Do You Dig My Vibe?

By Hanna Lui and Ava Lozner

Illustration by Jing Geng

Affirmative by Hannah Lui

In the summertime … The city festers with the impatience of a man lying awake waiting for his wife to return from her lover, feeling the heat stir…

My favorite work of literature begins thus. It is a fragment of an unpublished series of essays belonging to Haruki Murakami, the man from whom I take all my philosophies of life. The ellipses exclude a three-page description of a young woman’s breasts. Obviously problematic, but lately I've found I’m remarkably talented at separating the art from the artist.

Since coming to Columbia, I’ve often reflected on these truths the only way I can relax—no, the only way I can escape the crushing ennui of this city: smoking outside Butler Library with four other dudes between 6’ 1 and 6’ 5. They all study Comp Lit and modeled in high school, like me. God, they’re the only people I've met here who understand Murakami like I do.

When we talk, we choose to defy heteronormative conventions of gender performance by refusing to shrink the way we present ourselves while remaining critical of the way White men often invade places that are not meant for us. We toe this line delicately by slouching a lot but simultaneously taking up space where we feel most comfortable in our identities: just kind of in the middle of the walkway. Though I’ve only known them for two and a half months, we’re already making plans to rent an apartment together next year. The group is pretty split right now between an artist’s loft in Tribeca and a three-bedroom on Central Park West that my parents said they were willing to rent to us, but that’s a problem for second semester.

Today, though, I’m smoking alone, listening to the Strokes through my vintage wire Sansui headphones that I lowballed off some old Polish guy on Ebay a couple weeks ago, when I hear a familiar voice, shrill enough to cut through my Murakami-esque (Murakamian?) restlessness. It’s a girl I hooked up with during the first week of classes way back when I still thought I was going to major in Architecture. Ugh. She's leading a tour group of disinterested geeky tweens and their hot moms. There’s one lone dad in the huddle ignoring both my ex-flame and his prepubescent son, who is tethered via child leash.

I reach into my linen tote bag and pull out a little book of medium-difficulty sudoku puzzles. I’ve been really into analog entertainment lately. I pencil in a square, tossing a deeply unbothered glance over my shoulder back at the huddle of Adidas trackpants and Hollister tank tops. To those middle schoolers, I feel like my life must look pretty enviable, honestly. I get to work on my literary manifesto and spend my weekends listening to street performers in Washington Square Park. I exude indifference.

I’m going to uproot the whole of this capitalist corruption and revolutionize the system we've passively come to accept—and they have no idea. They’re looking at greatness and they don't even know it. When I was applying to Columbia, I wanted nothing more than to be described as pensive and radical, and now, every time I see my friends from home, they say I truly embody both. 

The sound of an iced matcha latte with oat milk and a pump of vanilla sloshing in a plastic cup swivels my neck in the opposite direction like a homing pigeon closing in on an Allied spy. And that’s when I see her.

Hair slicked back into an artfully messy bun, she exudes an artificial malaise, like she’s trained herself to inhabit the Parisian psyche. My blood runs cold. She’s probably from Utah, I tell myself. Has to be overcompensating for something, with that basic New Yorker tote—wait, no. Not a New Yorker bag. A MoMA Design Store Artist Quote Tote. In the Georgia O’Keeffe colorway. Fuck.

Negative by Ava Lozner

Waist? In the negatives. Trench coat? Buttoned to the TOP-uh. Problems? Exactly one: that gaunt, sewer-dwelling rat-man blocking the tour group’s view of my Levi’s dark wash low-rise cutoff baggy dad jorts, size XXXS. 

When I was gently caressed out of sleep this morning (by my alarm which plays “Paper Bag” by Fiona Apple at a slowly increasing volume until it is audible throughout the 12th floor of Broadway Hall), I flung my sheets off of my Kendall Jenner frame in a gust of excitement and pure, unfettered adrenaline. These days, I’ve developed a vice: absolutely Cunting It Up in front of unsuspecting tour groups. And it’s all I live for. 

Every time I blow menthol smoke directly into the face of a confused and uncomfortable WASP-y mother as I strut past her to the beat of Caroline Polachek blasting in my wired headphones, I literally quiver with excitement. I wonder if she looks first at my eyebrow piercing, then at my impossibly toned and perpetually exposed torso, before gazing directly into my blue mascara-ed eyes and sees what she never was—what she wishes she wasn’t too afraid to become.

Just to the right of the Butler doorway, leaning against the wall and sipping my matcha, I’m preparing to get my kicks off of a tour approaching from Lerner when he slinks into my line of sight. His clothes are such a complex mix of charcoal grey and black that I don’t immediately clock that out of the turtleneck emerges a neck, head, and face which I can only describe as Victorian in bone structure and vampiric in complexion. And what is he holding? A perfectly miniature book of medium-difficulty sudoku puzzles. My stomach drops. My shaking hand instinctively darts to fiddle with my dangly belly button piercing. 

What if … Nay. I shan’t say it. But I must: What if he’s cunting harder?

Not an option. I start to consider the plethora of ways I could kill him before the tour gets here, but while strangling him with his headphone wire sounds absolutely heavenly right now, I think that might be this morning’s Celsius talking. I decide to stick with the basics: shuffling a few steps to the right. I situate myself against the wall overlooking Butler lawn, keeping an eye on the sweatered sphynx cat-man while cheating out to the tour group which is rapidly approaching. 

I fumble through Spotify for the perfect strut song, but I’m off my game. In my peripheral, rat-man nonchalantly slumps against Butler. He even dares to put one boot-clad foot up against the wall behind him. Skipping right to the chorus of “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” I light my Virginia Slim and rest my right elbow on the stone barrier. Rat-man triumphantly scribbles something in his sudoku book before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an EVEN SMALLER black leather notepad, in which he begins feverishly scrawling. The tour group is almost upon us. 

Though I try to keep it out, a thought claws its way into my head. No, I tell it. It’s never been attempted. I’d be … crazy. The thought takes the shape of Chloë Sevigny. She cups my face and strokes my cheek with her thumb. You wanna be the it girl, hun? You know whatcha gotta do. 

If I’m remembered for nothing else, it will be this. I scooch my jorts even lower, light another cigarette, and walk to the center of the walkway as Catherine Howard once approached the guillotine. I am directly in the path of the tour guide, who I immediately push to the ground, never once removing my focus from the mass of 25 people in front of me. 

I take one last drag and tighten my grip on the matcha in my left hand. I wink goodbye to rat-man, who has dropped his sudoku book and whose eyes are now fixed on me. And I part that tour group like the fucking Red Sea.