White Coat Fever

By Roland S. Jefferson

      Stepping back from his critically acclaimed crime genre novels, Roland S. Jefferson's White Coat Fever takes the reader on a fascinating trip back in time to the exciting world of the 1960's, when Motown, Jazz and the civil rights movement defined an entire generation. And nowhere was the aspiration of upward mobility more evidenced than on black college campuses where some middle-class black women became obsessed with the idea of marrying doctors.

September, a hauntingly attractive civil rights worker who finds both love and brutality in Mississippi jails..... 

Perry, a brilliant medical student spoiled by good looks and his reputation as the ultimate womanizer...

Aiyana, a self centered predatory social climber determined to marry a doctor at any cost, even if she doesn't love him.....

Bennyboy, an idealistic and principled young medical student who shares an illicit past with a girl he once loved.....

      Here then is Roland S. Jefferson's magnificant, highly imaginative and immensely compelling story of a black cultural lifestyle at a pivotal time in history.....as four young people are plunged into the center of a raging conflict between political idealism and the relentless obsessions about class, color and romantic entitlement. But obsessions, even noble ones, can sometimes go tragically awry.....

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467070867

Roland S. Jefferson

Roland S. Jefferson's novels include Damaged Goods, 559 to Damascus, and the political thriller The School on 103rd Street, chosen by the Los Angeles Times Book Review for inclusion in its Guide to Literary Los Angeles 2000. One Night Stand is his fifth novel. Semi-retired from a career as a forensic psychiatrist, he lives in Los Angeles, California.

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© 2010 Roland S. Jefferson. All rights reserved.

Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/6/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4389-5151-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-5152-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-2360-6 (ebk)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jefferson, Roland (1939—)

White Coat Fever: a novel/Roland S. Jefferson. - 1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Cotillion — Fiction. 2. Civil Rights — Freedom Ride — March On Washington—Fiction. 3. African American women — Sororities—Fiction.

4. African American men — Fraternities—Fiction. 5. Male physicians — Fiction.

6. Women physicians — Fiction. 7. Medical School—Cysts—Gunshot — Surgeons—Hospitals—Patients—Fiction. 8. Los Angeles(Calif)—Madison (Wis)—New Orleans(La)—Jackson (Miss)—New Rochelle(NY)—Boston(Mass)—Washington(DC) —Fiction. 9. University of Wisconsin—Howard University—Meharry—Fiction. I. Title

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

GOODNIGHT, MY LOVE (from Stowaway)

Music by Harry Revel Lyrics by Mack Gordon

© 1936 (Renewed) EMI ROBBINS CATALOG INC.

Exclusive Print Rights Controlled and Administered by ALFRED PUBLISHING CO., INC.

All rights reserved Used by permission of ALFRED PUBLISHING CO., INC.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

Words and Music by JAMES BROWN

© 1956 (Renewed) JADAR MUSIC CORP.

All rights Administered by UNICHAPELL MUSIC, INC.

All rights reserved Used by permission of ALFRED PUBLISHING CO., INC.

MONA LISA

Words and Music by Raymond Evans and Jay Livingston

© 1949 Sony/ATV Harmony LLC. All rights administered by

Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203

All rights reserved. Used by permission

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

missing image file

For Devonia Spratlin Jefferson

(1912 — 1946)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank my wife Melanie, youngest son Royce and daughter Shannon who, over the intervening years, have constantly prodded, cajoled, nagged, begged and insisted that I tell this story. And thanks also to the younger family members Doris Sharon Frierson, Tiffany Frierson and DC. They helped me see that being young in this day and age isn’t much different than back in the 60’s, only the toys work faster and are a lot more expensive. A special note of thanks to K. Nicole Jefferson for her keen eye to editorial detail and for holding her ground in the face of my stubborn resistance to making changes. Thanks also to my medical colleagues Drs Ivor Harewood, T.V. Scott, Vincent Roux, Lucian Johnson, William Coffey Jr, Clifton Lee, John Syphax, Gordon Fraser, A. Paul Kelly, Ernest Kinchen and his wife Barbara. They reminded me just how much medicine has changed in the past four decades. Appreciation is also due Ms. Madeleine Smith of Madeleine Smith Music Services for her assistance with the necessary technical and legal music clearances. And finally to the many members of the class of ’65 with whom I’ve shared a special bond. Too numerous to mention, but you know who you are. Because you were there too.

