see him. What could he say? Iss all true. Most a the shit is stuff he been sayin’ he wuz gittin’ t’gether, but he ain’ done nuthin’.’
Odds already knew where Earl had been. Chances were that Baker had known too. Earl seldom came on campus on Wednesday since he didn’t have a class. For a second Odds was tempted to point this out to the students in the room, but he decided that there would be little reason. He wanted to tell them that Earl had been trying to get things together too, but his association with Earl would have made everything sound like a mere cop out.
‘Later,’ he said, sliding back out into the hall. Echoes of the discussion followed Odds back into his room, but his mind was far away. What should he do? Call Earl? No. Earl probably wouldn’t be at home by now. What time was it? Just past seven his watch told him. The best thing would be to try and find Earl and get something started. Started? Ended? Stopped?
It was at that moment that Odds thought of Lawman. Lawman was a good friend. He was surprised, as he thought about it, that Lawman had not called him. If ever there was a guy who could sort out a political mess it was the ever-serious pre-law major.
Odds grabbed a dime from the top of his desk and padded back out into the darkened hall. Quickly he uncradled the receiver and dropped a dime into the pay phone. He turned the dial seven times and waited. The phone rang twice.
‘Hullo?’
‘Hello. Lawman?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Look, brother. This is Odds. We got problems. Have you heard?’
‘’Bout what?’
‘As near as I can tell Baker an’ his knuckleheads took over Earl’s program this afternoon an’ s’pose to be goin’ to Calhoun’s t’night.’
‘Goddamn!’ Lawman breathed. ‘When did this happen?’
‘This afternoon. Were you on campus?’
‘I had a one o’clock class. I went to it an’ then I split.’
‘You didn’ hear?’
‘Nuthin, man. I met this bitch over here at two. She was talkin’ ’bout calculus, but you know better than that.’
‘Yeah. I know ’bout what got calculated …’
‘Where were you?’
‘In bed. Man, I had me a ass-kickin’ chest cold all week.’
‘You sound like it. Where’s Earl?’
‘You got me. Out makin’ like a hero I guess.’
‘Tryin’ to carry it by himself too. He didn’t call me.’ Lawman was thoughtful. ‘Whew! Man, this is too much. I can hardly get this shit together.’
‘I know.’
‘Where you at?’ Lawman asked.
‘In the dorm.’
‘Let’s get together an’ talk this over. I was jus’ sittin’ down to eat when you buzzed. You want to come over here and have a bite to eat?’
‘No grit, man. I figger with a half-gallon of Esso Extra or something I might be able to deal … why don’ you meet me at O’Jay’s ’bout eight o’clock?’
‘All right,’ Lawman agreed. They hung up.
Odds scuffled back down the hall to his room and prepared to wash up and brush his teeth. He was no longer concerned with the nagging cough and chest cold that had kept him in bed.
The Lawman turned back to a small pot of soup and the slices of ham that rimmed his plate. His small one-room apartment was a mess. Records were scattered all over the floor near his record player. The books he had been attempting to deal with when the young woman arrived earlier in the afternoon were still open and loose-leaf notes from his notebook had blown onto the floor. His small army cot in the corner was a disarranged mess with the stained sheets from three hours of love-making tangled up at the foot of the bed. He stepped over to the sink next to the hot plate and rinsed his mouth out and splashed his face with a double handful of cold water.
‘Rraugh!’ he snorted as the water shocked his circled, reddened eyes. He felt around the wall for the wrinkled towel and rubbed his face roughly when he ripped it from the rack.
‘Fuck!’ he cursed out loud. Then he sat down to eat.
Earl’s green Oldsmobile wheeled through the open gates at the mouth of the university. The arch stretching between two twenty-foot-high stone pillars announced: SUTTON UNIVERSITY. A small wooden plaque nailed into one of the columns noted that the arch had been donated by the class of 1939.
Fifty feet from the gate was a huge oval flower bed, containing now, in autumn, only dead reminders of the blazing color that had decorated the front of Sutton’s administration building from early spring until late summer. An arrow in front of the flower bed pointed all traffic to the right, around the famous circle that emptied into a large parking lot.
Earl drove slowly past the Ad Building, Washington Hall, the remodeled Student Union Building, Adler Annex, Paul Lawrence Dunbar Library, and Simmons Hall which housed almost six hundred men. To his left, the old science building, Carver Hall, Garvey Plaza for freshmen women, Mallory Hall for upperclass women, and the three-story fraternity house which had once been for home economics (before Adler Annex) completed the other half of the oval.
Earl parked in the ample lot, took a look at himself in the rear-view mirror, lit a cigarette, and got out. The newborn wind whistled at him. Smoke came from the chimney atop the small wooden hut that housed the security guard in the corner of the area. He saw through the naked branches of trees a pale-eyed, unblinking moon that hovered low in the sky like an oval of cold, shadowy clay.
Jonesy was standing on the steps of the frat building. The stocky MJUMBE chieftain, who played linebacker on the football team, was dressed in a black, short-sleeved dashiki and dark trousers.
‘Niggers always rather be hip than warm,’ Earl thought as he contemplated how strongly the wind was whipping against the short-sleeved African shirt.
Jonesy looked as though he wanted to say something, but noting the cold indifference on Earl’s face he merely nodded. He led the way into the building.
The first floor was in total darkness. Earl could hear couples positioning themselves in the dark. It was against school regulations for women to be in the frat houses unless there was a chaperoned dance or some other university-sanctioned function going on. The frat men gave little attention to what school regulations stipulated. They unscrewed the first floor lightbulbs and did as they damn well pleased.
‘Upstairs,’ Jonesy mumbled.
The
