(This is the third part of a trilogy, beginning with The Wedding and The Engagement, both of which are listed under the Interracial heading. Please read those installments for all sub-text and character development.)
*
I’ve been madly in love with Arthur Jay since I was a freshman in college. My name is Teralynn House. And when I first saw Artie, I thought:
“This is the man for me!”
He was fine in a goofy sort of way. He was one of those bruthas who was fine without knowing he was fine, you know? It was like he didn’t give a flip about his looks, thinking that people who are overly concerned with looks aren’t worth being overly concerned over. I’d known my share of pretty boys. I agreed with him.
He was a basketball player, too, a street player, always walking around with a Spaulding Top Flite under his arm, always challenging people to play, but not really good enough to play for the school team, or at least he wasn’t confident enough to try out. But I loved watching him play. He was fluid and quick, with a great first step and a nice mid-range game. I know that sounds kind of mannish. I know the lingo because I too am a player.
Artie and I made the classic lover’s mistake–we became friends before we gave lust a chance to take hold. That may sound counter-intuitive. Lovers always run the risk of failure. Friends, REAL friends, won’t take that risk. A REAL friend is better than a lover because a REAL friend always looks out for the interests of the other person. Lovers are in it for their own personal gain. It’s true. Love is a zero sum game. There are winners and there are losers. Having sex is the very beginning of heightened, unrealistic expectations. No REAL friend ever comes away with a broken heart.
My first week at Delaware State I found myself alone out behind the dorms, shooting jumpers on a rim without a net. I had a full ride scholarship, but I wasn’t telling anyone about it, preferring in all cases to be under-estimated. I refused to room in the jock dorm, too, figuring that I’d get a better chance at real college life in the freshman dorm.
So I’m out there working on my step-back, off-hand, pull-up jumper. This redbone brutha rolls up. He looks like Prince, only taller. He’s got a leather Spaulding Top Flite under his arm. That let me know something right there. No one plays with a leather Top Flite on an outdoor asphalt court. The ball costs too much. He had his name written on the ball in block letters, too, which let me know he paid money for it. He hadn’t stolen it from his high school or his local YMCA.
He watched me shoot for a minute or five. Then he challenged me to play one-on-one.
That’s when I knew this nigga was crazy. Even my older brothers don’t challenge me to play one-on-one. I can ball.
Somehow I was reluctant to play him. I didn’t know him. Sometimes a brutha will challenge a sistah to play just so he can D her up. And by D, I mean DICK. He’ll challenge all my jumpshots and force me to drive. As soon as I put the ball on the floor, he’ll body me up and force me to back him down like Barkley. Then he’ll rub his dick up against my ass, pretending to play Defense. He’ll use his hands to keep me centered. He’ll call me a bitch-ass nigga if I call the foul. I know that game.
This brutha could see that I was knocking down jumpers with my off hand. If I’m swishing shots with my left hand, my right hand has to be off the chain. There’s not many guys that can beat me in a jumpshooting contest. He’ll have to close me out on each possession and body me up on the way to the hole, IF he’s quick enough to recover from my up-fake. Not many are.
I accepted his challenge. We played to fifteen by ones, win by two, winners take it out. When the score got to be fourteen all he had the ball out. He pump faked me, dribbled right, faked a mid-range jumper and drove to the rim. I knew he would try to finger roll, and I knew I had hops, so I went to pin his shot on the backboard. He lost me with a head fake and knocked down a short turn-around jumper.
“Good shot,” I said.
The next possession he jab stepped left and hit a soft pull up jumper from the key. I’d blocked that same shot three points before, so I didn’t think he’d have the courage to try it again. (If it had been me, I would have head faked and driven to the hole, so I assumed a smart player would do the same. He fooled me. It was another good shot.)
He won the game. He wanted to run it back, but since I’d lost (and I hadn’t expected to lose) I offered to buy him an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins. I mean, I’d been working out for two hours before he showed up. I was tired. I thought the better part of valor would be to acknowledge his victory. He said, no, he wanted to shoot around some.
So I left him there and went and got some ice cream.
Later that night I ran across him again in the dormitory lounge. He had that same Spaulding Top Flite with him (he hadn’t used it on the blacktop) and he was bouncing it between his legs as he carried on a loud trash talking session with some other guys. When he saw me, he said:
“Here she comes now!! I betchu not one of you niggas can beat her playing. NOT ONE.”
