On the Come Up

by Angie Thomas

  Can’t lie, I’m a tad bit annoyed that he mentioned my dad. I get why, but damn. Whether I’m good or not shouldn’t have a thing to do with him. He didn’t teach me to rap. I taught myself. So why does he get the credit?

  “Time to flip the coin,” Hype says. “Bri, you get to call it.”

  “Tails,” I mutter.

  Hype tosses the coin and slaps it onto the back of his hand. “Tails it is. Who’s first?”

  I nod toward Milez. I can hardly speak. No way I can go first.

  “A’ight. Y’all ready out there?”

  For the crowd, it’s basically a hell yes. For me? A hell no.

  But I don’t have a choice.

  Three

  The beat starts—“Niggas in Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye.

  My heart pounds harder than the bass in the song. Milez comes up to me, waaay too close. It gives me a chance to size him up. He talks a lot of shit, but damn, there’s fear in his eyes.

  He starts rapping.

  I ball so hard, you wish you was like me.

  I’m fresh down to my Nikes.

  Spend one hundred K in a day,

  The boy don’t play,

  Going broke ain’t likely.

  I ball hard, this hood life crazy.

  But I’m a G, it don’t faze me.

  Ferrari gassed, Glock in back,

  Ready to pop if paparazzi chase me.

  Okay, I’ll give props. Those lines are better than anything in “Swagerific,” but this boy can’t be serious. He’s not an uppercase G, a lowercase g, or any kind of G, so why is he claiming that life? He doesn’t even live in the hood. Everybody knows Supreme lives in the suburbs now. Yet his son is ’bout that life?

  Nah.

  I gotta call him out. Maybe something like, “Your career? I end it. Your G status as authentic as them gems in your pendant.”

  Ha! That’s a good one.

  He’s still rapping about being such a gangster. I smirk, waiting for my turn. Until—

  I ball hard, so why bother?

  This ain’t a battle, more like slaughter.

  I murder this chick in cold blood,

  Like someone did her whack-ass father.

  The.

  Fuck?

  I advance on Milez. “What the hell you say?”

  Hype cuts off the music and I hear, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” as a couple of people rush into the Ring. Aunt Pooh pulls me back.

  “You li’l asshole!” I shout. “Say it again!”

  Aunt Pooh drags me to the corner. “The hell is wrong with you?”

  “You heard that shit?”

  “Yeah, but you handle him with your bars, not your fists! You trying to get disqualified before you start?”

  I breathe extra hard. “That line—”

  “Got you like he wanted it to!”

  She’s right. Damn, she’s right.

  The crowd boos. You don’t make digs about my dad to them either.

  “Ay! Y’all know the rules. No holds barred,” Hype says. “Even Law is fair game in the Ring.”

  More boos.

  “A’ight, a’ight!” Hype tries to calm everyone down. “Milez, that was a low blow, fam. C’mon, now.”

  “My bad,” Milez says into the mic, but he smirks.

  I’m shaking, that’s how much I wanna hit him. Just makes it worse that my throat is all tight, and now I’m almost as pissed at myself as I am at Milez.

  “Bri, you ready?” Hype asks.

  Aunt Pooh pushes me back to the center of the Ring.

  “Yeah,” I bite out.

  “A’ight then,” Hype says. “Let’s get it!”

  The beat starts again, but all the lines in my head suddenly don’t exist.

  “I . . .”

  Murder this chick in cold blood.

  I can still hear the gunshots that took him from us.

  “He . . .”

  Like someone did her whack-ass father.

  I can still hear Jay wailing.

  “I . . .”

  Murder . . . Whack-ass father.

  I can still see him in the coffin, all cold and stiff.

  “Choked!” someone shouts.

  Shit.

  It becomes contagious and turns into a chant. Milez’s smirk becomes a grin. His dad chuckles.

  Hype stops the beat.

  “Damn,” he says. “Round one automatically goes to Milez.”

  I stumble over to my corner.

  I blanked.

  I fucking blanked.

  Aunt Pooh climbs up on the ropes. “What the hell? You let him get to you?”

