Floating City

by Sudhir Venkatesh

  Vonnie steered the conversation back to Carla’s request. “She knows the rules,” Vonnie said. “And we’re not breaking them because she got herself into this stupid mess. No one hangs out here unless they’re making money.”

  Not only that, but having Carla recover at the apartment would make it impossible to bring clients there. She would have to stay with her parents, regardless of the risks.

  By the end of the week, though, they were missing Carla’s income. Despite all her difficulties, she was the best earner among them. And she was always good for her share of the rent and expenses. To keep her slot open, they would have to work seven days a week, and there was still laundry, shopping, cleaning, and all the rest. They would have to find somebody new, at least for a while—but who?

  “Gloria?”

  “Maria?”

  “I like Kusha, that Russian girl. Doesn’t even drink.”

  A knock on the door announced Father Madrigal, come to make a somber announcement. I took his hat and coat. He agreed, after much persuasion, to sit down at the table and accept a plate of pork, rice, beans, and plantains, but he didn’t pick up his fork. “I want you to think seriously about what happened,” he told them.

  The women stopped moving and looked at him. With his elbows on the arms of his chair, he rubbed his hands over and over, gathering his thoughts between his palms.

  “You came into each other’s lives for a reason,” he continued. “Not just for your needs, for money and shelter. You came because you were called to each other. I want you to think about that.”

  He paused. The women looked from one to another and then back at him.

  “And I want you to think about your obligation to Carla,” he added.

  Vonnie moved her chair suddenly. She lit a cigarette and walked over to the window, shaking her head. “Father, I know where this is going, but I can’t do it.”

  Angela, Cincy, and I sat quietly.

  Father Madrigal began rubbing his hands again. “Well, I realize you are all under many pressures. You may not be able to do anything, and I understand why Carla can’t stay here. But she was hurt badly. She is your partner and your friend. And she’s in a dangerous situation at home.”

  No one said anything. There was nothing anyone could say. It was all true.

  There was a shelter for victims of domestic abuse, Father Madrigal explained. He had spoken to the manager already. But it would cost some money.

  “How much, Father?” Vonnie said, looking miserable and furious at the same time. “How much?”

  This was the first time anyone had ever used a harsh tone with Father Madrigal. He looked at her, more puzzled than offended.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” Vonnie said softly.

  Father Madrigal raised his hand. “This is hard on you. I know. But her needs will not be permanent needs. The room is $350 and the church will cover her meals.”

  Angela spoke quickly to take the floor from Vonnie. “Father, we’d be happy to pay. It’s just that we are also struggling.” She looked at Vonnie, then at Cincy, then back at Father Madrigal. “But we will find a way,” she said.

  Father Madrigal nodded. Without another word about it, we ate, talking of Carla’s recovery and events in the neighborhood. Then Father Madrigal rose and said he would like to say a blessing. We all lowered our heads. “Holy Father, I call on you in the name of Jesus to bless each of these women and to guide them in their struggle. Give them healing, and the love that every child of God deserves.”

  I heard a sniffle but didn’t want to raise my head. I think it was Vonnie.

  “I’ll return in a few days to see how you are doing,” the priest said, taking his hat and coat. “Be safe.”

  When his steps had faded, Cincy let out a sigh of relief and Vonnie poured herself another drink. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this, Angela.”

  Angela didn’t reply. She moved the fork around her half-eaten plate of food.

  Cincy said what was on everyone’s mind. “We have to find somebody else.”

  Vonnie opened the window and lit another cigarette. “I’m worried about that man,” she said softly. “I mean, right now he could be in one of the cars down there.”

  Angela looked up. “Please! Like we don’t have enough to worry about.”

  “I’m worried,” Vonnie said. “I am. If she really cut him …”

  They were always nervous about their safety around white men. Wasn’t the law always on their side?

  • • •

  A few weeks later, I dropped by again. The women had been trying some of Carla’s tactics. They visited local bars in pairs so they didn’t look so much like hookers. They almost never approached men directly, using Carla’s contacts with bartenders and security guards.

