A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars by Hakeem Oluseyi

Author:Hakeem Oluseyi [Oluseyi, Hakeem]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781984819093
Google: mQFxEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 55411736
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

40

During pledge period we’d have to sleep in our clothes because our big brothers could, and would, wake us in the middle of the night to make us recite frat history while standing on one foot while several others yelled at us, or gave us some impossible task to perform. Failure at any task resulted in physical punishment for either you or your line brothers.

One day our big brothers informed us pledgees that Kappa Alpha Psi brothers from all over the state would be converging on Jackson. They warned us to find a place to hide out for the night because the visiting Kappa brothers might wreak some serious havoc on our bones.

My line brother Hannis Longino was planning to hide out with a girl named Carla, who lived in the same dorm as Jessica. Shortly before midnight, we arrived at the ground-floor lobby, which was as far as boys were allowed to proceed in the all-girl dorms. Carla came down to meet us and, with help from a lookout, snuck us upstairs to the third-floor hallway. Hannis tried to get me to knock on Jessica’s door, but I was too chicken. So Hannis rapped on her door and ran away down the hall with Carla.

A moment later the door opened, and Jessica was standing there in her pajamas.

I didn’t know where to put my eyes, or what to say. I looked down at her ankles and whispered, “A bunch of Kappa brothers are coming on campus tonight, and I have to hide out.” I raised my gaze up to her eyes. “Can I stay in your room?”

“Yeah, you can,” she responded in that sweet Southern belle voice of hers.

At Tougaloo everyone took pity on the pledgees and tried to help us out. Sometimes this meant giving us food. Sometimes it meant helping with our academic work. And sometimes it meant allowing us to hide out in their dorm rooms. So I figured Jessica was just taking pity on me. As I followed her back into her darkened room, I could tell that her roommate, Kenya, was in the twin bed across from hers.

Since I hadn’t showered in a week—what with all the chaos and mayhem of pledge period—I thought it polite and respectful to lie down on the floor between the twin beds.

After a few moments, I heard Jessica’s voice calling softly in the dark. “Come up here and sleep in the bed with me.” My brain tried to uncover the logic beneath that invitation. Jessica was Denard’s woman. Jessica was out of my league. I was a dirty, smelly mess. What was wrong with this picture?

I peeled off my shoes and socks and crawled into the bed with her. Then, for the first time since I was five and sharing a bed with Bridgette, I cuddled with someone. Jessica laid her arm across my midsection and scooted up close to me. Her cheek was touching mine. I’d never experienced this level of intimacy or the gentleness of a female touch in this way.

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