While my first
college romance had crashed and burned hard, things were actually going
relatively well as I entered my second semester at Euphegenia. I had actually earned pretty decent grades in
my first semester. I had taken five
classes and earned four B’s and an F.
Ironically, the F was in a course the school required all freshmen to
take, a completely made-up bullshit class called College Success. I’m not even sure it filled any actual
requirement and therefore was essentially a forced elective. While I was no stranger to telling my folks
there was an F (or 3) on my report card, I was especially sick having to tell
them I’d failed a class at the college level.
To my surprise however, my dad actually laughed about once I told him
the one class I’d bombed was called College Success. The straight line of B’s above the one F also
helped to dull the blade a little. I
wasn’t exactly working my way towards earning the phrase “with honors” after my
name but as is often my attitude when it comes to my own shortcomings, whatever.
I was even happy
to have Artemis back from break. Somewhere
about halfway through our first semester, I cracked the code to living with my
roommate. Actually, once the basketballs
season got into full-swing, he was never even around. He got up before me every day and even though
I was usually awake before he left, I acted like I wasn’t. And he was usually so tired from practice or
actual games, he was out cold by 9:00 o’clock and I never came back to the room
before midnight. If wasn’t at rehearsal,
I was out with a group or out for coffee, or I was just out prowling the campus
thinking about life, the universe, and everything.
Truth be told our détente
wasn’t really due to avoiding each other.
In fact, we started to really have fun hanging out in the room together. He began to listen to some of my weird music,
and we talked, as much as Artemis would talk.
Then one night, I was sitting in one of the little so-called lounges in
the dorm with a couple other guys, including MaRek. The conversation was primarily about MaRek
and the fabulous life he claimed to have already lived in his 19 years. Then again, his changed often as well, anywhere from 18 (wunderkind) to 22 ("but don't tell anyone that!") Truth be told, based on his version, I
wondered why he was even bothering going to school. He apparently had taken meetings with numerous
celebrity producers and directors, as well as being on a first-name basis with
Lorne Michaels and most of the 1992 cast of Saturday Night Live. Again, all bullshit, but made for
great stories. Never let the truth
interfere with a good story. Somehow the
subject got around to me that evening. I
mentioned that I was not loving life at school at the time and was really
considering leaving, even after my breakdown/revelation. MaRek was the one who actually said Artemis
had told him that if I ever left, he would leave. It really struck me. And even though it came from the resident
pathological liar, there were times when you could tell he was telling the
truth. Often it was when he seemed the
least passionate about what he was saying.
When it almost seemed inconsequential.
That usually meant he was telling the truth only because it wasn’t worth
the effort to make up a lie. And I knew that Artemis and JaCobb had shared a conversation once a few days
prior. Specifically because Artemis came
back to the room and asked who that freaky gayish
guy who sat at his table in the commons and asked twenty questions about me was.
It sounds strange but I suddenly felt responsible
for Artemis. And it reminded me how much I
liked the guy and how much he made me laugh all the time. It made it easier to ignore the hair gel in
my microwave and dried pickles on the wall.
And hell, I had my own peccadilloes that he never complained about. When I told him that my parents had given me
a little Christmas tree and box of ornaments for our room and I was going to
hang it upside down from the ceiling with duct tape, he didn’t bat an eye. Well, he shook his head at me, but went right
along with it. In fact he helped me hang
it and put the ornaments on.
On one weekend
back to Wisconsin,
I went down in the basement and grabbed an old acoustic guitar that my belonged
to my stepmother but she never touched. I
had actually attempted guitar lessons with it when I was 14, but as desperately
as I wanted to be a rock star, I was not disciplined enough to practice more
than five minutes before each lesson. So
I snuck it into the car and took it back to school with me as s surprise for my roomy. Hell, I knew he could play pretty much
anything and thought it would be cool for him to work on the guitar for a while. And I was right. He picked it up that first night, tuned it up
and was picking out a couple of the “white guy songs” I played a lot in the
room. He had a particular affinity for
She Talks to Angels by the Black Crowes and within about 20 minutes and five
listenings, he could play it note for note.
Or if not note for note, so close you couldn’t tell the difference. When we were in the room together, we were
usually either playing Sega Genesis, or we were playing and singing music. Regardless of what I ever did on stage or in
any other Theatrical capacity at Euphegenia, some of my best and favorite
performances were Artemis and I in our room singing the Black Crowes.
I even started
dragging him down to the radio station with me and making him bring the guitar. We’d do songs live on the air. I know it violated the Christian music only
rule, but I figured fuck it. Nobody
listened to the station anyway, and even less people listened after 10:00
PM. And in our defense, we did do a
gospel song too. It was a track
from the movie Leap of Faith.
It was the flick where Steve Martin played a charlatan faith healer
whose bus breaks down in a small Kansas
town. An extremely underrated movie with
among other things a great soundtrack. I’ve
often thought some smart producer could turn it into one hell of a Broadway
show. It’s worked for far far lamer
movies.
So anyway, short
story long, Artemis and I were getting along well again and the living
arrangement was fine. In fact another
friend of ours had decided to transfer to Euphegenia from another Bible school and
the three of us scored a larger room in the subterranean level of the
dorm. The rooms in the basement were
meant for four students, but we were able to get one with just three. So at the end of January, Milton came to join
us. Mil was another celebrity in high
school, again in no small part to being a black kid in a mostly white
school. But while Artemis was often shy
and reserved, Milton suffered from an excess of personality and social
skills. He loved people, and especially
loved people with vaginas. Mil looked a
little like Wesley Snipes with a high-top fade, and he literally had a body that looked like it had
been sculpted from onyx with a chisel. Yes, that’s
very homoerotic, but in this case it’s just true. He also found it hilarious to
walk around the room naked, and he lived up to another stereotype too, mother
fucker!
