After The Dance by Lori D. Johnson

did—an angry, deranged Black man with a weapon in his hand and murder on his mind. Scoobie even went so far as to say, “Hey” to the fool and ask how he was doing before he swung back around and said, “So, where was I?”
    Oh, only on the verge of getting your freaking head bashed in
is what I might have said, had I not been scrounging around in my purse for my canister of mace. Seriously, girl, I’d all but made up my mind to give my crowbar-toting buddy one good blast to the eyes before making a run for it. Fortunately, rather than get ignorant enough to make mehurt him, Carl took his pimp-daddy macking self back into his condo.
    After breathing a sigh of relief, I switched my attention back to Scoobie only to discover that he was trying to ask me out—on a date—and to the Al Jarreau concert, no less. He promised to take care of everything, from the tickets to the backstage passes and VIP party afterward. He even offered to arrange for a limo to take us there.
    I hemmed and hawed and finally just broke down and told him the truth—well, most of it, anyway—which was that I’d sorta, kinda already been asked by someone.
    “Is this somebody you’re serious about?” Scoobie asked, just as Carl decided to bring his crazy self back outside again.
    “Serious? No, I wouldn’t say that. We’re barely even friends” is what I told him as I watched Carl go into his trunk again and this time drag out the spare.
    According to Scoobie, that was all the more reason for me to go out with him. He took out a business card and proceeded to jot down all the numbers I’d ever need to reach him—at home, at work, or by cell.
    Meanwhile, spare-tire-toting Carl is about halfway through act two of his award-winning performance. Unfortunately for him, he was so busy glaring at me that he wasn’t mindful of where he was walking. And before I knew anything, girl, blam! Brother had misstepped and hit the curb. The tire went spinning in one direction and poor Carl in another—hopping, cursing, and reaching down to soothe his stubbed toes.
    Probably wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had sense enough to put some durn shoes on before showing out. But noo, homeboy was out there stomp-barefoot, trying to act a clown.
    You know it took everything in me not to burst out laughing, especially when Scoobie glanced over at him, thenback at me with a frown and said, “What’s up with your neighbor?”
    All I could do was shake my head and tell him, “I don’t even know.”
    While Carl gathered his spare and limped into the house with it, I went ahead and gave in to Scoobie’s request for my number, sparing us both the fifteen extra minutes he undoubtedly would have spent pestering me for it.
    After he finally got up out of there, I went inside and quite naturally the first somebody I saw was Nora. She’d kicked back in one of our living room recliners with her legs crossed and her face buried in the pages of an
Essence
as if I was really supposed to believe she’d been reading all this time instead of peeking out the blinds and tripping off me. Her tired little scam might have gone over better had she not been sitting there with her reading material turned all upside down.
    I snatched the magazine from her, handed it back right side up, and asked if she’d given Carl my message.
    “Yep,” she said, still acting like it wasn’t no thang.
    I said, “So what did he say?”
    She raised the magazine back over her face and said, “Pretty much that for all he cared you could jump in a lake, kiss a snake, and crawl out on your stomach with a bellyache.” She went on to ask why I’d want to hurt Carl when all he’d ever done was try to be nice to me.
    I told her I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. Carl and I were just kicking it. Wasn’t like we’d had what you’d call a “real” date planned. Matter of fact, a good solid fifteen minutes would have been more than enough to take care of all I’d had in mind to do