  “Aunty—”

  “You know how much you got on the line right now?” she says. “This is it. Your chance to blow up, and you gon’ hand this battle over to him?”

  “No, but . . .”

  She pushes me back into the Ring. “Shake that shit off!”

  Milez gets palm slaps and fist bumps over in his corner. His dad laughs proudly.

  I wish I had that. Not an asshole for a dad, but my dad. At this point I’d settle for good memories. Not just from the night he was murdered.

  It happened in front of our old house. He and Jay were going out for date night. Aunt Pooh lived with us back then and agreed to babysit me and Trey while they were gone.

  Dad kissed us goodbye as we started a game of Mario Kart, and he and Jay walked out the front door. The car cranked up outside. Just as my Princess Peach gained on Trey’s Bowser and Aunt Pooh’s Toad, five shots went off. I was only four, but the sound hasn’t left my ears. Then Jay screaming, wailing really, in a way that didn’t sound human.

  Word is, a Crown pulled the trigger. The Crowns are the largest King Lord set here on the east side. They may as well be their own gang, big as they are. Dad wasn’t a gangbanger, but he was so close to so many Garden Disciples that he got caught up in their drama. The Crowns took him out.

  From everything I’ve heard, he wouldn’t have let anybody make him blank like this. I can’t either.

  “Round two!” Hype announces. “Milez, since you won round one, you decide who goes first.”

  He cheeses. “I got this.”

  “Let’s take it old school then!” says Hype.

  He scratches the records and the beat starts. “Deep Cover,” by Snoop and Dre. He wasn’t kidding about the old school. That was the first song Snoop ever did.

  The old heads in the gym go crazy. Some of the young ones seem confused. Milez doesn’t look at me when he raps, like I’m no longer relevant.

  Yo, they call me the prince,

  I ain’t new to this game.

  Been plotting for years

  And I can’t be tamed.

  You can call me a G,

  Your son wish he was me,

  And every girl with a pulse

  Falls inevitably.

  I get money,

  Like it’s going out of style.

  All my whips brand new.

  I got Jordan on the dial.

  Rule numero uno of battling? Know your opponent’s weakness. Nothing he’s spit this round is directed at me. That may not seem like a red flag, but right now it’s a huge one. I blanked. A real MC would go for the kill because of that. Hell, I’d go for it. He’s not even mentioning it. That means there’s a 98 percent chance this is prewritten.

  Prewritten is a no-no in the Ring. A bigger no-no? Prewritten by someone else.

  I don’t know if he wrote those lines, maybe he did, but I can make everyone think he didn’t. Dirty as hell? Absolutely. But since my dad isn’t off-limits, not a damn thing is off-limits.

  Rule number two of battling—use the circumstances to your advantage. Supreme doesn’t look too worried, but trust: He should be.

  That goes in my arsenal.

  Rule number three—if there’s a beat, make sure your flow fits it like a glove. Flow is the rhythm of the rhymes, and every word, every syllable, affects it. Even the way a word is pronounced can change the flow. While most people know S
noop and Dre for “Deep Cover,” one time I found a remake of it by this rapper named Big Pun on YouTube. His flow on this song was one of the best I’ve ever heard in my life.

  Maybe I can mimic it.

  Maybe I can wipe that dumb smirk off Milez’s face.

  Maybe I can actually win.

  Milez stops, and the beat fades off. He gets a couple of cheers, but not many. The Ring loves punch lines, not weak lines about yourself.

  “Okay, I hear you,” Hype says. “Bri, your go!”

  My ideas are spread out like puzzle pieces. Now I gotta put them all together into something that makes sense.

  The beat starts again. I nod along. There’s nothing but me, the music, and Milez.

  The words have strung themselves together into rhymes and into a flow, and I let it all come tumbling out.

  Ready for war, Milez? Nah, you fucked up this time.

  Should address this cipher to the writer,

  The biter, who really wrote them rhymes.

  Come at Brianna, you wanna get buried?

  Spit like a legend, feminine weapon,

  I reckon your own father’s worried.

  Bow down, baby, get down on your knees.

  You got paper, but I’m greater.

  Ask your clique, and while you at it ask Supreme.

