Let Me Hear a Rhyme Read online

  “Look man, all we need you to do is listen to my boy’s lyrics on these tapes, cut it up, and lay it on one of these tracks.”

  I hand him the CD Pierce gave us at the club. I’m surprised it survived unscratched in my pocket the way them cops were throwing us around that night.

  “These beats? Where you get them from?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “And here’s his music,” Jarrell says, passing him three tapes. “He got more than this, but this is a good start.”

  Kaven sighs, rubbing his temples. He pops one of the tapes in and Steph’s voice whistles out the speakers. A few bars into the song, Kaven’s eyes go wide, the bottle almost slipping out his hand.

  “You good?” I ask.

  He clears his throat, composing himself. “Yeah.”

  “And yeah, I know,” Jarrell says, smiling. “The sound ain’t all that good. Think some of these tracks he recorded in his bathroom or something, but can you fix it?”

  Kaven nods a few times then says in a flat voice, “It’s straight. I can work with it.”

  “Bet. One more thing though, you gotta keep this on the low. Nobody can know about this, y’knowwhatumsayin?”

  Kaven glances from Jarrell to me, then back. I don’t know about Rell, but this duke making me mad uneasy. I bet if Steph was here he’d be feeling the same way.

  He measures us with a straight face and says, “Aight. But I don’t work for free.”

  “How much?”

  “Eight hundred.”

  “Eight hundred! You talking American dollars?”

  “Rell, chill, son.”

  “Nah, did this fool really say eight hundred dollars?”

  “We got no choice,” I groan. He already knows too much.

  Jarrell sucks his teeth. “Aight, son, we got your word on this. You won’t tell nobody?”

  “You got my word once that money is in my hand.”

  Jarrell rolls his eyes and digs into his pocket, slicing out a few bills. “Here. That’s four hundred. I’ll give you the rest when we get our shit.”

  He smirks. “Smart kid. Y’all can show yourselves out.”

  Heading to the bus, I tap Jarrell’s arm. “Yo, you peep that?”

  “Peep what?”

  “The way duke got all . . . weird or something when he played Steph’s music.”

  “Nah. I didn’t see him do nothing but take our four hundred dollars.”

  I look back at the house, wondering how far them cameras could go. Could he see us walking, hear us talking about him?

  “I’m saying, it almost like—”

  “Yo, would you stop tripping? I mean, you know Steph taking over Brooklyn! He probably heard a track somewhere and was surprised we the ones doing it. So let the man do his thang. Come on, I wanna hit up Fulton before we head back to the crib.”

  I want to argue but maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s nothing.

  Still, my gut is saying something different.

  22

  November 6, 1997

  Beatboxing is an art form.

  Steph combed through stacks of cassettes tapes and CDs on the windowsill, his lips making the music he couldn’t lay down on a track yet. He still needed a couple of stacks before he could walk into the studio. But he was ready. Felt like he’d been ready his entire life.

  “Son, I thought you said you wanted to study,” Quadir said with a laugh from his desk, tossing a paper ball at his head.

  Quadir’s room was small, kept neat and tidy, with dark slate-blue walls, bad lighting, and a tiny window with a direct view into Brevoort’s front courtyard.

  Steph held up a CD from the edge of Quadir’s twin bed. “You ain’t really studying. And what you doing with a Mint Condition single?”

  “What? That ‘Pretty Brown Eyes’ song is on point! Now come on, man! I told Ronnie I would call her at eight.”

  “Damn, you barely been together and she already got you on a schedule.”

  “Whatever.”

  Steph smirked. “You like her?”

  “What? Yeah. What kind of question is that?”

  “I don’t know, I just never thought she was your . . . type.”

  Quadir’s back tightened. “How you figure?”

  Steph shook his head. “Nah, never mind. It’s nothing.”

  Quadir didn’t take his eyes off his friend, who had hit the very nerve he had pretended wasn’t pinching the top of his spine. But . . . who cared if Ronnie wasn’t “his type.” She was the baddest chick in school, and she wanted him. When someone hands you a bag of money, you don’t leave it at the front door, do you?

