Chapter Seven
Renny
Food, however, was not what was most pressing at the moment.
Seeing B.D. King for the first time in over twenty years was a mind fuck.
On one hand, it gave me butterflies and made me feel giddy like I once did for him.
On another, it reminded me of the way he ended things with me, and the hurt and longing I carried for years thinking about our time together.
In the grand scheme of things, it was but a brief blip, but it was intense in the eyes of a twenty-year-old.
The college poster child and the star ball player.
The couple no one knew about. Our little, yet loving, secret story of days gone by.
After a moment of silence for the recently passed classmate who was to have received recognition, the awards portion of the evening began.
The narratives and scripts the Black Alumni awards put together about B.D.’s life and my life were nothing short of amazing.
Over still shots and videos of B.D. King on the basketball court, the hosts talked about his ongoing commitment to an athletics environment that challenged patriarchy, paid attention to mental wellness and gender inclusion across the range of gender presentations in sports, and built a culture free of sexual violence and team hazing as a college athletics director in California.
There was also a short interview and commentary from B.D.
’s college teammate Jalon, still handsome, who’d gone on to a ten-year career in the NBA before retiring.
They discussed their competitive days on the middle and high school basketball circuit in St. Louis before becoming good friends and teammates in community college and at Missouri.
During B.D.’s acceptance speech, I learned about his commitment to supporting transgender athletes.
Definitely didn’t have his gender advocacy on my bingo card during our college years or in the present day. Impressed the fuck out of me.
However, my mind wandered to what he’d leaned down and asked me at my author signing table, just before the banquet started.
“Can we talk after the event?”
Over a montage of photos from my campus leader days, including videos of my cringeworthy “Love Is a Contact Sport” dance numbers at various college events, the hosts shared words about my commitment to elevating Black LGBTQ voices through my teaching and writing, the number of books I’d written and published, the literary and community awards I’d been nominated for or won, and my contributions to Black queer community organizations.
I’d been pleasantly surprised gender and sexuality was the theme that threaded all the recipients at the Black Alumni awards banquet this time.
Made me proud to have been invited as a last-minute honoree.
My mind roamed to my reply to Brent’s question.
“Sure. Why not? Your room? My room? Or the hotel bar?”
An hour after the awards ceremony’s conclusion, I changed into a black polo and black jeans.
I sat in a booth in the rear of the dimly lit campus hotel bar waiting for tortilla chips and guacamole, though I was completely satisfied with the hearty banquet dinner we’d eaten earlier.
Instead of my usual Sauvignon Blanc, I ordered a double Cadillac Margarita because I thought I would need the tequila to take off the edge.
It wasn’t every day I ran into an ex from college who disappeared and dumped me via text two decades ago with the words I need you to stop texting me. You sound desperate and disgusting .
Waiting for him to make it downstairs, I was already starting drink number two. Nervous was an understatement.
“Larenz.”
I heard my name and looked up into his smiling face as he approached.
He’d changed out of his tux into a much more casual black V-neck T-shirt and olive green cargo pants, head topped with a Golden State Warriors fitted cap.
He had a much more expensive-looking chain than the one he used to wear in college, with a gem-encrusted “B” sitting between his pecs.
He scoped out the room before scooting into the bench across from me.
As he bumped his knees against mine underneath the table, I imagined I should have gotten a tall table with tall chairs for us.
But I also figured we needed the privacy of a booth, and meeting in our hotel rooms wouldn’t have been the business.
“Good to see you…again. It’s been too long, Larenz.”
“I see you’re still a day late and a dollar short, B.D.”
I was giving cold shoulder and skepticism, as anyone would after being left on read for twenty-something years.
B.D. paused, took off his hat, closed his eyes, and took in a breath.
This gave me a chance to do a quick once-over of his face.
He was still the same B.D. King I knew in college, smooth honey brown skin, now with a few minor lines near his eyes, fewer curls and less hair up top, and slightly longer facial hair peppered with gray strands along the chin line and tip of his beard.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to take a call from my daughter,” he said. As he looked me directly in the eye, almost seductively, and glanced at my lips, he said, “I see you still got that mouth on you.”
