by Lamar Giles
There was more to it than that. But like back in the van, I was not forthcoming with the whole truth.
I hoped I never had to be.
There were a lot of trash rappers and singers out there.
I didn’t mean to be rude about it, and, you know, everyone’s gotta start somewhere, but the reason I stopped letting people get on the mic at my parties was because almost everybody sucked. Sorry, not sorry.
Nothing killed a vibe like some fake deep MC talking a bunch of conspiracies about how the earth was really flat and wrong stuff about Egypt or whatever. Or some screechy, doing-too-much-with-her-notes vocalist woo-woo-wooing a song to three times its length. Lord help us all if any of those dumpster water artists wanted to battle each other, it was like watching two sloths race.
Lately when I spun, more people wanted on the mic. Like they were auditioning.
Word’s out. Fuse and her internet magic meant most people knew I was on the come-up, and they wanted a piggyback ride to success. So the rule was hard: No rhymes when I spin. Period. As for the singers, I’d already heard the best Ocean Shore had to offer, and I wasn’t settling for less. Keep it moving.
This party was in a neighborhood called Emerald Greens. Big houses on a golf course. Rich private-school kid with absentee parents hosting. Not a bad way to make coin on a Saturday night. Cooke High represented, a few of my more popular classmates snagging invites. Fuse was among them controlling the dance floor with boys and girls admiring.
Stepping up the mix, I faded in a new track from Omar Bless, a song called “Best Kept Secret” and a collective “Ohhhhhh” sounded throughout the house. More people crowded the dance floor, getting loose like I knew they would.
So I barely noticed the boy lurking all close to me while I worked.
“What’s that do?” A bony, pointing finger hovered into my line of sight.
Sneering, I turned slowly, ready to give whoever violated the sanctity of my workplace the business. “Yo, dude, you need to step back.”
But then his smile was the brightest thing in the dark room and his fresh haircut glistened in the colorful strobing party lights. Shameik Larsen. A CUTE-cute boy from my grade. Suddenly him invading my personal space wasn’t such a big deal.
“If I turned that knob,” he said, pointing to the channel 2 bass control, “would the party self-destruct or something?”
He reached like he was going to twist it. I smacked his hand. He snatched it back, grinning. Mostly, I was being playful, but there was a little bit of possessiveness that wanted my new equipment to remain untouched by all but me. I’d done a couple of production gigs thanks to the buzz off “Calm Down, Turn Up!” The money was enough to update my gear. No more mismatched turntables with a taped-together mixer. These days I was rocking with a Pioneer Rekordbox and a basic laptop. Not top-of-the-line, but functional, and miles ahead of what I was used to. He didn’t need to know all that, though. So I said, “I’m not telling you trade secrets.”
“Respect. I get it. You been killing all night.”
“Thank you.” Did he remember me from school? At all?
I cued Remy Ma and Fat Joe’s “All the Way Up” remix, faded it in, and the crowd grooved approvingly. My guest nodded to the beat, then said, “What instrumentals you got?”
Ohhhhhh gawd. “Nobody raps when I spin.”
“That works, because I ain’t a rapper. I’m a poet.”
“What you want a beat for, then?”
“Because I like reciting poems to music.”
“Isn’t that—?”
“Nope. Not rap. Not the way I do it.”
“What way is that?”
“You should let me show you.” He leaned toward my board again, bypassing the knobs he wasn’t really curious about, and grabbed the mic that I kept on hand for ad-libbing when the party was really going. He bounced it in his palm, testing the weight. Really, testing me. “Well?”
That smile. That smell. That body. “What instrumental you want?”
“You know Common?”
I almost punched him in the chest, insulting me like that. “Of course.”
“You got the intro to his Be album?”
“I can get it.” The beauty of Wi-Fi. No music was out of reach.
