That’s Not How That Works
Caesar stared aimlessly across the quaint dining. The other patrons, middle aged or older and all white, for the most part fit into the aura of the city’s newer country club. However, the 16-year-old cut a stark contrast to them with one elbow folded across the table and the other bent up to hold a glass in front of his face. Even his clothes marked him as different. More expensive, perfectly tailored, but haphazardly thrown on.
His phone vibrated on the table and he looked down to see an unknown 985 number flash across the screen. He almost dropped the glass to reach for it but stopped short when he saw it was just someone already in his phone telling everyone they’d gotten a new number. There was a brief urge to smack the phone off the table in anger, but he held it back.
Two fucking months. Two whole fucking months.
Emma walked up to the side of the table, digging in her clutch. “All done. Did you pay the check?”
Caesar pushed away from the table and laughed to himself as he gathered his phone from the table to drop into his pocket. Placing a hand at the small of her back, he prodded her toward the door.
A rotund man with an ill-fitting suit stood up as Caesar and Emma passed his table. “Is that Caesar Jenkins? Hell of game last night, son. I haven’t seen moves like that since I was putting them on the first Mrs. Lapeyrouse.”
The other men at the table chuckled at the “joke.”
Caesar shook the man’s hand when he offered it. “Thank you, sir. It was a good game for us.”
Jamie Lapeyrouse had held court over Terrebonne Parish for the last three years as the parish’s chief executive – the parish president. Like most well-to-do folks in Terrebonne, he was a benefactor of Vandebilt – despite having graduated from South Terrebonne -- and knew all of the sports stars.
“A Jenkins boy being modest.” He threw an arm around Caesar’s shoulders and turned to the able. “Y’all remember when we were in school with his daddy? He was an annoying little fucker and he knew it!”
“You’re lucky he ain’t go into politics or he’d be parish president,” a second man said.
“And he’s had fewer wives. Would’ve been a landslide,” another one offered.
“Y’all shut your traps,” the parish president said. He looked at Emma by Caesar’s side and gave her a once over. He turned back to Caesar and smiled. “I see, even at a young age, you teach your women to be seen and not heard and I can respect that. Your daddy wouldn’t have, but if you keep that up you might find yourself in Baton Rouge when you decide to stop playing football.”
Emma looked up from her phone and opened her mouth, but Caesar tugged at the back of her dress to stop her.
“I don’t know if politics are my calling, but thanks for the vote of confidence,” Caesar said. He held his hand out again. “Not to make this brief, but there’s some game film that I need to help a teammate look at.”
Lapeyrouse took his hand and practically shoved Emma away as he pulled Caesar closer so he could whisper. “You remember my daughter, Alexis, right? Up at Nicholls?”
Caesar nodded.
“She’s been dating this guy with no future. If you get tired of that one, you give me a call and I’ll set the two of you up. Can’t have my little girl ending up broke and unhappy.”
Caesar pulled away and smiled. “Thanks for the tip, sir.” He looked over at the table. “You gentlemen have a good lunch, now.”
Emma turned to him when they’d gotten out of the door. “What’d he say to you?”
“Investment tips,” he said as he got into his car that the valets had let him park in a spot reserved for the country club’s owner right next to the door.
…
“I think we should go on a trip with the others in December. We can’t really do the whole senior trip thing because we’re not all the same year,” Emma said from the passenger seat, fixing her hair in the mirror.
Caesar offered a placating acknowledgement as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel waiting for the light to turn green.
“Somewhere cold though. We can go to a fucking beach any day.” She stopped talking and looked over at him. “Are you listening to me?”
He glanced over at her and nodded. Behind her, he saw someone sitting on the curb outside of the Subway in the shopping center nearby. Flicking his blinker on, he took a quick look over at the traffic and turned into the strip mall, pulling up in front of the store.
“What the fuck are we doing?” Emma asked.
Caesar ignored her and rolled down the window. Scarlett sat on the curb, staring at her phone. “What are you doing sitting out here? Shouldn’t you be slanging sandwiches and wraps?”
Scarlett looked up and then took in his car. “I thought you had a different car?”
“This is the weekend ride.” He shrugged. “So, what are you doing sitting there all pathetic looking? Got fired?”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s just too slow so my manager told me to go home, but I’m waiting for an Uber.”
“You don’t have to wait for an Uber. C’mon. I’ll take you home.”
She fiddled with her phone for a moment. “Are you sure it’s not out of the way?”
“I don’t have shit to do. As long as you don’t live in Theriot, I’ll take you.” Caesar turned to Emma and waved his hand toward the door. “Get out and let her in.”
Scarlett had started to get up but paused when she saw Emma get out of the car. “You know what, I’ll just wait.”