WHITE COAT FEVER

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned…."

——‘The Mourning Bride’ by William Congreve

CHAPTER 1

In 1960 black people were still called ‘Negroes’ and Los Angeles was Mayor Sam Yorty’s town. Together with Gestapo police chief William H. Parker’s jackboots they ran a tight ship where everyone was expected to know their place. A race riot was deemed unfathomable because Chief Parker said it was. And because L.A. was still relatively untouched by the ground swell of the civil rights movement, the duo liked to think that all was well in America’s last outpost, the city of the angels—and fantasy world of celluloid dreams. Los Angeles was officially integrated. But spread out beneath the Hollywood sign was a culturally segregated metropolis of two societies living side-by-side. Blacks for the most part living east of La Brea Avenue. Whites fleeing in ever increasing numbers west to the Pacific Ocean.

And in the spring of 1960 the City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society was holding its annual Debutante ball at the downtown Statler Hilton. For black Angelenos on either side of LaBrea, it was the ticket to have.

Seventeen-year-old graduating senior September Jackson—skin color darker than night, full pouty lips, straight teeth recently liberated from a prison of orthodontics, and a crown of pressed and hot-combed hair that framed a pair of iridescent green eyes—knew the City Of The Angels cotillion was the single most important event in her short life. More important than her upcoming Valedictorian speech, her full scholarship to the nursing school at the University of Wisconsin or the summer trip to Europe Delores Jackson had promised her daughter as a graduation present. She had in fact been preparing for this event since her mother first told her as a child about being a debutante, had shown pictures of her own coming out party some twenty five years earlier, had imbued in her that it was tradition if not in fact her constitutional right to be a debutante because it was what middle class Negro families expected of their college bound daughters if they were to amount to something in life. And if Delores Jackson had emphasized nothing else, September was indeed going to amount to something.

Caught up in the pageantry of the moment and giddy with excitement September stood back stage shivering in anticipation with twenty three other girls, bouquet of long stemmed red roses cradled in their arms, making last minute checks on elegant formal dresses, makeup and hair, all sharing their belief something would go wrong.

September, stop that! The voice and the hand that knocked hers away from her hair belonged to September’s best friend Delisa Gannet, a tall, rather awkward looking brown skin girl of seventeen with a wide mouth, a broad flat nose above a set of wide gapped teeth fashioned in a massive overbite and an exceptionally well endowed chest of which she was justifiably proud. You look fine.

September said, How’s my hair?

Fine, Delisa said, dismissing September’s concern with rolling eyes. You look fine. Stop worrying.

My dress?

Delisa said, Jesus, September. Your dress is fine. Your hair is fine. Makeup is fine. Everything about you is fine. Delisa leaned in close so as not to offend other girls in line and mumbled through clenched teeth, You ‘n me best looking girls here, and she patted her chest in a proud gesture of conceit.

September didn’t necessarily think she was one of the prettiest girls. But certainly the darkest and said so.

Delisa mumbled through buckteeth, rolled envious eyes away. That color makes you beautiful, girl. You got that African color, that blue-black color. And those green eyes of yours. Damn, September, what you talkin’ about ‘not being the best looking’? Girl, trade with you any day of the week.

September was worried about her escort and said so, wondered if Bennyboy would miss his timing, let her fall down the stairs.

He does, let him know he won’t get any stinky finger tonight.

Delisa!