I found it easily and faded “All the Way Up” into a jazzy old-school track: “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” by a group called Digable Planets, letting the crowd get used to the change of pace instead of abruptly interrupting the party and throwing dude to the wolves. I could tell from the confused looks most didn’t know this song. I hadn’t known it until Fuse brought me the vinyl for another video in our series. I caught her eye, she nodded, then started swaying with the nearest boy. As they’d done all night, the crowd followed her lead, and before long they were into the strumming bass guitar. As the hook neared its in end, I told the poet, “You’re up, and you better be fire.”
“Flames all day.” He gripped the mic confidently by its housing, didn’t smother the head the way a lot of amateurs do because they think it looks cool, when it actually muffles their voice. Kya would’ve appreciated that.
Suddenly there was a pit in my stomach. I hadn’t seen Kya in a while except for school. Hadn’t even thought of her much until now. Been busy. Distracted. So much happening.
Shameik stepped from behind my decks, put himself on full display, distracting me from Kya again. I faded in the beat he asked for.
“Yo,” he said, booming through the speakers, as smooth as the horns on the track. “It’s Shameik, but y’all knew that already.”
His audience murmured positive confirmation. “Shameik!” some chick yelled from the crowd. I’m not sure he heard her, but I felt a sharp, jealous pang.
“I wanna talk about something that’s been on my mind a lot these days,” he said, easy, conversational, even though I could tell he was already performing.
“I saw this kid the other day / running, at play / and I got shook when his shadow was as long as a man’s / and his hands weren’t in plain sight / and a black-and-white patrol car made a hard right / just to pass him, for once / should’ve been good news …/ I went inside to catch them easy breaths / because the situation didn’t go left / and yet …”
He went on like that, a blistering two-minute poem about police violence, and black fear, and mamas crying when their angelic sons became demons in the eyes of law enforcement. A few of the white kids got salty scowls and stomped away to other parts of the house, but whatever. His words outlasted them. And the beat; I forgot what the heck I was getting paid to do. Nothing was cued. I didn’t run the instrumental back. I became a part of his audience too.
He finished his work a cappella. His speed, and cadence, and message ramping up to a hard-hitting crescendo, ending on a gut-punch line.
“That kid was me / what I might-a could-a be / if they had seen me for me, instead … of … pow!”
Silence, a few heartbeats’ worth. Then thunderous clapping that he bowed to dramatically, before handing me my microphone. “Hot enough for you?”
Boy! If only you knew.
“Play something!” That was Fuse, reminding me of my actual function. I quickly cued some Cardi B and got the party going again. Then I returned to the most interesting thing in the room.
Shameik, tall, with wide shoulders and a tapered waist, looking like the letter V, leaned into my laptop, skimming titles of upcoming tracks. He pointed at something way down the playlist. “Why don’t you play that next?”
“Ummmm, because I’m not. Thank you. I know what I’m doing here.”
“Chill. I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do. I’m trying to learn. Like, why do you put the list together like that? What’s the madness to your method?”
“Her method is a trade secret,” Fuse said, wedging her way behind the turntables and making my personal space way too crowded.
“Already told him that,” I said, kind of wanting Fuse to leave.
She flashed me a sly look t
hat I didn’t like, then gave Shameik a once-over. “I know you,” she said. “Seaside Poets, at school.”
His head bounced. “Our name rings out.”
Her sly look found me again, and I got a bad feeling. She said, “Hey, ParSec and me going to Waffle House after this. Want to come?”
He grinned. “Of course. Who don’t like waffles?”
Fuse gave a curt nod, then leaned into me, whispered, “You can thank me later.”
Sometimes a weekend could wipe the slate clean, turning Cooke High into a giant Etch A Sketch. Saturday grabbed one side, Sunday the other, and a mighty shake started Monday fresh. Traversing the halls, I could feel the school moving on from Paris. I thumb-typed another question in my phone.
Is it ever appropriate to think of your dead friends and not feel hurt?
There were no more grief counselors set up in the hall. Wardrobes reverted back to pre-Paris-memorial styles. No one craved forever sadness, some of us just got cursed with it. And new nightmares of white-masked monsters tossing me into vans that were really bottomless pits didn’t help the recovery. Every time I closed my eyes that bag was back on my head, and eight showers later I still felt the tacky adhesive from the tape around my wrists.
