by Curtis Bunn
At her place, she pulled out a bottle of Vueve Cliquot and a slice of brie with apricot topping. She lit candles and turned on Sade as Earl popped the champagne. She pulled out a pair of flutes and Earl filled the glasses with bubbly.
Catherine stood in front of Earl, in five-inch heels and a luxurious silk dress, with champagne in hand. Earl looked down into her eyes.
“You are my baby,” he said.
“You are my baby.”
They sipped champagne and then kissed.
“I adore you,” he said.
“I adore you.”
They sipped champagne and then kissed.
“I love you,” Earl said.
“I love you,” she repeated.
They sipped champagne and then shared a long, sensual kiss.
“This is the best homecoming ever,” she said. “And we haven’t even been a part of it yet.”
They took a seat on Catherine’s couch. Earl had her put her legs in his lap so he could take off her pumps. “You should be comfortable.”
Catherine sat up and sliced the brie and served it to Earl. And he served some to her. They were experiencing another fairy tale-type night, culminating with another lovemaking session that lasted well into the early morning.
Afterward, they lay on their backs, breathing heavily and mesmerized by their connection.
“I’m not going to cry this time,” Catherine said. “But my heart is so full. I am in love with you and I want everyone to know it.”
Earl did not say anything. He just pulled her to him, and she rested on his chest and they fell asleep together.
That morning, Earl was awakened to kisses from Catherine, starting still another heated, passionate expression of love and affection. It was not even 7 a.m.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day,” Earl said, “if what just happened is any indication . . . Amazing.”
They fell asleep for another hour or so before Catherine got up and made them breakfast. They sat at her bar and enjoyed the meal and smiled at each other like kids in love for the first time.
Their plan was to meet on the Yard during the tailgate following Catherine’s Delta Sigma Theta brunch. She drove him back to his hotel room, where Earl contacted his Alpha Phi Alpha brothers and let them know he would meet them at the fraternity’s set-up at the tailgate. The weather agreed with the occasion: seventy-two and sunny. Earl wore jeans and a frat T-shirt—the first time in two decades he wore Alpha paraphernalia. It was the fiftieth anniversary of his chapter, Epsilon Pi, and brothers came back in resounding numbers wearing the colors.
After checking e-mails and making a few more calls, Earl walked from the Marriott Waterside a few blocks to the Light Rail, a train commuter system that recently began operation. It was a quick and smooth ride through downtown, past the minor league baseball stadium and just outside of campus.
The train was packed with Norfolk State supporters ready for a good time. The football game mattered, too—the Spartans were challenged by Howard University—but not as much as the fun to be had at the tailgate. Or as much fun as watching the outstanding NSU band, the Mighty Spartan Legion.
Earl could see the massive gathering of people already on campus from the train’s platform, and a sense of pride rushed through his body. When he was a student, Norfolk State did not have an on-campus stadium. The Spartans played their “home” football games at Old Dominion, so there was no remarkable mass of more than ten-thousand supporters at the tailgate. Throw in the thirty-five thousand that pack the football stadium and there were upward of forty-five thousand people on the NSU campus for homecoming. It was a spectacular sight with the feel of an enormous family reunion.
Earl made his way across Brambleton Avenue and onto the campus, a pep in his step that came with the energy he felt once he set foot on the grounds. He knew where the Alphas set up and headed directly to that location. Along the way, however, he encountered many friends and former classmates. His close friend and frat brother, Myron, called. “Yo, where are you?” Myron asked. “We’re over here near the new library.”
Earl headed that way and ran right into Myron and a legion of brothers. It took him two minutes to greet and give the grip to Sam, Randy, Davenport, Nick, Ron, Marvin, Kilroy, Pork & Bean, Ronnie Bagley, Gerald Mason, Chuck, Greg Willis, J.D. Freeland, Ronnie Akers, Jacques, Steve Butler, Kelvin Lloyd, Frank Nelson, Brian White, BJ, Slick, Sykes, Fred and Steve Nottingham, who captured homecoming weekend as well as anyone through pictures.