“Just get in the fucking car,” Emma said impatiently.
Scarlett sighed and quickly walked around to the passenger side and slipped into the back of the expensive coupe. Emma slammed the seat back and shut the door with as much anger when he got back into the car.
Caesar turned toward her. “Do you pay anything on this car? Insurance? Maintenance? Even gas?”
“What? No.”
“Then don’t slam my fucking door,” he said as he put the car in drive.”
Scarlett shifted in the backseat at the outburst. “You guys look nice. Where are you coming from?”
“The new country club,” Emma said.
“Oh, I’ve never been.”
“What a surprise.”
Caesar stopped short of a red light and Emma had to throw her hands out against the dashboard to stop her body from going forward.
“My bad,” he said. He looked in the rearview mirror. “Hey, what do you have planned for the day?”
“Me?” Scarlett asked. “Nothing, really. I was expecting to work.”
“Want to come kick it with us? Nothing major. Just the crew hanging out at my place.”
“I don’t know.”
Emma glanced at Caesar, but he kept his eyes on the rearview. She turned around in her seat. “Yeah, you should come. I get tired of the other girls sometimes. It’ll be fun to have someone different around.”
“Well…” Scarlett looked better the two of them.
“Just come for like 15 minutes and if you want to leave after that, I’ll bring you home,” Caesar said.
Scarlett sighed. “Alright.”
…
As soon as the trio stepped into Caesar’s backyard, Ron appeared at his side and threw an arm around his shoulders. Ron looked over his shoulder at the two girls and tipped a cowboy hat he was wearing toward them.
“You’re late, bro,” Ron said.
“Who the fuck even let y’all back here?” Caesar asked. Francesca, Hollie and Riley laid on loungers near the pool while Bentley and Anthony did their usual of passing a bong between the two of them. Britton and Janelle sat on the patio seemingly in a lovers’ quarrel, speaking in hushed tones.
“We threw Anthony over the fence,” Ron said, laughing.
Caesar snatched the hat from his head and put it on himself. “Trump’s old fence or mine?”
“Hey, just because my dad is still on the Trump Train doesn’t mean I am,” Anthony said from near the pool.
Caesar and Ron made their way to the patio, with Scarlett following behind them. Emma had broken off from the group to walk around to where the other three girls were. She shed the dress she was wearing and casually sat in her underwear. Scarlett felt out of place in her work uniform, but out of place altogether.
Janelle and Britton stopped arguing when the others sat down across from them.
“Scarlett? What are you doing here?” Janelle asked.
“Caesar kidnapped me,” she said.
“How do you even know these guys?”
“Devin plays football with us, remember?” Britton said.
“And Caesar almost got her head taken off by Emma,” Ron said, chuckling as he fetched a bottle of vodka out of a bag at his feet and took a swig from it.
Janelle looked around, seemingly suspicious. “I just didn’t know y’all hung out with Devin. I’ve never seen him around y’all.”
“Because we don’t,” Caesar said. He took the hat off and twirled it around on his fingers. He turned to Scarlett. “Where’s the kid anyway? Shouldn’t he have been around to pick you up from work?”
“He’s in Mississippi visiting a college.”
Caesar laughed. “King’s going on officials? To where? Mississippi Valley? Jackson State?”
“I don’t know. Whatever school is in Starksville.”
“Devin King is not getting recruited by an SEC school even a shit one like Mississippi State. Your man is lying to you.”
“Just because you’d lie to your girlfriend doesn’t mean everyone else does,” Janelle said.
“He sent me pictures from their campus. He’s there,” Scarlett said.
Ron whistled. “Quick riser. Was he even getting letters last year?”
“They’re probably trying to use him to get Santiago or something.” Caesar shrugged. “Might even be trying to get to you, Britton. It’d be a step up from Bentley and Anthony popping up in Hattiesburg. If you can have a step up in Mississippi.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Britton said.
“You might want to make sure he doesn’t stop answering your texts,” Caesar said to Scarlett. “It gets wild on visits.”
“What? Wild? Wild how?”
“Ron ended up with gonorrhea when he visited Florida, and might have a kid or two back in Columbus. Or was it Columbia?”
Ron shoved Caesar before leaning forward so he could see Scarlett. “He’s lying. I didn’t get gonorrhea and don’t have any bastards. Almost, but got lucky.”
“They’re fucking with you,” Britton said. “Every school doesn’t trot out hostesses for their recruits to fuck during visits.”
“SEC schools do though,” Caesar said. “How do you think Mississippi State got Javon Doctson to trade Compton for fucking Starksville? They got their finest white women and let him have at ‘em.”
“What?” Scarlett asked, feeling slightly panicked all of a sudden.
