by Aya De León
She knew she was supposed to say something, but she couldn’t focus, could barely breathe.
Suddenly, she heard a voice whispering in her ear. “I’d like to introduce Marisol Rivera, former executive director of the Maria de la Vega clinic.”
Miraculously, without enough clean air or lung capacity, she managed to utter those whispered words into the microphone. And then Kim pulled her back to join the ring of women standing behind the podium. Tyesha stood rigid, barely hearing Marisol read the speech on the page, deftly translating the words, “I stand here before you as an African American woman” to “I stand here before you as a Puerto Rican woman, saying that labor issues are health issues.”
When the fire alarm began to ring, Tyesha barely registered the sound. It blended with the sound track of the charred Chicago memory in her head.
“Those motherfuckers,” Kim hissed, as she took Tyesha’s arm and they evacuated the building.
“Why are we even going out?” Lily asked. “We know it’s a false fucking alarm. They just wanted to sabotage the press conference. There’s no fire. It’s raining, for fuck’s sake.”
“We’ve been firebombed before,” Marisol said. “I’m sure you’re right, but we can’t take the chance.”
Tyesha found herself standing out on the street in lower Manhattan in the rain, staring at the clinic, perfectly intact. But in her mind, all she could see was the smoldering peace center, from the vantage point of her young teenage self.
Chapter 4
When Tyesha had first moved to New York, she’d lived in student housing near Columbia. She had been excited to visit nearby Harlem; had even hoped to live in that Chocolate City within a city. But by then the gentrification in West Harlem meant that tenants fit into two categories: long-term residents—a significant portion of whom were in public housing—or the more affluent types who were pushing them out. Tyesha didn’t fit in either category. And East Harlem had her totally priced out.
After she no longer qualified for student housing, she lived in Brooklyn. Again, she had hoped for a black neighborhood, but instead she had found a surprisingly affordable studio in Sunset Park. Her apartment was right next door to a Mexican restaurant, although the neighborhood was largely Puerto Rican and Dominican at that point. And those Dominican hairdressers down the block had her hair looking freshly done every day. Jenisse and Deza would have approved.
She was still living there when she received a windfall of cash earlier in the year. Her immediate plan was to buy a place in Brooklyn. It hadn’t been easy. Her windfall wasn’t enough to afford to buy a whole building outright, and she didn’t want to be a landlady with a big mortgage. Her dream was to buy on a chocolate block, but she needed a building that had been converted to co-ops or condominiums.
A lot of places were for sale in up-and-coming hipster neighborhoods. She could visualize them in ten years, filled with professionals who worked in Manhattan. Tyesha fit that description, but she wanted to live where she heard loud voices ringing from front stoops on summer evenings. She wanted shouting kids on the days she was home from work. She wanted to see young women wearing tight clothes and wheeling strollers.
She had been looking for several months when she found a rarity: a brownstone that had been converted to condos in Crown Heights. The basement flat, a cozy one bedroom, was in her price range.
So she got her chocolate neighborhood. She saw plenty of brown skin and tight, brightly colored clothes, and she heard loud voices. But the cadences held sounds of the islands instead of the South. There was one soul food joint nearby, but it wasn’t that great. Most of the eateries sold roti or jerk. So her takeout napkins were as likely to be stained with green-gold curry or brown stew chicken as rust-colored barbecue sauce.
She was more likely to fend off the advances of Horace and Linton as she waited for her order, as opposed to Tyrell and Shawn. She might even take Norris’s phone number, although she was unlikely to call.
Her Chicago neighborhood had been 95 percent black, and that demographic stretched far beyond the edges of her daily life. School, church, her aunt’s house, even Jenisse’s nearby, more upscale neighborhood had been overwhelmingly African American with roots in the South.
Brooklyn was different. They even had some low-rise public housing that slowed the tide of gentrification. But when she walked to the subway—six blocks—she stood between white guys in business suits and hipster chicks with blonde dreadlocks as she waited on the platform for the Manhattan train.
