Back in my college days in Berkeley, cars were hard to come by. Because of the lack of parking and the general lack of funds, few of my friends owned a car. I was lucky enough to have an Audi that my dad helped me buy at an auction for 1500 bucks. As you might expect for a 1500 dollar car, it had few of the bells and whistles normally associated with a European luxury cars. The windows rolled up with a handle and the air conditioning worked by rolling the windows down. The color was a combination of silver and gold..shall we say a rusty gold. But the Audi was reliable and fit a ton of my friends.
One day, my friend Suli asked me if I could loan him the car for a date.
"I don't think so. No one drives the Audi but me.”
"How about if you come with us and I pay for your drinks?"
I still wasn’t crazy about the idea, but free drinks were free drinks, so I reluctantly agreed.
On the way to the car, I bumped into my friends Cody and Brian and invited them to join us. If I was to be the third wheel, then why not add a fourth or a fifth wheel? Soon, a car full of four guys was on its way to San Francisco for Suli's date.
We parked in a rough area of San Francisco. There was a large group of mostly black males loitering on the corner as we walked to the apartment where we were going to pick up Suli’s date.
“Where are you, young uns going,” came a gravely voice belonging to a large man on the corner. “Why don’t you come and talk at us?” He looked over a group much the way a coyote probably looks over a chicken coop. Suli was black and nerdy with a pair of glasses thick enough to use to start fire in survival situations. I was tall, but as always I was as threatening as a six foot tall teddy bear. And Cody and Brian were short white guys...
“It’s cool, man” said Suli in the whitest inflection known to man. His voice shook, but he couldn't help sounding like Bryant Gumbel. He was black, but grown up in an Asian neighborhood. The guys on the corner looked at his dark skin and seemed unhappy. “We’re just going to pick up my woman and we’ll be out of here.”
“Are you for real? Damn Oreo.” came a voice with a lot of bass. This was from a guy who looked jittery as he approached us. Was he coming off a bad drug trip? I mentally calculated the odds of reaching the car if I took off running.. It didn't seem likely that any of us could take any of them in a fight.
“Hey, don’t be messing with my bro. You’ve got to show respect,” came a booming voice in a very realistic African American inflection behind me. I turned to look in the direction of the voice- there was Cody, all 5'2" of him, walking towards the guys with a Jefferson strut “This is your hood, but that’s his woman we’re picking up. Cool?”
Laughter ensued. “Man, you’re alright..” said the gravely voice and the guys left us alone after that.
Suli's date ended up being a good sport- she danced with all of us at the club and even treated me to a non alcoholic drink for being the driver. We stayed at the club until closing time and all became instant friends.
"This is the best date ever," she said "Four dance partners!"
On the way back to her apartment, Suli feel asleep. Cody and Brian started tossing pennies at him to try to wake him up. Eventually, his date joined in the fun. Suli would paw at the location where the pennies landed, but wouldn't wake up.
We dropped his date off at her apartment and Suli finally woke up halfway on the bridge back to Berkeley.
"Where's my date?"
Brian hit him with a another penny and a I drove the Audi back home.
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