So, Earl and the crew posed for photos, all the while laughing about one thing or another. They monitored every woman in sight. Davenport passed out cigars. Younger brothers distributed the so-called “Alpha Punch,” a concoction that amounted to a little bit of juice and a whole lot of liquor.
Older brothers in their sixties set up the tent and handled the massive, L-shaped grill that was covered with chicken, burgers, hot dogs and fish. There was mashed potatoes, beans, macaroni and cheese, salad, coleslaw, corn on the cob. Earl grabbed a plate and went down the buffet line. “I need to coat my stomach with something if I’m going to be drinking this early in the day,” he said.
“I can’t believe how grown these young girls’ bodies are,” Myron said.
“Must be all the hormones in the food,” Earl said.
“So how you been, man? Where you been?” Myron said. “Everyone was looking for you last night at the step show and the all-black party. A couple of honeys were looking for you.”
“Man, I wanted to be there, but I had a date,” he said. “I couldn’t be in two places at once, so I had to be where I wanted to be.”
“I hear you,” Myron said. “But a date with who?”
“Catherine,” he answered. “Catherine Harmon.”
“Wait—Catherine Harmon who went to school with us?” Myron said.
“Yeah. That’s my girl,” Earl said, smiling. He took a bite out of his hot dog and continued, “We’ve been communicating for four months. Now it’s official. It’s on.”
“Damn,” Myron said. “How’s she doing? She still looking good? I guess so, if you’re messing with her.”
“She looks great and is doing great,” he said. “She should be over here at some point.”
“You’re serious about her; I can tell,” Myron said.
“How?” Earl asked.
“Because when I told you honeys were asking about you at the party last night, you didn’t even ask who they were,” he answered.
Earl laughed. He could feel someone behind him and turned around to see an attractive woman with a huge smile. “Heeey,” Earl said.
“Hi, Earl. It’s been a long time,” she said. “You look so good.”
“Thanks, so do you,” he said. “Where are you now?”
“I live in New Jersey, south Jersey,” she said. “I actually have been there the last ten years. After graduation I moved back home to New York. But I got tired of the city life and needed something a little more calm. Shoot, I think I could move to Norfolk now. Downtown is so nice now. And I hear the other cities—Virginia Beach, Hampton, Chesapeake—are all blossoming as well.”
“I know,” Earl said. “I am impressed. It seems like a place I could live now.”
The small talk went on for another two minutes or so.
“Are you coming to the game?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely,” Earl said. “But I probably won’t make it there until the second quarter.”
“Are you coming to Best of Friends tonight?” she asked him.
“No doubt,” he said.
“Good. I want a dance,” she said. “A slow dance.”
“We’ll have to see about that,” Earl said.
They hugged and she moved on. Earl turned to Myron. “Who the fuck was that?” he said.
Myron almost choked on his food. When he gathered himself, he said: “You mean you didn’t know who that was?”
“Hell, no,” Earl said. “She obviously knew who I was. I couldn’t say, ‘
Who are you?’ So, I engaged her, but I had no idea who she was. That was crazy. Damn.”
Myron and Earl finished their food and traded stories with their frat brothers for a few minutes.
“I remember when I was on line pledging and the first day I saw you I was standing outside a classroom in Brown Hall,” Earl said to Davenport, a brother who lived in Houston. He told the other brothers to listen to his story, so they gathered around.
“So I’m standing in Brown Hall my first day as a Sphinxman and here comes Davenport. And I was like, ‘Oh, hell.’ So you come up to me and say, ‘Good to see you on line. You have any candy?’
“I said, ‘Yes, big brother.” And you said, ‘Put it in your mouth. Your breath stinks.’ And walked away.”
The Alphas fell all over each other laughing. The stories continued, one brother after another sharing a comical experience from their college fraternity days. Finally, Myron pulled Earl to the side. “Let’s take a walk and see who we see,” he said.
