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

“Got a little test for you. What price range of treadmills
would you show her?”

“I will do you one better.”

I walked over to the sixty-year-old woman and began
to demo treadmills for her. Mike nodded his head approvingly.  

Mrs. Whitney wore a tight, black cashmere sweater
with black leggings reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. Being fully clad in black
from head to toe gave her a slimming effect that I’m sure she was aware of. She
never got a chance to use her Wellesley education or her law degree from
Vanderbilt because she married Upper Eastside money. There were scores of women
just like her residing on the Upper Eastside.

I could tell she worked out too. She was well preserved,
thanks to Botox, liposuction, and breast implants—the trifecta. She had no
extra skin hanging off her well-toned triceps and her legs were still well-developed,
indicating she walked a lot, which most New Yorkers do.  

She flirted with me incessantly as I demonstrated
every treadmill in the store from the $500 cheapies to the $8,000 Cadillacs of
treadmills. She enjoyed the attention I was giving her and truthfully I was
good at it. I charmed my mother’s friends for years.

What I lacked in salesmanship, I made up for in
personality. After forty minutes or so of shooting the breeze about everything
from the best restaurants in Paris to the Rodan exhibit at the Met, I
eventually closed the deal for Mike and sold her a middle-of-the road $2,500
tread.

I was feeling myself since I had closed the deal
before I had even officially been hired. Not to mention Mrs. Whitney asked me
if I would come by personally to “show her how to use it.” Mike and I both knew
what that meant.

As much as I had impressed the store manager, he was
equally unimpressed and decided to give me my first lesson in sales and take me
to school. “This is the difference between making seventy k a year and making a
hundred k. Look at her shoes. Those are five hundred dollar Ferragamos. Her handbag
is Chanel, about nine hundred dollars.  Her watch is Bvlgari. Estimated
value is $8,000.  And how big do you think that rock on her hand is?”

I shrugged my shoulders unknowingly. It reminded me
of how I would be chastised by my father.

“Ten carats. She can afford the high-end eight
thousand dollar treadmill all day every day and twice on Sunday.”  

He was right. I nodded my head in agreement.

“Some people call the knowledge I have being metro
sexual, but do you know what I call it? Mortgages. Car notes. Vacations in Cannes, Tuscany, and Monte Carlo

I saw his point. He was dead on and that was how I
wanted to live my life.

My Momma's From South Carolina

I started shopping at the most expensive supermarket
in Brooklyn.  Whole Foods took off like a rocket and everyone was into
what they were putting into their bodies.

The store was immaculate, a prerequisite for any
grocery store I was going to patronize. It was on Flatbush Ave. in Park Slope,
which used to have a dominant Hispanic population, but was replaced by a new
Farmer’s Market crowd. It carried organic this, fresh that. It killed me how
you couldn’t find any fresh fruit and vegetables in the hood, but there was a
Whole Foods located in any area that’s been gentrified. It’s like they think the
only way Black people liked our vegetables was overcooked and over seasoned.

I methodically pushed my cart down the immaculate
aisle, absorbing the transformation from high saturated fat products to organic
and non-processed foods stocking the shelves. I chuckled about how the shopping
cart wheels worked correctly in this store unlike the wobbly, Achilles tendon
smashers that screeched around the Shop Rite I was used to shopping at in Hillside.

I turned down the produce aisle of the store,
stopping in the meat section to examine several cuts of pork chops.  A
lean, healthy, classy young woman in jeans, flip flops, and a Columbia Law
sweatshirt, wandered next to me. She looked brainy and it turns out that she
was.  She graduated magna cum laude from Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, magna cum laude from Howard University, and magna cum laude from Columbia Law School. I only graduated thank you laude from Rutgers.  She was
beautiful and when our eyes met it really was love at first sight.  I
always knew.

Every girlfriend I ever had, I knew that we were
going to be a couple the first time I laid eyes on her. Maybe I should try
something new seeing as though none of those relationships seemed to work out
too well. But I wasn’t going to start now, not with this girl. She had this
quirky little smile she did out of the side of her mouth right before she was
about to dig in your ass.

“So, what are you trying to decide? Whether or not
to kill yourself today or tomorrow?”

“Huh?”

“Pork? You still dine on swine?”

“My momma's from South Carolina. I didn't have much
choice.” I stopped what I was doing to fully engage in conversation with the
hottie. “So, how come you don't eat pig?” I turned toward her to let her know
she had my full attention.

“In the poetic words of Samuel Jackson; ‘I don’t eat
no animal that doesn’t have enough sense to get up out of its own shit!’”

That made sense. The pig was a filthy animal and I
had always had a problem with the fact that it chilled out in mud and feces all
day long. But I also must admit, I had a weakness for pork chops smothered in
gravy.

“Did you know they don't have sweat glands either? They’re
full of toxins, not to mention the bacteria and parasites they're born with.”

My stomach turned at the thought of the tiny macrobiotic
organisms infesting in my already fragile stomach. I put the chops down and
picked up a T-bone steak, being careful to select the choicest cut with the
least amount of marblization to cut down on the fat.  Rain shook her head
in disbelief.

“What?”

“Steroids. Plus, the stress those animals are
under.”

“What stress? They graze in a field all day living
the life of Reilly.”

“You call that living the life? Waiting to go to
slaughter? How stressed would you be knowing that you were being fattened up
for the kill? And we put all of that stress in our bodies and wonder why our
dispositions are so shitty.”

By this point I was fully engaged in what the
debutant had to say. I quickly put down the steak and picked up a package of chicken
breast. She gave me more of the same.

“Now what? Chickens are supposed to be so lean and
good for you.”

“I beg to differ. They sit around in coops all day
defecating on each other. That's not something I want to eat.”