  “Some of these young boys look like they just left home,” Vonnie said. “You can’t come on to them like whores.”

  Angela laughed. “We just spend hours with them, drinking.”

  “They ask, ’Do you know any gang members?’”

  No luck. Not one of them wanted to come back to the apartment with them. Angela sighed.

  “Carla could get these boys. She’s got the look they like. When they see her, it’s like going to the jungle or something. It’s dangerous, so they take a bite. But I look like their cleaning lady. They don’t want to fuck their cleaning lady.”

  By the time another month had passed, they arrived at a crossroads. They had interviewed at least twenty women in their old neighborhood, but none of them had Carla’s ability to cross boundaries. All were intimidated by the white hipsters. Finally they decided to try a white woman, even though Vonnie had reservations about “going white.”

  “A white woman might take over and start running everything,” she said. “Then we’ll be working for her.”

  But they narrowed it down to a Bulgarian who was living down near Coney Island. She was thrilled to move closer to the center of town.

  Then they went to tell Carla. But she had news for them.

  “I’m joining an escort service. In Manhattan.”

  She’d appreciated all their help, she said, and she would pay them back. They were stunned. For the first time, Angela seemed defeated. She was going to have to bring in strangers. They might help bring in the income, but could they be trusted? And what about Carla? Would Carla be okay without Angela to keep her under some sort of gentle control? But Angela couldn’t answer these questions. She had to move on. The rent had to be paid. What was she going to do?

  A few weeks later, I met up with Carla and got her side of the story. I had to remind myself to stay neutral. She admitted that she didn’t have anything lined up yet in Manhattan, but said she was determined to try. That’s what the attack had taught her. “You know what? I’m beautiful and I’m young and I can do better than getting my ass fucked by some cheap-ass guy in that cheap-ass apartment. I need to get out there and make some real money. This is my chance—maybe my only chance—and I’m going to take it.”

  • • •

  From one world I flew to another like a shuttle through a loom. This night it was Shine again, picking me up near Columbia University in his sleek black sedan. We drove south to the heart of Midtown, parked in a paid parking lot, and went to an expensive hotel bar.

  Inside, Shine and I both noticed the same thing right away. We were the only people of color in the place—among the clientele, that is. The busboys circling the tables and lounge area were Latino, and there was a black man behind the bar. Shine nodded at him and received a discreet nod in return.

  We shrugged at each other as we took a seat. There was nothing to be said, so we just laughed.

  The barman came up to Shine. “Good to see you again,” he said.

  I shook my head and chuckled. All his talk about needing a wingman and the staff already recognized him. I half expected him to say “the usual,” but instead he ordered a whiskey on the rocks.

  Work was getting out for the day, and the corpora
te crowd was starting to stroll through the doors. These weren’t bankers. They were entertainment, media, publishing, a little younger and hipper but still with money. A few men had suits with no ties, but most wore cleanly pressed pants and trim-fit collared shirts. They drank to manufactured drumbeats and synthesizer melodies.

  Shine was wearing a soft purplish linen shirt, untucked and spread widely over his dark blue Diesel jeans, and a smart Rolex dangled off his wrist—not exactly corporate, but not quite “street” either.

  “You win the bet?” the barman asked, cleaning a few glasses.

  “Knicks lost,” Shine said. “Again.”

  “Man, you don’t learn, do you?”

  There was a pause and then the barman said quietly, “I’ll be on a break in about twenty if you want to grab a smoke.”

  Shine nodded. Although he showed no expression, just the usual somber ghetto warrior face, I knew he was growing a little depressed about his inability to find customers. He knew he had to be patient, but the days without revenue were starting to pile up. So far the staff of this bar had been perfectly happy to “grab a smoke,” but hadn’t introduced him to any potential customers. He knew he had to take the time to build relationships, but how much time?

  “Hey, man. You’re back,” a voice said. A young man with shiny black hair combed tightly back over his head (with a liberal dose of gel) came over and patted Shine on the back. “Michael. Remember me?”

