La Familia
Leaning back in a weathered, leather chair, Caesar watched the woman move on the stage in front of him over the brim of a glass of whiskey. To say that he was largely unimpressed would be an understatement. A huge understatement.
But that was all that could be expected when you’re dragged to a strip club on a Thursday evening after spending the last couple hours working out.
That didn’t stop Tyrone from having a good time as he peeled a couple twenties out of a stack he’d retrieved from the ATM and threw them at the woman – who was likely old enough to be his mother. As she twirled around the pool, Caesar re-evaluated that thought to old enough to be his grandmother.
Darren elbowed Caesar and laughed. “What’s wrong, bro? You don’t like them experienced?”
“I don’t have anything against age,” Caesar said. He then pointed to the two women that were entertaining Junie and his younger brother, Kerby, who was also a part of Tulane’s squad albeit on the defensive side of the ball. “These women are just unattractive. Like even taking into account that it’s not even dark outside yet.”
“I think that’s part of the allure. You
could chase the baddest ones on campus, and don’t get me wrong, we do, but that right there.” Darren pointed to the opposite side of the club where Tucker Beal, a tight end on the team, and Mike Hammond, Darren’s backup, were walking out of back room with a stripper. “That’s a different kind of team bonding that you ain’t going to get anywhere else.”
“Fucking 40-year-old strippers together?”
“These women are at most 35, bro.”
Caesar held his hand up as he took another sip of whiskey. “My bad. Let me not add on years to their ages. Fucking 40-year-old strippers together? And I’m going to repeat, unattractive strippers.”
“Hey, man. This just the introduction for you. Plus, you know they say that you never get your college years back and you know we gotta live it up if they giving up all of this money to throw our face on a social post or some shit.”
“Again. Ugly. Strippers. We could’ve come in here at 10 at night. You come here at fucking 5 in the afternoon! Grandpa over there in the corner gumming some titties on the early bird special!” Caesar shouted, waving his hand in the direction of the one of the corners of the club.
Darren glanced over and, indeed, saw an old man in the corner getting a lap dance. He threw his head back with laughter.
“Give it a month or two. You’ll get used to it,” he said.
“Says the man who hasn’t given any of these grandmothers attention since we stepped foot in here.”
Darren shrugged. “I’m a committed man. I browse but I don’t partake. You know, on some grown folks shit. No one secure in themselves gonna call coming to a strip club with your boys cheating and vice versa. It’s just looking at some pussy, ass and titties and that shit been all over the internet since time.”
“Let’s see if you keep that same energy come August and September when the average age of the pussy, ass and titties on serve to you comes down from 57 to 19, 20.”
“I’m just going to point them in your direction, superstar. Fresh meat and all that. Pun intended.”
“I don’t need help in that department, my guy,” Caesar said, shaking his head.
Darren laughed before pointing at Tyrone who’d gotten up from the table they were sitting at. A woman who looked like she would’ve given Kerby trouble in the trenches walked over to Tyrone. Caesar raised an eyebrow at the dental floss width thong she wore and the nipple tassels that looked as if they had to be attached with super glue.
Tyrone shoved his face into her breasts and motorboated her to the cheers of the rest of the guys.
“Is that… Butterscotch?” Caesar asked Darren. “I hope it isn’t because her name should be Tubo’Lard not fucking Butterscotch.”
Caught mid-drink, Darren began coughing as he nodded. Once the coughing fit resided, the quarterback began laughing. “What can I say? Tyrone is the dude Victoria Secret’s was trying to target back in the ‘20s when they got rid of the angels.”
“There’s a difference between chubby,” Caesar said, holding his left hand out to one side and his right to the other. “And morbidly obese. That woman looks like she would’ve been on one of those TV shows from way back in the day.”
“Hey, man. This is New Orleans. You from here. You know it’s all kinds of people in the city. That’s why folk like coming here. They can be whatever they really are.”
Caesar looked back over his shoulder. Tyrone was being led by Butterscotch to one of the private rooms in the club, his eyes fixated on Butterscotch’s ass.
“I don’t care what you say. Tyrone didn’t
just start fucking fat women when he got to New Orleans, bro,” Caesar said.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, youngster. Wait until the semester start and you’ll see how wild shit can really get. You said you can hang, but I ain’t sure that you ready for it just yet. Especially if we start wrecking niggas on the field? Sheesh.”
“If what I’m supposed to be ready for is fucking every chick who thought ‘Freshman 15’ meant fifteen stone and fifteen pounds.”
“What the fuck is a stone?”
“A fucking whole lot of fat. I already told you that you don’t have to worry about me when shit gets a little hectic. Been there, done that.”
“We’ll see. You part of the family now and this how the family move.”
Caesar shrugged and let the conversation end there. He sat back in his chair, going back to watching the women dancing on stage. He knew that beer googles was a thing, but there was absolutely no amount of alcohol that one could safely consume to see any of these women as remotely attractive.
