Class
A Short Piece of Nonfiction

I was going to school at the time, back in the days when I was blindly bamboozled into thinking that a college education would make or break my future. Retrospect refines reality and I now realize that it wasn’t going to make my future at all, just break my bank account. College isn’t worth a shit but still manages to cost a fortune. Figure that one out. Anyway, I digress. 

This particular semester I was taking a night class: Magazine Article Writing. The professor was a middle-aged, fluffy homosexual man with a very sassy attitude. The gay thing didn’t bother me because I’m not a homophobe and it ain’t any of my business to begin with. However, I was a bit intimidated by the sass. He was very stern and flamboyant in the way he dished it out, oftentimes coating his words with the subtlest twist of sarcasm. He had more testosterone than any straight man I’d ever met. 

The professor had a strict attendance policy for the class. Three missed classes, regardless of the circumstances, meant you failed the course. And, in my typical lazy fashion, I had already used up two days within the first week of the semester. One was due to a hangover and the other when my mental health called out sick. But, as it turns out, I should have saved my absences for a rainy day instead…  

It was pouring outside. Torrential rains flooded the streets from the skies, almost as if God Himself turned on Heaven’s showers and was attempting to wash away the ghetto grime. All afternoon I sat around and looked out the window hoping that the stormy weather would cease, but it never did. If anything it only got worse. Shit, this town must be dirtier than I thought, I remember thinking to myself. The Big Man’s holy water power washing seemed to be coming up short. Under any other circumstances I would have never left the house, but fear of being chewed out by the gay sass propelled me to make the wet trek. 

I searched the closet and all I could find was a hot pink umbrella. Surely I couldn’t walk around the hood with that. For a moment I entertained the idea of cutting out holes in a trash bag and creating a makeshift rain coat, but I decided against that as well. I already looked like trash. Literally looking like trash would have been taking it too far. I was running out of time and needed to head to the train station, otherwise I’d miss my train. I grabbed my bookbag, took a deep breath and left the house with nothing but my clothes to protect me from Mother Nature’s torment. 

Thirty seconds into the walk and I was already drenched. I looked like I jumped into a pool with all of my clothes on. I put myself in a half-assed state of meditation in order to maintain my sanity, but ended up trudging along with the angry, hunched over manner of a mental patient. My feet were squishing and squashing with each step. It was a wet nightmare. 

I got to the train station, which was completely outdoors with the exception of a small eight by eight foot cement hut with a bench in it. The thing was repulsive and reeked of stale urine and Lord only knows what else. But, on this day, it was the only shelter from the storm available. I walked in and was surprised to see that the hut was already being occupied.

I saw a huge umbrella opened up with two tiny sets of legs dangling out from underneath, sitting on the bench. They were so short that their feet didn’t even reach the ground. Little clouds of smoke were rising up from behind the umbrella, along with childlike, stoner giggles. 

“You guys hotboxin’ a fucking umbrella?” I asked, the surprise evident in my tone. 

The umbrella snapped shut in a flash, unveiling two guilty, yet cherubic, faces. Their eyes were startled wide and I could see them trying to process whether or not they were in trouble, whether I was an authority figure or not. After all, I was white. With the exception of myself, the only other pasty faces were either junkies or law enforcement.  

“Don’t worry. I ain’t a cop,” I assured them.

“Oh okay. Whatchu down here trying to buy drugs?” asked the baby-faced stoner.

“Fuck no, I live around here. I’m the token white. Every hood has their token white.”

“So, you ain’t gonna snitch on us for smoking weed?” asked the other kid. 

“Man, calm down. I wouldn’t know where to snitch on you guys even if I wanted to.” 

I noticed that they started to relax a bit. The tenseness in their body language fled and they went back to passing the blunt back and forth. I could overhear them whispering to each other but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I took out a Newport 100 and lit it. 

“Ayo, you trying to hit this shit, OG?” 

I turned around and saw one of the kids with his armed extended, holding the half finished blunt. I could tell by the look in his eye, and by the way he said it, that he was feeling me out. He didn’t really think I’d take it. 

“Yeah, give me that shit. Let’s see what kind of dirt weed you guys are huffing on.” The two of them exchanged shocked looks of disbelief and bursted out into laughter, at the expense of this random, white oldhead.  

“Who rolled this?” I asked through a series of coughs. 

“I did.” 

“Yeah, well you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. This shit looks like an old, arthritic finger, all crooked and shit.” 

I took another hit. 

“I’m surprised this shit even pulls. This blunt got ninety degree angles on it.” 

“Daaaaaaaaaamn, Kelvin. He comin’ at your rolling skills.”

“Man, Marcus, I know you ain’t talkin’. You couldn’t roll if you were born on a skateboard. My shit might not look the best, but it gets the job done.”

“You’re right. And that’s all that matters at the end of the day,” I told him, taking my third hit and passing it back to them. “Thanks, fellas. I’m cool off that.” 

