Chapter 4

There is a coolness in the air.

“Yo —- what y’all niggas up to?” Pompey asks.

He acts like he didn’t see what just happened with Taz kissing me but I know he saw it.   There is awkwardness all over Pompey’s face.   It should make Taz feel uncomfortable but Taz doesn’t seem to even acknowledge Pompey walking up.

I touch my lips.   There was a ferocity in Taz’s kiss but what he said after about my scars makes my body entire stir as though he’d lit a match in my mouth.  

“Ain’t shit.  Just talking,” Taz states staring at me instead of Pompey in a way that is so hot I feel a thrill run up my leg, “Dijon just agreed to be part of the band.”

“We still doing that man?  Maybe we should wait till the protests calm down.”

“Nah,”. Taz states,  “Dijon is gonna be the voice of the people.”

“You sure you want that kinda attention.   There’s a lot of civil unrest right now yo,” Pompey questions me.

He had a point.   I felt a little like me joining this band at a time where the entire city was paying attention to every word that I said as a victim of police brutality would make a statement.  

Pompey gives me a reason to rethink it but before I can say anything Taz interrupts.

“Pompey—why don’t you give us a second?”

Pompey looks over at me,  “Yo it’s getting late bruh.   You want me to take you home D?”

“I got him, nigga dam!” Taz states finally turning to Pompey.

The tension is thick for a reason.   Taz kind of snaps on him a little bit.   I don’t even expect it when he does it.   Taz was always aggressive in his own way but Pompey didn’t seem like a punk either in any way.  

Surprisingly though Pompey gives a little grunt and just says,  “Yeah aight…” before turning away.

“Y'all good?” I ask him.

He is looking off at Pompey in the distance, “That nigga a hater.  I know what he gonna say already.”

“What he gonna say?” I ask, interested at all the tension that just happened between the two.

He shakes his head, “Don’t worry about that shawty.  What just happened before he interrupted us?”

I can’t read his face when he says what he says.  He isn’t smiling.  He isn’t grimacing.  He’s just staring at me with this sexy ass curious look.  His eyes squinting in this mysterious way.  He was giving me a poker face and putting everything that happened back on me.

“You tell me,” I push it right back onto Taz, causing him to smirk a little bit.  I quickly add, “You’re the one who kissed me.”

“Ayo lower your voice nigga,” he states.

He does it in an aggressive way that think he really jerks forward to hit me or something.  That doesn’t happen.  He doesn’t hit me.  Instead, he grinds his body up against me on the car.   Somehow he presses himself up against me so aggressively that my legs separate on top of the car and his body intertwines against me.   I can almost feel the weight of his dick between my jeans.   He’s inches away from me.  I can smell the warmth of his breath.

“My bad,” I state.

“Yeah.  You’re bad, bro,” he states, “Get in.  I’m taking yo’ ass home.”

~

We get back to my side of town in no time.  He speeds through traffic to get me to my dorm.   I’m shocked when halfway through traffic he races another guy with me in the car.  I want to scream at him to stop but another part of me wants him to think I’m cool.  The cool side wins over.  So I sit there acting fucking cool as Taz races another car on the busy expressway going 115 miles per hour down a busy expressway.   I think somehow I must have passed out with my eyes open.   I didn’t make a peep though and when it was all over we were quickly on my side of town in front of my dorm.

I somehow managed not to piss myself through the whole episode.  But then I look over at Taz and realize his blood pressure hasn’t raised even a little bit.  He has this cool look on his face as though that high-speed moment was something he did every day.  He isn’t moved at all and he’s studying my face in this sexy way.

I wonder if I should just get out of the car or if I should spark up one final conversation.  It gets awkward but Taz is the first one to say something.

“You real dope,” he states, out of nowhere as we are parked, “Today was a trip.  A lot of firsts…”

“Like you kissing me?”

“Yeah nigga, what you think I was talking about?” He turns away from me as though he really has this little insecurity is embarrassed but somehow still is smiling through his embarrassment, “I don’t go around kissing boys and shit, man…”

“You liked it though,” I turn watching his smile get even wider.

He shakes his head acting like he is about to throw up, “Nah that shit was horrible.”

