First Semester (7 page)

“Pardon my pimpin',” he said, as he looked back, wearing a sly grin.

“Are you sure we aren't going to get caught?” she asked, speed-walking with her head down.

“Just be cool, baby girl,” he said. “I live right up these stairs. We're straight.”

Although I didn't get a good look at her face, even through her sweats I could tell she had a fatty. I just shook my head and smiled as I opened my door. By the time I made it inside my room, my roommate was already knocked out, snoring obnoxiously loud. Aside from that, going from my queen-size bed back at home, to this twin-size cot wasn't an easy adjustment to make. I had a hard time falling asleep.

OLIVE BRANCH

N
o pep talk or warning could have prepared me for what I saw. When we walked into the Panther Stadium my eyes damn near popped out of their sockets. There were thousands of people—mostly females—bumping and grinding in the end zone on the far end of the field. Everyone was told to walk along the track that circled the football field to get to the other side, but I felt like breaking into an all-out sprint down the sideline. To describe the way I felt at that moment as culture shock would be an understatement. I was overwhelmed.

When we made it to the end zone, I felt like doing a touchdown celebration dance. I'd been to clubs, house parties and school dances in Oakland before, but I'd never in my life seen that many black people in the same place at the same time without fighting. I was in awe.

“Close your mouth, shawty,” Lawry said. “Welcome to the A! This is how we get down!”

I tried to keep my composure, but I was on the verge of losing it. Every time I took a step, I was surrounded by ten different females, and their differences were as beautiful as Oprah Winfrey's bank statement. Their skin tones ranged from piano-key ebony to that of a sandy beach. Some of the girls had their hair styled short like Halle Berry, while some rocked braids, and others' fell past their shoulders. The facial ratings scaled from “She must look like her dad”—threes—to “What part of heaven are you from?”—tens. I was paralyzed. I could see that Fresh and Lawry had fallen under the same hypnotic spell. None of us could move. A girl walked by us wearing some see-through nylon shorts that looked like panties. She had her T-shirt tied up in a knot on her side, and was wearing some red six-inch heels. All of our heads turned simultaneously, like she had an invisible string tied from her ass to all of our necks. My mouth watered.

“Damn, blood, she got a watermelon booty,” I said.

“Right, joe,” Fresh said in approval. “Big and juicy. Just right for a playa like me.”

Lawry made a bold move. He reached out to grab her hand and caught her wrist. She turned around and looked at him like he had run over her foot with his car, until he let go. It didn't take long.

“Damn, shawty, these girls bourgeois as hell,” Lawry said, looking like he got caught digging in his nose. I could tell he was embarrassed. But I'm sure he didn't care. There were so many dimes in this party, a nigga could strike out ten times in a row and still be in the game.

The DJ played East Coast rap for at least a half hour straight. I wasn't really feeling that theme, so I walked around peeping the scenery. When I tried to call Todd on his cell phone to let him know what he was missing, he answered but said he couldn't hear me because the music was too loud. All I could do was shake my head as I looked around. There were so many different people from so many places, doing so many dances I'd never seen in my life. I saw a few girls doing the Harlem Shake to one of P. Diddy's songs. I saw Dub-B grinding on a petite light-skinned girl with her long hair braided like Alicia Keys. Although he looked like he was concentrating, he was surprisingly on beat. I thought the white dude would have two left feet, but he didn't miss a step as the two grooved to a G-Unit cut.

Just when I thought the party couldn't get any better, the DJ took it to the next level, when he switcZhed to a dirty South vibe and played “Yeah” by Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris. Fresh and Lawry trailed me until their songs came on.

When the DJ flipped the script to Chi-town flavor and played R. Kelly's “Step in the Name of Love,” I noticed a large crowd form a circle around two people. In the O, whenever people were crowded in a circle like that, two people were in the middle fighting. I pushed and shoved my way to the inner ring of the circle and couldn't believe what I saw. It was Mr. I'm-so-pretty-I-carry-a-brush-in-my-back-pocket—Fresh, doing a dance everyone called “Steppin'.” I'd seen it on the videos, but never before in person. His feet moved in perfect sequence with the girl he was dancing with. And she was a shapely, chocolate stallion, with wavy hair that bounced off her shoulders every time she turned her head. When R. Kelly said spin, Fresh held her by her hand, spun her around, then spun himself, still shuffling his feet fluidly. It looked like they had practiced this routine before or something. I overheard a girl who must've been from Chicago talking to her friend. She said, “Ooh, he's juking, girl. That's how we do it in the Chi!”

At that point, I realized why he'd earned the nickname Fresh.

