Dapper Carter's 8 Rules of Dating (19 page)

BOOK: Dapper Carter's 8 Rules of Dating
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"What do you want, Eva?"

"I want you to turn around."

Eva crept up behind me and tapped me on the
shoulder. I wheeled around, startled, and started to slug her as my Chancellor Avenue street smarts told me I was at risk.

“You probably shouldn’t sneak up on people in the
future. Not unless you want to be picking your teeth up off the ground.”

“Point taken. I didn't know you ran up here,
too?"

"The things you don't know about me could fill Madison Square Garden. I run here every day."

"I can tell. You're looking good."

"Thanks. Like I said, what's up?" As much
as I used to want to smash Eva, her attitude had turned me off. She became porous
to me and no matter how sexy she was, it just wasn’t worth the chase anymore.

"I just got some extra money (another sucker).  Why
don't you let me take you out?"

"I'm not fucking with you like that anymore,
Eva. I'm tired of being your friend when it's convenient for you, which is usually
when you need a meal."

She was flabbergasted. "So what are you going
to do tonight, then?"

"Chill out by myself. Crack a bottle of wine,
smoke a cigar, do some writing..."

“Don’t tell me you trying to get all deep now? Dapper
Carter is going to be by himself? I don’t think so. You can’t be alone.”

I felt like Oran Juice Jones and pulling out the
jammy and flat blasting her. But instead I chilled.

“Well, I’m alone now,” I said.

“I’m sure that it’s not by choice.”

“Matter of fact, it is. I'm starting to like me, actually
love me."

"Your self-centered ass has never had a problem
loving yourself."

I stared at her throat wanting to choke her out. I
had never put my hands on a woman before. I figured if it ever reached that
point it was over between us because Mrs. Carter would never provoke me to want
to cause her physical harm. So she definitely could not be the woman for me and
it was time to go.

"Well, now I think I'm ready to love someone
else."

“No you’re not.  All you give a shit about is Dapper
Carter.  Why do you think you cheated on your wife and every other
relationship you’ve ever been involved in?” 

I thought about it briefly, but my answer didn’t
require that much thought.  It’s always been my answer to that
question.  “Because I can.” 

And unfortunately it was true.  But it was true
on several levels.  It was true in the sense that I had the balls to make that
big of a statement and secondly, because the women would let me roam
unchecked.  Most women operate on the protocol to give a man enough rope
to hang himself with.  The problem was that I was the type of nigga in
that if you give me a rope I want to be a cowboy.  Sometimes you gotta
give a brotha a warning shot to let him know you’re paying attention.

“So now you think you're all that?"

I was finished stretching out and even more finished
with my conversation with her. She was so pathetic to me. Her attitude sucked
and I didn’t want to fuck with it any longer.

"Bye, Eva!"  I put my headphones back
on and started running back down Eastern Parkway toward home. Most guys think
they’re a man the first time they get some pussy. Actually, you’re a man the
first time you can turn pussy down!

 

 

 

 

 

Speak of the Devil

 

Later on that night I sat on the roof of my building
smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of Riesling. I had gotten tired of
drinking martinis and needed to change it up.  I sat and reminisced about how
far I had come from the selfish way I used to be and the way I used to act
(Rick James).

I uneasily remembered how I had propositioned Kennedy’s
sorority sister, Destiny, at the wedding reception. I had slept with her back
in college, which no one but she and I knew.  I don’t think she told
Kennedy about either incident nonetheless.  It was our secret. I had a
weird way of remembering every girl that I had ever slept with, her first and
last name. I was meticulous like that. But I also figured it was the least I
could do since they did share themselves with me intimately.

I recalled uncomfortably how I had gallivanted
around town in Kennedy’s custom painted pink drop top BMW 328i with an
assortment of floozies.  I even coaxed Heather the Feather—which we called
her because of her feathery light touch—to give me a blow job in the driver’s
seat of her car. I thought about how I had slept with Stacy Parker; then slept
with her sixteen-year-old sister, Stephanie, the following weekend when she
came to visit. That actually happened twice.

A light rain began to fall corresponding with my
personal cleansing. How fitting. I continued the personal assault, cringing
over how I threw Raquel Bass out of my dorm room naked because she was a tease.
Desiree Matthews slit her wrists because I didn’t want to be with her and she
couldn’t handle the rejection.

But it wasn’t all bad. I thought about the first
time I saw Rain’s face. How I liked the crease on her forehead when she was
deep in thought. How she gave me butterflies for the first time since I was sixteen.
How totally hot she was in every way, shape, and form. She also made me want to
be a better person and share a family with her.

I was beginning to get waterlogged while sitting on
my beach chair atop the roof surveying all of Brooklyn. I could see the clock
beaconing from the top of the HSBC building in downtown Brooklyn. It was ten
minutes past time to go in, but I loved the way the raindrops felt on my face. My
mother used to ask me, “Don’t you have enough sense to come in out of the rain,
Fool?” Evidently I didn’t.

I hustled downstairs and took off my saturated
clothes, dropping them right where I stood. There were definitely advantages to
living alone such as cleaning up after yourself when you get good and ready to.

Another advantage was being able to walk around in
your house butt-ass naked. I never had been that open or even comfortable with
my own body, so this was something new for me. I could see why one would feel
it was quite liberating, but I felt more ashamed than anything. I grew up Catholic,
so what do you expect? I had been dealing with guilt issues my whole life and,
according to my parents, I’ve been to hell at least 100 times for the shit that
I've done.

