This should be easy.
But it’s difficult.
I have the card with Fiasco’s number on it in my left hand.
I have a cordless phone in my other hand.
All I have to do is dial.
I am ten dialed digits away from hanging with someone most people could only come in contact with through BET or MTV. I imagine how the kids at school would treat me if they knew I was best buddies with Fiasco. The snickers would stop. The taunts would cease. Guys would want to shoot hoops with me. Girls would invite me over when their parents weren’t home, and not so I could help them memorize all the presidents, either.
I place the phone back in the cradle.
I’m just Eric Posey. I’m not cool. I never will be. I need to put aside this fantasy.
The phone rings. I don’t even have to look at the caller ID. Only one person ever calls me. I hesitate. Contemplate answering the call. But I don’t. On the fourth ring the tape from my old-fashioned answering machine clicks on.
Benny starts out slow.
“Hey, Eric.”
There’s about fifteen seconds of white noise before his voice comes on again.
“Being friends means never having to say you’re sorry.” He sniffs out a self-conscious laugh. “I got that from a Hallmark card. Pretty cool, huh?”
I look at Fiasco’s card. It’s still in my hand.
“But I am sorry, Eric. I’m very sorry. I can’t tell you enough. My dad was very upset, too. He’s color-blind. And so am I. You’re my best friend. I thought we’d always be. I can’t imagine it otherwise. I keep calling and leaving you these messages. I don’t mind. We’re friends. But…well, give me a call back. Please.”
At some point I have to start thinking selfishly. Or else I will commit myself to a life of unpopularity. Benny’s been a good friend, for sure. But he’s the wrong friend. No question about it, the kids at school view me as the lame black kid with the lame white boy as a best friend. That doesn’t win me any points. Benny prevents me from ever getting in the inner circle.
Fiasco, on the other hand, offers nothing but hope.
When Benny’s voice fades away and the tape stops recording, I pick up the phone and dial Fiasco’s ten digits.
I have a feeling my life will never be the same again.
Twenty minutes later, I’m standing on the curb in front of our place, waiting patiently. My wait isn’t long. A black Range Rover pulls up, idles, its windows rattling with the loud sounds of one of Fiasco’s earliest songs. I know the words verbatim. I move toward the vehicle. And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, the passenger-side window slides down.
I expect to see Fiasco, but a woman is in the driver’s seat.
“You gonna stand there all night?” she asks.
She looks like one of the girls in the Pussycat Dolls. Exotic and beautiful. It’s hard for me to get my thoughts together. My brain doesn’t want to send the directive to my legs to move. Nicole Scherzinger, I keep thinking. Lead girl in the Dolls, has a video out now with T.I. Could it be?
“Get in, boy,” she says.
I get in.
I say, “Hi.”
“High is right. You were standing out there like you smoked something today.”
“Sorry about that. Wasn’t sure what to do.”
She nods at me, says, “My name’s Mya.”
That disappoints me, briefly. I wanted her to be Nicole Scherzinger. Wanted to be cool with two celebrities. On the job one day and already I’m greedy. But even though she isn’t a Pussycat Doll, I’m okay. She’s too beautiful for me to stay disappointed for long.
I say, “I’m Eric.”
“I know.”
“Where’s Fiasco?”
“I’ll take you to him.”
We ride in silence for a while, and then I say, “You look like the girl in the Pussycat Dolls.”
She nods. “I get that a lot. Her and Kim Kardashian.”
“You’re…”
“Beautiful, I know, but thanks.”
I wish I had that kind of confidence. Wish I could say the things she says so effortlessly. Swagger. It’s refreshing. She has it in abundance. Fiasco has it, too. So many of the boys and girls at my school are blessed with it, Kenya among them. So it’s in my bloodlines. It’s just dormant. That’s it. Well, I’m going to pull it out.
I look at Mya, say, “I could see myself Windexing your pants.”
She frowns. “What nonsense are you talking?”
“I meant,” I say, “I’d like to put Windex down your pants.”
“I’m a second away from dropping you off on the side of the road somewhere,” she says, shakes her head and adds, “Fiasco and his crazy ideas.”