I stepped away from the chaos to grab some H
₂
O from the student government–run concession stand on the sideline. I'd just paid for my Dasani when I saw her. My heart skipped a beat or three. It was the badass O.G. who'd given me my registration packet. Her face looked like Vivica Fox. Her eyes were as seductive as Lisa Raye's. She had a small waist, but the junk in her trunk looked soft enough to use as a pillow. I'd seen some superbad breezies in the Bay, but this was the most beautiful female I'd ever seen in my life. I had to find out her name. I knew I had to make my move, but I was having a hard time thinking of the right thing to say. Usually my game was tight, but for some reason this breezy had my head gone. All I could do was stare.

“She does the same thing to me too, cuz,” I heard someone say.

I turned to my left. It was Fats.

“What up, family?” I said, dapping him up.

He was wearing a navy-blue L.A. Dodgers T-shirt, some blue Dickies that looked like the same ones he'd just worn the other day and a pair of navy-blue Converse sneakers.

“I thought this was for freshmen,” I said. “How did you get up in here, blood?”

“You know the University of Atlanta motto, right?”

“Nah, blood. What's that?”

“Find a way or make one.”

“I can dig it.”

I turned my head back toward my future wife, but she had disappeared. I cursed under my breath. Just as I contemplated hunting her down, she reappeared. She was standing with the orientation guides. A couple of them were wearing their O.G. T-shirts. But a couple of the cuter ones wore pink and green Alpha Pi Alpha sorority jackets. She was one of them. Her jacket had her line name,
Overdose,
written on the back. At that moment, I was feigning for a hit. I saw her look in my direction. I gave my lips an LL Cool J lick for sex appeal. Just when I thought I'd caught her eye, her head started turning slowly in the other direction. She was looking at someone. I surveyed the crowd and noticed all of the fine girls doing the same thing. Did they know something, or someone, I didn't? I saw her whisper in her soror's ear, then point in the direction everyone else was looking. I spotted the figure everyone was looking at, but couldn't make out who it was because of the large crowd around him.

“What's everybody looking at, blood?” I asked.

Before Fats could open his mouth, I saw for myself. Some cat wearing a U of A football jersey with Number One on the front perched himself on top of a statue of a panther, which was just past the goalposts. I could see his diamond-cut earrings and platinum-coated pendant hanging from the chain around his neck, gleaming, from where I stood. And I was at least forty yards away.

“That's Downtown-D, our star quarterback,” Fats said. “His real name is Deiondre Harris.”

“I know he ain't a freshman,” I said. “What's he doing up in here, blood?”

“He does what he wants to do, cuz.”

“I saw the football team's record from last year in the registration packet. They only won seven games. What's all the commotion about?”

“We lost our first five games in a row because D was academically ineligible. Once he stepped in, we were undefeated for the rest of the season, cuz. He's that real. I've seen him throw a football from where he's sitting, damn near through the goalposts.”

“That fool is only sitting ten yards away from the goalposts,” I said, with a tinge of Haterade in my voice. “I could do that.”

“Nah, homie. I wasn't talking about the goalposts he's sitting in front of. I'm talking about the one on the other end of the football field. No joke, cuz. They did a special on that nigga on ESPN last week. He's supposed to be the first player to ever come out of an HBCU and be one of the top ten picks in the NFL draft.”

“Like that?” I asked. “I know he's probably got all the breezies on lockdown, then, huh?”

“Look at 'em,” he said, pointing to the flock of females hovering around the hulking, dark-skinned figure. “Got 'em lined up like little kids at the mall waiting to take a picture with Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.”

Normally, I wouldn't care about Downtown-D and his corny little fan club. But when I saw the girl I'd been eyeing all night intentionally walk toward the herd of groupies, I was hurt. I didn't even know this girl's name, but I felt some kind of connection to her. I wanted to say, “Where the hell you think you're going?” but I would have been out of pocket. But the second I heard Tupac's “I Get Around” blast through the huge speakers, I flipped my switch back to player mode. I popped my collar, and hit the end zone determined to dance with the first Coke bottle-shaped stallion that caught my eye.

THE CLASSROOM

I
f I had gotten up the first time the buzzer on my alarm clock sounded off, I would've been on time. But, as always, I sleepily reached my arm from my bed to my desk and felt around for the snooze button, without looking at the time. I needed at least five more minutes of sleep. I dozed off again. My slumber was interrupted by an eerie feeling that my little five-minute catnap had turned into a deep hibernation. I wiped the drool from the side of my mouth, smeared the sleep from the corner of my eyes with my knuckles and looked at the clock. My eyes widened. According to my clock, I'd been knocked out for a cool hour, and my class was starting in eight minutes. I hopped out of my bed so fast you would've thought my sheets were on fire. I grabbed my clock to investigate why the buzzer hadn't gone off a second time. For a second, I thought that my brand-new alarm clock might be bootleg. But apparently, I'd inadvertently swiped the alarm switch to the off position while fumbling for the snooze button.

