Let Me Hear a Rhyme Read online

  “Yo, I heard about your brother. My condolences.”

  Tania twirls her long blond braids around her fake pinkie nail, the same way she did in second-period math. I’ll admit, been crushing hard on Drama since I was thirteen, but seeing Tania snuggling up on his arm, marking her territory, makes me want to barf.

  “Thanks. So, um, did you roll through the Nuyorican yesterday?”

  “Nah. I was at E. Rocque’s party.”

  “E. Rocque had a party? Why ain’t anyone tell me?”

  “You? Ha, nah. That ain’t your scene.”

  “Why it ain’t my scene?” I ask, eyes narrowing. Especially since I thought we were a part of the same scene.

  He looks at my hair, my African medallion and shrugs. “Just . . . ain’t.”

  Tania chuckles. “What he means is, they ain’t burning incense, beating drums, and talking ’bout, ‘the revolution will not be televised’!”

  I give Drama a look and he gulps, cheeks turning red. Is he really going to stand for her clowning Gil Scott-Heron’s legendary poem? The one I performed at the Black History Month assembly last year? Daddy’s favorite . . .

  “Um. Well, later, Jazz,” he says, pulling Tania across the street.

  I ain’t even tripping about him being with Tania. What hurts most was him assuming that I didn’t belong at a party. Why? ’Cause I listen to Heron and rock a natural? I love good music and dancing as much as anyone!

  See, Steph, even when I try, people still play me.

  And I can hear him now. “You . . . different, Jazz. Not everyone knows how to deal with different.”

  I just wish being different didn’t make me feel so . . . alone.

  7

  Jarrell

  “Damn, this weather feeling mad good,” my big homie Ray Mack says, licking closed a dutch as we chill on a bench near the chess players. “Got me wanting to cook out or something.”

  Mack ain’t dressed like he’s ready to barbeque. He got on the fresh Jordans, a Ralph Lauren Polo, and every piece of jewelry he owns, like he ain’t afraid someone might snatch his chains. He’s good though, since no one’s crazy enough to mess with Mack.

  “J-Money, you aight, kid?”

  I know what he’s really asking. Am I okay after losing my best friend, but there ain’t no good answer for that.

  I shrug real cool like. “Yeah, I’m straight.”

  The B-voort courtyard is filled with kids playing double Dutch, tag, and hide-and-seek. I peep over my newspaper at my twin little brothers, tumbling around in the grass, but as soon as them ice-cream-truck tunes hit our block, I know within two seconds the boys will be up in my face.

  “Rell, we want ice cream,” they say in unison.

  I suck my teeth. “Y’all got ice cream money? And what I tell you about talking together like that? Mad creepy, looking like the black Shining.”

  Mack chuckles. “You boys want ice cream?” He yells over his shoulder to the rest of the kids playing in the courtyard. “Y’all ALL want some ice cream? Well, come on then.”

  Mack strolls over to the truck with a horde of kids behind him.

  “My man,” he says to the driver. “Give them whatever they want. On me, yuh heard!”

  The kids crowd the window, ordering ice cream sandwiches, swirl soft cones, and Strawberry Shortcake bars as Mack peels two crisp hundred-dollar bills off a stack he keeps in his Gucci clip and hands it to the driver. I can’t tell you how Mack makes his money, but I can tell you he ain’t without it.

  Little Tamika with the pink bobo’s in her hair hangs back with her jump rope.

  “Aye yo, baby girl. You don’t want no ice cream?” Mack asks her.

  Tamika crosses her arms and stares, eyes narrowing at him.

  “Tamika! Don’t you hear him talking to you?” I snap. “How you gonna diss Mack like that?”

  She don’t flinch and keeps her distance. The way she mean-mugging, she’s clearly heard more about Mack than the others and wants no parts of him.

  “Nah, it’s all good,” he says with a smirk. “That’s aight, boo-boo! You stay quiet and keep doing you. Real hustlers don’t make noise.”

  That’s Mack. He be dropping gems everywhere he go, like Beast from X-Men. Got quotes for days.

