The Alchemists of Kush

by Minister Faust

  “I’M THE EMCEE NAMED SUPREME RAPTOR,” blared Rap, well-rehearsed, dizzy offa nerves.

  Pac adjusted the volume.

  “AND THIS IS MOBILE DEEJAY JACKIE CHAN ON THE WHEEL OF STEEL.”

  Pac finished adjusting.

  “And this here is Super-Producer Pacman Prime. And we’re the new crew in town.

  “Called Golden Eye.”

  Someone’d turned off the berimbau CD, and the capoeristas had stopped prancing, just standing, hands on hips or arms folded in frustration at the interruption.

  JC turned up the beat and the vocals. Rap’s fist tightened on the mic like he was riding lightning.

  Cap-o-eira, cap-o-eira,

  Got some thoughts I wanna share ya

  People listenin: I’ma scare ya

  People listenin: I’ma dare ya

  Some kids in the crowd whooped. Probably never’d seen a diss show live. Then again, neither had Rap.

  The 808 drums thumped in like a giant’s footfalls, crashing through the sampled strings of the intro to Carl Douglas’s “Kung fu Fighting,” mashing-up into the accelerated slap bass of Cameo’s “Skin I’m In.”

  And Rap leapt back in:

  Why do you steal our culcha

  Ya vulcha, lemme insult-cha,

  You flip-floppin clowns

  Dance to me an I will mulch ya

  You’re triflin, an stifling,

  An thiefin up our dreadlocks

  Lookin dreadful … an deadful

  I-might just-give-ya-some headknocks

  Ya acrobatic preppies

  An yuppies lookin-like-guppies

  Tryin-to-fake the funk

  They-step-to-me-an-say “Whassup, G?”

  I aintcha homey or ya brotha

  Defin-IT-ely not your lover

  So back away from Black

  And getcha hands up off my mother!

  JC scratched dozens of chirps, even did the bird, and dozens of teens in the park crowded forward while Rap re-rhymed the opening chorus.

  Rap: legs like springs on every bound and leap, lungs pumping, soaring.

  Capoeira leader, Mr. Taye Diggs, standing on the cobblestones, glaring.

  Three of his male students looking at each other, What’re we gonna do about this? built into their faces.

  Ya breakdancin smurfs

  Are rich but worthless, and turfless

  You’re-callin-my ancestors “slaves”

  But you savages-lived-in-caves

  Up in the Savage Lands

  Your savage plan I understand

  You Pyrites tryinna steal

  The gold of old—I will not fold

  Because I’m Nu-bi-an, I’m true bein

  The sun that conquers cold

  On the edge of Rap’s vision, Pac’s brother ripped away in the minivan, escaping the #5 bus pulling in.

  Rap, hoping they wouldn’t hafta bug out before Luqman orbited back.

  Cap-o-eira? Double-dare ya

  Dancing freaks, you think we scareda

  You? You freaking losers?

  Boozers, probably cruisers

  You’re wussy wimps in white pajamas

  Fightin you would be a snooza!

  Capoeristas.

  Into a phalanx.

  And then advanced.

  Rap caught JC’s and Pac’s eyes:

  Wrap it up NOW.

  Belted out his last chorus while his new teen fans howled laughter and cheers.

  I dare ya, double-dare ya

  Triple-dare ya, Cap-o-eira!

  Aint scareda ya flare

  Ya cap-o-eira capybaras!

  “What the hell’s your problem?” shouted the chiseled Mr. Fashion Glasses over the beat.

  “No problem,” said Rap into the mic. “I just don’t like Pyrites stealing our culture!”

  “You don’t exactly look Brazilian to me!”

  “Oh, like you do?” said Rap.

  Pac and JC pulled on Rap’s arms. JC said, “Luqman’s back! Just saw a cop-mobile. Time to split!”

  “Yeah, run away, ya little coward!” said Mr. Specs. “You come here, disrupt our performance and then when it’s time to step up like a man, you wanna drive off in a goddamned mini-van!”