She felt at home with her West Indian neighbors in the same way she felt deeply at home with her friend Lily. Yet there was an intonation she missed. Once, a punk-looking black guy drove by on a bike, with a boom box bungee corded to the rear rack blasting Al Green. The wailing tenor called to her like a long-lost relative.
Still, on evenings when she walked home leisurely from the subway, she took in the sounds of soca or dancehall music blasting from apartment windows. She saw front stoops with clusters of shirtless young men drinking beer with labels she didn’t recognize. She couldn’t always understand their patois, but she recognized something about them beyond words: the way their plum lips curved into smiles revealing crooked white teeth, and the way their low-slung jeans hung from their hipbones, showing off taut abdominal muscles. She recognized the mix of tight fades, dreadlocks, and nappy curls on their heads. She recognized the razor designs carved into the dark of their hair, only a shade or two darker than their skin. She recognized the gold in their mouths and on their necks, although the gold bangles on their wrists were less familiar.
Likewise, the women’s hips and asses in tight jeans and short skirts was familiar, as were their long, synthetic braids in bright colors and midnight blue-blacks that were equally unnatural. She recognized their dark lipsticks, their long, sparkling fingernails, their oversized earrings, and the sharp retorts they shot back at the comments that chased their curving hips down the street.
But on the night of the press conference, Tyesha didn’t notice anything on the way home from the train station. The rain had stopped, and she walked with her head down, lost in thought. When she looked over at her building, she saw Deza sitting out in front of her apartment again.
“You can’t call?” Tyesha asked her niece. “You know I have a phone.”
“Clearly not one you know how to use in an emergency,” Deza said. “How you gonna go out with your hair looking like World War Three?”
Tyesha put a hand up to her head. Her press had been thoroughly rained on, causing it to turn back to waves where she’d relaxed it, and to kink up wildly at the roots where the perm had grown out.
“Some motherfucker pulled a fire alarm at work and I was out on the street without my umbrella,” Tyesha said.
“Auntie,” Deza said. “Lemme fix that up for you. You need help.”
“I can’t argue with you on that count,” Tyesha said, and opened the door.
Half an hour later, Tyesha was sitting at the kitchen table while Deza expertly sectioned and flatironed her hair.
“So what was this press conference about, anyway?”
“You see that viral video where the strippers walk out of that club?” Tyesha asked.
“The one where that guy grabs and slaps the girl giving him a lap dance and tries to drag her into that room?” Deza said. “Hell, yeah. Everybody seen that.”
“That’s where Lily works,” Tyesha said.
“The West Indian girl I met here?”
“Yeah, and my clinic is advocating for the strippers.”
“Damn,” Deza said. “That’s cool, Auntie Ty. It’s like you take after Aunt Lu.”
The name stung. The memory stung. She could still feel the singe of smoke in her nostrils. Lucille was Deza’s great aunt and had died when Deza was in kindergarten. Jenisse never brought her kids around the center. So Deza had never heard her preach peace to an audience of young gangbangers. Had never heard her demand street violence and cop violence be put on the Cook
County public health agenda.
“But I’m not like her,” Tyesha said. “I was supposed to give a speech, but I choked out there today. I just lost it. Couldn’t even speak. My ex-boss had to take over.”
“Of course you’re like her,” Deza said. “I did a report on her in high school for a local heroes assignment. She was all about public health, just like you. All about black and brown folks, just like you. If she was still alive, you’d be working at the Urban Peace Accord Center in Chicago. I bet you never woulda moved to New York.”
“You’re probably right,” Tyesha said. “Auntie Lu kept my mama and your mama in check. If either of them got too crazy, I could call her and she’d run interference.”
“Keeping it real, if she was still alive, she probably woulda raised me and Amaru,” Deza said.
Tyesha hadn’t thought of that. “Probably would have. Your older brothers used to stay with her a lot of the time.” Tyesha said it quietly.
