Have a NYC 3 (8 page)

DANGEROUS GIRL

BY LIZ AXELROD

I
met Cosmo and Dante at the Aztec Lounge on the last Friday of 1986. Cosmo was a spoken-word artist with an album on the college charts. Dante was a dealer posing as a record label exec. They flattered me with poetry and followed me around the bar all evening—ready with a drink, a line, or a joint at every turn. I knew they wanted to get into my miniskirt but I kept them at bay, relishing the ego boost.

I supplied Goth themed mix-tapes to the manager of Aztec and occasionally slept with Michael, the bartender. Aztec was my usual starting and ending point, though most nights I went home alone. I sported East Village DJ couture. My nightly ensemble: ripped black fishnets, black leather jacket, black miniskirt, tons of silver bangles, and black cowboy boots from Tucson, AZ. Cosmo resembled a young deranged Einstein in his white poet shirt and tight black jeans, Dante wore a black Lurex disco shirt and Jordache jeans. I loved the contrast between us, and Dante's never-ending supply of white powder made it all the more interesting.

We enjoyed our playtime at Aztec and then grabbed a cab to the Voodoo Lounge where I worked as a DJ from 10 to 1, warming up the too-early-for-after-hours crowd. Cosmo carried my crate of records. I got him in the club for free (saving him 15 bucks) and headed to the DJ booth.

My music that night was red-hot. I segued Siouxsie and the Banshees with NWA, mixed Madonna and The Belle Stars with Beastie Boys, and looped The Cure's “Let's Go to Bed” with Michael Jackson's “Beat It.” Guys crowded my booth, asking me to play their songs, and used rolled-up twenty-dollar bills to snort lines off my album covers. I was in my zone that evening at Voodoo. With New Year's Eve just around the corner, holiday spirits and tips were plentiful.

I partied with the rainbow. Nothing was ever black and white, the whole Pantone Process ran through my blood. I flirted and danced with boys and girls, all walks and tracks allowed. I spoke conversational Spanish and French, mixed Hip-Hop and Soul with Alternative Dance, and hung out with homeboys, mohawk men, goth girls, and Euro trash—sometimes all in the same evening. The club scene was hot downtown and I'd cultivated relationships with the doormen at the Milk Bar, Mudd Club, Danceteria, Mars, and Area. When I went out, I never waited in line. I was whisked right past the velvet rope and led to the VIP room.

Maybe I was naïve, maybe lucky, maybe just more tuned into my surroundings. I looked into the eyes of my playmates and knew who was safe and who to walk away from; skin tone optional. I prided myself on my powers of persuasion and rarely encountered problems. Potential conflict was usually diffused with a line of coke, a joint, or a slow dance.

II

Cosmo came back to the DJ booth a few minutes after midnight flirting and teasing me with his words.

“Hey Tina Turntable, I wrote you a poem. When you're finished spinning come find us. We wanna take you uptown to a great new club.”

“Hmmm, uptown? Well, maybe, we'll see . . . You know, I'm not much of an Uptown Girl.

“You'll love it, don't worry. Let's meet up when you're done spinning. Damn, I just love your DJ name . . . Tina Turntable is so much fun to roll around your tongue.” He winked and patted my ass.

“Roll this.” I flipped him off—somewhat friendly like. “I gotta go play “Pretty in Pink” for some prep dude's Barbie doll blondie, he gave me a twenty.”

He smiled and walked away, whispering something to Dante. They both looked my way and laughed.

I got paid for my shift and bought some more party goods. I found Cosmo sitting in the back of the VIP room with Dante, Steve—the Voodoo door-man—and Tommy from the Milk Bar. I was psyched to see Tommy in their company. I knew him casually from the Milk Bar. He had a quiet-tough vibe and I found his rough blond biker groove extremely compelling.

I sat down next to him and ignored Cosmo and Dante. Tommy smelled like earth and sex. His moves were catlike and sinewy. His stare conveyed tangible heat. When he flashed a smile my way and focused his deep blue eyes on mine, I was ready to burn.

