by Mia Mckenzie
“I have to get going, Mom,” I say, putting on my jacket.
“You sure you don’t want to stay and say hello to your brother when he gets home?”
“I have a thing with Viva.”
“Alright, baby,” she says.
I grab the bag of recycling and move toward the door.
“Tasha!” my mother says all of a sudden.
I turn to look at her. “What?”
“That was another name you were going to give one of your daughters,” she says. “After your friend Tasha. Remember her?”
Hmm, lemme think. Yeah, vaguely.
20
The next day, Friday, I spend much of the morning in a virtual meeting with Toni. Our Cuba trip is halfway done, which means there’s about eight weeks left before I’m scheduled to lead the trip to Bali.
“My flight to Ngurah Rai lands on the twentieth,” I tell her, from my perch in Viva’s courtyard. I’ve taken to working out here sometimes, now that it’s warm and sunny most days.
“Are you excited?” Toni asks me.
I’m not sure how to answer. On one hand, all this time with Vicky has been great. On the other hand, there’s a heaviness to Philly, a weight made up of memories, good and bad, that feels unmanageable, volatile, liable to overwhelm me at any moment.
“Yeah,” I tell Toni. “I’m excited for the arts festival. I haven’t been there in a few years.”
* * *
—
This night, Viva invites me to Floetic, a club and live music spot downtown, for an exclusive twenty-fifth-anniversary party that she’s managed to finagle tickets to. I haven’t been to a club in probably ten years and I don’t necessarily think that needs to change. But I’ve been turning over what she said about nostalgia, about needing more of it in my life. Which: maybe. I’m willing to consider it, at least. And Floetic is part of our shared history. We used to go there when we were teenagers. So, I say okay, I’ll go, but just for a couple of drinks. I dress myself in proper aggressive femme club attire—black V-neck, black leather skinny pants, black boots, and gold hoop earrings—and submit to a little nostalgia.
Traffic is terrible. We should’ve taken the el. Instead, we’re in Viva’s tiny car, creeping down Chestnut Street at an absurdly slow pace. It’s warm out, almost summery, and the night air kisses my bare arms through the rolled-down windows. I may not like Philly any other time, but I love it on a Friday night in early summer, when the lights of Center City beckon revelers from every neighborhood and, from Old City to the Gayborhood to Rittenhouse Square, restaurants and bars and sidewalks vibrate with people who are in the best moods they’ve been in since last summer ended. I swear, I hear raucous laughter rising into the air six or seven times on the way to the club and soon I start to feel in a pretty good mood myself.
When we get to Floetic, there’s a big guy at the door handing out party hats with glittery twenty-fives on them.
“There’s no way I’m wearing this,” I tell Viva, who’s already putting hers on.
It’s still early enough that the place isn’t super packed yet. Everyone’s moving their hips, looking halfway to buzzed and satisfied with life, as a singer sways from side to side onstage, delivering an impressive cover of the Roots’ “You Got Me.”
“Naima’s in traffic,” Viva tells me, scrolling her phone. “Let’s get a drink.”
I get the attention of one of the bartenders, a Persian-looking woman with thick, curly hair and large, dark eyes. She comes over smiling, saying, “What can I get you, cutie?” Which, first of all: What am I, seven? Also: I’m not dumb enough to take a compliment from a bartender seriously, even if I haven’t had sex in six months.
The last time someone touched my vagina was in Mozambique. A friend who was hosting me there invited some of her friends over for a cocktail gathering and one of those people, a tall, thin librarian, made eyes at me across the coffee table for hours before finally approaching me on my way back from the bathroom and whispering, “Una macho mazuri.” She smelled like cocoa butter and clove cigarettes. The day after our tryst, she called me, but I made excuses. The fucking had been nice but, during a quiet moment, I had sensed in her a need for intimacy beyond sex that I already knew I couldn’t meet.
“Knob, please,” I say to the bartender. “Neat. And a White Russian for my homie.”
