Dapper Carter's 8 Rules of Dating (20 page)

"You weren't ready for me to return your calls.
You weren't in a good space at the time."

“How did you know?”

"Woman's intuition."

My confidence was back and I figured I would throw
caution to the wind and try to nail down a date with the future Mrs. Carter.

"We should try and have dinner again. Which day
is better for you, tomorrow or Friday?"

She contemplated for a second while sizing me up. I’m
sure she was comparing the Dapper Carter standing before her to the false
bravado Dapper Carter she had seen during our last few encounters.

"Tomorrow...if you can make the shot from where
you're standing."

I was standing well beyond the three-point arc. A sweeping
grin lit up my face because I had her. I was a long range shooting specialist
when I played ball, scoring most of my points from the perimeter. I launched a
picture-perfect jump shot and watched it descend to earth, swishing gracefully
through the cotton net.

Not in My Eyes

I sat nervously on Rain’s stoop, waiting for her to
get ready. Rain was old school Ft. Greene when it wasn’t anything but drug
dealers and crack heads.  She grew up down the street from Lafayette Gardens, a notorious housing projects similar to Cabrini Green in Chicago, Prince
Street Projects in Newark, and Nickerson Gardens in South Central Los Angeles.

She finally answered the door looking great in her unpretentious
way. She had on a pair of Seven jeans to accentuate her svelte figure and a
plain old white Gap t-shirt. I imagined what a thoroughbred she would be in
some five-inch stilettos and a clingy, snakeskin Roberto Cavalli dress to show
off her athletic legs and well-formed track and field derriere.

“Hello, Dapper Carter. You’re punctual. I like that.
Of course I’m not quite ready to leave yet. Would you mind doing me a favor?”

“Sure.” I entered her apartment. It was nice and tidy,
as I expected, with ample sunlight streaming through the large picture windows and
cascading off the light-colored hardwood floors. She had various paintings by
local artists, some hanging, others sitting patiently on the floor against the
walls waiting to be hung.

As I walked through the foyer I couldn’t help but
notice the elephant statue with its right foot forward guarding the entrance to
her living room, indicating that she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta
Sorority. I pointed out how much I respected Deltas, seeing as though my
mother, my Aunt Fannie, and her daughter, Faye, were all Deltas. She responded
with a resounding Ooo-ooop!

She led me into her bedroom.
You’ve gotta be
kidding? Not this easy.

But I was wrong, thankfully. She wanted me to get a box down for her.
It was at the top of her closet where she couldn’t reach. I couldn’t help but
wonder how she got them up there in the first place, but that was neither here
nor there, and I did as she requested.

“What’s wrong with these Christian Louboutins you
already have out?”

“You know your shoes, huh?”

“I know a lot of useless information.”

“A man who knows about shoes definitely isn’t
useless. You will have a place in this world.”

Suddenly all of the boxes fell on me and we laughed
hysterically.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Yeah, but I sue.”

Rain snickered. Her cheeks turned the color of a
watermelon and her eyes gleamed when she laughed. If only she knew how I melted
whenever I laid eyes upon her.

“You’ve got a great laugh. Don’t ever stop
laughing.”

I got up and helped her pick up the scores of boxes that assaulted me
from the top shelf.

“Here they are!” she exclaimed as she pulled out an old pair of
Birkenstock sandals. “These are the most comfortable pair of sandals in the
world.”

I was listening to her, but I was distracted by
everything else in her closet. Her clothes were arranged perfectly right to
left, black to green to brown to blue to khaki. She picked up on my silence and
became slightly defensive.

“What?” she questioned.

“I was just looking at how your clothes were
arranged.”

“Is there any other way to arrange them?”

“Not in my eyes.”

Me Too

We left Rain’s apartment and decided to walk to mine instead of
catching the subway or a cab.  My place was over fifteen blocks away, but
it was beautiful outside and there was nothing like New York in the springtime.
We opted for the even longer way and walked down Lafayette instead of dealing
with the congestion of Fulton Street.

Gorgeous brownstones, stylish carriage houses, and
garden style parks populate the area. The neighborhood had been renamed Clinton
Hill, to go along with Stuyvesant Heights (Bedford-Stuyvesant), Bedford Hills
(Bedford-Stuyvesant), Prospect Heights (Crown Heights/Ft. Greene), and Bocaco
(Boerum Hills/ Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill) as far as real estate talk was
concerned. I wondered what would be next. Brownsville Heights? Bushwick
Landings? East New York West?

Not ten minutes into our trek, just as we crossed Bedford Street, a Brooklyn-sized rat with the speed of a baby cheetah bolted out in front of
us. I jumped off the sidewalk into the middle of the street leaving Rain to
deal with this “situation” by herself.  She just stood still, frozen,
waiting for the dirty pest to pass. 

This is one area where I lose cool points and the
chicken shit side of me comes out. I don’t fuck with rodents! Actually, I don’t
do anything smaller than a Chihuahua.  I cowardly made my way back over
toward Rain with my tail tucked between my legs.  I was embarrassed, to
say the least.

“What the fuck!?” she questioned.

“I’m really sorry, but you’ve got to understand that
I was traumatized at twelve years old when I was awakened by my pet parakeet,
Rocky, going crazy one night. I turned on the lights and there were like fifty-leven
(50+11) mice in his cage eating his discarded bird seed hulls.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.   It gets better. The scared ass
mice proceeded to jump out of the cage and onto me! My mouth opened, but no sound
came out. I was fucking horrified.”