“Whatever…”

We both laugh.  He does this thing where he sucks on his bottom lip.  It drives me completely crazy, “On some real shit though,  did you and Coin ever get caught?”

I wonder if he’s concerned about Pompey walking up to us.  It’s as though its some sort of delayed reaction.  He was so in the moment when we were kissing that he didn’t even seem to care.  Looking at him now I don’t see the same focus.  It must have hit him by now that we were actually caught kissing.  

“Once.  We had sex in public and some drunk white boys recorded it for laugh.”

“Yo---you a freak!”

“It was your friend’s idea.”

I know I shouldn’t have said “your friend”.  I should have just called him Coin.  Me saying your friend seemed to change the entire mood.  We were already talking about the fact that there was a sex tape of me and Coin out there, but now I had to open my mouth and remind Taz about the fact that they were friends.

After a few quick seconds, Taz sighs, “Putting all the gay shit aside, it’s still kind of fucked up that I kissed my homie’s shawty.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I don’t know yet.  But maybe we should call it a night.”

He’s a little distant.  It seemed like the perfect night was completely ruined by me having a big mouth.  I look at him wondering if I should say goodnight again, shake his head, go in for a hug, or god-forbid a kiss.  I end up not doing any of those things and just turning away and walking off.

I reach for the door.   He grabs me up in this aggressive way pulling me down and pulling his face into mine, “Did I tell you, you can go nigga?”

“You trippin’,” I laugh.

He seemed to be getting a trip out of this aggressive dominant thing he had going on.   The truth was the sexual tension was at its peak when keeps grabbing me in the way that he does.  It’s as though he pulls me right to his face.  Almost to the point that he could kiss me.  It’s the same level of intimacy he had when he grind me against me on the car earlier.   I don’t know if he meant to have these physical moments on purpose with all this sexual tension but it just kept happening.  And I definitely wasn’t imagining it.  

I look down and see a tent in his pants.   He felt the same fucking tension.

Did he notice that he was on hard?  

That was the question.

“Get outta here man,” he tells me, “But we have rehearsal soon.  I’ll text you the time and you know the place…”

“OK…”

I stare at his lips.  A part of me wonders what his lips tasted like again.  I remembered so much about the feel but I was wondering now what they had tasted like.   What did he taste like?  I know I should leave but for some reason, I’m just staring at his lips as though in some sort of wild daze.   They are so thick and as though he notices me staring at them he licks them wetting them.  It makes me precum on my leg.

“What you staring at bro?” Taz asks.

“Man whatever.”

I reach for the door and as I try to exit, he grabs me and pulls me back down, “Did I tell you that you can leave?  I’m gonna have to teach you how I like to be treated.”

Taz sticks his tongue in my mouth.   His tongue is wet and juicy.  He shoves it to the back of my throat.   He manages to reach over to me and grab me gently but sternly by the throat.   The kiss is wet.  It’s so wet that when our lips separate a large string of spit spreads between us.  It’s nasty but he doesn’t seem to mind.   And honestly, it turns me on.

“I got it,” I state smiling.

He turns away.

“I’ll hit you up.”

~

I spend the whole next day thinking about Taz.   The way he smelled.  The way he felt and the way he tasted.  I’d never forget his taste.  The masculine taste of a sexy ass guy.  I felt like I had a teenage crush all over again or something.   The way I feel butterflies rush through my stomach is something different completely.   He wanted me too. Everything about it just had this rawness about it.  He wanted me, seriously.  And it was the sexiest thing ever.   I walk home from class that afternoon cheesing from ear to ear.  

I don’t expect Wren to be in the room when I get there.

He doesn’t have a shirt on.  He’s sitting on his bed writing something.  It’s in a small book that is stationed on his rock hard abs.   He has on these glasses that he takes out of his mouth and puts into his mouth when I walk in the room.

I turn back towards the door immediately thinking I’ll come back later when he’s in class or something.

“Don’t.  Can we talk?”

He stands up.  A part of me wants to straight-up say no.  He lied to me.   He never told me that his father was McHenry.  As he stands he looks like some wet dream off of a soap opera.  His cascading abs and the fact that he’s shirtless throws me completely off my guard.  Then he looks at me with these almost smoldering eyes.