Delisa’s eyes rolled once more. She said, Bennyboy is not gonna let you fall, September. Quit worrying about little stuff and start thinking about how much fun we’re gonna have at the after party. Delisa’s face lit up at the very thought, wide smile and overbite working in unison. Mickey Jones has a suite on the 9th floor, she continued on excitedly, "but his mother’s gonna chaperone, so that one’s out. Delroy’s brother has a suite up on the 10th floor. That’s where we’re gonna be, and she pointed a finger at September and then herself as if they were in a conspiracy. An usher motioned frantically for Delisa to move up, get ready to go on stage. Call my room after you change," she said, throwing words over her shoulder, disappearing from the wings.

Waiting for the announcement of her name that would introduce her to the world of polite Negro society, September still worried. About her exceptionally dark color mostly. This centerpiece of worry still so consuming, she nearly missed the swell of music from the orchestra that was her cue. Gathering her composure she brought the well practiced smile, exquisitely coifed hair, expensive tailor-made full length beaded white dress and matching full length evening gloves onto the stage and into the blinding spotlight, thunderous applause, blaze of flashbulbs and the announcer’s voice:

Miss September Elaine Jackson…daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Jackson……September is an honors student and the Valedictorian of her class at Promitory High School……Upon graduation September will attend……

September scarcely heard the monologue, tried not to blink at the panorama of flashbulbs, was only vaguely aware of the blur of black ties, long gowns, sparkle from diamond studded ring fingers of L.A.’s black elite that filled both sides of the ballroom. Short, nervous but well-practiced steps along a flower strewn red-carpeted pathway bracketed on either side by loose hanging red velvet ropes brought her to the edge of the stage and the first of several narrow stairs that descended past the fifteen piece tuxedo-clad orchestra to the ballroom floor. Knowing all along he was standing in his place at the bottom of the stairs, knowing too he wouldn’t let her fall, she shifted the bouquet of roses to the crook of her left arm, took Bennyboy’s outstretched hand with her right letting him take her weight, and began her practiced descent to the floor. And for the first time in two days allowed her emerald eyes to bring Bennyboy into focus.

They fell on a youth not quite six feet in height, medium brown in color, soft brown eyes and a pug nose that stood guard over a hint of mustache desperately trying to grow. He possessed a row of small straight teeth and a mouth whose wide infectious smile made him seem younger than his twenty-two years. He was resplendent in a black tuxedo ensemble with white tie and tails, close cut hair neatly parted on the side with just a hint of pomade. Over the blare of music she murmured, You look nice, Bennyboy. At that moment September could not imagine ever feeling for another boy what she was feeling for Bennyboy. And it had all happened so suddenly.

Four years older, recently graduated from college and a close family friend since her childhood, he had never once signaled any interest in her beyond brotherly friendship. But all that had changed when, following the last track meet of the season Bennyboy had come by the high school to give her a ride home. He was standing beside the now familiar ’55 Ford Fairlane as she approached in the company of friends. She had turned abruptly from the group and a book fell to the ground. As she bent down to retrieve it, a sudden gust of wind had caught the hem of her yellow pleated skirt sending it billowing up above her waistline. Embarrassed, she had straightened to pull her skirt down and then, not knowing exactly what he had seen but knowing he’d seen something, had asked him rather flippantly, You get an eyeful, Bennyboy?

He didn’t answer. But when she entered the car and closed the door he’d suddenly and without warning reached across the seat, pulled her to him and kissed her. Startled, until she realized the significance of his actions, she yielded gratefully, if not slightly embarrassed knowing her gossipy friends had witnessed it and would accuse her of holding out on them. When the moment had subsided and they were driving home, she had not returned to her seat by the door but remained at his side, his arm around her shoulder.

At that moment September understood what was happening to her, what was happening to them. And while she relished the prospect of being in love, she was at a loss to understand why it had come to her so late. With the upcoming cotillion, her graduation and departure for college just a summer away, Bennyboy’s move to D.C. even sooner, she felt under desperate pressure to make sense of things, to put them in perspective and take advantage of what little time remained. She wasn’t entirely sure just how, but Bennyboy had made the first move and she was prepared to make the second. She was absolutely sure the City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society’s cotillion would provide the opportunity.

