“It’s not a sample. It’s Mike and Darryl. Just listen for a minute and tell me what you think.”
He pulled her down to sit next to him and put the headphones over her ears. Shawn watched her face change from indifference to attentiveness to admiration. Even Riley. And she didn’t even like rap. After a couple minutes, she took the headphones off and stopped the music.
“Okay. Let’s go get something to eat.”
“Hold up a second,” he said. “Tell me what you thought when you heard it. Your gut feeling.”
She sighed, thinking about it for a second or two. “Some of it was shocking. But I kind of respected them for having the balls to say it.”
“And what else?” Shawn prompted. “What about the style?”
Riley sighed again. “I don’t know.”
“Just tell me what you thought. You don’t need to know about rap music. Just tell me what it made you feel.”
She must have heard the urgency in his voice, seen that it was important to him for some reason because she answered right away.
“It made me feel like these guys might be dangerous. Like they’re violent.”
It was an impulsive response, but a genuine one. Shawn leaned back into the sofa.
“That’s exactly the shit that sells,” he said.
Riley didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she was shedding her jacket, putting her pocketbook on the floor.
“They have nowhere near the kind of talent you have,” she said. “Not even close.”
Shawn looked at her and smiled, brushing his finger against the side of her nose. “You think so, huh?”
“I know so. Anybody can rap about guns and killing and robbing. And if they have someone like Chris to put in a good beat, it sounds like something with substance. But all it is is a gimmick. And you’re not a gimmick, Shawn,” she said. “You’re an artist. Don’t ever forget that.”
Shawn pulled her toward him, kissing her firmly on the lips. “Let’s go get some dinner,” he said.
Later, in bed he stared into the dark trying to empty his head of the racing thoughts that kept sleep at bay. His CD was holding strong at #3 on Billboard, and he was in demand all over the country. Hell, all over the world. But after hearing Mike and Darryl’s CD, he couldn’t shake the restless, uneasy feeling like something was close on his heels.
They had the one thing he knew he had lost – hunger. They could taste the fame they didn’t have, the money they hadn’t made; all the things he had grown accustomed to years ago. That was what happened to guys like him – they got comfortable, they lost the anger and the fire that made their rhymes sound like wails of desperation. Brothers in the street needed to hear that. They wanted someone to give voice to the feelings they had bottled deep inside with no constructive outlet. He used to have that, and sometimes he still did. But only sometimes.
Southeast D.C. was so far behind him that he had to dig deeper and deeper each time to connect to the wellspring of longing that made his rhymes relevant. People didn’t understand why some rappers who made millions of dollars kept going back to the ‘hood, to places that were dangerous and bleak and hopeless. It was because they had to reconnect to the things that made them who they were. That was what was keeping him awake right now; the fear that he no longer had anything to say worth listening to. What the hell did he know about struggle anymore? You couldn’t fake through that shit; one thing about hip-hop fans, they knew real when they heard it.
Riley was already asleep and on her side facing him, one arm stretched above her head, the other resting on his chest. If he moved, she moved with him keeping close by his side even though asleep. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would burrow into him, so close that she would almost shove him off the edge of the bed. When she was awake, she was so damned self-sufficient, but asleep, she clung to him like a child.
Shawn wished he had the guts to wake her up and confess all the fears that were circling about in his mind.
All evening she’d persisted, asking him what was bothering him, so why hadn’t he told her?
It wasn’t as though they didn’t talk. They talked all the time, for hours and hours about nothing in particular, laughing and teasing each other, telling stupid stories about their days. But he knew that she’d noticed that there were some things he didn’t share. The only weakness he’d ever acknowledged to Riley was the one he had for her. And if it hadn’t been the only way to keep her, he might not even have acknowledged that much.
She turned over in her sleep with a light murmur, pushing her butt into his groin. Shawn put an arm around her, pulling her closer, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. Her skin was cool and slightly prickly from her haircut. He wished he could lay there forever, kissing the back of his wife’s neck, smelling her warm, clean, comfortable smell and never having to face the outside world where time seemed to be catching up with him.
g
Chapter Ten
Hotel living was losing its appeal. He used to love being on the road; the unfamiliarity of each new place, even the antiseptic smell of the suites, the crispness of the sheets, and the women. Especially the women. They were different in every city. The way they talked, the way they dressed, the way they wore their hair. All different and all good. Every morning used to feel like an adventure and every evening, after business was over with, he and Brendan would hit two or three nightclubs, picking up female companions as they went, enjoying the attention and VIP treatment, exploiting the hell out of it.
Nightclubs were where his music came alive. Watching people experience it in the real world instead of at a concert was indescribable. From the VIP spot Shawn listened to the shouts of appreciation when one of his songs came on; he watched women grab their girlfriends by the hand and rush to the dance-floor if they didn’t already have dance partners, and the guys’ heads bopping on beat. Each and every time he witnessed it, it amazed and humbled him that so many people could care so much about anything he played a role in creating.