I find myself struggling to be mean and just end up shrugging and saying, “I got class…”

“It’ll just take a minute.”

“Got nothing to talk about.  ”

“Cool. Then just listen.”

Fuck.

How’d I end up in this conversation?  

After a second he opens up a letter.   It’s wrinkled and looks a bit disheveled like it had been worked a bit more than normal.   He grabs the paper and holds it in front of his rock hard and.   His body is almost statuesque as he sits there.   I have to admit it’s one of the sexiest views that I’d seen in a minute.  

He had to be the finest all American, jock, muscular bodied, blonde white boy that I’d ever met.  

“I know,” he licks his lips that are already quite wet and pink causing me to draw attention directly to them, “I know I’m not a black man in America…”

“Oh fuck, Wren,” I roll my eyes terrified at where the fuck I could see this going.

He’s serious though.   He’s not making a joke about anything or mocking me in any way.  To my shock, he looks at me as though he was in all honesty starting off some racial explanation off with a Dear John letter.   That’s when I realize in all honesty Wren was being his sincere self.   I had to remember this wasn’t some boy from the hood finessing his way through life.  This was the boy next door.  Sweet and innocent.  His authentic self.

Something about me that made me melt.  It made me want to apologize even before he corrects me.

“Can you listen?”

“Sorry.  Go ahead.”

He leans into me, dropping the letter and looks me dead in my eyes as though letting me know he didn’t need a fucking letter to explain what he needed to explain.  It’s so intense how he looks at me.  For that moment I forget he’s the son of Officer McHenry.  I forget anything about that.  I just see him for him.  His all American, Christian Republican boy sincere self.

“I know I’m not a black man in America, but I would like to say that I’m a white man who doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.  And I mean that.   I know it sounds weird that I didn’t tell you who my father was but me and my father do not speak.  I haven’t spoken to him since I was 7.  He was a deadbeat father.   And I felt bad about what he did to your...friend.”

“My boyfriend,” I correct him.

He nods, “Yeah, your boyfriend.  I’m being honest that I had no mal-intention towards you ever.  If anything I consider myself an ally to you.  And I feel like you know that we can be friends.  Real friends.  And maybe that's what really scares you.  But I’m not here to hurt you.  I’m not here to save you.  I’m not here to do anything but be cool with you.  If you let me.  Be there for you if you let me.  Only if you let me.”

It’s as though he drops the mic after he reads what he reads.  He turns around quickly.  If I wanted to respond I had the feeling that I would somehow not be able to match the intensity fo the words that just came out of his mouth.  So I don’t try to respond.  And he doesn’t expect me to respond.   He turns away rolls over in bed and goes to sleep.

~

The next morning he silently sneaks off when he thinks I’m asleep.  The thing was is he usually jogs every morning and every night.  He mentioned once it was how he kept his body right for Celine.   But it was weird because every time he was around me he seemed to somehow show it off.  

When he comes back he’s shirtless dripping in sweat and looking down at me like he has something to say.  For the longest time, he doesn’t say anything.  

It isn’t until I turn to him and say, “I’m not leaving…”

I don’t know why the words come out but the truth is I can’t be mad at Wren.  He seems relieved as he opens up his mouth and quickly states, “Good cause I was going to invite you to rush week.”

Rush week was a week in the beginning of the school year where all the fraternities threw these wild parties. It was more officially known as recruitment week, and is the period when fraternities and sororities recruit students to their respective Greek letter organizations.

I knew from Andrew, who was in my Political Studies class that his fraternity Psi Omega Sigma were attempting to recruit Wren.  And why not?  Wren looked like them.  All tall, athletic, young handsome white boys who had no worries in the world.  Everything would be simpler for these boys and it was written all over their faces.

“Not usually the people I hang out with,” I tell him.

“Am I not the type of person you’d hang out with?”

“I didn’t say you.”

“Well, I’m the only one you’re hanging out with.”

I don’t know why he’s able to convince me to come with him.  Wren has this way of convincing me to do things without even trying.  I can’t even believe that he is the son of the guy who was responsible for the most traumatizing moment in history.  I want to forget that part of him though.  I wanted to remember the part of him that paid attention to me, that looked at me as though I was the only person in the room.  That’s the kind of guy I wanted to be friends with.

