On the Come Up

by Hannah Weyer

  Who was it?

  I don’t know. He called last night, a couple times. I said you were out.

  She heard the shower go off, saw the steam curl out the crack of the bathroom door like some kinda phantom-ghost.

  When Niki opened the door, she looked at AnnMarie and laughed. What’s the matter with you?

  AnnMarie scowled. Nothing, she said. You gonna let me in?

  Niki motioned her inside and AnnMarie followed. Niki leading the way, clunking down the hall in some shiny black combat boots, a Knicks cap riding high up on her head. AnnMarie knew how she looked—chapped lips, baggy eyes and hungry. She was hungry. Tears stung the back of her nose, any second she gonna lose it.

  In the kitchen, Niki sat her down in a chair, put a sandwich on a plate and slid it across the table. Niki said, I comb it out for you but you know I can’t do no braid, gotta get Nadette to do that. You see the zigzag she put in Dennis hair, now that be crack-snapple-dope. AnnMarie laughed. She took a bite of sandwich, chewed and allowed a single tear to pop out, run silent down her cheek. Niki didn’t notice, standing behind her, stroking the comb through her hair, the whole time talking about the order a songs, how the order matter on a album, so there be flow.

  8

  The next day, she went to school. In through the blue doors, past the metal detector, clocking in before first bell. She went straight to Ms. Henley’s class, took a seat. Ms. Henley looked up and said, Hello stranger.

  Brittany breezed by in the hallway, did a double take then backed up, her big-ass frame blocking the doorway. She was wearing a too-tight velour sweat suit, matching, black on black with a neon purple zipper. Smiling now, staring right at her. AnnMarie just tsked and looked straight ahead. Knobby-kneed bitch. Cameltoe muthafucker. Better get yourself to the Big and Tall.

  Second bell rang, Ms. Henley crossed to the door as Brittany danced away, laughing. Ms. Henley shushed them, then read aloud from a book about a girl who dress in cutoffs and T-shirts when all the other girls be wearing skirts and dresses, ain’t afraid a nobody judging her. This girl can run fast, faster than all the boys and they hate her for it. Ms. Henley said, Write a paragraph about someone you know, use descriptive language, de-scrip-tive language.

  AnnMarie took her pencil out and got serious. She thought for a moment, then wrote:

  My home-girl Niki is like the karacter. Got the baggie jeans, white tees hangin down. She dont care what no body think she just is her self. Niki be comfertabul. Smile easy. Rah, rah, raspy voice, Niki got atatud for shore. Thats how the karact

  Somebody belched like a sea lion and she glanced up, losing her train of thought. She drew a small heart in the corner, then turned it into a skinny-waisted girl. Lil’ Kim came to mind, squatting in the bikini, that little pose a hers, up on Darius’ wall.

  At lunch, AnnMarie looked for Mr. Preston but he wasn’t in the music room or the classroom where he taught math 2nd and 3rd period. She caught a glimpse of Brittany across the cafeteria and decided to cut out to Mel’s for lunch. Took the ten-dollar bill from her pocket, slid it across the counter. Got herself a hero and a Coke.

  AnnMarie kept her eyes open in the hallway. Drifted through pre-algebra, then earth science. Sixth-period choir. AnnMarie took a seat in the front row away from Brittany. Substitute teacher walked in five minutes late, said, Mr. Preston is out. Do homework ’cause I’m a sub, not a singer. Brittany slung her backpack over her shoulder, dropped a note in AnnMarie’s lap and walked out the classroom. AnnMarie didn’t bother reading it. She crumpled it up, let it fall to the floor.

  Bell rang, school out. AnnMarie sprang up and headed for the doors. She knew what was coming but she went out anyway, Reeboks squeaking, lockers slamming, kids pushing out the doors, their voices loud and happy the day be done.

  Outside, Mr. Stubbs was already on the street, walkie in hand, his eyes on a group of boys gathering across the street. Uh-oh, something up. Five, six, seven of them standing, ain’t saying nothing, got that bored look they must practice in the mirror. AnnMarie glanced away, saw Brittany pushing out the door, Tag-along 1 and Tag-along 2 trailing in her wake like she the queen a queens. Fuck that girl. Ain’t no way she backing down. AnnMarie’s eyes cut to Mr. Stubbs who was crossing the street, moving toward the boys on the corner and it was then that she saw him, Darius Greene, leaning against the fence, looking her way, into the crowd where she stood.