But the nightlife was a double-edged sword; no matter what city it was, dudes sometimes got aggressive. They got drunk and wanted to prove to their boys or their girl that they were too cool to be impressed by him, that they weren’t afraid to fight him. Women were aggressive too, but in a different way. They followed him to the Men’s Room, tried to literally back him into corners or handed him their numbers written on napkins, receipts and once on a pair of white satin panties.
Even women who came with their men tried to get to him. They made eye contact with him over their boyfriends’ shoulders and walked by his table more than necessary. Sometimes there were as many as ten women who repeatedly walked by for no discernible reason other than to be noticed. He and Brendan used to joke about it. They called it the Livestock Show. Now he went to clubs and didn’t even notice the “livestock”. At least not most of the time.
Instead, he found his mind wandering, thinking about stupid things like the sight of his wife stepping out of the shower; those few precious seconds when lying in bed, he spotted her naked as she reached for her robe. Or the way she sometimes dived back under the covers, damp and cool and clean, complaining about having to go to the office when he could sleep in; her favorite light citrus scent lingering in the bedroom long after she’d left. There was no way some chick in a short skirt with too much make-up and a waist-length hair weave could compete with that. So he ignored the livestock.
Ignoring Keisha on the other hand, was a little more difficult. Even while he was in California, she still found ways to get to him. Mike and Darryl were along for the ride promoting the tour, so Shawn figured that was how she’d gotten his number. Now she was calling almost every day and it had gotten to the point where everybody was making jokes about it.
Sometimes, Darryl told him, you have to fuck ‘em to get rid of ‘em.
Shawn had looked at him evenly. Maybe that works for you, son. But with me, that’s what makes them want to stick around.
Despi
te his best efforts, occasionally, he would wonder what it would be like to tap that, just one time. And the funny thing about it was that he could see how it would almost be possible to have Keisha and leave what he had with Riley untouched. The two women were so different they didn’t even seem like they were part of the same species.
With Keisha, it would be straight fucking – some buck-wild, triple-X type shit. But it was better not to entertain that thought process for too long. He almost slipped up and mentioned it to Brendan but when it came to Riley, lately his boy had turned holier-than-thou. In his own way, B had fallen in love with her too and now had a brotherly protective instinct toward Riley that made it very unlikely he would commiserate.
The best Shawn could do where Keisha was concerned was to avoid her. For every five calls she made, he answered maybe one. And in fairness, he did start out every conversation intending to get rid of her but somehow after a couple minutes she would have him talking about his music and she quietly listened to all the minor details that made his wife’s eyes glaze over in boredom. The last time he’d spoken to her, she asked him why Riley hadn’t flown out to the West Coast with him and he almost answered, because the separation didn’t really sit well with him in the first place. It was something he would have happily complained about to a willing listener but he caught himself in the nick of time and cut that shit off before it became habitual.
I don’t talk about my wife with anyone, he told her.
That shut her down for a couple seconds, but she hastily recovered, and laughed.
Dag, she said. I was just making conversation.
Yeah, right.
It helped that he called home every night and sometimes he and Riley talked until one of them fell asleep. Her voice in his head was always the last thing he heard. Being away from her was still uncomfortable and he kept waiting for the complacency that people said came from being married, but so much about her still felt elusive, which was probably what kept him hooked.
When he called, she wasn’t always home, and she didn’t always have time to talk to him when he reached her on her cell phone either. Last week he’d called as she was about to sit down to a lunch meeting, so she’d only answered long enough to tell him she would call him back later. And just before she hung up, Shawn heard her greet the person she was meeting with.
Wow, she said. You look great! I haven’t seen you since that . . .
And then the line went dead. He’d spent the better part of the next hour obsessing about who this phantom lunch date might be and what the occasion was when Riley had seen them last. It was the dumbest thing, but he was almost jealous of her past, of every single day she had spent without him and every single person who had known her when he had not. And more than that, he didn’t quite know what to make of the fact that while his life had been turned upside down, she seemed to have folded him into her life just fine, continuing on just as before.
For years in this business, he’d watched the girlfriends and wives of other performers literally quit their lives to focus one hundred percent on their man. Jobs, friends, homes, and familiar places all left behind so they could guard what had become their most important asset – their relationship with a star. The only thing they seemed to take time out for was making babies.
Riley showed absolutely no inclination to follow that pattern – she was about as interested in his work as the wife of a country doctor might be. And as for making babies, she hadn’t even breathed a word about that which was just fine with him. For now. Her writing was her baby as far as he could tell.
She didn’t always tell him about the projects she was working on and he didn’t always ask, but this afternoon when he called Chris and found out for the first time that Riley was going by his office to do an interview the next morning, it felt like a line had been crossed.
Why didn’t she tell him that?
Shawn wasn’t sure how to feel about this unexpected intersection between his personal and work lives. He’d been fine with Riley meeting Chris, but this, this was something else altogether. For starters, he wouldn’t be there.
