“… Twenty-six inches, chick, I’m sittin’ crooked/ Old-school Chevy/ Faster than the silver bullet/ Strawberry paint, seats vanilla puddin’/ Two chicks, gon’ and eat each others’…/ Top chopped, sent tha’ car to the barbershop…”
“Okay, listen up, listen up!” I shouted to everyone in the VIP area, rising up from the dark red pleather couch to my feet and raising a glass of champagne. I was worried that no one had heard me at first, because the DJ had the rapper Lil’ Wayne and Birdman’s song, “Always Strapped,” practically booming all over the club; and plus, everyone around the table seemed to be having their own conversations. But all eyes almost immediately looked up at me. Two whole hours had passed since all we’d brought all the new Kappas out in the Student Union; and we and damn near everyone else was now here at The Spotlight, a nightclub in downtown Atlanta, for “The Big Bang,” our probate afterparty.
“So I think it’s important for me to propose a toast,” I continued, “to my Neo-”
“Wait, wait, stop the presses!” Earl cut me off, and he stood up on his side of the table. “Graham, nigga, you say ‘your Neo’ like YOU brought ‘em in!”
“I brought THIS guy in,” I corrected him. “Now, sit your ass down and let me finish! Damn.” The guys and girls around the table all erupted in laughter. Earl returned to his seat on the couch on the other side.
“So like I was saying, I want to give a toast to my Neo. This man right here… he sometimes says a lot of shit that goes over our heads, but more importantly, he says a lot of things we’re often afraid to say. I’ve known this man ever since I first came to GSU, man. And while I always saw him like a brother, I’m glad today to be able to actually CALL him one. So to my best friend and y’all’s Brother and mine, the man who, like always, took on most of the work for everyone else, Stokely NUPE, the Kardiac Arrest… the pride of the Spring 2009 Konspiracy Theory line!”
“Here, here!” All the guys and girls around the table piped up, raising their glasses in the air and looking over in my direction, where Stokely was seated next to me. I looked down at him and couldn’t help grinning. It was overdue, for sure, but Stokely was finally what he’d always wanted to be: a Kappa Man. This night was his, and I wasn’t going to let anything take away from that. Stokely looked up at me and nodded as though in a gesture of appreciation.
“I’m proud of you, man,” I told him, extending a fist so we could exchange a pound.
“Alright, enough of that sappy shit!” Vincent slurred, rising up to his feet. “Since we’rrre all shouting out our new boysss, it’s only fair for me to give a toast to MY Neo, too.”
“Niggas just claiming niggas out here like this is the pet store,” Earl remarked, eliciting laughter from everyone around the table again.
“Nah, but forreal, though… forreal real, though,” Vincent continued, like he hadn’t heard Earl at all, “I want to make a toast to my boy, the real pride of the Konspiracy Theory line. This cat was up all night, available any time when I needed him for something, the cat who never dropped his Kappa cane from day one… reppin’ that deuce spot just like me, my nigga Mike Mart aka SeKKond Offense!” Everyone raised our glasses, but as we looked around, we saw that Mike was nowhere to be found.
“Yo’ Neo ain’t even over here, man!” Earl complained with a laugh.
“Wha..? He was JUST riiiigh’ here, dog! Where did this cat…? Damn, man!” I scanned the crowd of people outside on the larger dance floor and easily spotted the crisp white dress shirt, dark red bowtie, and big diamond earrings in the crowd that Mike had worn for the probate.
“Hey, Vince. Your Neo’s out there, bro,” I told him, walking over to Vincent and spinning him around so that he could see Mike, who was now sandwiched between two girls on the dance floor.
“I’ll be damned,” Vincent said. “This nigga…lemme go get this-”
“Man, Vince, relax, bro,” Lloyd suddenly piped up. “Let that man celebrate his new status tonight. Stokely, go join your line brother. This is y’all’s night, man. Go enjoy that shit… because we’ll be putting y’all asses on the GRIND come Monday.” With a wary smile, Stokely nodded at Lloyd’s request.
