The Best Dinner There Never Was

It was Sunday.

I was crashing with Flat in his studio apartment in Hyde Park. Mark was there too. I did not live in the residence hall that semester, waiting on funds to come through for a small apartment downtown, close to the campus and my last internship, a job in the research department for a British communications firm. The floor was hard at Flatbush’s place, but it was easier than the much longer daily commute from my parent’s place way out south.

Mark was off work for a minute, and had stayed with Flat and I that week, hanging while I was at work and school, and regaling me with stories of their day. Flat always had a bunch of girls around, especially during the day, and some of the stories I stopped mid way so I could have some deniability.

On this Sunday, however, Mark confided he was ready to go back to his own home, much further west, in a much different neighborhood. His vacation twenty five minutes east was over, and he was grateful.

“What?” I started. “You haven’t had fun? Man. I’ve envied ya’ll. That strip poker thing with those coeds ya’ll had Thursday was enough to make me consider dropping out and living a little.”

Mark shook his head.

“It isn’t worth it,” he started, heavily.

“What? The women? The partying? My regret is you all manage to get all of this done while the sun is shining. When I get back, ya’ll are all done just when I’m ready to hang out.”

Mark shook his head. “You ever stop to ask just what kind of women are available at noon to drink some beer and play strip poker?”

I hadn’t. “The kind that likes to get naked after a couple brews, I guess.”

Mark glared at me.

“I’m gone tonight, man. I can only take Flatbush in small doses.”

“Why? Ya’ll appear to be having fun. You go with him when he hustles. Ya’ll come back here. You drink; you party with women who obviously aren’t bashful.”

Mark chose his words carefully. “Flat…can be…grating.”

“Huh?”

“He doesn’t…this is not a life you want, man. This cat makes a lot of weird choices.”
I learned something then. There are instances when you have different friends, and it is wise not to mix them. Their being close to you does not mean they will establish the same rapport with someone else that has the same relationship with you. What they have in common in you. They aren’t obligated to dig each other.

“This lifestyle,” Mark said again, slowly, “can be toxic. And I’m not talking about the booze and cigarettes.”

That said, we went upstairs, where Flatbush was having a conversation with Emo, his daughter’s mother.

Emo and Flat were on again, off again. Knowing how Flatbush had serious issues with infidelity, that was obvious. He appeared a good dad, but a lousy boyfriend. Flat once admitted to Mark and I the reason they split this last time was because Emo came home from work early one day.

“So?” I asked. An early work day is a good thing.

“I had company.”

“So?”

“My company was in bed with me.”

Oh. In the house ya’ll shared? Yeah, the old Eddie Murphy defense, ‘Wasn’t me!”
probably didn’t fly that day. The fur did, though, with Emo putting him out and Mr. Jones taking the studio apartment he used as his current address.

Emo relented, though, and got an apartment in the building next door to Flat’s. That didn’t stop him from entertaining his female guests at all hours of the day, but he assured us theirs was a relationship based on the mutual parenting of their beautiful daughter.

Flat could be a real bastard, though. One of the things I have learned is if you are not serious about a woman, limit certain interactions with her. Some guys limit that to intimate relationships. I have learned to take that a step or two further. Don’t borrow her car. Don’t assume responsibility for her. Refuse to take money from her, especially large sums. Don’t give her any reason to assume there is more to your relationship than there is.

If you share a child, you can amend these rules slightly, but be easy about it. Don’t slip into the role of doting significant other AND daddy. Be straight. If you need to borrow her car because yours is on a flat and you have to take the baby to the doctor that day, that’s OK. If she offers to go half on daycare and gives you the money, that’s OK. It is expected you will sit together at family and school functions and beam with pride and laugh as your child is lauded for some accomplishment. You may have to get together over coffee, even a light lunch, to discuss why Junior thinks he is running game by trying to pit you two against each other.

Avoid romantic dinners just because she offers to pay. Don’t borrow her car to hang out for the day and promise you’ll take her for drinks later and tell her about your day. Resist the urge to grab her hand at family events and lament over what could have been if the two of you worked it out.

This was all foreign to Flatbush. If he needed Emo’s car to pick up some tail on the other side of town and his was low on gas, he’d borrow hers. If there was some new get rich quick scheme he needed start-up cash for and he was low on funds, he’d hit up Emo, saying it was for “the family.” In short, he basically did everything short of sleeping with Emo to make it clear to her he still had an interest in her, as long as there was a personal benefit for him. It was wrong, and I told him about it, but he shrugged it off. Poor Emo. She was a bright woman who really tried to make something work, but the guy she chose had one interest: himself. I used to tell Flat he could never get with the women I wanted because they had lines they weren’t going to cross. I was glad of that.

Emo stopped by that sunny fall afternoon while Flatbush, Mark and I were playing Monopoly. Flat was gloating about how he would one day rule the city the way he was ruling the board, and every time he opened his mouth, I saw Mark grimace. We were drinking beer and passing the time.

Emo watched us for a while, smiling.

“Hey Emo,” I said.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. You know, I was just thinking it is nice to see three Black men enjoying their selves, enjoying a drink, no cursing, no loud talking, and no violence. I think this is really cool. I’d like to make you guys dinner if you don’t mind.”
At the time my main meal was lunch, at work, Monday through Friday. Sundays like this one were a god time to order Harold’s chicken and prep for the upcoming week.
“I think I can fry some chicken, make some cornbread, rice, and greens. I can have it whipped up in a couple hours, you guys can come next door to my place, we can eat, watch TV…”

Mark and I happily chorused we were in. Flat muttered something noncommittal. Emo bustled off to start the meal.

