Let Me Hear a Rhyme Page 7

  The other day at her spot, it just felt mad . . . regular. Like, kicking it with the homies on the corner, drinking quarter waters and talking about music. Maybe that’s why when that song came on, the one with L-Boogie and D’Angelo . . . I lost my head. I found it, but it ain’t been working right since. I almost kissed her. Jazz! Jazzy Jazz!

  Man, I’m bugging.

  “I don’t like not knowing where I’m going,” Jarrell whispers to me. “Your girl is wildin’.”

  “Chill! She ain’t my girl!”

  He sucks his teeth. “Man, not like that and you know it! You ain’t stupid enough to do some dumb shit like that. Unless you want Steph to ‘Thriller’ dance his way out of the grave and snap you in half.”

  I punch his arm. “Yo, shut up, man! That ain’t funny!”

  “I’m just joking! Damn! What got your panties all in a bunch today?”

  I take a deep breath, thinking about that scene in Scarface, when Tony went bananas on his friend for checking out his sister, and my stomach starts knotting up.

  “I’m . . . just saying, she says she got an idea, let’s see what it is. Unless you got a better one.”

  Jarrell grumbles, “Aight, fine. Just don’t want her thinking she running the show, that’s all.”

  We walk through Fulton Park, near Boys and Girls High and up two blocks to the corner. Jazz opens up a foggy glass door between a storefront and a bodega, and we climb up a narrow flight of stairs with smelly carpet. She tests the knob and pushes the door open a crack.

  “You gonna have to squeeze in here,” she says, her voice low as she slips inside first.

  “This some bullshit,” Jarrell says, approaching the door real casual before shoving himself through the crack. He stops midway. “Yo, I’m stuck.”

  I take a deep breath and push at his shoulder. “Suck it in, man!”

  “Ow! I am!”

  “No, you not,” I laugh. I can’t help it. He looks ridiculous, wedged in like a doorstopper.

  “Yo, this shit ain’t funny.”

  “Aight. Ready?” I take a few steps, giving enough distance for a running start.

  “Bet!”

  I sprint up with both hands extended and shove him inside, collapsing on the floor on top of him. Jasmine stands over us, shaking her head.

  Inside reminds me of my neighbor’s apartment. She got so much junk that you can’t even see the floor or open the door fully. Mom calls her a hoarder and keeps threatening to call the landlord. This place is like some kind of electronic repair shop filled with computers, camcorders, cassette decks, stereos, and boxes filled with rolls and rolls of blank CDs. The far wall looked like a shelf in Blockbuster. Six TVs, each playing a different movie, connected to a stack of VCRs by the window.

  “What the . . . ,” Jarrell mumbles, stepping over extension cords taped to the floor. “Where are we? Half this shit looks stolen.”

  “We at a friend’s,” she whispers. “Now be quiet, and let me do the talking.”

  We check out the next room and Jarrell stops short, pointing to a machine in the corner.

  “Look! See that? That’s a CD duplicator. Son, it’s exactly what we need.”

  “Hi, Kenny,” Jasmine says from down the hall. But she doesn’t say it regular, though. She says it all smooth like. We follow her voice, running up behind her.

  Kenny’s head pops up from behind the back of a TV. He’s mad scrawny, rocking a bright-green knit sweater with thick glasses that slip down his nose.

  “Jasmine? Oh . . . wow. What’s up? What are you doing . . . here? How’d you get in?”

  “I came to see you, silly,” she giggles. “You need to learn how to lock that door.”

  She’s never giggled like that around us. I try to swallow back my rising . . . overprotectiveness. Yeah, that’s it. Or at least that’s what I think it is. It can’t be jealousy ’cause I’m not checking for Jazz like that.

  “My dad must’ve left it open. He’s making some deliveries.”

  “Your pops a bootlegger, right?” Jarrell asks with a smile. “He’s one of those people in the movie theater with a camcorder that tapes whole movies that got folk walking in front of the screen and shit.”

  Kenny worms his neck around her, adjusts his glasses, and frowns. “Who are they?”

  She waves us off. “Don’t worry about them. They ain’t important.”