Bennyboy smiled appreciatively as September reached the floor. While he nimbly escorted her over to where her approving parents waited, he told her she was absolutely gorgeous and the best-looking girl in the cotillion. She didn’t believe him of course and said so. Bennyboy told her to look in the mirror if she didn’t believe him. When they reached her parents, Bennyboy stepped aside while September bowed gracefully if not uncomfortably before them the way they’d practiced it in endless rehearsals. She handed the bouquet of roses to her mother, got a kiss on the cheek, hugged her father, and let Bennyboy’s arm guide them back across the floor to their assigned spot where they stood side by side to await presentation of the other debutantes and start of the dance.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society’s debutantes for 1960.

Another bow. More applause. Another explosion of flashbulbs. The music now cueing them for the traditional waltz, Strauss’ Blue Danube, a rehearsed and tightly choreographed series of gracefully executed waltz movements—front, back, sidesteps, dips, spins and twirls that took them on a smoothly flowing glide twice around the dance floor, the spotlight falling momentarily on first one couple and then another. Proud parents rushing to the edge of the floor with their cameras as debutantes danced past, shouting out their names, waving to get their attention before snapping pictures, and just as quickly moving to another part of the ballroom to get a better view, and take another picture. But to September there was no one else on the floor. Just she and Bennyboy. The music was playing only for them and they were the center of everyone’s attention. It was like being in the center of the universe.

More applause, bows with escorts, blinding flashbulbs and finally a dance with fathers while escorts danced with mothers. Its conclusion signaled the end of formalities and flooded the ballroom floor with invited guests as the orchestra upgraded its tempo to a rendition of the Miracles Shop Around. Now was the time for mingling with family and friends, picture taking, the oohs and aahs from proud and admiring relatives, exchange of compliments with other debutantes, telltale glances from impatient boyfriends, rejected escorts. Except for a mandatory early morning breakfast at the Negro-owned Pacific Town club, the City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society’s debutante ball was over.

Finally relieved of the past years’ pressure-cooker demands of required social and community activities, project deadlines, endless exhausting rehearsals and unwavering rigid adherence to rules, regulations, schedules and deportment, the debutantes had energy to burn and the after party would be the combustion chamber.

September was anxious to leave and said so.

I thought you’d want to stay with us a while and visit, said Delores Jackson. You’ve been on the go all day.

September said, I know Mama, but I have to get out of this hot dress and meet Delisa. We’re going to the after party together.

Delores Jackson, elegantly dressed in a long flowing sequin covered ballroom gown that did little to hide the beginnings of middle age weight gain but every bit as attractive as her daughter though a shade lighter, sucked a reluctant breath through her teeth and said, I think you’d be better off if you stayed here with your father and me for a while.

September’s face exploded in a frown of anguish. She said, Mama, you promised! and realizing she needed an ally brought pleading eyes to her father. Daddy…?

Speaking to his wife in a calm, precise tone but looking at September, Fred Jackson came to her rescue and said, "You did promise her, Delores…."

Another deep breath, more regretful this time, knowing he was right. Looking at her daughter and sensing her close to tears, September’s mother relented for a second time that evening, shaking her head in defeat.

She said, You be on time for breakfast, young lady, and saw a grateful daughter’s face collapse in relief then scamper away through the crowd toward the elevators with other departing debutantes, already shedding tight high heel shoes, layers of formal gowns, occasional unwanted escort.

Delores Jackson turned to her husband. Talk about someone she twists around her finger. You just let her get away with everything! Hummph. Her husband just smiled, suggested they dance and guided her through the crowded floor as the orchestra played their rendition of The Platters Twilight Time.

