i.
I removed the curtain just beyond the bar at Babou’s to enter the crimson haze of bodies jiving to psychedelic sounds. Securing my seat between the musicians and the movers, I was an ice cube in a warm palm doing my best not to melt. I witnessed Mo & the Warriors of the West—a band composed of a few electric guitarists, a pair of drummers, and a trumpeter—converge to form a symphony of coastal currents reminiscent of my youth. Behind the band hung a street sign that read ‘Rue Reverie’ in neon red letters.
A sensation so vividly uncanny overcame me upon the realisation that what I witnessed was a double feature. The first act comprised the musicians, with their roots strewn throughout the African diaspora, who delighted with their musicality; the second was the millennial yuppies who heaved their limbs in response to the jazz. Surely I’d stepped out of a faulty time machine and into a memory distorted beyond recognition. I remained seated for fear that the cocktail of malaise and magic bouncing in my belly would render me wobbly-kneed. Or worse, someone might interpret my standing-while-black as an invitation to enlist me in an unwanted pas de deux.
My machinations were interrupted when a mysterious latecomer carrying a black bag appeared. He slithered through the web of bodies with the mastery of an expert. I observed him with bated breath as he deposited his bag on a small plot of open floor to my right, just close enough to brush against me. He retrieved his saxophone before joining his comrades behind the black tape that demarcated the makeshift stage. My gaze fixed on him as he raised the instrument to his mouth, the way his chest mounted as he took in air. Something in me clicked like a key into a car’s ignition as the smooth sounds he produced with his exhale filled the airways and restored breath to my lungs.
Much to the crowd’s dismay, the show was approaching its end. To avoid the bottleneck, I preemptively pardon me’d and ‘scuse me’d until brisk air pricked my face outside the bar. There I was, contemplating how differently the night would have unfolded had Tobi accompanied me as planned. Would he have puffed out his chest, claiming he would’ve drawn out a cooler crowd as a producer and DJ? My mind drifted to The Latecomer who left me spellbound with his saxophone. Where had he come from and where was he headed?
Nearby, a heated debate between a long-haired white man and a racially ambiguous woman was underway. From what little I could make out, he insisted that jazz is the superior genre, surpassing rap; I suffocated a howl to disguise it as a yawn. Taking that as my cue to leave, I opened the train schedule.
Just as I was preparing to leave, The Latecomer emerged. I stole surreptitious glances as a modest flock of inebriated admirers gathered around him. In true showman fashion, he collected flowers in the form of flattery from his devotees. Once the flock dwindled, I approached him with the familiarity of an old friend. My eyes shot towards his half-smoked joint. In a silent offering, he extended it my way with a raised eyebrow. Accepting the burning joint in my frosty fingers, I took a pull as it crackled.
A breath escaped my mouth in the form of a cumulus cloud. I returned the joint, now imprinted with lip gloss, and looked up to meet The Latecomer’s opaque gaze. Would I lose a finger to frostbite on this hypothermic night? Would my pinkies – my smallest digits – be most vulnerable? I ruminated as I instinctively curled my small fingers into my palms. I silently prayed that my thoughts were not as legible as they felt.
“Je l’ai bien aimé,” I told him, to throw him off the scent of my peculiar ponderings.
“I don’t speak French.”
“Oh, I assumed. I enjoyed the show.”
“No, I get it. Most of the guys in the band do. Thank you for enjoying it with us,” he said, flashing a polite smile.
I imagined it was a line he’d recycled over and over, admirer after admirer. A smile crept onto my face anyway.
“I guess that makes you the exception,” I quipped.
“Maybe it does,” he paused. “Everybody was dancing, meanwhile you were grooving in your seat in an invisible straight jacket. I guess you’re an exception, too.”
My insides fluttered at the possibility of him having studied me, too, even if only briefly. I questioned if it were my wallflower tendencies, my deep brown skin, or something else entirely that distinguished me amongst the swarm of buzzing bodies animating Babou’s Rue Reverie.