  “Oh. Wow. Well, it’s good to see you. Why haven’t you been to any meetings? People been asking about you.”

  Jasmine’s face drops, eyes quickly glancing at us.

  Meeting? What meetings?

  She clears her throat. “Um, yeah. I’ve been busy with school and stuff. But, yo, remember how you said you’d help me with anything?”

  Kenny gulps. “Yeah . . .”

  “Were you lying?”

  “No, no. Of course not. Whatever you need.”

  I know this is all business, but I ain’t feeling how duke is staring at her all hard.

  “Yo, should we be doing this?” I whisper to Jarrell.

  He looks at me like I got two heads. “You bugging. Shorty’s about to hook us up.”

  “I just don’t feel right about using Steph’s sister like this.”

  “We ain’t. This was her idea. Remember? You the one that wanted to play along.”

  “Cool, ’cause I need a favor.” Jazz holds her hand out behind her back and Jarrell slips her the CDs. “I need you to make copies of these.”

  “How many?”

  “About a hundred.”

  “Of each? That’s a lot. My father . . . he may notice.”

  Jasmine smiles. “Or he may not. You guys seem so busy up in here. But if something happens, you can let him know it was me.”

  “No, no, I can’t let you get in trouble. That . . . wouldn’t be right. Um, when do you need it by?”

  Jasmine smiles. “Yesterday.”

  He blows out some air, gripping the back of his kufi.

  “Okay. But, if I do this . . . you gonna come back, right? You know you can’t just . . . leave.”

  Jasmine tenses up, her lips in a straight line, and she mumbles. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So that’s it?”

  We stand outside the Utica Ave station stop, a few blocks from home, for a quick team huddle.

  “Yup,” Jasmine sighs. “I’ll pick up the copies on Wednesday after school.”

  “Yo, good looking, Jazz,” Jarrell says.

  “Yeah . . . uh, thanks,” I say drily.

  “Aye yo,” Jarrell says. “Shit. I forgot. Supposed to pick up some bread for Mummy before dinner. She’s gonna kill me! I’ll holla at y’all later.”

  Jarrell don’t even say bye before he takes off running into the supermarket.

  “Well, I better get home,” Jasmine says. “I still got homework.”

  “I’ll walk you.”

  She shrugs. “You don’t have to.”

  I roll my eyes. “You live across the street. It ain’t nothing.”

  “Oh. Yeah, right.”

  “Aye yo, how you know homeboy? From school?”

  Jasmine squirms, focusing on the ground. “Um, kind of.”

  “Oh. And what was he talking about in there? Something about a meeting?”

  We cross Malcolm X Boulevard and head up Chauncey, passing the courts, a late game going down.

  “It’s nothing. Hey, did you know that Malcolm X was born in Nebraska?”

  She switching up and dodging the subject. Ain’t like I’m trying to be in her business or nothing. But, what we asked of homie . . . was kind of huge. Don’t do that type of stuff for your biology classmate.

  “Nebraska? I thought he was from Harlem. You know they all think I’m Muslim too, ’cause of my name.”

  She smiles. “Nah . . . really?”

  It feels good to make her smile.

  Wait! Son, what are you doing?

  It hits me that we walking mad slow, strolling like we on a date or something. And just the thought
of this image getting back to Ronnie somehow . . .

  “Damn, Quady, what’s the rush?”

  I look back and Jazz is a solid twenty feet behind me.

  “It’s uh, getting late,” I say, widening the space between us.

  “Late? The sun ain’t even set all the way,” she laughs, gazing up at the pink sky. She sighs, her smile fading. “Um, Quady . . . about the other day . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it, aight. The music just . . . carried us away.”

  She frowns. “Nah, not about that. I mean, what we found under Steph’s bed . . .”

  “Oh. Oh! Yeah.”

  She crosses her arms. “Did you know . . . he was hustling?”

  My heart picks up the pace. “Um. Nah.”

  “I . . . don’t think he was. And I don’t think how he died had anything to do with all that.”

  When we hit Patchen Ave, I open my mouth and say something real stupid.

  “How . . . do you know for sure . . . though?”