“See y’all later,” Stokely addressed everyone as he excused himself, then stopped short to turn back to the young lady in the mini-dress who had been sitting next to him. “And it was nice meeting you.” She gave him a wide smile in return, and you could easily see him blushing as he walked off. Almost as soon as Stokely had made it out of the VIP section, Vincent burst out laughing.
“Did y’all hear thaaaaaat nigga, man?” he asked, seemingly to no one in particular because his eyes were still on the dance floor area. “Talkin’ about… ’twas nice meeting you. Haaa! Denise, you ain’t need all that extra shit, did you?”
“I actually thought it was kinda sweet,” Denise, the girl in the mini-dress, replied coolly.
“Man, chill, girl, I was just playyyyin. Damn! Go buy a humor of sense or some shit.” Vincent laughed his drunken laugh again.
“Well, on that note, we should probably go, huh?” Denise asked, looking at the other girls around the table with us. They all nodded in agreement and rose up one by one from their seats.
“Aw, man, don’t be like that, girl!” Earl complained, playfully holding onto the arm of the girl who had been sitting with him. “You can’t leave me because of this rude nigga’s comments, man. Y’all know some niggas can’t hold their liquor!” The girl simply shrugged and pulled away from Earl. Within seconds, it was just us guys again.
“Damn, man!” Earl started up again. “This is why I can’t STAND when yo’ ass drink, Vince! Shit! That’s probably the only easy, in-our-actual-palms access we’ll have all night!”
“Hey, I doubt that, though, bro,” Vincent replied.
“Oh, really?” Earl asked.
“Yessssh, really.”
***
“… Ball ’til ya’ fall, stuntin’ them paper plates/ Throwin’ hundreds on them hoes while we eatin’ steaks/ We in the club poppin’ bottles like ‘erry day/ We grind for the shine/ Brotha gettin’ big money…”
“Man, this party is ca-razy!” Je’Nah exclaimed, taking a sip from her Long Island iced tea and bouncing along to the music. We were camped out at the bar near the front doors of The Spotlight nightclub. Truthfully, the only reason Je’Nah was around was to “fill up” before going back out to join the strut line out on the dance floor that Kandyce was already taking part in.
“Eh, it’s alright,” I remarked. Je’Nah looked at me out the side of her eye.
“Clarity, why are you always such a KILLJOY?” Je’Nah whined. “Damn. Just enjoy the damn party. I know at the least, you gotta be happy for your boy Stokely.”
“Hmph. I’ve done my part. I came and supported him.” I took a long drink from my own Amaretto Sour and looked out at the dance floor. I tried to discreetly scan the room for Stokely; I saw many sets of white dress shirts and red bowties, but not a single one of them was connected to Stokely.
“Clare, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were jealous!” I looked over at Je’Nah with a raised eyebrow.
“Umm, what?” I asked.
“You heard me,” Je’Nah replied, smirking. “You sound jealous.”
“And what would I be jealous of, Je’Nah?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, come on. It’s obvious. You’re probably mad that Stokely’s up on some bopper chick now when you want him to be up on you. You want Stokely. You’ve always wanted him. That’s why you called him last week.That’s why you called and told him to call Graham back because he was worried about Kandyce.” Before I could stop myself, my eyes darted over in Je’Nah’s direction. She had some fucking nerve! I thought. But how did she even KNOW about that phone call? I’d thought I’d been alone in the apartment when I had called Stokely… But I couldn’t let Je’Nah know I was surprised, couldn’t communicate in any way how taken aback I was by what she’d just said.
“And you want Graham,” I returned fire. “You’ve always wanted Graham, ever since you made out with him at that Kappa party your freshman year. Remember that?”
“Oh, don’t sit here and downtalk me like you’re a damned saint, Clarity.”
“I’m not, Je’Nah,” I spat back. “I was right there with you, remember? We were both… misguided in how to go about getting the things we wanted back then. But let’s be honest, you were just ONE good step away from being a part of those Buckhead girls. The only reason it didn’t happen, was because the Deltas made you clean up your act.”
“Bullshit, Clarity. You’re talking bullshit. Besides, you’re bringing up that Kappa party like it wasn’t years ago.”