A few moments later an announcement came over the loudspeaker, with that annoying, prerecorded robot voice: “Attention…Septa Newark passengers…Due to weather conditions…all trains are subject to delays of up to…fifteen…to…forty-five… minutes late. Please…remain on the platform…for…this is only an…approximate time.” I hated that robotic voice with a red hot passion. The only time you heard it was when you were going to be late for something.

“How old are you guys anyway?” I asked. 

“I’m twelve. Marcus is only eleven, that’s my youngbul right here,” Kelvin informed me, “He’s been my man, fifty-grand since we’ve been kids.”

“You guys are still kids…”

“C’mon, OG, don’t do us like that. We some grown ass men.”

“Alright, alright. My mistake. So what other kinds of shit do you guys get into?”

“I be getting into bitches panties, that’s what I be getting into.” 

“Goddamn. Slinging the ole turkey neck around already, I see.” 

“Hell yeah,” Kelvin replied with a proud, matter of fact smile, “These bitches be on my top, heavy.” 

“He’s lying,” Marcus interjected, “He don’t get no bitches.” 

“Then why was I fuckin’ on Janet last week?”

“You ain’t fuck no Janet.”

“Who’s Janet?” I asked. Here I was, a grown ass man in elementary business. 

“She’s some jawn we go to school with. She sucked on my dick a bunch of times before I hit. We did it behind her man’s back too.” 

“Man, you lyin’! Describe the pussy then!” Marcus demanded.

“That shit looked like roast beef, sounded like mac and cheese and tasted like heaven.”

“Yeah, that sounds like the time I got pussy, too,” Marcus replied. 

I can’t even lie. I don’t think I ever laughed that hard in my life. These two were the most innocent looking kids I’d ever seen, yet were saying some of the most vulgar shit. While funny on the surface, the more and more I thought about it, the sadder it became. They were totally misguided. The other thing that stood out was that it sounded reminiscent of the type of conversations I’d hear between guys my age. Either they were too mature for their years or we were too immature for ours. Probably a mixture of both, now that I think about it. 

I had a moment where I felt I needed to be a better influence on the youth, despite being the consummate fuck up, my-damn-self. “All jokes aside though, fellas. You guys are a little too young to be smoking weed and worrying about pussy and that shit. Don’t try and grow up too fast and get hit with life before you have the chance to live it. These adolescent years go by faster than you think. And by the time you’ll realize it, it’ll be too late,” I told them rather lamely. 

“Ahhhhh, come on, OG. Don’t turn pussy on us now. We was just choppin’ it up a second ago,” Kelvin replied. 

“Yeah, OG. Shut that soft shit up. You blowin’ my high,” Marcus added. 

“I know, I know,” I replied, “I just had to say that shit for my own peace of mind.” 

“Nah, we feel you though.” 

Just then another announcement came over the loudspeaker. Back to that annoying ass robot voice: “ “Attention…Septa Newark passengers…Due to weather conditions…all trains are subject to delays.” Oh great, I thought to myself. Now there wasn’t even a timetable on when the train would come. I checked the time. I’d been down there for almost an hour and my class was going to start in fifteen minutes. I started sweating but it just blended in with the rainwater. My chances of making it to class on time were slim to none, and slim was out of town. 

That’s when a skinny white guy, pale skinned with a ratty ginger goatee and face tatts, walked into the train hut. He was wearing a black hoodie that had faded into a stained dark gray. His eyes were hollow and desolate. His lips dry and chalky. He saw me smoking a cigarette and perked up all of a sudden. (Or should I say perc’d up?) 

“Hey, homie, you think I can bum a smoke off you?” he asked in a groggy, junkie fashion. 

“Don’t do it, OG,” Kelvin mumbled to me under his breath.

“Nah man, this is just a loosey. I don’t have any more left,” I said. 

“You think I could get a short than? I’ve had a rough day, chief.” 

“Nah,” I replied while taking a long drag from the Newport, blowing the smoke in his direction. Despite having a fresh pack of smokes in my bag, secondhand smoke was all I was willing to give him. 

“Man, you buggin’ dawg. Can’t even spare deuces, on some stingy shit. You lame as hell for that, homie,” he pouted with a scumbag whine. I didn’t answer him. My life was theoretically better than his, so his comment warranted no response. The guy walked over to the corner and leaned up against the wall on the verge of nodding out. Heroin. It had to be.  

The wigger-junkie took a bag of Skittles out of his pocket. He tore open the wrapper with his teeth and tried to pour the candy into his hand. But the dope had his hands trembling so bad that the Skittles were hitting his palm and falling onto the piss soaked floor. Skittles were colorfully bouncing all over the train hut. He’d never taste the rainbow. 

“Man, look at this motherfucker,” Kelvin said while shaking his head. “He’s fucking up all that perfectly good candy.”

“What a waste,” I replied, meaning the candy and all of our lives alike. My train ended up getting canceled and I never made it to class. The gay, sassy professor ended up giving me an F for the course. Another little slice of life, or a life sliced up? I can’t call it.