The following piece is the 2nd installmet of the #BlackU series (part 1 here). Mission Men follows multiples characters on the campus of Mission College — the HBCU from Spike Lee’s School Daze. Here we go!
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June 2017
The West End
Alls my life I has to fight, nigga
Alls my life I
Hard times like God
Bad trips like: “God!”
Nazareth, I’m fucked up
Homie you fucked up
But if God got us
then we gon’ be alright!
The prophetic words of Kendrick Lamar filled Jeremiah’s dimly lit room. He dropped his bags at the door and stood in the doorway of his bedroom for a moment. It was the first time he had been in his home — his bedroom — since last summer. He panned the bedroom and took everything in; it was still the same way he left it it — one side of the bed made up and the other half pulled back. There were still half burned candles on the knight stand and a third of a bottle of Crown Royal Apple and two glasses still sitting on his desk. Jeremiah walked over to the closest and turned on the lights. All of his clothes were still in the same place. He surveyed his shoes neatly lined up along the bottom of the closet.
Jeremiah flicked the light off and walked into the bathroom. Nothing had changed. The black soap bar he’d purchased prior to him leaving was still in the wrapper. The hibiscus rose oil set in the same spot he had left it. He pulled the shower curtain back, turned on the hot water, and closed it. Not a single thing had been moved or out of place in nearly a year. Jeremiah walked back over the mirror. With his hands resting on the sink, he leaned forward and stared at himself in the miror.
He surveyed the work of his newly retested locs — an expense his mother was excited to pay for before before left Virginia. “I don’t mind them,” he remembers her telling him, “but must you look like you have a head full of dusty mop strings, Jeremiah? It’s not cute, baby. It’s just. not. cute.” He pulled his hair back into a ponytail and fixed them into a high, tight bun. Jeremiah pulled the shower cap over the bun and pealed his shirt off. He slid his basketball ball shorts and boxers off simultaneously -taking himself in in the mirror. It had been nearly two years since Jeremiah quit the Mission Track team and over a year since he’d been in the gym. Still, he managed to maintain some semblance of a solid frame. His complexion was the one thing he still struggled with, however. He skin tone “the color of real honey” as his mother called it, was a gift from her - although, at times Jeremiah quietly wished he’d been given his father mohogany-esque tone. But, at 6'2 and just over 200 pounds, Jeremiah was still a sight for sore eyes.
“Shiddddd….” he said to himself as he looked his body over in the mirror. “A nigga aint seen a gym, but he still fine as shit!” Jeremiah grabbed the bar of Black soap and entered the shower with the intentions of scrubbing the day’s journey right off of him.
It had been a long day and he all could think about on the road was how comfortable his own bed would feel. Jeremiah stood under the water and closed his eyes. The 12-hour trip from Virigina to Atlanta took a lot out of him. He lathered his towel with his soap and cleaned himself. The shower was a place he alwayd did his best thinking. Today however, was different. All he wanted to do was shower and sleep.
Jeremiah stepped out of the shower and dried himself off with a towel. He opened the bottle of hibiscus oil and squeezed a small amount into his hand. He rubbed his hands together and applied the oil to his face and neck. Jeremiah pulled the shower cap off of his head and applied more oil to each of his locs. Deontae would always tease him about his shower routine as the process took at least 20 minutes. Without bothering to put on pajamas, Jeremiah turned off the light to the bathroom and headed straight for the bed.
Jeremiah plopped down on the unmade side of his King-sized fortress and quickly crawled under the 300-thread count sheets; both the bed and sheets were gifts from his parents. He buried himself face-down in his pillow — sprawled across the bed at an awkward angle — causing his feet to dangle off the side of the bed at the knee. Jeremiah then curled up under the covers, wrapping his body around his favorite pillow- a pillow that still lingered with a scent he wanted so badly to forget.
Jeremiah lay in bed and let his mind drift back to that somber night last July. He had just turned in his summer graduation packet and could hardly contain his excitment. The last year of his master’s program had taken a toll on his peace of mind and he was ready to graduate. Then one week later, his life changed forever. The tragic loss of his best friend and subsequent stress of a grueling dual MBA/JD program was just too much. After Deontae’s burial, Jeremiah did what any 24 year old would do when it became just too much to bare: he moved back home.
Now that he was back in Atlanta, Jeremiah set his eyes on finishing his degree. After Deontae died, President Dunlap personally asked Jeremiah’s graduation commitee for an extended leave of absence to which they unanimously agreed. With his mind in a better place, Jeremiah was ready to finish the degree(s) he’d worked so hard on for the past 3 years. He promised his parents that immediately following graduation this summer, he’d be back in Virigina (He did not tell how long though).
He managed to stay productive while back home in Virginia to keep his mind off of Deontae. His mother found him a paid positon at the White House working in the Office of the First Lady. The gig was only part-time, so to keep his mind further occupied, his father secured a part-time teaching assistant position in the Department of Journalism at Hillman. The internship and teaching job gave Jeremiah the space to grieve the best way he knew how: by throwing himself into his work. Not long after accepting the white house gig, Jeremiah was completing task usually reserved for senior white house officials. The Dean was so impressed by his teaching that she begged him to return after he completed his masters. “You’re a natural teacher,” Dr. James told him. “Your father was a teacher. Your mother was a teacher. It’s in you.” Still, he politely declined.