“The party may have been years ago,” I conceded, “but I’m almost certain if I hadn’t cleared my throat and interrupted the two of you in the Student Union this past Tuesday, you would have done something trifling. You can’t even look me in the eyes behind that shit, can you?”
“So what?!” Je’Nah suddenly lashed out. “So fucking what if something WOULD have happened? They took a fucking break.Graham clearly isn’t trying to commit to anyone right now, especially not Kandyce. He knows he can do better.”
“He knows he can do better, huh? And you’re supposed to be her sorority sister. Supposed to be her good friend.” Suddenly, it was clear to me why Kandyce had told me about her other job but not Je’Nah. It always amazed me the lengths to which some girls would go just to satisfy themselves… even it meant stabbing their own friends in the back. Kandyce always saw the best in other people; she wasn’t naïve, she just wasn’t as careful when it came to her closer friends, or her sorority sisters, even. For a minute, Je’Nah and I stared each other down, each waiting for the other to make a move or say the wrong word. I had never been the fight-in-the-club type, but we’d both said some incendiary things to each other.
“I got a question/ Why they hatin’ on me?/ I got a question/ Why they hatin’ on me?/ I ain’t did nothin’ to ‘em but count this money/ And put my team on, and now my whole click stuntin’…”
We found our confrontation interrupted by the song that was now booming out into the club, “Turn My Swag On” by the rapper Soulja Boy. Je’Nah blinked, took the rest of her Long Island to the head, and placed her glass back down on the bar.
“This is my shit,” she informed me, “so we’ll continue this discussion later.” Je’Nah lifted two fingers in a sort of “peace sign,” then marched out onto the dance floor as a line of Deltas came strutting past us. I was all too welcome to be alone again. Truth be told, I really didn’twant to be at this Kappa party that much longer, because I was certain it would be only a matter of time before I’d run into the one person I didn’t want to see – Lloyd.
“FUCK BOYS!” I darted my head in the direction of the voice that had just shouted out.
“Vinnie, what’s wrong with you?” I asked Venezuela Sanchez, who had joined me at the bar and was now getting a beer from the bartender.
“This got damn guy,” she replied. She immediately lifted the beer bottle to her lips and started gulping the alcohol down like she was parched or something. I pulled her arm down and, consequently, the beer away from her lips.
“Hey, hey, calm that down. What damn guy?”
“Fucking Mikey, that damn guy!” She pointed the beer bottle over to the left. Looking in that direction, I saw Mike talking to some girl with dark brown hair, his hand under her chin and her smiling back at him. “He gets some fucking letters and now all of a sudden, he has some newgirl now? That damn guy.” She took another long drink of beer. Before I could get a good look at the girl, though, Mike had taken her hand in his and was leading her off to the other side of the room. Since I was already looking out in that direction anyway, I decided to sweep my eyes around the dance floor to look for Stokely again. Although I wanted to see Stokely, I was sure he, too, was indulging in the groupie spoils of his newfound status.
“Maybe you’re right, Vinnie,” I said, taking along sip from my Amaretto Sour. “Fuck boys.”
***
“… I’m back againnn/ I know a lot of y’all thought I wasn’t comin’ back/ (yeahhh, yeahhhh)/ I had to prove ‘em wrooong/ Got back in the studio, came up with another hit/ (yeaaah, yeahhh)…“
“Nigga, I brought my little friend along for tonight,” Vincent continued, and he started to reach into his dress pants’ pocket.
“Nigga, you better keep that shit in your pants, bro!” Lloyd joked. “We don’t play that homo shit!”
“Yeah!” Earl chimed in. “If you coming out, you better use your own damn closet.”
“Man, y’all, that’s some homo-philic bullshit, y’all,” Vincent replied, and I almost spat out my beer laughing.
“You mean homophobic?” Lloyd corrected him.
“Man, whatever, man, y’all knew what I meant! Anyway, like I was saying… I brought along some extra help for tonight, man. See?” When Vincent pulled his hand up out of his pocket, he was holding a miniature Ziploc bag containing some small white pills. My eyes damn near popped out of my head.
“Wait, wait. Vince, are those them Extendables? Those can’t-get-it-up pills?” Earl asked.