All the cylinders aren’t quite clicking. I heard the line once. Thought it was cute, that girls would adore it. Until now I haven’t found one to use it on. And now that I have, I can’t quite get it together. Windex. Windex. Windex. Think, Eric. Think. Think. Think.
Oh.
I say, “Did you wash your pants with Windex?”
Mya just looks at me. I’m not prepared for that.
“’C-c-cause,” I stutter, determined to see this through, “girl, I can see myself in them.”
She only says two words in response. “Don’t speak.”
I don’t for the rest of the ride.
Mya pulls the car off the main road, into a motel complex. The motel offers nightly and hourly rates, and my best guess is the hour-at-a-time customers far outnumber those staying for the entire night. Just off a main avenue, hidden behind a mini shopping plaza, its neighbors out front are a flower nursery, a sporting goods shop and a dry cleaner. All of the businesses are Korean-owned, except for the motel, according to Mya. “A gang of Patels run the place,” she says.
“What?”
“Patels,” she repeats. “Indians.”
“Oh.”
Floodlights spread throughout the courtyard cast an ominous orange glow. I should be home in my room, or at best, over at Benny’s house trying to figure out Halo 3. Large green bushes, cousins of some stubborn weed, dot the yard. Tan garden gravel crackles under our tires as Mya drives the Range Rover up to the building and parks it.
“Fiasco’s here?” I ask.
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
She doesn’t say any more than that.
I shouldn’t be here.
Mya cuts the engine, opens her door and steps out. I follow suit.
A lowrider late-model sports car idles in a spot by the office. Loud music rattles its windows. Not Fiasco, though. Tupac. The car’s windows are black with tint, but nowhere near as dark as the Range Rover’s. Its original paint is sanded away, leaving what looks like a terra-cotta pottery project, a clay-orange finish. Platinum rims are on its wheels; the wheels beneath the rims are painted in a rich bloodred.
I think: Gang.
Bloods.
“What are we going to do here?” I ask Mya.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” is all she says.
The driver’s-side door of the lowrider blows open as Mya and I approach the building. A young black male with his hair styled in cornrows, a silky-looking football jersey hanging from his lanky frame, hops out. His features are canine, sharp. Skin holds a medium-brown coloring, hair carries a serious sheen. His eyes are dead. He puts me in mind of a Doberman.
I don’t like dogs. They’ve been known to bite me, or, at the very least, growl at me hard.
Two more young black males move from the lowrider, as well. All of them are tall and in football jerseys, all with dead eyes. Deader even than Crash’s that day he nearly beat the life out of me. Not a care in the world; that’s the message delivered by their dead eyes. I understand immediately what that means. Trouble. Possibly lots of it.
I slow down, but Mya keeps moving with her not-a-care-in-the-world strut. It’s the strut of the beautiful girl walking through the club in any rapper’s video, or the girl who’s just stepped dripping wet from the pool and knows with a certainty how much lovelier all her curves look with water raining from them. I keep moving, too, but slowly, tentatively. I want to turn around, but I can’t do that, either.
Someone cuts the engine on the lowrider. Tupac vanishes into the ether.
Doberman says to Mya, “Dayum, girl. You fine as frog hair. Come holla at a player.”
Mya stops then. Moths dance against the motel building. With the coolness of the night air, the orange glow from the floodlights and these three thugs in our path, it’s starting to feel like a modern-day Western. I’m not John Wayne by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not even John Starks, the gunslinger who used to shoot basketballs for the New York Knicks when I was a little bitty boy. Back before my father left. I remember sitting on his lap watching games. Wonder how he’d feel if he saw me now. Wonder how I’d feel.
Oh, well.
Doberman says, “Yo. You heard me talking to you, girl?”
He moves from the cover of the lowrider’s door, positions himself on the sidewalk in front of the car. The two others follow suit, stand before me and Mya and block our path. A standoff is definitely taking place. I want to run for my life. But like I said, I can’t. I don’t know what is keeping me here.
I say, “We don’t want any trouble.”
Doberman says, “You better school homegirl here, then. Tell her to speak when spoken to.”
I tell Mya, “It is rude to ignore a person’s greeting.”