Across the hall, Mike and Darryl were in their dressing room, hollering and playing music and probably drinking much more than they should. They were opening for him until their CD dropped, and then depending on how they did, shit, he might be opening for them. Their flavor was East Coast raw. Heavier bass, no background dancers, minimal pyrotechnics. Just pure rhyming skills and some serious thug attitude.
The press they were getting for naming themselves Glock was creating buzz about their music even though half the tracks hadn’t even been mixed yet. And the last two shows they did climaxed with them emptying bottles of malt liquor on the people in the front rows. For awhile those two idiots were talking about making that part of every show until Brendan and the tour manager put the kibosh on the plan, telling them that they were “exposing the show to litigation”. Not to mention that Mike and Darryl were underage and had no business being in possession of alcohol in the first place. Personally, Shawn thought the whole thing was unnecessary drama. Whatever happened to letting the music speak for itself?
“What you doin’ sittin’ in here all by yourself, man?”
The door had burst open and Darryl was standing there, blunted out of his mind, pupils dilated, eyes unfocused and wild. That was his pre-show ritual. Herb, herb and more herb.
“Just chillin’.”
“We got wall to wall honeys, we got Sambuca, we got . . .”
“I can’t get down like that before the show.”
Darryl shook his head. “You sure, man? I’m tellin’ you, it’s off the hook up in . . .”
“Later.”
Shawn shut the door in Darryl’s face and was alone again. Moments later, Brendan came in and handed him the phone. It was Riley, calling to wish him luck, babbling on about a rug she’d bought for the bedroom (did he like burgundy for the floor just outside his dressing room?) and the call she’d gotten from a magazine asking her to do an interview (wasn’t that weird, people wanting to interview her and she was a reporter?) and on and on.
He waited, but she didn’t mention her interview with Chris.
“So you’re seeing Chris tomorrow.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Can you believe that? Me interviewing Chris who you know I can’t stand. I don’t even know what to do with the interview once I’ve done it.”
“So why’re you doing it?”
“Because look what came of it when I interviewed you.” There was a moment’s silence while she absorbed that he did not find the comparison amusing. “Why? Do you not want me to do it?”
“No. Not really.”
“Anyway. You’re going to have a great show. Call me when you get to the hotel. Love you.”
She hung up before he could respond and Shawn knew it was because she didn’t want him trying to talk her out of the interview, which he’d fully intended to do. Tomorrow Riley would sit in Chris’ office being fed a line of bullshit. Not too many people knew where he’d had gotten his start-up capital, but Shawn did and it wasn’t pretty.
And now Riley would be walking into his domain with her little pad and pencil thinking she was getting the real deal on a superstar record producer. Chris could be a charming fucker too, that was the thing. He played that “little boy lost” thing to the hilt, having women thinking they could save him from himself . . .
“You want to come watch the set?”
Brendan had stuck his head in to remind him that Mike and Darryl were onstage doing their thing. Shawn could hear the crowd and the music gaining momentum and his own adrenaline rush began. He followed Brendan to the closest wing where he got a good view of Mike and Darryl tearing it up, stomping and jumping around onstage as they rapped.
The show’s producer had managed, against all odds to channel them into a kind of organized chaos that capitalized on their wildness and indiscipline. It would be near impossible to watch these two and not have your pulse increase. And
their voices were good together. Mike and Darryl had that perfect balance that was difficult to find with two male voices. They weren’t just going to be big they were going to be huge. Young bloods were taking over the game. Their energy was different, their message was different and it played well with the fans. He was riding a crest that was enviable by anyone’s yardstick but in eighteen to twenty-four months max, he would have to come out with a brand new sound or step aside for Glock and others like them.
By the time he went on, Shawn was pumped up from the music and the people and the anticipation of it all. The crowd went crazy when he got onstage, screaming and yelling for almost a full minute before he could get started. But when it did start, it was like going into a higher plane of consciousness. He moved and rapped like this was the last, the only audience he would perform for. Then halfway through the set, he noticed in the front row, about a half dozen girls who looked like they were barely teenagers. They were screaming his real name, calling him ‘Shawn’ instead of Smooth and it was so distracting that he shifted his focus to the other side of the stage and hung out there for awhile until he could find his groove again.
Soon he was dripping with sweat, so he removed his sweatshirt, and then the t-shirt underneath to screams from women in the audience. No one believed it, but he never took his clothes off just for that reaction. Nobody except for other performers understood how hot it got up there, and short of coming out with no shirt to begin with, he had to take it off during the performance. Usually he dropped it to the side, and someone from backstage retrieved them to stop some crazy chick from climbing up and trying to score a souvenir.
He continued until he could feel his voice about to break, then thankfully and almost unexpectedly, the houselights went down. Once in awhile he found himself in a place that was almost sacred, like an out-of-body experience – he was almost completely unaware of the noise, the crowd, the lights and the music. There was just him and the mike. When he was done, the crowd kept up their relentless roar until the music stopped.
Commitment Page 26