I just shook my head. I didn’t want them to know I was a scholarship player on the school team.
These guys just looked at me with appreciation. I’m 5’11”. I’ve got a nice rack, but I keep the twins compressed with a sports bra, so although Artie’s friend’s first impulse was to look at my breasts (like most men) they immediately reverted to my face (again, like most men). I’m not ugly. I’m also not “hippy”. If I had a sistah’s butt I wouldn’t be a good open court player, as my ass would tend to weigh me down. It would telegraph my direction whenever I went to cross someone up in open court. Too, I had my hair tied off into a couple of thick braids, and I tied these together at the base of my neck. I had those little sweat beadies along the edges of my forehead. I wore a floppy Dallas Cowboys t-shirt that covered the silky line of navel pubic hair that men always peek at. I didn’t have that pubic line anyway. I shaved it. And I’d been playing ball all day, so I stank. Men like that. It’s like a key to enter the player’s fraternity, this unwashedness without the associated feminine embarrassment.
All in all I got the impression that I’d made a good first impression. Artie introduced me as if he were introducing his sister. We’d just met earlier that day. I didn’t know then that this first impression with ‘the fellas’ would follow me for the rest of my school days.
They invited me into the conversation. Artie had been telling them that I could hit step back jumpers with either hand. None of them believed him. He handed me his Spaulding Top Flite and dared any of them to try to cover me. Remember, now, this is in the dormitory lounge. There wasn’t any basket to shoot for.
I politely declined. What am I, his pet?
So this nyugga starts describing my game strategy!!
“If she drives right and dips the shoulder, she’s going to shoot the step-back leftie, like Harden. If she drives left and dips the shoulder, she’s going to shoot the step-back rightie. She always shoots with the hand closest to the rim. But if she goes to the hole it’s the opposite, because she’ll position her body between you and the ball, which is the right thing to do.”
I’m getting frantic because, you know, I don’t want these guys knowing too much about my game. But then I thought, “What can they do about it?”
Really, what COULD they do? I actually AM a player. A real player is confident in his/her game. This is what I could never understand about Artie. He’s a player, too. He wasn’t at school on scholarship. His parents were footing the bill. I thought he could have walked onto the school team and saved his parents some ducats, maybe not freshman year but definitely as a sophomore.
The next thing I know, all of us are out back, on the court, in the dark, and the money is up. Artie is betting I can score against any one of his friends. What could I do? He’s got a Jackson riding on me each time the ball is in my hands.
I think I made him about sixty bucks. I knocked down two jumpers on the first two challengers and I took the third guy to the hole. After that, no one wanted to bet him anymore. All his friends advised me to try out for the women’s team. Artie advised me to try out for the MEN’S team. (And this nigga BEAT me and wouldn’t try out for the men’s team. Hypocrite.)
I didn’t much appreciate being used like that. Soon enough they would find out I already played for the women’s team and want their money back. I didn’t want to be a part of that. So, on the way back to the dorm I pulled Artie’s coat and told him of my status. He got this excited look on his face and shushed me.
“Don’t tell any of them!!”
He knew they’d feel put upon. He told me to tell them that I’d decided to walk onto the team. Why should I lie about it? Soon enough the team’s media materials would tell them differently. As a D-1 recruit, I could have played anywhere. I had offers from Georgia Tech, Texas, Oklahoma State, UCLA and Georgetown. I chose Delaware State because my dad went there.
Anyway, we went back to the dorm and started chattering as newly minted freshmen will. I demanded that Artie split his winnings with me. He grinned and peeled me off thirty bucks. I hadn’t expected him to do that, since none of my money had been at risk. I kept the money anyway, reasoning that he looked like the type to mooch a dollar here and there, and I figured he and I would be seeing each other around the dorm going forward. As a scholarship student I didn’t really need his money.
I went back to my dorm room that night and described my encounter with Artie Jay and his boys. My roommate, Jennifer Louis, interrupted me immediately.
“Redbone nigga? Looks like Prince, except he cuts his hair short? Runs around with a basketball under his arm?”
“That’s him,” I replied.
“He’s REAL easy on the eyes,” she countered.
“Yeh. Anyway, he beat me playing one-on-one.”
