Another Fork
2007-09-06 12:08 a.m.
Plenty of people came to a fork in their lives with me at their side. Some of them may have been better off otherwise...I don't know for sure, but I believe I'm the reason my mom dropped out of college. She's never said so, but she'd only had 2 years of college and she had me when she was 21. Not that I accept blame for that, she's the one who got knocked up by her Mexican boss who happened to be 10 years her senior.
So once I hit that magical college age, she was adamant about me going to college. Due to my young graduating age (I was in the last year Illinois allowed 4 year olds to go to Kindergarten), I was legally bound to listen to her. Since I'd worked since I started high school, it seemed an opportunity for a break. So I went to the local University and figured, fuck it - a few years off on the state's dime.
Day one, G helps me bring up my stereo, a bag of clothes, a bed sheet and an ounce of green. I plug in the stereo and make sure everyone on my floor understands what kind of music they're going to have to hear all day every day - especially when I move my decks in. Within 15 minutes a guy we later referred to as Gangsta Jesus walks in.
B was a Vice Lord from the West Side. All Hood with a brain. Cool cat. Hair to his shoulders. Obviously a fan of the classic philosophers, while generally enjoying cajoling people - regardless of gender - during conversation by hitting on them with constant reminders of how fun prison sex can be. Hitting on anything that breathed - mostly for intimidation's sake from what I could tell. Somehow, he never pulled that shit on me or my girl, but always with JT or G or just about anyone else.
B strolls in when Snoop hits the speakers, gives a nod and introduces himself. It just so happens we were stuffing (not rolling - stuffing) a blunt to celebrate my new college life and it just so happens he had some greenery to ante as well.
Ten minutes later - maybe an hour, hard to tell - I hear a knock. It seemed familiar, in the way that hearing a ringtone you used to use before you got sick of it and changed it to something new about a month ago is familiar. The knocking must have been going on for a while. I turn down the music and hush G and B down.
"You guys hear knocking?"
"Na man, you're fucking high"
"I know I'm stoned, but I heard knocking... Just give it a second."
More knocks at the door. Fuck. All three of us light up a newport each to dissipate the smell. G opens the windows (we were hotboxing) and we sit through the knocks for an entire cigarette wondering what the fuck will be behind that door. Almost done with my square, I glance through the peep hole and see a couple people who seem our age.
"Seems we have guests - Put that shit away for a minute"
I slowly squeak the door open. There are about 15 heads in the hallway and the guy across the hall is shaking his head. He waves his hand at me in the disappointed angry "com'ere" motion.
"Hold on, some asshole wants to talk to me, I'll be back"
I nod to the people in the hall and go to the guy across the hall. It turns out, the guy across the hall happens to be the RA. Even worse, it turns out that this is the intensive study floor. The RA jokes that most of the guys in the hallway were just wondering what the commotion was and most likely didn't even know what the smell was. After a couple minutes of reprimanding me, he told me to look out in the hallway. It looked like there was a fire in the building. This was my friendly warning.
At any rate. I went to class twice that year and quickly decided it was far too distracting from drawing, writing, turning tables and all the other shit that I wanted to take a year off to do full time. Poor B was staying about 3 doors down from me. Within a month a couple of my boys were living with me, my corny suburban roommate was rarely allowed in the room and we were keeping our side of campus enlightened for a reasonable price.
B never had a chance.
On occasion I'd see him sneak by my door while we were still going at 8 or 9 am. He'd sneak by and then come back and peek in. There was no doubt some sort of craziness going on. A few girls over, maybe a couple of the security guards hanging out, people blowing smoke out of dryer sheet tubes, dice games, spades, me on the decks, some sort of rap session, C jamming on the guitar or stoned as shit drawing some sick piece of work, a few of us producing a track for the hell of it, some intense conversation about something completely off the charts, me and R working on our porn site enterprise - whatever. By the end of the day he'd be back and he wouldn't sneak off for another week.
I was gone within a semester. Hopefully B got his shit together.