Emmie and I floated out of the North Charleston Coliseum with persistent grins and the many melodies of Ben Folds playing in our heads. I felt like a lucky girl, indeed. I started running conversations through my head that I would have with my friends: “Three times, three times now I’ve seen him in concert! It just gets better. What an amazing start to college, seeing my ‘husband’ in concert in my first week here!” Despite our minds being clouded with such conversations and replays of the concert, we found enough mental clarity to call for a taxi and wait outside on the sidewalk for it to come.
Over the intercom system outside played a message from the coliseum which included among other things an official greeting and directions on how to get a safe ride if you were intoxicated; it played every two minutes. It really was a peaceful night and a good night for talking outside, despite the auditory annoyance. We were mostly alone, only the occasional drifter had crossed our path since we had left the concert early. Given our past experience with public transportation, we thought the earlier in the night we took the taxi the safer we would feel.
We reflected on our week of firsts as we waited. It was the first week living in a new city, the first time in college classes, the first time being an owner of a mini-fridge (are they supposed to sound like a lawn-mower eating a piece of metal at night?), and now the first attendance of a concert in college. This semester surely promised great things within the first week.
Emmie casually looked up and appeared to be somewhat entranced by what she saw. She asked me if it was Ben Folds walking towards us, and it was as if I had never heard that name in my life. She had to ask me the question several times before I realized who she was talking about. I followed her eye-line to a man in a stripped polo and converse tennis shoes walking with a dark-haired woman and a small little boy. It did look like him, and the woman and child fit the description of his wife and child. But why would he just be walking down the sidewalk so nonchalantly? Shouldn’t he be surrounded by guards?
The next five minutes are hard to remember, but he walked up to us I am certain. We talked about our crazy English teacher with whom he is friends and about that annoying speaker message. It was like talking to an old friend, only surface conversation but enjoyable for the mere reason of the company. I could almost imagine myself asking if he wanted to grab some supper with us until he asked if we wanted him to sign something. Oh, yes! That’s what you do when you meet someone famous, you ask for his autograph. We scrounged in our purses and found our tickets. He signed them, I mumbled out a thank you, and then he was gone. Emmie and I were back to our spot on the sidewalk filled with even more excitement from this adventure.
The dubious taxi-van eventually pulled up, with two old scruffy men in the driver’s and passenger’s seats. We climbed inside with our signed tickets tightly gripped, almost unaware of the pretty black woman in the middle seat who looked as if she were going to a club. We almost did not catch on to the strange way in which she was giving her directions. We did, however, become aware of our situation when we pulled in front of house with no lighting and no street number and she said “I guess this is it. He didn’t tell me his name or phone number. Blow the horn; see if he comes out.” The horn was blown, a man stepped into his lit doorway making his body a large shadow, and she went inside with the nameless man.
What a wonderful ending to an unbelievable night, sharing a taxi with a prostitute. Emmie and I joked about our awesome story we had to tell now, well, everyone except my parents. I realized this was the beginning to my carefully editing college stories for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment