Free Blind Date at a Funeral by Trevor Romain

the beautiful girl that I had left the briefcase on the roof of the car as I got in. It had fallen off the roof as I raced off and this kind man chased me all the way down Louis Botha Avenue to give it back to me.
    I learned two important things that day.
    Women who walk in slow motion are dangerous to your health … and kindness has no colour.

Falling from Grace
    (Soundtrack: ‘Love Theme from
Romeo and Juliet
’ by Henry Mancini)
    When I was a young man, the quickest way to get me to do something was to tell me not to do it.
    Just like Debbie’s father did.
    I was in the army. Debbie was in matric and we were in love. I was visiting her on my weekend pass and we were sitting in her room and listening to songs on her cassette player.
    A cassette player was a device that was very popular in the last century, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. You would record songs from a record player or even from the radio onto strange things called compact cassette tapes. It was quite difficult to record songs from the radio without getting part of a radio commercial or the DJ’s voice or your sister screaming or a dog barking or a street vendor shouting, ‘Mielies!’ in the background. Often you had to take a pencil and fiddle with the spool of the cassette to loosen the tape if it wound up too tight.
    I was actually loosening a cassette tape with a yellow HB pencil when Debbie’s father burst into the room and told me it was late and I should be going home.
    But I wasn’t ready to go home.
    No, sir. We hadn’t even kissed yet and I was NOT going to go back to the army base for two or three weeks without getting a kiss or two. Not that we were going to do anything bad. I mean she was in matric and not ready for prime time, so to speak.
    â€˜But it’s only 9 p.m. Five more minutes please, Dad,’ pleaded Debbie.
    I just shut my mouth and smiled. I knew better than to say anything. I felt invincible after surviving basic training and had a deep urge to give him some backchat. But, out of respect for Debbie and because I was rather besotted with her, I refrained.
    I am a bit of a chicken in general, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of her dad. He looked like a skinny male model out of a Volvo advertisement. He was lithe and wore black fitted trousers with a tight, white polo-necked jersey. He had gold wire-rimmed glasses and wore his blond hair quite short with a neat side parting. I kept on expecting him to speak with a Norwegian or Swedish accent, but he didn’t.
    â€˜Okay,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Just five more minutes.’ He walked out with ne’er a sideways glance.
    I can take you one time, boet, I thought to myself. I’ll klap you so many times you’ll think you’re surrounded.
    â€˜He’s cross,’ said Debbie. ‘He gets that way when he drinks Scotch.’
    I knew that her mother and father were having a marital thrombosis and that her dad sometimes became violent after a few drinks so I agreed to leave.
    â€˜I’ll come back later,’ I said, kissing her goodbye.
    â€˜No, you can’t come back!’ she whispered.
    â€˜But I want to,’ I said, kissing her goodbye again.
    â€˜I know. Me too,’ she said, kissing me back, ‘but I’ll get into trouble.’
    â€˜Okay,’ I said, knowing full well that I would be back, knocking on her window in the middle of the night like I had done a few times before.
    â€˜Don’t climb up to my window,’ she said. ‘He’ll get really cross with me.’
    â€˜I won’t,’ I said.
    â€˜Promise?’ she urged.
    â€˜Yes,’ I lied.
    I walked out of the house full of confidence after cheerfully saying goodbye to her mother and father, who were watching TV in the lounge.
    I got into my little Mini and headed straight for the Radium Beer Hall in my neighbourhood, Orange Grove. The Radium was the birthplace of my delinquency and a