Why I Hate Being A Wingman

This morning, I was helping a friend move some of her stuff into storage in Richmond, VA. Along the way, we stopped for gas across the street from the Spotsylvania Mall just outside of Fredericksburg, VA. This brought back all kinds of memories, since it was the only mall in the area back when I was in school. I even worked at The Finish Line shoe store there during my last two years of high school. Even with all that history, one dubious memory remained fresh on my mind from that mall. That memory was the night I decided that being a wingman is for the birds.

It was a Saturday night in October during my junior year of college. I was home for the weekend visiting friends and family. So while hanging out with my cousin T, he tells me about his new girlfriend and says they were going to the movies that night. The only drawback was her older sister was going along, and would be a 3rd wheel. So T asked me to be the wingman and keep the older sister company so that he and his date could enjoy themselves.

At first I was like “Man, HELL no! I don’t even know what she looks like! Fuck that shit.”

T then said “You’ll like her. She’s cute. Come on man, Help me out.”

Eventually, I gave in and went with him. When we got to the place where the ladies lived, I was pleasantly suprised. The older sister was actually cuter than T’s girlfriend. She had a bad weave, but she was cute enough for me to look past it that night. So we all talked, and the sister and I kinda hit it off immediately.

Next, we left the house and went to get something to eat at the mall before going to the movies. This is where things started to go awry. The one detail my cousin neglected to inform me of prior to the date was that the brother of those girls and his friends got into this big ass fight three days before with a bunch of fools right on their front yard. The worst part was that T’s girlfriend hit some guy with a baseball bat during the melee since he was fighting her brother.

So as we’re eating at Chik-Fil-A, the guy that got hit with the bat(named Mike, who allegedly played point guard at a certain HBCU that wears green and gold…LOL) sees the girls and comes over. He said “Excuse me, but did you hit me with a baseball bat on Thursday?”

Then T’s girlfriend said “Yeah I hit you, nigga. You were fighting my brother.”

Next, Mike said “Oh, OK.” and started walking away.

Me being me, I kinda snickered a little since he came over on some tough guy shit, then just walked away after he saw the girl wasn’t scared of him. Upon hearing me laugh, dude turned around and started talking shit once he was about 50 feet away. I tried to defuse the situation, saying “Man, I’m just chillin tonight. I don’t even know you. I don’t have any problems with you.”

Bat man then says “That’s right you don’t know me. Fuck you. That’s why your girl has a bad weave.”

I wanted to laugh at the weave comment, but since he was joning, I had to fire back. I talked about the fat chick in bummy stonewashed jeans he was walking around the mall with, and was just like “Fuck this bullshit. You’re not even worth me wasting my time arguing with your dumb ass.” and walked away with T and the girls.

Little did I know Baseball Bat Mike was following us out to the car with his hefty lady friend. This jackass comes up to my cousin’s car, and instead of saying anything to any of the guys, tries to pull her out of the car and attack her. I told that fool to calm down, but then he turned and faced me, jumping up and down really fast, talking about “You wanna throw these hands, nigga?!”

He looked absolutely ridiculous, so I kinda looked over at T laughing again. Right when I took my eyes off him, he threw a punch that grazed my lower lip. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel that my lip was bleeding, which made me madder than I think I’ve ever been in my life. I beat the breaks off that nigga in the parking lot…or so folks tell me. I was literally so mad, all I can remember was throwing him up against a car and hitting him until he fell…Then when he crawled up and tried to run away, I tackled his ass on the asphalt Hechts parking lot and beat him some more. I have no idea how many times I hit him, but it looked like I hit him a shitload of times when I finally let him get up and run away. Maybe I was a little savage in what I did, but I was just so appaled that this fool had the nerve to swing on me…plus the fact that he drew blood…I just lost it for a second.

Folks at the mall that night were in the parking lot looking at that shit like it was a heavyweight title fight. Just standing around the violence like that Pistons-Pacers NBA brawl. The only real injury I suffered from the fight was a welt on my hands from where T’s girlfriend hit me with some kind of stick, trying to get her another piece of Mike LOL.

The bad part is, later on during the movie, the older sister and I tried to make out, but my kissing technique was greatly hindered by the cut on my lip. It was rather frustrating, to say the least.

Me and the older sister lost touch after I went back to school, and T broke up with his girlfriend about a month later. So since nothing really good came from it, I have been very apprehensive about being the wingman. Every time I’ve tried to since, it’s let to something bad, or something funny(and bad) happening. Not that I’m selfish…but I don’t think God intended me to help other people get ass by taking one for the team. Nowadays, I just get out of the way and do everything in my power to allow my people to achieve theiir ass-getting goal. Just don’t ask me to be the wingman.