Have a NYC 3 by Peter Carlaftes

get loose and he grabbed my arm and pulled me closer into him. We were face to face and his breath was horrifying. His poetry was shit and I was a fool to have ever come uptown with him. Damn them both to hell. If I had been packing a weapon those bastards would no longer be on the planet.
    I looked Cosmo dead square in his bloodshot black eyes.
    Maybe he felt my intent because he paused and looked confused for a second.
    Using that moment of confusion to wiggle free, I ran back to the club. The room was empty except for a couple of seedy guys at the pool table arguing over a missed shot.
    Dante and Cosmo sauntered in right after me, looking like nothing happened. They sat down at a table with Steve and began whispering and gesturing.
    Disheveled and stinging, my face flaming with pain and outrage, I put my hand to my cheek. This hot new club was just a Harlem bar full of druggies at 5:30am, and I was the only female in the room.
    Coke made me talkative, active, funny, and friendly. But it sure wasn’t having the same effect on my friends.
    My paranoia rose to the surface, I watched their evil whispers and pictured the scene from Accused where Jodie Foster was raped by four guys on a pinball machine and everyone else in the room applauded.
    Tommy stood alone by the bar. I made my way over to him.
    He put his arm around me and whispered, “I think it’s time for us to leave now, yes?”
    Dante yelled, “You two best get on home now. Your girl’s up way past her bed time.”
    I leaned into Tommy as he directed me to the door and out onto the sunlit avenue filled with bodegas and beauty shops.
    I pulled my Ray Bans out of my purse and put them on with shaking hands, jarred into the early Harlem morning by the grinding of steel gates opening for business.

MISSING DAUGHTER
    BY CHERA THOMPSON
    M y daughter’s flight back to college was at seven tomorrow morning. She had to be at JFK by six, which meant she had to leave my sister’s New York City apartment by five-thirty. She was twenty, lived at school and had negotiated her way around Europe by train. Still, I worried about her standing alone in the middle of a New York City block to hail a cab before dawn, then ride by herself to JFK. I had to go with her. I set my alarm.
    â€œMom, you don’t have to!”
    â€œIt’s no problem, really.”
    â€œIt’s crazy,” my sister said. “A round trip cab will cost you a fortune.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œLook—just let her take my car service,” my sister said. “They’re good.”
    â€œCar service?”
    â€œâ€˜I use them all the time.”
    â€œYou sure?” I asked. Because this is my only daughter I’m entrusting them with.
    â€œNever had a problem.”
    â€œWell . . . I don’t know . . . ” Does she know the drivers personally? How do they screen them?
    â€œC’mon Mom! I’m not a baby!”
    â€œThey’re very reliable,” my sister insisted. “Best in New York.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, I’m twenty years old,” my daughter whined. “I was taking cabs all over Italy two years ago.”
    â€œWith your friends, not by yourself,” I pointed out, defending my paranoia.
    â€œThe doorman is down in the lobby twenty-four seven,” my sister said. “He’ll look out for her.”
    â€œWell . . . ”
    Maybe taking a cab round trip to JFK was a little over the top. My mind flashed back to my daughter’s first day of school when I followed the school bus in my car. No seat belts! My husband called me a helicopter parent . . . always hovering.
    I relented.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Car service.”
    The alarm went off at four-thirty. I heard my daughter get up, then dozed off until she kissed me on the cheek. “Time to go,” she said. “I’ll wait for them downstairs.”
    â€œNo, no—I’ll go with you.”
    â€œMom,