NYC MixTape, Volume 1: The Afterparty (1992)

This is the first of 3 pieces about my time as a student in New York City (the second one is here, and the third is here). Please note: sensitive content involving drugs and violence ahead.

Body in the stairwell, body in the street, body in the Thunderdome. New York City in the fall of ‘92, the night the clocks go back and daylight tucks its tail in. I am 18, walking hand-in-hand with a slightly older boy, a fellow theater student, someone I hardly know but instinctively trust. We’ve just come from a party in a neighborhood that was new to me. Most of Manhattan is still a stark mystery, except a small portion of the Upper West Side where our theater school and dorm are located. This party was outside that radius, somewhere behind Lincoln Center, in a crowded, sagging apartment pulsing with strobe lights and thick bong smoke. People also did cocaine, the first I’d ever seen, crouching over lines on a low table, then jumping up to flail wildly to the music rhythm is a dancer. They repeated this sequence of crouching, jumping, flailing, for hours. Over in the corner where I spent most of the night a small blond girl sat beside me, gripping a red solo cup, dropping tears and snot into her vodka. She was sad because he doesn’t ever call and I can’t stop calling him and he won’t return my messages! The phone is a common source of misery for girls, we carry all our hopes and dreams to it and expect magic every time we pick it up. I couldn’t offer much to the girl except Kleenex, and maybe the spark of friendship. She seemed receptive, but she was horribly drunk and probably wouldn’t remember me ever again. 

Finally someone put a sultry record on the stereo I can tell you taste like the sky cause you look like rain and people started to slow down. The boy who took me to this party, the one I trust, emerged from a hotbox closet glassy-eyed and happy. He brought me beer in a squat brown bottle, but I didn’t drink it because I don’t drink. Alcohol agitates everything in my being, all my chronic pain and family karma. I usually avoid it like the plague, but I held the bottle at my waist and smiled gamely at the boy. He smiled back, looking up at me because I’m about three inches taller. Lessgetouttahere he walked us outside and we stood on the stoop, inhaling chilly night air. There was no one around, not a single soul up and down the cavernous avenue. I always carry a $10 bill in my bra, and I wanted to use it for a taxi back to the dorm, but the boy shook his head subwaystation donworry and pointed north. His warm hand gripped mine firmly and I allowed myself to be led, my adrenaline pinging and surging as we walk through the smudgy, deserted streets. 

The boy is more alert now, and chatty. He praises my outfit, which is a big bulky sweater thrown over a tight black top, and baby-blue jeans with a skinny red belt and my old Docs. My hair is cut in a thick side-wedge and shaved up the back. I came to New York from Vancouver, where fashion is not a priority. But I know a few things. I didn’t bring a coat that night because you look like an amateur clutching your coat at a party, like you’re not fully committed. I shiver in my sweater, and pick up the pace to try and warm up. We pass a basement apartment with open windows and a loud radio do you have to do you have to let it lingerrrrr. We stop and kiss, shyly, in the sweet heat of the song.

 ©1992 Alicia Dara, Manhattan

A few blocks later the wind picks up, or seems to. A strange current of air whooshes past my head, and suddenly I hear footsteps racing toward us. I drop the boy's hand and turn around, and a whip of lightning cracks across my face, right where cheek meets jaw. I stagger, blinded, and when I come clear the boy has a big black gun pressed against his head, boring into his temple. He is emptying his pockets and I do the same: wallet, keys, subway tokens. I even unstrap my tiny watch and offer it to the gun, my hand trembling so hard I almost drop it. The gun glares at me with its lidless eye, then storms off into the night. 

We start to run, booking down the street to a swanky apartment building, where a bald doorman is dozing on his feet in the lobby, slouched against the gold wallpaper. We pound on the door and he comes right away, shepherding us into the warmth of his domain. I am shaking so hard I can barely stand. The doorman offers me a seat on a folding chair, and it creaks as I collapse into it, struggling to remain conscious. He confers with the boy and they call the cops, two cartoon Irish guys with red hair and thick Borough accents. The boy talks for both of us, because I’ve lost my voice. My face, neck and throat feel scorched and withered. The cops hover over me yeeeahh looks like they got you good, maybe with the butt of the weapon. They ask what we were doing out so late, and the boy tells them we came from a party nearby well you got one hell of an aftapahty! they laugh. They take our info and tell us to call the local station in the morning, but not to expect a return of our valuables. The doorman calls a taxi and tells the driver what just happened to us. The diver ferries us back to the dorm, and when I reach for my $10 bra bill to pay him he waves it off, clucking sympathetically. He prays over us santa virgen protege a estos buenos ninos before he lets us go.

We make it to the boy’s dorm room, and now I can’t stand up anymore. I puddle into a frayed bean bag chair, landing on the side of my body that isn’t pulsing with fire. The boy brings me ice and aspirin, then puts Heaven or Las Vegas in the CD player and curls himself around me. He drags a soft blanket across our bodies my grandma made this, she would love you. We sleep for a few songs, then I open my eyes to cautious morning light peering through the window. The singer softly murmurs I buckled and rose/ as God and the rest while the boy stirs beside me, tucking the blanket carefully around my shoulders. The pain in my face begins to recede, slightly, but my voice is still hiding inside itself. 

It’s just as well, because so many people are talking in the next few days. My father on the phone, loving and concerned come home if you want to! The school counselor, with a cadence like Yoda we understand if you chose to go, many students have done so after such an experience. Friends in the dorm, with wide, somber eyes and warm hugs no one would judge you if you left. And the boy who endured a gun at his temple, his voice the kindest but so raw how are you doing, are you going to leave? His everyday breath starts to smell like liquor.

I already know what comes next, and it’s not leaving. My voice comes back, but my jaw is pure agony for a week, and I perform a singing recital through clenched teeth. I go to tap classes and perfect my time step, dizzy from the limited slurpable calories that my jaw allows. I faint in acting class, but it happens backstage so no one notices. The teachers are uncharacteristically merciful and I pass all my required exams. Later in the year many of them tell me that they went through muggings during their years in New York. The lack of surprise I catch myself feeling is the first ripple of true cynicism that I’ve ever known. I don't like it, but it makes me feel more mature, and that seems like moving in the right direction. 

The school year rolled on. I stayed. I broke up with the boy, because I couldn't stand to be reminded of the night of the afterparty. The boy left school and didn’t come back, but by that time he was carrying a daily flask of whiskey around in his bag. I stayed, and I knew that staying would make me a certain kind of strong, and it did. It sharpened my will like a blade. By the time the school year ended I had started playing guitar and writing original songs, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life. For the next decade, whenever I was nervous before stepping on stage, I would press on my jaw and hear the Cocteau Twins echoing back. Over and over I reminded myself that in the face of fear, you can buckle, or you can rise. 

Much later, in therapy, I learned that this is called resilience, and that it’s the most powerful life skill you can acquire. The therapist told me I had an instinct for it, and that it would never desert me if I trusted its direction. I still use it, I still need it, but secretly I wish that I wasn’t so familiar with its power. Lately I’ve been wondering if there is something that lies beyond resilience. If we get strong enough in the broken places, maybe they form a bridge to safety, connection and belonging that can never be destroyed. Maybe it changes us forever and makes us peaceful in a way that I’ve never known, but long for. Now more than ever I want that for all of us: the boy, the cops, the city, the world. Even the gun I met that night in ‘92. Peace be with you.

You can learn more about my job as a Power Voice coach for women HERE.

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