  I laugh and go back to my paper. My love of comics started from reading the funnies every Sunday with my pops. I still read them whenever I can, but today, I’m flipping through the Daily News, looking to see if they mention anything about Steph.

  “Hey, don’t read them papers too close,” Mack warns, unwrapping a King Cone. “All they do is gas up the bad shit. They never report about the good shit happening in the hood.”

  He hands me a Batman ice cream bar.

  “I mean, look at me! Out here playing Ice Cream Santa. They ain’t gonna report about that! My Old G used to do the same for me when I was a kid. We hold down our own, nah mean?”

  See? That’s why I fucks with Mack. He knows what it’s like to be a kid growing up in Bed-Stuy. Wish Quady and Steph rocked with him too, but like Tamika, they just think he’s bad business. Going off rumors, they don’t know the real Mack like I do.

  I fold up the newspaper and unwrap my ice cream, watching three little boys stroll by with Sonic the Hedgehog bars. Reminds me of when we were little—Steph, Quady, and me—heading to the summer basketball clinic at the YMCA. I remember that first summer, we were playing these three cats from Marcy. Ain’t no way these fools were some eight-year-olds. Homies had bass in their voice, nah mean? But Quady had the nice jump shot, Steph hit ’em with the three-pointers, and I had defense on lock.

  My skills weren’t that tight, but being with them made me feel like I could do anything. Be anything, y’knowwhatumsayin?

  8

  Quadir

  School ain’t the same without Steph.

  Basketball ain’t the same without Steph.

  Deadass, nothing’s been the same without Steph.

  “You wanna shoot some hoops later?” Jarrell suggests on our walk home after school.

  “Nah. I don’t feel like whooping your ass today.”

  He unzips his book bag, grabs his Discman and the mini booklet that carries all his CDs.

  “Yo, it’s Friday! We gotta do something!”

  There’s a plea in his voice. Jarrell must be feeling it too. That void. It creeps up on us when we least expect it. Any other Friday we’d have something to do.

  Steph’s death was nothing but a paragraph in the Daily News: “Teen Found Dead in Housing Projects,” buried somewhere after page six. Since then, I’ve been brainstorming new headlines for a follow-up story:

  Friends Nearly Die of Boredom after Teen’s Death

  Slain Teen Leaves Friends Mad Confused

  “Anyway, what you and Ronnie getting into this weekend?”

  “Nothing. She’s shopping with her moms all weekend for her sweet-sixteen dress.”

  “Oh, word? That’s coming up soon, right?”

  I swear, Ronnie’s been planning this super sweet-sixteen bash since she was fourteen. The banquet hall’s been rented since she turned fifteen. With a guest list pushing close to two hundred, everyone has to wear either pink or black to match the theme: Black Princess. Her dad drove her around the hood in his Escalade so she can personally deliver pink invitations. Open up the envelope and gold sparkles pop out. The school hallways were covered with it. She’s having a seven-tiered cake, a chocolate fountain, cherry soda dispenser, fettuccine alfredo (her favorite), and two DJs. She even ordered a custom-made gold throne with her name stitched into the pink cushions.

  I know all this, because she tells me about every detail, every day, nonstop.

  “Yup. Gonna be the ‘party of the year.’” I don’t get the big deal about turning sixteen. It’s just another birthday. For my sixteenth, my parents took me to Dallas BBQ in the city, then the Virgin Megastore, where I bought five CDs.

  “Mad kids been talking about it. She’s inviting everybody!”


  That’s Ronnie. She does things big, and her pops have the money to spoil her.

  “Did I tell you . . . her and her girls doing the dance routine from Aaliyah’s ‘Are You that Somebody?’ video?”

  “For real? That’s . . . yo wait, ain’t there guys in that video?”

  Silence.

  Jarrell cocks his head to the side, his grin growing wider. “Hold up? Is Ronnie making you . . . dance with her?”

  “Man,” I grumble. “She even got us doing costume changes.”

  Jarrell eyes spark before he bust out laughing. “BAHAHAHAHA! Son, I’m dying! Why didn’t you just tell her no?”

  “You kidding? Her pops would kill me! I got no choice.”

  “Maybe we can borrow some of my auntie’s curl activator and you can get your Ginuwine body-roll on,” he snickers. “Man, the whole hood gonna find out you can’t dance for shit.”