She turns and looks at me with disgust. Does that nose-wrinkle thing. “Are you serious?”
Then she turns back to the three of them. “Y’all need to stop playing thug and get out of our way.”
Doberman says, “You need to chill with talking greasy just because you got Steve Urkel here watching your back.” He laughs.
I say, “Why do I have to always be Steve Urkel?”
They all ignore me.
“And,” Doberman says, “we ain’t hardly playing thug.”
He lifts his jersey, a Detroit Lions throwback Barry Sanders. My gaze drifts to the waistband of his baggy pants. I can’t believe my eyes. What I see is something I’ve only witnessed in Bruce Willis or Will Smith action movies. This is way too much. “Sounds like thunder it goes off,” Doberman boasts. “My boys are holding, too.”
I home in on the other two. One is adorned in Art Monk’s Redskins jersey, the other in Lawrence Taylor’s Giants jersey. Numbers eighty-one and fifty-six respectively. This is way more serious than my confrontation with Crash outside school, but it places me in mind of that moment. I expect Benny to tap my shoulder at any moment, wake me up from this nightmare.
All I wanted was to be cool.
I can’t say that desire is worth all of this trouble, though.
Mya says, “Listen, Snoopy, why don’t you guys get back in your flowerpot and leave before this thing turns ugly.”
Doberman says, “You dissing my whip?”
“And you, Snoopy,” Mya adds.
Now, I’ve had so many moments where someone has said something demeaning and humiliating to me. My head always swims with quick comebacks and snappy responses I could say in retaliation. I never do, though. I almost always have kept my mouth shut. That’s the safe bet. I believe in safe bets.
I do admire Mya’s courage, though.
Just not tonight. And just not with these three.
Did she not see what was tucked so snug in the waistband of Doberman’s pants?
So I say, “She didn’t mean that,” to ease the tension.
“Yes I did, Eric,” she barks at me. “Every last word of it. And I have more.”
I say, “No, you didn’t mean it. And you certainly don’t have more.”
She says, “Yes I did. And I do. I was going to say something about his two boys being fleas.”
“Hey,” Doberman yells. “Y’all need to be concerned with me, not each other.”
I say, “You’re right, Doberman. We’re sorry.”
He says, “What did you call me, Urkel?”
Mya laughs. “He called your dog-looking ass a Doberman.”
Did I?
Whoops. Didn’t realize I’d vocalized what was floating around in my head. Big mistake.
Doberman takes a step in my direction, says, “See now…”
Just then a song plays. Usher. Doberman looks down, frowns. He says, “Dayum,” and pulls his jersey up again, yanks a cell phone from his belt clip. Backs away. “Speak.”
Doberman’s two homies continue to block our path.
Mya says, “What you two got?”
Art Monk ice grills her. “What’s that, bird?”
She nods toward his belt line. “What you got as your cell phone ringtone? Ciara? Mariah Carey? Some ol’ hard gully stuff…Mary J. Blige?”
“I know you ain’t clownin’ nobody, bird.”
Mya continues, “John Legend. India. Arie.”
“Yo, bird…”
Mya is relentless. “Alicia Keys. Chris Brown. Ne-Yo.”
Art Monk looks over at Lawrence Taylor as Mya keeps naming R & B crooners. She will not shut up. Art Monk and Lawrence Taylor have no idea how to handle her. I don’t know how to handle her, either. You have to treat her like a storm, let her run her course and hope and pray that she doesn’t inflict too much damage.
“J. Holiday. Trey Songz. Brian McKnight…” she continues.
Doberman reappears, a bounce in his step. “We out,” he says to Monk and LT.
“What?” they say in unison. Confusion is thick in their tones; so is disappointment.
“Got something else to do,” Doberman says. “That takes precedence over this nonsense.”
Mya says, “Precedence. Now I know you ain’t a thug. You’re probably matriculated at Princeton.”
Doberman says, “I don’t go to no Princeton.”
Mya smiles. “Didn’t even ask what matriculated means. See that?”
Doberman opens his mouth. Whatever thought was there doesn’t come out. He waves her off and moves away. Monk and LT follow. They get back in the lowrider. The engine rumbles to life. Tupac’s gravelly voice awakens. Doberman pulls off, spewing tan garden gravel as he peels out of the motel complex.
