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And then, without knowing what I was going to say, I opened my mouth just as the song ended and Dame’s hands slid to my lower back.
“Thank you,” I whispered into his ear. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
Something was happening. At some point between the dance beneath the blue lights at Fat Albert’s and Dame and I giggling as if we were drunk as we stumbled out to the truck, I’d lost my barrier. I was laughing at nothing at all. I was just happy to be out in the night air, in the world, feeling and hearing and smelling it all around me. It was as if I’d never been in this part of the world. At least not in a long time. Not like this. And all I really wanted was someone to be there to remind me that this was really happening. And that was funny because nothing had actually happened. Not something someone there could see. But it just was.
The white moon was hanging low in front of the truck. A crescent shaped upward, it looked like a smiley face was bearing down on us.
Sitting in the truck beside Dame as we drove along University Boulevard through downtown’s crowds of beer-sipping blondes and frat boys waiting to get lucky, I rolled the window all the way down and sunk low in my seat to let the breeze come in all around me. My neck, my shoulders, around my ears, and through my scalp. I thought to slide off my right shoe and stick my foot out the window and then without considering anything else, I just did it. I just wanted to feel the air press against my foot and dare me to keep on coming toward it.
Dame turned the music up high and leaned to the side in his seat, too, looking over at me and laughing every few minutes. In this dark night, he looked brilliant, exciting, and familiar like the stars above us. Every few feet, someone would look, and then look at him again, and then whisper to the person beside them. It seemed that I noticed each of these heavy stares, but Dame just kept on rolling.
I knew that what was happening to me in that car was also happening to us. And I was happy about it. Happy to have a new friend—I could even call him that now—who could sit so close to me and ask nothing. He seemed to only want to give. And while something inside of me was saying this was dangerous, another side was tired of being afraid of what was dangerous.
“I had a good time,” I said, not looking at Dame.
“I knew you would,” he said. “Man, ain’t nobody allowed to have a bad time at Fat Albert’s. That’s certified.”
“Certified?” I laughed and looked at him.
“Hell yeah. I’ve been all over the world and I’ll tell you, ain’t no place that gets down like that. A bunch of old, fat ladies that can outdrink the ex-cons sitting next to them.... That’s a damn party.”
“You’re crazy,” I said as we both laughed. “And there were no ex-cons in there.”
“What? Fat Albert’s not even an ex-con. I think that fool is still supposed to be in prison. He escaped the chain gang in like 1901 or something.”
“Not true,” I said, slapping his hand and feeling it raise slightly, as if he’d wanted me to keep my hand there. I jumped and pulled my leg back into the window.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just, um ... need to get ready for ...”
“Oh, Baby Barack,” he said as we turned onto the road that led back to the school where my car was parked. “It’s not even 1 a.m. Just tell him you were out with your girls.”
“Out with my girls? You just made that sound so easy. I can hear it now, ‘Hey, I was just out with my girls!’ That might work if I had girls and we ever went out.”
“You expect me to believe that you don’t go out?”
I shook my head.
“Ever?” he added.
“Ever.”
“But you’re grown and you have a job. And you’re married. You deserve to go out and have a good time every once in a while.” He looked at me and touched my hair.
“It’s not that simple,” I said, pulling away.
“It’s as simple as you make it.”
The light ahead of us turned red and Dame pulled to a stop.
“Like these folk over here, they’re out having a good time. Enjoying a fun Friday night in Tuscaloosa,” he said jokingly and pointing to a car on the other side of the truck that I couldn’t see. “Oh, never mind. It’s just a woman by herself. Looking really crazy ... probably like you do on Friday night.”
“Not funny,” I said. I pushed up on my knuckles to look to the other side through his window. Right away, I noticed that it was Jethro Jr’s old Buick, the car May drove. Both of the windows were rolled all the way down and May was sitting in the driver’s seat with both hands tight on the wheel.
“She looks like she’s about run a nigga down for something.” Dame laughed.
“Shh,” I said. “May?” She didn’t answer. She just loosened her grip to wipe a tear I saw fall from her eye. “May?” I hollered again.