Tommy was the main reason I threw caution to the wind when Cosmo and Dante said we should all go up to the new club in Harlem. I didn't think anything of heading uptown in Steve's boat-sized Marquis. I was just pleased to sit next to Tommy in the back seat. I shared my coke with them and we passed around a couple of joints. I made Steve play one of my mix-tapes. I could tell my Gothic dance mix really wasn't his style, but I downplayed the groans of displeasure.

“Get over it guys, it's good shit, plus there's Hip Hop coming up soon, I put some Beastie Boys and Prince on this tape.”

“It's a damn good thing you're cute, girlie, cause your music sucks.” Dante laughed and I shrugged it off.

Tommy gave me a raised eyebrow and I shrugged that off.

At the club we were ushered into a quiet VIP area. We crowded into a booth in the back of a dark, wood-paneled lounge with a professional billiards table. The seats were blood-red leather and the bar was lined in 50's cherry Formica. I drank Grand Marnier and made jokes. I danced around the table while Cosmo read a poem he wrote for me:

She breathes the mystery winds

And dances on the ceiling.

She's a dangerous lady spinning

black vinyl in the void.

Flattered, I laughed and told him it sounded a little like The Cars' “Dangerous Girl.” I guess he didn't like the comparison, even though in my mind it was a compliment. He left the table and went over to shoot pool with Dante and Steve.

I sat down next to Tommy. He looked way out of place with his spikes and leather in a club filled with Member's Only jackets and velvet track suits, but he grabbed my hand and smiled. We talked quietly for a while and ignored the rest of the club. We laughed at the black light posters of
Superfly
and
The A Team
and enjoyed a bit of fun, flirty conversation. When he got up to make a phone call I joined Dante and Cosmo to do a few more lines and shoot some pool.

I scratched on the eight ball, much to my friend's chagrin, and headed to the bathroom. Dante and Cosmo followed.

After freshening my lipstick and wiping the powder off my nose, I found them both outside the bathroom door. They asked if I wanted to do another hit and motioned me to the stairway door.

“Sure, I'm up for it.” We went into the stairway. Cosmo put the powder on his hand and I snorted it from the web between his thumb and finger.

“Thanks.” As I turned to go back Dante put his hand on my waist and spun me around.

“You know . . . we been giving you blow all night. I think it's time you give something in return.”

“Sure, man. No problem. I have some coke too. Here. I got the next line.” I reached into my purse. When I looked up Dante was eyeing my chest with an evil grin and Cosmo was shuffling back and forth, a line of spittle pooled in the corner of his mouth.

I wasn't thinking straight. I blurted out “What's up guys? Is there a problem?”

Dante stood tall and his tone changed from friendly to menacing.

“Yeah, DJ, my problem is . . . you out of your place up here. You been acting like hot shit and above it all night long. We brought you up here and all you been doing is sliding up next to that biker guy. You need to start sliding up to the ones that brung you. So . . . baby . . . this is what we want.” He smiled and bared his yellow teeth. “Take that skirt off and show us your cunt.”

Cosmo laughed. “Yeah Tina, let's go baby. Dangerous girl, show us what you got”

Before I could react Cosmo reached out and grabbed the hem of my skirt. His hand grazed my thigh and ripped into my stocking. I pulled back and slammed my silver bangles into his shoulder.

“What the fuck? You want what?!” Shocked, I screamed “MY CUNT! Who the hell do you think you are! How FUCKING dare you!”

Cosmo smacked my face and pushed me into the wall. I felt the blood rushing to my head. I tried to get loose and he grabbed my arm and pulled me closer into him. We were face to face and his breath was horrifying. His poetry was shit and I was a fool to have ever come uptown with him. Damn them both to hell. If I had been packing a weapon those bastards would no longer be on the planet.

I looked Cosmo dead square in his bloodshot black eyes.