The flatiron hissed as Deza smoothed down a section of hair.
“So why are you all in New York, anyway?” Tyesha asked.
“Zeus,” Deza said.
Tyesha wondered why Deza and Amaru referred to him by his first name instead of “dad” or “my dad.” Still, Tyesha had grown up without a dad, so who knew what you called them? Or maybe it was a Chicago drug kingpin thing. Maybe he was just Zeus to everyone.
“He wants to expand his business into New York,” Deza said.
“Dear lord,” Tyesha said. “That’s all I need. Your mama coming around and Zeus getting into some kind of turf war with the thugs in this town.”
“The way I look at it,” Deza said, “it’s an opportunity for all of us. Especially me. Now I know you don’t want to hear this, but I gotta say it. When we heard we were coming to New York, Amaru was all upset because she has a girlfriend in Chicago. But I was excited because I thought, finally, I’ll be in the city where something can really happen for me as a hip-hop artist. And then I hear that my favorite auntie—”
“Your only auntie,” Tyesha said.
“—knows Thug Woofer,” Deza said, setting down the flatiron. “Now I came at you a little sideways before because I was in shock. But I’ve had time, and I’ve worked on my pitch. So just hear me out, and if you say no, I’ll let it go.”
“Okay,” Tyesha said. “Fine.”
“Don’t do it for me,” Deza said. “Do it for yourself. You had this rapper who is fine as fuck, rich as fuck, successful as fuck, dedicating albums to you. Yeah, maybe it’s some bullshit. But you owe it to yourself to find out.”
“He’s not as rich as he seems in those videos,” Tyesha said.
“He’s rich enough,” Deza said. “Twenty years from now, you don’t want to be reading about how he settled down with some nice executive named Talisha, who looks just like you.”
Tyesha laughed at that thought.
Deza went on. “Then Thug Woofer and Talisha gonna be living the dream with three kids and a big-ass house and you’re like goddamn, that was supposed to be my life. I’ve listened to the Melvyn album. It’s some real shit. Some Drake type of sensitive shit.”
“That’s the thing about Woof,” Tyesha said.
“You calls his ass Woof?” Deza said. “You’re on a single syllable basis?”
“He’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” she said. “One minute, he’s wooing me at a nice restaurant, and the next, he’s like some rude motherfucker on the bus.”
“Listen to the album, Auntie,” Deza said. “Just give him a chance to explain.” Deza pulled a CD out of her purse and set it on the table. It was burned on a computer and said “Melvyn” in Sharpie marker. “When you like what you hear, call him,” Deza said.
“If I like what I hear,” Tyesha said. “I’ll call him. And if he’s not acting like Mr. Hyde, I’ll ask him to lunch. And if he says yes, I’ll bring up your demo at lunch. That’s it. If he says no, don’t ask again.”
* * *
Tyesha thought about the last time she’d seen Woof. It was their third date. Prior to that he’d taken her to the Oscars. Flown her to L.A., put her up in a stellar hotel, and not even pushed for sex. She had let her guard down.
Shortly after the L.A. trip, Tyesha and Woof were drinking at an uptown bar that looked over the river. She had come from the clinic’s board meeting and he had been at an industry function.
“Look at us,” Tyesha said. “With your artist gear and my suit, we’re like some kind of romantic comedy.”
“Or a porno.” He laughed. “The executive and the bad boy.”
Tyesha chuckled and drank. “When I graduate and work at the clinic full-time, this is gonna be my everyday look.”
“Will you miss your current job?” he asked.
“Hell, no.” She ate a handful of almonds from a bowl on the bar. “Public health is my real job.”
He had pressed for details of her entry into sex work.
“Do you really wanna hear this?” she had asked.
Woof shrugged. “I’m definitely curious.”
She had recalled her first bad client who broke her jaw.
Woof traced a finger along her jawline. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
They left the bar and started strolled along the river, arm in arm. The night was warmer than usual for March, but they could see their breath. Streetlamps reflected off the water, as well as distant moving lights of ferries and party boats.