She showed me the salmon she was holding. “Even fish
can be bad for you if its farm raised. That means they're in a confined space,
pissing and crapping on each other too. You gotta get the wild ones.”

I was fully turned off and quickly losing my
appetite. “Well, what can I eat?”

“Fruit and vegetables. Human teeth are flat and made
for grinding food, not tearing it. Adaptation caused us to develop our canines
to rip animal flesh.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. So, how would you feel about
grinding some plants together one night?”

“So what are you asking me?” A sly smile pursed her
raspberry-painted lips. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I had many girls
who looked liked her. Matter of fact, Khalil and Caesar like to call them the
clones because they are all light skinned, light eyes, with long hair. It was
cliché, but there was something different about her, and she was sexy. If you
could look good in sweats, no makeup, a ponytail and a baseball cap, the sky was
the limit when you dressed her up. You could put lipstick on a pig and it would
still be a pig.

“I'm asking you if maybe you wouldn't mind having
dinner with me.”

“I don't even know your name.”

“Dapper Carter.  Mrs. Carter’s favorite son. What's
yours?”

“Rain Van Ness.  How’d you get a name like
Dapper?”

“I will tell you after we get married.”  

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really,” I said confidently.

I sized up her 34-24-38 frame. She was a little
healthier in the bottom, just like I like it. I could tell she probably ran
track because I could see the silhouette of her muscular thighs beneath her Adidas
sweatpants.

“So now that we've officially been introduced, will you
have dinner with me?”

“Yeah, I can do that. Give me a call.”

We cordially shook hands and parted. I was careful
not to be too presumptuous and try to European air kiss her on the cheek, which
had become very popular.

I snatched up several cuts of salmon, tilapia, and
mackerel, deciding for the first time in my life to actually take someone
else’s advice in regards to my health. Because I had played competitive sports
and had always been in good shape, I thought I knew it all. However, time,
gravity, laziness, and a comfort food diet based of Entenmann’s donuts and
Popeye’s chicken had proven otherwise.

I ended up calling (harassing) Rain fifteen times over
the next two weeks, give or take.  I was the king of blowing a chick up
after I got the digits. I knew it was a complete turnoff, but I couldn’t get
out the way of my compulsion. Whether I was racing off the subway to get above
ground to call her on my mobile phone or curled up in my
new
queen-sized
bed, which is the only thing I splurged on, with the phone dangling from my ear,
I was never able to reach her.

I guess caller ID  killed the dating business
because women could harmlessly give out their number and decide later if they
wanted to talk to you or not. Then again, it made it tough on the stalking
business as well. I made lemons into lemonade, though, since all the collection
agencies for the credit cards I owe money to couldn’t reach me either.  I
don’t answer any numbers that I don’t recognize.

Those assholes even try to get slick by leaving
messages like, “Hey, DC. What’s up, dude? Got tickets to the Knicks game. Gimme
a call back at 888-345-9654 ext 12. Are you fucking serious? I had no intention
of paying the banks back. They had gotten their $400 million dollar bail out. Now
it was time for me to get my bail out. Harassing me over $1500 is pure greed
and just icing on their capitalistic cake.

You Can’t Blame a Brother for Trying

Brooklyn
was beginning to gain a favorable reputation
for its restaurants. It was restaurant week and it was a good idea for me to
take advantage of the five entrée and dessert deals for under $10.  It
afforded me the opportunity to eat at restaurants I wouldn’t normally frequent
because of the steep pricing.

 There were a ton of places on DeKalb to choose
from including Coop’s (BBQ), Sweet Potato Pie’s (southern), Fela’s (South
African), or Cherchez la Femme’, which is where I settled.  My homegirl,
Eva Fontaine (stage name), met up with me to have drinks.  I had eaten here
before and the garlic-buttered escargot was to die for. 

Eva was fucking gorgeous. She had the most shapely,
athletic legs and picture perfect lemon drop breasts I had ever seen.  Not
to mention the face of a movie starlet to match. Her fair skin and freckles tipped
off the Irish side of her African American heritage.  Her jet black hair
cut into bangs masked her forehead and made her almond-shaped eyes seem even
more alluring.

She was a model from L.A.  Actually, she was
from Chatsworth, the porn capital of the world.  After growing weary of
Vivid Video propositioning her to make adult movies all the time, she moved to New York to be a serious actress. She had my utmost respect for seeking to perfect her
craft.

However, she almost ate her way right out of the
business in an attempt to gain weight so producers in the industry would take
her seriously as an actress and not see her as just another pretty face. She
hated how in L.A. a “producer” would invite her to a party at his house and
when she showed up, there would be no one but her in attendance.

So she embarked on that donut and fried chicken diet
I was on. What she didn’t understand was that it didn’t matter. If two
actresses were up for the same part with equal ability and one was cute and the
other was mediocre, whom do you think was going to get the role? Lucky for her,
she had great genetics and was able to get back down to her fighting weight and
look amazing as she always had.

We met during the short stint I had living in Los Angeles after moving out west for no particular reason other than I saw all the fine honeys
in the
Nothing But a G Thang
video and decided that L.A. was the place
for me. People told me all the time I should try modeling or acting, but no one
told me that there were two million other motherfuckers who looked just like me
and were in just as good of shape as I was out there.

Our paths crossed for the first time at a music
video shoot for one of the countless artists we never hear about that have been
signed to major record labels, shot a music video for a new single, and never
gets released. I was a production assistant (gopher) and she was “featured”
(extra).
It was actually sad to see how many aspiring actresses believed that her big
break would come from running around with her tits and ass out letting rappers
and video directors pass them around. As far as I knew, only one girl ever made
the jump from music video eye candy to the big screen and that was the pouty-lipped
white chick from the movie
Clueless
. Although Karin Steffans has done
well for herself, I guess.