To each their own, he thought to himself.
-*****-
Devin grimaced as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His body still hadn’t gotten used to working out again after a five-month spell of not touching anything in a gym and his extent of lifting being tossing boxes at his job. He just hoped that his body would catch back up to things before August and the start of fall camp or he’d be in trouble.
In front of him, he watched as someone put together the wrap he’d ordered. The smell of the food didn’t quite sit right with him, but it was the best he was going to do on campus considering the skeleton crews they had working.
“Yo, Devin!”
He turned his head to find Christian jogging toward him.
“I’ve been looking all over the damn campus for you, man. You don’t have your phone with you or some shit?” Christian asked.
Devin reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He clicked the unlock button only to find that nothing happened. He clicked it a few more times and shrugged. “Looks like it’s dead. Why, what’s up?”
“You’re an 18-year-old college student and you let your phone die? You do know that we have a charging station near the weight room, right?”
“I’m sure the only person that’s going to be mad that I let my phone die and haven’t answered anything is going to be my girlfriend.”
Christian laughed. “I know the saying is ‘happy spouse, happy house’ but I’m going to tell you that you should probably apply that to your girlfriend, too, if you want to keep her around when it gets impossible to find free time come October during the conference schedule.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The employee slapped Devin’s wrap onto a tray before jabbing his finger at the buttons on the tablet being used as a register. “That’s going to be $9.47. You want a drink with this?”
“Don’t eat that, man. That’s why I’ve been looking for you. It’s Thursday. We’re going eat.” Christian said, shaking his head when Devin started looking through his pockets for his debit card with his phone being dead.
“We?” Devin asked, still looking for his card.
“Yes, we. All the DBs. We grab a meal together as a group every week. We let you slide for a few now, but you have to come. I don’t make the rules. If you don’t want to, I guess you can go play receiver or something,” Christian said, laughing. “I’m just messing, but really. Don’t eat that. Let’s go. Most of them are already there.”
“Sooooo, you’re not paying for this?” the employee asked, holding up the wrap.
Christian pulled out his phone and held it over the reader until it informed him that the payment was successful. He took the wrap from the guy behind the counter and handed it to Devin.
“Now, you got some grub for later, too. But I don’t know if I’d be eating that in a few hours so you’re probably better off throwing that away,” he said before turning to the employee. “No offense, bro.”
He waved off the comment and went into the back of the store without another word.
“Mind if we swing by my room to see if I left my card in there?” Devin asked.
Christian shook his head. “You don’t need to worry about that. Someone will cover for you, and you can just cover for them for another one. C’mon. I’m driving. I’m parked right out front.”
…
Fifteen minutes later, the two of them walked into a local seafood restaurant that looked like it had been shut down by the couple dozen or so Tulane football players that occupied a row of tables that had to be pushed together to accommodate all of them. However, judging by the joking with the wait staff that was going on, it didn’t seem that anyone minded the huge party.
“We tip well,” Christian said to Devin as they approached the tables. “And we come here because the owner pays his staff above minimum wage.”
Devin nodded as he grabbed an empty spot and sat down. He supposed that you couldn’t argue with choosing a place to eat based on the owner’s good ethics.
Rahim Jett, another freshman corner, grabbed one of the pitchers of sweet tea from the middle of the table and set it down in front of Devin. Quenshan Rodgers, a senior safety who’d earned his scholarship through being a high effort guy in practice after being a walk-on, slid him one of menus that had been left on the table.
“Get the shrimp and catfish platter,” Quenshan said to Devin. “You’re going to have to eat salads for the next week to balance out all the damn calories with how much they put on the plate but that shit is fucking good.”
“The Delacroix is the way to go,” Omari Alavarez said from the other side of the table.
“Motherfucker
you don’t even have Delacroix money,” K.J. Talon shot back drawing a few laughs from the guys who could hear the exchange.
“Fuck you, bruh. I’ve been eating chicken breast and pasta for three weeks with this very day in mind to get the Delacroix. That shit is better than sex.” Omari turned to Devin. “Better than sex, bruh. If you asked me to choose between nutting in one of them sexy ass actresses or music stars and eating this fucking shrimp goodness that’s coming, I’m picking the Delacroix. Every. Single. Time.”
“That’s bullshit. It ain’t that fucking good,” Quenshan said. “Just say you’re afraid that you’d nut quick and go, bruh.”
Devin laughed with the others as he started to scan the menu. While he was close with the guys on the team in high school, even after only being around them in the weight room and the few seconds since he’d sat down, it wasn’t hard to see that this was a very tight-knit group from the stars like Christian and Marcus Freebird, one of the two starting safeties, right on down to the walk-ons.
For Devin, it made his decision to drop TCU for Tulane feel more like the right choice.