The Alchemists of Kush
Page 32
“’Noot, you think you know about these people, but you don’t. They—”
“Who’s Brother Maã ever hurt, huh? You? Someone else in the Street Falcons?”
“‘The absence of evidence is not the same thing as the evidence of absence.’”
’Noot: “Oh, by that token, how do I know you’re not a murderer? Or an alien?” Him: grimacing. “What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty?’”
“Do you wait until a crocodile eats your children before you say, ‘Maybe that crocodile is a threat?’”
“Raptor, everybody is potentially a threat! That’s what makes us even human!”
“Pyrites are threats! Pretending to be one thing when they’re actually something else, after something else!”
“Maybe you should study your scrolls a little more closely—”
“Oh, I know my scrolls—”
“Then you oughta go back to square one, the Resurrection Scroll, and the Catechism of the Three Metals. Eighty percent of people are Leadite. Ten percent are Gold, the Nubians. And ten percent are Pyrite—”
“You’re proving my point—”
“But the geometry, Raptor!” She held out her hands, squaring air. “Eighty, plus ten, plus ten! You ever even think about that? U-universal?”
“What?”
“Nubians! People who’ve alchemised part of their own lead into true and living gold. But not all of it! Cuz nobody ever—”
“That’s not what—”
“—nobody gets rid of all their lead, completely! And nobody can ever even get rid of any of their pyrite—”
“’Noot, you’re—”
“Let me finish, Raptor!”
He shut up.
“Best you can even hope for is just cutting the amount of time you spend behaving pyrite, cut it to less than ten percent of the time! But you never stop being able to lie to others. Or yourself!”
His mouth opened, but silence poured down from his brain, filled it up. He shut his yap.
“Didn’t transform that one before, didja?”
“Who told you that?” he swaggered. “Maãhotep?”
“I transformed it myself.”
“Listen, ’Noot—”
“You’ve hurt one of our teachers, Raptor. Badly. Not to mention stoking gossip in our Laboratory—”
“I don’t understand you! How can you, as a Muslim—”
“That again? La ilaha il-Allah. ‘There is—’”
“‘—no god but God,’ I know, I know—”
“I’m not God. It’s not for me to condemn Maãhotep. But he’s a good man. He helps people! I saw your booklist on the Alchemy blog. You love telling people about all these great African writers—well, what about Langston Hughes and Alice Walker? Or James Baldwin? Are you gonna condemn them, too? Just throw away everything they’ve ever done—”
“If they’ve hurt people, then—”
“When you have proof Maãhotep has hurt people, talk to me!”
Raptor closed his teeth.
“But if you even want me to be your friend, I am telling you right now, I cannot be cool with this, the way you’re acting, sowing division in the Golden Fortress and hating on someone I respect and care about like an uncle!”
Behind stage, faces turning towards them. The two teens moved off, found privacy behind a tent tarp. Music was still bassing loud, but nobody was watching them.
“I don’t get you,” she said. “You always seemed so . . . so hurt. And then every once in a while you’d flash this part of yourself that wasn’t so sad and angry. I just wanted to get to know that Raptor.
“But this other one? The one that could, just-like-that—” (finger-snap) “—turn his back on Brother Maãhotep? Your teacher? Your lawyer? I mean . . . I don’know, Raptor. That’s just . . . .”
Raptor’s head: swirling. Like trying to fly in a hurricane.
Her threat: If you want me to be your friend . . . .
Tell her Fine. I don’t need you. Don’t flatter yourself. Think I care what you think?
Raptor, whispering: “Okay.”
“What?” she said, eyes crinkled, protesting his quiet against the music’s boom.
“I said okay.” Trying not to sound like he was begging. “I’ll . . . wait. For proof.”
“And you’ll stop all your talk? All your whispering behind Brother Maã’s back until you have something definitive?”
Nodded low, chin almost touching chest.
Shock in her voice: “All right, then.” Like even though she’d given it one last shot, she’d assumed she was gonna lose.
’Noot, softly: “You still wanna perform ‘The Emerald Song’?”
“But, but our set . . . it’s over.”
Smiling. “I already talked it over with Brother Moon and Spurs of John Ware. They’ll let us come onstage during their set. Just make sure you actually even just listen to your own lyrics for once, okay?”
Took everything he had not to rip her off the street and hug her right into the air.
33.
During the applause tailgating the sixth song by Spurs of John Ware, bass player/lead vocalist Onyx Cowboy drew ’Noot and Golden Eye onstage. More cheers. Crowd loved the Spurs’ spaghetti-funk, and it was just about to get rapped up.
Raptor: breath stuck in his throat. They’d never rehearsed with live musicians, let alone performed with any.
Jackal slapped him on the back, muting his mic. “Roll with it, dude. Be just like the Roots!”