Mya says, “Wannabes.” Then she looks at me and smiles. “Doberman, huh? I liked that, baby boy. You’re tougher than I thought. For a minute there I thought you were gonna be a punk.”
I’ve been elevated in her mind. “Baby boy,” she called me. I love that, so I don’t bother letting her know the Doberman comment was a slip of the tongue. I say, “I go for mines, girl.”
Something I’ve heard Crash say.
Mya pinches my cheek. “If you were three years older…oomph.”
I guess the Windex flub is forgiven. I feel rejuvenated, refreshed.
I say, “In three years I will be.”
She laughs. “Come on, Fiasco’s waiting.”
“Thought you said he wasn’t here.”
She smiles. “Never said that. Told you you’d have to wait and see. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
He’s holed up in one of the rooms.
Mya knocks at the door. Two quick knocks, pause, three quick knocks. I take it to be some kind of code. The door cracks open. Then the chain lock is removed. Mya walks in. I follow.
Fiasco’s dressed down in a terry-cloth robe and house slippers. He smiles and nods when he sees me. “What’s good, son?”
Mya says, “We had a little trouble outside. Wannabe thugs. Eric handled it.”
“Eric did?”
“Yep.”
Fiasco comes over, gives me dap. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
I say, “You know how I do.”
Something I’ve heard Crash say.
I look around the room. It’s the opposite of elegant. Wallpaper is peeling; an intense odor of roach spray is in the air, which doesn’t seem to deter the roach I notice scurrying up the wall. A desk in one corner of the room has a scented candle burning on it; a thick phone book keeps it from toppling over. The chair by the desk has a ripped cushion; foam bleeds out of the rip. The curtains are a nice pink. Nothing else in the room is pink. Or goes with pink, for that matter.
I say, “Nice place.”
Fiasco says, “It’s garbage. But I have to get in this element to do what I’m going to do.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “What are you going to do?”
Mya says, “This is the part I was referring to, Eric.”
Fiasco frowns, nods toward the desk. I move over there. There’s a notepad on the surface, several pens, words scribbled all over the notepad. “I write rhymes, Eric. I’m working on a new album. But it isn’t going to be a Fiasco album.”
I laugh away my anxiety and look at the notepad. Notice a couple lines:
I let off rounds
No MC’s better
My skin’s made of platinum
I don’t sweat or stick to leather
A murder MC
Squeeze off till da Glock is empty
Mya says, “I’m taking a shower,” and walks off. She stops at the bathroom door. “You did well, baby boy.” Then she’s gone.
I say, “She’s a sweet lady.”
Fiasco says, “Had her in every single one of my videos. Mya changes looks for each one, so people don’t even realize it’s the same girl. We’re like Spike Lee and Denzel…we get together and magic just seems to happen. And Mya isn’t your typical video girl. She’s more ambitious and motivated than anyone I know. She puts Karrine Steffans to shame.”
I say, “Superhead.”
Fiasco looks at me, frowns. “What you know about that?”
“Confessions of a Video Vixen. I read the book.”
He shakes his head. “They really need to put parental advisory stickers on books, too.”
I joke, “You’re not Papa, are you?”
Papa is an infamous person from the book. The only celebrity Karrine Steffans didn’t mention by real name. Google Papa and Superhead and you’ll get close to a million hits.
Fiasco says, “Nah, son. I’m not Papa.”
I nod at the notepad. “What did you mean before? About this not being a Fiasco album.”
“I’ve catered to the women ’cause they buy the records,” he says. “My stuff has an edge, but not enough. I don’t have street credibility right now. So I’m gullying myself up a bit…putting out a record under my alter ego’s name.”
“Which is?”
“Murdaa. But spelled with two A’s at the end instead of E-R.”
I say, “Catchy.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I say, “So why the reinvention?”
“It’s getting harder and harder to move units. I needed to try something different.”
I say, “Murdaa…with two A’s at the end instead of E-R?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re gonna be talking guns and killing?”
“I’m gonna spit my reality.”
“You’re rich,” I remind him. “You probably live in a gated community. Guns and killing is hardly your reality.”
