Coffee Will Make You Black

by April Sinclair

“Fuck her boyfriend. We got boyfriends too,” Sharlinda insisted. I knew that she was braiding Kenny’s hair, but he hadn’t asked her to go with him yet. And as for me, yeah, I’d gone to the quarter movie with Myron twice and he’d even paid. But we were technically still in the talking stage. He was at least three movies away from getting over. Maybe one, if he produced a joint. I didn’t know Today’s business. She seemed to be in love with anybody tall, dark, and Greek.

  “Plus, we got the whole Kappa line,” Today interrupted my thoughts.

  Maybe so, but none of these people were here now. I gulped down the rest of my wine for strength. I crushed the waxy paper cup in my hand.

  “OK, I’m ready.” I stood up and headed for Room 532 with Sharlinda and Today at my heels.

  My fist was raised to knock on the girl’s door.

  “What you fixin’ to knock for?” Sharlinda groaned. “Would you invite somebody to come in your room who said they were gonna kick your ass? Just open the goddamn door!”

  I dropped my hand and turned my head. “I just can’t run up in the girl’s room. It might be illegal or something.”

  “Yeah, this is a legal ass kicking,” Today answered sarcastically.

  “What if the door is locked?” I asked hopefully.

  “Well, we can’t stand here all night wondering. Let’s get this show on the road!” Sharlinda reached in front of me and tried the doorknob. To my horror, the door swung open easily.

  A stocky white girl stood planted with her back to us, holding the telephone. She was wearing a long denim work shirt and her head was wrapped up in a towel.

  “That’s right, it’s all my fault! You had nothing to do with it!” she shouted in a French accent. “Everything is all my fucking fault!” Suddenly, the white girl turned and faced us. “Pardon me, but I’m utilizing the phone. What do you want here?”

  We continued to stand in the doorway, but no one spoke.

  The girl turned her attention back to the phone. “Matthew, you’re nothing but a male chauvinist pig!” She slammed down the receiver.

  I couldn’t help but appreciate the way “chauvinist” had rolled off of her tongue. But this was no time to admire her French accent.

  “Well, I guess she told him,” Today whispered.

  I shuddered to myself. Maybe this girl was tough. Perhaps she’d descended from peasant stock.

  “You have no right barging into my room like this!”

  Sharlinda nudged me. “She’s got the nerve to jump bad, now.”

  I found my voice. “You had no right to tie up the phone like that. You know it’s a party line.”

  “Look, I really don’t have time for this shit.”

  “We don’t have time for your shit, bitch!” Sharlinda shouted.

  “You’ve been pulling that breathing routine for over two weeks now.” Today sighed. “You need to quit.”

  “Look, I’m off the phone now. So, will you just go.” She waved her arms like she was shooing away pigeons.

  “Naw, Mademoiselle, we ain’t going nowhere!” Sharlinda insisted.

  “We’re not?” I gulped.

  “No, it’s too late for her to grip.” No, it’s not, I wanted to protest. Let her beg, so we can leave.

  “She should’ve gotten off the phone when homegirl first asked her to,” Sharlinda continued. “Now, the shit done got funky.”

  Let’s not get technical, I thought. “She’s off the phone now,” I argued. “Let’s just order the damn pizza.”

  Today ignored me. “Didn’t you hear her say your ass is grass?” Then she elbowed me. “Right, Stevie?”

  “My ass is grass? Does that mean the three of you plan to attack me now?”

  “Oh, no, just her,” Sharlinda pointed.

  “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be a fair fight,” Today promised.

  “This is crazy. Look, I’m not in the mood. So, please remove yourselves from my doorway at once.”

  I stood frozen.

  “Oh, she’s really selling woof tickets now,” Sharlinda nudged me. “Your shit ain’t shaky, is it, homegirl?”

  “You can whup a hoogie,” Today chimed in.

  I appreciated her vote of confidence. But what if this white girl descended from a long line of grape stompers? People who’d just as soon stomp your ass as make wine. And what if she freaked out and called security and I was arrested? I might even lose my scholarship.

