The Alchemists of Kush

by Minister Faust

  Eyebrows round the room twisted into WTF?

  “Are you some kinda nutjob?” said Raptor, his chest dynamited open. “Off your meds or something? You don’t have a freaking clue in your head what you’re talking about!”

  Her eyes, wild, on him. “You SHUT your mouth, boy! I’m trying to save you! And you, Mr. Man, one day, you mark my words—” (her arm was a staff, her finger the spearhead aimed at Moon) “—this whole place of yours is gonna BURN!”

  Stampeded out with Thandie, almost ran down Sbai Seshat who was just coming in.

  The room. Silent. As a crypt.

  “O-ka-a-a-y,” said Seshat. “That sounded bad.”

  28.

  Friday morning.

  Slow-mo:

  EVERLAST

  yellow letters on black

  chain links, steel glinting, metallically crunching. . .

  swinging back from the bottom of his left foot. . .

  —fluid, left foot pivoting down, toes 3 o’clock—

  —in peripheral, EVERLAST swinging back for the counter-attack—

  —body-springs uncoiling in the hips first—

  —right ankle rising, arcing, hunting—

  STRIKING EVERLAST where its ear would be

  jumping its whole black leather body up on the chain

  and right foot grasping floor, pushing him forward, swinging left elbow into EVERLAST’s ribs . . . .

  Raptor, not even stopping to wipe sweat, racking up for another twenty front-reverse round-houses combos, this time starting right, ending left . . . .

  Friday evening. Final rehearsal.

  Senwusret scratching, Raptor rhyming, Jackal double-timing, Golden Eye shining.

  But the duet of rhyme and song was silent.

  No phone call. No Facebook. No email. No text.

  No ’Noot.

  On they went, teeth without smiles.

  29.

  “Weren’t they terrific, folks?” said Councilman Brothers, his voice echoing over the intersection of Khair-em-Sokar and 95th Street.

  It was only 3:30 pm, event was just ninety minutes old, and there already musta been damn close to six hundred people.

  “I mean, amazing young people! Give em another round of applause!”

  The martial arts team, black uniforms glinting gold from cuffs and crests, actually step-danced off the stage to extra loud applause.

  Turn-out was way better than anyone’d had a right to expect. Sun was undiluted Saturday afternoon glory, and not even radar could find a cloud to complain of.

  Raptor had plenty on his mind that wasn’t sunshine. No ’Noot, still the lurking threat of Maãhotep, and then the fact that with all the Kush Party posters and ads up with pictures of Golden Eye, he and Jackal were like a coupla carnival ducks just waiting to get lit up by Marley and Lexus, the psycho murderers on release—

  Stop. Breathe. . .

  What is It doing back in the Swamps? I just got It out of there . . . .

  Hated using anything from Maã, but desperate times . . . .

  “And that kind of excellence, that’s what you see when young people get the proper support from community leaders and civic leaders.”

  Alderman Gary Brothers was smiling, almost laughing. But from what Raptor saw, Brothers really meant. The politician slid a pale hand through his grey, straight hair, an I can’t believe it! gesture.

  Nobody was there specifically to hear Brothers speak, but with an election only four months away, the politician wasn’t gonna sleep on any microphone time he could grab.

  “That’s why I, and the mayor, and the entire City Council, have taken such an interest and worked hard to provide funding and support for this remarkable Street Falcons programme.”

  Sbai Seshat, at the edge of the stage. Beaming at the turn-out, at the sunshine, at the city councillor whose second campaign (first successful one) she’d managed.

  “That’s why,” said Brothers, “I helped arrange flying lessons for these teenagers, and got them municipally-owned space from a derelict building for their ‘Street Laboratory,’ and employment grants and job training, so they could truly unlock their potential!”

  Seshat, who was always geo, dramatically clapped above her head, wiring her own applause through the crowd to amplify it.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Brothers. “We know that Somali youth, Ethiopian and Eritrean youth, Rwandan youth, Sudanese youth, coming from such diverse cultures and languages and religions—”

  Raptor had to give it to the man: he evidently knew Africa wasn’t just one big jungle country full of gorillas and guerrillas.

