I’ve had some interesting dating experiences over the years.
None more interesting than when I was in college and living in an off-campus apartment.
My school overbooked its campus housing and rented apartments for the remaining residential students.
I had three roommates and we split two bedrooms.
One Friday night, two of my roommates—one from Charleston, SC and the other from the small town of Winnsboro—were preparing to visit a local strip club.
They had invited me to come along but, to their chagrin, I had a date scheduled for the night and had to decline.
My roommate from Charleston (we’ll call him “Geech”) was especially disappointed since I had told him that I had never been to strip club, and he was eager to take me to my first “tutty bar,” according to his “Geechie” dialect.
Geech and I were good friends. I used joke with him about being the first light-skinned guy I had ever met from Charleston.
Our roommate from Winnsboro (we’ll call him “Malcolm”) was a tall, soft-spoken guy who was on the school’s basketball team. He usually sat back and laughed as Geech and I joked around. (Our fourth roommate was from New Jersey and was never at the apartment, and basically used it as a storage closet.)
The three of us talked and listened to music in the living room while we prepared for our respective evenings, and Geech and Malcolm may have had a beer or two.
Our festivities were interrupted by a knock at the door.
I figured it was my date so I told Geech to answer the door while I went to my room to get a jacket. (I also wanted my roommates to see my reason for passing on the strip club.)
I returned from my room after putting on some scented oil I purchased from the African shop, and I slid my jacket over my shoulders.
My date was standing need the front door, talking with Geech.
I was glad to see her, but I was disappointed that she showed up with her hair undone.
She had short hair that was usually curled at the top, but she arrived with it combed back like she had just gotten out of the pool.
She was still attractive—tall, slim, with a light complexion, full lips, and a pretty smile—but she knew she could have done something with her hair (looking like one of those ‘liquor house’ women who don’t wear a bra.)
Her hairstyle (or lack thereof) was likely the result of her plans to leave for Texas the next day to attend Air Force basic training. She enlisted in the service after acquiring an Associate’s Degree from a local two-year college, and we planned to spend her last night in town together.
She and I bantered about with Geech and Malcolm for a while and then left the apartment for the parking lot.
She had recently purchased a Nissan Altima that she planned to leave with her mother while she was away, and it was parked near the curb at the end of the walkway.
“I like what you did with you hair,” I said, as we got into the car.
“Shut up,” she said, with a smile.
We drove away with plans to remain gone long enough for my roommates to leave for the strip club, and then we would double back and have the apartment to ourselves.
She stopped at the traffic light at the end of the road. “So, where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m hungry; let’s get some food.”
“Where do you want to eat?”
“I don’t care … anywhere, except McDonald’s.” (I had grown tired of McDonald’s.)
“Okay, I know a place.” She turned left at the light, merged onto the Interstate, and we ended up across town at a Rush’s restaurant, which was the perfect distance for the amount of time we needed to pass.
We pulled up to the drive-thru speaker and I looked at the menu. I wanted a fish sandwich but Rush’s didn’t sell them. “Just get me two large fries,” I said. “I’ll buy.”
“No drink?”
“Nah, I’ll get something later.”
My date rolled down her window and shouted my portion of the order into the microphone, and then she said, “… and I want a bacon double—“
“Wait, hold up,” I said.
“What?” She turned and looked at me.
“No pork.”
“What do you mean, no pork?”
“I’m not buying any pork.”
“Why not?”
“Because it stinks.”
I explained to her that I had stopped eating pork in middle school, so the smell of cooked pork made me nauseous and usually gave me a headache—especially in confined spaces (like a car). “You can get something else.”
“But I want a bacon double cheeseburger,” she pleaded, with sorrowful eyes. “It’s my last night. Can I have it … please?”
I shook my head and exhaled a breath. “Yeah, g’head.”
“Thanks, Dante!”
She ordered the burger combo and we headed back for the apartment with the car smelling like “@ss in a bag”—even with the windows cracked.
We returned to the intersection at the end of the road near the apartment and I told her to stop at the convenient store on the corner.
I wanted to buy a drink for my meal and, at the time, Def Jam Records sold a line of fruit juice. You could buy a bottle of Redman, Method Man, DMX, or Onyx juice from convenience stores around the country. (It seems weird now.)
I went into the store and bought the juice while my date waited in the car.
When I returned to the parking lot, a teal-green Nissan Sentra was parked behind my date’s car with its high-beam lights blaring.
The car must have had special lights installed because the glare looked like the scene when the aliens landed in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
My date was standing on the passenger side of the Sentra with the door open, and I heard her shout, “Kelvin, I’m not with him!”
The Sentra whipped in reverse, and my date dove in the car with her knees in the passenger seat and her legs dangling out the open door.
The driver, her ex-boyfriend, Kelvin (not his real name), slammed the car into Drive and screeched out of the parking lot, toward the interstate—his high beams still shinning and my date’s feet still hanging from the car.
I was left standing in front of the store, holding my Redman juice (Redman’s flavor was strawberry/cherry or something.)
The Sentra drove out of sight and I needed a ride home.
My date’s car was still parked, cranked, and idling in front of the store. The driver side door was open and the ‘door ajar’ bell was ringing, “ding … ding … ding … ding …”
What was a brother to do?
(To be continued)
