The name is Mitchell Jean Baatil. I’m a big and tall young Black man of South African and Haitian descent living in the city of Brockton, Massachusetts. Just a guy coping with a changing world. I’m a student at Pacheco Jackson College, a local four-year school. The school was created in 1989 when two of Massachusetts two-year schools merged to become a four-year institution. The Pacheco Technical School, founded by a Hispanic guy named Mateo Pacheco, and Jackson College, a historically Black public school. Together we became Pacheco Jackson College, a unique school with a turbulent yet fascinating saga. Truly one for the ages.
In 1989, Pacheco Technical School had two thousand five hundred students and Jackson College had around three thousand pupils. Both schools were in dire financial straits. They faced one choice, merging or closing. They chose to merge. Becoming the only school in America dedicated to educating the nation’s fastest-growing minority groups, Hispanics and African-Americans. Twenty years later, the school has eight thousand students. Thirty eight percent of the student body is African-American, thirty four percent is Hispanic, eight percent is Asian and twenty percent is Caucasian. We’re the most diverse four-year college in all of New England.
September 2009 saw the dawn of some fascinating changes on campus. For the first time ever, Pacheco Jackson College fielded varsity sports teams. Strictly Division Three of course. We now compete in men’s Baseball, women’s Softball, men’s and women’s Basketball, men’s and women’s Soccer, men’s and women’s Cross Country, men’s and women’s Swimming, women’s Track & Field, women’s Tennis and men’s Football. How about that? Our first Football game, against nearby Bridgewater State College was attended by nearly half the town of Brockton. We won that game too, by the way. I think we have a bright future ahead of us.
I tried out for the swim team and made it. Since I’m around six-foot-four and weigh two hundred and thirty pounds, most people assume I’m either a football player or a basketball player. The truth is that being a collegiate swimmer is my dream. I can’t throw a ball worth a damn but put me in the water and I become a missile. I’m serious. I’m one of three Black guys on the swim team. The rest are Hispanic guys and white guys. I’m glad I’m not the only brother on the team. Our captain, Jeffrey Brown, is African-American and he was one of the stars of Brockton Community High School’s swim team for years and years. The guy knows his stuff. In the water he’s like a torpedo. I’m proud to be his teammate.
Jeffrey Brown is definitely someone I admire. We became best pals. Like me, he majored in criminal justice. I want to become a law enforcement official. It’s sort of the family business. My father, Joseph Baatil is one of the few Black sergeants in the vastness of the Boston Municipal Police force. He moved to the United States of America from the Republic of South Africa in the late 1970s. He studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he played varsity football for four years while earning a degree in criminal justice. That’s where he met my mother Rachel Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian student majoring in biology. They fell in love and got married. As it turns out, Jeffrey Brown’s father Leander is a Boston cop and one of my dad’s friends. How about that? After this discovery, Jeffrey and I were like brothers.
Well, we were like brothers until Jeffrey Brown introduced me to his sister Nikki. Hot damn. How to describe Nikki? A five-foot-ten, dark-skinned and lovely, naturally long-haired, naturally busty and naturally big-bottomed African-American goddess. She was attending Boston College Law School, having transferred there from the criminal justice department of Pacheco Jackson College. She came by the campus to support her brother during one of our swim meets. We were taking on some guys from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Would you believe how stunned those Ivy League swimmers were that they got their butt kicked by a bunch of Black and Hispanic guys? Yeah, I guess overconfidence did them in. I was basking in the adulation of the crowd and the media’s flashing lights along with my teammates when Nikki made her way toward us. The first time I saw that woman, I knew I had to have her. I’m serious. I almost got an erection the first time I laid eyes on her. She was that hot.
Nikki Brown smiled from ear to ear and squeezed my hand sexily as we were introduced by her brother Jeffrey. I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine. I knew this lady was feeling me. I could just tell. She smiled flirtatiously at me and said I was the biggest swimmer she’d ever seen. I grinned and told her she was definitely right. Her brother Jeffrey was standing right there and I was flirting with her. This was definitely not kosher but I didn’t care. Jeffrey could kick my ass later if he wanted to, I had to make a good impression on his sexy, big-bottomed sister. I had to, folks. I wouldn’t punk out on a fine-looking Black woman like that.
And that’s how it all began, folks. I contacted Nikki Brown on Facebook and added her as a friend. We chatted and agreed to meet somewhere. I met her at the Food Court inside Copley Mall in Boston. I wore a red silk shirt, black silk pants and my black timberland shoes. Nikki showed up dressed like the sexiest businesswoman ever. She looked fly in her dark gray business suit. She was working as an intern at a law firm in the South End. So sister had to look the part. I turned on the charm and kissed her hand before pulling her chair for her. Nikki smiled and sat down. I ordered for the both of us after she told me her preferences, and we had our first unofficial date. I couldn’t believe my luck. Nikki was a sexy, classy and educated sister. Usually dames like that aren’t interested in your friendly neighborhood swimmer. However, Nikki told me that she liked dating younger men. She found the black men at Boston College to be unsatisfactory. They were a superficial bunch who chased white women. I promised her I wasn’t like that. I’m a deep, soulful brother who loves the sisters. Just look into my porn collection!
Nikki and I had a great time together that day, and we continued to see each other on the sly. Why were we hiding? Definitely not out of shame. Nikki told me her brother Jeffrey wouldn’t understand. I knew that. Jeffrey’s a cool cat but he’s one jealous brother. He watches his girlfriend Tamika’s movements like a hawk. He thinks every guy on campus wants her. Oh, please. She’s not that hot! Nikki on the other hand could give a gay man a boner. We have a lot of fun together. And Jeffrey still doesn’t know. I like it like that. Secret relationships are fun.