Homecoming Weekend (27 page)

As bizarre a scene as it was, it was still a relief to Barbara of gigantic proportions. She put one hand over her heart and the other over her mouth. The relief that came with seeing him in the room by himself—albeit it pissy drunk and passed out—made her lightheaded. She sat on the edge of the bed, her elbows on her knees, shaking her head.

She could not believe how emotional she got when it seemed Carter was in the room with another woman. When he did not answer the door, her mind raced to the darkest places. She just
knew
there was someone in that room and that he was ignoring her at the door and her calls.

It took her about five minutes, but she finally got herself together. She wiped her face, as if to discard the awful thoughts that ran through her head. She pulled the comforter over Carter, took the beer out of his hand and placed it on the nightstand, picked up the hotel phone and placed it next to the Heineken and turned off the TV. She decided she would stay with Carter and help him get over what looked to be a certain hangover.

So, she slipped out of her elegant dress and hung it up in the closet. In her bra and thongs, she slid under the covers next to the man she wanted to be her man. Before she could get settle under the sheets, she heard Carter's phone chime, alerting him of a text message.

“Who the hell is texting him at almost three in the morning?” she asked herself.

So, she went on a mission to find the phone. And under his shirt, which was on the floor near the window, she found his BlackBerry Torch. Remarkably, Carter did not have a security
code on it. She paused but then rationalized that him not having the phone locked was some sign that she could go through it, that she
should
go through it. Anything to make acceptable something she knew she should not do.

And so, Barbara took a seat on the bed next to a snoring Carter and went through his text messages, call log and e-mails as if she were conducting a CIA investigation. She saw text messages from a few females; nothing out of the ordinary, except one from Marlena that read: “I know you're having a good time. Be safe baby.”

“Baby?” Barbara said aloud. She looked back at Carter, whose snoring sounded like a lawnmower. “Baby?” she repeated. And like that, anger filled her bloodstream. She threw his BlackBerry on the bed and retrieved her dress from the closet. After slipping it back on, she stood over Carter, who had curled into a fetal position. Finally, she shook her head in disgust and left.

So, when Carter saw Barbara at the tailgate, he wasn't sure to be upset that she did not come to his room or what? He had called her that morning, but she did not answer or return his call.

“Hey, you,” he said to her. “How you doing?”

Barbara did not know what to say. Her weekend was going drastically opposite the way she envisioned. But over a cup of coffee, she decided that she was going to get some concrete answers from Carter.

“I'm okay. How are you? You had a lot to drink last night,” she said.

“I know,” he answered. “I feel okay. I think if you drink quality liquor you minimize a hangover. I had some water and coffee and I'm feeling pretty good right now.

“But tell me,” he added. “What happened last night? I thought you were coming to my room.”

Barbara smiled and shook her head. Before she could answer she noticed friends from her college days, sisters Avis and Tracy Easley, and exchanged hugs with them. “You all look great,” Barbara said.

“How's your family?” Tracy asked, staring down at Barbara's hard-not-to-notice ring.

“Overall, the family is good,” she said. “We're moving to New York, though, in a few months.”

“I love New York,” Avis said. “But I don't know about living there.”

“It's going to be a big adjustment, but I'm ready for it,” Barbara said.

“But the people are totally different,” Avis added. “People in New York are cutthroat.”

“But Carter lives there, don't you, Carter?” Tracy asked. “If he can make it there, I'm sure you can.”

“What you trying to say, Tracy?” Carter said. “I see you still got jokes. Some things never change—even if they should.”

“I'm just joking,” Tracy said. “We know you're
almost
all man.”

The group laughed and Carter playfully put his arms around her neck. “If I didn't know your lesbian lover would miss you, I'd choke you right here.”

Tracy laughed off Carter's joke—“My husband would kick your butt,” she said—and she and Avis moved on, leaving Barbara and Carter to resume their discussion.

“Carter, I did come to your room last night,” she said.

