back to my dorm.”

A few moments later, I saw her roll out of bed and slip into her jeans.

“I love you, too, baby,” Timothy said as he let her out.

He can’t be serious,
I thought. He’d just started dating the girl and he was already using the
L
word.

“No, I love
you
more,” he said just before pecking her on the lips and leaving to walk her out.

“Oh, Lord,” I mumbled. “What a sucka.”

It was a few minutes past midnight when I felt myself dozing off.
Thank God my first class doesn’t start until 10:00 a.m.,
I thought as I set my alarm for eight o’clock. As exhausted as I was, I figured eight hours of shut-eye was just what I needed.

Four hours later, I was awakened by the thud of thunder. It was so loud, it almost sounded like someone was knocking at my door. I rolled over and wiped my eyes. The moment I saw that it was only 4:03 a.m., my head crashed right back on my pillow. That’s when the knocking sound returned, even louder than before. But this time, it was definitely somebody knocking at my door. I rolled out of bed half-asleep and stumbled over to the door. Fresh was standing on the other side, wearing a baggy sweatsuit and a panicked expression on his face.

“It’s about time you opened the door,” he said in a frantic whisper. “I’ve been knocking for the last five minutes!”

“Huh?” I asked, still trying to figure out what was going on. “I mean, why? What’s up?”

“C’mon!” he said. “We gotta go! Hurry up and throw some sweats on. We gotta be at the baseball diamond in five minutes.”

“Baseball diamond?” I asked. “For what?”

“What do you think? Just hurry up, joe!”

“Man, bump that,” I said. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“What you mean going back to sleep?” Fresh said, stepping inside the room, lowering his tone once he saw
Timothy was sleeping. “If you quit now, all that stuff we did the other night would be for nothing. You can’t quit, fam. Just throw on a sweatsuit—one with a hood on it.”

“A hood?” I asked. “For what?”

“I don’t know, man!” Fresh said. “I’m just going by what Dex told me. Just hurry up!”

Aggravated and still half-asleep, I scrambled to find some sweats. Meanwhile, it was still raining cats and dogs outside. I wondered why the hell anyone would want to meet outside in that. When I left, Timmy was still snoring like a bear.

“Let’s go!” Fresh said, jogging down the hallway.

The baseball diamond was located next to the football field, clear on the other side of campus. I could do nothing more than shake my head and sour my facial expression as I darted out into the rain. Before I got one block away from Marshall Hall, I was soaked. By the time Fresh and I reached the baseball diamond, we were drenched and out of breath. It was raining so hard, there were puddles inside my socks. I could feel the water in between my toes with every step. This time, there were only four Kappas—Dex and three others. And from our original group of eight, we were now down to four. Standing on a muddy baseball field in the pouring rain at four-something in the morning, I couldn’t say I blamed the quitters.

“All of y’all line up against the damn fence!” Dex shouted.

By the tone of his voice, I could tell he was upset. Once again, I was last in line, right behind Fresh.

“I don’t feel like being out here in the rain no more than any of y’all do,” Dex said. “But you little GDIs are already out of line! And tonight, I’ma teach y’all a lesson about disrespecting the brothas of K-B-Psi! Earlier, I sent one of y’all a message and told you to bring me some chicken.
Popeye’s
chicken.”

My stomach began doing backflips and I became woozy. I knew where he was going with this.

“Shit,” Fresh mumbled.

“But somebody thought it would be a good idea to go somewhere else to get the chicken for cheaper instead,” Dex continued, walking straight toward Fresh and holding a receipt in his hand. “Now, I’m a business finance major with a 3.8 GPA. But it damn sure doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell the difference between Popeye’s and
Church’s!
Especially when you leave the receipt in the bag! Who would do some dumb shit like that?”

Dex walked up and down the line, holding the receipt in front of each of our faces. I thought Fresh would’ve at least had enough common sense to take the receipt out of the damn bag. Guess not.

“It was probably the same fool who likes to send sweet little text messages and all that,” one of the Kappas said.

“I don’t think he’s here this morning,” Dex said. “I think he quit.”

“If he knows what’s good for him, he should have,” one of the other Kappas said, laughing.

“Is J.D. here?” Dex asked.

I had a good mind to just act like I didn’t hear him. For a moment, I just stood there with my hands at my sides looking straight forward, pretending as if he hadn’t said a thing at all.

“I knew that dude was a punk,” one of the Kappas said.

“I told you he didn’t come back,” Dex said.

“I’m right here,
sir,
” I said, reluctantly raising my hand.

“Aaa-haaaa!” Dex said, walking up in my face and standing toe-to-toe with me. “So you did come back? From what I hear, you like to send little late-night text messages to other people’s girls.”

The only girl I’d sent anything to was Leslie. I had no idea how the hell Dex found out about it, of all people.

“Don’t get too close to him,” one of the Kappas said. “I heard he got the package.”

“AIDS?” Dex asked.

“That’s what I heard,” the Kappa said. “You know he was messing around with Katrina last semester.”

“Downtown D’s Katrina?” Dex asked. “The APA?”

“Yep,” the Kappa said. “I heard he’s the reason both of ’em got it.”

“No, I’m not!” I said. “People need to quit spreading lies about me. I’ve been tested and I ain’t got no damn HIV!”