And they did, along with Sam, Randy, Marvin, Bagley, Gerald and Pork. They made their way to the Omegas’ area and saw the same crews that hung together decades earlier still together. “Look,” Myron said, “there goes Dave Brown, Rainbow, Bootsy, Ronnie Palmer, Conrad, Tim Lamb . . . Let’s go holla at these fools.”
And the Alphas and the Ques embraced and briefly caught up on one another’s lives. Earl expressed his condolences about the death that summer of Donnie Ebanks, an Omega who was in school with them. Some guys looked younger than others. Some looked better than others. All of them were glad to be there, to be alive.
Nearby, a group of AKAs released pink and green balloons into the air in memory of one of their sisters, Parish D. Percell Grimes, who died years earlier from a rare bone disease. Her soror, Marsha Lewis, pulled out her camera and it was like a photo shoot. The Alphas and Ques posed with AKAs Leslie LeGrande, Sybil Savage, Sparkle, Linda Vestal, Wanda Linnen and Sandra (Beasley) Barrett.
The Alphas and Ques whispered among themselves how proud they were that the ladies—all either fifty or close to it—looked good.
Earl stepped away from the crowd when Catherine called him. It was hard to hear because every tent set-up had its own music blaring. There was hardcore rap in one area, R&B in the next, old school jams next to it. All of it loud. But he was able to find a place that was not so loud.
“Hi, baby, he said. “Can you hear me now?”
“I can,” she said. “How are you? How’s it going?”
“It’s going great,” he said. “It’ll be going better for me when you get here.”
“Aww, baby, I don’t think I’m going to come,” Catherine said. “I was going to go to the brunch but Starr isn’t going; she has some things to do. So I’m just going to stay home and relax, clean up a little and catch up on my rest. You wore me out.”
“You sure?”
“I am. You go ahead and have fun with your friends. I need to rest,” she said. “Let me know who wins the game. And call me later so we can coordinate for tonight. I’m definitely going to the party.”
“All right, dear,” he said. “If you change your mind, call me. Otherwise, I’ll hit you later . . . love you.”
“I love you, Earl.”
They ended the call and Earl paused before rejoining the fray. He wanted Catherine to be a part of the tailgate with him, which was another sign that he was truly taken by her. Any other time, he would have been okay with being able to roam and hang with his boys and enjoy all the hijinx that came with that.
But they were up late on Thursday when Catherine had to work Friday morning. And Friday night they were up equally late. So he accepted her position for what it was and reimmersed himself in all the goings-on.
At home, Catherine took up residence on the couch, put on some music and sipped on a cup of coffee. She was tired and figured she would see all her friends at the party. The day was left for her to relax and reflect.
She was in love with Earl, truly in love. She had felt that emotion several weeks before he told her of his feelings, but did not want to share it over the phone. Being in love was a place she did not expect to be.
“Starr, I have never experienced anything like this. Never. He is a man who communicates with me so well,” she said. “I totally trust him. He cares about me. He loves me. I know it. I can feel it.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Starr said. “You deserve to be happy.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said. “It’s a nice day out and I almost want to go to the tailgate and the game just to be with Earl. I really do. But that party is tonight and I can’t have tired eyes. So I’m going to take advantage of this quiet time and relax. This is exactly what I need.”
A minute after ending her call with Starr, Catherine’s phone chimed, letting her know she had a text message, from Earl.
“Baby, you are all over me. I am enjoying all of this, but I cannot shake you. It is not the same without you. J”
Catherine smiled. She loved and appreciated that he consistently let her know that she was special to him. Best of all, she loved that he made her feel free enough to express her heartfelt emotions.
“I love you, baby,” she texted back. “You make me feel so special. Please know you are special to me. Very special.”
Earl was reading her text message when he and his boys came along some of Catherine’s Delta sisters. He, Sam, Myron, Randy and Co. held court with Felita, Sheila Wilson, Donna, Shelia Harrison, Adrienne James, Cheryl Boyd, Wanda Brockington and Susan Davis-Wigenton, who was a judge in New Jersey, among others. They shared stories of the old days and caught up on each other’s lives. Only Sheila, Donna and Susan knew of Earl’s romance with Catherine. And they were not sharing that information with anyone.