“I’m comfortable,” he replies. “But I came from the gutter. I was born in Camden, son. Moms got us up out of the murder capital of Jersey as quick as she could. We ended up moving up north. East Orange, Newark, Irvington. Lot of bouncing around. The only constant was we’d be in a hood. I lost three friends before I graduated high school. All of ’em shot dead.”
I say, “So with all that negative experience you want to pump tales of guns and killing into the community?”
“I want to entertain and educate, Reverend Al.” He smiles at the Reverend Al Sharpton comment. I’m far from Sharpton. Just concerned about the music. It’s all guns and violence from all the rappers. Very few are able to buck the trend, are comfortable enough to go against the grain. Fiasco happening to be one of them.
I say, “I take it you won’t be having a song with Kelly Rowland on this album?”
He frowns. “That was a top-ten hit. I stacked a lot of paper off the ringtone alone. But I lost millions in respect. I have to get that back by any means necessary. So, to answer your question, no, Kelly Rowland won’t be on this album. I won’t be doing anything resembling that anytime soon.”
I say, “Why not? Those pop songs have worked for everyone from LL Cool J to Nelly.”
“No disrespect to either of them, but the streets ain’t checking for them.”
“The streets don’t make rappers go platinum,” I remind him.
He nods. “True enough. But…I want my street cred. It’s important to me. I will still do the Fiasco stuff. Matter fact, I’m just about finished with a new Fiasco album. Ready to shoot the video, which you’ll be in, if everything is everything. But this project is near and dear to my heart. This is just a little creative departure.”
“How do you bounce from Fiasco to Murdaa and not have folks question which one is the real you? Seems like that’ll cause confusion. The street cats aren’t going to respect you as hard.”
He stops me with an upraised hand. “You’re making my head spin. Enough of this talk. I’ve got something I want to give you.”
He steps away from me and heads for the desk. Opens the drawer. Pauses with his back to me, as if contemplating something. Then he turns back to me. In his hands I notice the Dirty Jersey medallion and chain he’s famous for wearing. He moves over to me, medallion and chain still in his hands. “I appreciate you playing devil’s advocate. You’re good for me, E.P. You’ll keep me honest. Having you around is good.”
Then he says one word. It’s the best word I’ve ever heard.
One I’ve always sought, seldom found.
“Welcome.”
I look at the building. It’s a one-story structure, concrete painted white, with concertina wire around the entire perimeter. It looks and feels like a place where you would come to purchase a John Deere riding lawn mower. It isn’t, though. It’s ominous in the same way the motel complex was. My gut tells me to end this now, stop chasing the elusive dream of being popular, and somehow find my way back home.
I feel for my neck. Run my fingers over the thick chain and medallion Fiasco placed over my head not even an hour ago. He’d told me then that I’d get the Dirty Jersey tattoo, as well, if I wanted it, and that a select few have the chain, and even fewer can boast of the chain and the tattoo. I’m special, that means.
There is no turning back for me.
A caravan of more black SUVs pull into the lot. Escalades, Expeditions, Range and Land Rovers, a couple Hummers. All the vehicles are black, all with the darkest tint possible on their windows. Various songs, played at ear-drum-shattering levels, compete with one another from the SUVs’ stereo speakers. Young people file out of the cars, their excitement palpable. Fiasco has drivers for each vehicle. They exit, as well. Dudes he grew up with, he told me on the ride over. Tough cats, every single one of them. And they’re large. All business. Like the men who guard Minister Louis Farrakhan. Fruit of Islam, I believe they are called. Each one has the Dirty Jersey medallion, the tattoo. I’m the only member of Fiasco’s clique that didn’t grow up with him in Camden.
All the young people who file from the SUVs are dressed in some form of hip-hop gear.
All of them are cool. With that swagger Fiasco always talks about.
And I’m among them, but better than them. I have the medallion.
Staccato popping sounds burst out and interrupt my reverie. Sounds like the gunfire you’re apt to hear at Crash’s building in the projects.
I should leave.
