Karola College’s campus was just as beautiful at night as it was in the daylight. The lamp posts around the quad illuminated the statues of the school’s founders, one for each path. Winston Aquinas’ granite eyes watched Andre trot his path until he reached the bridge. Andre still couldn’t get over how overwhelmingly white his soon-to-be freshmen class was; the emerald green of the grass and Victory by Puff Daddy and the Family blearing from the lacrosse field had distracted him during his college tour. He was happy his mother found three other black mothers to bond with during her stay. He wondered where the three black daughters had gone off to. He wondered if he’d find any other black people during his Freshman Summer Orientation, but he doubted it.
It was only after Andre crossed the bridge that he saw two black men and one of the daughters, Candace, hanging out at the front desk of his dorm for the weekend. He rushed to the door so quickly, he forgot to take his temporary swipe card out of his pocket and embarrassed himself by jerking on the door so hard he flew backwards when it didn’t open. One of the black men laughed as Candace opened the door for her new friend. “Hey. Are you alright?” she asked.
He brushed himself off as he stood and entered the building. “I meant to do that,” he replied.
“Sure, you did. Dumb shit like that is how people remember you: for better or for worse,” the man working behind the desk laughed. He was a short black man with a long goatee, his work shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal his scrawny arms.
The slightly overweight but finely dressed black man who hadn’t laughed approached Andre. “Don’t mind, Tyree. He’s had a slow, painful night cause he’s been behind that desk since 4pm.”
“I shoulda been outta here at 8, yo! Ain’t nobody ask me to work this double,” Tyree protested. Andre noticed the clock on the wall behind Tyree; it read 11:47.
“I’m Kain, by the way. And you are?” Kain extended his hand to Andre who was dumbfounded for some reason. He felt himself akin to the two men in the lobby for more reason than one.
Candace sprang into action again. “His name is Andre. He’s a little shy from what I’ve been guessing, but he’s good people. Yo, Andre, these guys are sophomores.” Michael looked at the men again and realized that Kain’s facial hair was as patchy as his own, Tyree’s face silkier than his. Them being a year older seemed to check out.
“Damn, girl. I wanted to make Dre guess how old we were.” Kain pushed Candace softly on the shoulder as he sauntered back over to his spot next to the front desk.
“It’s Andre, actually.”
“He speaks! And no, I think you’re more of a Dre. Or at least you will be when you start to get more comfortable with your sexuality.”
Andre blushed as a white student swiped into the building. He kept his head down until Tyree checked the student in and told them which hallway to head down. “I’m.. I’m bi, actually”
Kain smirked. “Please, sis, you’re just saying that; plenty of gays say the same thing. Ain’t no such thing as bi. Your walk says it all.”
Andre ignored his comment about bi guys. “My sister always said I walked funny. Shit, you think she knows, too?”
“Damn, boi, are you not out yet?” Tyree leaned over his counter.
“I mean, not completely. Like, I came out the last month of high school - and I plan on coming out at some point my first semester because fuck it, new school new me - but my family, no. No they don’t know. At least I don’t think they do.” Andre’s brow furrowed as he looked at Candace.
Candace put her hands up in defense. “Oh trust, I’m not gonna out you. My momma doesn’t know about me yet either.” Andre almost acted out in surprise but then he looked at what she was wearing: her hair dreaded with a snapback gingerly resting on top, a loose tank top with a t-shirt underneath, Nike Air Max (he guessed). He sprung over to Candace and hugged her tight. “Yo, you aight? We not that cool yet.”
“Let me linger a little longer,” Kain said. “He’s just happy to be around his new queer family.”
Andre released Candace from his grasp and turned to Kain and Tyree. “So you two, too?” They nodded. “So you two are…?”
Tyree and Kain laughed, Tyree a little harder than Kain. Kain crossed his arms and waited for his friend to catch his breath. “Boy, please,” Tyree started. “We go after the same niggas, not each other.”
Andre wondered if the two were rivals, looking them both over. After considering, he’d probably sleep with Tyree. Kain on the other hand, he seemed someone Andre could learn from. He carried himself with an air of total confidence and control. Without realizing it, Andre stared at him in admiration. Kain noticed.
“Well, listen, if ya’ll wanna hang out more, Tyree should actually be getting off in the next few minutes. You two are welcome to hang in our room if you want to avoid your white roommates for a little longer,” Kain offered. Like clockwork, a white girl with a green shirt like Tyree’s swiped into the building. She paused when she saw four black kids sitting around the desk.
“Oh, hey girl. Don’t mind them; they’re with me and we are definitely leaving,” Tyree said as he stood up with all his belongings already packed. He turned to Andre and Candace. “So ya’ll coming or naw?” The freshmen looked at each other and shrugged at each other, then nodded their heads.
Kain threw his arms around them. “Stick with us, young gays, and you too can survive the fuckery that is KaCo.” They mouthed “KaCo?” to each other. “KaCo. Karola College. Damn, ya’ll weren’t paying attention at all during ya’lls orientation, huh?”
