Drinking Alone

It was a Friday afternoon... Cherry Johnson was off from work....She wanted to go out and have drinks...She wanted to go somewhere other than Josie's....


"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GODDDDD HENRY...ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu pUt it onnn me daddy....."

came a woman's voice from next door....Her next door neighbor had kept her up the night before with her new boyfriend, Henry....Henry was something else...

"OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU GODDDDDD, OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HenRYYYYYYYYYYY! OHHHHHHHHH..."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...COME ONE GIRLLLLLL..OHHHHHHHHH.."

Cherry closed her laptop....Enough of this...She had to get out of here tonight....My Goodness, Henry, or whoever he was must come by to see that girl every other night....She couldn't sleep some nights with the bed squeaking and the yelling and hollering....She smiled...That was because it was new love...She knew how that was...

Roscoe had had her screaming like that, the one time they had been intimate...So had Sam Rasulala...she hadn't seen either of them in awhile...and listening to her next door neighbor's goings on was making her horny and sad at the same time because she didn't have a man...

II-

Cherry's car was in the shop....She had been without it for two weeks...Her friend, Bonita Foxworth  had been picking her up, giving her a ride to and from work for the past week...She wanted to hang out with them, but they were probably going to Josies with their husbands..

Cherry called her associate Cheryl...

''What's goin on girl?" she asked.

"I met this guy the other day in the store Cherry...He wants to take me out tonight." she said.

''Never mind..I thought you wanted to hang."laughed Cherry.

''Maybe Next week." she said.

OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU GODDDDDD, OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HenRYYYYYYYYYYY! OHHHHHHHHH..."

Cherry had heard enough of that...She quickly showered, put on a red dress and some black pumps ,grabbed her pocketbook and took off...She didn't have her car, but she had a transpass now..She caught the bus and rode it to the subway station...Then she caught the Broad Street Subway...She was going to drink somewhere else tonight...Somewhere she wasn't known...Maybe she'd get lucky.

III-

Cherry rode the Broad Street Subway to Center City and caught the Market Frankford line to Olde City and found a nice little spot..She had a couple of drinks and ordered some dinner...She was an attractive Black woman...but she was in a bar filled with them...Most of them in couples....Which only depressed her.
Several guys attempted to talk to her...Some of them unashamedly wore their wedding bands..While others made it quite obvious (by their mannerisms) that they were living with someone.

She paid her bill and got back on the Market -Frankford Line and rode into West Philly...Roscoe had taken her to a spot here once when they had just been hanging out...before he had made it known that he wanted to be "friends with benefits.."  It was true..Sex ruins great friendships...she mused.

She drank until midnight....Now alone and afraid...She got on the Market -Frankford line again...She had about $100.00 in twenties in her pocketbook and her phone. She didn't remember falling asleep...but she must have....She rode the wrong way!!! All the way to 69th Street in Upper Darby... She got up...got on the train across the platform and got back on...She fell asleep again...Missed her stop at 15th Street and woke up at the end of the line in the other direction...Frankford Transportation Center...Used to be called Bridge and Pratt...That was long before she had moved here...Roscoe had told her that!

She finally made it back to 15th street and boarded the Broad Street Line...She dozed off again...This time when she woke up she was in South Philly at Patterson Avenue....She got off the train...Walked across the street to a small concession stand and got a cup of coffee and a hot dog.  She got back on the train and rode to her stop this time...It was daybreak....What a wasted Friday night!!  It was Saturday Morning...She was hung over and hadn't even gotten laid.

She stood on the corner waiting for a bus when a familiar car drove by...

"You keepin late hours darling." came the familiar voice....It was Walter "Kool Kat" Jones...and sitting on the passenger side was Roscoe!!! He looked at Cherry and smiled.

"I could say the same for you." she said.

''Well you know us...We guys..." he laughed.

"Yeah...well last night, I drank like one." she said.

"Yeah..Where?, Didn't see you at Josies or Ciros or the Mermaid Club and we just come from the Aqua Bar." said Kool Kat.

''That's cause I wasn't there...I went to some classier joints" she said.

Roscoe said nothing...

''Yall just want to know where I was and who I was with." she said.

"Nah...if you was with somebody you wouldn't be waitin on a bus at six in the mornin.....or riding the subway." said Kool Kat...Roscoe laughed then....

"Get in..we'll take you home." said Roscoe.

Kool Kat opened the door...Cherry got in the back seat...She was too tired to jockey with either of them and just relieved to be off her feet and safe...