The idea of an after party did not sit well with Delores Jackson, regardless of the occasion. But her daughter was nothing if she wasn’t persistent, and in the days leading up to the cotillion pressured her mother without letup. Finally, in the waning minutes before leaving their 5th floor hotel suite for assembly backstage, as September emerged from her room wrapped in the beauty of her beaded white satin gown, her mother unaccountably relented. Seeing the richness of September’s deep ebony complexion against the polished sheen of white satin transported her back in time to the days of her own frivolous youth in Richmond, Virginia and the startling beauty she herself had once been. She knew she could not deny her daughter this night. But it had not been a decision she reached easily.

September’s mother was not a fool and knew full well that after parties served more often than not as the impetus for the loss of innocence of many a naïve young Debutante. And she knew September, despite her academic brilliance was, if she was nothing else, a sitting target for the likes of skilled social predators. But September was going to college, and if Delores Jackson could delay just a little longer what she knew was inevitable, if she could see September well on her way to a full education before she surrendered her virginity to the frivolity and recklessness of love—and she knew instinctively September was still a virgin, knew too and was troubled by the fact September’s best friend Delisa was not—her daughter might be less prone to drop out of school for an early marriage, or worse. And for that reason alone, she had spent seventeen years wrapping her only child in a cocoon of social protection which she knew, as well intentioned as it was, would leave September unable to survive if she spread her wings and flew before she could secure her education.

Green eyes not withstanding, she was an exceptionally dark skinned girl raised in a 1950’s color-struck Los Angeles community whose available socially prominent young men offered her little beyond courtesy, formality and friendship. True enough she had been a part of Los Angeles’ Negro ‘society’ since birth—her mother a prominent member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, her father a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and a Mason as well. And that entitled her to automatic membership in Jack and Jill, Tots and Teens and a guaranteed sponsorship by City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society’s Cotillion. The boys who made up September’s social set always saw to it she had an escort to the many activities and social events if asked by their parents and sometimes September herself. Or sometimes volunteering—for selfish reasons more often than not, since September was friendly with all the ‘fine’ girls they wanted to meet. She was the little sister they all looked out for. It’s just that she was extremely dark. And as far as boys were concerned, that made her a leper. And for the moment at least, that was exactly the way Delores Jackson wanted it.

From the time September entered adolescence, it seemed she was not destined to inherit the striking physical characteristics that had so defined her mother. Where Delores Jackson was a tall, shapely, buxom woman, September remained a short, diminuitive, rail-thin, flat-chested, skinny-legged girl. Only the haunting green eyes—and Mrs. Jackson was at a loss to explain their origin—seemed to flag September any significant social attention, and she learned quickly how to bracket them with cosmetics to enhance the effect. She’d never been an unattractive girl. Just very dark and very thin with very strange looking eyes. And when well into her sixteenth year there appeared to be no change forthcoming, September’s mother had accepted this fact with veiled relief. But this relief proved to be premature.

Three months before September’s seventeenth birthday nature realized it’s mistake and set about the process of correcting things. Almost overnight, it seemed. Her breasts, little more than enlarged nipples really, suddenly expanded at such a rapid rate, braziers of one week were obsolete the next. Her hips developed curves that destroyed an entire wardrobe and her legs took on a definition that high-heels were designed for. Her rate of feminine development was so alarming, that when the telephone calls from male admirers began to double, Delores Jackson had panicked. That was when she started the list.

The list.

Boys she considered ‘safe’. Boys from highly religious backgrounds or well mannered boys from socially prominent families she was personally acquainted with. Boys she felt wouldn’t take advantage of September. Especially boys openly known to have an aversion to dark skinned girls. None of them were saints, of course. But she felt some might be more saintly than others.

