Can I Get Fries With That? - Chris 'Preach' Smith

There are more than a million reasons why I love the city of New York.
On a Friday evening in September a few years back, I remember being
in Greenwich Village. I had just left an auditorium in an abortive attempt
to catch a documentary. With absolutely nothing to do, I wind up in the
McDonald's on Sixth Avenue across from the Barnes&Noble bookstore
to grab a bite to eat. I'm sitting down, almost at the end of my meal,
listening to some music when I catch someone giving me the eye. She
smiles warmly, and I go back to finshing up. When I look up a minute
later, she's taking a seat at the table next to me, facing me diagonally.
With the same smile.

'What's up boo?' she asks. Now, she couldn't have been more than four
feet tall. I'm lookin' at her half-hesitant. 'Nothing much, what's up with
you?' I reply. She has this look in her eyes, the kind of look that makes
a dude run to the nearest drugstore for raingear. And I'm not talking
about galoshes. "My name's Tina*, what's yours?" I tell her my name
and shake her hand lightly. She's got on a hoody, blue jeans, typical
fall fashion for a 'round the way girl. As Tina talks, she starts heavily
flirting with me. I go along with the flow(wouldn't you?)and we start
laughing and joking. A lovely melody of possible romance.

'So Chris, gimme your number. I wanna kick it with you.' Tina asks,
outright. I'm like, 'cool!!' I give it to her and then she asks what am
I doing after this. 'I got nothing going on really, 'bout to go check one
of my friends out. Why?'

At that moment, the record skipped.

'Cause I wanted to go to a movie and break you off a piece...it's only
50 dollars.'

Say what?!!!!

At that moment, I realized that this young chick was a prostitute,
and a ghetto variety at that. And I just gave her my number...I
had to take action. So as we go back and forth, me brushing her
off and her being slightly more sexually agressive, I take the
opportunity to take two ice cubes out of the cup I was drinking
from and rest it on the napkin I wrote my number on. Once it
melted, the ink would get blurry and my problem would be
solved. After that I told Tina I had to jet. 'Nice meeting you
Chris, for real though...I just want to get to know you, sexy.'
she said with a charming smile. I said my goodbyes and went
straight for the subway.

Two weeks later, I get a phone call. It's Tina. Sonuva...
She proceeds to tell me that she had just gotten out. Of jail.
And that she was about to stab some chick on her tier and
how she was trying to make some money. In between all of
this, she was basically making her pitch to me to sleep with
her. And then it got crazy. She then asked if I would be
open to 'looking out for her out in the streets.' In other
words, be her pimp. I brushed her off and after that
phone call, I never heard from her again. Which made me
wonder for some time if Tina offered fries with her, ah,
services. And it made me wary of Mickey D's for a while.

Comments

[Kween]

Christopher, your article "Can I Get Fries With That", is truth to how desparate times and Sisters are. Power to your Self-Respect to not take advantage to a Victim of Hard Times. Kween
01 October 2009

[Tracee Ann]

I love reading articles on this site! Who needs fiction when reality is so much more interesting? You just can't make this stuff up! Great article!