Shoulder-deep in my locker, I considered my first order of business. My stomach fluttered over my after-school mission. I still had a whole day to get through. Biology and English and Precalc. I needed to get my mind right.
Emerging from my locker, I had that horror movie moment of shutting the door and finding a person materialized behind it. Florian. I looked down on Cooke High’s tiny Tumblr maven in pink-framed glasses she probably didn’t need. Tight, bright yellow top. Fresh denim with slashes at the knee. Blue-on-white Air Jordans and her nails sparkly with dope designs. So many colors, she looked like a bag of candy.
She beamed at me. Her new long-lost buddy. “We got so many hits this weekend. Your claims of Fuse and DJ ParSec having issues in the days prior, plus those memorial service pics you snapped, combined with images I pulled of Fuse getting tossed from the venue. So scandalous. I felt like TMZ.” Florian turned her phone to show me likes and shares I didn’t care about. “Look at that traffic. People are crucifying Fuse.”
That landed like a strong kick. Not that I wasn’t provoked, and I didn’t feel guilty exactly. The news just didn’t bring me the joy it would’ve three days ago.
I shut my locker, skirted around Florian, and mumbled, “Glad it worked out.”
She stayed with me, orbiting. I had my own gravity today. “What else you got?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing else to have.”
“Seriously? No word on why Fuse is in protective custody all of a sudden?”
“You mean ISS. Why are you using cop talk?”
“So you do know something.”
I’d been texting with Fuse constantly since our joint kidnapping. She explained how her dad micromanaged her school day. Class, isolated lunch, home. Thus the need for me to be her eyes and ears this afternoon. “I don’t know any more than you.”
“More pictures would be a nice boost for the site, Kya. Maybe of the coffin.”
I stopped like I’d smacked into an invisible wall. “Where’s your next class?”
Florian, oblivious, motioned back the way we’d come. “East wing.”
I spun on my heels and reversed course toward the west wing. Out of the way but better than spending any more time with Florian.
“Wow. I can see you’re not a Monday person. Later, then.” She backed into the crowd, disappearing among our churning classmates, and I continued on to where I needed to be. Class, then lunch, then, according to Fuse, an after-school meeting to “get my poetry on.”
Seaside Poets met in Mr. Martin’s Earth Science classroom. A strange place for engaging in poetry; the Layers of the Earth poster didn’t seem all that inspirational to me. Maybe a more creative mind could find the linguistic beauty between the mantle and the crust. I lingered near the door. Mr. Martin, who had white earbuds screwed in while hunched over papers, didn’t look up from his grading when I entered.
Shameik was front and center, sliding desks forward from their normal daytime placement. He spotted me and didn’t offer much of a greeting.
When Fuse asked me if I knew him, I didn’t lie, though I downplayed my awareness. Shameik was one of those boys. Attractive and tallish, he had most girls by five inches, though I had him by two. His haircut was always sharp, and angular at his temples. His eyes brown and his skin dark and smooth. He dressed well, spoke well, had all the traits that would make most girls at least think about whatever came out of his mouth.
Shameik was the kind of boy Paris once thought neither of us would ever have a chance with. I guess notoriety changed her mind.
“You looking for somebody?” he asked, but not in a friendly or helpful way.
“I was hoping I could have a word with you.”
More people entered the room chatty and upbeat until they recognized me, then their voices flattened under the tension. I was seriously questioning Fuse’s strategy here.
The latest Seaside Poet arrivals perched in random desks. Whether I’d be staying was still up in the air, so I didn’t eye any particular spot.
Shameik saved me the trouble. He motioned to the middle desk among the five he’d arranged. “Have a seat.”
I felt the stares as I made my way to the designated chair. Everyone else remained behind me, chatting about their own stuff, so being this close to Shameik felt personal, like having a conversation at a table in a crowded restaurant. Our space was our space.
Before I came here, Fuse had tried coaching me on things I should say in a volley of last-minute texts. Ways to make him trust me.
