Heavy: An American Memoir(34)

“What about me?”

“The money stuff doesn’t get on your nerves?”

I didn’t want the white folk at Millsaps or Nzola to know I just got a bank account and only had thirty-seven dollars in it. I didn’t want them to know thirty-seven dollars was a lot of disposable income to everyone in our family near the third week of every month.

“They do them,” I said. “We do us. My money is good so I’m good. Is it weird having a name that means ‘love’?”

“Your money that good?” she asked, ignoring my game. “Or you that free? Because I’m trying be free. You think you the shit because you found out what my name means?”

“Yup,” I said. “I think I’m the shit because I found out what your name means.” I called Nzola an ol’ fake-ass Angela Davis and told her I was trying to be free, too, and it helped that my money was already good. She asked me why I always talked about my money being good. I laughed and laughed and laughed until I didn’t.

Nzola and I met at the Grill over greasy pieces of Red Velvet cake five days in a row. The next week, I bought her the new Digable Planets tape and took her out to the Chinese buffet every day for lunch or dinner. I bounced two checks and exceeded the limit on my new credit card the following week. The week after Nzola, Ray Gunn, and I were falsely accused of plagiarizing a paper in separate English classes, I bounced two more checks on an Izod rugby shirt.

Every waking moment on that campus was filled with my trying to misdirect people from seeing who I really was. Misdirection was fun, but it was also exhausting. I wasn’t sure who I really was, but I understood where I was. I was right in the middle of Jackson, my city, but I was so far from home.

When I was admitted into Millsaps, I knew on one side of the school was the neighborhood of Belhaven, where wealthy white liberals who hadn’t flown to Madison and Rankin lived. On the other side of the college was a poor black neighborhood called the North End. I knew the gates facing the North End were always bolted shut, and the gates facing Belhaven were always open, always welcoming. I knew that white boys at my majority black high school got punched in their mouths repeatedly for wearing Confederate flags on their shirts or talking mess about the Old South. I knew at Millsaps that those shirts were as common as fake Polos and Izods.

One semester into school, and I now knew most of the groundskeepers were black men. I knew most of the cafeteria workers and folk who cleaned the dorms were black women. I knew the fraternities and sororities spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday out of their minds, breaking things that shouldn’t be broken. I knew dorms, classrooms, offices, paths, and parties were filled with white students, faculty, and administrators saying in their own way that our presence at their school was proof they were innocent, and could never be racist. I knew, after a semester at Millsaps, books couldn’t save me from a college, classes, a library, dorms, and a cafeteria that belonged to wealthy white folk. I never expected to have that feeling right in the middle of my city.

Two weeks later, Nzola and I were in her room, kissing each other’s necks like it was going out of style while her roommate slept. I saw pictures of Nzola’s boyfriend’s face down under her bed next to these blue paintings and brown chicken-wire sculptures. Nzola’s boyfriend’s jawline was so pronounced. He looked like Lance, one of Theo’s friends from The Cosby Show.

Nzola whispered she wanted us to be like Bill and Hillary Clinton except we’d actually love black folk and not just what black folk did for us.

“Cool,” I said, and kissed her forehead. “Your boyfriend probably won’t like you being married to me, though.”

“Neither will your white girlfriend,” she said. I hadn’t told her about my relationship with Abby Claremont, but someone else had.

“What white girlfriend?”

“Wow,” Nzola said. “You didn’t use to mess with a white girl? Niggas these days love acting like niggas these days.”

Three weeks later, right before Thanksgiving break, Nzola and I were on a stage after midnight in the academic complex doing the heaviest petting I’d ever done. Nzola told me she loved my bottom lip and never wanted to stop kissing me.

I didn’t believe her.

She asked if we should go somewhere private because there were hidden cameras on campus watching every move we made. We headed back to her room since Kenyatta was gone for the weekend. Nzola handed me a condom while we were on the floor.

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” I asked her. “He’s way older than us and he’s a doctor, right?”

“He’s just a good friend,” she said. “And yeah, he’s a doctor. He’s twenty-seven.”

“What’s your twenty-seven-year-old good friend the doctor’s name?”

“His name is James.”

“How you end up with a Golden Grahams–type dude with a basic-ass name like Dr. James?” I asked her.

“What’s your girlfriend’s name? Molly, right? Or something like Claire,” she said. “I don’t care what that white skeezer’s name is. I wanna ask you something.”

“What?”

“I want you to tell me what being with me makes you feel.”

“For real?”

“Yeah,” she said. “For real. Like what do your insides feel when you’re around me?”