  The girl walked toward us. I glanced into her killer blue eyes. It was obvious that she meant business. I sized her up as we faced off. We were about the same height, but she was quite a bit stockier. My stomach began to churn. My mouth felt dry. It would be just my luck for her to be a P.E. major, I thought.

  Why wasn’t this white girl acting scared? I’d never planned to hit her, just scare her. Why didn’t she just grovel and get it over with? Did Sharlinda and Today expect me to just grab her and start hitting her? It had been years since I’d been in a knockdown drag-out fight. The situation suddenly seemed absurd. It would’ve almost been funny if I didn’t feel my stomach tightening into knots.

  The girl stared me down. “Move, so that I can close my door.”

  “Tell her to make you,” Sharlinda snarled.

  Miss Ann should be trembling, begging for mercy, pleading for us to accept her apology. Didn’t she have sense enough to be afraid of three black girls with Afros? Didn’t a person’s color mean anything anymore? What planet was she from?

  The girl reached for the doorknob. It felt like every hair on the back of my neck was standing up and saluting. It’s funny how certain situations make you aware that you even have hair on the back of your neck.

  “Tell her to make you!” Sharlinda repeated.

  “Make me,” I whined.

  “No, make yourself!” The girl tossed her head back, the way white girls do. Her towel began to unravel.

  “You came here to kick my ass. So, if you’re going to kick my ass, then go ahead and kick it, if you think you can. Otherwise, move so I can close my door.” The girl tossed her head again and the towel finally fell to the floor revealing shoulder-length black hair.

  I stood glued to my spot. How could I back down without losing face? The girl picked up the towel and threw it on one of the beds. She sighed and reached for the doornob again. Did she dare try to move the door against me?

  “Hey.” Sharlinda held her hand up as Miss Ann reached around me. “Wait just one mothafuckin’ minute. Don’t I know you?” she asked.

  “Yes, certainly,” the girl shot back. She reached for her glasses on the dresser. I felt myself breathe again.

  “You’re in my math class!” Sharlinda exclaimed. “I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.”

  I relaxed considerably and moved aside so Sharlinda and the girl had plenty of room to inspect each other.

  “So, she’s in your math class. What’s that got to do with the price of neck bones?” Today wanted to know. “What does that make y’all, long-lost cousins?”

  “This chick was kind enough to let me copy off of her paper this morning,” Sharlinda smiled, lounging against the dresser.

  Now the girl was blushing.

  “You cheated off of her?”

  I was pleased that Sharlinda’s dishonesty had paid off. Otherwise I would’ve had to hurt Miss Ann.

  “If it hadn’t been for her,” Sharlinda said smiling, “I don’t know how I would’ve got over.”

  “Well,” the girl replied. “I’m not so sure I did very well on the test.”

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. Last time we got a B.”

  “I recall we did, didn’t we?”

  “In class, we go by last names, but my first name is Sharlinda.”

  “I’m Celeste.”

  “Celeste, this here is Stevie, the one who was gonna kick yo’ ass. Her real name is Jean Stevenson, but everybody calls her Stevie.” Celeste and I nodded. “And this is Today, she’s got a twin sister back home in Maywood, named Tamara. Dig up, they were born a fe
w minutes apart. But one was born one day and the other was born the next. That’s how come they’re Today and Tamara.

  “Anyway, we just wanted to order a pizza and I guess one thing led to another. I just had no idea it was you.”

  Celeste made a sheepish face. “Well, I know I haven’t been appropriate about the phone.”

  That’s an understatement, I thought.

  “But things have been alarming between me and my boyfriend lately.”

  “I know how that can be,” Sharlinda nodded. I rolled my eyes. All of a sudden now, she’s Miss Congeniality.

  “Hey, you don’t mind if I check your phone line to see if it’s free, do ya?” Today asked politely. “You know at night the lines stay jammed. We still have to order our pizza.”

  “Sure, go ahead, help yourself. The phone book’s right there.”

  A passerby shouted “Hi, Celeste” from the hallway. The girl noticed us and did a double take. I figured Celeste had earned several “cool points.” People would be saying she had joined some militant black organization with French connections.

  “Why don’t all of you have a seat, make yourselves comfortable?”