Not too far from the stage, there’s one empty table. We snag it. The singer, who is tall and rail thin and dressed all in green, reminding me of an asparagus stalk, has finished her Roots cover and is now belting out an early-in-the-evening-style soul number, probably something she wrote herself because I haven’t heard it before. It’s a little heavy on the ooo-ooos and oh bay-bees but, all in all, it’s pretty good.
I sip my bourbon and look around at the crowd. Back in the nineties, Floetic was the jawn where all the cool kids wanted to go, because the live music was the best in the city. Not only was the stage graced by many of the biggest acts in hip-hop and neo-soul, but the local talent featured was often even better than the big names. We came here a lot over the courses of our fifteenth and sixteenth summers. Our first time, I remember showing the front door dude my cousin’s ID with shaky hands. He barely looked at it before taking my fifteen dollars and waving me in, behind Viva and Tasha and some of our other friends who’d finagled IDs from their older siblings or cousins, too. Back then, as now, the club was unique in that all sorts of Black people showed up and most were welcome, including baby dykes and gays like us. I remember Tasha putting her arm around my shoulders. “Why don’t we come here every weekend?”
“We don’t have enough money,” I reminded her.
“Oh shit. Yeah. You right.”
Applause plunks me back in the present as the rail-thin singer is ending one song and starting another. These days, Floetic is less the jawn where all the cool kids want to go and more the jawn where the cool kids who got pregnant there in the nineties go on date nights now that their kids are in college. The music is still the same old-school hip-hop and neo-soul from back then, with some jazz, reggae, blues, and soul to round it out, and the crowd is loving it, as the singer’s band follows the soul number with a bluesy arrangement.
Viva and I sip our drinks and talk about the old days. About seeing De La Soul and Tony Rich and J Kelly Biz on this very stage.
“Remember we snuck backstage for Blackstreet?” she asks. “What was that, ninety-five?”
“Ninety-six. I remember because Teddy Riley smiled at me and asked me how old I was. When I said I was sixteen, he walked away without another word. Which I guess is a point in his favor?”
Naima arrives with a few of her other friends in tow, women I haven’t seen since high school, who, even then, I barely talked to, and who I definitely don’t want to talk to now. One of them, Tamika, a light-skinned jawn with a questionable blond weave, asks Viva if she went to our high school, too.
“Yes,” Viva says. “Class of ninety-eight.”
Tamika shakes her head. “I can’t believe I don’t remember you. You’re so pretty, I feel like I would remember.”
“I looked different then,” Viva says. She’s only out in queer community, and to family and close friends, and I can tell she’s uncomfortable.
“I like your hair,” I say to Tamika. I don’t, but it’s something to say.
Tamika smiles, flips the weave over her shoulder. “It’s just like Beyoncé in Homecoming, right?”
Mmm. Yeah. Okay.
What follows is ten minutes of Tamika talking to me about her hair: where she gets it done, which of the stylists she likes best. I don’t catch half of what she says because…well, because I’m not really listening. But looking directly at her seems to pass for listening well enough. When she finally stops talking to go order more drinks, I turn to Viva and whisper, “It’s just like Beyoncé in Homecoming. Right?”
She laughs so hard that tears gather at the corners of her eyes.
The skinny singer has just begun to sing one of my favorite songs: “Trust In Me.” The slow Etta James arrangement, which is by far the best arrangement of the song. The singer’s voice is low and sweet. I settle back in my chair and sip my drink.
The song reminds me of London, where I studied during my junior year of college. It was my first time abroad. I was twenty-one and I’d decided beforehand that I would come out there, in this new, exciting place where no one knew me, where my gayness wouldn’t have to compete with whatever ideas anyone already held about my sexuality because no one held any at all. There, I could be queer from the start, and I was. The music I chose to be the soundtrack of my queer semester abroad included Etta’s iconic At Last! I’d listen to it almost every day on my tube ride from my homestay in Wimbledon to class at King’s College. Now, whenever I hear “Trust In Me,” or any of the songs from that album, I remember my first lesbian lovers, the first Caravaggio I ever saw in real life, and my first time feeling truly, deeply out of place. I returned to Philadelphia the summer after that semester and felt so disappointed to be back after the excitements of London. But at the same time, I was surprised by how comforting the familiarity of my city was, how suddenly, unexpectedly at home I felt, a Philly girl back in Philly.