“Where’s Catherine?” Myron asked. He looked back at Earl. Susan, Donna and Sheila knew, but said nothing. Finally, Sheila said, “I think you’ll see her at the Best of Friends party tonight.”
“Sounds good,” Earl said with a smile. “We will see you all later.”
The men negotiated the huge crowd at the tailgate, running into old friends along the way. “You know what?” Sam said. “It’s a good thing we didn’t have all this when we were in school. I would have lost my mind.”
Before Earl could come up with a joke, he ran into a flurry of old classmates that made him feel good: Keith “Blind” Gibson, Kerry Muldrow, Jeff Jones, Zack Withers, Bruce Lee, Val Guilford, Laura Carpenter, Tony Carter, the twins from New York, Darlene and Darlynn, and Barbara Ray-Jackson from D.C.
“Our era is representing,” Jeff said. “We might feel like we’re fifty, but at least we don’t look it.”
“And I’d rather feel it than look it,” Laura said.
“Look at all this,” Darlene chimed in. “To see how much the school has grown can make you feel older. But when I look at these students . . . Did we look this young?”
“Not only that, but I was over here yesterday,” Tony said. “Have you all been around the campus? I haven’t been back in a while so this is shocking me. You see the cars these kids are driving. BMWs, trucks, Acuras, Infinitis. It’s crazy.”
“I know,” Val said. “And there are ATM machines everywhere. When we were in college, there was no need for ATMs because no one had any money.”
They all laughed.
“Exactly,” Earl said. “If I got twenty dollars in the mail, I had to live off of that for damn near a month.”
“I had a car, but I ran out of gas probably eight times because I used to put seventy-five cents’ worth of gas in it; two dollars at the max.”
“I ate so many Whoppers in college off the two-for-one coupon in The Spartan Echo that I haven’t had one since I graduated,” Blind said.
“Well, I had a gym bag full of Oodles and Noodles,” Zack said. “I would doctor those bad boys up with so much seasoning to make one package taste different from the next. It was crazy, but it built survival skills. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
“Me, either,” Darlene said. “We had a struggle, but we had fun. It was truly an adventure.”
“Let me tell you,” Val said. “I literally didn’t have money to eat. So I went to the guy in the cafeteria and struck a deal with him. He’d let me eat a few days a week if I cleaned up and did some work in the café. So that’s what I did. I had to broker something to make sure I got fed. And I don’t know if you could do that at any place but a black college. The guy understood where I was coming from and he wanted to help me. He related to me. But he didn’t want to just give me the food. He was teaching me about earning what I wanted way back then. I didn’t see the lesson then but I did years later.”
“Any honey I met who even looked like she might have money, I was on her,” Sam said. “You had to be resourceful to survive in college.”
“Not many of these kids today,” Darlynn said. “So many of them have credit cards and bank accounts and much more of a financial support system. Parents, aunts, cousins, godmothers can just go to a bank and deposit money into their account. Or they can use your cell phone to transfer money to someone. It’s a different day.”
They told a few more stories and started the ten-minute walk from the tailgate to Dick Price Stadium. But Earl wanted some more Alpha Punch, so he, Sam, Randy and Myron broke off from the group and retreated back to the Alpha section.
Nearby, they encountered the Davis brothers: Kent, Kevin and Hank—Kappas who were among the more respected guys on campus during their time at NSU. As they dapped each other up, over came more Kappas: Tony Starks, Bob White, Bob Z, Tony Sisco, Darryl Robinson and Kevin Jones.
They shared more stories and laughs before they all finally decided to head to the game. Earl had seen many of his friends who would be surprised that he and Catherine were together. That thought made him wish the day would go by quicker.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE TAILGATE, PART II
Jimmy, Carter and Barbara
“Man, I am tripping,” Jimmy said to Carter. “Look at this. I could not even imagine this. This is awesome.”