  JC and Pac dollied Optimus Prime back inside the van, but Rap held his ground, his butterfly knife in his pocket, ready to spring its wings.

  The instructor landed at ground zero, pecs straining beneath his t-shirt, his ultra-beautiful face a final challenge to Rap, just as the Golden Eye crew finished packing their vehicle.

  “You are a verra rude young man!” said Taye Diggs. Portuguese accent, almost Frenchy to Rap. “Why you do diss to me?”

  Walking backwards to get into the van, Rap kept staring down the capos and their leader, his eyes the only curse-out he needed.

  Slid-slammed shut the door, and wheels-squealing, they were out.

  Laughing, howling to themselves about their glorious victory and the debut of E-Town’s greatest hip hop crew ever, and the origin story that would one day be written up in Vibe and The Source and XXL remembered forever.

  11.

  Night. At the Hyper-Market. Pac was at home working on beats.

  But JC and Rap were there when the phone rang.

  Mr. Ani answered it. Listened and talked.

  Looked over at the two of them.

  “Oh, lord,” he said Mr. Ani. “Okay. I’ll deal with it.”

  They gulped. At the same time.

  “Do you know which one?” said the man, turning back to the phone. “I see. Okay, Paolo. We’re coming right over.” Phone down. Walked over. Rap, in his carrel, felt tiny, caged. And the farmer had an axe.

  “That was Professor Paolo Nascimento,” said Mr. Ani, “instructor over at the Capoeira Academy. Good guy. Said he recognised some kids who’d been handing out my flyers last week. Said they crashed his performance today, disrespected him in fronta the whole audience.”

  The two sides of Rap’s brain’d been at war since he’d hatched his plan. One hemisphere said Moon’d approve of him publicly schooling Leadites and melting Pyrites.

  The other hemisphere said nope.

  “JC,” said Moon. “I know this all was Rap’s idea. You’re in charge of the Hyper-Market till I get back. You know the whole operation . . . I was gonna do this anyway, but as of now, you’re hired.”

  Jackie Chan howled quietly: “Da-a-a-yumn!”

  Rap’s eyes glummed out, his head drooped, as he and Mr. Ani walked out to his car.

  12.

  Capoeira Institute. Mr. Ani led him. They stood at the back while the capos danced and kicked.

  Felt like Robin, and Batman was hand-delivering him to Arkham Asylum as a gift to the Joker.

  Moon offered his hand to the capoeira master. “I’m really sorry about my, my student here.”

  The man took it. “Mos’ martial art school dismiss esstudent who disgrace de eschool like heem.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  Rap stood burning.

  Professor Paolo Nascimento glared at him.

  “Diss isn’t, what’s daat called? In data Karate Kid movie?”

  Moon: “Uh, Kobra Kai dojo?”

  Paolo: “Yes, exactly. I am juss a hard-working immigrant, like your family. Why you come to disraapt my work? Keep me from earning a living? Should I do dat to your faader if I disagree wit him?”

  Rap. Silent. Staring at the wall.

  “I’m asking you a question! Why you do diss to me?”

  Eyes on the man.

  “Cuz it just seems like—!” Took a breath. “Here you are, taking the culture, teaching it to all these preppie, yuppy mzungus, an you’re letting them call our ancestors ‘slaves.’ I mean, that’s not right. Okay? You’re selling us out!”

  Paolo: “First of all, dese people pay my bills. Yes? Dey are my esstudent. I’m sure if your Mr. Ani has ‘mzungu’ customers, he is not refusing their money. Am I correct?”

  Moon: “You’re not wrong, bruh.�
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  Paolo: “An secondly, you tink I should wait aroun for ‘our people’ to take my classes? Originally dat’s all I tried to do here. How long I try diss? Almost two year. I rent racquet ball court at a healt club. Could not get even one Black person to take my class. You tink it’s better for me to go to work for White people as a janitor instead of taking White people’s money as my customer?”

  “Yeah, but they’re just gonna take over capoeira just like they took over rock and roll. Or jazz. Or Africa!”