Atlanta was his home now and had been since he bucked a 5-generation family tradition by foregoing Hillman and enrolling at Mission Collge. President Dunlap himself personally came to Virginia to recruit him — much to the dismay of his mother. “My first born son!” she screamed when the reality of the move had finally set in; “A Gilbert! Attending…Mission! The absurdity of it all”
“What’s absurd is that you keep calling that boy a Gilbert,” his father interjected. “He’s a Wayne.”
Still, Jeremiah could not ask for more supportive parents. It was because of them that he no longer found himself counting the times he had not graduated on “time.” Now, he was focused on the end goal. It took him an extra year of undergrad to get it together, but it was his to get together. As long as his parents didn’t trip, he didn’t trip.
Jeremiah lay still under the sheets and slowly begin to lose himself in the silence of the room. His breath hallowed, each inhale leaving behind the mental stressors of the day’s journey. He inhaled, taking in the stillness of the quiet and exhaled slowly. With each breath, Jeremiah allowed himself to sink deeper into the current moment. His eyes grew heavy as the room cooled.
Jeremiah’s mind became still as his breaths sank deeper; his eyes now fully closed. The sleep he’d been yearning for for the last two hours had cornered him and he was down for the count. The ceiling fan whipped, causing the papers on his desk to ruffle in the background as the constant hum of the air conditioner gave the room a calmness. All of these things — the fan, the air condition, the ruffling papers — worked in perfect harmony to seduce Jeremiah into a sleep well deserved.
BZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. BZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jeremiah’s eyes darted open. Sleep eluded him — again. With his eyes barely open, he brought his phone to his face without bothering to check and see who it was.
“Yes?” he answered. Jeremiah hoped his tone made it clear that he was in no mood for small talk.
“Nigga!” He instantly recognized the voice.
“What up, Juan?” He smiled slightly. It had been a few weeks since he’d talked to Juan and a few months since they’d last seen each other.“I just crawled under the covers. How do you always find the most inopportune time to call me?”
“Really, Jay?” Juan said with a chuckle. “Nigga, you know if don’t nobody else know, you know I know!” He laughed. “What you got going on?”
“I’m not not really feeling up to anything tonight, bro honestly,” Jeremiah admitted, “I just got back in town about an hour ago. I’m tired.”
“Nah, fuck that,” Juan replied. “I’m on my way to pick you up. It’s the Relays, bro!”
Jeremiah opened his eyes. He knew it was no use in arguing with his good friend. If Juan says he was on the way, then he was definitely on the way.
“I’m not feeling up for anything tonight,” Jeremiah said again. He feigned a yawn loudly thtough the phone, hoping his friend would catch the not-so-subtle hint.
“Bro,” Juan began, “It’s the JUNE. TEENTH. RE-LAYS!” Juan dragged out every syllable to make his point. “And it’s Friday night! If you do nothing else, we gotta hit the Burn Out.”
“Wait…are the Relays this weekend?” Jeremiah asked, still naked under the covers with no intentions of getting up or getting dressed.
“You know it,” Juan answered. “Now get yo ass up and lets go! And put some damn clothes on, nigga; I know you in that bitch butt-ass naked.”
Jeremiah glanced at the calendar on the wall.
June 14th, 2017.
The Juneteenth Relays were happening.
This weekend.
Jeremiah stared at the ceiling. That explains why traffic was bugging, he thought to himself.
“Alright” Jeremiah reluctantly agreed. “Well, what time you coming through to get me?”
“What time is it now?” Juan asked. Jeremiah looked at the clock on the wall.
“It’s almost 11:00,” he told him. “Okay,” Juan began, “Let me go scoop up Neema and some crab the bruh’s assigned to me and I’ll be on my way. You got $50 on it?”
“I don’t smoke anymore” Jeremiah admitted. “I’m really not on that tonight, honestly.”
“In the words of our fallen brother Diontae” Juan began, “You a Black ass lie!” Who the hell goes to The Burn Out and not smoke? It’s the motha fuckin Burn Out, bruh! It’s The Relays! It’s your last Relays. Do it for me; do it for Deontae, my nigga. You know he’d want you high as shit this weekend.”
Juan chuckled. “Plus, nigga you a Gilbert! Isn’t there a Black U law that says you gotta be apart of The Burn Out?”
Jeremiah corrected. “I am a Wayne.”
“Yeah, whatever nigga,” Juan said dismissively. “My pops don’t run the school my moms’ fam helped found. That’s all you. Plus, you know Diontae would be rolling up right now on his way to come get you and me both. We really haven’t kicked it for real for real since the funeral, bro. We need this.”
Jeremiah thought about it only briefly. He knew Juan would not let up. He also knew that Juan was right.
“So you gon be ready in 30 or what?” Diontae asked, drawing Jeremiah’s attention back to the topic at hand.
“Yeah,” Jeremiah relented. He was now sitting all the way up in the bed. “Wait, who you gotta go pick up?”
“Neema and and some freshmen nigga tryna pledge Lamda. I can’t remember his name. Matter fact, keep your $50; crab got it tonight.”
Even though he attended Mission, and Juan and Neema went to A&T, they were all still very close — it was one of the benefits of attending “Black U.” In all honesty, though, Jeremiah was in no mood to be sociable or entertain someone he did not know, especially a freshman. He knew complaining would be of little use to him. “Does Neema and the crab smoke?” Jeremiah asked.
“They ass do tonight!” Dionate exclaimed.
Part II tomorrow!