  The young man made a motion to the bartender for another round and gave Shine another pat. “Come over—join us. I’m getting killed in this game. You should take over.”

  We looked over at a group of young white men and women, all standing with beers or pool cues in their hands, all fresh and new to the city, their youth contrasting with the stained wood and stained-glass lamps.

  Shine hesitated and for once I could see through his armor. He was nervous. Welcome to the club, I thought.

  “Yo, Chris! You want to play?”

  Shine looked blank for a moment, then snapped alert. “Shit, that’s me.”

  I’d wondered what name Shine was using in his life outside the ghetto. Now I knew. “Laugh at their jokes, Chris,” I suggested. “White people like that.”

  “Fuck you,” he said, punching me on the arm and stepping past me toward the pool table. I swiveled my seat to watch him. He towered over the others around him, not just because he was taller. His presence simply took up more space. He was silent, they were chatty. He was still, they were jumpy. His black skin shone.

  A young woman approached the group, clearly interested in talking to Shine. But he ignored her. She smiled, but he kept his movements small, as if he was wrapped in plastic, probably because he believed that too much expressiveness “makes white people feel threatened,” as he put it once.

  The woman started talking to him, asking questions and not letting monosyllabic answers discourage her. I decided to weave my way over and listen in. When I got close enough, she was talking about the thrill of Manhattan.

  “I want to do something special,” she said. “That’s why I moved here. Isn’t that what New York is all about? I mean, you live here. You know this.”

  “Right, right,” Shine was muttering.

  “I mean, I’m not going to be working in this shitty office job for long. I’m going to have this really cool fashion line, for everyone. Like this! See this dress—do you think people in New York would like it?”

  “Sure,” Shine said.

  “Hey, Abbie! You have to meet Chris—he knows everything about New York. Abbie’s going to be an agent. She’s got this amazing job. She gets to go hear music all night.”

  “Right,” Shine said.

  Finally, the barman came over and asked Shine if he wanted to step outside for a smoke. Michael said he would join them.

  When they returned, Shine said it was time to go. He didn’t like to stay in bars long. He thought he had a big sign on his face that said, “Drug Trafficker on the Prowl.”

  He wanted to walk out by himself, I knew. I couldn’t figure out why, but Shine strategized about everything. So I said good-bye and stayed at the bar.

  Michael shook Shine’s hand, trying his best to mimic a ghetto greeting. “Thursday, right?” He leaned forward for a bro hug. I figured they were setting up another time for a more business-oriented visit. One by one, peer group by peer group, Shine was determined to make his experiment work.

  I started to do some back-of-the-bar-napkin calculations. From earlier observations of drug dealers, I knew that a peer group was good for about fifteen hundred dollars per month, but only for about nine to twelve months. I never understood why a drop-off occurred after this point—perhaps the group disbanded, maybe a few stopped taking drugs, maybe a new dealer came along with a cheaper product. Since he was hiring a half dozen people to help, each costing about one thousand dollars per month, Shine would need to make at least fifteen thousand dollars per month to make his new venture sustainable. This meant ten groups, or a standing pool of fifty to seventy-five customers.

  And this was just the minimum. Shine would want to expand. American to his core, he believed that bigger was always better.

  Expansion was possible in two ways. He could continue recruiting new customers personally, a laborious and inefficient use of his valuable time and energy. Or he could recruit bartenders, security guards, and bellhops to find customers for him. That way, he controlled places instead of people. The places stayed the same and new people were always drifting through.

  But Midtown and Wall Street businesses were not Harlem street corners. As he made friends with the bartenders and bellhops, Shine had to tread carefully. He would have no basis for trust and not much experience to guide him. We spoke often about this vulnerability, but he usually shrugged it off as “just another thing you have to deal with.” I admired the positive attitude, but at what point would his optimism land him in prison?

