Soni lived with her parents in Washington Hill, a little co-op near Chapel Hill Projects where most of the guys I played basketball with came from. Her block was clean, every house was refaced with fresh red bricks, the steps were marble, and there were zero parking spots—everyone in that community owned a car. I hit her phone. “Hey, I’m outside.”
“Okay, I’ll be right out!” she said. I whipped around her block and double-parked in front of her crib. Biggie’s Life After Death cranked. I dug through my CDs looking for some soul music. She’s a soulful woman; she didn’t want to hear Biggie. I couldn’t find anything and I saw her walking out, so I turned Biggie down to the lowest level.
She was wearing multicolored African pants and big colorful bangles.
“Wow! Nice car!” said Soni, hopping in. “Can I touch some buttons?” She was far more beautiful than I remembered, inside and out. Her energy took over my car.
“Yeah, you can touch some buttons, but where you wanna eat?”
“I don’t know, you pick a place. This was your idea! Just make sure it’s good. I’m small but I love food! Don’t get it twisted!”
I ate corner-store chicken boxes or at Angie’s all of the time; I didn’t know anything about good restaurants. But I did remember that some of those dudes at Loyola used to talk about this place called Ruth’s Chris Steak House near Little Italy. If they ate there, it was probably nice and Soni would like it, so that was my choice.
We breezed through east Baltimore, my huge car seats made us both look small. She turned up the radio. “Oh, you got Biggie Smalls on, Dee, okay!”
“Cut it out! You like Big?”
“Ten Crack Commandments” was on—she switched to “Notorious Thugs” and rapped every line word for word. I was really impressed. She caught me gazing, so I looked away. She giggled and spit every word from Biggie’s to Krayzie Bone’s verse. Who would’ve thought that this Badu-looking chick really loved Big—then I thought that Badu could probably spit Big’s lines as well, which is why you can’t judge a book. The song ended and she ran it back, and then again and again and again! I wasn’t impressed anymore.
“Gah damn, Soni! Give Big a break!”
We laughed as I pulled up. I tossed the valet guy the key and we rolled in. Some of the patrons looked at us funny—the dealer and the healer. They probably thought she was dropping me off at a mug shot photo shoot on her way back to Africa.
“Welcome to Ruth’s Chris, do you have a reservation?”
“Naw,” I said, “but let me get a table of two, please, and nothing near a bathroom.”
“I’m sorry, sir, we only seat people with reservations, unless you’d like to sit in the bar area.”
“No, Dee, we can go to another place, I hate the smell of liquor!” Soni said, pulling my hand.
“Lemme talk to dude, give us five.” Soni walked to the ladies’ room. I told the dude that it was our first date and I couldn’t fuck up. I pointed to an empty section and said, “Look, I’ll give you a hundred fifty dollars if you can make this shit happen, right now.”
We had great seats by the time she came back from the rest room.
“That bathroom was gross. What did you say to that guy to get these seats?”
“Nothing, I just told him that I was with the sweetest person in the world and asked him to look out.”
She blushed while skimming the menu. “Okay, Dee, we should probably leave.”
“What? What I say?”
“These prices are too high for that bathroom to look like that! I don’t want you spending your money here! Can we please leave?”
She looked serious, so I said fuck it and we bounced. When we hopped in the car and she said that the place made her nauseous and she didn’t want to eat anymore but we could kick it. I was hungry, but I didn’t give a shit—chilling with her was the prize. We pulled up in front of Federal Hill in downtown Baltimore and took a stroll. I found a bench that sat on top of the city; you could see everything from Canton to downtown and in between.
“So is dealing a part-time thing for you or will it be forever?”
I shrugged.
“I think I like you but I won’t be with a dealer. Like what about the Dawson family? Some of you guys are the worst.”
The Dawson family were all murdered on Eden Street. Their mom, Angela, kept calling the police because dudes was hustling in front of their crib. One of the guys from the crew heard she was the rat and threw a cocktail-bomb in her house, killing her, her husband, and her five children.
“I’d never do anything like that! You can’t put me in that category! Those dudes were cowards!”
She told me how her dad’s dealing and using had crushed their relationship. Drugs turned them from best friends to strangers. She said the car was nice and my clothes were nice and my smile was nice, but my job wasn’t, and if I wanted to be a part of her, I needed to consider a change.
And dealing drugs and trash bags of cash didn’t seem important while we had that conversation. I didn’t think about drink, smoke, or pills the whole time I was around her. We just sat and talked until the sun came up.
Right there a future with Soni seemed possible, like something that could really happen.