  Straight from the Garden where people dearly departin’.

  Screw a pardon, I’m hardened,

  And Milez’s heart is on back of milk cartons.

  It’s MIA, and this is judgment—

  I stop. The crowd is going bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s.

  “What?” Hype shouts. “What?”

  Even the rough-and-tough-looking dudes bounce up and down with their fists at their mouths going, “Ohhhh!”

  “What?” Hype shouts again, and he plays a siren. The siren. The one he uses when an MC spits something dope.

  I, Brianna Marie Jackson, got the siren.

  Holy shit.

  “She came with the pun flow!” Hype says. “Somebody get a water hose! We can’t handle the heat! We can’t handle it!”

  This is magical. I thought the reactions I’d get when I freestyled for Aunt Pooh’s friends were something. This is a new level, like when Luke went from being just Luke to Jedi-ass Luke.

  “Milez, I’m sorry, but she murdered you in a couple of bars,” Hype says. “Call the DA! This is a homicide scene! Judges, what y’all think?”

  All of them lift signs with my name on it.

  The crowd goes wilder.

  “Bri wins it!” Hype says.

  Milez nervously rubs the peach fuzz on his chin.

  I grin. Got him.

  “Let’s get to the final round,” Hype says. “We’re at a tie, and whoever wins this one wins it all. Bri, who goes first?”

  “Him,” I say. “Let him get his garbage out the way.”

  A bunch of oohs echo around us. Yeah, I said it.

  “Milez, you better come correct,” Hype says. “Let’s get it!”

  The beat starts—“Shook Ones,” by Mobb Deep. It’s slower than “Deep Cover,” but it’s perfect for freestyling. In every YouTube battle I watched, shit got real whenever that beat dropped.

  Milez glares at me as he raps. Something about how much money he has, how many girls like him, his clothes, his jewelry, the gangster life he’s living. Repetitive. Stale. Prewritten.

  I gotta go for the kill.

  Here I am, going at him as if I don’t have any manners. Manners. A lot of words rhyme with that if I deliver them right. Cameras. Rappers. Pamper. Hammer—MC Hammer. Vanilla Ice. Hip-hop heads consider them pop stars, not real rappers. I can compare him to them.

  I gotta get my signature line in there—you can only spell “brilliant” by first spelling Bri. Aunt Pooh once pointed that out right before teasing me about being such a perfectionist.

  Perfection. I can use that. Perfection, protection, election. Election—presidents. Presidents are leaders. Leader. Either. Ether, like that song where Nas went in on Jay-Z.

  I need to get something in there about his name too. Milez. Miles per hour. Speed. Light speed. Then I need to end with something about myself.

  Milez lowers the mic. There are a couple of cheers. Supreme claps, yet his face is hard.

  “Okay, I see you, Milez!” Hype says. “Bri, you better bring the heat!”

  The instrumental starts up again. Aunt Pooh said I only get one chance to let everybody and their momma know who I am.

  So I take it.

  My apologies, see, I forgot my manners.

  I get on the mic ’cause it’s my life. You show off for girls and cameras.

  You a pop star, not a rapper. A Vanilla Ice or a Hammer.

  Y’all hear this crap he dumping out? Somebody get him a Pamper.

  And a crown for me. The best have heard about me.

  You can only spell “brilliant” by first spelling Bri.

  You see, naturally, I do my shit with perfection.

  Better call a bodyguard ’cause you gon’ need some protection,

  And on this here election, the people crown a new leader.

  You didn’t see this coming, and your ghostwriters didn’t either.

  I came here to ether. I’m sorry to do this to you.

  This is no longer a battle, it’s your funeral, boo. I’m murdering you.

  On my corner they call me coroner, I’m warning ya.

  Tell the truth, this dude is borin’ ya.

  You confused like a foreigner. I’ll explain with ease:

  You’re just a casualty in the reality of the madness of Bri.

  No fallacies, I spit maladies, causin’ fatalities,

  And do it casually, damaging rappers without bandaging.

  Imagining managing my own label, my own salary.

  And actually, factually, there’s no MC that’s as bad as me.

  Milez? That’s cute. But it don’t make me cower.