~

The party is pretty much the typical white party.  I’m not the only black one there.  There were a few others but these were the kind of black guys that came from wealthy families, dating Barbies and drove Ferraris.  Strangely enough, though I don’t feel odd or awkward.   When I’m around Wren it just feels like we disappear together.

“I regret nothing.”

He has his hand over my shoulder.  He’s drunk already and he tends to get a bit more clingy when he’s drunk.    It’s nice to see Wren in his element.  Not apologizing about crossing a line or desperately trying to apologize for his white privilege.   This was Wren comfortable.  This was him happy.  

And it was infectious.

“Not even when you said you and your boys played that game where you sat around in jockstraps and the object was to toss a rubber ball in your opponent's genitals…”

“Nutball.  I regret one thing.”

We laugh deeply with one another.  I forget about the weird stares.  I forget about possibly hearing the words dindu nuffin uttered under someone’s breath as I walk past.   I forget some drunk boys bump into me only a few minutes ago and didn’t apologize.  Shit like that made me wonder if they knew me from tv or something.  Were they bumping into me on purpose?  I’d be stressed about it if Wren didn’t have a way of making me laugh and keep my attention.

If these racist white boys wanted attention they weren’t going to get it from me.  

My phone rings and I look down and see who it is.

Taz.

What the fuck?

“Do you mind?” I ask Wren.

“It’s that mad guy.  He calls a lot doesn’t he?” Wren asks, “Guess you guys close?”

Weird question. Taz had called a few times today.  I didn’t know what he wanted, but he kept calling back.  It was becoming clear he wouldn’t stop calling until I picked up the phone. Weird time to ask the question.  Perhaps it was rude to ask for interruption but the way Wren reacts definitely seems a bit bothered.

“Kind of.  It’ll just take a minute,” I state.

“I’ll go get us something to drink.”

I watch as he walks away.  The boy was all sorts of fine and he knew it.   I bet Celine had to fight off a whole army of white blonde girls to lock him down.  She seemed like the fierce kind of girl to win that fight.

I’m so hypnotized by the way Wren’s ass sits perfectly in his jeans as he’s walking away that I almost forget Taz is on the phone.

When I remember I jump on the phone and let out a low, “Hey....”

I can hear breathing.  Hard heavy breathing on the phone.

“Don’t you ever ignore me for any nigga again, especially a white boy, you hear me?”

There is a seriousness in Taz’s tone.  It almost scares me a little bit hearing him react to those few seconds I was communicating with Wren and had him on hold.   I hadn’t realized he’d heard the whole back and forth I’d had with Wren.

“My bad Taz…”

“What are you doing?   You at the Rush week shit aren’t you?”

“How do you know about Rush week?” I ask Taz.

He laughs, “Who you think I sell the weed to?  These white boys love me.   I know all about their little events.   I just did a sale so I’m on campus.   I’m here to scoop you up.

“Wait what?  Now? Why?”

“I want you to be with me.  Nah sike.  We wanted to do a full band rehearsal....” he tells me, before pausing and sighing out a, “Why you sound so nervous?”

“You could have given me a bit of notice…”

“I been calling you all day.”

“I’m kind of busy man.”

“Well, I want to see you.  So either you come to me or even better how about I come to you…”

Was he joking?  I look around.  I’m so nervous and then all I hear is laughter on the other end of the phone.  He knew that this was an all-white party.  I was softer and more agreeable in this sort of setting.  How would my school react to someone as revolutionary as Taz?

“Taz---- you wouldn’t….Taz?  Taz!”

He hangs up.  

Fuck I had to get back to my dorm before he figured out how to get to this party.  I look around desperately for Wren and see that he’s found his girlfriend Celine.  Standing with her is Andrew.  

“Dijon, look who I ran into,” Wren states.

“Oh shit it’s my homie Dijon,”  Celine says with a laugh.  

Andrew just gives me this wince and this almost laughs.  It’s the rudest thing ever but I don’t know if I expect anything more from him at this point.  

“Hey…”

“Are you feeling good here?  Is this place comfortable to you?”