“Hell no, man!” Vincent replied. “Those are blue.” I burst out laughing at that.
“Dawg, I’m not even going to ask how you know that,” I started. “But are those… roofies? What the hell, Vince?!”
“Yeaaaa, buddy, that’s them deal sealers! Just in case, you know.”
“Just in case?” Earl repeated. “Vince, we’re fucking Kappas, bro. We don’t need ‘just in cases.’ You’re tripping, bro. You could get arrested for having that shit!”
“Heyyyy, I live the thug life, okay?” Vince said, brushing Earl’s comments aside. He opened up the plastic bag and pulled out one of the pills. “It’s just a deal sealer, y’all. It’s not like I intend on raping somebody or smashing with some chick who don’t want it.”
“Not at all,” I agreed sarcastically. “You’re just going to give her a little bit of motivation she won’t know about. Put that shit up, Vince. Seriously.”
“You guysss…”
“Hey, what’s up, y’all?” Mike had suddenly come back into the VIP area. Nobody do anything suspicious, I thought. Please, Lord, don’t let anybody do anything stupid.
“MIKE! My Neeeee-ooo!” Vincent said just a bit too excitedly, jumping up off the couch and extending a hand to Mike. Damn Vince’s drunk ass!
“You’re kinda happy to see him, ain’t you, Vince?” Earl asked, rolling his eyes.
“Ha, I appreciate it, though,” Mike said, as he reached out to shake Vincent’s hand. He had a nervous smile on his face. I couldn’t help wondering if he had seen or heard anything.
“What’s up, Mike?” I asked, shaking his hand as well.
“Well, to be honest, I just wanted to introduce y’all to somebody.” He turned back towards the doorway and made a sort of “come here” motion with his hands; as if on cue, this beautiful young lady with dark brown hair stepped into the VIP area. She was wearing this almost skintight blue mini-dress that seemed to be clinging for dear life to her chest and hips, and that easily brought attention to her toned legs.
“Damn!” Earl whispered. “How the hell did Mike Mart pull a chick THAT fucking bad?!”
My jaw, like the ones of all my frat brothers around the table, dropped to the floor. But it wasn’t because the girl was so damn gorgeous. She had always been gorgeous, especially when it came to showing up and showing out at a party. I was just trying to figure out how the hell she even KNEW Mike.
“Y’all,” Mike began, “I wanted y’all to meet my girlfriend. This is Wendy.” She sent smiles all around the table, but I noticed her smile flicker slightly as her eyes fell upon me. It had happened so quickly, the untrained eye would have never noticed it. Mike started making introductions around the table.
“… and this is Graham,” he said when he’d finally reached me. The look in her eyes said everything her face could not.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Wendy greeted, extending a hand. “Mike’s told me quite a bit about you.”
“Same here,” I replied, shaking her hand lightly.”Mike told me about you, but he never told me you were so beautiful.” Wendy blushed. “You look kind of familiar, though. Have I seen you somewhere before?”
“You never know,” she said, shrugging. “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Hey, don’t be trying to mack on my girl now, frat!” Mike jumped in with a laugh. On the sly, I looked around the table out of the corner of my eye. No one seemed to have noticed anything at all. It looked like Wendy and I had given Oscar-caliber performances. Or maybe no one was really checking for anything and I was just being paranoid.
“Well, I just wanted y’all to meet her,” Mike said again. “We’ll catch up with y’all again before the night ends.”
“It was nice meeting y’all!” Wendy said. Just before she turned back to walk out with Mike, though, she looked in my direction and mouthed, “we’ll talk later.” I tilted my head down slightly so she’d know I got her message. Then they left us.
“Dawg, it eludes me!” Earl exclaimed. “That Wendy girl was bad as HELL. What the fuck?!” Vincent laughed out loud.
“Because that’s myyyyy Neo, dawg!” Vincent said. “My Neo would pull the baddest chick in the whole damn club. That’s a testament to my big brotherhood right there. No, but for real… hey, y’all, I can’t find that pill I was holding.”
“What pill?” I asked. “The roofie?” Vincent nodded. “Man, that’s a good thing then, Vince. You didn’t need that mess anyway. It probably just fell on the floor…”
***
“So, you were looking pretty good up on that stage swinging that cane,” the girl to my left remarked. She ran a hand up and down my arm.