  • • •

  By this time, Columbia had awarded me tenure and I was on my way to being named full professor. I owed much of this to the support of my colleagues and Peter Bearman, who had risen to department chair. I was publishing articles with Steven Levitt in prestigious academic journals and finishing a scholarly book on Chicago’s underground economy, all boosting my academic bona fides. But I still felt like a one-trick pony, and all my successes were based on the research I had done in Chicago. New York still felt foreign and unknown.

  The Chicago projects I had studied were starting to get torn down, and I was traveling there to follow families as they were evicted and forced to relocate. As a break from the scholarly work, I started to experiment with filming these families in an effort to make my first documentary. I was itching to tell Shine, because I hoped he might let me make a film of his escapades, but I was afraid he’d mock me for trying to rise above my station. I wanted to wait until I had something in the can, preferably with an Oscar for best documentary.

  As a result, I was too busy to spend much time following Shine around the city.

  Occasionally, we would meet quickly at a neighborhood bar and he would give me updates—or, rather, he would give me hints and leave me to figure out what was really going on. Even with a professional sociologist, Shine loved being a man of mystery. “One thing you learn in the game is that the faster you figure out the whole white people thing,” he said with emphasis, “the longer you’ll stay out of jail.”

  This was the kind of oblique statement that required decoding. “So … I take it things are going well?”

  “Yeah, you know how it is,” he said, motioning to the bartender for a refill.

  “No! I don’t know how it is!” I laughed. “You have to tell me.”

  “Put it like this—one day at a time.”

  I sighed. “So you’re not broke and on your ass yet?”

  “No. But you never know. Don’t look for the future, ’cause you’ll get stuck in the past. My grandma told me that.”

  I shook my h
ead in defeat. “Okay, okay. Let me see if I understand. You have maybe—I’m guessing, a handful of steady clients? But not enough. You still haven’t hired any good contact men, but you know you need to because no three-hundred-pound black street dealer is going to sell coke in Wall Street and not get noticed. So for now you need to keep going to these stupid hotels and bars yourself. But you hate it. On the other hand, it’s still a new market full of opportunity and you haven’t given up.” I paused. “How am I doing?”

  “Didn’t say you were wrong.” He laughed.

  “I’d say you’re at 40 percent of where you want to be. Maybe you have two bars locked down? A few bartenders? No hotels yet, because you’d be smiling right now if you did.”

  He smiled and I knew he was lying.

  “So you’re getting there, but it’s slow and you’re burning cash. You haven’t figured out security yet. Something doesn’t feel right about these places. And you definitely don’t like walking around with that much on your person. Am I still on track?”

  Shine didn’t even look me in the eye. Now I knew I was nailing it.

  That’s how it went most of the times we met. It felt like a conversation with Deep Throat. But what I really needed, if I wanted to launch another formal study—and I always did—was for Shine to introduce me to these bartenders and bellhops so I could put some meaty details in a grant application and hire research assistants and all the rest of the formal machinery that makes hanging out with drug dealers academically respectable. Once again, I had to be patient.

  • • •

  While I was waiting for Shine to come through, Betsy, Michael, and Carter started inviting me to their parties. There were two kinds. The artsy parties happened down in Soho and the East Village, where their artsy friends lived. The family parties were all on the Upper East Side, where their parents lived. At both, people drank and caroused with bohemian abandon late into the night. Sometimes I felt like Jim Fowler on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, gazing at strange creatures from the safety of my ethnographic pith helmet. They had their own idiosyncratic phrases that made no sense unless you knew the people and places they referenced, and they seemed entirely uninterested in bringing outsiders into their peer group except for entertainment—the role I probably filled. Perhaps I should have found this offensive, but the only emotions I felt were the distanced ones that accompany invisibility. Even in the projects, where I couldn’t have been more different from the locals, I was acknowledged with warmth and nearly always offered a plate of food or a drink before anyone else—an honored guest. Here, they looked past me as if I was the help. Even after I’d met a few of them a half dozen times and they’d asked me who I was, whether I was in New York for vacation, they would forget every detail of the previous conversations, including the fact that they had taken place. Some were friendly, but others ignored me outright. Since I was as dark as any of their servants, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But it still stung.