~~~~
The demographic in the Cultural Resource Center (or CRC) was one completely opposite from the rest of Karola College. Everyday, students of color would study, eat lunch, or seek general refuge from their white peers in its third floor location of the Student Center. Tonight, however, a special event took place that drew in nearly every freshman of color who cared to be a part of the ethnic underground: The Mixer.
The Mixer, as its name implies, was a mixer held the second week of the Fall semester matching incoming students with upperclassmen in hopes that their transition into the college would be as smooth as possible. In its natural evolution, it became a mentor/mentee program that lasted year long occasionally leading to lifelong friendships.
Andre sat in a corner across from the glass door entrance. Now that the matching was over, he contemplated taking a plate of food back to his dorm, but he didn’t want to seem rude. Most of his friends from his pre-orientation the week prior were in attendance. He thought to say hello to Candace and the other girls he met during Summer Orientation, but they were too busy laughing with their new big sisters to look his way.
He turned his head and saw Jerry talking to Diaz, Andre’s RA. Diaz also happened to be Andre’s new mentor. Andre wasn’t sure why they had both been paired with him. Diaz seemed more than capable of handling two freshmen, but he seemed more of a match for Jerry. Both were from Brooklyn, business majors (at least Jerry intended on trying a few classes out), and loud as all hell. Though the CRC was a stew of conversation, their chat could be heard in its entirety by Andre.
“Yo, I’m telling you, don’t knock the cafe downstairs,” Diaz yelled. “Every thursday, the Mexican spot downstairs serves fried chicken burritos from the chicken spot next to them. Just don’t eat that shit every thursday; you don’t need to be gaining no freshman 15.”
“Nah, b. Never that.” Jerry and Diaz laughed. Andre mocked their laughing as he reached for his orange soda on the table next to them. He thought to join them, but his encounters with his RA weren’t too fruitful. He enjoyed hanging with his roommate Tyree more, who oddly enough was not in attendance. Andre realized it was not mandatory that everyone participated in the program. He only wished that at least a journalism major had signed up; that would have eased his frustration with not receiving his first pick.
He scanned the room again and saw Hank talking to an Asian upperclassman. He had never seen the Asian gentleman before, but Andre figured if anyone was going to match with White Hank it would be another minority within the minority group. It seemed like everyone had a better match than his.
A cackle broke out from the front corner of the room by the bookshelves. Andre hesitantly turned his gaze to the originator of the sound, though he already knew who it was from. There stood Kain laughing with his mentee Jared. Andre had only met Jared a few times in passing in the CRC, but he knew they were both apart of the same club. Partially thanks to what he thought to be his budding gaydar, but also because anywhere Jared was, Kain was right by his side. For a second, Andre thought Jared might have been Kain’s boyfriend, but after their first encounter Andre realized Jared was the gayer freshman. Jared and Kain would quote gay movie line after black movie line after chick flick line together, they complimented each other’s fashion, but the activity Andre deemed as their favorite was making him feel like a baby gay, which he was. He just hated the instant bond the two of them shared. If there was anyone he wished would have adopted two mentees, it was Kain.
Andre knew that the upperclassmen had a say in who they wanted to mentor, most of all talkative and persuasive Kain. It pained him to know that he wasn’t chosen, and he couldn’t figure out the reason why. He thought to go up to them or at least to join Diaz and Jerry’s conversation and eavesdrop on what they might be talking about.
“Hey. Andre, you aight, dawg?” Taylor asked. In his concentration, Andre hadn’t noticed his jock friend sneak up on him. He nodded he was fine. “Okay, I just wanted to make sure ‘cause you’re sitting by yourself and tearing up.”
Andre reached up to his left eye and wiped away the water that collected there. “No, I think I’m just tired. Yeah.. I stayed up too late and had an 8am class and I don’t really believe in naps. I, ah, I think I’mma head out.”
“Oh, aight. I’ll see you tomorrow then. GangGang!”
“GangGang,” Andre responded to his friend’s inside joke. He picked up his plate of food and left his half finished can of soda on the table. Diaz laughed at a reference Jerry made. Kain noticed as Andre left the CRC, making a note to himself to catch up with him later.
~~~~
April stormed out of Andre’s bedroom crying. She was a good Christian girl he had been courting for the last month hoping she might be the Topanga to his Corey Matthews. He now doubted she was the one.
“Well, she took that better than I would have expected,” Ravi said.
Andre moped in front of his laptop. “Is it bad I don’t even feel like running after her?” Ravi shrugged. “We’re good though, right?”
“Dude, you’ve been a great roommate and friend. We’re boys for life no matter what. This is nothing.” Andre appreciated being spared a white direct roommate, though his white suitemates weren’t bad guys. There was just something about having an Indian roommate that liked a whole slew of white music that made the culture shock a lot easier to handle.
“Thanks, Ravi. You’re great, too.” Andre turned back around to face his laptop. “I guess I should do some damage control before she starts blabbing.”
“Yeah, she’ll probably tell her roommates and then it’ll just spread from there. What are you gonna do?”
Andre pulled up his Facebook profile and began typing into the status bar. “Andre M Drake is… BIG, minus the G. And… posted.” A smile flashed across his face as a weight lifted.
