Before I walked in, I did that surreptitious armpit check, fake-yawning and ducking my head so I could vaguely sniff any attitude problems happening in my glands. As a teen, my B.O. was so intense I wore Secret deodorant. I saw no issue with wearing teen girl scents, as long I didn’t stink. My friends threw on Davidoff Cool Water and CK One on party nights; we’d roll up to spots smelling like basic-ass tricks because that’s what we knew.
In high school, I couldn’t afford two separate party outfits, so I’d mix and match spring polo knits and winter oversized cargo pants. I wasn’t above sartorial swapping with my friends. My boy Ahmed got my Brooklyn Dodgers fitted cap — I thought it was dingy from the sweat mark in the front lining, he just liked having something he hadn’t already owned — and I took his Yankees fitted, so stiff it looked like I’d bought it a few days ago. I used to borrow his chains, too; he was well-off, so I knew I wouldn’t get a rash, though I did tuck it in around the girls we both knew.
One Friday night, a rich friend drove us to a house party, we packed into his parents’ SUV like it was pre-prom even though it was just another night in Brooklyn. My friend Kelela was also along for the ride, which was big because I like-liked her, and she was quietly the funniest girl I’d ever met.
The way “little friends” do, Kelela and I would talk on the phone and crack on our teachers, pretending we didn’t each have a go-steady we were already seeing. Curled up with the phone on the tiled kitchen floor, underneath my Canarsie windowsill, I took her calls as foreplay. I couldn’t get over her body. She was a dancer, so her movements, fully-folded laugh, and overall antics had me crushing hard.
That night, she was in the backseat next to me, where we could talk, thigh to thigh, and share more shady secrets about our friends. I just wanted to make sure she would dance close to me without running away if I accidentally got hard. I’d heard similar accounts from sad reject boys, and I wasn’t trying to go out like that.
My heartbeat peaked as we pulled up to The Liquid Club on Nostrand Avenue. The other partygoers looked older than me, each of the boys wearing a single heavy diamond earring, the line outside a constellation of glowing dots pointing to the door. The bouncers didn’t card, but you had to have exactly $35 cash to get in. Meaning, my allowance and Ahmed’s allowance combined would grant only one of us access. He couldn’t attend the party, or any other party, because he was a practicing Muslim, but it was okay. I’d pay him back in stories of me grinding on girls.
Whether or not The Liquid Club was an actual club, I didn’t care. Armpit test: passed. A bald, sweaty, pot-bellied Guyanese man warned me as I entered: “We don’t do the gunman something inna here. Yard gunman, you hear me? Sak pase to my Aaaay-tians but pas d’armes bredda. Trini boy just waan dance, we not worried over you.” We could hear the thump-thump of Strictly The Best from the entryway.
First, I got to dance with Janice. She was from Tobago, and with all that island attitude grinded me into a standstill on the nearest wall. And though her bone-straight black hair was always laid flat, her locks instantly frizzed when we hit the floor. The Caribbean fog of the bashment ruined her salon look inside the riddim.
The collective “Ayyyye!” from the crowd invited more hips to the floor. No time for the watchy-watchy timid boys; the grind was upon us.
But Janice had another guy to dance with for the rest of the night. She and Nate went to the same church, which gave them a fake brother-sister relationship: God sanctioned their friendship for evening grinding and blessed their winin’. It was just like the kissy-flirty thing I had with Kelela, where everyone thought we must be fucking. In high school, it seemed like everyone was fucking, and no one was. We monitored tension and hovered on hormones.
When Janice moved on to Nate, I’d later thank God that bass can’t hide. Because I watched Kelela’s hips start to sway as she sided with her girls, Princess and Sunshine. The speakers blared the sound of Beenie Man’s “Romie:” “Whoa-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Whoa-nah-nah-NAH-NAH-nah-naa…/ It’s all about Romie and him big fat sista Naomi…”
The collective “Ayyyye!” from the crowd invited more hips to the floor. No time for the watchy-watchy timid boys; the grind was upon us, sweat dappling our brows.
Kelela twisted and heel-toed gingerly under flickering lights. Her hip joints melted, turned to jelly, disappeared. While Beenie conjured and presided, shiny-earring boys battled Kelela, plying her with peacock struts. Their eyeballs fluttered, and they circled her with pelvis shots loaded.
The tallest, most limber of them contorted toward her and folded his body into Z’s and T’s, all while keeping the rhythm. We were in full bruck-up; even though I couldn’t dance, I imitated. I convulsed. And when I couldn’t keep cadence, I wound my hips in the provocative circles my aunties dem taught me at the graduation parties. I flashed back to the lessons they gave, me in khakis and a clip-on tie, frosting-mustached, and dipping to Beres or Buju.
Kelela wasn’t checking for my moves, but she entertained my advances. She grabbed my wrists and spun me; she gave me forgiving instructions, and I was a good student. I drew my face in by sucking in my cheeks and puckering. I looked over at Fred and Vernon, my Nigerian bros, who danced way better, for approval. They assured me that any face worked once wrapped up in the moment, slaving to that thump.
Kelela twisted and heel-toed gingerly under flickering lights. Her hip joints melted, turned to jelly, disappeared.
I spotted a rich friend from school on the floor; he was an okay dancer, too. I saw him ducking and dodging between three or four girls he was dating and using his basketball reflexes to evade notice. Type slick. Every song was a call to manliness, even for the women. Whoever could be more sexual and assertive won. It was a real, touchy war.
Kelela was in the trenches, on the front line. I was hiding from riddim shrapnel, firing shots into the air. I had some girls look at me, jerking around like Allen Iverson at the key, and pass. But those I danced with seemed like they were feeling it. I couldn’t tell, really, but none looked back and walked away. Some grinned and would grind on me more while glancing at their friends.
Our battle cries turned into mating calls as the natural pairs split off into separate shadows. After that, all I could feel was Kelela on me. As Beenie went into “Oysters and Conch,” she faced me and ran her fingers behind my ears, rolled her tongue between her teeth, and twitched her thighs to every measure of the eight count. When I got excited, and the front zipper of my jeans tightened into her, she stopped smiling.
Oh, fuck.
I had messed up. Flirty shit, like asking her what T-shirt she had on while we teased on the phone — it was over.
Then she turned 180 degrees and bent her knees to twist her butt out further and apply force to my crotch.
Please let the music slow down. If there is any God, please… let… the… music…slow down. I needed life at half-speed for just this moment.
Did Kelela wanna fuck? Kelela and I might fuck!
“Nigga!” I heard someone yelling at me, but I held my lids at half-mast, concealed my waistline behind hers.
“Drew! Nigga, it’s 12:45. I gotta bring the Benz back or my dad is gon’ kill me, son!”
My rich friend’s dad wasn’t around enough to talk, much less kill, but I took the threat seriously. He was my ride home. As the lights blasted on, I spotted Nate and Janice nose to nose in a deep grind. His face was buried in her sideburn frizz; they were so close.
We all packed into my rich friend’s car. He drove Kelela, Princess, and Sunshine to their houses. He dropped me and Nate and Vernon off at our nearest train stations, while rapidly typing on his two-way to set up his ass appointment for the weekend. (My rich friend and Janice were secretly fucking, but we didn’t find that out till graduation when Nate rolled up and put hands on him.)
Kelela and I didn’t kiss goodnight. We didn’t acknowledge how close we’d danced earlier. We kept all our parts to ourselves, stored them in the blur of Nike checks running up subway stairs. Despite my heavy powdering, my pit stains still showed on the train ride home under the white lights.
But I didn’t care. Kelela had let me touch her ass and didn’t mind one bit.