Silence settled into the stillness between us. Now, I beamed out of sheer gratitude and The Latecomer politely reflected my countenance. Despite my fierce desire to linger, to bask in the cold night’s twinkling atmosphere, I turned toward the rippling wind and marched against the gusts for the G train homewards. I left with the belief that this final exchange of warmth signified a quiet oath between us to conclude the evening with a hopeful ellipsis.
ii.
The electricity of the previous night’s events poured into the next day, lending even the most mundane tasks an effervescent glow. As far as I was concerned, everything beamed despite the midday sky wearing a cloak of gray.
My phone chimed, ejecting me from my daze.
“Toni,” Tobi said flatly.
“Tobi,” I echoed.
“You alright?” he asked dispassionately, his tone devoid of curiosity. I wondered what he might do if I veered off-script by expressing that I was anything but alright.
“Yea, fine…a bit tired. You?”
“It’s quarter to three in the afternoon and you’re tired…I take it you had fun last night,” he said, accusation grazing his tone.
“It was fun. You were missed.” I said, uncertain if I was telling the whole truth.
“I’m okay, just bummed I couldn’t make it. Time conflicts can be a bitch. It sounds like I would’ve enjoyed.”
I cringed whenever he uttered the word ‘bitch’; he bludgeoned the B with so much emphasis it bordered on brutish.
“I didn’t even describe it and you’re doing woe is me,” I chided.
“Well if you had fun, I would’ve had fun. I always have fun just being around you.”
“Yea. You’ll have to make it to the next one. I don’t know when that will be.”
He should have offered an apology instead of soliciting sentimentality, I thought. There was a time when I would have found his platitudes sweet – back when I’d just retired going by my full name, Antoinette, because Tobi thought Toni fit me better. Or back when Brooklyn was a backdrop for our love affair and we still frequented its bars on dates. Or, when we locked eyes in crowded clubs and the world disintegrated to leave only the two of us intact, like on the night we met. Or perhaps when I still stood by his side at DJ booths as his confidant and hype woman. As magical as that time was, the memories of it had long since collected cobwebs, and his pretense was cloying.
“Listen, uh, I’m trying to get these applications out before the café closes,” I stumbled to end the conversation.
I’d been hovering over my kitchen counter for the call’s brief duration. I wondered if he noticed the lack of background chatter since there was no café. Maybe he attributed the silence to my noise-canceling earphones.
After a short silence, he said, “Just checking on you. Call me when you’re home,” grunting faintly before ending the call. If he was disappointed, he hid it well. If not, that made two of us swallowing our pride. I could live with that.
Although we had been growing apart for some time, this latest offense only emphasised the chasm between us. Earlier in the month, while scanning my spam folder for misguided job application updates, an invite to a live performance at Babou’s stuck out instead. The reviews for the Park Slope bar extolled the musical stylings of Mo & The Warriors of the West, consolidating my intrigue. Accepting this as an opportunity to repair our frayed relationship, I invited Tobi to the Wednesday night show for what would be our first real date in months. To my delight, he eagerly agreed. His enthusiasm struck me as confirmation that our fractured union was on the mend after all. Exalted in pleasant anticipation, I was a warrior in my own right – one on the precipice of triumph in battle.
My splendor was short-lived, though, fizzling at Tobi’s flimsy text which stated that a last-minute ‘obligation’ now interfered with his prior commitment. My chest coiled in contempt at the sight of it. I reasoned that it was Tobi who was too preoccupied to uphold his end of our partnership. If his work as a glorified socialite would always take priority, there was no use in competing.
iii.
On Friday, Gina called right on time. For years, we designated that day for gossip sessions and weekly debriefs but struggled in recent weeks to maintain the tradition. After five weeks of missing each other, we were finally able to overcome the obstacle that the fourteen-hour time difference between New York and Melbourne proved to be. Though I was eager to hear about how her master’s program was treating her, I secretly relished our misaligned schedules. My personal life had become consumed by the anxiety that accompanies fraught relationships.