Rain got a kick out of my story following with one
of her own.

“Nice.  But check this out.  One time I
was taking a bath when I was about ten and a rat fell out of the ceiling tile
and into the bathtub with me!  Talk about a silent scream.”

“Now that sucks.”  I couldn’t even give her a
“sucks to be you” on that one.   

Instead of spending a hundred dollars taking Rain
out for dinner, I decided to try something different and cook dinner for her. I
could actually cook a little bit. My momma said if I was going to eat as much
food as I did, I was going to have to learn how to cook.

Rain sat at my small kitchen table sipping Moscato. A
single candle and a red rose set in front of her face. The flickering light
illuminated the scene perfectly. I was caught off guard in how natural and
perfect she looked sitting in my kitchen like she belonged there. I was careful
not to stare too hard, but she would catch my glances and meet them with her
own. Then she would blush shyly. She was soooo cute.

“I took the liberty of preparing most of the meal
before earlier. The salad is already tossed…”

“You know how to toss a salad? You been to prison?”

“No. Ha, ha, ha.” She had a sick sense of humor and
that was good. Mine was politically incorrect most of the time and I
appreciated that hers was off as well.

I took out two salmon steaks and placed them on the
George Foreman Grill. It was a bachelor’s best friend. I wasn’t trying to reinvent
the wheel and in six minutes we would be feasting.

“Listen, I hate to do the boring, mundane,
tell-me-all-about-yourself bit, but tell me all about yourself. When is your
birthday?”

“April twelfth.”

“No shit! So is mine!”

“You lie!” she screamed.

“I’m serious.  April 12, 1975.

It turns out we were born on the same day in the
same year. The only difference was she was born at 8:30 in the morning and I
was born at 11:02 a.m. That's cool because we know I like older women anyway.

"So, I have a couple of questions I need to ask
you. How you answer these questions will tell me everything I need to know
about you and probably determine the path of our relationship. Ready?"

"Go for it," she asserted.

"Who do you like better? Prince or Michael
Jackson?"

"Huh?"

"You can like both, but you can't like them
both equally."

She pondered for a second. "Prince."

"With the Revolution or New Power
Generation?"

"Revolution, of course. It all ends at
Purple
Rain
as far as I'm concerned."

Amen. I agreed.
"Good answer. How about
this? The Cosby's or A Different World? "

"With or without Lisa Bonet?”

"Very perceptive, grasshopper. With Lisa Bonet."

"Then I'd have to say A Different World."

"Me too." I hated the fact that she was
turning me into a
Me Too
. You know, when everything that the other
person says they like, you coincidentally like it too?
Me too
!

“What’s your favorite movie?”  I asked. 

“
Beaches.
”

“That’s a great movie.”

“You sure have a lot of estrogen in you, Dapper. 
By the way, how did you come by a name like Dapper?”

“My father was in the military and he had this thing
about looking sharp and being sharp.  He figured that if he blessed me
with a name like Dapper I would have no choice but to live up to its
billing.  Not to mention, my father’s name is Dapper.  And so was his
father’s.  And his father’s. 

“So your name is Dapper Carter the fourth?

“All day.” 

“That’s a great name.”

“I know. Each one passed the name down to the next
with the legacy of living up to such a prestigious name.  However, my great
great grandfather’s name was Erastus.”

“Another very cool name.”

“I know.”   I winked at her and stood up to
go check on our dinner.

“Erastus Carter worked for the railroad and he was
the sharpest on the block.  The privileged white men that he served would
constantly make comments about how dapper he looked.  And how well he
spoke but that’s an argument for another day.  So he figured that he would
give his son a name he can aspire to.

“What’s your middle name?”

“Ain’t no middle name.  Just Dapper.”

“All four of you?!”

“All four of us.  With a name like Dapper there
ain’t nothing else to say.

“I guess your right.”

I hustled into the kitchen to check on the food
before it burned.  Rain followed behind me.

“So what’s your favorite movie?” she inquired.

“I can’t say. “

“Why?”

“Because I’m embarrassed.”  I uneasily refilled
my glass of Merlot.

“It can’t be that bad.” She had endearing eyes even
while she was cross examining me.

“I object.  Badgering the witness.”

“No, not quite Mr. Law & Order.  But nice
try.  “C’mon, spit it out.”

I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and then let
it go. “Grease.”

“Grease?  Are you serious?”

Hesitantly I squeaked out “Yeah.  I got a thing
for musicals.  West Side Story, Moulin Rouge, Chicago…”

“You sure you’re not gay?”

“Here we go!  How come a brotha who appreciates
the marriage of music, dance, and film has to be gay?”

“It’s okay if you are.  Some of my closest
friends are gay.”

“I’m not gay,” I sighed.

“I know.  I’m just busting your chops.  I
have an incredible gaydar.  I topped Rain’s glass off and sat down to
continue to connect with her. "So, if you don't mind me asking, what's a
woman as beautiful as you doing alone?

"How do you know I'm alone?" she teased,
but I knew she was just giving me a hard time.

"I'm fine being alone. I don't need a man to
define me. Plus, I'm not the easiest person to get along with all of the time. You're
an Aries; you know what I'm talking about." Aries have a reputation for
being adventurous and energetic, courageous, enthusiastic, confident, and
extremely quick witted. But on the darker side of the moon, we also can be
selfish and quick tempered, not to mention impulsive and impatient. The fist
hole in my plaster wall can attest to that.