I look over toward the SUVs. Fiasco emerges from Mya’s black Range Rover after the young people have gone inside. He looks the Range Rover over appreciatively for a brief moment and then makes his way in my direction. The Range Rover’s engine comes to life. Then the truck pulls away, Mya at the wheel. Fiasco stops beside me. It’s just me and him. A party of two. Again, I’m special.
I say, “Where’s Mya going?”
“She doesn’t like it here. It’s best she keeps it moving. I don’t press the issue.”
I ask, “That gunfire I hear? Sounds like gunfire.”
Fiasco says, “Got this place dirt cheap. Me and my homies…shorties, too…and I’m talking video-ho fine…come out here and convalesce. R and R, ya heard?”
He didn’t answer my question about the gunfire. I don’t repeat it.
I say, “You bought this place just to have a place to chill?”
He nods. “And do business. I ain’t shortsighted. I hustle hard out of here.”
My mind flashes to the movie Belly, a vehicle to showcase the acting skills of rappers Nas, DMX and others. My mind also flashes on New Jack City. Gangsta flicks. Women, in bras and panties, at some out-of-the-place spot similar to this one Fiasco has brought me to, packaging drugs for sale. Hustling hard.
Fiasco must notice something shift in me, because he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Nothing illegal, son. I’m like Fif now. Still on my grind, still on the hustle, get rich or die trying and all that, but always through legal enterprise. Jail ain’t a good look. I understand that.” He stops, smiles. “Even though I gotta admit a minute on lockdown wouldn’t hurt my album sales. Jail is a marketing campaign for rappers. Who needs an ad in Vibe; just one day in the clink beats that.” He laughs at that last part. I do, too. Even though my mother has always taught me that jail is not a laughing matter.
More of what sounds like gunfire pierces the air. I ignore it.
I ask Fiasco, “So what kind of hustle do you do out of here, then?”
His eyes light up. “I’m glad you asked. T-shirts. Removable Dirty Jersey tattoo strips. Mass-produce all of them mix-tape CDs I be putting out. Sell them shits for ten dollars a pop. This place is one big assembly line, son.”
I nod. “You put out more mix tapes than Lil’ Wayne and Game combined.”
“Hustlin’.”
More SUVs arrive. A cluster of more young people pass by. Fiasco stops and gives a dap to every one of them. But they all move past. His time is with me and me alone. I am moved by that, because contained in that cluster were two girls with more goods than Buffie the Body or any of the girls featured in XXL magazine’s “Eye Candy” spread.
Fiasco says, “Why don’t we step inside. I’ll show you the place.”
I follow, bopping with the finesse of Crash as I walk.
For some reason my awkwardness is dissolving with every second I spend in Fiasco’s presence. By the end of the day I’ll be ready to scoop up some fine young honey and beat down even the toughest dude in the bunch. Maybe.
Two supersized black dudes are just inside. They stand by a counter like one you would find in a store. One is in tight blue jeans, combat boots that aren’t Timberlands, and a black leather Fonz jacket that runs about two sizes too small for his enormous upper body. He looks to be in his mid-to late forties, but he’s in incredible shape. The other is younger, closer to Fiasco’s age, and is an obvious New York Jets fan. He has a wide nose, long dreadlocks that hang from under a green and white Jets cap to kiss the collar of a green and white Jets jacket. Like the black Fonz wannabe, he’s also in tight blue jeans and a pair of stomping boots. Nothing hip-hop about either of them.
But both of them are the size of a small continent.
I ask Fiasco, “Everybody you know have to shop for their clothes at the big ’n’ tall store?”
He laughs, nods. “Yup. My homies from around the way. The biggest and the baddest. I made sure of that.”
Fiasco shakes both of their hands. No dap. A handshake. “Holding down the fort?” he asks.
The Black Fonz says, “On it like white on rice.”
I’m new to this cool thing, every interaction is a lesson, and yet even I know not to ever repeat that phrase around anyone with swagger. I blame it on his age.
Mr. Jets adds, “I saw your wifey pull out of the lot. She ever gonna step a foot inside this place? I’m feeling put off, like I must have leprosy or something.”
Fiasco looks at the Black Fonz, frowns. “You had me until that wifey part. I started drowning you out then. I am single and enjoying it. Don’t ever get that twisted.”
