2 Men, 1 Couch

Many summers ago, I was “hanging out” with this girl. For the sake of this story, we’ll call her Tamika. We knew each other for a couple of years, and somehow or other we suddenly became close and there was an obvious mutual attraction brewing below the surface, even though neither of us ever verbalized this fact.

One night we happened to be at the same party. I believe it was one of those KeiStar themed parties. (If you’ve never been and you live in New York, do yourself a favor and go at least once in your life and be prepared to sweat, but in a good way). Anyway, Tamika and I bumped into each other there and danced the night away until the party shut down around 3am. As the mutual crews headed for the exit, she asked if I was going all the way back to Queens.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not taking the train, right?”

“Hell, yeah, a cab ride home for me is like $40 bucks.”

“If you split a cab with me to Brooklyn you can crash on my couch.”

NAKED FACT #1: In female speak she may have said you can crash on my “couch” but the male translation of that statement is, “You just might be getting some tonight if you play your cards right.”

Although I could have easily crashed at my boy’s crib if I wanted, the probable prospect of potential puntang was too tempting, so gave a few pounds to the fellas and hopped in a cab with shorty. I was a bit bent during all this so I don’t remember much of the ride or our conversation. All I do know is that she had two roommates—a White female and male that used to date.

NAKED FACT #2: I hate women that have roommates. That shit just cramps my style. Makes me feel like you live with your mother or something. The only exception is if I’m cool with the roommate, but for the most part roommates are a turn off.

A short trip over the bridge and we arrive at shorty’s crib. After droppin’ $20 for the ride, we walk into her first floor apartment. It’s hella late, but she gives me a quick tour anyway while instructing me to keep quiet as not to wake her roommates. After an awkward pause, she announces, “Well, I guess it’s time for me to go to bed.”

I try to make my move to gain access to her bedroom, but flag on the play. Access denied. “Uh-uh, you’re sleepin’ on the couch,” she declares, before reaching for the shelf by her door. “Here’s a blanket and a pillow. Goodnight.”

I protest for a bit longer and repeatedly declare my honorable intentions, but she’s not having any parts of it. Ultimately I’m forced to accept my fate and retire to the creaky couch in the living room. It wasn’t long before I drifted off into lala land.

It’s just a normal night on someone else’s couch until I’m awoken at some point during the night to the sound of the front door opening and two male voices. Slowly getting my bearings, I recall where I am and lay there quietly. An unknown Black man on a White person’s couch sounds like a recipe for disaster, so I figured I better keep my Black ass still and not make any sudden moves.

The two guys are obviously drunk and stumbling around in the dark. Apparently it’s one of Tamika’s roommates and his boy coming in from a long night of drinking. Still in the dark, they finally notice a dark figure on the couch.

“Dude, who’s that dude on your couch?”

“Uh…I don’t know.”

“I thought I was gonna crash on the couch…”

“Take my bed, I’ll crash out here.”

The actual conversation was little more inebriated, but I cleaned it up for the story’s sake.

I remained completely still and quiet during this whole exchange because I’m pretty drunk myself and just not in an introductory mood. Needless to say, White Guy #1 takes off to the bedroom on the far right, and White Guy #2 lays down on the living room floor fully dressed with his combat boots still on. With that all squared away I drift back into R.E.M. sleep.

At first I thought it was a dream. I was laying there when all of a sudden I feel someone tuggin’ on my blanket. The next thing I know I feel another human body right next to me.

“Did shorty change her mind and decide to get it in,” I thought to myself. But when I opened my eyes it was one of her roommates—the MALE roommate. OH, HELL TO THE MUTHAFUCKIN NAW!!!

“What the fuck are you doing,” I blurted, as I retreated back to the deepest crevices of the couch. “Yo, son! What the fuck!”

Dude was wasted and couldn’t hear shit. I laid there in disbelief for a few seconds, but then dude made the ultimate mistake and grabbed my leg. OH, HELL TO THE MUTHAFUCKIN NAW!!!

In one fatal swoop I knocked his drunk ass to the floor and he just laid there passed out. I cursed him out under my breath (”Crazy ass White boy”) and rolled back over, too traumatized to fall back to sleep.

Now homeboy, still drunk, gets up and starts scratching at the bedroom door on the other side of the living room, which I assume is where his ex and other female roommate is asleep.

“Oh, this muthafucka is drunk and horny,” I said to myself. “Uh-uh, playboy, ain’t none of that shit going down over here. You better keep knockin on door #3.”

He starts calling out the girl’s name in a whisper. “Sharon…. Hey, Sharon… I just want a blanket… Sharon…”

This goes on for a few minutes, until Sharon (or whatever her name is) answers the door and boy is what’s-her-name not happy.

“What the fuck is your problem? I have to be at work at 6 in the morning and first you come in drunk making all this racket and now you’re knockin on my fuckin door waking me up….”

“I just need a blanket… I was cold….”

“A blanket? What the fuck is wrong with the blanket on your bed.”

“John is in my bed so I need one from you…”

“Why didn’t you just go into Tamika’s room and get one. She’s not even home…”

“Yes, she is…”

“No, she isn’t, I didn’t even hear come in.”

“Then who’s the Black guy on the couch?”

Silence. Their arguing was going on just two feet from where I lay my head and I wasn’t saying a word or moving an inch. This was some ol’ roommate or ex shit and I was just “some Black guy” curled up on the couch of a White person that I didn’t even know. Cue music: Nobody move, nobody get hurt…

They whispered for a bit over the silent body on the couch until Tamika, who was awoken by all the ruckus, finally emerged from her room. Still wiping the cold out her eye, she said, “What’s going on? Why all the yelling?”

“Oh, we thought you weren’t here…”

The roomies exchange a brief dialogue and confirm that the person still lying quietly on the couch is actually an invited guest. Me? I just laid there the whole time pretending I was asleep—basically just minding my own goddamn business.

Homeboy eventually gets a blanket and goes back to sleep on the floor, while both ladies retreat to their respective rooms. Needless to say it took a while for me to fall back asleep for fear of old drunky on the floor over there mistaking my leg for his personal play thing again. Thankfully, that didn’t happened and I got a couple more hours of solid wink time.

By time I did get up, the roommate #1 was off to work and roommate #2 was at brunch with his boy John, and it was just me and shorty left in the house. I told her what her drunk roommate did to me during the night and she got quite a chuckle out of that. I’m glad she got a kick out of that, but I was like, if I ever crashed at her crib again I would have to sleep in her bed—that’s the least she could do after frontin on the skins and me having to endure being molested by some drunk guy in the middle night, right?

I left later that afternoon and saw that I had several missed calls from my boys from the party. Before I could hit any of them back, my man Ant called and was like, “Yo, you hit that didn’t you?”

“Nah, but I gotta story to tell…”