Onyx Cowboy, heating the stage with his bass. Drummer Mill-Dread rumbling and clicketty-clattering her drums into blood-thumping intensity. Electric banjoist Matoxy Sexapeequin giving Golden Eye the melody that Sister Yibemnoot needed for launch:
Chased by priests and gen’rals
It’s more precious than em’ralds
Yet the woman working at the mill stone
Holds such jewels inside her soul
Irrepla-a-a-aceable
Unmista-a-a-akable
It’s the prince-of-all
Invi-i-i-incibl-l-l-le
It’s wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom. . .
Wisdo-o-o-om!
Jackal sliding in:
I’ve got some words stored up
That I have got to-say-to-my-son
Some people’s lives are done
Before they’ve even begun . . . .
’Noot, just too damned beautiful, and seeing her singing in that vast space, somehow these thousands of people were only an idea, a sparkling desert, and she and him were alone up there, joined by their microphones and their music . . . .
(almost missed his verse)
You could lose your mind, in time
Denying all of your crimes
Re-defining all-of-your crimes
Or maybe crying over-your-crimes
Together, while ’Noot overdubbed them with wails and Wisdoms:
But if you truly listen
And-then destroy your superstition
You can glisten in the shining
Glorious truth-of-my-golden rhymes
Written this months ago, but now, listening like ’Noot’d warned him to, each line cut his gums.
He and Jackal, a verse each, then synergising on the third:
Do you waste your time conniving?
Do you waste your time depriving?
Are you raging, overdriving
When your spirit should be thriving?
Are you dismissing people
That you’re really missing?
Or are you giving in your living
Forgiven and forgiving?
Cuz sometimes Hell is whatcha make it
A Golden Mind, you just cannot fake it
Your gold is waiting-for-you-to take it
Don’t-shake-it-or-break-it, just . . . remake it!
Spurs of John Ware, amplifying their sonic storm, and ’Noot swing in like she was riding lightning:
Irrepla-a-a-aceable
Unmista-a-a-akable
It’s the prince-of-all
Invi-i-i-incibl-l-l-le . . . .
34.
The set was over, and Moon took the stage:
“Kot-TAM!”
TAM-TAM-TAM-TAM-tam-tam . . . .
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve seen in the last ten years! You with me?”
Cheers, howls, wails and likkashots and Bo-bo-bo!s . . . .
“Spurs of John Ware, Golden Eye, they’re all amazing. But that young sister, Yibemnoot . . . geometrical, am I right?”
Spurs of John Ware was still on stage, playing low and giving Moon a soundtrack while he speechified, like he was the ancient god Garvey igniting millions.
“Voice like that . . . like a young Shirley Bassey . . . . You all know the song ‘Goldfinger’? Yeah, that’s the one . . . .
“’Cept that sister was tragic . . . . Didn’t even want people knowing she was a sister. Imagine: all that success . . . trying to hide all that pain and all that self.
“Not this sister. Am I right?”
Let the cheering blaze at the end of every phrase.
“’Slike the universe stayed up late on a Saturday night to give that voice another chance at happiness!”
Cheers, and into every pause fell more cheers.
“Still have more amazement coming up. Somali band Mogadishu. . .
“Ethiopian singer Haimanot Brehanu. . .
“Hip hop super group Politic Live. . .
“And reggae superstars Souljah . . . Fyah!”
“But first up—I gotta say, is this night amazing or what . . . ?
“When we work together, what can’t we do?
“Fact is, seeing all of you here like this, like an army, or better yet, the kind of construction force that built the pyramids . . . . ”
Raptor, wondering, was Moon gonna drop his line, same thing he said every time someone mentioned the pyramids?
Moon: “And don’t be buying any of that propaganda that the pyramids were built by slaves—”
Raptor, mouthing the words along with Moon, making ’Noot laugh.
“—aint a single legit historian in the world who’ll tell you slaves built the pyramids—they were a paid workforce! You look like them! And like the man who designed the original, Imhotep! Ready to take on a major project. Am I right? ARE YOU WITH ME?”
Massive cheering—
“See that kiosk for the Africentric School Initiative? Over there, in front of Habesha Restaurant. The Alchemists, the Street Falcons—we support that . . . .
“We need a school to help our kids succeed so they can become scientists, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs. . .
“Cuz we don’t think a grade of fifty-nine percent is good enough for our kids, even if these teachers do! ARE YOU WITH ME?”
Thunder . . . .
Asked everyone to sign the school’s contact list, donate whatever they could, and come to a meeting scheduled for the end of August.
Thanked the mayor and Alderman Brothers, and all the sponsors and NGOs, then made it clear, it was actually the people of Kush who made the event possible.
“Kush belongs to you! It used to be a swamp. But by working together, we have drained that Swamp. . .
“And we’re on our way to raising up some pyramids!”
THUNDER . . . .
10:30 pm. Sun’d already been gone half an hour. Sky was cobalt embedded with diamonds.
“Which leads us to our special surprise right now . . . . ”
Falcons in the crowd pulled away tarps from what most people must’ve assumed was a barrier.
Hands, ropes, yanking, an overhead pulley.
Raising a tower tapering to an elongated pyramid.
Up it went, silhouetted against the sky, two storeys tall upright, taller than all the low buildings around it.