“You’re alive?!” Gina asked.
“I am but I should be asking you. How are things down under?” I inquired, putting on my best Aussie accent.
Gina tended to go wherever the wind carried her, integrating seamlessly into different cultures. Before Australia, the wind blew her to Kenya for an international policy fellowship. Her ability to venture so far from everything we knew was equally inspiring and bewildering.
“Actually, I’m heading back to the States for midterm break, that’s why I’m calling you. We need to catch up in person.”
“You’re lying!” I exclaimed, hoping that she wasn’t. “Wow, it’s nice they give you a break in the middle of the semester, I would’ve killed for that in undergrad.”
“Well actually they don’t, it’s a three-day weekend I decided to extend to a two-week long holiday. I talked it over with my professors and they’re down to work with me so long as I turn my papers in on time. I may or may not have lied about a family member’s death in the process, though.”
“Of course you did.” The thought of Gina swindling unsuspecting Aussies tickled me. “Regardless of how you pulled it off, I’m glad to have you back. When do you touch down?”
“I’m officially back on Sunday but I’ll be dead to the world until Tuesday ‘cause I’m kicking jet lag the old-fashioned way.”
“Oh yea and how’s that?”
“Half a bottle of red, a fully charged vibrator, and a 48-hour orgasmically-induced coma.”
I let out a yelp before telling her, “I have somewhere to take you on Wednesday for your debut back into Brooklyn society.”
“See, that’s why I like you; you always know the moves. Where we going?”
“I won’t give too much away because I want you to experience it for yourself but I went to this show on Wednesday and it was magical, I mean it was just euphoric,” I said, sharing just enough to pique her interest. “A live band performance and the saxophonist was…incredible. He was…” I trailed off to prevent my excitement from boiling over.
“Sweet, I’m hyped ’cause you’re hyped. Hype is contagious, you know.” Even oceans away she could read me like a book. I shrugged away the exposed feeling that comes with being known by another.
“So we’re good for Wednesday? I don’t have to bribe you at all?”
“We’re good. You only have to tempt me with a good time and you already did that.”
Though the musical experience was attuned to her globe-trotting palate, I omitted the fact that this African jazz band played before an overwhelmingly white audience. I would leave that aspect, and the rest of the show, for her to discover.
“Perfect, I’ll send you the info and we’ll meet there at ten.”
“Done deal. Squeeze you soon.”
iv.
The following Wednesday night at Babou’s, I embraced Gina for the first time in nearly two months. We divulged the details of our days between celebratory sips of dark wine as we built our appetites for a heaping serving of live music.
My phone buzzed, briefly catching my attention until I gleaned that the notification was from Tobi and my focus shifted back to Gina.
“But seriously, flying business is the only way to fly internationally,” insisted Gina. “I learned my lesson on my 2019 Ghana trip, I was being tossed around coach like a salad.”
“Please, you’re so dramatic. How do you even afford that, anyway?”
“You know money isn’t the only currency at my disposal,” she scoffed as if I was ignorant of common knowledge.
Before she could elaborate, my phone vibrated with an incoming call from Tobi.
“You gonna take that?”
After a moment’s hesitation, I acquiesced under Gina’s probing gaze.
“Hello.”
“Hi, my love. Where you at?” he subtly slurred.
My love? Who were we?
Reluctant to disclose my exact whereabouts, I stated the obvious. “I-I’m in Brooklyn.”
“You out? It sounds like you’re out.”
I froze with the phone to my ear.
“Send me the location, I’m gonna pull up.” Tobi persisted.
The ease with which he invited himself evaded me but I envied it nonetheless.
“Uh…I’m with Gigi.”
She looked up from her phone at the sound of her name.
“Is that Tobi? Tell him I said hi! Is he coming through?” she asked with an expectant smile. “Tell him to bring a sexy friend for me, this crowd is a little pale for my taste.”