  Her heart just leapt up and hung in her throat.

  What he doing?

  Oh-my-gawd.

  What he doing here?

  Music blasting out a headphones, kids passing, but no one going anywhere ’cause you could feel it. Something in the air. Patrice and Katelyn at her side, saying, Hey AnnMarie. The two of them stopping ’cause everybody likes a fight, that’s for sure.

  Even Brittany had stopped to watch. Mr. Stubbs saying, Go home. Go home. Go home. But none of them budged, nah-uh, not for Stubbs in a guard uniform, no gun. They looked past him to some far-off point in the distance. Go home. Go home. Go home. Then, in one fluid motion, Darius pushed himself off the fence and was coming across the street, looking right at her now, and it was as if he’d signaled their release because the wanna-be Bloods broke up, swaggered off in a ripple, leaving Mr. Stubbs standing on the corner alone.

  Go home. Go home. Go home.

  All the kids felt it, AnnMarie was sure, their eyes glued on him as he stepped up onto the curb and touched her elbow. Hers.

  Her heart flopping like a fish trying to breathe air.

  How come you never home, he said.

  She smiled, felt her lips dry against her teeth and she was about to speak when Brittany moved past, pretending like she don’t see, pretending like AnnMarie don’t exist at all.

  Well.

  AnnMarie watched her pass, then glanced up at him, saw the dimple his smile made right there on his cheek. Pretty smile.

  studio time

  9

  After that, he started calling.

  He’d say, When you coming back to the studio.

  Sometimes they’d talk on the phone for hours, her mother giving her a look, like Who that. Who that on the phone again. But AnnMarie’d turn her back and listen to him telling her about the new one out by RZA, the raw sound, the hip-hop breakout.

  You got to have a work ethic, feel me—got to know how to show your swag but also be a businessman. You want to go out to Jamaica, fine. Talk to JJ, Paul Red, gather up the young rappers, make a mixtape. Then you think distribution, you feel me.

  Yeah, okay.

  We was at the Palace last night. Big Mike, he step aside, let me have a go—we tore the place down. People went stupid for that shit. People went dumb.

  Tha’s crazy. I wish I coulda been there.

  Yeah, yeah, he’d say.

  And she’d wait, halfways holding her breath. Wondering what he gonna say next, wondering what gonna come next.

  You work on your a cappella, I lay you down too.

  Ann Marie smiled.

  Stupid in the head with love.

  She started to sing every day. Walking to school. In choir, math class, earth science—it don’t matter, a melody floated through her head. At home, she started taking long showers, singing one song after another, sometimes switching up the rhythm of a cover song, letting a note hang in the air, stretching it out for as long as she had breath, Carlton banging on the door, yelling, Ain’t you clean yet. But she didn’t care. Fuck him.

  She’d heard the stories. How Darius got into it. The fights, stabbing people in the head, sticking up stores. It was outlaw, Far Rock through and through. One day they was out walking. Heading to Three Kings for the steak and eggs he got hungry for. They passed a fella who glanced her way and before AnnMarie knew what was happening, Darius had stepped to him—The fuck you looking at? The fuck you doing, put your eyes back in your head. In the restaurant he slid into the booth, flipped open the menu and said, What you want, AnnMarie? I got you. And she’d smiled, her eyes swimming across th
e page. She’d seen the boy flinch. She’d seen it.

  He showed her what was behind the door, pulled it open when she’d asked. It was a walk-in closet. No clothes in there. Just a bed on the floor, a perfect fit, no room for anything else but a orange crate with candles melted down and a bottle of E&J. No room for anything ’cept two bodies, laying side by side. When she turned in the doorway, he didn’t step aside. They stood there, nearly touching, and it didn’t take much to close the space between them, his lips on hers, drawing her in. First kiss. Sweet kiss, fingers brushing skin.