“Dude, that’s badass. Hell of a headline.” Ravi reached under his bed and pulled out two shot glasses. “Soooo, shot to celebrate.”
“As tempted as I am to start drinking, I’m gonna hang onto to my sobriety and just ride this coming out high.”
“Fair enough.” Ravi stored one of the shot glasses back in its case and reached for his cheap vodka. “One of these days we’re gonna get smashed together, man.” As he poured himself a shot, Andre watched the likes on his status pour in. He was pleased his friends were as accepting as he had hoped, even Taylor and Jerry.
A minute later, Kain liked his status and sent him a text. “Come over,” it read. “We should talk.” Andre felt giddy; he had never been summoned to Kain’s dorm before. He wondered if his act of bravery would be rewarded with Kain accepting him as an honorary mentee. Hopefully he’d be a part of the shopping trips he took Jared on, he thought.
“I’m gonna go for a walk. I’ll probably be back in an hour or so.”
Ravi chased his shot with the last of an old can of Coke. “Fresh out the closet and already patrolling for guys. Go, Andre, go!”
Andre shushed his roommate. He would have to get used to people making those kind of jokes, but he welcomed them. He felt this was the beginning of something beautiful.
~~~~
“It was horrible, Candace,” Andre said as his friend opened her door and he barged in. He paced the floor of her dorm as she took a seat next to her laptop and phone. “That was not what I wanted. Not what I went over there for. He… he tricked me. I’m, I’m just confused.”
Candace leaned in. “You know, you never said why you were coming over, so a lil background would be nice.”
He stopped pacing and caught his breath. “Sorry. Did you see my status?”
“Yes, congratulations. Don’t know why you had to make such a big deal out of it, b--”
“I didn’t want April telling everyone before I could.”
“Oh shit,” Candace sat at attention. “So that’s why you did that?”
“Yeah, but that’s not even the biggest part of my night.” Candace sat back so that Andre could continue. “So after I posted that, I got a text from Kain saying he wanted me to come over. I’m like ‘Oh, cool, maybe we’re finally gonna be good friends now that I’m out.’ Well, I go over there and he’s drinking wine, which is fine. You know, it’s Friday night and all. People like to unwind. He offers me a glass, too, but I say I’m good. You know me.
“So we’re talking for a bit in his bedroom because he doesn’t have a common room. He’s telling me how proud of me he is for coming out, even if it was as bisexual. I try to tell him I really think I am and that bi guys exist, but he just rolls his eyes and finishes his wine. He goes out into his kitchen to get another glass, so I snoop around his room a little bit. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Then I see lube on his nightstand. I look a little closer and see his dildo’s head sticking out from under the bed. But like, we all have needs, so I think nothing of it.
“That’s when he comes back into the room. Candace, he came back in a wifebeater and his underwear. ‘Do you like what you see?’ he asks me. I don’t know rather he’s talking about himself or his nightstand, so I don’t answer. I just look down, not sure where to look. He walks up to me and hugs me. He’s… soft, obviously. Very warm. And I could feel his… yeah, he was at attention. I was confused. I was turned on. I didn’t know what to do. So I just went along with it.
“I let him strip me down. He pushed me on his bed, and he started going down on me. He would come up occasionally to kiss me, but he used too much teeth on my lips. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I got a little hard, but not enough to do anything. I took my flaccidness as a sign, and I started to push him off me. I told him I had to go and got dressed as fast as I could. And now I’m here and I’m not really sure how to process all this. I just wanted to be friends with him. Learn from him.”
“Well, technically, he was about to teach you something,” Candace covered her mouth so that Andre wouldn’t see her smirking. “I’m sorry; that was rude. Are you gonna be okay?” She looked down at her phone as a notification flashed across the screen.
“Yeah, it wasn’t that traumatic. I just wasn’t expecting that. Like at all. Like, it’s not that I don’t find him attractive. I could. I just don’t. That sounds bad. It’s really not his size, though. Ugh. I just wanted him to mentor me. Is that so much to ask?” Andre collapsed on the floor next to Candace’s legs and leaned on them.
She pushed him off. “Well, it looks like he’s about to drag you. Kain just texted me about his time with you. He says you had erectile dysfunction.”
Andre didn’t respond. He had nothing to say anymore. He started to feel sorry he didn’t have any attraction to Kain; maybe things would have been easier. Maybe if he had sex with Kain, during their pillow talk he would have learned tricks of the gay trade. Maybe he would have discovered that all gay guys had sex with each other to get the sexual frustration out of the way so that they could be better friends. That’s how he met his best friend from high school, anyway. He wasn’t sure anymore. He tried to lean on Candace again, but she had stood up while he was lost in thought, texting Kain more. Instead he pulled himself up onto the couch and laid down, holding himself until he felt okay enough to walk home again.
~~~~
“Louis, you’ll be paired with… Andre.” Louis looked across the room to see Andre on his phone, his hand halfheartedly raised. He was on Grindr looking for a hookup, unsure of how to lead anyone to a better future, but he figured he couldn’t do a worse job than the year before him.
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