“Why don’t you trust in me?” the singer croons, the same way Philly did that summer, with its soft pretzels and familiar twangs and Black people saying hello to one another on the street. “Oh and love, love will see us through…”
When the song ends, a dude in a Kangol takes the stage to thank us all for a quarter-century of love and support. Then he introduces Schoolly D. The crowd goes crazy.
For their twenty-fifth, Floetic has landed some of the Philly-born icons of old-school hip-hop and neo-soul, class of 1994 through 2000. Besides Schoolly, Bahamadia is in the house. Black Thought. Even North Philly’s own Jill Scott comes through for a minute. There are whispers about a surprise Will Smith appearance, but it seems far-fetched and doesn’t pan out. Which is fine by me because by the time Jilly from Philly is done giving us our lives, I’m ready for bed. My obligations to nostalgia well-fulfilled, Viva releases me.
I’m ordering a Lyft and heading for the exit when I feel a hand on my arm and hear someone call my name, and when I turn around, Faye is there.
“Oh, hey. What are you doing here? Date night with Nick or something?” I look around for him, trying not to puke at the idea.
“I’m here with friends,” she says loudly over the music. “Well, I was. I’m actually heading out. You?”
“Same.”
“Need a ride?” she asks.
“I can just take a Lyft,” I say, holding up my phone.
She peers at me, shakes her head. “Why would you do that when I’m standing right here offering you a ride?”
Because I’ve had two bourbons and I’m feeling a teensy bit goofy and I don’t like feeling a teensy bit goofy in the company of women I want to sleep with. I like playing it cool around women I want to sleep with, or as cool as it is possible for me to play it, which actually isn’t very cool, but is cooler than I am after two bourbons.
“Let me give you a ride,” Faye says. “We’re going the same way.”
“Okay,” I say, closing the app and putting the phone in my pocket. “Yeah. Thanks.”
We make our way together through the growing crowd, toward the door. There are enough people in the club now that it’s hard not getting separated as we move through them, so I reach out and take Faye’s hand. It’s not a move, I swear. It’s what I’ve always done with my friends, to keep from losing one another in a swarm of bodies. I do it almost unconsciously, but once Faye’s hand is in mine, it occurs to me that she might not like it. I mean, we’re cool now I guess, but maybe not that cool. And I don’t want her to think I’m trying something. So, half a second after I take her hand, I let it go, pretending to accidentally drop it when some dude pushes past us. A few seconds after that, I feel fingertips grazing my palm and I realize she’s reaching for my hand again. I let her grab it. We weave through the crowd, fingers intertwined.
As we’re passing the bar, the large, light-skinned brother in the Kangol, who was onstage thanking us earlier, reaches out, touches Faye’s arm, and says, “Lucas! You came!”
Faye stops and smiles at him. “Hey, Win.”
“Damn, girl,” he says, getting up from his barstool. “How long has it been since I’ve seen you?”
“Seventy-five years,” she says, letting go of my hand and hugging him. “Maybe eighty.”
“Feels like it,” he replies. “Especially in my knees.”
Faye laughs and I notice how different it sounds from the times I’ve heard it: It’s bigger and louder; the kind of laugh we laugh with people who knew us when we were young. It makes me smile when I hear it.
The large man notices me smiling and asks, “This your lady?”
“This is my friend Skye,” Faye says. “Skye, this is Winston. He used to be a DJ here back in the day. He’s one of the owners now.”
Winston and I exchange “nice to meet yous.” Then he says, “I was just thinking about you a couple weeks ago, Lucas. J Kelly Biz was up in here.”
“I haven’t seen Kelly in years,” Faye says.