  She thought it was funny, him throwing up gang signs shirtless in front of the mirror, blat blat blat. She watched him make his face hard, curve those fingers just so, the whole world afraid of him. Even Carlton musta heard who he was ’cause the day Darius came by to pick her up, he hid in her room. Darius said, Is that him and AnnMarie nodded, watching him cross the living room, push open her door and stand there, his back to her, saying something she couldn’t hear. But Carlton stopped bothering her after that, stopped talking to her altogether. Two ships passing. She’d think, Who you now, punk ass. Who you now.

  Three weeks they’d been together, getting serious for real, like candy and song dedications, when word spread that a house party going down at 36 Gipson Street. Teisha and Sunshine put her in this badass off-the-shoulder tee, skintight Jordache and a pair a heels she had to practice walking in they so high. They left without Niki, Nadette tsking, saying it’s her own fault she late. And AnnMarie didn’t care right then, her head buzzing, giddy ’cause she going out—the girls was taking her out and Darius had said, I see you there.

  By the time they arrived, the party was spilling people, boys mostly, most a them old, high-school age and older. AnnMarie felt her heart thumping as Sunshine leaned in and said, See that fella next to Darius—that’s Big Mike. We wanna get noticed, we gotta get to the mic.

  AnnMarie watched Teisha and Nadette push their way through the crowd, moving toward the big man at the center of the throng. Sunshine nudged her, passing her a silver flask. AnnMarie sipped, then sipped again, felt the heat in her throat. The house music had gone dead, feedback screeched and bounced off the walls, then a bass line start to thump and somebody up there freestyling. AnnMarie lifted up out of her heels to see over shoulders and sure enough a cypher had begun, loose circle forming, homies ramped up, rocking they heads to the rhymes.

  She could see Darius up there too. What he doing. Behind the turntables, next to Big Mike—lifting vinyl from a crate. Getting ready for the next thing. Must be. AnnMarie felt Niki step up next to her and she turned, hugging her tight.

  What up, what up, what up, Niki said.

  We been waiting for you, AnnMarie hollered, then saw that she’d come with the plump girl Latania who she’d met one time before.

  Sunshine flicked her gaze at Latania, then yanked Niki aside. AnnMarie couldn’t hear nothing what they saying but Sunshine’s mouth was moving like What you doing? What the fuck you doing? Niki back up in her face, both of them mad tight, then she gone. Through the crowd, gone, leaving Latania to follow after.

  And as quickly as it started, the cypher ended, circle broke apart, fellas reaching for their cups, lighters hitting blunts, Big Mike’s voice amplified, saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah … We got some fine young shorties in the house tonight, call themselves the Night Shade. Sunshine pushed AnnMarie from behind. Go on, go up there.

  AnnMarie stumbled in the high heels but worked her way through the crowd to the front of the room.

  Darius looked up and they eyes met but Nadette was saying, Where’s Niki. Where she at? Sunshine in Nadette’s ear and AnnMarie saw all them fellas out there, staring, like Who the fuck these chicks. What the fuck can they do. Then the microphone was in her hand and Teisha was saying, We ain’t got Niki. Go, go, go …

  Out the corner her eye, she saw the needle drop and knew the song before the first few bars reached her ears—a slow-jam instrumental Darius liked to play and he was looking at her now, nodding his head, uhn, uhn, uhn, so she raised the mic to her lips and sang.

  Yeah, she hushed them. “Goin’ Down.” She sang the lyrics but made it her own, finding the backbeat as the pulse, her voice lifting, pushing toward the ceiling, spreading sweet and clear. And when she opened her eyes, she saw it—all the people sway, Darius stepping up next to her, his mouth close to her ear, he said, Damn girl, you made them dumb.

  And then she was his. Feet tucked up on the couch, watching him behind the console. People coming in and out the little studio room. Rappers freestyling, some a them with pieces a paper, song words on a napkin, some a them good, but some rhymes so terrible, AnnMarie just had to cringe. It didn’t seem to matter though, down there in the studio room, ’cause they all wanted it—the stripped-down beats, samples from “Renegade,” “Die for You,” “Phat Burn”—flowing from the speakers, Darius saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go again.

  Wallace came by one day. His fade grown out, the covered by a black do-rag tied snug around his head.

  What up, AnnMarie … How you feel, he said smiling, but he seemed nervous, shifting a old gym bag from one hand to the other. She stood up from the couch and hugged him. She’d heard his father was back in Far Rock, living again with his mother. Wallace hadn’t been to choir in weeks.