  She shoots me a look. “’Cause he was my brother. And yours too, I thought.”

  I nod. “You right. My bad.”

  “But I think that’s what the police are gonna assume. Just cast this off as some drug deal gone bad or something. Police ain’t never been here for black folks. We have to do for ourselves always. That’s why . . . I need to know what really happened.”

  “So that’s why you didn’t want Rell to see the box?”

  She bites her lip. “I just don’t want the people he loved, looking at him . . . different.”

  We stop in front of her building door. I nod at a few cats I recognize from the courts chilling on the benches and can see the light on in my apartment across the street.

  “Jazz, I hear you. But what if you find out something . . . something bad. How you gonna take it?”

  Jasmine takes a deep breath and chuckles before heading inside.

  “Anything’s better than not knowing.”

  I walk in just after seven and find Mom sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, hair already wrapped up for bed.

  “Hey, baby,” Mom says. “Dinner is on the stove and . . . what is China? HA! Yes, knew it! I knew it!”

  It’s Mom’s favorite hour of the day: Jeopardy at seven and Wheel of Fortune at seven thirty. Mom shouts answers and curses contestants out for not being as smart as her, but deadass, my mom is like a genius. She’s waiting for the New York tryouts to be on one of the shows. Either one, don’t matter. She kills it in geography, US history, science, and eats word-search magazines for breakfast. If there’s ever a hip-hop category, she’d smash that too. Mom swears she was at the party in the Bronx where DJ Kool Herc first started scratching records for the break.

  “What is carbon?” she yells at Alex Trebek while the contestant gets it wrong. “Tuh. Stupid white girl. How was practice?”

  I load up my plate with instant mashed potatoes, corn, roasted chicken, and pour myself a cup of iced tea. Mom used to work at Chase as a bank teller until they let her go. She picks up retail jobs here and there during the holiday seasons, but they don’t always last long.

  “Ma, practice don’t start until next week.”

  “Well, where you been all afternoon then?”

  “Chilling at Rell’s.”

  “Oh yeah. And how’s my favorite troublemaker doing?” she says with a grin, setting up a tray table for me.

  “About to punt the twins out the nearest window if they keep acting up.”

  I squeeze on to the sofa. Steph and Rell always snapping on me, saying I’m rich because I don’t live in the projects like them. Truth is, our spot is much smaller. We live on the top floor of a walk-up, railroad-style apartment. That means the whole place is the length of the house and the rooms are all connected. So my parents gotta walk through my room to get to their room and I have to walk through my parents’ room to get to the bathroom. The TV sits right next to the stove, and all the closets are in the hallway by the stairs so if Ms. Proyer downstairs makes fried fish for dinner, all our clothes smell like grease. It was worse when my sister lived with us; we looked like a can of sardines up in here. But now she’s shacked up with her boyfriend in Queens. Such a traitor, leaving Brooklyn for Jamaica Ave.

  “I saw Ms. Davis on the train this morning heading to work. She looks . . . good. Considering.”

  I play with a piece of chicken, slowly losing my appetite.

  “How is she?”

  “Said she’s doing okay. Keep on keeping on. Jasmine found a little job after school.”

  Jasmine must be lying about helping us. Good. Her mom would dead our project the moment she found out.

  “Oh word, that’s cool.”

  Mom smiles real big. “When I got home today, that coach from Bishop called.”

  My head snaps up. “What he want?”

  She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Just to see how you’re doing. Practice already starting over there.”

  I stuff my mouth so I don’t have to talk.

  “Baby . . . Bishop is a really good school.”

  “Yeah, that cost almost six g’s to go to.”

  “So? I said we’d find the money.”

  “How?” I snap. Mom’s been out of work for over a year now.

  “Quadir. College recruiters are gonna come looking. I don’t know how all this works, but wouldn’t it be better if you were on a winning team? A, what’s it called, division one or something?”

  I shake my head. “Mom, we gonna need to go over the sports category again before you hit them Jeopardy tryouts.”

  She laughs. “I’m serious, Quady. That coach said if you’re ready, he can find scholarship money. If you go to this school, you could get into a really good college, then med school, and become a doctor!”