“What this mouth does is none of your business anymore, B.D.” I scooped some guac onto a chip and took a bite. “This is not that kind of conversation.”
“I’m not talking about what that mouth used to do to me back in college,” he said, smiling, and humming like he remembered my oral talent. “I’m talking about how feisty you used to be…and obviously still are.”
“Don’t forget desperate and disgusting.”
Without looking around to see if anyone was watching, as we used to when hanging out in college, B.D.
grabbed one of my hands and pulled it gently across to the middle of the table.
I glanced down at his long fingers, which had always been a turn-on for me.
I noticed the silver-colored band with black gems on his wedding finger.
Our hands, connected, glowed underneath the faux flickering candlelight.
His skin was soft and warm, like he used an expensive daily moisturizer and never did a day of manual labor in his life.
Holding hands was not the kind of thing B.D.
and I had been able to do in public while on campus during our college days.
“Let’s breathe and take it down a level or two, Larenz,” he said, softening his voice and tone.
“I’ve been rehearsing the words for the apology I owe you.
I just didn’t imagine it would happen here in the middle of Missouri back at the campus where we first met.
No one shared the honoree list with me.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said with a bit of skepticism in my voice. Then I remembered our mutuals in California and not just Macy. “Well, here we are back in Missouri, a campus I never planned to set foot on again. And did I hear right that you work at a college in San Francisco, with Dr. Taylor James?”
“Yeah, I report to him. Know Taylor?”
“One of my good friends, Dustin, is Taylor’s partner.”
“Dustin McMillan? No way. He’s cool people. They’re a nice couple. Taylor’s an amazing supervisor. Small world.”
“Yeah, the coincidences are otherworldly, all right.”
Keeping my guard up with B.D., Brent, or whatever name he was using these days, I rolled my eyes while thinking about the ways our past and present worlds were colliding. Not that I planned on our worlds meshing beyond being randomly honored at the Black Alumni awards that evening.
“Larenz. I just want to look at you. I can’t even believe you and I are sitting here together.”
“It’s weird, yes. Was I expecting it, too? No.”
“I’m really proud of you, Larenz. You’ve done a lot since leaving Missouri. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. You were such a go-getter in college and involved in everything on campus.”
“Thank you. I’m impressed by what you’ve done, too,” I said. “Embracing feminism, genders, and sexualities in college sports? Not bad for the so-called dumb jock who didn’t like reading when we met.”
“You were so mean to me when we met that summer, Larenz. Still have that little attitude, I see.”
“Before we continue, I prefer to go by Renny Ross now. That’s my author and teaching name.”
“I respect that…Renny,” he said. “I get it. Second half of Larenz. Well, I was going by Brent King-DuPree until recently. You can just call me Brent for now.”
“Brent. Your government name. You also took Macy’s last name, I see.”
“It’s a California thing, I guess. We’re hyphenated—me, Macy, and the kids. They’re basically grown-ups now.”
“How progressive.”
“I guess you could say that, Lar—I mean, Renny.” He smiled and stared. “I’ve finally come out.”
“You did?”
“And I initiated a separation a few weeks ago. Macy and I will be getting divorced.”
“I don’t know what to say to that. Sorry to hear.”
“Thanks.”
“Would it be bitchy if I said it’s about damn time?”
“No shade there, Renny,” he said, smiling back at me. “My therapist, Thea, says the same thing all the time. But in a more kind and therapeutic way.”
“Maybe I need to get my ass in therapy,” I said, briefly thinking about everything I needed to deal with when I returned to Detroit after this trip. “But seriously. You doing okay?”
“Therapy helps if you do the work, and I did some major work to get to where I am today,” Brent said.
He did not sound like the same person I knew back in college, struggling with being a campus public figure on the basketball team while masking parts of his identity that he shared only with me.
“I have lots of happy days knowing and accepting who I am, but I have some nervous days wondering how to do this sexuality thing and be myself in public, like now.”
“Like wondering if people are watching and judging?”