“Scarlett, honey, they’re just being dicks,” Janelle said. “Caesar and Ron would try to find pussy in a nunnery. I’m sure nothing is going on with Devin.”
Scarlett stood up abruptly. She pointed over her shoulder. “Caesar, do you mind if I step inside to make a call?”
Caesar shook his head. “Go ahead.” He started laughing when the door closed behind her.
“You guys are fucking assholes,” Janelle said.
-*****-
Devin hung up his phone and lowered it from his face. He stared at it for a moment, trying to make heads or tails of the strange phone call he’d just received from Scarlett. Shaking his head, he slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“Hey, man. Everything alright?” Stuart, the admissions ambassador that the university had assigned to show him around the campus, asked from the golf cart the two of them had been riding it.
Devin nodded and retook his seat on the passenger side of the cart. “Sorry about that. Just figured I should take the call after three or four missed ones, you know?”
“Totally get it, man. That’s another plus about coming here though. It’s not terribly far from home, right? If something happens back there, you could get home and handle that pretty quickly.”
“It’s like five hours,” Devin said, watching as they passed by people who’d staked out locations on the campus to start tailgating for the game later that night.
Stuart shrugged. “That’s not too bad. Not too bad at all.” He pointed to the buildings they were passing. “This might be my second favorite part of campus. Behind the football stadium, of course. You’ve got Ruby, Hurst, Critz, Nunnelee and Griffis halls all right next to each other. And you aren’t too far from the academic halls either.”
“You live in campus?”
“I used to back when I was a freshman and sophomore. Moved into my frat’s house when I was a junior and never looked back. You planning on pledging? A lot of football players do, but I think it’s called something else for the black guys.”
“I don’t know anything about all that.”
“It makes college life so much better, man. Let me tell you. Though, I know the guys on the team already have their hands full with all of that so all the philanthropy and stuff probably go out the window real quick, you know?”
Devin nodded and continued to watch the people pass as they drove around the campus. A man wearing a bulldog mask stood in the middle of the street with two massive cowbells. He barked at anyone who passed, rang his cowbells and shouted “Hail State!”
“Hail State, baby!” Stuart shouted back, laughing and slapping the roof of the cart. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s Pete. Pete’s wild, man. You’ll get to know him. Graduated back in ‘18. Never misses a game, that guy.”
“What’s up with the cowbells, by the way?”
“Tradition. They say back in the day, we were playing the other Mississippi school and a cow walked on the field. We whupped their ass that day so now we have cowbells. Better than what the guys in Oxford try to put around folks’ necks, huh?” He laughed and jabbed Devin with an elbow, but Devin decided the joke wasn’t all that funny considering.
They rounded a corner and the stadium started to come into view. The majority of the tailgating was taking place there. Devin had seen Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge many times so most college football venues paled in comparison, but he had to admit that the Egg Bowl in Starksville was fairly nice for something out in the sticks.
Stuart pulled the cart to a stop in front of a building near the stadium. A tall black guy with dreadlocks and his right arm in a sling approached them. “This is where our time together ends, man. I hope you liked Mississippi State and that we’ll be welcoming you to the family.” He pointed at the guy. “This is Cordae. He plays for the team, but not tonight obviously. He’ll take care of you from here.”
Cordae dapped up Stuart and looked in the back of the cart. “Y’all ain’t give folk no swag? How he gonna make his mind up if he ain’t got the shit in his face reminding him of his good time here?”
“I got it over here,” Devin said, feeling the need to answer for Stuart. He lifted up the drawstring bag that was between his feet.
“Stop worrying about if we gave him a t-shirt or not and get your ass back on the field,” Stuart said, laughing and tapping Cordae on the arm in the sling.
“Shit. Once I get out this, I still ain’t gonna play because they telling me I’m academically inlegible.”
“Ineligible?” Devin asked.
“That’s what I said, folk. A-kah-dem-I-ca-ly inlegible.”
Stuart turned to Devin. “We have great tutors here, too, especially for our athletes.”
Stuart and Cordae exchanged a few more jabs about Cordae’s lack of playing time before he jogged off toward where the Greek houses were. Cordae hopped in the driver’s seat and smiled at Devin.
“You ready to have the real tour? None of that shit they be showing y’all in them funky ass pamphlets they still hand out like it’s 2013.” He struggled to put the key in the ignition with his left hand but eventually managed.
“Thought it was the game after this?”
“Nah, folk. Game ain’t for another five, six hours. What you gonna do until then? Chill out here with these old white people and they cowbells? I ain’t gonna let you do that, bruh. You gonna remember Starksville.”