  Me being a doctor was always her dream. Since I was a kid she’s been pushing for it. I guess all moms hope their sons make an honest living and move them out the hood.

  But that’s never been my dream.

  “So you want me to just leave my friends? My teammates? Ronnie?”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “If Ronnie really loved you like you swear she does, she’d understand you doing this for your future.”

  “What if she’s my future?”

  Mom purses her lips. “And what is her future? Aside from buying expensive stuff her little grown-ass behind don’t need to be wearing.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to debate about Ronnie again. Plus, I can’t leave now. Not with our plans for Steph in full effect. I need to be close and in the mix.

  “It’s just too much money, Mom. We barely keeping the lights on.”

  Mom sighs and shakes her head, tuning into Alex Trebek again.

  “What are invertebrates?” she shouts and looks at me, hard. “Animals without a backbone.”

  13

  Jarrell

  “Yo, what’s this? A crackheads anonymous meeting?”

  Mack don’t even look up before letting his dice fly and hit the brick wall behind my building, landing on a four, five, and six.

  “HAAAA! Yo, pay up, playboys!”

  The fellas, all huddled up, drop they dollars on the ground. There’s DJ Mo-Breeze, D-Block, Reck ’Em . . . ahhh, forget it, too many of them to name. They all meeting up for the daily cee-lo cypher. Cee-lo ain’t like no regular dice game. I tried to teach my cousin who lives in North Carolina and he looked at me like I had three heads, guess ’cause we play with three dice rather than just two. Cats be serious about this game.

  The rest of the homies are chilling on benches, people-watching, smoking lah, playing music. Just a typical day in Brevoort.

  “Well, look who it is,” Mack says, dapping me up. “J-Money in the building!”

  Mack’s wearing a fresh Fila velour sweatsuit and the butter Timbs, looking like he copped them from Foot Locker that morning. He always got the fly gear, the crisp haircuts, and the baddest shorties.

  “You want in?” he asks, chewing on a toothpick.

&nbs
p; “Nah, I’m good,” I say. I had business to take care of first. “What up, Cash?”

  DJ Cash gives me a head nod from the bench, taking a few puffs from a blunt.

  “What y’all getting to?”

  “Ain’t shit,” Mack says. “Just kicking it, enjoying the weather before the cold comes in, you know what I’m saying.”

  “Word, word. Well, I got something for y’all.”

  I reach into my book bag and grab the stack of CDs Jasmine dropped off that morning.

  “Here y’all go,” I say, passing them out.

  Mack looks at the cover and chuckles. “Son, what’s this?”

  “It’s a friend of mine’s. He’s nice with it.”

  Mack flips the CD around and I hold my breath, hoping he don’t look too close and recognize Steph.

  “Yo, man, is this a joke? You a promoter now?”

  The only way we were gonna get the word out about Steph . . . I mean, Architect . . . is by starting with the streets. And all these cats were either DJs, knew DJs, threw parties, or bumped music from the banging sound systems in their cars around the block.

  “Yeah . . . something like that,” I laugh, trying to act cool even though my heart is pounding something serious. “Son, all you got to do is play some of these tracks at your next party. I’m telling you, gonna have people rocking. And when they start asking about it, send them my way.”

  “This kid, always scheming,” Mack laughs. “Ever since I met him. Only six-year-old I knew hustling five-cent bags of chips for a dollar.”

  Cash takes the CD and snaps his fingers. “Oh, is this that joint you gave me at E. Roque’s party couple of weeks ago?”

  I grin. “Yup! Track number seven, ‘Go Ma.’”

  Cash looks at the fellas. “Yo. Shorties were wildin’ over this tune. I ran it back twice.”

  All the homies nod. “Oh, word? Like that?”

  “Yeah! That shit is butter!”

  Cash’s words sealed the deal. Any tunes that get the shorties dancing is the tunes fellas want at their next party.

  Mack nods his head, rubbing his chin. “Aight, kid. We got you. But, before you bounce, let me holla at you for second.”

  He throws his arm over my neck, yoking me up. Mack is like three times my size, so it don’t take nothing for him to pull me away from the others.