  Where you been, Wallace.

  Nah, nah, nah … Call me Stack.

  AnnMarie laughed. Oh, okay … you stacking now?

  Word. Hustle for the stack, you know it.

  How come you ain’t been to choir. Everybody miss you.

  Been working on a mixtape and whatnot, trying to put something together.

  He pulled a CD from his gym bag, the zipper broke, and passed it to Darius. Here’s the track I was telling you about. Check it.

  Darius put the CD in the player and they listened, Wallace’s voice like a grown man, rich and deep, his freestyle words weaving a story, a Redfern story about throwin’ down and survival.

  AnnMarie said, Dang, Wallace. You got a ill flow. I didn’t know you was rappin’ now.

  Wallace smiled. Trying my hand and whatnot.

  Word, Darius said, thoughtfully. Sound like a hit.

  Wallace glanced at him, then ducked his head. Give it to Big Mike? I owes you.

  Darius said, Yeah, I show it around. I give it to him.

  But soon as he left, Darius tossed the CD in the trash.

  AnnMarie looked at him, surprised. Why you do that? You didn’t like it?

  Competition, baby. Competition.

  One Sunday before the party on Gipson Street, Darius had been out with his homies. AnnMarie wanted to jump out her skin, her mind on him 24/7, skin atingle, the memory of his touch, his lips on hers, locking her in a daze of love ache. No way she could stay inside with Blessed all day, so she wandered over to Niki’s.

  Niki’s brother Bodie opened the door. He said, They in there.

  She climbed the stairs, heard a soft rustling and pushed open the bedroom door.

  At first AnnMarie didn’t know what they doing, why Niki was pressed up against the plump girl like that. Then she saw Niki’s hands draw away, her lips pulling out of a kiss and AnnMarie took a step back, startled.

  What you want, AnnMarie? Niki said sharply.

  Oh. Sorry, I was just looking for y’alls.

  Niki snapped the pick from her back pocket and started working it through her cinnamon curls. Sorry, AnnMarie said again. She crossed the room and sat on Niki’s bed. No one said anything for a minute, then AnnMarie pulled out a pack of Kools and said, You want one? Sure, I have one, the girl said and plucked a smoke from the pack.

  She said, I’m Latania, who you? AnnMarie told the girl her name, then they lit up, blowing streams out the open window. Latania said, Turn on the radio, Niki, so Niki put on the radio and they listened to Hot 97 for a while, DJ Drastic playing a string of songs, and by the time “Waterfalls” came on, Niki seemed to’ve relaxed and they all started in about the hottest girl groups—TLC, En Vo
gue, SWV, Destiny’s Child …

  Later, Latania caught a dollar van back to Jamaica where her mother lived and Niki walked AnnMarie home.

  They walked a ways in silence. Niki’s shoulder brushing hers, cigarette smell still on her breath.

  Don’t say nothing to Nadette.

  Nadette? Why would I.

  Jus’ don’t say nothing to nobody.

  AnnMarie said, I won’t.

  And she didn’t. But she thought about all the times Niki had slipped off with Nadette, all the things she hadn’t known, and it crystallized right then, how sometimes you grow up without nobody having to explain.

  In the walk-in, Darius had said, Come lay with me a small little minute.

  And when he eased himself into her slow, he whispered, You okay, you okay, baby …? His lips by her ear, hands running down her body. Stroking. Licking, making her wet.

  She’d said, Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

  holdin’ it down

  10

  If you asked her now, years later, she’d tell you it wasn’t one thing in particular—a certain beef or comment dropped, the need for retaliation or an unspoken urge that made her life spin off the way it did. There’d been the studio room and the walk-in closet and the fact they was fucking like bunnies, AnnMarie thinking Darius was It—the be-all, end-all, the rope that tethered her. Coulda been the situation that happened in high school with the silver fox–lined coat or Carlton and Carlotta still in the house or the memories popping up outta the blue. Coulda been. Or maybe it was that she started to sense the smallness of her life, knew lines had been drawn but didn’t know how to cross them.

  Far Rock.

  The Rock.

  Lost Town, Ghost Town.

  Niki had told her once, Far Rock was built on top of an old graveyard. Bones buried all the way from Bayswater to Bannister. She wondered if it was true.