Maybe he felt my intent because he paused and looked confused for a second.

Using that moment of confusion to wiggle free, I ran back to the club. The room was empty except for a couple of seedy guys at the pool table arguing over a missed shot.

Dante and Cosmo sauntered in right after me, looking like nothing happened. They sat down at a table with Steve and began whispering and gesturing.

Disheveled and stinging, my face flaming with pain and outrage, I put my hand to my cheek. This hot new club was just a Harlem bar full of druggies at 5:30am, and I was the only female in the room.

Coke made me talkative, active, funny, and friendly. But it sure wasn't having the same effect on my friends.

My paranoia rose to the surface, I watched their evil whispers and pictured the scene from
Accused
where Jodie Foster was raped by four guys on a pinball machine and everyone else in the room applauded.

Tommy stood alone by the bar. I made my way over to him.

He put his arm around me and whispered, “I think it's time for us to leave now, yes?”

Dante yelled, “You two best get on home now. Your girl's up way past her bed time.”

I leaned into Tommy as he directed me to the door and out onto the sunlit avenue filled with bodegas and beauty shops.

I pulled my Ray Bans out of my purse and put them on with shaking hands, jarred into the early Harlem morning by the grinding of steel gates opening for business.

MISSING DAUGHTER

BY CHERA THOMPSON

M
y daughter's flight back to college was at seven tomorrow morning. She had to be at JFK by six, which meant she had to leave my sister's New York City apartment by five-thirty. She was twenty, lived at school and had negotiated her way around Europe by train. Still, I worried about her standing alone in the middle of a New York City block to hail a cab before dawn, then ride by herself to JFK. I had to go with her. I set my alarm.

“Mom, you don't have to!”

“It's no problem, really.”

“It's crazy,” my sister said. “A round trip cab will cost you a fortune.”

“Really?”

“Look—just let her take my car service,” my sister said. “They're good.”

“Car service?”

“‘I use them all the time.”

“You sure?” I asked.
Because this is my only daughter I'm entrusting them with.

“Never had a problem.”

“Well . . . I don't know . . . ”
Does she know the drivers personally? How do they screen them?

“C'mon Mom! I'm not a baby!”

“They're very reliable,” my sister insisted. “Best in New York.”

“For God's sake, I'm twenty years old,” my daughter whined. “I was taking cabs all over Italy two years ago.”

“With your friends, not by yourself,” I pointed out, defending my paranoia.

“The doorman is down in the lobby twenty-four seven,” my sister said. “He'll look out for her.”

“Well . . . ”

Maybe taking a cab round trip to JFK was a little over the top. My mind flashed back to my daughter's first day of school when I followed the school bus in my car. No seat belts! My husband called me a helicopter parent . . . always hovering.

I relented.

“Okay,” I said. “Car service.”

The alarm went off at four-thirty. I heard my daughter get up, then dozed off until she kissed me on the cheek. “Time to go,” she said. “I'll wait for them downstairs.”

“No, no—I'll go with you.”

“Mom, you don't have to.”

I hesitated. “You sure?”

My sister yelled from her bed. “For God's sake! The doorman's down there!”

And in that split second, something inside me gave in. Right there: In my nightgown, on the eleventh floor, at 5:15 a.m. In that split second I let go. Let go of being an overprotective, middle-aged mother from Ohio. In that split second I became a New Yorker.

“Call me when you get to the airport.”

“My cell phone's dead. Forgot to charge the battery.”

“Well, find a pay phone.”

“Okay, okay.” She grabbed her suitcase, the door clicked shut and I sank back under the covers.

Fifteen minutes later, the intercom buzzed. What did she forget? I got up, still groggy, found my way to the button. “What is it, hon?”

“Car service.”

“She's down there,” I replied in a thanks-for-making-me-get-up, forced-hospitable sing-song.

“No one down here.”

“No, she's waiting for you in the lobby. The redhead, the redheaded girl!”

“Nobody here.”