“No, you didn't,” he said. “I did see where you called me a few times.”

“Who you think put the comforter on you?”

“You didn't have a key to my room, so how could you have gotten in?” he asked.

She went on to tell Carter the story of how she got into his room, and he could not contain his laughter. “Are you serious? I was laid out, naked and snoring with a beer in my hand?” he said. “Wow. Wow. That is crazy. I musta been more messed up than I thought. I don't remember any of that.

“I just got up at some point and stumbled to the bathroom and got back in the bed. But you know what? I
do
remember thinking that I smelled your perfume when I came from the bathroom. But I thought I was just trippin'.”

“I could have done anything to you and you wouldn't have known a thing,” Barbara said. “It's pathetic to be that drunk.”

“I know I had a buzz, but I wasn't, like, wasted,” he said. “I have been wasted before and that wasn't it. I think the drinking all day at the day party, then all night, too. I was just fatigued and drunk. It all caught up with me.”

Barbara did not tell Carter about what she saw in his text messages. She decided she would wait, but having it hang over her did not allow her to freely enjoy the festivities.

They made their way to the NSU Alumni tent, where alumni director Michelle Hill gave them wristbands so they could eat from the pretty significant spread that was laid out. Jimmy had wandered off with E. Franklin, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth who got hooked on Norfolk State's homecoming a few years earlier. He and Jimmy had met at Nordstrom, where E. Franklin was a manager in the men's department.

E led Jimmy to a tailgate area where a boisterous man with a grease-stained apron manned the grill. “That guy right there,” E said, pointing to Reverend Davis Wilson, a 1973 graduate of Norfolk State who was on the flight with him to Norfolk. “He is a trip.”

Rev. Wilson was in the first-class section of the plane, across the aisle from E. Franklin, dressed in a lavender suit, black shirt
and matching lavender tie. A flight attendant noticed him from television, and asked, “Who are you going to save on Sunday, Reverend?”

“This weekend I'm doing my saving on Friday and Saturday,” he said. “I'm going to my homecoming, and there will be a lot of people there in need of God's grace.”

The flight attendant and others laughed. Before the plane backed out of the jetway, Reverend Wilson broke out loudly in prayer, startling E. Franklin and others.

“God, we ask that you guide this plane directly and safely to our destination,” he began. “We know you can shift any storm out of our path, any issues to the side, and elevate us up off the ground and down softly in Norfolk, Virginia. I ask that you do that for us today, and that our homecoming weekend be a blessing to many. In the precious name of the Son of God, we pray. Amen.”

At sixty-something, “Rev” was a fixture at homecoming. He was proud of his school and he was close to the dozens and dozens of old classmates and the dozens and dozens of new friends he'd met over the years over the sacred weekend.

What he enjoyed most was that he was not looked at by most as mega church pastor Davis Wilson. Rather, he was “Rev,” a spirited man who financed probably the biggest and most lively tailgate party of the weekend. It was one of his contributions to the occasion. He spent more than three thousand dollars on a deejay, alcohol, soft drinks, supplies, chicken, burgers, cole slaw, beans, salmon, chips, beer, hot dogs, condiments—whatever was required to have a full-fledged cookout . . . for whoever came by.

All that, and he spent hours on end at the Saturday tailgate behind a huge grill, sweating and talking to anyone in front of him. He got off on not only providing the food, but cooking it, too. A huge football fan, he eschewed attending the game and instead cooked food all day and mingled with the tailgaters.

“I love this school,” he said, placing a chicken thigh and leg on Jimmy's plate. “This is where I became something. I came here a seventeen-year-old from Rock Hill, South Carolina without any idea of what was going to happen for me. I was snotty-nosed and scared. This school held me together. It hugged me my entire five-and-a-half years here. Yeah, it took me a while to get out. When it let me go, I was a man who knew where I was going.”

“Same thing happened to me, sir,” Jimmy said. “This is my first homecoming, and I graduated ten years ago. Now that I'm here, I feel embarrassed I haven't been back before now.”

