Page 139 - From the Outhouse 4 -21

139 | P A T R I C I A R A E M E R R I T T W H A T L E Y

these were my words with much, much drama: “To the Pastor and members of St. Paul Baptist Church, I will be matriculating at
Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina for the summer. I ask the prayers of the church for a successful summer.” The

congregation replied, “Amen.”

Off to college I went the next day. No sooner than I arrived on campus, one of my Talladega peers said to me, “Hey girl! I just met

this service guy, and he wants to take me on a date this evening (Monday night). He has a friend who could be your date, so do you

want to go?” It was a school night, but being gullible, I said, “Sure. Sounds great! I hope we can make it back before curfew.” She
replied, “Oh, sure!” Of course, you know that didn’t happen! Before I left, I gave my homegirl from Sanford (who was attending

Benedict for the summer) strict instructions: if I ended up getting home late, she was to leave the back door open so we could slip in

without being caught by the House Mother or night watchman who walked the grounds. Well, that didn’t happen either! We had to
meet the guys off campus. My friend and I were dressed in nightclub clothes and hid our high heels in our purses. After we joined our

dates, we ended up leaving South Carolina and going to another state in a fine-looking convertible!

We went to a nightclub called The Green Door which was also the title of a popular song at that time. On our way back to the campus,

we got a flat tire, which made us very late … around 1 or 2 in the morning. We were dropped off at the corner of our dormitory, and
we took off our high heels so we could run to the back door quickly. Well, that didn’t happen. As we turned the corner to get to the

sidewalk leading to the door, we could hear my homegirl shout from the second-floor window, “Go back, go back” (we thought). We
misinterpreted her directions and ran in the direction of the night watchman, who caught a glimpse of us. We ran back toward the

corner, but it was too late. The watchman yelled, “Stop!” Naturally, we kept running, and next he yelled, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” When

he really did shoot (although in the air), we froze in our tracks, turned around, and he met us.

The watchman escorted us to the House Mother’s office, woke her up, and marched us inside. It was fun slipping away, but no fun

getting caught! She started to interrogate us, questioning where we were coming from and asked us if we knew the curfew hours. She