MTA 101: (and Other Ways to Get Eaten Alive and Spat Out by the BIG City)
I have been venturing up to New York for the past five months; in the blistering chill of February to the hot garbage rank of July heat. I've navigated icy concrete steps to the J on East Broadway, swiped the flimsy card countless times too many until finally hitting the right angle, applying the right amount of pressure almost identical to the effortlessness of a city dweller. I've leapt across (into) swimming pool-sized puddles of rainwater collected at the bottom of those once treacherous steps, gotten off at the wrong stops half-awake, endured screaming subway dwellers, witnessed some ridiculous and true performances, feel my heart sink when watching kitten-sized rats scuttle across the tracks, and make it out, rattled but still in one piece every damn time.
I've been caught in the rain at 6 in the morning after emerging from the fog-filled greenhouse of Nowadays after becoming entrancing by sets of the likes of Riobamba, Juliana Huxtable, and Philly's own BEARCAT and Precolombian. Raver kids bump and smack, convulsing and spiralling, ravenous for the clack of pioneer beats, EDM's blackness seeping through the speakers. Niggas know what I mean.
I've spoken a los bodegadores con preguntando por direcciones al parque mas proximo. Y comprar mas fritas platanos. I say "how ya doin" as a statement rather than a question to the black residents seated on their stoops or fold out chairs on a stretch of a block in Bushwick or Queens near Maria Hernandez or Irving. I watch the young and older black girls, cute-and-they-know-it looking at or through me. They know, they knowwwww....
I've seen the high rises and the sterile new apartments across the street, heard bachata and soca blasting from invisible car speakers while trudging down a block in Flatbush, passing by a man working on his car at 3 am, only to then find him in the same hunched position after leaving a friend's place to get a brief rest five hours later. Time feels infinite, life in New York never stops, whether I am there to see it or not.
I've also been blending in with the queer influencer crowds that flock Mood Ring or Elsewhere. I've met and wined on beautiful ones; slew in glittered or fresh faces, platforms and pointed kitten heels, obscure prints and silks, dog collars and metal chains, both bald-headed baddies and coily fros which make me reminisce on, and transcend my once leonine head of hair and newly self-inflicted chop.
I've marinated in the unabashed BLACKNESS DAHLING!!! Femmes and themmes moving in tandem, black and brown trans and queer bodies melting with one another in the strobe lights, the somber deep purple and pink lights of the venue, felt liquor splash the back of my leg, its coolness refreshing on my hot sweating skin. I vogue but cannot often touch the floor with the crowd limiting my moves at times. Of course, of COURSE, there are the white queers, and then the straight whites who somehow (unbeknownst to me) find and colonize these intentionally queer events near the second half of the night. A sudden shift of energy happens-- not abrupt but seizing-- and that's when we push. Push back. Push ourselves into the center. Outstretch my limbs to fend them off. I force myself back in. I resist with bodies where my body is supposedly being welcomed?? I stay until 4 or 5, zombie-like, and never fully satisfied, weird and warped, exhausted but alert to my surroundings. The sky is getting lighter, I seek out the nearest corner store, then the park until there is more daylight, I simmer down, then head to the L to the A to the S and walk until I hit sand.
I run for the Rockaways, then Prospect Park for rest, in that order. The ocean rejuvenates but is never totally quiet. You take yourself with you wherever you go, and New Yorkers are experts at carrying their loud lives in their speakers, umbrellas, coolers, and the rainbow of Nut Crackers.
I'm not a New Yorker currently, but I am a city kid; I know the smell of unwashed bodies, dirty water, cigar and cigarette on the breath of passersby, the mix of fried chicken and dog shit, human piss and bodega plastic. The taste of Lam's platano chips, the familiar exaggerated drawl of lithe social climbers in oversized loose-knit sweaters and daring all-beige bound in leather and chain harnesses. But the scale of the extreme between gorgeous and grotesque is a new caliber that you cannot be introduced to anywhere else in the Northeast. New York brings a new level of nutty to the table that I first nibbled on anxiously, and now swallow in one gulp. Like bleach-fed peaches. y'all kno who kno kno where im talkin bout . keep it hush hush.