So much for her being my scapegoat.
“Yea… Yes, it’s Tobi.” I confirmed, attempting to mirror her delight. “Gigi says hi, Tobi. And she says bring a friend.” Her eyes widened, prodding me to add the modifier. “A sexy friend.”
“Aye, that’s my girl! Tell her I said I got her.” Dizzied by the impromptu game of Telephone this call devolved into, I delivered his message to an eager Gina.
“Send me the address okay?” Tobi insisted.
“I will,” I said before hanging up.
When I went to send the bar’s address to Tobi, I couldn’t resist the urge to revive my resentment by scrolling up to last week’s exchange. My jaw clenched at the sight of his nauseating message. Now, to add insult to injury, he was hijacking tonight’s reunion with my best friend. What stung most was his lack of contrition, that he dealt deceptive smiles instead of heartfelt apologies. My love and honey; words that were once music to my ears now grated like nails on a chalkboard. He comfortably assumed more and more space never stopping to recognise that I had to shrink to make room for him.
v.
We waited for Tobi to arrive with his friend Edgar to cross the threshold and submerge ourselves under the intoxicating sound waves produced by The Warriors at Rue Reverie. I observed Gina as the frequencies relieved the week’s weight from her shoulders to replace it with airy elation. As we bobbed upstream to higher consciousness, I realised my tension also dissipated. The boys stood behind us, stoically nodding to the rhythm in silent approval. I knew Tobi was enjoying himself or else he would have stated otherwise by now.
I surveyed the packed room in search of the saxophonist whose music moved heaven to Earth. I wore my preoccupation on my sleeve in secret hopes of Tobi picking up on it. I continued scanning for The Latecomer, my pursuit to locate him now consuming me. One instant, he was smirking as he pierced me with those impenetrable eyes of his before vanishing the next. I directed my gaze at another figure across the room, then another, and another; he manifested across each of their faces in phantasmic flashes. I had not even finished reeling from his most recent apparition before he reemerged to provoke me with a lucidly magnetic glare. The force began to draw me toward him. Then, ripping me from my trance, Gina asked, “Is that the sax guy?” and my body turned to lead.
“No, that’s the trumpeter. I chatted with him last week during the intermission. He’s from Cuba.” I attempted to mask my mounting shame with a coy act.
Disappointment struck once I concluded that The Latecomer was not late this time but he was altogether absent. I resolved to return to Babou’s until our inevitable reunion, convincing myself I was doing so solely for the music.
vi.
As the evening faded, everyone else’s stamina crescendoed while mine took a nosedive. Gina petitioned to prolong the night with a visit to a bar in Bed-Stuy, citing in a sidebar with me that she’d need to down a few cocktails to enhance her attraction to Edgar. They quickly arrived at a consensus as Tobi wanted to listen to current music ‘with lyrics’ and Edgar wanted to sit and talk after standing and listening for so long. As for me, I desperately desired to desert them for my bed.
“You’re coming, right? Please tell me you’re not thinking of being a party pooper,” Gina said in playful reproach.
“You know how I am if I don’t get to sleep at a decent hour.”
“Okay, just stay for one drink! I promise the sheep will still be there for you to count after one drink.”
“This one is always tired,” Tobi butted in. “You don’t have a job anyway, why don’t you just sleep in?” Where Gina poked harmlessly, he was out to draw blood.
“Lay off her, Tobi,” scolded Gina. She usually retreated when she sensed an incoming lover’s quarrel. This time she gently intervened for my sake and her own. She faced me and summoned her sincerest plea, “I want all of us…and Edgar…together tonight. I want to get all the time I can in with you before I go back. Please.”
It was so good to have her back that I couldn’t help but be swayed. What’s one drink? I thought.
“Fine,” I capitulated. “One drink.”