Benjamin Banaker Jones was on the list. ‘Bennyboy’ as he’d come to be known, was, like September, an only child. He’d grown to manhood under the watchful eye of Frances, his schoolteacher mother and firm, strict fireman father Benjamin Sr, or ‘Pops’ as Bennyboy called him. Both were intent on seeing their son succeed. Barely more than four years older than September, he’d just graduated from UCLA and was headed for medical school at Howard. Almost from the beginning Bennyboy had seemed a part of the Jackson family. Both families lived in Leimert Park, one of the first neighborhoods to integrate after the war. A well kept residential neighborhood just east of Crenshaw soon populated by Japanese and Negroes, the Jones’ lived in a neat, well kept single story house on Bronson and the Jacksons’ in a similar house a block over on Norton. Walking distance. And because Mrs. Jackson taught with Bennyboy’s mother at the same Watts elementary school, they’d shared transportation, babysitting, doctors and the ministry of Second Baptist church. The families played Bridge together and struggled to get elusive permits for their children to attend westside schools. When Bennyboy’s father bought him the used ’55 Ford Fairlane for his drive to UCLA, he saw to it that September had a ride to school when it rained, picked her up from ballet classes if her parents were going to be late, brought her home from church on occasion. It seemed to everyone who knew him that he was the big brother September never had. Always looking out for her, he was polite, well mannered and responsible. As far as Delores Jackson was concerned, he had proven himself a boy she could trust.

So it came as no surprise when, following City Of The Angels Garden and Scholarship Society’s formal announcement that September was to be one of their debutantes, she signaled to her mother she wanted Bennyboy to be her escort. Delores Jackson was absolutely delighted. She had after all, allowed her seventeen year old daughter to be his date for Kappa Alpha Psi’s annual Black and White formal ball held at the Hollywood Palladium, and a week later accompany him to black L.A.’s annual Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical Association’s spring dance. As far as September’s mother was concerned, her choice of Bennyboy as an escort for the Cotillion couldn’t have been more ideal than if she had chosen him herself.

And as September’s approaching eighteenth birthday, graduation and imminent departure for college ushered in the last stages of her metamorphosis from the rather non-descript child to that of an alluring, voluptuous and sexually captivating woman, Delores Jackson had no reason to think her long held trust in Bennyboy should change.

But as she was destined to learn in time however, nothing could have been further from the truth.

CHAPTER 2

It was just after midnight when September and Delisa stepped off the elevator and followed the muted echo of shouts, screams and pulsing rhythm of Shirley and Lee’s Let The Good Times Roll down the corridor of the 10th floor to the partially open door of suite 1030. September had changed into flats, a short sleeved camisole blouse and a loose fitting pleated dress. Delisa’s outfit left nothing to the imagination. She wore a knee length skin-tight skirt and an even tighter fitting cotton sweater with a plunging neckline that showed so much cleavage September was prompted to ask if she didn’t think boys would get the wrong idea about her. Delisa licked her lips and smiled, said that was the general idea. She was there to have fun. She pulled the sweater even tighter across her chest, checked her skirt and said, Showtime.

Taking the lead, she pushed the door open and walked into a darkened room filled to capacity with finger snapping, foot stomping gyrating dancers moving wildly to the beat of Shirley and Lee blaring from an over-modulated ’45 record player. Reeking of sweat, the smell of liquor, screams of laughter, occasional profanities….and no adult supervision. A debutante’s paradise.

Delisa poured herself into the groove. Returning the shouts of welcome she snapped her fingers to the beat, began singing along with the record, only her voice louder and more seductive. She offered no resistance to the unknown hand that grabbed hers and immediately disappeared into the crowd of dancers.

September, still holding back by the door, eyes not yet adjusted to the darkness was startled as a pair of hands encircled her waist.

Hi, beautiful, Bennyboy shouted over the noise. What took you so long?

He was still in his tux but minus the tie. Relishing the embrace September covered his hands with hers, resisted the temptation to turn in his arms. She said, Delisa, of course. It’s hot in here. Anything to drink?

Bennyboy said, Punch bowl other side of the room. Grabbing her hand he pulled her along behind, pressing through the minefield of tightly packed wildly gyrating bodies until they emerged at the far end of the suite. Surrounded by debutantes, boyfriends and rejected escorts, the only light in the suite revealed a bar topped with several large bowls of punch, ice buckets, throw-a-way cups and napkins.