…
Cordae led Devin to a group of people standing around a barbecue pit. He dapped a few of the guys up and hugged the girls hanging around. He brought two girls over to Devin.
“Folk, this here Dani and Vicki,” he said, introducing the two of them. “For the night, you can call ‘em whatever you want. Right ladies?”
They both nodded, smiles on their faces.
“Be easy on, folk, though. Cuh don’t look like he go too hard.” Cordae laughed and walked away to talk to the guy behind the pit.
“So, what you into?” one of them, Dani if Devin remembered correctly, asked. “The quiet ones always got the biggest dicks.”
“My apartment right over there,” Vicki said, pointing over his shoulder. “We don’t have stay out here with all these hard legs.”
Devin shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m good.”
“What?” Vicki asked, confused.
Devin excused himself and headed over to Cordae. He tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, man. I’m just going to leave and catch a few hours sleep before the game. It’s been tiring running around the campus all day.”
“Vicki stay right there, folk. She’ll let you sleep there, but she might try to keep you up first if you know what I’m saying.” Cordae laughed and smacked Devin on the shoulder. “Them titties real soft if you need a pillow though.”
“I’m good. I’m just going to go. Thanks for showing me around, man,” Devin said as he turned to leave.
“Alright, folk. Hope you enjoyed and turn up here. We gonna be making money moves in the SEC in a couple years. That Hail State elevator going up!” Cordae shouted behind him. A few other students around responded with a “Hail State” of their own.
Devin avoided the death stares Dani and Vicki were sending him as he tried to orient himself so he could find his way back to a main road to call an Uber or make the walk back to the town and his hotel room.
…
Despite himself, Devin found that he’d gotten wrapped up in the game happening on the field in front of him. The atmosphere was electric even though Mississippi State was squaring off against Eastern Michigan in an early season cupcake game. The sound of cowbells for four quarters would be stuck in his head for days, if not longer.
Fortunately – or unfortunately depending on how you were looking at it – Eastern Michigan had hung with the Bulldogs the entire night and were actually leading by 2 with the game coming to a close. The home team had the ball and the Egg Bowl was bouncing with each yard gained.
State’s quarterback, Freddie Tavai, completed a pass to move the chains. He ran up to the new line of scrimmage barking orders at the team before the referees set the ball.
Devin wrung his hands together, feeling the nerves of everyone in the stadium.
Tavai completed another pass to move the ball closer to the endzone. The clock ticked under 30 seconds and Mississippi State only had a single time out left.
Devin shuffled to the side as reporters and photographers moved down the field to get a better view of the action.
State elected to run the ball to try to catch their opponents off-guard and picked up 7 yards but were forced to call their final timeout.
Tavai took two more shots to the endzone before the Bulldogs were forced to opt for a 56-yard field goal.
The kicker trotted out onto the field and a hush descended over the stadium. The Eagles did the usual of burning a timeout to ice the kicker before allowing him to take the attempt for real. You could hear a pin drop in the stadium as he lined up again.
The ball was snapped. The hold was good. The kick was solid and straight. End over end, it soared through the uprights. And the sound seemed to return to the stadium all at once.
Devin gave a little celebratory fist pump, a temporary Mississippi State fan. Tonight, he’d head back to his hotel and tomorrow, he’d meet with the coaches before heading back to Houma. But whether it was at Mississippi State or somewhere else, he needed to play in games like this.
-*****-
Scarlett sighed. Her Uber was running late. The sun had set long ago after the 15 minutes she’d decided to spend at Caesar’s had turned into hours. Caesar told her he’d take her home when he came back from wherever he went, but that was an hour ago.
She looked around at the others, regretting not leaving when Britton and Janelle did. Bentley and Anthony were passed out in the grass. One of the other girls, Francesca if Scarlett remembered correctly, was wrapped around Ron. The other two were talking amongst themselves. Emma had disappeared with Caesar.
She stood up, keen to find a bathroom. But when she stepped inside the massive house, she realized the only bathroom she knew how to get to was the one in Caesar’s room.
Despite being told multiple times that neither of his parents were home, she quickly made her way to the staircase and ascended the stairs. Hotfooting it down the hall, she came to his room. The door was slightly cracked and she could hear someone inside.
Pushing the door open, she stepped inside but stopped. She’d found Caesar and Emma.
Emma was bent over the bed with Caesar behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other tangled in her hair. Emma seemed to be really enjoying herself.
Scarlett froze for a moment, not knowing what to do. After a few seconds, she slowly backed out of the room. She hazarded a peek back inside at them, this time lingering a bit longer, before softly shutting the door and heading back down the hall.
Fortunately, she got a text from the Uber driver with perfect timing. Putting her head down, she quickly made her exit.