The janky bus ride always feels worth the trek up. Until you have to leave. I wait for the day where I won't have to and wonder what and where will become de-fantasized to me. I'd like to hold off on that answer.
I've been caught in the rain at 6 in the morning after emerging from the fog-filled greenhouse of Nowadays after becoming entrancing by sets of the likes of Riobamba, Juliana Huxtable, and Philly's own BEARCAT and Precolombian. Raver kids bump and smack, convulsing and spiralling, ravenous for the clack of pioneer beats, EDM's blackness seeping through the speakers. Niggas know what I mean.
I've spoken a los bodegadores con preguntando por direcciones al parque mas proximo. Y comprar mas fritas platanos. I say "how ya doin" as a statement rather than a question to the black residents seated on their stoops or fold out chairs on a stretch of a block in Bushwick or Queens near Maria Hernandez or Irving. I watch the young and older black girls, cute-and-they-know-it looking at or through me. They know, they knowwwww....
I've seen the high rises and the sterile new apartments across the street, heard bachata and soca blasting from invisible car speakers while trudging down a block in Flatbush, passing by a man working on his car at 3 am, only to then find him in the same hunched position after leaving a friend's place to get a brief rest five hours later. Time feels infinite, life in New York never stops, whether I am there to see it or not.
I've also been blending in with the queer influencer crowds that flock Mood Ring or Elsewhere. I've met and wined on beautiful ones; slew in glittered or fresh faces, platforms and pointed kitten heels, obscure prints and silks, dog collars and metal chains, both bald-headed baddies and coily fros which make me reminisce on, and transcend my once leonine head of hair and newly self-inflicted chop.
I've marinated in the unabashed BLACKNESS DAHLING!!! Femmes and themmes moving in tandem, black and brown trans and queer bodies melting with one another in the strobe lights, the somber deep purple and pink lights of the venue, felt liquor splash the back of my leg, its coolness refreshing on my hot sweating skin. I vogue but cannot often touch the floor with the crowd limiting my moves at times. Of course, of COURSE, there are the white queers, and then the straight whites who somehow (unbeknownst to me) find and colonize these intentionally queer events near the second half of the night. A sudden shift of energy happens-- not abrupt but seizing-- and that's when we push. Push back. Push ourselves into the center. Outstretch my limbs to fend them off. I force myself back in. I resist with bodies where my body is supposedly being welcomed?? I stay until 4 or 5, zombie-like, and never fully satisfied, weird and warped, exhausted but alert to my surroundings. The sky is getting lighter, I seek out the nearest corner store, then the park until there is more daylight, I simmer down, then head to the L to the A to the S and walk until I hit sand.
I run for the Rockaways, then Prospect Park for rest, in that order. The ocean rejuvenates but is never totally quiet. You take yourself with you wherever you go, and New Yorkers are experts at carrying their loud lives in their speakers, umbrellas, coolers, and the rainbow of Nut Crackers.
I'm not a New Yorker currently, but I am a city kid; I know the smell of unwashed bodies, dirty water, cigar and cigarette on the breath of passersby, the mix of fried chicken and dog shit, human piss and bodega plastic. The taste of Lam's platano chips, the familiar exaggerated drawl of lithe social climbers in oversized loose-knit sweaters and daring all-beige bound in leather and chain harnesses. But the scale of the extreme between gorgeous and grotesque is a new caliber that you cannot be introduced to anywhere else in the Northeast. New York brings a new level of nutty to the table that I first nibbled on anxiously, and now swallow in one gulp. Like bleach-fed peaches. y'all kno who kno kno where im talkin bout . keep it hush hush.
The janky bus ride always feels worth the trek up. Until you have to leave. I wait for the day where I won't have to and wonder what and where will become de-fantasized to me. I'd like to hold off on that answer.
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