Hey, Bennyboy, September, a voice from behind said thickly. See you finally made it.

Perry Mott was Bennyboy’s best friend.

Hi, Perry, September said. Where’s Levern?

With her boyfriend I suppose, Perry said, words beginning to slur. You know the rules—debutantes can’t have boyfriends as escorts. ‘Fraid they’ll breakup right ‘fore the cotillion, make the debutante dance by herself. Perry broke out in a silly, inebriated laugh.

You drunk, Perry? September asked.

Perry just laughed and said, Not yet, but I’m gettin’ there. He sipped from his cup till it was empty and refilled it.

Bennyboy said, This place is a madhouse, his eyes searching the darkness for familiar faces, grabbing paper cups for punch.

Perry said, Wall to wall niggas, and then as little more than an afterthought and without slurring his words managed to add, You look nice, September…with your little fine green-eyed self.

Doesn’t she though, said Bennyboy, agreeing.

You look good too, Perry, September said, returning the compliment. She was being honest. Perry Mott looked good, drunk or sober. Dark brown in color, he was a tall, athletic looking youth with broad shoulders conditioned from years of swimming. His features were not unlike those of Harry Belafonte to whom he was frequently compared except he was much darker and had that ‘good hair’ which he combed straight back and curled at the base of his neck. Staring at him in the half-light coming from behind the bar, September could see why girls were drawn to him. He was really quite handsome. September often wondered to herself how’d she feel had it been Perry instead of Bennyboy who’d shown an interest in her, smiled privately at the fantasy she could choose between them.

It was for that very reason Perry Mott’s name was not on Delores Jackson’s list. His reputation as a ladies man, whether real or imagined, changed from day to day depending on the source. His charming and suave manner had left a trail strewn with broken reputations from a cadre of daughters and embarrassed middle class families. Blanketing his every move were rumors and nefarious gossip about thousands of dollars paid out by his lawyer-mother Thelma Mott for illegal abortions from legitimate doctors who for one reason or another found themselves in her debt.

In the eyes of Delores Jackson however, it was not necessarily his looks, social status or money that made him dangerous. Perry Mott was colorblind. His penis was not color struck. It worked like radar, seeking out targets of opportunity among sheltered, over protected and vulnerable attention-starved girls regardless of skin color. That’s what made him dangerous.

Despite his reputation, Perry had all the right credentials to run in September’s social circle. He grew up in Jack and Jill, pledged Kappa, and was a star athlete on UCLA’s swim team. Considered exceptionally bright, he graduated summa cum laude and along with Bennyboy, was headed to Howard for medical studies. He was otherwise well liked, well mannered and high up on Los Angeles’ Negro social registry by virtue of his mother’s prominence. The fact that Attorney Thelma Mott was rich didn’t hurt.

He may not have been on Delores Jackson’s list, but she had too much class to ever make her feelings known. She was always quite respectful, cordial and friendly in his presence. But whenever he came by to visit September or was in her company, she slept with one eye open.

Bennyboy handed September a cup of punch. She took a big sip, shuddered at the bitterness and took another.

Perry said, Easy September. That’s gin.

September bristled and said, I know that, stupid.

Shouldn’t drink at your age, September, Perry said, winking at Bennyboy. Teasing September was Perry’s national pastime.

I’m old enough, she said taking another sip from the cup.

Sixteen’s pretty young to be drinking, continued Perry, relishing the tease.

Again September bristled. Seventeen, Perry. You know I’m seventeen. Besides, I’ll be eighteen in three weeks so it won’t matter.

Perry laughed sarcastically. Ooooh, eighteen. Almost old enough to vote.

September was about to comment when a sudden explosion of shouts and screams over the final beat of Shirley And Lee drew everyone’s attention to the door. One voice, louder and more commanding than the others had a vague familiarity about it and the three strained to see its owner.

September saw him first. The light brown color…familiar crooked teeth….the uniform−gold braid on the shoulder, bloused pants, combat boots, close cut hair under a