“You know J Kelly Biz?” I ask her.
J Kelly Biz was a rapper on the Philly scene back in the nineties, one of only a few women to garner any real respect in the local rap game.
“Yes,” Faye says.
I want to ask how but she’s already turning back to Winston.
“How is Kelly?” she asks.
“Good,” he says. “Better than good, according to the crowd.”
“She performed?”
“Oh, yes. Two jawns off Big Biz, from ninety-five. Took us all way, way back.”
“I would’ve loved to see that.”
“I woulda loved to see you up there,” says Winston.
Faye shakes her head. “You know I don’t rap anymore, Win.”
Hold up. “You don’t rap anymore?” I ask. “Meaning you…rapped at one time?”
Winston gives me a look like maybe he thinks I’m slow or something. “You don’t know who you kicking it with?”
I look from him to Faye and back. I shrug.
“This is MC Faye Malice,” he says.
Which: WHUT? MC Faye Malice? The most decent girl in the game? The illest rapper in the two-one-five? Nigga, is you drunk?
“No, it isn’t,” I say, laughing a little because who could even make such a ridiculous mistake?
Winston smiles at Faye and she smiles back at him. I peer at her and think back to 1994, when I was fourteen and my whole neighborhood was hype because “Rock This Jawn,” by West Philly’s own MC Faye Malice, was the hit song of the summer. Power 99 played it eleventy-thousand times a day. Every house party bumped it. Tasha and I dubbed it off the radio onto a cassette tape and played it nearly nonstop for like a month, until we couldn’t stand the sound of it anymore, which is what you do with a record that slaps that hard. Only once did we ever see the face of MC Faye Malice—for about three seconds in a two-minute news story about the local music scene. I remember being surprised because she was so young. She still had braces on her teeth and I’d never seen a rapper with braces before. I don’t remember anything else about her face, but still. There’s no way that Faye is this Faye.
“Why are you lying to me like this?”
“I’m not lying,” Winston says, chuckling. “This dime right here was once one of the baddest female MCs outta Philly—”
“Don’t call me a dime,” Faye says. “And since when are we qualifying it?”
“You right,” he says. “I stand corrected. One of the baddest MCs outta Philly period. End of sentence.”
; “Wait,” I say, because what the hell is even happening right now? “You’re really MC Faye Malice?”
“Yes.”
“Woulda been the best, probably,” Winston continues. “If you hadn’t quit so early.”
“Okay, now you’re taking it a bit far,” says Faye.
“No, I’m not. I was there. I remember every bar you spit, girl. Your shit was fire.” He looks over at the stage, where Jaguar Wright is singing. “Why don’t you get up there?” he asks. “I can squeeze you in right after Jag.”
“That’s cute,” Faye says.
“I’m serious. If Kelly killed, I know you’ll kill.”
“I won’t kill. Because I’m not getting up there.”
“One song,” he says.
“Zero songs. Seriously, Win. I haven’t been on a stage in twenty years. I don’t even remember how to rhyme.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” he says. “You never forget how to rhyme.”
“You should do it,” I tell her. Because I want to see this more than I have ever wanted to see anything in the history of my life.
“You gotta do it,” Winston says.
Faye looks from him to me and smiles. “No.”
Damn it!
“But it’s nice seeing you, Winston.”
Defeated, he opens his arms. “It’s good seeing you, Lucas. Thanks for coming out.” They hug goodbye.
As we head for the exit once more, the soulful sounds of Jaguar Wright are filling up the place, but all I hear is the hook off “Rock This Jawn,” playing over and over in my head, as MC Faye Malice reaches for my hand again.
21
We don’t talk much on the ride back to West Philly. There’s something in the air. I might call it sexual tension, but that’s maybe just me. Faye seems far away, in her own head, even when she’s asking me which performance I liked best. For long stretches, we say nothing at all. But it’s not awkward silence this time. It’s just silence. And it’s comforting. It’s hard to find people you can be silent with.