  “—bring a wealth of talent that with support, can help them become fabulously productive and successful members of our community!”

  He hyped himself and the mayor for a while longer, but even Raptor knew it was all in the game.

  “And hey, right there, folks, remember all those young martial arts action-stars? Well that’s their teacher, right there!” Pointed at Moon near the stage. “You all saw it in that YouTube video! C’mon, I know you did. The man is practically Bruce Lee! He’s—”

  Some Falcon on the demo team shouted from the other side of the stage.

  Brothers: “I’m being told I should’ve said he’s like, uh, Mooser Powell? No, sorry . . . Musa. Someone important. Anyway—”

  “So, why are we throwing the Kush Party?” Moon said at the mic, letting the echo sink in, like the sunshine.

  “118th Ave was a dangerous place,” he said. “People used to be afraid of being mugged down here. Or knifed. They called the city ‘Stabmonton’ for a while, remember that? Cuzza 107th Ave and this avenue right here.

  “Then people started getting shot. A lot. Surprised nobody started calling it ‘Leadmonton.’”

  The crowd loved that one. Alderman Brothers’ mouth smiled, but his eyes were moths under streetlights. Couldn’t write that one on tourist brochures.

  “They called this place, our home, ‘the worst neighbourhood in the entire city.’ Is that fair? Is that right?”

  “No! NO!”

  “When you live under somebody else’s terms, well . . . you’re terminal. When someone else defines you, he’s limiting you. Define. As in finite.

  “So we, these young martial artists, the people who arranged this whole day, who brought together all the vendors and the NGOs in all the booths, we’re the Alchemists of Kush.

  “Once upon a time when all these Nilotic people came to this neighbourhood, somebody figured out they should rename it all ‘Kush.’”

  Seshat: “Speak it!”

  Falcons: “Transform, Brother Moon!”

  Moon: “Now we’re blessing all the sections of Kush with new names. Like this avenue. Khair-em-Sokar. Means, ‘Path of Sokar,’ one of the falcon gods of Kemet, the Blackland, or Land of the Blacks. What you call ‘Ancient Egypt.’

  “Self-definition precedes self-determination, you dig? Choose your own name, reframe yourself, you can remake yourself, replace your old self and elevate your new self—”

  “Geo-METCH-rical!”

  “Trans-FORM it!”

  “We, my fellow Alchemist adults, and the youth known as the Street Falcons, we’re leading by example—”

  (and on every beat, uh huhs and amens)

  “Building hope . . . with our own hands . . . . For the people of Kush . . . . Showing how to replace rot . . . and decay . . . with beauty . . . and life! Replace the sounds of cursing and fighting . . . with music and singing! And for our young people . . . replacing nothing-to-do with can’t-even-find-time-for-it-all!”

  Applause. Into it, pointedly, Moon said: “Replace . . . .”

  Falcons: “—and elevate!”

  Moon: “Replace—”

  “—and elevate!”

  “REPLACE—”

  “—AND ELEVATE!”

  Applause like an ocean crashing, not just from the Falcons, but from everyone.

  And why not? Plenty of them’d heard of E-Town’s
“Black Belt Jones” or “Morpheus X,” but this was their first time seeing him. Local brother made good, with disciplined, uniformed, polite young people at his command? An easy sell even to people who were down to their last seven bucks and change.

  So much better than a wild child or two or three hundred teenagers tearing up shit and turning party-goers and even pedestrians into threatened species.

  Jackal elbowed Raptor, chinned towards a bunch of sisters pointing up at Moon, eyes and smiles glowing.

  “Hope your moms aint seein that right there,” joked Jackal.

  Raptor laughed. He wasn’t worried. He knew Moon was no ho. And he got that his mother needed a man. And with Moon, she’d levelled up about a thousand times from the bad old days of Doctor Liberia.