“The doorman,” I yelled. “Ask the doorman!”

“I don't see no doorman.”

“Oh my God!” I screamed.

My sister shuffled into the room and turned on the light.

“No, no, no!” I shrieked, fumbling with the three locks on the door. I yanked it open and ran barefoot, in my nightgown, down the hall to the elevator.

My heart felt like a jackhammer. I pounded the button, wailing. I waited an eternity for the elevator to arrive and it took an eternity to go down eleven flights—ten and nine and eight and seven and— . . .

The elevator doors opened. The driver stood alone next to an empty front desk.

“Oh God, oh God! Where is she?” I whirled around the room. “Where the hell is the doorman?”

As if on cue, the doorman sauntered through the side door carrying an empty garbage can.

“Did you see my daughter?” I screeched.

“No,” he said. He put the can by the door.

I grabbed his arm. “The redheaded girl with the suitcase?”

He sighed. “No one's been here.”

“How do you know?” I squeezed his arm tighter. “Where were you?”

He yanked his arm away. “I took out the garbage. I was only gone five minutes.”

“No! No!” I shook my head.

These are the five this-is-how-it-always-happens minutes. The I just went out to . . . break in routine that allows the kidnapping, the rape, the murder. The five missing minutes in the air-tight alibi, the detective crime novel, the never-again wonderful life.

I turned and ran out into the street, screaming my daughter's name. Garbage cans and mounds of plastic bags lined the curb. My beautiful girl could be among them, her tortured, twisted and mangled body stuffed into a plastic bag. Waiting for me to identify the slender fingers that loved to draw, the green eyes so calm and assured, the fair Irish skin.

I staggered back inside crying and pounded my fists against the glass door of the building. “Oh, this goddamned city!” I moaned, pounding, wanting to break the glass. Wanting the shards to stab my veins so I could bleed to death and the doorman could drag me out to the curb with the rest of the garbage. Me, the lazy mother who wouldn't ride down ten flights in an elevator and wait with my daughter for fifteen minutes even though I had guided her every move for twenty years.

My sister, the doorman and the driver tried to calm me down. They made phone calls to sort things out. I fell in a heap, banging my head on the floor, wanting to knock myself unconscious, or better, crack my head open so I could bleed out this nightmare and they could mop it up with my nightgown, then lug me out to the curb.

Oh, New York: The city that never gave you a break. Never gave you a five minute time-out from its horrid, vile, beating, shredding, stabbing . . .

“Stop it!” My sister shook me with one hand, balancing her phone in the other “Stop! They found her. She's all right. She's on her way to JFK.”

“Huh? What?”

“The car service sent two cars. I never heard of that happening before, but that's what happened. She took the car that got here first. The dispatcher called the driver and she's in it.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, lifting my head, sniffing and wiping my eyes. “Make sure. Ask the driver if the girl has red hair.”

“I did. It's her.”

The world stopped spinning. Everything rewound and fell back in place.

I pulled myself off the floor. The doorman stared at me with pity in his eyes. Pity for my Walmart nightgown twisted around my feet, pity for my racing heart, my swirling mind.

“I'm so sorry. So sorry,” I sobbed, hugging him.

My tears dampened the shoulder of his navy jacket.

“You see, I'm from Ohio! And, well . . . ”

Ohio! Where kids run free across unfenced lawns, not road-rage traffic. Where they ride in mini vans that say baby on board, not subways splattered with pornographic gang graffiti. What could he possibly know of Ohio?

“Please forgive me.” I looked him straight in the eye.

“I understand,” he said. “I have two girls myself.”

My cab pulls up to my sister's building. I haven't stepped foot in New York City for six years. I walk into the lobby and there he is: The same doorman! Thinner. Smaller. Older. He must have seen thousands of people since the last time we spoke.

“Hello,” I say. “Remember me?”

He doesn't blink. “Missing daughter.”

The city forgives all. It's in the doorman's eyes. We smile.