I got to thinking about that food and couldn’t concentrate on much else. I had to do something to kill that time, which now was creeping along as if I were Atlas holding up the world, looking up every five minutes for Hercules to come give me a break.
“That’s it,” I said, standing. “I’m losing the game anyway. Look, I got some laundry to do for this week. I’ma go knock that out instead of sitting here listening to my stomach growl.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Mark volunteered.

“Uh, OK. Flat?”

“I’ma wash later. But ya’ll take ya’ll time,” he reached for his burnout cel phone and dialed a number.

“Yeah, who this? Hey. Naw, this Flat. What you doin’ this afternoon?”

I looked at Mark. He shook his head slightly.

“Yeah. Knock three times. Yeah. Naw, I got somebody watching me. It’s cool, though.”

I looked. “Flat? What the hell?”

“I’m having some company is all.”

“Dog, we got a couple hours until dinner?”

Mark was still shaking his head.

“Flat,” I was boiling, “I want this dinner, man…please don’t do anything incredibly… stupid.”

This was a decade before Captain Jack Sparrow made this statement part of the lexicon. Mark shook his head.

We were still stuffing clothes into my laundry bag when there were three raps at the door.

Flat hustled over to the door and escorted in a woman six inches taller than he. She walked in with a sneer and tossed her weave over her shoulder.

She was solidly built, devoid of any anatomical extremes that make men say, “Did you see her…”

She sneered at us. “Who they?”

“They leaving.” Flat held the door for us. I grabbed my laundry bag, Mark took the detergent and we walked out. She slammed the door behind us.

We didn’t speak til we reached the laundry room.

“What the hell?” I started.

Mark shook his head.

“Kinda what I’ve been saying about this whole week.”

I started washing, and we amused ourselves making up stories. One of us would stop the story, drop it, and wait for the other to pick it up. Juvenile? Yeah. We had to kill time, though. I was hungry.

“I was gonna wait until tonight, but I think I’ll head home in a little while.” Mark announced.

“What? You’re gonna miss a great dinner. That Emo is a helluva cook.”

Mark shook his head. “Not going to be any dinner, man. You may want to call Harolds, or order a pizza.”

“What is it with you, man?”

“This guy’s personality is…grating. He works on impulse. It’s all about immediate gratification, about some kind of sensory pleasure. He doesn’t really have a sense of loyalty to anyone but himself, and his sense of decency is pretty shallow.”

“Man, you weren’t complaining when his female buddies were getting indecent with you this week.”

“True. I never said that I was perfect. We can all be hedonists sometimes, but this dude…it’s his speed. It is who he is all the time. The only thing of which you can be sure is that he is going to always do whatever brings him some pleasure, so matter how fleeting, and he will choose that over anyone and anything.”

Mark talked funny sometimes.

“I mean, what’s his problem? Did you see her?”

I didn’t answer because Flatbush stumbled in. His face was ashen.

“How could she get in?” he muttered.

It took the entire dry cycle for the story to end.

“Me and old girl were getting into it, right? We must have been going for a good fifteen, twenty minutes when I heard bamming on the door.

“Flat! Flatbush! I know you in there! Open up!”

“Emo?” I ask dumb questions. Mark shook his head. Flat nodded, some color returning to his face.

“So I ignore her. I keep doing my thing with ol’ girl, she says, Who is that? I say, My baby momma. Forget it. I guess Emo went away.

“We keep going. The bamming starts again. Flat! Flatbush! Flatbush Jones! I know you up in some girl in thee! I know you all up in her! You think I’m stupid! I ain’t stupid! How could you do this to me? I’m over here cookin’ for your ass and you do me like this?

“So I tell ol’ girl, Look, this wreckin’ my stroke. Let’s go in the bathroom.

“We in the bathroom, she’s over the sink, havin’ a good ol’ time when the bamming starts again.

“Flatbush! Be a man! You got one minute to come open this door or I’m coming in! I gotta key!

“I’m thinking, Man, this woman ain’t got no key. I never let my keys outta my sight because I know how she is. I keep strokin’ and the bathroom door flies open.”

I shook my head. Mark actually smiled. Then he grinned. Wide.

“Emo?”

“Yeah.”

Mark’s grin turned thermonuclear.

“Where was, ah, your company?”

“Still bent over the sink.”

“Where were you?”

“Still inside her.”

“Oh.”

Mark began giggling.

“So then, Emo starts hollering at me and slapping me around…I am still in the…”

“I get it, move on.”

“So when I’m finally, um, out, ol’ girl, buck naked, starts talking to Emo about what a dog I am. She starts getting dressed, all the while telling Emo how I’m only good for one thing, and how she should stay away from me. They walk out together, and as they’re leaving, ol’ girl tells Emo, What you expect from someone with no spirituality?”

Mark headed for the door.

“Been real, gentlemen. JD, I be in touch.”

I heard Mark’s laughter until the outside door closed behind him.

“What’s so damn funny?” Flat fumed.

“You got the number to Harold’s?” I asked.