Yardley Brown, Age 20
North Carolina Central University
October 1994
“Big Brother Smooth Operator!” His lip was trembling as he screamed it out. Yelling wasn’t acceptable; they had to scream out our names to even be acknowledged.
“What, punk?” I asked my pledge as he stood in front of me, saluting me with his right hand. “What the hell do you want, punk?”
“I request your presence tonight at my honors banquet, Big Brother Smooth Operator!” he screamed.
Alicia Osborne was sitting beside me on the bench in front of the student union. She giggled while I glared up at him. “Why do you think I’d want to go to an honors banquet, punk?”
“Because I can’t attend without your permission, Big Brother Smooth Operator.”
“And?” I asked. It was true that he wasn’t allowed to take a good shit without asking me first. Everything they did on line was our business. “You can go to your stinking banquet, punk, but again I ask you why I’d want to go?”
“Because I want to make you proud of me, Big Brother Smooth Operator!”
I had to give it to Belford. He managed to keep his calm on line, unlike most of the pledges. Hell, when I’d pledged the year before, I was scared out of my wits most of the time. Belford came from money; pure and simple. His father was a multimillionaire who had made his money with overseas investments. With only a fourth grade education, he’d managed to start out as a longshoreman in Maine, learn about life and money from the wealthy men he worked for, and make his own way in life. Belford Springfield, Sr. was a famous man and his son, Belford, Jr., my responsibility while he pledged my fraternity, was likely to follow in his footsteps. Belford was brilliant, polished from attending the best boarding schools in the country, and destined for greatness. Yet, he could get down and dirty like the rest of us.
Part of me wanted to tell Belford that I was proud of him, but that wouldn’t have been considered “cool.” The brothers of Psi Omega Chi didn’t play niceness with pledges. Shit, all of us had been hazed and ridiculed to gain the honor for life. They had to do the same. It hurt me to come out my mouth with it but I said, “Belford, you can go to the banquet but I’ve got better shit to do.” I took Alicia’s hand. “I’ve got business to handle.”
He seemed like he wanted to cry. All the late night degradation and stupid assignments were taking their toll on him. He had to be strong though. Once it was all over in two more weeks, I planned to make him my partner for life.
Felix, Mike, and Dwayne—my best friends from high school—had all decided to attend different schools. We’d decided that we could wreak four times the havoc by spreading out nationwide and meeting women from all over the country; possibly the world. They were more into being pussy bandits—seeing how many women they could get in the sack—while I was trying to find the real thing with someone special.
I’d never forgotten the expression on Roxie’s face the night of my sixteenth birthday party, after I’d been sucked off by that hooker. I ended up sleeping with an older woman my first time. Her name was Joan and she worked as a nurse at the Washington Hospital Center. I’d taken a summer job there in the morgue. Dismal job but it was the only thing I could find at the time. My parents, both elementary educators, couldn’t fathom why I’d choose to do that kind of work. They said I could do landscaping, painting, or work as a plumbing apprentice. None of that interested me and besides, no one was banging down my door to hire a seventeen-year-old.
Working at the morgue had given me a new appreciation of life. I remember my first day, seeing the dead bodies and thinking, So this is how it all ends! To think that one day I would be laid out on a slab, headed to a funeral home to be embalmed so I could push up daisies in a cemetery made me want to live each day to the fullest even more. I guess that’s why I went for it when Joan, a thirty-three-year-old single mother of two, asked me out on a date. At first, she didn’t realize I was still a minor; I definitely didn’t look it. I lied and told her I was twenty-four. She bought it; hook, line and sinker.
Our first date was the circus, believe it or not. There I was surrounded by clowns, stinky elephants, and tigers, holding cotton candy in one hand and a stuffed giraffe in the other. Joan’s two kids—a three-year-old boy named Adam and a five-year-old girl named Patti—were both products of a short-lived marriage. Joan’s ex-husband wanted no part of sharing custody and had, in fact, moved away to California, which was as removed as he could get without leaving the country altogether.
The daddy thing wasn’t fairing too well with me but I hung in there for two months. Joan was surprised that I didn’t try to have sex with her right away. I was equally surprised that she didn’t expect me to rock her world from time to time. She’d been married and had borne two kids so she was obviously experienced; something I definitely was not.
It all came to a head one night while Joan’s kids were spending the night with her parents in Richmond, Virginia. We were sitting on the floor in front of her fireplace, watching the kindling merge into the flames, when she came right out and asked, “Yardley, don’t you find me attractive?”
“Of course,” I immediately answered.
“Then why haven’t you tried to fuck me?”
Fuck? Not make love, have sex with me, but fuck!
“That’s such a harsh statement,” I told her. “I’d like to think that if we do anything, it would be making love, not fucking.”
“What’s the difference?” she inquired with a serious expression on her face.
At that point I was curious. Here was a woman with much familiarity with sex and she didn’t know the difference between making love and fucking. I’d always thought there was a clearly defined line; even though I hadn’t done either.
I attempted to answer anyway. “Making love is when two people genuinely care about each other and want to ensure pleasure for the other person. Fucking is when each person is out for themselves.”
She giggled and took a sip of her Chardonnay. I was drinking a beer, even though I wasn’t of age.
“Okay, whatever,” she said. “That still doesn’t tell me why you haven’t made a move on me.”
“You haven’t made a move on me either; other than kissing.” I teased her long auburn hair with my finger. “Besides, your kids are always here and I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing something with them in the house.”