  How far his mum and Moon’d gone along in their relationship, he wasn’t sure. Far as he knew, they hadn’t even kissed. Which in itself was weird.

  Which one of them was more worried? And about what? How he’d take it? They didn’t hafta to worry about that—

  He laughed out loud.

  Jackal: “What?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Just thinking about something.”

  Of-freaking-course they needed to worry, with the way he always took things. Probably both didn’t want him strapping on a dynamite vest for the next Christmas dinner.

  A new thing, being able to laugh at himself. Felt good. Musta learned that from Jackal . . . .

  “Jackal, you know you’re my best friend, right?”

  Jackal turned a huge smile on him, his dreadlocks dragging over his shoulders as he turned.

  Jackal: “Course, son! Obviously! Who else could put up witcha?”

  Raptor smiled, clapped Jackal on the back.

  Last year he’d’ve been insulted. Now, with a brother like Jackal, he didn’t even have to hear back the words, You’re my best friend, too.

  Course, Jackal’d told him that many times before, but even so. With Jackal for back-up, he was shedding scars like a snake shedding skin, on account of outgrowing the old one.

  Tonight. He’d tell Moon and his mum tonight.

  But first . . . damn it. . .

  Still no ’Noot.

  30.

  “On mic number two,” blasted Raptor, “that’s the Geometrical Jester, the Mogadishu Minister, the bombastical-fantastical Black Jackal!”

  —applause, cheers—

  “On the twin Tech 1200s, that’s the Wax-Attacker, the Sonic Sentinel, the mixer and the fixer, DJ Senwusret—”

  Sen scratched left I, I, I, I’m a, scratched right fair, fair, fair, fair-PHARAOH on his left Tech 1200, and got the cheers he deserved.

  “And I’m another YouTube brother some of you might know—” (clapping and laughter) “—the lyrical lion, the Son of the Sphinx, the electrical MC, the sinister Supreme Raptor.”

  His voice: bassing through space . . . the crowd’s cheering, seering treble.

  “And now! For our second number! Straight out of The Book of the Golden Falcon! The story of you! Me! And all of us! Hit it, Sen!”

  The beat smacked hard, drum-thunder, flashes of high-frequency kora lightning, with a doom-voice from the old Spiderman cartoon sampled inside it:

  Who is this flying boy? What right has he to interfere in my conquest of the universe? I will destroy him!

  Both MCs hit the chorus:

  Who am I? Who am I?

  Who am I? Call me Hru-u-u-u!

  The Supreme Raptor led the charge:

  Who am I? Call me Hru, falcon-headed—where are we headed?

  How about Kemet? Lemme instruct you in the ancient ways intended

  I have befriended . . . the righteous, defended . . . the righteous

  I might just reunite us and transcend with all the righteous

  The Black Jackal went on the attack:

  I’m-descending-with lightning in my hands and wings upon my back

  I never attack but I defend the innocent Wanderers—I conjure

  The spirits, the spirits, the spirits of my ancestors

  And rally my brothers and sisters, the righteous resistors

  Both MCs united:

  Uniting . . . and fighting . . . to free our holy homeland

  Called Kemet, the Black Land—reclaiming our own land

  A lifetime . . . ago, this sacred place of ours flourished

  Ruled by my father, Lord Usir . . . he taught, he nourished

  —glorifying in the moment, seeing his mother wailing and cheering, and not one damn bit embarrassed—

  The Black Jackal, his mic a golden hammer:

  He lifted up his people with-knowledge, righteousness and mastery

  With his wife, Lady Aset, as powerful as he

  He brought his gold to all the world, returned to Kemet and my mother

  But competing for his power . . . was his destructive brother

  And the Raptor rapped on:

  The general, the warlord . . . Set the Destroyer

  He butchered . . . my father . . . to be the sole controller

  Monster, betrayer, killer and enslaver

  One day someone would rise up . . . to lead us as our saviour

  And then the MCs hit the chorus, ripped into the crowd like a tide sucking beach walkers out to sea:

  Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Call me Hru-u-u-u!