Woof put his arms around her. “So,” he said, “I was wondering if maybe we could go home together tonight.”
Tyesha blinked and stepped back. “Whoa. Can you wait a minute before you make a move?” She shook her head. “I’m still trying to get the taste of broken jaw out of my mouth.”
“I can make it better,” he said, leaning in to kiss her jaw.
“Seriously,” Tyesha said. “Back up, please. Give me a minute.”
He stepped back. She folded her arms and stared out at the river.
“Woof.” She turned to him. “I realize this is our third date.”
“Our fourth date, Tyesha.”
“Third,” she said. “It doesn’t count if I got paid.”
“You expect me to be up here going on dates with you, and not get none, and sit around and listen about you fucking other dudes for money?”
“You asked—” Tyesha broke off. “You know what? Never mind. This dating thing isn’t working.”
“Not working?” Woof asked. “I usually don’t even date.” He began to pace. “I been a gentleman, I brought you flowers and took you out. Isn’t it time for me to get my reward?”
“I’m not gonna fuck you as a reward,” she said. “I’m certainly not gonna fuck you if you act like an asshole. Not for cash or a fancy dinner. Obviously you can only think of me as a ho.”
“It’s what you do, isn’t it?” Woof said.
“Fuck you, Woof,” she said. “That’s the only fucking you’re gonna get from me, tonight or ever.”
“Don’t walk away from me!” He caught up to her and grabbed her arm, spinning her around.
“Get the hell off me,” Tyesha said. She reached for her panic keychain and pressed both buttons. An alarm split the air.
“What the fuck?” he said.
She twisted free and ran along the river.
* * *
That had been Thug Woofer’s second chance. They had first met when he was a client. He was an asshole then, too. But he’d showed up at her job, given her flowers, and sweet-talked her. She remembered the track she had seen on the Ellen show, “Third Chance.” It seemed sort of corny and cliché, like it could be any guy who screwed up with any woman. Men like Woof didn’t deserve a third chance, but she had promised her niece. Deza had indicated that she should start with track four, a song called “Double Standard.”
I be steady fucking
Say I like ’em wild
But somehow I expect my girlfriend to be an innocent child?
Why am I so scared that I�
�ll be compared
We coulda had something real if I only dared
But when I get out my comfort zone
I put my thug face on
Like I don’t give a fuck when I do
Like I wasn’t straight stuck on you
Your confidence, I couldn’t handle it
I punked out with a double standard
If you let some other dude manhandle
You gotta let me get an angle
My ego got frantic
I defaulted to the double standard
But the track that stunned her was called “Make it Matter,” which he dedicated to a cousin who had been shot by the police.
You were nineteen when I was ten
I idolized you back then
You were the star of the family
Visiting from the university
When they said to work hard in school
It sounded good so I could be like you
So when those ten bullets hit
I couldn’t figure out what description you fit
Was it the scholar with straight A’s that fall
Or the basketball coach at the local juvenile hall
The cousin who tutored me on the phone in math and was never impatient?
Or the son who always mowed the lawn when he was home on vacation?
After you died, it was like the family scattered
Cause they gunned you down like your life never mattered.
His words transported Tyesha from a roadside in South Carolina to a sidewalk in Chicago, and the tears began to fall. Throughout the song, they streamed down her face. Her aunt’s death had the same effect on her own family. When the song ended, she sat up and wiped her eyes. For the first time since Drew Thomas had identified her as a Couvillier, niece of Lucille Couvillier, she could breathe without smoke in her lungs.
She composed a text to Thug Woofer.
Hey.
She wrote a dozen versions, but finally settled on:
I been listening to Melvyn. Powerful. Let’s talk.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to send it. Not while she was feeling so raw. She was exhausted from rescuing Lily the night before and then the press conference. She couldn’t trust her judgment when she was this tired. She left it in draft form on her phone and went to bed.