Up at the College by Michele Andrea Bowen Page A

see, Coach Curtis Parker, that is why the two of you belong together,” Trina said, not even cognizant of what she’d just
     said. “First off, Yvonne, Dayeesha Hamilton’s daddy is Big Dotsy Hamilton, the cohost of
Apostle Grady Grey’s Half an Hour of Holy Ghost Power
on the cable access TV station. And secondly, Curtis, they do some kind of special silk-screen process for nails over at
     Yeah Yeah Hip-Hop Store, and you can have your children’s pictures put on your nails. They are the only store in the Triangle
     that can do this on nails.”
    “Is there anything they can’t do over at Yeah Yeah?” Maurice asked his wife.
    “Yeah,” Curtis told him, “there really is something that they don’t do at Yeah Yeah. They don’t do church hats, they don’t
     take personal checks, and they definitely don’t print up church fans with the funeral home name on one side and pictures of
     Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, and JFK on the other.”
    Yvonne laughed and hit Curtis on the shoulder. “Boy, you are so crazy.”
    Curtis drenched a fresh piece of fish with Texas Pete hot sauce before he said, “Yeah, I’m crazy all right, crazy about you,
     baby,” and then gave her a fresh wink.
    “You know what,” Yvonne said, deliberately changing the subject at hand between her and Curtis, “how can Kordell Bivens, who
     is one broke-down negro, be such a player? It takes money and some dap to be a real player—like, take Charles Robinson. Now,
     Charles qualifies as a bona fide player.”
    Curtis was a bit put out with Yvonne over that statement. Didn’t she know that a bona fide player was sitting right next to
     her?
    “That negro ain’t broke,” Curtis snorted out, suddenly feeling better when it occurred to him that Yvonne was not into players.
     “But he is always walking around campus acting like he is so down on his luck, and playing on the sympathies of the unsuspecting
     women who are stupid enough to feel sorry for him.”
    “You are so right, Curtis,” Maurice added. “Those women are always bringing Kordell lunch and packaged-up dinners to take
     home when he gets off work. And one fool was outside the Athletic Department washing his car.”
    “Why?” was all Yvonne could say to that craziness. There was nothing about Kordell Bivens that would make her want to do anything
     but walk the other way when she saw him coming. And in fact, there were a few times she’d seen him on campus and done just
     that.
    “I guess they are aching for a taste of the Dentist,” Maurice said, rolling his eyes.
    “I think it’s
the Physician
,” Curtis corrected.
    “No, it’s
Herr Doktor
,” Trina told them. “Kordell calls himself
Herr Doktor
.”
    Yvonne rolled her eyes and stuck her finger in her mouth like she wanted to puke.
    “You can roll your eyes all you want to, Cuz,” Maurice said. “But there are some women on that campus who consider it a privilege
     to be able to say
they’ve had an appointment with Herr Doktor.
”
    “Maurice is right, baby,” Curtis said, adding
baby
on purpose just to get under Yvonne’s skin. “Prudence Baylor loves to be able to call him by that name.”
    “We’re talking about the same Prudence who is now all hugged up with your very married athletic director, right?” Trina asked.
     She couldn’t help but wonder how that was going to affect Gilead Jackson and Kordell Bivens’s relationship. But then, maybe
     it just didn’t matter. People like that did those kinds of things to each other. The world was something to deal with if you
     were entrenched in it.
    “Yep—one and the same. Prudence was with Kordell first, and dropped him for Gilead when she learned that Kordell couldn’t
     override my decision to keep her son off of my team.”
    “But, Curtis,” Yvonne said, “why do those women call Kordell Herr Doktor? He’s big and thick. His legs are thick, without
     a defined muscle in his calves, and they are actually kinda girly-looking, if you