I cursed under my breath, while looking through my closet for something to wear. Timothy's bed was neatly made and his backpack was gone.

“Timothy knows he could've woken me up,” I mumbled. “Now he got a nigga late to class.”

My hands moved frantically about my closet. I knew that I had to hurry, but picking an outfit to wear on the first day of class was no rush job. I didn't want to wear something that looked like I had just popped the tag, but I knew I had to come with something tight. I decided on my black, short-sleeved Lacoste polo, a pair of denim shorts, and my black patent leather Jordans. I laid the fit on my bed and headed for the bathroom. I saw Lawry coming from the showers as I closed my door.

“Say, shawty, you figna be late to our first class on the first day, ain't ya?” he asked.

“My alarm clock was tripping, family,” I said. “I see you ain't too far ahead of me, though. Save me a seat.”

Just as I stepped foot inside the bathroom, I heard Lawry's Deep South accent again.

“You got some scissors I can borrow? I'm trying to squeeze the last drop of toothpaste out of this tube, but it looks like I'm gonna have to cut it open to get some out.”

I knew that he would need every drop of Colgate in that tube, so I ran to my room and grabbed a pair of scissors from Timothy's desk. I gave Lawry the scissors and told him he could just give them back to me in class.

“Good lookin' out, shawty,” he said. “I appreciate ya. Hurry yo ass up! Class starts in five minutes.”

I searched frantically for an open shower stall. There was a vacancy in the stall on the end. I hopped in the shower, lathered my possibles—armpits, feet, private parts—and rinsed off quickly.

When I made it back to my room, the numbers 9:01 were scrawled across my alarm clock in red. Either my clock was a little fast or I was officially tardy. I threw on my outfit, brushed my waves, sprayed myself with some Aqua di Gio cologne and hit the door. Four more minutes had expired from the clock before I finally left for class.

I searched my bag for my class schedule as I walked down the hallway. I found it squished in between two spiral notebooks. First Year Seminar was probably the easiest class on my schedule aside from Music Appreciation, English, African-American History and algebra. I figured if I really gave my all, I could make at least a B in most of those. The only class I was really worried about was biology, because science was so boring to me I usually couldn't help falling asleep in class.

But at the time, I was more concerned about trying to find my First Year Seminar class, especially since I didn't remember seeing Washington Hall on the campus tour. I started to take out the map of the campus they'd given us in our registration packets, but I didn't want to look like a lost freshman, so I acted like I knew where I was going. I saw an older woman with short hair and thick glasses walking near the stoop outside my dorm, so I asked her for directions.

“It's right over there, baby,” she said, pointing to the white brick building just on the other side of the basketball court.

I thanked her and hustled toward my classroom. My schedule said the class was in room 328. I hustled up two flights of stairs and opened the door leading to the classrooms on the third floor.

“Why am I always late for everything?” I muttered to myself under my breath as I turned the knob to walk inside.

The classroom was kind of small. There was a medium-size wooden desk in the front. A chalkboard hung on the wall just behind the desk with the name Dr. Oliver Johnson scribbled across it. The fact that there were no windows made it seem a little stuffy. I noticed a black clock just above the chalkboard. I was thirteen minutes late.

There were about thirty-five wooden desk chairs in the room. I spotted one open seat in the back row. The professor was pacing up and down the rows passing out some paperwork. He was standing near the empty seat when the door loudly slammed shut behind me. I shrugged my shoulders, put on a face that said, “Oops, my bad,” and walked to my seat like I was five minutes early. I was trying to slip into my seat without making eye contact with the teacher. But I knew I'd blown my cover when the door slammed. He'd stopped passing out the papers to look at me. When I made it to my seat, he was standing right next to it. I had to look him in the eye.

Dr. Johnson was a hulking figure. He was a caramel-complexioned brotha who had to be at least six foot four and weigh in around two hundred-plus. His guns were tremendous. The veins on his forearms popped as if he'd just finished lifting weights. His neatly manicured dreads were pulled back into a ponytail, draping over the back of his beige button-down polo. His shirt was neatly tucked into a pair of stonewashed jeans, which were cuffed over a fresh pair of butter-colored Timberlands. He even had a Sidekick clipped to his waistband.

“And you are?” he asked in a serious tone.

“James,” I said.

“James who?”

“James Dawson.”

“Nah, you're James who was late to my class,” he said, with a laugh.

Everybody else in the class laughed too.

“Where are you from, Mr. Dawson?” he asked.

Here we go again
, I thought.

“Oakland.”

“Well, you're not on West Coast time anymore, Mr. Dawson. Let's try to make it to class on time. Ya feel me?”

“I feel ya.”