  “Hey, uh, sorry my mom didn’t cook nothing,” Quadir muttered, hoping Steph couldn’t hear his stomach growling. “Just . . . things been tight around here lately.”

  He shrugged, indifferent. “It’s cool man. Don’t sweat it.”

  Steph had watched Quadir ravenously devour school lunches, even picking at his friend’s leftovers, for over a month. There’s being hungry and hunger, and he was smart enough to recognize the difference and not draw attention to it.

  “Anyways, you got that new Vibe?”

  “Yeah, right on top.”

  As Steph moved from the CDs to Quadir’s meticulously organized stack of magazines, he noticed a purple pamphlet sticking out the side. Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School.

  “Hey, what’s this?” he asked.

  Quadir jumped to block him. “Hey! Give me that!”

  He dodged out of his reach, laughing. “Whoa! Where you get this from?”

  “Some coach stopped by last week’s game,” Quadir relented.

  “A coach?” Steph flipped through the book. “Yo . . . that’s what’s up! You gonna go?”

  “To Bishop? And leave my peoples? Why’d I wanna do that? Plus, cost mad bread to go there.”

  “It’s a good school, though. It got everything you want . . . you could have it all here!”

  Quadir blew him off. “I ain’t going to some wack-ass prep school. You tripping.”

  Steph sighed. “You know what, man? I’m mad proud of you.”

  “What?” he chuckled. “Why you sounding like my pops now?”

  “Nah, man, I’m serious. You got a fly-ass chick, honor roll, captain . . . and now schools are checking for you.”

  “So?”

  “I’m saying, wouldn’t hurt to step out the box and see what they talking about.”

  Quadir fidgeted in his seat, the proposition making him antsy. Especially if stepping out his comfort zone meant leaving his friends behind.

  Steph glanced at the clock and jumped up, sliding on his jacket. “Aight, yo. I’m out.”

  Quadir checked the time. “Where you going?”

  “Gotta hit the block and make some bread. You know how it be.”

  Quadir measured his tone, his words only half in jest.

  “Son, I’m playing,” Steph laughed.

  Quadir raised an eyebrow. “Yo . . . you good, man?”

  Steph nodded as he slipped out the bedroom door with a smirk. “Always.”

  23

  Quadir

  You know when a song really makes you feel something? Nah, not no horny stuff. More like, a song got your head in the clouds, dreaming.

  I had “Nothing Really Matters” playing on repeat, and all I could think about was Jasmine. Been avoiding her calls just to keep from lying to her. I wasn’t ready to tell her about the cops looking for Steph. She would go bananas playing detective behind them, and it’s just not safe. But I kind of miss politicking with her about music. Yeah, believe me, I know it ain’t right, me thinking about another girl like this. I’m saying, sometimes music have you looking at the world through a different set of eyes.

  Sitting at my desk, I drum a pencil against my open history textbook. Daydreaming about Jasmine ain’t gonna help me pass my midterm on Monday. Maybe I should head down to the courts, play some hoops to clear my head. Some extra practice would be good for next
week’s game. That coach from Bishop said he wanted to stop by and say hello. Mom’s going to come too. I hate how hyped she is about all this. It’s just a school. A school with a championship-winning team and alumni that play in the pros, but still . . . it’s just a school.

  I slip the Bishop High School brochure from its hiding place between my magazines. Mom keeps dropping new ones on my desk, and I keep throwing them away. But this one, I keep, and flip through it, always stopping on the exact same page—a basketball player in his uniform, posing for a picture with the school newspaper club. Imagine that, playing ball AND writing for the newspaper? Maybe that’s what Steph meant, going here and having it all.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  “Uhh . . . come in?”

  Jasmine opens the door, smiling. “Hey.”

  I jump to my feet, my headphones yanking me back down.

  “Jazz! What you . . . how you get in here?”

  “The front door, duh. Your mom let me in. Guess you couldn’t hear us talking.”

  “Nothing Really Matters” plays loud out of my headphones and I scramble to turn it off.

