An NYPD sniper tower was set up on Lenox Avenue between 129th and 130th Streets in Harlem, just a short walk away from where I lived during the summer of 2016. I do not know for sure why it was there. It looms in front of the Pioneer supermarket, which is not exactly a hub of illegal activity besides occasional shoplifters whose pictures are posted on the left side of the glass door as you enter. Central Harlem in general is not that crime-heavy. I have walked home at one or two o’clock in the morning, unscathed. I’ve never been mugged, or heard gunshots. I first thought that because the tower rose around the Fourth of July, maybe the NYPD was preparing for some shit to go down during Independence Day celebrations. But no, that couldn’t be it. I moved in around this time last summer, and there had been no sniper tower.
Its tall white presence communicated to all of us that we better not try no shit or else. Sometimes a police car would be parked beside the tower, and when one was not, I squinted up to try to see if there was anyone in that tower, but its windows were tinted black. I wanted to ask passersby on the street what was it doing in the neighborhood, but I assumed that anyone’s guess would have been as good as mine. I always said to non-Harlemites that if, God forbid, anything happened to me, I would go to the black men who sat on top of upturned crates outside the barbershop or the laundromat before I would ask the police for help. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had recently been murdered, and their deaths had triggered another cruel summer of black rage that burned hotter than the heat itself.
In late July of 2016, I went to an outdoor jazz concert in Prospect Park. I took the 2/3 train home and got off at my usual 125th Street stop. Usually, if I’m in a good mood or have just finished a significant project, I reward myself with food or drink: a bottle of Perrier, some Talenti gelato, strawberries, kombucha. That evening, I decided I could go for some Mentos before I returned to my apartment and ended the night with a shower and Netflix. There was a deli open at 127th Street and Lenox Avenue, and despite the drug addict lingering around the aisles, hoping that someone could spare her some change, I headed inside. This was the same drug addict whom I’d ignored two blocks earlier by not making eye contact and bobbing my head to the music playing through my earbuds.
As I was entering the store, a man standing to the side of the entrance kept calling me “sweetheart” and attempting to promote a DMX concert. I kept my earbuds in until I approached the counter, as I needed to hear the cashier tell me how much I would have to pay for the Mentos. No sooner did I pay for the Mentos than the man called out to me, and I made eye contact with him before stopping. While he told me about the DMX concert, the drug addict tapped me and held up her right pointer finger. She half smiled, and there were barely any teeth in her mouth. Her hair was disheveled. I hurried to pull out a dollar because I couldn’t stand to look at her any longer; she looked like a figment from one of my nightmares. Once she’d moved on, the man started talking to me about the concert again. Supposedly DMX was having some concert in Harlem and he was in charge of promoting it by passing out flyers. I do not know why he was so aggressive, but nevertheless I felt sucked into continuing the conversation. I asked when the concert was and repeatedly nodded my head, feigning interest in an artist who I thought hadn’t been relevant in over a decade.
The man, who introduced himself as Charlie, wanted me to take down his number and call him in order to get tickets at a discounted price. I told him I would memorize it, but he was not satisfied with my suggestion. There was disgust in his raspy voice.
“Nah, see? Why you playin’ games? You Harlem girls are suttin’ else. You think errbody tryna hit on you and I’m tryna do business. I’m tryna make money. I mean, I’m handsome and all but I ain’t tryna hit on you or suttin’. You out here playin’ games, you Harlem girls.”
“I’m not from Harlem,” I said dryly.
What I’d wanted to say in that moment was, You don’t know me. In retrospect, I think saying that I wasn’t from Harlem was a way of evading his overconfidence about having all women in this neighborhood figured out to a science. But in that moment, I was scared. His voice was steadily increasing in volume. Anger punctuated each word he uttered like the strike of an organ chord. The rest of Harlem disintegrated, as if both he and I existed in a vacuum. I felt alone. What if he hits me? I thought. What if he grabs and pins me up against the outside wall of this deli? So I took out my cell phone and pretended to enter his number in my contacts directory. Luckily for me, he didn’t lean over to see what I was doing.
The woman who went into that deli was not the same woman who continued home. As soon I walked to the end of the block and waited for the pedestrian light to signal that it was okay for me to proceed, I knew. Something had changed. I had been violated, but I could not name the line that had been crossed. Charlie did not follow me down the block. He did not make lewd remarks about my body. He did not rape me. And yet men, whether posted up beside another deli or en route to a party, now terrified me. The Pioneer supermarket, the soul food restaurants and nail salons, became two-dimensional, as if they could fall down like poker cards.
A police car was parked beside the sniper tower, its red and blue lights flickering. Two male police officers, one white and the other black, leaned up against the side of the car chatting with the ease of the old black men who crowd around the street vendors’ tables covered with DVDs and VHS cassettes. The black officer inadvertently glanced at me, and I looked back at him but said nothing. Yet I wanted him to comprehend that my eyes were compensating for my closed mouth; they were yelling for help. But if either of those officers had run to my side and asked what was the matter, I would have gazed at my arms and legs, free of any bruises or marks; looked behind me to see if Charlie had followed, which he had not; and said, Nothing. They would have scoffed, thinking I was crazy. And if I had found it in me to speak up and say that there was a man harassing women at the deli on 127th and Lenox, then what? This was Harlem, after all. Such things were, for all intents and purposes, normal.
I scurried home. Once I made it to my room, I dropped my purse on the floor and sat at my desk in silence, staring mindlessly at my computer screen. I wanted to grip onto the sides of my desk, fearing that I would lose balance and crash onto the ground. But at least that would have confirmed that I was still on this earth. I was on the verge of tears and I was angry with myself for it. He did not spit at me. He did not call me a bitch or a ho. He did not put his hands on me. He did not rape me. I did not deserve to cry. I had to earn the right to let my tears fall, and when I looked at my unscarred body, I knew that I was unworthy. I repeatedly told myself that it could’ve been worse and that emotional distress is less significant than physical distress. If I didn’t have any scars, then my turmoil should have been something that I could easily get over. It was all internal and should be kept private. I’ve always been the kind of person who mitigates negative experiences, particularly with men, by telling myself that they were never “that bad.”