“No need to be embarrassed; you here now,” the reverend said. “Where you live? And I see you have a wedding ring on. Where's your wife?”

“I live in Washington, D.C.,” Jimmy said. “My wife? She's at home mad at me because I'm here without her.”

“I see,” Rev said. “Well, I understand both your points. I wish your wife were here so she could see how wonderful it is. It's always good when you can show off your school, you know? But my wife is at home, too. She came with me two years and had enough. She saw what it was about and now she's fine. But we had a few arguments back in the day when I told her she didn't need to come.

“I gave in after several years—and that was it. She was amazed at the number of people, the spirit of the people and the spirit that covered the whole weekend. She actually had a good time because she knew a few women, so she was able to get away from me for a time and do something on her own. That's what worked for me. You might want to think about that. But know that she could get here and have a ball and want to come every year. I don't know if you want that.”

The two men laughed.

“She doesn't get that I'm not here trying to get women—although, I must say, there are plenty of cute ones here,” Jimmy
said. “I just need some time for myself. Plus, she'd be bored here. She wouldn't know anyone.”

“This is no secret, I'm sure,” he said. “Women, us men don't quite understand. And I can't pretend to know all the dynamics of your relationship. And you aren't asking for my advice. But I'll just say this: you will have moments that you're glad she's not with you, and you'll have moments when you wish she were here. That's just how it is.”

And “Rev” was right. Throughout the tailgate, as Jimmy maneuvered through the thousands of couples, he wished Monica were with him. He saw married couples enjoying the day: Tony and Erika Sisco, Susan and Kevin Wigenton, Leroy and Sybil Savage, Kevin and Hope Jones, Hadley and Sharon Evans, Sheri and Rodney Dickerson, Leigh and Ed Hughes, and Carla and Andre McManus.

But their cases were different: They all met while at Norfolk State. So, they were attending their own homecoming and knew many people.

“My wife would enjoy some of it, but once she started to feel out of place, she would have made it miserable for me; I know it,” Jimmy said.

Thinking about her prompted him to call her. He felt much better after their previous conversation and he wanted her to know that he was thinking of her. She would not be entirely over the situation for a while, he realized. But staying in touch with her would accelerate the process, he believed. He hoped.

“What's going on, Mrs. Hamilton?” he said when she answered the phone.

“Not much, Mr. Hamilton,” she said. “I'm sitting around watching movies. I've cleaned the house, eaten lunch. So, I'm just here.”

“Well, there's something to be said for quiet time, right?” Jimmy said.

“It sure doesn't sound quiet there,” Monica shot back. “Where are you?”

“I'm at the tailgate, which is basically a big outdoor party for thousands of people,” he said. “There are—I don't know—seventy-five, a hundred—different parties out here. Each one has its own grill and its own music and its own food. It's pretty crazy. I'm about to find Carter and walk down to the game. But I'm told thousands of people don't even go into the game. They just hang out and eat and drink and mingle for hours.”

“You telling me all this like I've never been to a tailgate before,” she said.

“Well, excuse me,” Jimmy said jokingly.

“You know what?” he said, getting serious. “I must admit that there's a part of me that wishes you were here with me.”

There was silence on the phone. Monica did not know how to respond. The cynical part of her wanted to say,
“Yeah, well, it's kind of late for that now, isn't it?”

But the rational part of her, the part she did not show often when she was emotional, took over. After all, she loved her husband and she realized, in honest moments with herself, that he put up with far more from her than she did from him. She even contemplated counseling on her trust issues. But she never took the step.

“That's really sweet of you to say, Jimmy,” she said. “I wish I were there, too.”

They talked about him getting back in time on Sunday to watch the Redskins game and then taking her to dinner. “That's the least you can do,” she said.

“Oh, I'm going to do more,” Jimmy said. “You can believe that.”

“Promises, promises,” Monica said.

“Okay, you wait until I get home,” Jimmy said. “I got something for you.”