  I looked up at the turquoise fishnet decorating the opposite wall. Today leaned back against one of the bolsters.

  “The line’s free,” she announced happily.

  “You don’t need the phone book.” I rattled off the number.

  Today held up some Zig Zag papers that had been lying on top of the bolster.

  “Celeste, you don’t happen to have any weed?” she asked sweetly.

  Celeste shrugged from the opposite bed. “Just homegrown.”

  “Hey, beggars can’t be choosers,” Sharlinda said, sitting down next to Celeste.

  “I can get into some homegrown,” Today agreed.

  “Hey, it’s cool with me,” I said, nonchalantly. “Can’t always be Mexican or Jamaican or Colombian.” I shrugged, impressed with my own hipness.

  Life was now beautiful. The black light was on, magnifying every little speck of dust. We were digging the Woodstock album. Celeste was rolling a couple of joints. And the door was closed with a towel stuffed under it. This was more of a ritual, just part of being cool. We weren’t really worried about getting busted.

  Today called down to the desk and told Becky to have the pizza guy ring Celeste’s room when he came. I was groovin’ on the psychedelic poster of Jimi Hendrix while he played on the box. Then a poster of Angela Davis over one of the desks caught my eye. Maybe Celeste’s roommate was a sister we hadn’t heard of, I thought. “Is that your roommate’s poster?” I pointed.

  “It’s mine,” Celeste answered casually, licking the ends of the freshly rolled joint.

  “Angela Davis, right on.” Today nodded approvingly.

  Celeste passed Sharlinda the joint. “You sho’ know how to roll. I likes ’em fat.”

  “Yeah, California style.” Today smiled. “None of those skinny New York joints.”

  “My joints always come out like that. I wasn’t even trying to roll them any special way.”

  “New York stuff be thin, they stingy with they pizza crust, they reefer, and the city still on the verge of bankruptcy.” Sharlinda sighed.

  She exhaled and passed the joint to me. I sucked in the weed and tried not to cough. I took it in sucking air, the way Sharlinda had taught me. I blew out the smoke big time.

  “Celeste, don’t you want a toke?” I asked, proud of my drug vocabulary.

  To my surprise, she shook her head. “I’m taking a holiday from it for a while.”

  I handed the joint to Today. “For me, this is just what the doctor ordered. Let me lay my burdens down.”

  “This is some good shit for homegrown. Celeste, you sure you don’t want none?”

  “Yeah, I’m cool.”

  Sharlinda hit the joint. “I’ve already got a little bit of a buzz, y’all.”

  I took another hit and felt it go to my head. Why didn’t Celeste want to get high? It was awfully strange. What if she’s a narc? She could be undercover. What if that wasn’t a black light? What if it was really a hidden camera? What if we were being photographed? We didn’t know where she was coming from. We didn’t know this girl from Lassie.

  “There’s really a mellow vibe in here, now.” Sharlinda smiled, her eyes shining.

  “Thanks,” Celeste said as she turned the album over.

  Sharlinda pointed to the box. “I digs that album.”

  “Yeah, I’m digging it too,” Today added. “Thanks for hipping us to it.”

  “Celeste, what’s your major?” You’re not in law enforcement, are you? I thought.

  “I’m an art major.” She pointed to a small sculpture of a naked woman on the desk.

  “That’s beautiful,” I breathed.

  “Do you do men?” Sharlinda wanted to know.

  “Yeah,” Today echoed.

  She and Sharlinda laughed and gave each other five.

  Celeste shook her head. “Actually, I find the female form more beautiful.”

  “Well, to each his own, said the woman who kissed the cow,” Sharlinda said, shaking her head.

  I found Celeste’s answer intriguing. I remembered I used to sneak and look at my father’s Playboy magazines as a child. It wasn’t that the half-naked women were so tantalizing, but it was the only nudity available. Except for this boy named Leroy who used to show us his dick on the way to school in the second grade. But there was always a crowd around him, so you couldn’t get a really good look.

  Sharlinda asked Today to give her a shotgun. Today turned the joint backward inside her mouth. She held it between her teeth and blew smoke out through the other end into Sharlinda’s mouth. I wanted to learn how to do that.