I was relieved by the fact that he didn't make too big of a deal about my tardiness. I was pleasantly surprised by the male-to-female ratio in the classroom. Of the thirty-five freshmen in the class, twenty-eight of them had to be females. Make that twenty-nine, because some female with short hair, thick thighs and a nice backyard walked in just after I did. There were no more seats, so she had to borrow one from the class next door. The professor sat on the edge of his desk, his arms folded, watching as the girl struggled to maneuver the desk through the small doorway. When she finally got it in, she placed it on the side of the wall and sat down, looking embarrassed.

“A real gentleman would've offered his seat to that young lady,” the professor said, looking directly at the girl who'd just walked in. “But now that I see we don't have any of those in this class, and everyone is here, I guess we can get started.”

The girl smiled bashfully as he passed her a packet from the thin stack of leftovers on his desk.

“My name is Dr. Oliver Johnson, but y'all can call me Dr. J. As long as your name is on the roll sheet that I'll have by next week, I will be your professor for First Year Seminar. If not, you're in the wrong class, and you might as well drop out of school now since I won't be your teacher.

“Just kidding,” he said, laughing. “But on the real side, the packet I have passed out is what we call a syllabus. That is your table of contents, North Star system, compass or whatever other guidance mechanism you can think of for this class. The syllabus will provide you with your homework assignments, their due dates, quiz and test schedules. You will find the class rules and regulations there as well. You've got two options. Either stick to the script and get an easy A, or you can try it your way, ad-lib, and flunk. The decision is yours. What you put into this class is inevitably what you will get out of it. Grades are a reflection of a student's effort, not his or her capability. All of you are capable of getting As in here, but how many of you will live up to your potential is questionable. Hopefully all of you, but only time will tell.”

I could tell that Dr. J was one of those cool teachers who didn't take no shit. The syllabus was no joke. When I looked at the course description in the registration packet, First Year Seminar seemed like one of those easy A classes. But Dr. J was trying to make this class harder than it really had to be. It was supposed to be a class where students learned about the history of the institution. But Dr. J had turned it into HBCU History 101. He told us to find out who our dorm was named after and write a two-page, double-spaced paper on that person. Although I didn't like the idea of getting a homework assignment on the first day of class, or the second or third for that matter, I figured since I only had this class once a week, I had time to get it done. But I was tripping when he told us we were going to start next week's class with a quiz on the lyrics of the school's anthem. He was clearly taking this First Year Seminar gig a bit too far.

Just as I thought about switching out of his class to a teacher who didn't try to make it so difficult, she walked through the door. Once again, my heartbeat became irregular, and I was short on oxygen. It had to be…yep, it was her all right. It was the APA I'd met during orientation, who was looking like a million bucks at the Olive Branch. She was wearing a tight, charcoal-colored BeBe T-shirt and a black wraparound skirt with shingles on the bottom that fit her like O.J.'s glove. She was rocking a sexy pair of pumps that wrapped around her ankles. From head to toe, she was a purebred stallion. Her long, curly hair was pinned up in a bun. And her body was outlining the rest of the girls in chalk.

Dr. J continued talking about the quiz, but nobody listened. All eyes were on her. Even the girls were peeping. She was that bad. When Dr. J saw that the class's attention was elsewhere, he paused to introduce the vixen.

“It's about time you got here,” he said, spinning around in his desk chair to look at her with a smile. “I was starting to get worried. Before you sit down, let me introduce you to the class. This is Katrina Turner. Katrina is an ATL native, and a junior, majoring in criminal justice.”

“I'm actually from Athens,” she said, interrupting him.

“Next time, correct me outside,” Dr. J said with a laugh. “At any rate, she was a standout in my First Year Seminar class two years ago, and will be my assistant this semester. As a matter of fact, is there any advice you'd like to give the students?”

“Wow! You're really putting me on the spot here. Well, first of all, I would say that paying attention to the study guides is most important, because Dr. J pretty much puts everything that will be on the test on the study guides that he hands out. Oh yeah, and don't come late. Believe me, you don't want to get on his bad side. On a more serious note, though, I would like to invite all of you to stop by our Alpha Pi Alpha sorority incorporated booth outside the Student Center to pick up free goody bags and safe sex pamphlets that we will be giving out this afternoon, in accordance with our safe sex week that we're sponsoring.”

“Well, that was a mouthful,” Dr. J said. “I'm sure Katrina will be available if any of you have questions about the class, so feel free to ask.”

Every playa in the class was thinking the same thing. I couldn't see Fresh's face. But I saw him whip out his brush and start manicuring his waves. Dub-B was easy to spot. He was the only white guy in the class. He was sitting near my roommate in the front of the class, hunched in his seat, slowly stroking his red goatee. I peeped Lawry sitting across the room licking his lips, rubbing his hands together as if he were sitting down in front of a hot slice of apple pie and vanilla ice cream. I knew he'd have questions for her. But so would I. All of a sudden, spending two hours in this class one day a week didn't seem so bad after all.