The way she asks me it just makes me feel uncomfortable.  As though I’m sort of charity that she needs to tend to.   Why would this place not be comfortable for me?  I feel like I just enter some fake 1950s racist dialogue.  

“Is it comfortable for you?” I ask, “Kinda weird how you and Andrew just so happen to be here together when we run into you guys.”

Celine looks like she’s about to cry, “What are you insinuating?”

“Check your friend, Wren.  Or whatever you call it,” Andrew states, “Before I do.”

It?  He called me IT.  

I open my mouth to respond.   Before I get the chance to respond I see three rush forward and jump in front of me like some hard wall.  I notice immediately that it is Taz and the boys approaching in an aggressive stance.

“Hey, hey there are no issues,” Wren states.

“What was with your girlfriend asking me about if this place is comfortable for me?”

“That what you mad about?  She is the one who threw the party.  She’s been asking everyone…”

All of a sudden it’s clear that I may have overreacted.   I may have really done something that I can’t take back.

Celine almost immediately shakes her head and says,  “Not everything is about race.”

I turn to Wren,  “I’m sorry man…”

“You should apologize to them...not me.”

“He ain’t apologizing for shit—“ Taz starts.

“No I’m sorry,” I correct Taz looking specifically to Celine and reluctantly to Andrew.

I was wrong and what’s even worse is that I embarrassed myself in front of Wren.  I know Taz didn’t like it but I didn’t care what Taz thought or liked at this moment.  None of it mattered.

“It’s OK,  I know a way you can repay me,” Celine interrupts,  “I heard you have this amazing voice.  And the thing is that the band called out.”

She looks at the stage.  She doesn’t have to ask me because she was making it quite clear that she wanted me to perform.  I stare at the stage centered around a bunch of drunk frat boys and the chicks who followed them around like their dicks did magic tricks.  

Taz shakes his head,  “Not for you…”

Pompey pushes him aside, “What he means is not without his band?”

I’m glad at least one of them wasn’t completely acting out at this moment.  

“What ya gonna do--- rap?” Andrew asks.

“Andrew you heard him on tv.  You were with me when we saw him sing,” Wren calls out his friend.

Of course, he knew I sang.  There was a reason I had been targeted thus far.  Andrew wanted to be racist.  I want to call it out again for Wren but a part of me realizes he just doesn’t see the little things they say as problematic.  Why would I be a rapper?  Why is that the default?  Was it because I was black?

“We can show you better than I can tell you,” this comes surprisingly from Taz.

I’m surprised when he says what he says.  I almost immediately know Taz is up to something when I pull him off to the side.

“What the hell are you doing?  We aren’t prepared to sing anything tonight.  Besides the people in this school have been horrible to me.”

The stares had intensified since now there were four of us at their party instead of just 1.    Andrew seemed like he was really popular too.  Something told me his friends didn’t take well to Taz, Kesean, and Pompey jumping in his face in the way they did.  This place just seemed tense.   Really tense.  

I’m not sure if us performing for this crowd would be good in any way.

Taz glints his eye, “I have an idea.”

~

I don’t know how he convinces me to do it.  I don’t know how he convinces me to get on the stage in front of these people that have taken a tragedy in my life and made it a joke.  This was coming from Taz too.  Taz, the guy who would probably think we were coons for performing in this side of town.

But he had convinced me.

And all eyes were on me.  All these eyes had turned wondering what these black boys were doing on their stage.  No one claps.  Not really.   They just stare.

And that’s when I begin to sing to my band playing their instruments in the background.  

“Lift ev'ry voice and sing

'Til earth and heaven ring

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the list'ning skies

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on 'til victory is won.”

At first, the crowd is quiet but then the boos start.  It isn’t until the end of the concert when whispers spread about what it is we are singing that more boos start.  And before we know it we are being completely booed off stage.

I can see the look in Taz’s eyes and see that he’s getting the reaction he wants.

Pompey on the other hand looks nervous, “We need to get out of here.   Done got all these white boys mad…”

He had a point.  I’m clamoring to walk off the stage trying to pull Taz off the stage.  He’s gotten to eyeing all these white boys back with just as much anger.  He was trying to make sure they knew he wasn’t scared of them at all.

