That Night in the Night - Part I

a short story by

Tyrone Simmons

                I was sitting in my apartment waiting for my guest. The day was getting old, but of course the night was still young. Everything was ready. The champagne laid out just like it should have been. The glasses ready to support the wine. There were candles, candies, chocolates, everything that I was sure she would like. Her name was Rachel; this would be our first date. If there was ever a word invented to describe how I was feeling, I think nervous would be pretty accurate. I was sweating, the champagne was sweating, it seemed like even the walls were sweating. But that’s okay. I read somewhere that when you’re as nervous as I was, the best thing to do is to take that nervous energy and turn it into something positive and I had a lot of nervous energy. I was hoping I’d be able to partake in this conversion process but right when I started to think about it, the phone rang.

                “Hello?” I said, without even looking at the number.

                “Jessie? Is that you?” a voice said. And I knew that voice. It belongs to the funniest, dumbest, meanest, pointless, most loving, and most irritating man one will ever meet.

                “Yeah it’s me, Dallas, what’s up?”

                “Man, I need a big favor,” he said. I couldn’t help but to start thinking about the countless amounts of time that I heard these words escape his vocal cords. I don’t know why, but being the person I am, I was always willing to help him.

                “Okay, what is it?” I began to say.

                “Can you like, come and pick me up?”

                “Can I ‘like’ come and pick you up? You want me to pick you up or don’t you?”

                “No I do. See what happened is, I’m with some friends and the guy we were with put us out of the car, man, we’re like stranded here.”

 I could tell he wasn’t lying about the friends’ part. All I heard was chatter and laugher in the background; I didn’t even need to ask where they were because by the sound of it, it was obvious that they were at Kevin Hart’s performance at the Fox Theatre. But I asked anyway just to be sure.

                “Where are you guys?”

                “At the McDonald’s downtown,” he replied.

                “That’s a pretty vague statement, you know.”

                “The one on Grand Drive and Heck Street,” he said.

                I dropped my phone from my ear to my cheek. That was a long way away. I didn’t even remember how to get there exactly. Sure, I have a vehicle and sure I drive more than Ryan Gosling, but I can almost never remember how to get to places. And on top of that, I sort of kind of had a date planned for later. But later does mean later, and even If I were to pick up these guys I’d still be back way before my date starts. So looking for a good bit of fun, I indulged.

                “Okay, I’m on my way.”

                “Thanks, Jessie, you just don’t get how pissed I am right now.”

                “Alright, bye,” I said back to him.

                “Bye.”