  “If our people abandon it, we can’t complain, can we?” said Paolo. “And you! You want to know how to fight. You are Sudanese, yes?”

  Rap: “Half, yeah.”

  Paolo: “Dere’s Sudanese wrestling. Why don’you know how to do dat? An Zulu combat. But I saw you take a kung fu pose today, no? Dat’s Chinese. Are you not stealing deir culture?”

  Rap’s mouth opened, then closed. Not one word even peeked out between his lips.

  “So? You have nutting else to say to me?”

  Rap gritted his teeth. “Why’re you letting your students call us slaves?”

  The cap-master sighed, exasperated. “What?”

  “Last week. That guy with the fancy glasses said African slaves invented capoeira. And you’ve got it on your website!”

  The professor ground his teeth. “It’s true, daat’s why!”

  “Yeah? Well Mr. Ani taught us better than that.”

  Paolo looked at Moon. Moon squirmed a bit, but didn’t intervene.

  Rap went on. “All peoples were enslaved at some time. But we don’t talk about them all like that. In Europe they called em serfs. Same thing as slaves, but nobody calls em that! The Nazis enslaved the Jews. But nobody says, ‘The Nazis went to Poland, picked up the slaves, and used em to build stuff.’ Why not?

  “Cuz people understand that Jews are human. That they know the Nazis didn’civilise them—they had history and language and culture and minds before the Nazis enslaved em.

  “But Leadites don’t know that about us. All of us who got taken in the first Maafa or hammered in the second one! Leadites’ve been blinded into thinking we were always slaves. Which means they think that’s all we’ll ever be!”

  Moon. Suppressing a smile.

  “I don’know whaat diss ‘Leadite’ is or ‘Maafa’ or whatever. All I know is we got enslaved. Daat’s all I said, and daat’s all I meant!”

  “Then why not just say that?” snapped Rap. “And say that before the Maafa we had great civilisations, like, like Mali, an, an, an Songhai, an Benin, an Egypt an Axum an Meröe! And then say the West Africans fought back against their oppressors and leave it at that and just stop calling us slaves!”

  Moon cut it off, addressed the man in white.

  “Brother, I’ve admired your work for a long time. You know that. My, my student here’s very smart, which you can see.

  “But, obviously today . . . he was out of line. Way out of line. He should’ve talked to you first, not wrecked your show and interfered with your livelihood.”

  “Daat’s right! An he still has not apologised!”

  Moon stood. Looked down. “Rap?”

  Rap. Not a word. Felt smoke pouring off his back and head.

  Finally choked it out.

  “Sorry.”

  Breathed.

  “I was . . . out of line. I should’ve . . . paid you the respect . . . of talking to you . . . before.”

  Glared across the room at Mr. Fancy Glasses leading the class, glaring back at him. Sneering, even.

  Imagined that idiot cartwheeling around him, and when his head was upside-down, front kicking right into his face.

  13.

  Mr. Ani hadn’t said anything for five blocks and five red lights. He’d hit every one.

  Rap heard him take a breath. Finally.

  “Brother is one good looking dude. You know?”

  Rap, eyes forward. Where was this going?

  Moon: “Built like Shango. Tall. Surrounded by beautiful, young, athletic, educated women. Who hang on his every word.”

  Rap, sideways glance. Kept his face aimed straight ahead while Jasper Avenue slid past them, west becoming east under their wheels.

  This wasn’t Kush. The people on the Ave weren’t Kushitic. Coffee bars, hoity restaurants, a big white cathedral like a wedding cake for giants. And summer women in heels and summer men in sunglasses in the 9:30 pm sunset.

  “And crowds love him,” said Moon, his two hands strangling the wheel. “Why wouldn’t they? He’s like a breakdancing Bruce Lee. Been doing capoeira for fifteen years. When brother slips and falls on the ice, that shit looks better than Baryshnikov.”

  Moon slowed for a yellow he could’ve easily passed through. “Baryshnikov’s—”

  “—a famous dancer. Yeah, I know.”