We entered a local bar and seated ourselves. At Gina’s suggestion, we installed ourselves in a corner decorated generously with eccentric neon art. Not long after we settled in, Gina prompted Edgar, with only a suggestive look, to escort her to the bar for drinks. Tobi was too enthralled in his phone to notice me steal away to the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, I searched for my reflection only to find a sunken shadow staring back at me in the mirror. The inscrutable sight sent a ripple of shame through me. Unmoored by the loss of my job and the decline of my relationship – two things that once defined me – my image dissolved. A pounding on the door interrupted my daze and I realised I hadn’t even gotten a chance to use the bathroom.
“One minute!” I chirped. I hastily relieved myself, washed my hands, and flew out the door.
When I returned from the bathroom, our section was vacant, but for my bag and jacket. Of course, Tobi abandoned my things to join Gina and Edgar at the bar. I collected my belongings and slipped out of the bar trying not to attract attention.
Propelled by indignation, I managed to slice eight minutes from what Google Maps estimated to be a thirty-minute walk home. Tonight, I would surrender to the abyss and handle the repercussions tomorrow.
vii.
I awoke the next morning to an anticipated barrage of missed calls and texts from Gina and, in contrast, a succinct message from Toby that read not cool.
I took a few deep breaths to muster the courage to return my best friend’s call. After a brief silence, Gina said, “My mother used to say that hallow mouths beget heavy hearts.”
“What?”
“It was her poetic way of saying closed mouths don’t get fed. And because I was a brat who always wanted my way, she only had to tell me once for me to never bite my tongue again.”
“Why do you say that?” I expected admonishment only to be met with an esoteric proverb.
“Because I see how heavy all the shit you don’t say weighs on you. I could tell you didn’t want him there, you know. We all could.”
“Then why did you push me to invite him?”
“I didn’t know you guys weren’t in a good place and by the time I realised you didn’t want him there, it was too late. I did try to stick up for you but you have to remember that it’s ultimately not my beef, it’s yours. If you decide to, you know…” She paused as if to let the statement’s gravity render. “I’ll still be here for you. I’m your best friend.”
Struggling to swallow all she had said – and all that she hadn’t said – I was silent.
“I know I’m abrasive and I’m sorry, but sometimes it seems like if I didn’t push you out the nest and force you to fly, you’d never budge.”
She was right.
“Look, I’m not in town long enough for us to be mad at each other so I forgive you for your Irish goodbye and you forgive me for being…me.”
“Deal. It wasn’t going to last long anyway ‘cause I’m craving pho from the Vietnamese spot by you.”
I was grateful for our swift reconciliation but reaching a truce with Tobi would be the real hurdle.
viii.
Two weeks later, I found myself more isolated than before. Gina had returned to Australia to conclude her first term and conversations between Tobi and I grew increasingly sparse and perfunctory. If that wasn’t enough, another cycle of making strides in the interview process at a decent company culminated with an email that read, “We regret to inform you…” Despair was too big a burden to bear so I felt nothing instead.
One Saturday, Tobi invited me to one of his DJ sets at a club close to my apartment. It might have been good for me – for us – to attend, but lethargy took a stronghold on my limbs so I declined. Done with his set well after midnight, Tobi crashed at my place. He stripped down and climbed into my bed, falling asleep almost immediately. As the twilight soaked his face, he slumbered peacefully beside me in my bed while I resented my inability to do the same. My mind raced as the same heart that once burst with affection for him now atrophied from disuse.
*
After skipping Babou’s for two consecutive Wednesdays, I found myself there once again in pursuit of sensation. Not long after my arrival, the prodigal saxophonist emerged. I rejoiced. My eyes pressed shut as he began to play. I envisioned him playing to an audience of only me. Then, as the reverie progressed, his saxophone disintegrated but the melodies persisted. We danced barefoot on the beach as the waves lapped the crystalline shore. My being sparkled as I swung in and out of his embrace to the lively music.
*
Hoping to steal a moment of The Latecomer’s time, I lingered in the back room after the set. I managed to catch him as he packed up his equipment. As we made our way through the bar, he informed me that some friends would be joining him at his apartment for birthday drinks.