  “Uh, yeah. Guess I was in the zone. Studying.”

  She smiles and shifts the box from under her arm into her hands. “Got some more CDs.”

  I grab the box from her and set it on my bed. “You went there by yourself?”

  “Yes,” she chuckles. “I’m a big girl, you know. Plus . . . I, uh, got no room at my house to keep them, and you and Rell ain’t been returning my calls. Something’s up?”

  “Nah! Nothing.”

  I crack my knuckles against my hip bone. I don’t like her rolling there alone with all those grown men who could take advantage of her. If I was there, I could protect her. Funny, I don’t feel the same way about Ronnie. She always seems like she could handle herself.

  Jasmine sits on my bed, gazing around the room. I ain’t never had no girl on my bed before. I mean, yeah, my sister and Mom, but not no real girl.

  Still, she got me sweating. I’m so nervous I don’t even know what to do with my hands. I rip out my headphones and switch CDs. If she was a regular girl, I’d put on some R&B like Next, SWV, or Faith Evans. Set the mood or something. But with Jazz, I have to put on some Gang Starr or Heltah Skeltah to impress her.

  Wait . . . why the hell am I trying to impress her?

  “Steph used to talk all the time about how nice your room was. He said you were very . . . organized.”

  “Oh, word?”

  She tilts her head toward my desk. “You going to Bishop?”

  I follow her eyes to the brochure sticking out of my textbook.

  “I, uh, well . . . maybe.”

  “Cool. That’s what’s up!”

  “Really?”

  “I mean, yeah. It’s a good school, right? Good basketball team. It’ll get you into college and everything. Ain’t that what you want to do?”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  She nods, giving me a closed-mouth smile.

  “So, you heard about Mos Def and Talib Kweli dropping an album together? They calling their group Black Star.”

  I shrug. “That’s . . . cool.”

  She cocks her head to the side. “You do know what Black Star is, right?”

  “Their group name?”

  She laughs. “The Black Star Line was created by Marcus Garvey, one of the leaders of the Black Nationalist movement. It was a shipping company that took black people back to Africa, when black people were free from slavery, but not really free because of segregation. He wanted black people to be proud of their heritage and stop assimilating with our capturers. Why continue to live in a country where they treat us like animals?”

  “Whoa. I never thought about it like that. So what happened?”

  “The government sabotaged the ships then arrested Garvey, and deported him back to Jamaica.”

  “Why they do that?”

  “Because if black people really woke up and realized how fucked up we’ve all been treated, we would’ve burned this country down to the ground. It’d be LA riots times a thousand.” Jasmine gazes out the window, across the street into B-Voort.

  “Jazz . . . you okay?”

  She takes a deep breath, tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. “Our crib feels . . . mad empty,” she says, her voice cracking. “I miss him.”

  “Yeah. I miss him too.”

  “I know I shouldn’t be crying—he wouldn’t want that—but it’s been so hard . . . being without him.” She sniffs and wipes her face. “Making these demos, it’s like he’s still with us . . . but not the way we want. Not in the way we need . . . you know? All this, and we still don’t know what happened to him.”

  Her eyes water up bad. I don’t know what to say or do to stop her from crying. I thought the demos would be like a Band-Aid and help kill time while we heal. But for Jasmine, it’s like being cut over and over again. Because she still doesn’t have answers, she still doesn’t know who killed her brother, she still doesn’t have closure.

  “Time’s been going mad slow. Summer just flew by and then . . . it happened. I mean, we didn’t even get to Coney Island or nothing,” she chuckles through tears.

  Coney Island?

  The idea lands mad hard on my forehead.

  “Yo, that’s a good idea.” I jump out my chair and grab my jacket. “Let’s go!”

  Jasmine looks up at me. “Go? Go where?”

  “Coney Island!”

  “What? Right now? You buggin’. It’s late and too damn cold to go to the beach. They probably closed anyways.”