Mr. Jets says, “Enjoying it, that’s an understatement.”
Fiasco smiles. Mr. Jets smiles, too. The Black Fonz is noticeably quiet and unemotional.
Mr. Jets says, “I think I’d settle down, though, if I had a female of Mya’s caliber sniffing my tail.”
Fiasco nods. “Mya’s fine. But she’s high maintenance. Difficult to satisfy. You really knew her, you wouldn’t want to be bothered. The girl has issues.” He looks at the Black Fonz. And, of course, the Black Fonz remains unemotional.
Mr. Jets asks, “How you figure?”
Fiasco says, “It is what it is. Like this Cuban girl I dealt with once. Making love to her was work. She was so proud of being a Latina, and you know she hated hip-hop, so I tried to be smart, got some Celia Cruz CDs to listen to while I tapped that Goya-bean booty.”
“So what happened?”
“No go. She couldn’t stand Celia Cruz. She liked Luther.”
The two of them laugh. The Black Fonz doesn’t even crack a smile. I wonder what’s wrong with the guy.
The laughter breaks. Fiasco says, “Mya’s like that. Difficult to please.”
Mr. Jets pulls on the back of his jacket, fidgets just a bit, and then says, “So tell us what song gets Mya in the mood?”
“For me to know and you to never find out,” Fiasco says. The frown on his face is clear. He’s not happy with the question.
The Black Fonz finally speaks. “You gonna let this guy keep salivating over your precious Mya, Fiasco?” He says Fiasco’s name like it’s an insult, like it’s a dirty word.
Mr. Jets puts his hands up. “I wouldn’t take it there. I was just saying.”
The Black Fonz says, “You were just saying quite a bit. If I was Fiasco, I’d knock out your fronts.” The Black Fonz eyeballs Fiasco like they have major beef. Fiasco eyeballs him back with the same intensity.
Seconds tick by without a response from either of them. They both assume the stance of bulls ready to run over anything in their way. I can feel the tension in the air. It’s as thick as Melyssa Ford, one of the video vixens plastered on my bedroom wall. That is quite thick, let me tell you.
“Mya can handle herself,” Fiasco says after some time.
“She’s good peoples,” Mr. Jets agrees.
Fiasco nods. “No doubt.” His gaze falls on the Black Fonz.
The Black Fonz says, “Seen her drive outta here like she was running from something.”
Fiasco moves over to him, claps him on the shoulder. “Enough of Mya, okay?”
The Black Fonz stares at him for a moment and then nods.
Nothing more is said regarding Mya.
Fiasco turns to me. “What do you think of the place?”
I nod my approval.
The building is an old warehouse. It’s huge. My mind travels further into the bowels of the place. What could be in here that Mya dislikes so much?
Fiasco says, “My bad. Trent, Alonzo, this here is my lil’ homie, E.P.”
E.P.
My initials.
I like that.
Trent and Alonzo both shake my hand. Or, I should say, their hands swallow mine. I’ve been known to describe someone with large hands as having hands like baseball mitts. Crash has hands like that. That description wouldn’t fit Trent or Alonzo, though. Their hands are bigger than that. A whole lot bigger.
Trent says, “Here to get corrupted?” Trent is Mr. Jets.
Alonzo adds, “Another one bites the dust.” Alonzo is the Black Fonz, of course.
Fiasco shoos them off, says, “Don’t listen to these two country-western Negroes. Come fly with me, E.P.”
He moves away.
I nod at the two giants, follow Fiasco.
It isn’t long before I know exactly what that sound is I’ve been hearing. The one that sounds like gunfire.
It’s gunfire.
A large area is sectioned off as a shooting range. It’s packed with people laughing, smiling and dancing to the music blaring from mounted speakers. Doing everything but paying extra care to the guns they have in hand.
Fiasco says, “Point one on the syllabus for Hustlin’ 101. I charge these fools twenty bucks and they get ammunition, a firearm and a pack of five paper targets to take out their aggression on.”
I say, “There are an awful lot of them.”
A thought nudges at my mind. Feels like Fiasco is a rap Al Qaeda, training Bloods and Crips to destroy our community in the same way Osama bin Laden had his folks attack our buildings, our sense of safety, our very lives.
