The Scammer - 31
“Look at your face! Your hair! You’re not fucking staying here!” The cops were called after I was found unconscious. Thankfully, security footage picked up the faces of every girl that entered the bathroom and they were immediately arrested. I limp into my room and touch my laptop on the...
“Look at your face! Your hair! You’re not fucking staying here!”
The cops were called after I was found unconscious. Thankfully, security footage picked up the faces of every girl that entered
the bathroom and they were immediately arrested.
I limp into my room and touch my laptop on the desk, just to ground myself. I hated leaving it, even for one night.
“I have to stay here. For now.”
Nick is furious. He hasn’t changed since leaving the hospital this morning. There are dried bloodstains on his button-down.
My blood.
“You’re an adult. You don’t have to listen to your parents. They would understand that you decided to stay with your boyfriend
after being viciously attacked.”
I laugh. “You don’t know my parents.”
At the hospital, I FaceTimed Mom. She stared at me for ten excruciating seconds before the tears started to flood, uttering, “My God, Jordyn. Your hair . . .”
Mom went into lawyer mode, pulling strings and having detectives move expeditiously to make the necessary arrests. Even at
the height of their calls, I could hear my dad mumble in the background, “This wouldn’t have happened at Yale. Those are civilized
people.”
What they weren’t aware of is that I’m still high on the person-of-interest list in connection with Kammy’s disappearance.
Being jumped in the bathroom and losing all my hair didn’t win me any points or favors with the police.
Nick shakes his head. “Fuck a call. I’m going to Student Housing today! This has gone on long enough. I’m going to get you
out of here.”
He kisses my forehead. “I’ll be back. Lock the door behind me, rest, and if anyone knocks, just call me. NO! Call 911. Just
promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I promise.”
Nick hesitates, before running out the door, and I exhale, slinking down to my bed. On reflex, I touch my hair, forgetting
most of it is gone, and it feels like I’ve gone with it.
This entire plan is off the rails. Devonte has so many people on campus in his pocket that I’m in serious danger. Anyone could
throw me down the stairs, hit me with a car, or spread even more rumors that I can wind up in jail . . . it’s all too much.
Her door creaks as it swings open and every muscle in my body clenches at the sound.
Loren stands at my threshold, hands folded. She’s wearing a green head wrap, yellow top, and a long denim skirt. She takes in my injuries, my forced haircut, with dull lifeless eyes.
“I . . . came to see if you were alright,” she says softly.
“Do I look alright?” I snap, seething.
She shakes her head. “I tried to warn you. You can’t blame Devonte for this. You were running around saying he murdered some
girl.”
“He IS a murderer!” I jump up, the movement so painful, black spots blind my vision, and I grip a chair for balance. “And
you don’t see that him and his fucked-up sister are scamming you?”
Loren has a hard time facing me. “Devonte can be a little . . . extreme. Passionate. But he’s not all the way wrong about
the facts he’s spitting.”
A wry laugh escapes me. “Get the hell out of here.”
Loren lunges forward.
“I’m serious,” she shouts. “You gonna look around and say he’s making up the statistic about the number of liquor stores we
have in the hood compared to availability of fresh fruits and vegetables? Black maternal mortality rates? Police brutality?
The damn cops who almost got us killed in that protest are already out on bail, still getting paid with our tax dollars!”
I don’t answer her. There’s no use in talking to her.
She sighs. “Girl, I know it’s easier for you to just follow along. But that’s not the life I want to live anymore. And you can’t make me live a life I don’t want to. People grow! People change! I’ve changed. I can’t just turn my back and party and drink knowing there’s innocent brothers in prison. Or that there’s a food industry literally poisoning our communities. After everything our ancestors have been through, I can’t sit and dishonor them by pretending I don’t see what I’m seeing. Our people are in mental bondage and don’t know it. If you want to pretend you don’t see that, that’s on you. But I ain’t you. So just . . . stop.”
She gives me a curt nod, storming out of the suite. And I don’t realize I’m crying until the door slams shut.
I stare out the window at the Quad, the view spectacular. Students flow in and out of different halls, gathering around benches,
holding hands, laughing under a bright beautiful sky. Not a care in the world.
“What kind of tea is this?” I ask, hands hugging a black-and-white African print mug with a gold handle.
“Turkish,” Dr. Barnes says, sitting across from me with his own steaming cup. “A black tea, brewed slightly different than
regular black. I picked some up on a trip to Istanbul. Although I do prefer their coffee better.”
His office is like a museum, artifacts from countries all over the world adorning every spare inch of his walls, smelling
of spices and wet wood.
“Seems like you travel a lot.”
“Most of our well-known Black artists and intellectuals would tell you to spend as much time as you can out of this country, or you will lose yourself to it.”
“But . . . this is home.”
“Hm. That it is,” he says, tickled by something unsaid.
I wiggle my jaw, the hinge still sore and swollen.
“You haven’t asked me about my face yet,” I mutter. “Or my hair. I guess you already know.”
He nods. “How do you feel?”
“Right now? I feel . . . hopeless.”