I casually strolled across my apartment in full
glory to my closet.  I threw on the first thing I saw, my satin purple
paisley Morris Day robe. I stood in the mirror and flexed my abs hard because I
hadn't seen them in a few years. I was seeing muscular separation between my
deltoid, bicep, and triceps. I was pleased because anybody can get big, but
it's a sign of discipline if you get can ripped.

Definition is all about diet and the only things I
had been eating were fish, vegetables, fruit, and pizza. Pizza was the perfect
food and I was able to rationalize my opinion because it comprised the three
major food groups. It had carbs (the dough and vegetables), protein
(pepperoni), and fat (cheese). I don’t care how perfect I eat, I will always
eat pizza. It was my Achilles heel. My doorbell rang interrupting my bliss. I
can't wait for the day when I can live in a building like Mrs. Robinson with a
doorman.  I opened the door-"Speak of the devil."  Mrs. Robinson
was posing in the hallway in nothing but a white raincoat.

"You haven't returned my calls," she
bitched.

"Sorry, I've been really busy."

"I'll bet you have.” She glared knowingly. "Aren't
you going to invite me in? It's a little chilly out here."

“Maybe if you had some clothes on you would be
warmer.”

She took one step in the door and dropped the raincoat, showing off
her perfect, forty-nine
-
year-old body.  This was going to be harder
than I thought. I contemplated whether or not I should knock her down one more
time.

“Maybe you should warm me up,” she offered as she
slipped into my personal space. I ogled her long and hard one more time. It was
agonizing to think that I was going to let the biggest freak I had ever been
with go.  She was down for whatever including snowballs, rusty trombones,
and taking a trip up the Hershey highway. 

I instantly recalled all the shit I used to talk
about how older women are more accepting of my behavior as a younger man. For
one, they had some experience and knew something about men and how to treat a
man. Second, their kids were grown and they weren’t trying to be nobody’s mama
again. But when it’s all said and done and the day is over, ain't no woman
going to let you just keep stealing her cookies and not get something out of it
in return. No woman is ever going to stay comfortable being your number two
forever. They
all
want to be number one. All of them. One hundred
percent. Your momma, too. 

And that includes being more important than your
harmless social activities with your boys like watching football or playing
golf.

"I can't,"  I decided.

"Can't get it up? You
have
been busy. I'll
take care of that for you." She gleefully started to drop to her knees,
but I caught her before she could get into crouching tiger and tried to hide my
dragon.

"No, that's not it. I won't." I
embarrassed her. I didn't mean to.

Suddenly self-conscious, she quickly put on her
coat. "I don't understand. No man has ever turned me down."

"I'm not trying to make history. I'm just not
interested in you like that anymore.”

At first she was dejected. She contemplated hard for
a moment. She was probably thinking that if she had a brick, she would throw it
through my car windshield. Fortunately, I didn’t have a car, so she did the
next best thing. Mrs. Robinson sharply snapped the belt on her raincoat and
tightened it snuggly around her twenty-two inch waist. Her confidence came back
in a flash. I must admit, I liked her moxie.

"You're gay, aren't you?"

I shrugged my shoulders and decided to flat out lie
to get her out of my apartment. "You're right. You figured me out. Now
you've got to go because my man is on his way over."  I turned her
around and hurried her out the door. "Good-bye, Mrs. Robinson."

 

 

 

 

 

Woman’s Intuition

 

I sat atop the bleachers near the basketball courts
on Washington Ave. reading my favorite book, ”The Art of War.”   I
used a lot of Tsung Tsu’s teachings in my sales presentations as well as my
love life. The basketball court was still my sanctuary and always would be
until the annoying bounce of a basketball destroyed my concentration.  I
tried to ignore it and stick to the task at hand but shortly thereafter a
woman’s voice accompanied the bothersome bouncing.

"You come to the basketball courts to read? Very
interesting, Dapper Carter."

It was Rain shooting baskets all by herself. She had
pretty decent form, which fascinated me.  I closed my book to take a
closer look at her, partly to critique her shot, but mostly to lust after her. 
I craved Rain, too bad she didn’t know it.  I found myself daydreaming
thinking about what her name would look like spelled out after she became Rain
Carter.  That had a nice ring to it.  And if we had a daughter we
could name her Brooklyn, for obvious reasons.   

She was agile and in good shape like she played some
type of sport back in the day. We would produce Olympic athletes if we hooked
up.  She knew a little about the game from watching her brothers shoot in
the backyard, so she shot baskets as a stress relief from her incredibly demanding
gig as an attorney for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). I was going
to ask her if she played on a basketball team until she threw up a brick, clobbering
the backboard. That answered that question.

But my other suspicions were correct. She ran the
400-meter hurdles at Howard until she broke her leg on the final turn at the
Penn Relays. Consequently, they rescinded her scholarship. What most people
don’t realize is that college athletes are not really on a four-year athletic
scholarship. It’s more like four, one-year scholarships that can be revoked at
any time for any reason.

“Did you play?” she asked.

"At Rutgers."

"Awesome. Come shoot with me, then."

"I don't play anymore."

"Why? You lost your game?"

"I still got game.  Just got a different
game now."

I retrieved a rebound for her as it clanged off the
back of the rim. I could feel her doting   eyes on me as she assessed
me from head to toe.  I could tell she was kind of proud.

"You look good."

"Yeah, I lost a few pounds.” But I knew that
wasn't what she was referring to.

"That's not what I'm referring to."

"Is that why you didn't return any of my
calls?" I knew it was dirty pool to put her on the spot like that, but I
wanted to know.

BOOK: Dapper Carter's 8 Rules of Dating
5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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