“He beat YOU?” Jennie was astonished.
“Yeh. I dunno what happened.”
“Sheee-it. You let him win. You tryna git in them drawers.”
“Normally, I’d agree with you. But I was really trying to win. He hit a couple of nice shots at the end, there. I’ll get him the next time.”
“When’s the next time?”
“He’ll challenge me again. He only won by two. He’ll go back to his room and wonder how a girl played him so close.”
“Did he try to D you up?”
“Ummmmm, not really. I mean, when I went to back him down in the post, he put his forearm in my lower back. It’s a foul, but he didn’t try to press his dick up my ass.”
“So he’s a player?”
“He is.”
“Did you try the ice cream gambit?”
“I did.”
“Did he fall for it?”
“He did not.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Atlanta.”
“What’s his major?”
“Shit if I know. We ain’t get into all that.”
Hmmmmm.”
The next day Artie and I played again. I beat him 6, 10 and 12. I couldn’t miss. Everything I put up was going in. I hit four thirty-foot shots. On the fifth attempt he closed me out and I went right around him for an uncontested layup. After the third game he collapsed on the court. I could see that he was crushed, you know, in that way that men collapse when they lose to a girl–repeatedly. He offered to buy me some ice cream. I told him no. I said I needed to get some shots up. I said I’d missed entirely too many shots during our games.
This was disingenuous. I might have missed five shots over the course of three games. I wanted him to think those five shots were WAY too many. That’s exactly what he did think, too. He shook his head and trudged off to Baskin Robbins alone.
Artie and I went back and forth like this for the next few weeks. He made sure his boys didn’t come to watch, in case he lost. It was just him and me out there. Jennie met us in the lounge afterward and we all sat around and gabbed. Sometimes we ordered out for takeout and sat around and ate. On those days I beat Artie I made sure not to make a big deal of it, especially in front of his boys, because sometimes his boys did make it down to the court to play four-on-four and I didn’t want to embarrass him. On those occasions we would shoot jumpers from the key to see who’d be captains. Artie always chose me as a first round pick and vice versa, if either of us were captains. His boys began to suspect we were creeping. We were not.
By then a sub-clique had emerged. While we had about ten guys in the freshman dorm that hung out in the lounge and gabbed, only about four or five of them earned a place in the sub-clique. That would be Artie, and three guys named DeSean, Kevon, and Eddie. These four guys seemed to have the same temperament and interests. None of them came from “the ‘hood”. They came from relatively affluent black families, affluent in the sense that their parents could afford tuition and books, and had planned for their sons to attend an HBCU. The other fellas were cool, mind you. But they were more into smoking and selling weed than playing basketball and/or attending class. Over the course of the next four years, each of them either dropped out of school or were kicked out. Only the aforementioned sub-clique graduated on time. These guys ended up calling themselves “The Fellas”. And they graciously admitted Jennifer and I to their crew. The six of us became close.
Before that happened, however, we had our bumps in the road.
As you might guess, Artie had his pick of women. He was a couple inches taller than me and he was ripped from stem to stern. When he took his shirt off all you saw was muscle. But he didn’t seem to have a vain bone in his body. You never saw him primping and combing his hair like some half-a-faggot metrosexual. Other than basketball, we never even saw him working out. At the end of the day, more often than not, he sauntered into the dorm lounge covered in sweat and grime. He stank. And he would stink until late that night when we all got together to gossip and laugh.
That didn’t put off any number of hotties who had it in for my intended. This one chick named Lois didn’t even live in our dorm. But there she was, every night, hunched up under Artie, laughing at everything he said, sharing his food, taking him out for ice cream.
About a month into our freshman year Artie pulled me aside. He had a problem, he said, and didn’t know how to address it. Apparently, Lois had given him the clap. And not only that, but before he’d discovered his condition, he’d passed the clap along to a girl named Delores. He felt close enough to me, as a friend, to reveal these embarrassing details of his sex life.
What could I do? I liked this guy. But there’s something about a guy who admits he has the clap that puts a damper on things, you know? Now, mind you, I wasn’t far from being a virgin at the time. I’d done the deed a couple of times in the summer after high school. I liked it, but I was always afraid of getting knocked up, so that put a similar damper on things. I had no clue of what to do about the clap. It was outside my realm of expertise.