  “Whatever. I don’t care what people think.”

  Aight, I care. That dance is mad complicated, and Ronnie keeps snapping at me when I mess up. Swear I’ve watched it about ten thousand times and still can’t get it right. Might turn gray the way she stressing me.

  “Yo! Is La’Tasha dancing too?” Jarrell asks, eyebrows wiggling. “You know I’m feeling her. You need to hook it up.”

  “She ain’t checking for you. But Ronnie’s cousin is. You know she’s had a crush on you since the fifth grade?”

  “You mean Dragon Breath Brenda? Nah, I’m good on that, thanks.”

  We hop on the bus, heading back to Brevoort. I grab my new Vibe magazine out my book bag and flip to the page I left off.

  “Yo, who’s that on the cover? Will Smith?” Rell ask.

  “Yeah. It’s the fifth-anniversary issue.”

  “Man, not for nothing, but Vibe be having the illest covers,” he says, putting on his headphones. “I still got my Biggie and Faith cover posted on my wall.”

  This month’s issue is thick with new music reviews and an exclusive interview with none other than Pierce Williams, an A&R rep at Red Starr Entertainment, one of the hottest record labels in the industry. He’s known for discovering and developing new talent. The interview is a big deal since he don’t mess with the press like that. In his words, “I like to be seen, not heard, ya heard!” He’s definitely seen, alright. Duke is everywhere! In pictures at the most poppin’ clubs with celebrities like Janet Jackson, Naomi Campbell, even Elton John.

  He recently signed Fast Pace, this cat from Sumner Houses in Bed-Stuy. Everybody was bumping his tracks last summer, after he was featured on a DJ Clue mixtape. I always wondered how rappers got their start in music. But when it happens, it happens fast. One day they on the corner, the next day they got a video on MTV.

  The bus jerks and moves through traffic, hitting every stop up Fulton Street. Jarrell’s head bobbing hard to some beat.

  “Hey,” I say, tapping his leg. “Yo, what you messing with?”

  He frees up one ear and sighs. “Steph. Been listening to his stuff all week.”

  He said it like he didn’t want to admit it.

  “Yo, at E. Rocque’s party, you see how everybody started wildin’ out when his song came on? DJ had to run it back twice!”

  “Yeah. Cash was fronting like he didn’t wanna give me back my damn CD. Chump.”

  “Now that’s the kind of parties I fucks with. No stress, no stiff suits, no damn dance numbers like we a Broadway musical. Just folks vibing to good music.”

  “That’s ’cause Steph had the type of flow that anyone could get with.”

  “I’m telling you, if Steph was still alive, he’d be killing them.”

  Jarrell reaches up to press the signal strip before our stop.

  “Ha! He’s killing them while he’s dead.”

  The bus stops short, and I damn near hit my head on the seat in front of me. Jarrell skips out the back exit and I follow. The bus roars off, exhaust swirling around us as his words echo over and over.

  Killing them . . . while he’s dead.

  “Yo, let’s stop at the bodega. I’m thirstier than a motherfucker.”

  As we head down our block, I stare at the gray pavement, the cracks in the ground as the world goes silent, and an idea so crazy pops into my head that my legs stop working.

  Jarrell glances back at me.

  “What? What’s up?”

  I blink. “You’re right.”

  “Huh? Right about what?”

  “You’re right. He is killing them . . . while he’s dead.”

  Jarrell face screws up into a frown. “Quady, you been smoking or something? What are you talking about?”

  “Steph. He could drop an album!”

  Jarrell crosses his arms. “Steph? Our boy Steph? You want him to drop an album from six feet under?”

  A rush zips through my veins as I picture it all. This could work. It’s gotta work!

  “Mad rappers come out with albums after they died. Biggie did it. Tupac did it.”

  Jarrell snorts. “Yeah, a couple of times.”

  “Bob Marley still making money and he’s been dead for a minute.”

  Jarrell nods. “Rastas do love dem some Marley.”

  “So I’m saying, if they all did it . . . why can’t Steph?”

  Jarrell cocks his head to the side. “You wanna know why?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, why?”