  “Celeste, did it bother you to have Sharlinda cheating off of you?” I asked.

  Celeste looked surprised, and Sharlinda choked on her inhale.

  “Stevie can’t help herself. She’s a journalism major.” Sharlinda rolled her eyes. “She interviews everybody.”

  Celeste cleared her throat. “I think a more pertinent question is, Did it bother Sharlinda?”

  Sharlinda took a long hit off of the joint. “Sharlinda is feeling no pain, y’all.”

  “Sharlinda, you might not graduate magna cum laude. But you can make it without cheating,” I assured her.

  “Girl, Sharlinda will do well to graduate, ‘laude’ have mercy!” Today said.

  We laughed and I gave Today five. Even Sharlinda cracked a smile.

  “Look, all kidding aside,” I said with a drawl (I was a little high), “I have faith in Sharlinda.”

  “You know what I got faith in?” Sharlinda tilted her head. “I got faith in her. I got faith she pulled a B on that test, maybe even an A. That’s what I got faith in.”

  “Hey, don’t put your faith in me. I’m no brain or anything,” Celeste said.

  “You say you ain’t Chinese, huh?” Sharlinda laughed.

  I felt uncomfortable. It was embarrassing enough to sit there and listen to Sharlinda put so much faith in a white person. Hadn’t I made the Dean’s List my first quarter? And Today was no dummy; she was majoring in business administration. Now, Sharlinda had to throw in that remark about Celeste not being Chinese.

  Today was quiet. She put the roach between two matchsticks and handed it to me. I managed to inhale without burning my mouth.

  I exhaled and found my voice. “Sharlinda, you’re stereotyping Chinese people, just like people stereotype black people.”

  “Thank you,” Celeste spoke up. “I’m glad you said that.”

  “Stevie, you tripping. I was just making a joke.”

  “Stevie does have a point,” Today said.

  “Whatever.” Sharlinda sighed, reaching for the second joint.

  “Look, I didn’t do jack shit in school, back in Paris,” Celeste said.

  “I love April in Paris.” Sharlinda cut in.

  “You know Paris?”

  Today and
I came to attention. Sharlinda better not twist her mouth and say she’s been to Paris, I thought. Not unless there’s a Paris, Mississippi, or something.

  “No.”

  “You mean the song?” Today asked.

  “I’m talking about the perfume, y’all.”

  I shook my head. “Sharlinda, you’re not ready.”

  “She’s not ready for what?” Celeste asked.

  “Not ready for prime time,” Today laughed.

  Celeste still looked confused. It was an insiders’ remark. It meant that Sharlinda wasn’t ready for proper, white society. I was too high to try to explain it to Celeste. And not high enough to give a white person I barely knew insider information.

  “Anyway, Celeste, you were saying?”

  “I was saying?” Celeste gave me a puzzled look.

  “About not doing jack shit in school,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, yes, well, when I came here to the States, I decided to make a fresh start. I just began applying myself. I don’t have any magic formula. If you’d like, we could study together, Sharlinda.”

  “What have you got to lose?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Today agreed. “Worse come to worst, you can always fall back on cheating.”

  Sharlinda gave her a fake smile.

  “Think how much better you’ll feel if you get an A or B on your own,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Celeste agreed.

  “Girl, you know you need to bring your grade point up if you want to pledge,” Today reminded her.

  “OK, OK, goddamn. Y’all ain’t got to run it into the damn ground. I’ll do whatever y’all say. Just get off my case!”

  The telephone rang and Celeste picked it up.

  “Finally, well, it’s about time. I’d just about given up on you.”

  “The pizza’s here?” Today asked hopefully.

  Celeste put her hand over the receiver. “I’m getting married!” Celeste looked all happy, like she’d gotten a contact from the dope we’d been smoking. We stared at her with our mouths open.

  “The pizza man proposed to you?” Sharlinda asked.

  “No, it’s Matthew. He finally agreed that we should get married. That’s what we’ve been battling about.”

  “Why you want to get married?” Today asked.

  “Y’all ain’t gonna live together first?” Sharlinda sounded disappointed.