THE APPROACH

An imagined observation at a party...

He leans. That's what he does. Lookin' always like he's about to put his elbow on a bar or table or some short Derwin-lookin' brother's head. He leans and stares that Billy Dee slick back hair and moustache stare--bedroom-eyed motherfucker with a voice that deep purrs in four part harmony. You look up and he's gone, leaning on a speaker on the other side of the room, head lowered, with some sweet young thang's face all up in his armpit, her lips close enough to his to taste. Before he disappears again you try to read his lips to see what he's saying but you can't. But you want to cause your shit is weak and his is proper but he seems to be speaking in slow motion. And the harder you stare the blurrier he gets until he finally disappears only to materialize next to the honey you've had your eye on all night long.

A real interview on the beach at Coney Island...

Antoine: When me and Anisa met we was in the Village. You know, I was hangin' out with my friends and she was hangin' out with her friends and she was walkin', like, towards Christopher street and I seen her face and we had eye to eye contact. So I asked her what's her name.

When I first saw her I thought she looked trustworthy, loyal, courteous. She looked trustworthy a little. But I had to put my trust in her to see how she really is. And she had to put her trust in me to see how I really am.

When I first saw her I said, yeah, that she attractive, cute. She don't look like a player. She looked loyal, courteous, kind. She was with her friends, so I asked her can I walk with her and she said, 'If you want to, come on.' My other friend came with me and we started talkin' and I said, what's your name and she said 'Anisa.' And she give me the number but I thought it was a fake number so I told her to say it like 3 or 4 times. She said it. Then I said say it backwards.

I had contacts on--hazel--and her friend kept lookin' into my face and telling her 'Them things ain't contacts or are they contacts?' And I kept saying, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' And basically that's it. And from then on we started talking. I took her out to the movies--her friend out to the movies together and everything. We started gettin' to know each other and started to like each other and started to fall in love.

Anisa: I thought he was, like, a skeezer. I don't know why. I just thought he was because he walked up to me like he was going to beat me up or something. And I just looked at him and I was like, 'Come on, you wanna walk? Let's walk.' And then he came. He made me recite my phone number and all of that. I didn't want to go through that but I did it anyway. He made me-when him and his friend pressured me to say my phone number over and over like I was in some kind of jail or something. But he look'ted, he look'ted, he look'ted, he look'ted good. I thought I like'ted him and it turns out I did. He's nice. He's a nice person.

That night he was talkin' all that jive on the phone. He was saying that money ain't no object to him, he would care for me and he'll do alla' this and that. And I'm like, 'Yeah right.'

Antoine: And all those things I do, now don't I?

Anisa: Yeah, you do. Anyway, he was sweet talkin' me in my ear tellin' me oh, how he like me, he think I'm sweet and alla' this junk trying to get me to fall for him. But it didn't work, it didn't work. Not that first night.

Antoine: So when it work then? The second, the third night?

Anisa: I guess it was on the fourth night, the fourth night it worked.

--Kimberly Knight, Daryl Long