Fire Shut Up in My Bones

After graduation, Blow is accepted to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge on a full academic scholarship. But despite his desire to get far away from the ghosts of his hometown, he eventually opts for the historically Black Grambling State University, a campus much closer to home. There, he double majors in English and Pre-Law. The college environment causes old anxieties to resurface, and Blow begins to withdraw socially. Academically, however, Grambling’s discussions of race and social justice “lit a fire in me” (159). Realizing that in a class of 3,000 he could easily fade into the woodwork, Blow decides to run for class president. With a bank loan to finance his campaign, he works tirelessly, posting flyers and shaking hands. He wins by a landslide. Apart from advocating for the freshman class, his duties include mingling with donors and the other class presidents, all of whom are desperate to pledge a fraternity. With the pressure to join from his friend Chopper, a member of the “Pretty Boys” fraternity, Blow decides to pledge.

For the time being, however, he lives in a dorm. Despite being entitled to the Honors dorm, he requests a room in the freshman dorm. After initially being paired with a surly individual convicted of crimes in the past, Blow changes his room assignment. His new roommate is an affable boy, and each of them stay out of the other’s way. His first assignment for a writing class garners praise from his professor and classmates, and so at his professor’s urging he switches his major from English to Journalism. He is also accepted into the “Pretty Boys” fraternity, though the night of his acceptance, he is dancing with the university dance troupe. The next day, when his membership is certified, he keeps his dance performance a secret, knowing it “would have been a deal breaker among the Brothers” (167).

That night is the traditional hazing, which includes the beating of the pledges by the other members. Blow resigns himself to the brutal ritual, to the surprise of some of the brothers who consider him soft. Years of past trauma have inured him to physical pain, but despite his toughness and resilience, his fraternity brothers can’t help but notice the lilting, “floating” step in his gait, something perfectly normal to him but suspicious to the brothers. Desperate not to revisit those old emotional wounds, he tries to toughen his walk and micromanage his physicality “to the point of exhaustion” (172).

Thoughts of men also return. They are not overtly sexual, but they manifest in his need to feel chosen and to feel affection from another human, man or woman. His fears of being attracted, even unconsciously, to his fraternity brothers are unfounded, though. His bond with them, like with many of his male peers, actually pushes away the undesirable thoughts.

Along with his sexual awareness, Blow confronts for the first time a harsh racial reality. One night after a leaving a study group with several friends, they are pulled over by a white police officer. When the officer sees what he thinks is a switchblade—it is actually a comb—he draws his weapon and orders them out of the car. When the driver lodges a mild protest, the officer tells them that “he could make us lie down in the middle of the road and shoot us in the back of the head and no one would say anything about it” (175).

Meanwhile, the hazing grows more frequent and more intense. The brothers force alcohol on Blow, who has never drank before. The temporary euphoria gives him a clearer understanding of the hold liquor had on his father. Finally ready to be anointed official pledges, Blow and the rest of his “line” march across campus, hooded and wearing wooden identity markers around their necks. That night, the brothers drive the pledges to an abandoned field for yet another hazing, the most intense one yet. When it’s over, pledges are bruised, bleeding, and exhausted but triumphant in their endurance.