  I move at light speed, you stuck at per hour.

  You spit like a lisp. I spit like a high power.

  Bri’s the future, and you Today like Matt Lauer.

  You coward. But you’re a G? It ain’t convincing to me.

  You talk about your clothes, about your shopping sprees.

  You talk about your Glock, about your i-c-e.

  But in this here ring, they all talking ’bout me,

  Bri!

  The crowd goes nuts.

  “I told y’all!” Aunt Pooh shouts as she stands on the ropes. “I told y’all!”

  Milez can’t look at me or his dad, who seems to glare at him. He could be glaring at me, too. Hard to tell behind those shades.

  “A’ight, y’all.” Hype tries to calm everyone down as he comes from behind the turntables. “It’s down to this vote. Whoever takes this one is the winner. Judges, who y’all got?”

  Mr. Jimmy raises his sign. It says Bri.

  Dee-Nice raises his sign. Bri.

  CZ raises his sign. Li’l Law.

  Holy shit.

  “We have a winner!” Hype says to thunderous cheers. He raises my arm into the air. “Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of tonight’s Rookie Royale, Bri!”

  Four

  Hours after my battle, I dream my nightmare.

  I’m five years old, climbing into my mom’s old Lexus. Daddy went to heaven almost a year ago. Aunt Pooh’s been gone a couple of months. She went to live with her and Mommy’s aunty in the projects.

  I lock my seat belt in place, and Mommy holds my overstuffed backpack toward me. Her arm has all these dark marks on it. She once told me she got them because she wasn’t feeling well.

  “You’re still sick, Mommy?” I ask.

  She follows my eyes and rolls her sleeve down. “Yeah, baby,” she whispers.

  My brother gets in the car beside me, and Mommy says we’re going on a trip to somewhere special. We end up in our grandparents’ driveway.

  Suddenly, Trey’s eyes widen. He begs her not to do this. Seeing him cry m
akes me cry.

  Mommy tells him to take me inside, but he won’t. She gets out, goes around to his side, unlocks his seat belt, and tries to pull him out the car, but he digs his feet into the seat.

  She grabs his shoulders. “Trey! I need you to be my little man,” she says, her voice shaky. “For your sister’s sake. Okay?”

  He looks over at me and quickly wipes his face. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m okay, Li’l Bit,” he claims, but the cry-hiccups break up his words. “It’s okay.”

  He unlocks my seat belt, takes my hand, and helps me out the car.

  Mommy hands us our backpacks. “Be good, okay?” she says. “Do what your grandparents tell you to do.”

  “When are you coming back?” I ask.

  She kneels in front of me. Her shaky fingers brush through my hair, then cup my cheek. “I’ll be back later. I promise.”

  “Later when?”

  “Later. I love you, okay?”

  She presses her lips to my forehead and keeps them there for the longest. She does the same to Trey, then straightens up.

  “Mommy, when are you coming back?” I ask again.

  She gets in the car without answering me and cranks it up. Tears stream down her cheeks. Even at five, I know she won’t be back for a long time.

  I drop my backpack and chase the car down the driveway. “Mommy, don’t leave me!”

  But she goes into the street, and I’m not supposed to go into the street.

  “Mommy!” I cry. Her car goes, goes, and soon, it’s gone. “Mommy! Mom—”

  “Brianna!”

  I jolt awake.

  Jay’s sitting on the side of my bed. “Baby, are you okay?”

  I try to catch my breath as I wipe the dampness from my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Were you having a nightmare?”

  A nightmare that’s a memory. Jay really did leave me and Trey at our grandparents’ house. She couldn’t take care of us and her drug habit, too. That’s when I learned that when people die, they sometimes take the living with them.

  I saw her in the park a few months later, looking more like a red-eyed, scaly-skinned dragon than my mommy. I started calling her Jay after that—there was no way she was my mom anymore. It became my own habit that was hard to break. Still is.

  It took three years and a rehab stint for her to come back. Even though she was clean, some judge decided that she could only have me and Trey every other weekend and on some holidays. She didn’t get us back full-time until five years ago, after she got her job and started renting this place.