Free Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

I support you, Kia. I got ya back all the way. And when it come crashing down because he’s too old for you, I’ll step in and pick up the pieces on that distraught friend tip and get me some too.”
    â€œHow that even make sense? You the same age as me.”
    â€œI’m more mature though. And I’m Jamaican, so . . .”
    â€œWhat does that even . . . ? Just be quiet, woman. You’re giving me a headache.”
    â€œThat headache is called Love. A love ache.”
    All I can do is roll my eyes, but even that hurts. “You going to the park after class?”
    Karina scoffs. “It’s Saturday, ain’t it? You know I got all those baby beckys to take care of.”
    A bunch of the new white folks in the neighborhood linked up on some social media site, and now they have regular Saturday-evening dinner parties where they plot, I’m sure, how to make the perfect vegan cupcake and take over the world. Karina got the gig watching their rug rats, and she usually just lets ’em loose in Von King.
    â€œThey ain’t scared by all the shit been going on there?”
    â€œPshaw! It’s added flavor and excitement to the urban adventure.”
    â€œI’ma come with,” I say.
    Karina sits up real straight and wipes off her stupid grin. “If Renny there, I got ya back.”
    I sigh. “It’s not like all that, Karina. It’s cool. I’m cool.”
    Renard Deshawn White, of all the old-man-ass names for a teenage boy, is this kid I used to talk to. He’s big and black and beautiful, all those loving folds of flesh to get lost in, and he got a quiet easy way about him like I do when Karina’s dumbass isn’t around riling me up. We used to walk the length of the park after school just talking. I mean, he talked most of the time, and I just let him. He talked about his favorite video games and his moms and his little sister and how he wanted to be an engineer and okay, yeah, it seems pretty boring if you not in it, if you don’t give a crap about Renny, but I devoured every word and then waited in the silences for him to look over at me and then wrap around me and I could disappear into him and and and.
    And in February he started dating Maritza Lavoe. Andthen they started walking the park, same path we took, same leisurely loving pace, and I sat hugging myself next to Karina while all those little white kids ran screaming around us and wondered if Maritza made him laugh more or if she listened better, if they’d made out yet, and if they kissed when they had sex. Dumb shit, I know, but that’s where my off-kilter mind went and that’s where it stayed. Me and Renny didn’t even put our lips against each other, but I felt like I could go through things with him and come out on the other side a better person. I put the best King Impervious breakup rhymes in my ears and walked out of Von King Park one night. And I haven’t been back since.
    â€œYou sure you cool?” Karina eyes my faraway look, and I snap out of it, flash a smile.
    â€œGirl, fuck Renny and his video-game-playin’ ass.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”
    We dap and then I say, “For real though, he still roll through there with Maritza?”
    Karina shoves me, and I almost fall over the desk I’m sitting on. We’re both laughing so hard we don’t notice that Sally’s standing in the doorway, arms akimbo, until she says, “Young ladies,” and then all we can do is bust out laughing again.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Carlos
    N ew York weather doesn’t give a fuck about any of us. It wants us confused and off-balance, and if it has to become absurdly warm after the sun sets on a brittle afternoon in a brittle icy week, so be it. Folks are shedding jackets and sweaters, unraveling scarves, looking around dumbfounded and annoyed. Old people step out onto their stoops and