College Fiend [A$AP Rocky]

Twenty-two

“So what do you do now?”

Our little spot was bright, illuminated by the café’s newly-changed bulbs and the sunlight coming in from outside. I’d come into the café only once before, a long it me ago, when I first came to the college’s orientation with my parents. There was no need for me to be at the orientation, for my attending the college was a guarantee. My parents were too rich to not send me; knowing the money and power my parents had, the school would change themselves around just so that I wouldn’t report negatively to my father. And on that day, the day of the orientation, when a woman was a bit rude to my Shirley, she made this concept very clear to her.

I didn’t want to stay and be embarrassed. Being known as the rich guy’s daughter wasn’t fun anywhere. So I stormed out and walked until I found this place, and waited until I finally cooled off and answered one of my father’s calls.

My father. The story my mother told me about him still hadn’t settled in; or maybe it did, but I just didn’t have as much emotion toward it as I needed to. Maybe all along, deep down inside, I knew that something like this had happened. It had to. If I didn’t, maybe then I’d be worried.

“Guess.” Travis offered. This was his ‘pre-lunch’ hour, during which he ate, well, pre-lunch. Last night he called me and gave me the honors of an invitation to joining him in this special and laughable act. No matter how many times I told him the word was ‘brunch’, he wouldn’t listen. Quite the stubborn one, he was.

“You design your own clothes?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, everything you’re wearing looks like it was made by a kindergartner, which is practically who you are.” I said. Travis laughed and shrugged.

“I do design my clothes, but not mainly,” He explained. He wore a yellow, blue and pink striped shirt, distressed pants of a pale teal color, and shoes with permanent marker drawings on them. “But I’m a rapper now.”

“Seriously? That’s so…”

“So…what?”

“That’s so obvious.”

“What do you mean?” Travis asked, chewing on the edge of his chocolate-chip muffin.

“You’d obviously have to be a rapper of some sort; that’s just who you are. I should have guessed. You’re probably a great lyricist.” I said, shaking my head for having not known. It still surprised me, though.

“If you want to call me a lyricist, go ahead, I guess.” He chuckled. I told him that he probably was a lyricist, but I’d never know for sure until he let me hear some of his music, so he agreed to let me hear some of his work as soon as he got his hands on a computer. In the meantime, we talked. About everything, really. We sat and talked, walked and talked, laughed and talked, ate and talked…the whole works. And then we paused to meet up with Hunter, and the three of us repeated the cycle. It was fun.

I found out that Travis’ music was receiving a lot of hateful backlash due to his hateful lyrics, and of course that only made me feel sad. Not only because I wanted people to like his work simply because he was my friend, but because of the fact that one of the reasons he had so much hate in his heart was the fault of the police who falsely arrested him for the murder of Jaamani.

By the way, that was now a cold case.

Hunter was doing major things, too. Right now, he was completing his last year in college while beginning his first year in medical school all at once. I’d never known he wanted to be a doctor.

“I don’t,” He told me, “but now I can say that I know how to skateboard, win spelling bees, and fix sick people.”

Of course, I laughed. But a few moments later, I wanted to cry.