Cedric The Entertainer

(Warning: Sexist statements ahead)

I gave a young woman a lift yesterday. I was coming home from the gym and saw this young lady on the corner looking like she needed some help. OK, I’m a sucker for pretty woman in distress. I pull over expecting her to ask directions or something. She asks for a ride to work across town. She missed the bus and is going to be late for work. Well, ok. I can’t just say no and drive off, now that I’ve got the door open. Besides, I’m always in favor of driving women anywhere in my car. She gets in and falls all over herself thanking me. Then she proceeds to spill her life story to me.

This is her second day on the job, and she just moved here from Kansas City. She has a little boy and lives with her mom. My heart melts. Ok, maybe she is feeding me a total line of crap, but I’ve seen her before: in my classes, my high school, and in the single moms at the soccer fields where I coach. I give her this: she has guts to get into a strange black man’s car. Of course, maybe I just don’t register on anyone’s danger meter. How many black guys drive around in Honda Civics listening to NPR?

We drive through town. She spends her time eating a Lunchables cheese, ham and crackers snack. I tell her about Goosetown, the Iowa City historic district, and about roads paved with bricks. I ask about her family. I tell her about mine. She gives me three dollars for gas, and again thanks me. She tells me to stop in sometime when she is working. I've pickup some weird vibes from her.

I know she does not know me from Adam’s off ox, but I bet she has been around a lot of black men. Most white women freak if you look at them sideways. She doesn’t. She’s really talkative, as if chatting me up. In a way, she can tell she is holding her breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m a black guy I must want something right?

(Ok, I’ll admit it. The little incubus that I keep behind a reinforce titanium door in the back of the frozen foods section of my mind is thinking nefarious thoughts, and I’ll be damned if he won’t shut up about it. It’s nothing that 20,000 volts of electroshock won’t cure.)

We arrive without me making an ass out of myself. She’s must to be thinking I’m gay and hiding in the closet. She tells me I remind her a Cedric The Entertainer. Great! One more person in the world that finds me a fat funny black guy.

Afterward, I thought about it. She doesn’t need one more thing in her life. Out of all the people who could have picked her up maybe Cedric the Entertainer was what she really needed. Now I just need to find a way to give her those three dollars back.