  “’Cause all those people you talking about already had a deal!” Jarrell shouts, throwing his hands up. “They had the clout, the juice, the je ne sais quoi. And they all had deals with labels to drop their album for them!”

  That’s true. They were all established before they passed. People never heard any of Steph’s music before that party.

  But if Fast Pace could get signed just off a freestyle . . .

  I snatch Jarrell’s Discman out of his hand, pop out the CD, and hold it up to his face like a mirror.

  “So. Why don’t we get Steph a deal?”

  Jarrell stares at the CD until my idea hits him in the gut. He steps back, eyes almost popping out his head before the craziest grin grows across his face.

  9

  Jasmine

  When they finish spitting out their plan, all I can do is stare up at the two goofy faces standing in front of me.

  “You . . . you serious?”

  Quadir nods. “As a heart attack.”

  Jarrell sucks his teeth. “Yo, son, why you gotta be so corny?”

  “What? What I do?”

  “‘As a heart attack?’” He shakes his head. “This dummy.”

  “Man, if you don’t stop breathing down my neck . . .”

  “You really thought that shit was cool, didn’t you?”

  “Aight! Enough,” I yell over them.

  The living room falls silent as I lean back into the sofa.

  “So . . . you want to get my brother signed? To a label, like for real?”

  “That’s the plan,” Quadir says, eyeing Jarrell, twiddling his fingers.

  “Even though he’s . . . gone.”

  Quadir takes a deep breath and sits next to me.

  “It’s like this Jazz: Steph recorded mad music before he died, right? All we’re gonna do is take some of his tracks and make a demo. Once people start hearing him, he’ll blow up, and labels will be begging for more.”

  “But . . . he’s gone.”

  “See, that’s the thing . . . he’s not dead.”

  “Not to us,” Jarrell adds with a grin.

  “Um, am I missing something?”

  “We’re gonna pretend he’s still alive.”

  I can’t find the words to accurately describe how I feel. I can only spit out, “Y’all are wildin’! How you gonna do that?”

  “Okay, so, boom. Steph kept a mad low profile, right?” Jarrell says. “I mean, cats just knew him as a hot freestyler, but no one’s ever heard his real music before, besides us.”

  “What if people find out it’s him and find out he’s dead?”

&nbs
p; “Trust, they won’t. We gonna keep all of this on the low low.”

  “Think about it, Jazz,” Quadir says. “If we don’t do this, no one will ever know just how nice with it he really was!”

  “And for real, yo, you see how many wack emcees there are out there! He would’ve been the hottest rapper to come out of Bed-Stuy since Biggie.”

  “And Jay-Z,” I mumble.

  “Huh?”

  “Jay-Z.”

  “Psst, I mean, I guess,” Jarrell chuckles.

  “You guess? Boy, did you actually listen to Reasonable Doubt? The way he spits over the horns on ‘Can I Live’? ‘Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous dreams of gettin’ cream. “Let’s do this,” it gets tedious. So I keep one eye open like CBS!’ That shit was sick! Your ears broken or something?”

  Quadir smirks. “Yup. You Steph’s sister alright.”

  I gulp, thinking of what Steph would say. “Easy, Jazz, you don’t have to bite duke’s head off.”

  Quadir touches my shoulder. I thought his hands would be all rough from playing ball, but nah, they soft like butter leather.

  “Listen, I know this sounds mad crazy. I mean, who knows how far we’ll get. But we gotta at least try. All we need . . . is his music.”

  Ohhh, so that’s why they’re here. That’s why they made sure to come right after school when Mom’s not home. They want to run up in Steph’s room and cop all his stuff, and they need my permission to do it.

  I look across the room at the picture of Steph they used for his funeral. It was taken at last summer’s block party, Steph making all the kids dance in front of the DJ booth, grabbing the mic, playing emcee, with the biggest smile on his face.

  Who can kill a kid with that smile?

  The question has been stewing in my head for so long that I can’t even concentrate at school. I want to know all the whos, whats, wheres, whens, hows, and most importantly, the why. Why did they take my brother, my best friend, from me?

  “Y’all know where Steph worked at?”