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Drexel Park Delivers

Miranda Yearwood

    They dropped by to pick me up on the way to Jacksonville on Thursday. My classes were finished for the week by 3 p.m. and after a 300 mile drive, the two boys wanted to take a nap. Understandably, since we still had at least two more hours to drive. And I was simply thrilled to have my peeps from back home at my college. To see my well-decorated dorm room, to walk down the campus sidewalks past all the throngs of other cooler college kids, to show off that I too had friends.

    Jacksonville was where we planned to play hippie golf with Frisbees and hang out drunk on the beach all day. Of course, smoking pot was like breathing amongst the group and being hippies, shoes were optional. When the boys showed up at the dorm building parking lot at 3:31 am, I had been watching the Chapelle show reruns while the gushing of excitement filled my tiny dorm room. I went outside in the humidity to meet them in the forest green Jeep Cherokee with broken seats, sagging ceiling. River sat halfway behind the steering wheel with one leg hanging out the open driver’s side door. Wheat was still passed out from the dragging drive, over in the passenger seat ejected as parallel to the ground as possible, no blanket just a big fuzzy beard extending around to his furry mop.
    “What’s happenin! Yay, I’m so glad ya’ll finally made it,” I said.
    “Yep, me, too. Long ass drive, and Wheat’s been passed out since Macon.”
    We just stood like stone for a minute wondering what the other one was thinking. River may have been my lover, but at times he was just another passerby. We met in high school, were friends and classmates but never anything more. However, during college I noticed him and his curly chocolate locks one evening at a house party back at home. His cherub face was more handsome than I had noticed and his vivacious personality was overwhelming. Charismatic and chatty, we ended up back at his place later that same night.
    “Wake up dude.”
    Wheat fumbled his fingers across the lever to straighten his makeshift bed.
    “Finally,” he said.
    I figured, knowing the lazy bones, River had been stuck behind the wheel ever since they left the mountains, and after the first J Wheat most likely never moved. The drive should have taken about 4 hours, but then again, that’s how long it takes me, flying at about 85 mph. And I’ve been up and down that lonely highway hundreds of times. This was River’s first time ever to the beach in Florida. What in the world; what kind of guy has never been to Florida, much less a beach!
    Meanwhile, River is letting his dog out of the back of the Jeep. Salt and pepper, the crack Russell practically soars from the compartment on highest alert tail vibrating and head going back and forth like a ping pong ball at a Master ping pong tournament. I personally hated the dog, mainly because of the completely crack addict personality, but also because I find it strange when people treat dogs, cats, birds, rats, snakes...like their children, friends, mates. Of course, if I wanted to have River around crack addict Johnny, for Johnny Walker obviously, would be part of the package.
    So JW became the excuse of ‘we need to get on the road as soon as possible.’ But, I wanted to show people I went to college with that I was cool, that I had friends willing to drive all the way across the state just to see me, that I wasn’t a nobody. So, by 3:45ish the three of us, and the dog, were headed down to Drexel Park to score some weed. Hey, we are in college, and everyone knows the harder we study the harder we are expected to party.
    Drexel Park is located on the grounds of the main campus, completely shrouded by tall pines, giant white oaks, mountain laurel bushes. A river flowed through the campus grounds from the establishment of the college, and over the years, expansion caused the campus to flood over the river. However, with watershed protection, the park ensured that the sanctity of the river and its banks would remain as is. During the humid mornings and sun showers of the afternoons, I stalked through the park to avoid the busy intersection on the corner of the main campus. Late at night and early in the morning, my roommate would sneak down to the park with a J and meander aimlessly.
    The mystery of the park remained with stories of murderists tossing dead bodies into the river, rapists snatching the next poor victim from the greenspace, drug dealers robbing innocent passersby. A grain of truth that we students took as a scare tactic to keep us out of the park after hours was the occasional announcement of a person driving around campus in a fake police car wearing a fake police uniform. I even saw the flyers posted on the glass doors of my dorm building, and had read the warnings with a flick of my eyes on my way to Sociology of Religion. At one point, flyers were posted about a man kidnapping and raping women from the campus parking lots. This one seemed more real, more likely, since the five random parking lots that scattered around the campus were unlit, unguarded and overgrown the community greenery from neighboring homes. Anyone could just step out of a house, cross over onto the gray rock parking area, hold someone up and take complete advantage of the situation, since we, including I, frequently made our way back and forth from the lots at all hours of the night and day.