  “Nah, I bet this is the last weekend before they close for the winter. I’m saying, we can at least get a hot dog from Nathan’s or something. We got to let loose, have some fun for a change. We’ve been all business since . . .” I can’t say it. Not to her. “Come on Jazz, we both need this.”

  She stares up at me with those big, bright eyes, and it’s hard for me not to wrap her up and tell her she’ll be okay.

  “Aight,” she says softly. “Let’s go.”

  A chilly breeze kicks up from the beach as we exit the Ocean Avenue station. We stand on the corner, gazing across the street at all the twinkling lights as the dizzy carnival music drowns screams coming from riders on the Cyclone roller coaster.

  Crossing the street with face-splitting smiles, we enter Astroland Park, walking past the kiddie swings, the Haunted House, and the Scrambler, toward the boardwalk ramp.

  “Damn, not a lot of rides still open,” I say, glancing around the near-empty park.

  “The Wonder Wheel is,” she says, pointing up at the massive Ferris wheel ahead of us. “Want to?”

  I think of the scene in that movie He Got Game, with Rosario Dawson riding on top of Ray Allen in the passenger car . . . of them getting it on . . . and try to shake the image out my head.

  “Um . . . how about something to eat instead?”

  We head to Nathan’s on the boardwalk, ordering two hot dogs, fries, and lemonades. Some speakers down by one of the bars is blasting HOT 97. Funkmaster Flex is on for his live Saturday night mix. We sit on a bench facing the ocean.

  “Steph used to love Nathan’s french fries,” Jasmine says, popping one in her mouth with a red toothpick that looks like a devil’s pitchfork. “They so bomb!”

  “Word. It’s like, how they know the right amount of salt to put on each piece of potato?”

  Jasmine looks out at the beach, shaded by darkness. “Did you know this was one of the first beaches in New York that African Americans were allowed to come to, but they weren’t allowed on any rides?”

  “Word?”

  “Yeah. My dad said that his great-grandfather used to come here and bring his dad. He had never been to the beach before.”

  I dip a fry in our shared ketchup cup and nod toward her head.

  “So what else you got stored up in there?”

  She laughs. “What you mean?”

  “I mean, you stay dropping black his
tory gems everywhere we go. So what’s up? What else you got?”

  Her lips turn down, eyes losing some of their happiness. “You ain’t got to make fun of me, Quady.”

  “Nah, deadass, Jazz, I think it’s cool. They don’t teach you this stuff in school.”

  Jasmine stares at me, as if she’s staring through me. That’s when I notice she doesn’t really wear makeup. A little lip gloss, but her face is always smooth and glowing.

  “Okay, you know how you always say Biggie’s the biggest to come out of Bed-Stuy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you want to know someone bigger than Big? Lena Horne.”

  I laugh. “Jazz, for real?”

  “I’m serious. Lena Horne was born and raised in Bed-Stuy, went to Boys and Girls High when it was still called Girls High. Same school Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for president, went to. Gwendolyn Bennett, the renowned poet and figure of the Harlem Renaissance . . . shall I go on?”

  “Aight, so what you trying to say?”

  “Guess I’m saying . . . there’s a lot of ways to put Brooklyn on the map. Not just rapping.”

  I hold on to the cold fact that she slid into my hand, gripping it tight.

  “I knew you had something else stored up there,” I joke.

  Jasmine sips her lemonade, puckering her lips at the straw. “Steph used to call me a nerd.”

  I shrug. “Maybe you that a little bit.”

  “Shut up,” she laughs, pushing my arm, and it feels good to laugh with her. My laughs been cut short lately. Like I haven’t taken a real breath since Steph died.

  “He would’ve loved this,” I say into the wind, letting it carry my voice away. I inhale deep, waves crashing against my eardrums. Feels like we’re in our own universe, listening to the Fugees “Killing Me Softly” on the radio, eating hot dogs, being still, staring out into the void together. I’m cool just being this way. Why didn’t we ever hang out like this before?

  Jasmine is humming along with the music. Nah, more than humming, she’s actually carrying a note, her eyes closed, her lips moving over the straw.

  “Hold up, Jasmine. You can SING? Like for real?”