He raises a gray eyebrow. “Hopeless? Hm. Now that’s an interesting choice of word. Go on.”
I look outside again, wishing I could be one of those carefree students. But then I think of Loren’s heated words and fight
back tears.
“How do you go on living in a world that hates us? That we never get justice in. Why bother even trying? I mean, how could
we sit here, enjoying our tea . . . or be out there laughing . . . when there’s so much work to be done? How can you travel
the world knowing what are people are going through here? How can you just pretend like everything is . . . fine?”
Dr. Barnes sets down his mug with a smirk. “My dear, I see you are at the crossroads that most students find themselves in
at some point in their college life, when they’ve stepped out of their parents’ protective bubble and into independence.”
“Really?”
He wags a finger. “It’s been proven that the road to Black liberation and consciousness will never be a single lane.”
“What do you mean?”
He folds his hands. “Did you know that the late great James Baldwin spent a considerable amount of time abroad in places like
Paris and Turkey? He said it best, ‘To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage
almost all the time.’ So, oh yes, the state of this world makes me very angry. But I do not let anger dictate the road I travel
on. I choose joy.”
“Joy?” I scoff.
“Absolutely! To build a future that is rooted in equality and liberation, you must imagine and pretend that it is possible.
And the key part of imagination is joy. Joy is an act of resistance, it’s revolutionary. The fact that our people have survived
all that we have survived, and thrived, defying expectations and insurmountable odds . . . that deserves to be celebrated.
So yes, I can still be a part of the fight for Black liberation while I travel, dance with my friends, laugh, and drink tea
with my students.”
I nod, sipping my tea.
“Some people choose different revolutionary roads to travel on,” he continues. “No journey is wrong. But judgment of each
other’s roads has led to some divisiveness and fracture in our communities. That is why you, standing at this crossroads,
feel so pivotal. Because the road you might want to take may be different than the road your friends or even your family have
taken.”
I think of Kevin. How the road he wanted to go down led him straight off a cliff. I stare out the window again and sigh.
“My roommate’s older brother moved into our dorm. The chemtrails, the toxins, the Lynch papers . . . that was all him. He’s
been . . . using us.”
Using seems like such a basic word to describe what we’ve been through but it’s all I have in me.
Dr. Barnes takes a deep breath, his eyes never leaving me.
“Technically,” he starts. “I’m not allowed to talk to you about this. It would mean the university had knowledge of what was
going on and leave them open to a lawsuit.”
“Well, why hasn’t the university done anything about it?”
He picks up his mug. “It’s a question of whether this is a roommate squabble or criminal activity. If it’s a roommate issue,
it would be under the Dorm Counsel and Housing to look into. It’s a student’s right to have visitors.”
“And if there is criminal activity?”
He raises his hands with a dramatic shrug. “He’s careful. Neither you nor any of your other roommates have filed an official
complaint. Any violence reported wasn’t done by him, it was done by other students. He hasn’t disrupted school activities,
classes. Hasn’t damaged school property. He’s never spoken to a single professor or administrator on campus.”
“But people see him walking around! How can they think he’s a student?”
“We have students of all ages. From as young as sixteen to as old as seventy-two in various departments from Fine Arts to Dental School. This is the perfect place for him to hide in plain sight. He’s toeing a fine line.”
“So he’s just gonna get away with this and Frazier is going to just let a cult be formed on its campus?”
“Ah! I wouldn’t necessarily say that.” He stands, moseying to the corner of his office to a small black kettle, clicking it
on. “There is one way to kill a fire before it spreads.”
A fire . . . before it spreads . . . and destroys more lives. Something I should have done from the start.
I straighten with resolve. “How?”
Dr. Barnes refreshes his cup before turning to me with a smile. “Deprive it of oxygen.”
I walk out of Dr. Barnes’s building with my head held high, ignoring the stares that my battered face and pixie cut draw.
I think about those times I’ve fallen off the balance beam. The brutal thump your body makes as it hits the mat, the “Oooo”
then judgmental silence from onlookers. But you can’t focus on the fall. You have to spring back onto the beam and slip back
into your routine like nothing ever happened.
I grab my phone out of my pocket and dial.
“Hey! Are you okay?” Vanessa asks, oozing with uncertainty. “I heard what happened. I swear I had nothing to do with—”
“Can I talk to Devonte. Please?”
“Um. Okay. One second.”
There’s a ruffling on the line, muffled words exchanged, before his voice comes through, silky smooth as ever.
“Jordyn. Are you alright?”
“Yes. I’m fine.” I keep my own voice light and upbeat.
“Well. Good. You did the right thing, calling me. Is there something you wish to say?”
He’s looking for an apology. The audacity.
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath. “‘Lions are not concerned with the opinions of sheep.’”
Devonte is silent for a moment. “What . . . what did you say?”
I wish I could see his face but the crack in his voice is just as sweet. “You heard me.”
“Where did you hear that?” he snaps. “How did you—”
“I need to see you in person. Alone. It’s important.”
“Stay right there. I’m coming now!”