I nudge that thought away.
Fiasco says, “Economics lesson. Count heads and multiply that number by twenty. It’s the most beautifullest thing in the world.”
I say, “Stop biting Keith Murray.”
“Forgot you were a hip-hop historian.” Fiasco smiles. “I loved that song.”
“Heard the new one he’s got with Tyrese?”
Fiasco shakes his head. His mind isn’t on songs, rap comebacks, anything to do with the music. He motions with his head to another counter area by the shooting range. I look over.
There’s an NRA poster on the wall behind the counter, a large sign next to it with house rules for the shooting range. LOAD and HANDLE firearms ONLY WHEN YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT THEM. SIGHT and HEARING PROTECTION must be worn at ALL TIMES in the range area. The call “CEASE FIRE” or the sound of a WHISTLE means STOP SHOOTING IMMEDIATELY AND STEP AWAY FROM THE SHOOTING AREA.
Fiasco says, “Media paints us rappers as common criminals. I’m trying to educate my young people, make ’em more responsible in everything they do. They gonna pick up guns anyway….”
What Fiasco really wants me to believe, I think, is that Murdaa is actually going to be a socially conscious rapper.
I want to tell Fiasco that the young boy doing Soulja Boy’s dance with a firearm in his hand is breaking most of the shooting range rules. But I don’t.
Fiasco says, “Shooting stalls are ten yards long. Climate controlled, too. Have exhaust systems. Got every kind of pistol you can think of. Calibers run from .22 to AE50.”
I nod with a blank look in my eyes. The closest I’ve ever come in contact with gun talk is watching episodes of The Wire on HBO or listening to rap CDs. Crash is more evolved when it comes to guns. I don’t want to be evolved that way myself. I want no part of guns. I can’t see myself among those using the shooting range.
Fiasco continues, “This is a business. I’m an entity, I’m a business, hustlin’ like Fif, grindin’ until I get rich or die trying, trying to make a better way for myself and all the little shorties that come up like I did. This ain’t no BS spot, E.P. This much bigger than that, ya heard? Like Jay-Z said, ‘I’m a businessman.’”
I nod at his little speech.
Fiasco says, “You feelin’ me, E.P.? You understand where I’m coming from?”
“Yes.”
Off in another corner of the warehouse, a group of Fiasco’s Dirty Jersey boys are crowded around the two girls from earlier, the “Eye Candy” dimepieces who walked in after we arrived. Despite the girls’ curves, I realize they’re young. It’s in their faces, in their eyes. Wide-eyed innocence they call it. Too young for the Dirty Jersey boys, yet some serious romancing is taking place. I feel uncomfortable watching it transpire. Then Mr. Jets and the Black Fonz arrive on the scene. Good, I think. They’ll clean it up, keep it PG-13. To my surprise, something else happens. The two girls drift off through a door marked PRIVATE with the Black Fonz on their heels. Mr. Jets stands guard over the door like the president’s Secret Service detail.
I try to shake the image of the Black Fonz’s hands on the young girls’ butts as he ushered them into the PRIVATE room.
Fiasco claps me on the shoulder, changes my focus.
He says, “So, seriously, you wanna really be down with Dirty Jersey, son? I’m willing to seriously put you on. Let you deep in the fold. And I don’t do that for everyone. Usually it takes a long time before I offer that respect to anyone. I’m not one for quick ascension. You gotta earn your stripes in my camp. But you, E.P., you have already. I don’t know what it is. Maybe that you remind me of myself. Anyway, you wanna be put on?”
I look around the warehouse. Gunfire and excited voices are the sound track. Murdaa music. I look at the door marked PRIVATE. Unthinkable things could be happening in there. Most likely are happening in there. Two girls my age or close to it. Is that something I’d want to get down with? Can my conscience pretend that part of the Dirty Jersey situation doesn’t exist?
The flip side?
I’d be part of a very select crowd. I’d be special. The cool boys and girls would envy me.
I look at Fiasco. “Yes. I want to be put on with your crew.”
I don’t think another thought about the two young girls in that PRIVATE room with the Black Fonz.