I’m able to get Taz to the parking lot when I see someone running up on me.  I turn around quickly and realize that it’s just Wren.

“Hey slow down man.  You can’t run up on us like that,” he states.

“Why are you running away?” he asks, “I’m so confused.   Your singing was awesome.  I don’t get why everyone was booing like that.”

The look was plastered all over his face.  His ignorance was showing.  It's a pure ignorance though as though this view of the world was something completely new to him.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t been around a lot of black people but the more I thought about it felt like he hadn’t been around black people at all.  Otherwise, he would know how people could be.

“You don’t get it.  You don’t know what I sang?”

“No...it was beautiful but I’d never heard it.”

“It was the Negro anthem…”

He still looks so confused, “So?”

“You don’t think it’s provocative for the black boy who is the star witness in sending a white cop to jail sings the Negro anthem to an all white school.”

Some of those men recognized the song and told the others.  It had cleared around the party and by the time some people were booing others picked up off it too.  

“Don’t listen to those fuckin people man.  I loved it,” he states, “You and your band.  You’re fucking talented.   It sounds even better in person.”

We stare each other in the eyes.  It’s for a long time.  Until I see Taz heading back up towards the party.  Just looking at the look on his face I could tell he was about to do something that wasn’t a good idea.

“Whoa, where you going?”  I call out.

“I left my phone at the keyboard,” he states.

“No way you’re going back in there,” I state.

“Why?” Taz asks.

Taz was really giving me a look as though I’m the one who is tripping to think him in this setting wasn’t a good idea so quickly after Coin's death.    The song was his idea and we’d just rolled with it.  

Wren raises his hand trying to be nice I assume, “I can get it.”

“I don’t need your fuckin help yo,”  Wren snaps at him with an aggressiveness that just comes clearly out of nowhere.  

I’m immediately embarrassed, “That’s why.   Stay here.  I’ll go get your phone.”

I run off back towards the party.  Immediately I realize that it’s a bad idea for me to go back to this place myself.  The stares that I see are immediate.  And my little provocation didn’t go unnoticed.  

“That’s not our FUCKIN’ anthem, boy!”  someone shouts out from the crowd.

“All lives matter!” another one shouts out.

I feel the heat from the crowd.  I shouldn’t have come back.  Not alone.   There was no sign of Wren.  There was no sign of Trey or Pompey or even Kesean.  

They were trying to prompt me to stop.  To be loud.  They were trying to have a reason to beat my ass.  And soon I realize a wave is going over the crowd.  An anger.  I pick up the phone and start heading back.  The more I retreat the harder they come at me.

They want a confrontation.

That’s when I feel some white boy come out of no where and shove me, “You sending an innocent man to jail!  You know that?”

They were angry.  For the first moment, people were confronting me head-on.  They’d done it behind my back.   Lighting my car on fire.  Writing racist things.   The stares.  All that shit made me know they didn’t want me here.  But now maybe it was the alcohol.  Or maybe it was the song that Taz had me singing as a provocation.  Something had pushed these people over the edge finally.

“Don’t fuckin touch me!”

I swerve past him and take off running.  I clear out the first area that I’m in and try to make my way to parking lot.  I wasn’t taking any risks around these people at this point.  

And I try to dive into a room to get away from the crowd.  I realize that I’m in the back of a closed store.

And as I turn I realize that I’ve walked up on two people having sex.

The moaning was shown off at this deep friction and I realize I run on something slick when I see exactly which two people were fucking.   Celine and Andrew.  Celine’s legs were flipped up over Andrew’s shoulders.  

“I knew it...I fuckin knew it…”

“Do something!  DO SOMETHING!”  Celine says.  

I’m headed to the door when I hear Andrew’s voice.

“You tell Wren about this and we’ll release the video…”

I stop and turn.

“The video?”

It’s that moment I remembered a video I did a long time ago. A video I made with Coin.  The only video that I wished was buried in all of this madness.   There was no way he could be talking about the same video right?  There was no way in hell that Andrew had a copy of it.

“The video of you and that dead boy having sex,” Andrew tells me.

To read the next chapter of the story go to www.crushedcrown.com