FUSE
Don’t start out talking ParSec. Ask him about Seaside Poets, slowly work your way to where he was the night we found her. Should be easy enough to check for lies.
FUSE
If he gets suspicious about why you’re there, say you knew the club meant a lot to her.
FUSE
It didn’t. Not really but he liked to think it did. They were funny like that.
ME
What do you mean “funny”?
FUSE
Face-to-face for that. Too deep to text.
Despite her tips, I felt clumsy at this spy game. Exposed. Especially when he said, “You want to talk about Paris.”
“Ummmm.” This was not the plan.
He turned away, uncapped a dry-erase marker from the tray at the base of Mr. Martin’s whiteboard, and began writing numbers in a column.
More people spilled into the room. I’d heard Seaside Poets was a popular club, but I didn’t know it was this popular. There were at least fifteen people present, and more coming.
“How’d you hear?” Shameik asked, before gazing past me and doing the pointing-and-mouthing-numbers thing people do when they’re getting a head count but also want to look cool while getting a head count. He nodded, satisfied, then waited for his answer.
“Hear what?” I was supposed to be interrogating him.
“I thought you and Paris weren’t really that cool anymore …” He made a dismissive waving gesture. “Still, there you were, at that memorial service. I saw pictures on the Gram. So now I don’t know what to think. Sure didn’t expect you to want to do any heavy lifting.”
That was the problem when you lost your App Nerd Friends and your Music Superstar Friend in the same year. Nothing in between made sense. What did heavy lifting mean?
Panicking, needing to regain control of this thing, I leaned on Fuse’s advice. Made it about the club. “I wanted to talk about Seaside Poets. It meant a lot to Paris.”
His head tilted, and sun hit his brown eyes in a way that reminded me of pretty autumn leaves and summer heat at the same time. Did he practice that look?
“You’re here”—he squinted, scrutinizing—“to talk about poetry?”
“Yes.” Stick to the plan.
/> He nodded, faced the whiteboard, and added my name next to the number one.
“Fine,” he said, loud. “Let’s talk poetry. You first.” Then, to the room, “Everyone, we got an initiation today, a new voice among us. Come closer and let’s hear what New Girl Kya got to say.”
A small fire erupted under my skin, roasting my neck, cheeks, and forehead as faces I only knew from class, the hall, and the cafeteria became a zombie horde, closing in around me, hungry.
Escaping the desk I occupied, I rushed close to Shameik, forcing my tone decisive instead of pleading when I said, “No. I don’t know any poetry.”
“Go off top, then. Freestyle. You’ll get good feedback from this group. They’ll make your skin thick.”
“I don’t want thick skin. I don’t want feedback.” I’d gotten plenty of both when I was much younger and wasn’t anxious for more. Yet, my audience waited. Nearly twenty sets of staring, expectant eyes. I’d rather be back in that van with the Dark Nation.
“Well?” Shameik said.
Flashbacks to a different life—a different Kya—came to mind. Comfort and discomfort at once, adrenaline spikes, stepping onstage, the moment just before you open your mouth, and—
Shameik laughed, a deep belly buster. A few others followed suit—Seaside Poets who knew this wasn’t the procedure, I guessed—but mostly folks looked confused. A freshman girl raised her hand and spoke without being called on. “Is this not the meeting about the concert?”
“Concert?” I said, nervous all over again.
Shameik, mischievous, said, “SP meeting’s been preempted this week. We’re using the space to plan a ParSec concert.”
He erased my name, then added different words next to the number one. Now it said, “Divide into teams.”
Next to the number two he wrote: “Each team drafts a to-do list.”
And so on.
Bristling, I wrapped my mind around the impossibility of a concert by a dead musician. Unless you were talking one of those hologram things like they did for Tupac that time.
Shameik explained further, his playful demeanor darkening. “That memorial service you went to was garbage. None of her fans were allowed in. None of her friends. Those of us who loved her for real are going to do something for real. A memorial concert. I was even able to convince Paris’s manager to assist.”
