Introduction
When you are in a big, cold city, you hardly imagine another life. You don't think that somewhere, 8,000 km away across the ocean, in the south of the North American continent, in the state of South Carolina, in the city of Myrtle Beach, there is Broadway at the beach, and there, in the back room of the Coastal Outfitters store, David is checking long-sleeved shirts, and Sam is explaining to J-1 students how hangers differ. A place where a pedestrian is a curiosity, and if you are also white, and if you are also a girl, then expect to be startled by car horns and shouts. A place where your African-American neighbors watch you come and go from work every day. A place where it is warm not only from the sun, where everything seems the same, but is completely different.
Part 1 The Road to City M
Getting to New York, the city of dreams for many dancers, programmers, musicians, businessmen, tourists, travelers, and other inhabitants of our planet, was easier than expected. Strangely, it is not the city of my dreams. I never dreamed of NYC or the USA in general. I applied for the program quite spontaneously and on the very last day. To get to NY, I just had to leave everything behind, enter the airport, get my boarding passes, go through security, meet my travel companions for the first time in my life—at least for the next 24 hours—and board the Minsk-Frankfurt flight. There, I exhaled a little and called my mom, heard crying on the other end, and got a little nervous again. But then, I met my neighbor on the plane and spent 2 hours of the flight listening to stories about doctors. His questions about my trip didn't calm me down at all; rather, they made me realize that I was doing something crazy, at least for myself. – “Wow, you are flying to New York, so far away. Are you staying there? Will you be met? How are you going on your own? Wow, and then to Myrtle Beach, by bus! There are a lot of Mexicans there and it's dangerous. For 2.5 months? Do you even know the girls you are flying with well? You met an hour ago? Oh, you are a brave girl, Lyuba.” In my head, I thought: “What am I doing? Where am I going at all? Why do I need all this?” Having safely reached Frankfurt, I just had to transfer to another flight, and task No. 1 was almost done. True, I had to go through a million security checks, especially me. They decided to send me for an extra screening, where, for complete happiness, they had to shine a flashlight into my mouth.
Boarding the huge Boeing to NY was already a relief, knowing that for the next 8 hours, I could forget about panic, not rush anywhere, and not get lost. But in reality, there were so many thoughts in my calmly sitting body; they were running, jumping, and it felt like they were competing for the title of the most panicked thought. We arrived on Tuesday, and we ended up having two of them. We passed all the checks and immediately encountered American optimism. “Why so sad? You are flying to Myrtle Beach; I would go there myself right now. Smile, let's take your photo.” Then there were 30 minutes of dizzying waiting for the suitcase on the carousel. And hallelujah, we and our luggage were on US territory, at the famous JFK airport. There was a black hole in our heads, and ahead was a long road, a big story, a whole life in a country across the ocean. A couple of hours on the AirTrain at different terminals and the subway, and we were somewhere inside the city called New York. Using a map, we found our bus stop and headed there with our suitcases. On the way, we found ourselves in Chinatown, where it smelled of fish, everyone we met was Chinese, and there wasn't a single sign in English. For a second, it seemed like we had boarded the wrong plane and arrived in Beijing. We still made it to the so-called bus stop, filled with African-Americans. I pushed my phone with electronic tickets into the window to the Chinese man; he answered something in English-Chinese, and of course, we didn't see any boarding passes. We still had 2 hours until the bus, and we went in search of water and, ideally, food. But all that awaited us in the Chinese district were fruits on the counters, stalls with fresh fish, and small shops with sky-high prices for water. A picture perfect moment, how we entered this miniature shop with 3 suitcases. I think the last time we ate was on the plane, but back then, we didn't even think about it. But what we really wanted was water, well, out of the most necessary things, and otherwise, we wanted stability and calm. And not to get on this bus, where, when we arrived, there was a huge queue, and we were the only white people. Honestly, it was so strange and unusual. In the middle of NY stands a bus, tired African-Americans with bags get on it, going home. And for them, all this is as natural as it is for us to stand at the station, waiting for our Ecolines bus to Moscow or Vilnius. And for us, sitting on this bus and looking at NY from the window for the first time in our lives, and knowing that you are going somewhere where all these people live. We were facing a 10-hour trip in the direction of somewhere south to a state and town unknown to us, famous for its colored population, a large number of Mexicans, and a fairly high crime rate—well, let's say, not the city that inspires confidence and is famous for its high standard of living and safety.
Thoughts swirled in my head like smoky clouds; I didn't understand how I ended up here, why, and for what reason. I wasn't ready for this, and this decision was definitely not finally made in my head. The only thing I probably knew was that, most likely, I needed to be here, and exactly like this, not fully consciously.
Despite the fact that we were scared of these buses, everything was quite decent, and even the fact that we were the only white people didn't particularly bother us, and we would have arrived so calmly, refuting all these stories, if it weren't for those very bold black guys sitting right behind our seats.
The guys were rapping and talking incredibly loudly all night, which forced me to wake up almost every 8 minutes. Stops in the middle of the night, very cold, my head doesn't think rationally at all, and the passengers and those bold black guys keep walking by, smoking, laughing, and talking loudly in English, which you don't even understand. In fact, it was unsettling. The feeling that you got into a movie and, according to the plot, you are hiding and on the run. Actually, such a feeling visited me more than once. And at one of the stops, I saw that something was spilled under my feet on the bus. And then, with horror, I discovered that the backpack that was lying under the seat was all wet and sticky. Those same guys threw cans of unfinished energy drinks under their feet. The rest of the way I traveled with my documents in my hands; they were sliding, I was constantly twitching and waking up. This was, perhaps, the most disgusting night. You are all tired, broken, on the other end of the earth, lonely, after a day of travel, and you still don't understand where you are.