Milton was a
friend, but I was a little apprehensive about his arrival. About a year prior, he had cornered me in a coat
closet and threatened to beat the piss out of me. There was a girl named Andi who’d come to
Highland when we were juniors, and she was in a couple plays with me. She was beautiful, even if her teeth were slightly bucked and had a great
personality. She was the perfect, white
pastor’s daughter. On the surface she
was the picture of Chastity and Christian youth. I was in love with her. And she loved that attention. But she chose Reed, the math teacher’s son
who was a quiet, , non-threatening, toe-headed WASP kid. He was so blonde he was transparent, and on a
scale from 1 to 10, his personality was a – 3.
They went to all the school functions together and were a celebrated
virginal couple. But secretly Andi and
Milton had developed a little thing on the side. Mil would later tell me in detail about
little closet and basement excursions they had when Reed was only a room away. Any other girl, I confess I might have high-fived
Mil. But I wanted that girl, and this
was a slap in my face at multiple angles.
It really pissed me off.
The night of our homecoming
banquet (yes we had a banquet not a dance because again, dancing = sex) they
asked all of us seniors to pose for a picture.
Andi was right in front of me. We
had been very close for a long time, but things had really grown frosty between
us, mostly because of her current romantic choices. She and Reed had apparently broken up,
unbeknownst to me. Milton was running late
(or maybe wasn’t even coming) and someone asked her where he was. She responded somewhat venomously “I don’t
know, and everyone keeps asking me that!”
“Yeah well, goes
with the territory” I quipped.
No one
was speaking to me, but for some reason my subconscious went on
auto-pilot. It’s not exactly the nastiest
comment. In fact, it actually doesn’t
make that much sense if you really analyze it.
It was just a snide comment that popped into my head and slipped out my
mouth before I could stop to think. Andi
didn’t say anything, but she definitely heard it, and she knew what I was
implying. She’d been fucking around on with Mel and their dirty little secret was so well kept that only the entire
student body knew about it. And from
what Milton told us, their secret was a filthy one indeed. For the record, she’s the picture of a
perfect pastor’s wife in Pennsylvania
now. You’d never guess the things she did
to Milton’s big cock in the dark when she’s directing the choir with her mouth open
wide . . . in worship.
As soon as the
group picture was over, she must have rushed to Mil, who had appeared wearing a white
jacket and black tie and looked very much like he should be singing in a 50’s
doo-wop group. Ten minutes later as I
was chatting with some people, Mil rolled up on me and said we needed to
talk. He basically routed me into the
coat room, followed by who I can only assume was his muscle, Charlie. I won’t say Charlie’s last name either, but his
little brother was recently a finalist on American Idol and finished fourth for the
season. Charlie and I had always been
friendly and never had beef, so that really annoyed me that he got involved and
took Mil’s side. He was standing behind
Milton just trying to look menacing.
Meanwhile, Charlie was a goofy poor white kid who weighed about 90 pounds soaking wet. But it was the glaring at me and grinning
that really got me. He acted like that punk in The Karate Kid who kept taunting "get him a body bag!" So Charlie, fuck you
and your brother!
Mil put on his
tough guy voice and said Andi told him what I’d said and he was pissed. It was none of my business, I should shut up,
and he was going to kick my ass. I have
never been a fighter, but I am a big guy and consider myself strong. Doesn’t mean I know how to throw a
punch. With Charlie, I think I had pretty decent odds. But I am confident
now as I was then that Milton could and would have beaten my ass to a
pulp.
Fortunately I’d
also know Milton for four years. Again,
I felt like this threat was not only terrifying, it was a betrayal to the
friendship I’d thought we’d had.
Whatever happened to bro’s before ho’s?
So I went all Professor X on his dumb ass and turned the whole situation
around. Yes, I’d said that to Andi, but
it was because I felt she was playing my boy Mil. She was making him out to be a chump and I
couldn’t stand by for that. She could
date a chump like Reed in public, but had to keep Milton hidden in the dark? Why? 'Cause he was black, that's why! And that shit ain't right! Thank God he bought it. Milton backed down and told me something
like it wasn’t right and Andi's sensitive, blah blah. Whatever.
I’m sure she was sensitive, having seen the size of that seal club
swinging between his legs. Regardless,
he let me off and we went about the evening, sans ass whooping.
After a couple
weeks, I brought that night up when Mil and Artemis and I were just sitting
around our room. Miltonjust
laughed. He said he’d forgotten all
about that. He actually made fun of
Charlie for trying to get involved. In his
own way, Mil actually kind of apologized.
I was just glad he wasn’t secretly still harboring the grudge. I actually liked Mil and found him endlessly
entertaining. He was smooth and watching
him work people was a thing of beauty.
He began dating the sweetest girl, Delia, who was a beautiful, strong, young
black woman with a great voice. Speaking and singing. We'd have conversations when she'd call the room for Mil and it made me melt. Of
course, it later turned out he was secretly plugging a white senior I
didn’t know too well named Shana.
Shana, who had a pretty scary Jamaican boyfriend about whom many rumors of drugs and gang affiliations swirled. True or not, he looked a bad motherfucker. The summer after our freshman year, Shana was
still living on campus and her roommate came home to discover Shana in the
shower with Milton behind her, helping her find the soap. Milton was summarily kicked out of Euphegenia and went back to Milwaukee. Which is probably for his own good, as word got out quick Shana's Bob Marley boyfriend wasn't about the peace and good vibes. He was apparently looking to chat with Milton.
Mil found
me on MySpace a few years ago and we exchanged a few emails, but really, it isn’t
like we’ll be getting together soon. And
really, who the fuck still goes on MySpace?!?!?
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