  Moon: “Hm.”

  He put his indicator on for RIGHT, then pulled over to park. When the indicator snapped back, he put slapped it down again.

  Click-tick . . . click-tick . . . click-tick . . . .

  “Meanwhile, you’re an angry young man. With all kinds of mysteries and secrets, and hell, that’s your business. But you’ve got a month-and-a-half of wing chun. And some of his students’ve been doing capoeira for years.”

  . . . Click-tick . . . click-tick . . . click-tick . . . .

  “Doesn’t matter if it looks like dancing to you. Just the cardio alone means they could break your ass in two and serve it to you like Kit Kat.”

  Green light. They rolled.

  “Some rules for you, Rap. And I mean, we have got to be straight on this. Number one, never start a fight you can’t win.”

  They turned north on Jasper, passing the comic book store with the neon Superman logo in the window and the Mountain Equipment Co-op.

  “Number two, don’be going out prospecting for trouble. These are the Savage Lands. Trouble will always find you—you don’t need to out there begging and pleading for it to come snatch you up.”

  Up 124th Street and west on 118th, passing the Burger Baron and pawn shops and rent-to-own joints and shambling women with skirts too short for the law.

  “Number three?” said Mr. Ani, turning to look at him while driving, “Don’t be jeopardising other people on some bullshit. You coulda gotten your brothers JC and Sixpac messed up, or Sixpac’s equipment busted up, or alla you arrested! And there you were on that same spot a week ago with my flyers in your hands, which means bringing it all back on me!”

  They pulled up in front of Al Hambra, Rap’s apartment. The older man killed the engine.

  “That what you want?” said Mr. Ani.

  Rap looked at the man’s mouth, the sharps of his incisors.

  “For all of us to get shut down? For all these Street Falcons to get tagged and bagged?”

  Rap stared forward.

  “Adults love to say shit like, ‘You gotta think when you’re in these things.’ But when you’re in em is too late. You created a circumstance in which an explosion was inevitable.

  “And that happened because you had a live current running through you, and you didn’t use any of the gold I’ve given you to ground yourself!

  “We are Nubians! In the Savage Lands! Surrounded by Leadites and Pyrites, Rap! You understand me? We don’t have the right to throw away our chances, especially when most of us’ll never get a second one! Everything we do affects every other one of us!

  “Some of us slipped into the Swamps or were born there, but today Rap, you ran up, jumped in and pulled JC and Sixpac down with you to drown.”

  The young man started to defend himself, but Mr. Ani told him, “Go home, Rap.”

  Rap unfolded himself from the car. Legs and arms were weak. Like he had the flu.

  Mr. Ani’s eyes: straight ahead. His hand turned the ignition.

  The man drove away, with the air smelling of fast food and gasoline and flowers and too much perfume, and the night heat boiling it all together and pouring it down his throat till Rap wanted to puke.
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  Streetlights, pale moon and scant stars, lights warbling, phasing, strobing . . . .

  Not even going inside, neck on fire, and all the loneliness of the universe on him, untouchable at the centre of a hurricane.

  Five:

  Father~Brother~Son

  The Book of Then

  1.

  In the darkness, with the scratchy mat against my skin, I woke up.

  I smelled her, even before I felt her hand against my cheek.

  Mum . . . you’re alive?

  But she wasn’t there. I jumped up. The moon turned a path into a silver brook. I walked and then ran for hours, because she was out there . . . .

  And then I found the hut and her in front of it with a small fire, with a man and a boy I’d never seen, and they didn’t see me but I saw them, hugging and giving kisses and eating bread and meat and fruit.

  I ran forward. “Mum? I thought you were dead! Why didn’t you—”

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  I felt like she’d put a spear between my ribs. I stayed as still as stone.

  She stood and pointed and yelled: “Get out!”

  I woke up, clutching myself in a ball on my rough mat, biting down as hard as I could so I wouldn’t wake up the Master or the kids.

  Yin still hadn’t returned.