    We crossed the dead three lane highway that normally buzzes from the main campus to the college gym and recreational departments. The blacktop, covered with freshly painted yellow strips and clear plastic reflectors stuck to the surface, was the dividing line between work and play. In the distance, I could spot a crowd of nine or ten people standing in a tight circle beneath the drapery of Spanish moss. The moonlight reflected off the thick fog coming up from the river flowing to the left side of the park. One of the difficulties with security fell in the low elevation of the river, sitting like a deep gash in the earth. Sounds from the flowing water echoed out of the ground and sounded ten times louder than it really was. Rolling mounds of earth left you walking over a braille-like surface, with clusters of natural plant life left unmanaged creating small caves, nooks, hideouts.
    Someone told me that homeless people often took refuge in the park. Come to mention it, there had been this one homeless man sitting on the corner bench of the park that I had passed by on my way to Sociological Research Methods at 8 a.m. on Mondays. When the cold weather came to town, which wasn’t really that cold compared to the north end of the state where it actually snows sometimes, the homeless man was no longer there. One of my professors overheard the class talking about him one day soon after, and we were informed the man had sought refuge at the local shelter because of the weather. I heard from my roommate that he got hit by one of the speed racers traveling fast down the corridor between the campus and park.
    We headed over to the group, sheepishly, with the annoying JW in tow. Wheat had brought some smoke and pre-rolled one for this particular sort of occasion. He lit up and we formed our own little circle on the perimeter. Soon after one or two of the smokeless strangers smelled our peace offering and broke from the larger circle to join ours. Within ten minutes and by the end of the smoking session, we had made 10 new friends. I knew one or two of them from class, and we chit chatted about nonsense. The subject of my friends’ arrival on route to the beach peaked the conversationalists for a moment. JW even made a few friends with the dog lovers in the crowd. Someone else pulled out a sack and we commenced soon after to smoke a really large cigarette. Hazed, fuzzy and enlightened, everyone soon became distracted and paranoid. It was time to head back to campus, since the sun would be up soon.
    One by one, we shot back across the main road and started up the sidewalk to the dorm rooms. After our group including JW started up the sidewalk, we slowed down to let the rest of the people make their way. Stopping at a stone fountain that was surrounded by wooden benches, we took a break to decide what to do next. We couldn’t very well bring the dog into my dorm room, but we weren’t quite ready to head on down the road. Chill, so we did.
    A few other people coming back from bars and late night excursions of their own made a seat around the large fountain for one last cigarette before retiring for the evening. I noticed this man, much older than the rest of us, making his staticky way over to the fountain. In my perimeter I kept one eye on this guy, with a sick feeling he was out of place, out of touch and looking for trouble. He took a seat next to Wheat who was on the opposite side of the fountain from River, JW and I, and very quickly their conversation escalated. Wheat rose sharply and the man grabbed him by the back of the shirt. River shouted some nonsensical, ‘hey buddy what’s the dealio’ but was completely ignored by the unkempt man.
    “If you don’t give me the rest of your weed I’m calling the police,” the stranger demanded.
    “Oh really,” snickered Wheat, as this seemed like the stupidest threat ever, to call the police concerning an entirely illegal operation.
    “Hey man, I saw you and your girlfriend back there and I know you got some,” he said.
    “First of all I don’t have a girlfriend, and second of all, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you saw; it ain’t yours to have,” said Wheat.
    River intervened at this point, the mediator of our group, along with two tall blonde boys from school who were still drunk from the night’s bar rounds.
    A scuffle began with pushing at first, proceeded with shouts and then a loud BANG!
    The man shot Wheat in the stomach section, from the looks of all the pouring blood. Wheat stumbled backwards speechless and the crowd scattered like roaches in the light. He shot him. He shot my friend over $15 worth of smoke. My friend from out of town who had never been to the beach or even Florida. The unidentified man took off, but no one followed him; we were all in shock. My heart sank and River began to sob, releasing the tension from his own stomach. One of the scattering roaches came back with the R.A. from the nearest dorm, who was on his cell with the cops. The ambulance took Wheat away, but the coroner took him home. No one ever caught the killer, and I kept one of the flyers posted on my dorm building entrance left after months of no leads and a lost interest in the crime.

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