“Yeah, you really were,” the girl on my right agreed. “I wonder what other kind of tricks you’re capable of.” I looked at her, then at the girl to my left, then back to the girl on my right. I don’t even remember their names, I thought, feeling a bit ashamed. It was just an hour into the party now, and I’d already found myself cornered up against the wall by girls I had never known before, and possibly wouldn’t know again after tonight.
“I mean, truth be told,” the girl on my left started, leaning on her heels to where her lips were close to my ear, “I’d rather show you the tricks I’m capable of.” I tried not to let her words go to my head in either sense; that didn’t work, as the growing sensation I felt down below soon confirmed. I wondered why I was feeling so guilty, though. I mean, after all, I WAS single and I WAS a newly minted member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated. After all I’d been through the past few weeks, I thought, didn’t I deserve a little fun? Yes, I did. Didn’t I?
“Man, what are you TRIPPING about,though?” I found my thoughts suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice heading in my direction. “Damn! This is exactly what I was talking about, how you don’t trust me.”
“Well, excuse the HELL out of me if you aren’t giving me reasons to trust you, Graham!” an even more familiar female voice blurted out. I was almost surprised I was able to hear them amidst all that was going on in the club. Their commotion caused the two girls by me to look over at them in disgust. I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or a bit frustrated at them taking that attention away from me.
“Shit, Kandyce! I keep telling you, she’s an old friend,” Graham said. I finally looked over in the direction of their voices. They were standing on the other side of me against the wall now.
“Oh, really? Like Roxie was an old friend of yours, too?” Kandyce retorted. “What’s the matter, Graham? I’m too good for you? I’m not bad enough?”
“Here you go…”
“No, please! Tell me! Apparently, there’s SOMETHING I don’t have enough of for you to want to take a ‘break’ from me.” She snatched the drink Graham was holding out of his hands and took a sip from it. “There! See, I drink, too. Does that make me good enough for you, now?”
“Kandyce, you’re drunk or something. You have to be, trying to do this at a damn party. This is a celebration and you’re trying to argue with me. You look insecure as shit right now, you know that?”
I wanted to intervene, wanted to step in and say something, but I felt it wasn’t my place. I half-felt like I was betraying Kandyce by not saying anything. But it was their relationship, I reminded myself. Not mine.
“I’m insecure?” Kandyce asked. “How the hell am I insecure, Graham? Because I want my man to be honest with me? Because I want my man to notice me?”
“What do you want me to be honest with you about, K? I’m always honest with you!”
“I want you to tell me what you were doing with that girl at the bar!” Kandyce shouted.
“Who?” Graham asked. “The chick you saw me with? Wendy? We were just talking.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then don’t believe me!” Graham barked. “Shit. What do you want me to say? She’s an old friend, we were just talking and catching up. Damn!”
“How do you know her?” Kandyce prodded him.
“K, what the… why does that even matter?”
“Wendy looked like someone I work with, okay?”
“And?” Graham asked. “So she’s another waitress. So fucking what?”
“Graham…” Kandyce shook her head. I knew what she wanted to say. She’d backed herself into a corner bringing up her work. I wasn’t sure if there was any way she could get out of it without telling him the truth. I stood there waiting.
“What?” he asked her again. In my anxiousness to hear Kandyce’s answer, I hadn’t realized that I was losing the grip on the glass I’d been holding. Before I knew it, I slipped out of my hand and shattered on the floor. As loud as everything that was happening in the club was, it didn’t catch everyone’s attention; but it DID catch the attention ofthe two people I had been listening in on. Kandyce and Graham both looked over at me. Expressions of surprise erupted on both of their faces. Got damn it!
“Damn, man,” I heard Graham mumble. Kandyce, on the other hand, said nothing at all, but merely stomped out onto the dance floor. Graham’s eyes followed her, but he stood there by me for at least aminute. Then, without looking back at me, Graham headed out into the dance floor, too, but in the opposite direction from the one Kandyce had gone in. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought they were ashamed that I’d seen them fighting.