I made a few phone calls on Artie’s behalf and sent him to the free clinic. As for telling Delores of her infirmity, that was on him. I advised him to kick Lois to the curb on GP (general principle). I warned him that Delores would do the same to him.
After that, Artie kept a low profile. He fired Lois (I guess. She stopped showing up in our dorm). He wasn’t as gregarious about challenging people to play ball. He and Kevon put together this intramurals team and they were running roughshod on Tuesday and Thursday nights in the student gym. Jennifer and I went to watch them play. Artie asked me to join the team, but by then the Delaware State women’s team was practicing for the season. I couldn’t risk injury in an intramurals game.
About this time, too, the Kappas held their annual Krimson and Kreme Ball. It’s always the social event of the year, so we all looked forward to it. Artie didn’t ask me to attend. I turned down at least three invitations in expectation of Artie’s invite.
As it turned out, all of The Fellas attended Krimson and Kreme stag. I was a little disappointed. But I wasn’t going to ask HIM.
We all got to the dance and had a good time. Jennie and I danced with Artie and Kevon and DeSean and Eddie, along with any number of Greeks. About halfway through the night I started feeling a little ootsy. I dunno what it was. But Artie agreed to walk me back to the dorm. Once in my room I sat down on my bed. My head was spinning. Artie brought me a ginger ale from the vending machine in the hall. We sat down next to each other on the bed. He put his arm around me. We stared off into space for awhile before he dredged up the nerve to kiss me. I was in heaven. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and gradually shifted his head perpendicular to mine.
We kissed for ten minutes before I felt him surreptitiously reaching for my breast. By my accounting he was eight minutes late. He should have been easing his hands down my panties at the ten-minute mark, ootsy be damned. What did I have to do, move his hand into position? My panties were wet by then, reeking of womanly steam. I could smell it. Why couldn’t he?
If he’d ripped my clothes off right then, we could have fucked the night away along with our nascent friendship. Rather, he just continued to kiss me and fondle my breasts. I started to think him slow. If Lois had given him the clap, she’s the one who initiated the sex. Artie seemed almost reluctant to probe further. This endeared him to me on the one hand while making me wonder about his virility on the other.
The dorm door slammed open. It was Jennifer.
“Oh, THERE you are!!!”
I’d left the party without telling her. She was worried about me. Then she saw Artie and me lying back on my bed. She wasn’t at all embarrassed.
“Artie, get outta here. Me and Terry gotta talk.”
Mighty bold orders from a woman who’d just walked in on a couple of eighteen-year-olds whose clothes were still on and should not have been. She didn’t know where Artie and I were headed with this.
Artie dutifully got up and walked out. After he closed the door, I gave Jennie the “YOU JUST INTERRUPTED ME OUT OF A FUCK, YOU COCK BLOCKING SUMBITCH!!” look. I backed that up with a few well-chosen epithets.
“JENNIE!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!”
She ignored me.
“I thought you said Artie was just a friend?” she said.
“I DID say that. I was TRYING to promote him when YOU busted in and fucked things up!!” I huffed.
“There IS no promotion above ‘friend’, Terry. It’s the tiptop of the ladder. I knew you loved him the first day you came back to the room and described your one-on-one game. If you love him, DON’T fuck him.”
This seemed, again, counter-intuitive.
“Isn’t ‘fucking’ the whole point of being in love?” I asked.
“No, bitch, it is not! If you were going to fuck him you should have fucked him before that Lois chick tapped his ass.”
(I hadn’t told Jennie of Artie’s bout with the clap. She just surmised that Artie and Lois had fucked.)
“How do you know Lois fucked him?” I asked.
“Because she doesn’t come to our dorm anymore. Do you want that to be YOU?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t fuck on the first date, Terry. Not on the second, not on the third, not on the tenth. If you love this guy, AND I KNOW THAT YOU DO, you…make…him WAIT.”
“You sound like my mom.” I pouted.
“I AM your mom on this set, Terry. You and Artie are destined to be together. I know it. You know it. HE knows it. DON’T FUCK IT UP.”
I couldn’t understand this nineteen fifties reasoning. Jennifer had already fucked two guys since the beginning of the school year. She wasn’t in love with either of them.
“That’s why I fucked them,” she said.