“Ain’t nobody asked you what you had, ya little GDI!” Dex said. “I know you were responsible for messing up the chicken order. And I know if you speak out of line one more time or ever use profanity directed at any of the bruhs, you’re finished. Now, you done made me so mad, all of y’all are gonna pay for it. Line up at home plate!”

As I was standing there, last in line, my mind raced as I dreaded what they were going to do to us. What ensued was one of the most embarrassing, heinous things I’ve ever had to do. In the pouring rain, on the muddy field, we had to run full-speed around the bases and slide face-first into each one. Each time I slid, mud would spout up into my face, eyes and mouth. After the first five times around the bases, diving in the dirt felt like diving onto concrete. Every slide felt like a belly flop off of a high-dive in a swimming pool. I could feel the skin tearing around my elbows, forearms and stomach. A few times, it knocked the wind out of me. We had to complete 30 laps. That’s 120 total face-first slides into the bases. I don’t know how we got through it, but we did. It must’ve taken us an hour to complete. Afterward, I was so exhausted, I could barely stand on my own two feet. I was dizzy, panting and dying of thirst. That’s when another Kappa came jogging up from across the field. It was Konceited. He was carrying a Gatorade bottle.

“Damn, where you been at, bruh?” Dex asked him. “We were sitting around the frat house, waiting for you.”

“My bad,” Konceited said. “I got caught up with that damn Italian stallion!”

“Again?” one of the Kappas asked.

“I can’t stay away, bruh,” Konceited said. “She’s a beast!”

“You talking about the one who’s dating that lame-ass Alpha nigga T-Mac, right?” Dex asked.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Konceited confirmed.

“Hope you’re strapping up,” one of the other Kappas said. “I know a couple of the bruhs over at G-State and Tech who hit that. She’s a Greek groupie.”

“C’mon now, bruh,” Konceited said. “You know I stay strapped like car seats. It’s not like I’m tryna wife her up.”

Damn,
I thought, shaking my head slightly. I knew it. Timothy was getting played by a freak. I knew I had to tell him. I’d have to figure out how later.

“Later for all that,” Dex said, taking the Gatorade bottle from Konceited. “Everybody line up again. Take your hoods off, cock your heads back, and open your mouths. After all of that running, I know y’all gotta be thirsty.”

Thank God,
I thought, still breathing heavily, gasping for air. Lord knows, I needed a sip. Dex started at the front of the line and worked his way back, filling each of our mouths to the brim. By the time I swallowed it was too late. What I thought was Gatorade turned out to be one hundred percent prune juice.

“How did that taste, fellas?” Dex asked, laughing.

The older Kappas were cracking up as I gagged.

“Got plenty more here, if you need another sip,” Dex continued. “I’m sure you guys have worked up quite an appetite, with all that running and all. So I’m gonna give you this piece of caramel to share. I want you to take the biggest bite you can, and pass it back. If you take a small
bite, you will eat all of it. If you spit out any of it, you are done. Don’t ever think about coming back.”

With that, Dex proceeded to hand what looked like an extremely small candy apple to the first guy in line. By the time it made it back to me, I could tell it was anything but that. When Fresh turned around to hand it to me, even though it was raining and his mouth was shut, I could smell a strong aroma on his breath that damn sure wasn’t cultivated by Granny Smith. I was, however, face-to-face with a half-eaten piece of garlic that had been dipped in caramel. Dex took one step closer to me and yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Eat!” he screamed.

I held it in front of my face, my hand shaking and lip quivering. Just the smell of the fresh garlic made my stomach quiver. As bad as I wanted to force it in my mouth, like the rest of the guys had, I couldn’t bring my hand to do it.

“Okay, I see we still have an individual on our hands,” Dex said. “He’s better than the rest of y’all. He doesn’t wanna eat with y’all. Don’t worry about it, homie. Don’t eat it. You’re different. You’re special, so you should be in the front of the line. C’mon.”

Dex grabbed me by my elbow and led me to the front of the line.

“Since you don’t wanna take one little bite out of the apple, you can stand here and watch your buddies eat the entire thing.”

As I watched the guys vigorously shaking their heads back and forth, letting me know they couldn’t stomach another bite, I decided I couldn’t leave them hanging like that. I had to take one for the team.

“I’ll take a bite, man,” I said.

“Man?”
Dex asked. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? You can’t seem to stop messing up.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I meant to say, I’ll take a bite, sir.”

“You are sorry,” Dex agreed, snatching the apple out of my hands. “If you think your little freshman ass can take a girl from a man of Kappa Beta Psi, you got another thing coming. Get your sorry ass down and give me one hundred push-ups while your friends finish off the apple.”

The way he kept bringing up that text message situation outta nowhere, I was starting to think maybe Dex was Leslie’s ex. It seemed like he had a personal vendetta out against me. I was struggling with push-up number 68 when Dex pulled me up to my feet by the back of my collar and shoved me in the front of the line. I felt bad for letting the fellas down. They looked at me like they wanted to jump me. Each of them looked nauseous. That prune juice alone had my stomach boiling. We stood in a single file line and I was in the very front.

“Now, for some jumping jacks,” Dex said. “If you feel the urge to throw up, which you probably will, you make sure to throw up in the guy’s hood in front of you. If I see one drop spill on the ground, you’re finished. You will never be a man of Kappa Beta Psi. Ready, go!”