they came to harlem wanting 'something more authentic' was a thought-killing cliche they uttered at trending uptown parties and inevitably followed it up with 'you know what i mean...?' cuz who among them would dare to define it out loud? and thus who would challenge their earnest intentions? there were never any takers.

armed with their best in show purebred pekinese mojo, they descended from their newly renovated brownstone on west 139th to discover the heart of the neighborhood. they passed by [insert famous harlem business] and  [insert famous harlem business], [insert famous harlem business] and [insert famous harlem business]. kayren pulled her camera from out the box when they moved on. she'd plans to capture the history and culture of harlem before it was gone she said, holding the camera in her hands with a reverent genuflection. her husband daryl worked for a venture capital firm downtown. he'd grown up in westchester but agreed to move to the city at his wife's insistence. she was tired of the sanitized life of the white bourgeoisie, she'd told him, in just those words. kayren had been a film studies major at nyu. her senior thesis on the occupy movement in zuccotti park had won her department's honors award. it was there shooting raw footage that she first met daryl who was grabbing a hot dog on his lunch break from the local vendor. it had been love at first sight, they insisted. four years later they signed the lease on a foreclosed home on the northend of the city and moved all their belongings into a moving van. so when they discovered the mural along the northside of hecky's bbq on edgecombe, they believed they were the first to do so.

the scene was 'quintessential harlem,' they would for years tell friends: bold blocks of pink, orange and sunset red, brass horns and gin tumblers, dancers swinging in ecstasy, toothy grins daring to laugh, eyes turned upward to heaven, and at the center of it all, were the two daring eyes of some long forgotten songstress, cupping the ribbon mic in her hands. daryl started up a conversation with the three or four disinterested 'men of color' sitting outside while kayren wandered off to take pictures of the mural. she'd stop here or there before moving on to a new angle, a new view. she'd stoop down to a knee, trying to get the right light. but something about those eyes drew her in, and she focused on those, moving closer, closer, closer to their return gaze. suddenly the sky seemed to go dark, though when kayren turned upward to see, she found herself instead looking at her feet, only they weren't her feet. or they were, but they weren't her shoes. the shoes were somehow different. and looking up, she was blown bag by an eruption of sound and music as though someone had turned the wind on her. where the mural had stood kayren found a steel door. a white woman came up behind her. it's okay, she said. they won't bite. she laughed, and clutched her pearls, a long string of them, and reached for the arm of the man she came with. they came up to the door and it opened from inside. well don't just stand there, the woman said, come on in!

inside was one of those gin joints of old. a jazz band played onstage and a mixed crowd twisted and jived on the dance floor. every few seconds, there was the sound of glass: tumblers clinking, people cheering one another, bus boys bussing tables, martini glasses breaking, champagne flutes singing. it was like right out of a dream. she has an evening of it. she flits from table to table, talks to writers and poets, dances with a tall 'dark' gentleman who whispers sweet nothings in her ear (she laughs like a girl again), smokes a marijuana cigarette with the bus boys out back, becomes best friends with the wife of a famous black photographer with whom she shares an illicit bump of cocaine. but then she takes a seat, sweaty and exhausted, riding high on the fumes of a summer evening, at a table right up front where she sees the white woman from earlier, at a table for two with her beau. and on the stage, well there she was. carmina the wonder, the songstress of styvesant, the glamour of graham court, singing from out her brown eyes which in that moment locked on karyn who knew in that moment that she had to know her, had to feel her, had to get under her beautiful skin.

the wee hours of the morning wore on though no one ever seemed to leave. the place was as popin at four as it was at three, though when she turned her head, she noticed that the room would come alive in a way, and when she walked away, the ruccus behind her faded away. it was as though the party was wherever she turned, wherever she showed up, whoever she looked upon (carmina! my love!). finally her friend who was the wife of a famous black photographer had to level her with. she took her by the hand and led her outside where the bus boys suddenly looked alive, rose from their slumps and their cigarettes and started singing the blues right to karyn. go on, get the fuck outta here, boys! her friend called out. then a flash came over them all, and they sort of shuffled sadly back inside.

girl, i gotta level with you. it's late, we all got kids waiting on us back home, it's time to call it a night. oh, karyn said. well i'd like to stay a bit longer and listen to the music, but you all are free to head on home whenever you like. a long drawn out silence. unfortunately, said her friend, that ain't the case. see, we all only here for you. all this jumping and jiving, drinking and swinging, it's just one big show, here for your pleasure. now that don't mean we don't have lives or kids or beds to sleep in. it just means we can't leave till you do. what? karyn was incredulous. that's nonsense. every notice how tired folks seem to be until they see YOU turn the corner? cuz they're TIRED and wanna go home. that's nonsense, why are you saying all this? karyn stumbled back inside the club, which for that one split second was a silent wasteland, the only noise a single drip of water coming from the bar. but only that second, for the moment she came inside the whole place erupted with all the force of a gale wind that threatened to knock her backward. good lord, she thought. it was true.

she vowed to ‘do something’ about it. she approached each table, each patron at the bar. go home, she said. i don’t need you here. you’re free to go. but the dancers just laughed and carried on to the music. she told all the bar tenders to shut down, but on they went, shaking martinis and pouring gimlets. she told the bouncers to start moving people along, but they laughed in her face and went on with their tired game of billiards. she ordered the technicians to shut down the lights, to unplug the microphones. and when they refused, she pulled all the cords out herself. the microphone onstage died in the middle of carmina’s song. carmina–not one to be silenced by any white woman–kicked the microphone down to the floor and strode to the front of the stage. lady, you need to get the FUCK outta here! look around! no one wants you here. all these people are tired now and need to get home to their families. selfish bitch, coming up here to play the part, thinking about nobody but themselves, who the hell does she think she is? even at the back of the house, all eyes were on karyn. she froze like a statue and tears fell down her cheeks. and yet through the silence, a single woman's laughter erupted. karyn turned behind her. at the door, putting on her gloves, was the other white woman she'd seen from outside. i personally don't see what all the fuss is about, the woman said. karyn protested: can't you see what we're doing to them? don't you care? the woman's expression fortified itself, a mock smile dug itself like a defensive moat around her whiteness, like the fox fur around her shoulders. of course i care. i wouldn't be here if i didn't. it's just...well...to be blunt, isn't it all just a marvelous time? and with that they were out the front door and stepping into the cab waiting for them at the curb. karyn followed them outside, but they were gone. 

and there she stood beneath the trees. the june bugs sang. their song underscored the silence that rippled all around her. she knocked on the door to the club but no one answered. the party, it seemed, was over. but wait! she cried. this isn't fair! she pounded on the door with both fists like a pair of timpani mallets until she thought she'd make a dent. she wasn't doing anything. she wasn't asking for them to do that. she'd just wanted to come and be part of it. she wanted to feel like to she belonged there. what was so wrong with that? the need to belong, did that make her a bad person? did it?! by now she was screaming into the night, into the darkened windows, into the door which bore it.

in the real world her husband had returned with his hot dog and wondered where his wife had gotten to. that is, until he saw her up on the mural, her face twisted in a tortured rage, her hair aflame around her head, her eyes black and empty. just then she showed up behind him, just as he had left her, only changed somehow. on that evening's local news they identified her only as an 'unknown white woman' who set fire to hecky's bbq on edgecombe. the beloved hecky's had been a landmark institution going back as far as the 1920s. it employed over fifty local harlem residents, and upstairs had two affordable housing units. all families were displaced. two employees were injured in the blaze.