An obelisk.
Then its architect, the man named Maãhotep, stepped forward to flick the switch.
Its sides lit up with LED hieroglyphics, golden light gleaming in the darkness.
“TransFORMED!” said Moon, and as one Kush howled and screamed.
35.
The killers were there.
Raptor saw them: Marley and Lexus, crocodiles slithering through the crowd. Red bandanas, incisor eyes, facial scars as victory medals from jailhouse butchery and rape.
The obelisk beaming. Souljah Fyah electrifying five thousand at midnight mass. And the cops that before were everywhere were nowhere.
Jackal, silking up three stage-struck girls. Raptor spun him by the shoulder, pointed straight at the murderers. Jackal’s eyes went frosty.
Couldn’t find Brother Moon. Couldn’t find Sbai Seshat and Jackal couldn’t find Sbai Maãhotep. So it was on them.
Grabbed shirt-seller Brother Wa-Wa and their four toughest fighters, none of them from the martial arts demo team. Nobody had weapons. Moon’d taught them: your enemy could transform your weapon into your own death, so rely on yourself.
But Raptor. He had his fang. Had it since his neighbour’d helped him build the box in the base of his bed when he was thirteen.
In the concert noise, cell phones were useless. They could text, but that meant taking their eyes off their targets. Jackal handed them each four glowsticks. Two yellows: in position. Two reds: emergency.
The seven of them filtered into the crowd, radar primed for red bandanas. The plan was . . . what was the plan? Surround them. Watch them. And if those khetiuta made a move against Moon or Jackal or Raptor, put their marrow on the asphalt.
Sliding among sweaty, reggae-drunk partiers. Concert bass from two-storey speakers beating almost heavier than their own hearts.
Two yellows in one hand. One Falcon not too close, not too far. In position. Up only three seconds, then down.
A second hand, two yellows.
A third.
Still no Moon. No cops.
Onstage: Souljah Fyah’s Sista J sang, locks swinging and metronoming the crowd while joyful melody bent brains with bitter lyrics:
Everyone says you’re bad for me, but I don’t cyare
See you running around on me on the town
Everyone says you’re bad company, but I don’t cyare
Cuz I’m always happy when you’re around
Fourth hand up.
The fifth—
Jackal and Raptor, closing in behind the murderers.
If they weren’t in a crowd they’d be in kicking distance. Not close enough for wing chun phone booth fighting, and not close enough for Sanuces-Ryu grappling.
His fang, ready in his pocket, hungry.
Hunt me, you worthless muthafuckas?
Shoulders, spine on fire, but palms sweating blood—
Turn around—
Heart jack hammering both ears—
Time to die—
Bandana #1 turned to face him—
Raptor, on the edge of the crowd, bending over a metal crowd barrier that looked like an old headboard.
Ropey puke dangling from his mouth and nose.
Jackal, rubbing his back as he came up for air. “Dude! Dude! Y’okay?”
Somebody handed him a water bottle. Sipped. Swished. Spat. Sipped and swallowed.
Looked at his hands.
Shaking.
Could’ve buried a blade in the esophagus of some harmless brother cold-lamping with his homey on a Saturday night street party in Kush.
All of them, locking eyes.
Intense: relief, then shame-disgust.
Dying of thirst, then drinking your own piss, just to survive.
Who is the Destroyer?
Before he could change his mind, left the Kush Party, found a storm vent. Knelt and ropped his butterfly knife down into the sewage coursing below. Couldn’t even hear the splash.
36.
Sunday morning. Above the street. The Palace of the Moon.
Sunlight streaming golden through curtain-breaks, dust motes twinkling, turning to stars.
> His mother, curled up on the couch, a cat. Snuggled in blankets.
Sitting beside her, edge of couch, his own hip and rump nuzzled next to her belly.
They’d all gotten here late, almost 4 AM, dawn’s first verses written red on sky’s eastern scroll. Moon’d insisted she take the bed and he’d take the couch. She’d refused. Back and forth ten times.
Raptor’d finally said, “Brother Moon, you can’t win against my mum. Just go to sleep.”
Morning time: Moon, padding down the hallway, into the kitchen. Smiled at Raptor, eyes extra soft towards his mother.
She woke, yawning and stretching so big it was funny, a cartoon lioness. They’d already set the table, piled it with pancakes, butter, syrup, fruit, free-range turkey links. Sweet steam twirled up from table. And they all sat and served themselves.
Mum, happy and free. Moon, same.
Him, ashamed and so damn grateful he could cry.
“Look, just wanted to say, I know,” said Raptor.
Eyes on him.
“I know how you feel about each other.”
Forks clinked on plates. Jaws refused to close.
“And, y’know, I’m fine with it. Fact, I’m happy.”
Their astonished faces. He smiled, sharing his own sunrise. “You’ve got my blessing.”
Moon, shaking his head. “I . . . I don’know what to say . . . .”
Araweelo, getting up and clutching her boy and kissing his cheeks over and over. “Then don’t say anything!”