“Birthday? Whose birthday are we celebrating?” I asked in a singsongy voice.
“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” he glanced at his phone then corrected himself, “Well, today I guess. It’s not a big thing though, it’s chill,” he said almost regretfully.
“No way, happy birthday! And here I am empty-handed with no present,” I said.
“I won’t hold it against you. If you want to come through, that can be your gift to me.”
I coolly accepted his invitation as I watched him order an Uber to his apartment. I received an invitation to his place before getting his name, I thought.
“Elijah,” The Latecomer announced to the driver as we climbed in the car. I repeated the name in my head, Elijah. Elijah, like the biblical maker of miracles.
ix.
The two of us reached his apartment ahead of his guests who were still making their way. I basked briefly in the living room’s sultry amber glow as Elijah stored his equipment.
“Let me guess, red wine,” he said as he returned. Impressed, I nodded in confirmation as he produced two glasses and a bottle of Argentinian Pinot Noir from his bar cart. He handed me a glass and uncorked the bottle before pouring the burgundy liquid and joining me on the couch. I steadily sipped, between laughter and lulls, until the contents of my glass were drained. My senses sufficiently impaired by my first drink, I declined a top-up.
The room was quiet but for the jagged notes of Thelonious Monk’s ‘Misterioso’ that careened through the atmosphere causing the tension to mount. The air twinkled with possibility, daring us to make a miracle out of the moment. In a bold response, Elijah extended his arm to invite me into the crook of his torso. As I drew near him, he granted me the refuge that the indoors provide on a tempestuous day. I repositioned myself to meet his gaze, now misty with desire. The music lulled to a staticky whisper as my focus fell away from the world and onto his mouth. As we pressed against each other, we created music of our own. Like sunlight passing through shattered glass, his light refracted through me and suddenly I went from a broken thing to a thing of beauty.
“Elijah,” I cooed.
He raised his brow expectant of a follow-up to the call.
“I’m just saying your name in vain.”
His face hardened as he took a stern posture, “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?” I asked, taken aback by his chameleonic shift from amorous to austere.
“Like you want to fall in love. I don’t have time to fall in love.”
The fantasies I’d fabricated came flooding in in vivid flashes before they fizzled out. The sudden clarity restored my senses and returned me to myself. I ordered a car home and wordlessly made for the front door of Elijah’s apartment. The door swung open and I stormed past Elijah’s first guests who stood idly behind it to get to the elevator. Too frantic to wait as it made its gradual ascent, I blew like a hurricane down the six flights and through the front door past more incoming party guests. I read the plate of a black SUV and got into the vehicle’s spacious backseat.
As the car sped off, I peered out at the brownstones that lined the street in their myriad earth tones until their facades eventually blended into a muddled brown blur, a reflection of my internal state. I questioned what was real and what was merely a reverie.
With the passage of a few minutes, my nerves settled. I called Tobi.
“Tobi, did I wake you?”
“Hey. Yea, you did, but it’s okay,” he assured me, his voice worn with sleep. A pang of remorse struck me at waking him. “Everything okay?”
“I know it’s late and uh, I’m sorry to wake you,” I inhaled, sucking in nearly all the air in the car. “Anyway, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Chyna Cassell
is a Liberian-American event producer, creative writer, multidisciplinary artist, and a proud member of the Transatlantic Writers Group. She has a bachelor’s in Global Studies from The New School. In 2021, Chyna was awarded the Civic Engagement & Social Justice Grant to conduct international field research in Liberia for her thesis titled Mother Tongue: The Relationship Between Food and Language in Liberian Culture. Later that year, Chyna received the Eugene Lang Opportunity Award to fund her residence at Casa na Ilha Residency in Brazil. She is a forthcoming artist-in-residence at Hangar Residency in Lisbon, Portugal where she will focus on developing new and existing fiction works, visual art, and event curation. Please visit chynacassell.com to stay up-to-date on her work.