  Offstage, applause still going after their fifth and final song, and all three brothers were backslapping and hugging—even Raptor.

  Jackal: “Damn, kid, tolja! Tolja this was gon be just like Chappelle’s Block Party!”

  Senwusret: “Seriously geo! Blew shit up like Blackhawk Down!”

  Loved it. Like he was flying past Jupiter and onto the next gas giant.

  But he felt the ice of Saturn’s rings like gravel in the face. Their set was supposed to’ve been six songs, ending with guest vocals by ’Noot.

  31.

  The sun: turning the whole scene tropical. Kushitic. Only things missing were palm trees and an ocean view.

  But the sky . . . a blue, intense perfection. The pain-joy heart constriction of unrequited love.

  Police barricades blocking traffic from 117th and 119th Aves on the south and north, and 97th and 94th Streets on the west and east.

  Parents clutching babies and toddlers and piloting them in carriages through the occupying festival army.

  Food kiosks blessing the air with the meat-fat-salt succulence of smoke and steam rising from roasting goat, beef sbeso and jerk chicken.

  Boyfriends buying ice cream cones for girlfriends, then buying themselves neo-Ethiopian cones, flatbread injera smuggling atekilt aletcha wot and doro wat, and if they weren’t careful, dribbling dark-stewed chicken and curried, buttered vegetables all over their over-sized white shirts.

  Little kids running, ducking, darting round and between adult legs and among the NGO pavilions where the people of Kush window-shopped for services and ideologies. Social services, churches, mosques, the drivers of the Africentric school initiative, and the year-old SomaCASS, the Somali-Canadian Autism Support Society.

  Ting, slushies, ginger beer, condensation dripping off glass bottles like sweet sweat. No beer gardens. Handbills plastered on streetlight poles:

  I Drink from the River of Life,

  and Will Not Drown

  in the Swamps of Death

  Africentric t-shirts selling and donned on the spot. The “Pirates of Somalia” number earning fat stacks of green-faced queens and a few pink-faced Kings for streetseller Wa-Wa and present partner Raptor and absent partner ’Noot.

  A Rwandan band seizing the stage, two men in faux-lion and –leopard-fur headdresses and flares on their calves and wrists, acrobatting jumps and slides, bell-rings on their ankles jangling every stomp. Neo-Soul singer Krystle Dos Santos lighting up the crowd, sequelled by the dancehall stylee of Oozeela.

  And by 6:30 and another couple of martial arts demos, the sun hours away touching rooftops . . . .

  And Raptor: hunting the crowd with f
alcon eyes, scanning everywhere for two crazy Somali killers his age, seeking inside the noise his permanent silence.

  Maybe even they weren’t Leadite enough to show up here. Too public.

  But khetiuta as insane as they were? They slithered with snakes just as full of isfet as they were. Khetiuta looking to make names for themselves, who didn’t know shit about cause and effect, or that every time they aimed the barrel, it stared back at them. And men too stupid to know that were dangerous beyond measure.

  32.

  “Oh, shit, Rap! Rap!”

  Jackal grabbed Raptor. Calgary’s Sudanese fusion band Taharqa kept playing. “It’s ’Noot!”

  Gold-black checkered hijab in place, the girl was crowd-wedging straight at them.

  Raptor: relieved she was there. Terrified of what she was gonna say. What was he sposta do? Smile? Laugh? Cry?

  Then she was there, crowd-crushed against him.

  Cupping her hand, yelling up at him, “Can we talk?”

  Nodded. Jackal eye-flaring at him: This one’s all yours, bruh.

  Behind the music-muffling, west-gazing bandstand.

  “Raptor, I’m really upset with you.”

  He chewed his mouth. Not knowing what else to say, he said, “I know.”

  “But do you even know why?”

  Already, it was on. So much for his fantasy of a make-up session of holding her hand for five unbroken seconds away from the eyes of the crowd and the entire worldwide Muslim umma.