Something She Can Feel

by Grace Octavia

  “Dame’s in the back,” Benji said, knocking people aside as we weaseled behind him. I could hardly breathe; there were so many people pushing in.

  “We’re going to get a drink,” Billie said, pinching my arm.

  “But how will I find you?”

  “We’ll be right here.”

  She pointed to the bar.

  “But—”

  “Look, Journey, don’t chicken out now. You need to see him.”

  Another one of Dame’s bodyguards was standing in front of the door Benji was leading me to. Benji whispered something in his ear and they both looked at me before the guard moved to let us through.

  Benji and I ended up walking outside the back of the club where there was a little outdoor patio set up.

  There were only a few groups of people sitting out there. Scantily clad women and rappers whose faces I’d seen in the few music videos I caught by mistake on television.

  I saw Dame sitting at a table with a group of these rappers. He had his foot up on one of the chairs, and they were laughing. Plumes of smoke came rising from most of their hands. Dame’s hand was empty.

  “Yooooo,” Dame said when he saw me. He didn’t smile wide like he did at home. Instead, he grinned slyly and nodded in my direction. He got up with an air of careful coolness and came over to me as Benji took his seat at the table.

  “Hi,” I said, noticing again how handsome he was. Even in the same white T-shirt I’d seen him in every day, he looked brand new. Clean.

  “I can’t believe you came. I just knew you weren’t going to make it.”

  “Here I am,” I said.

  “Well, welcome to my world.” He raised his arms and looked around. “Lord of the flies.”

  “I see,” I said, watching Benji puff one of the joints.

  “What?” Dame turned to look over his shoulder. “Oh, don’t pay those fools no mind. They just in the cypher.”

  “Are you smoking?” I asked and suddenly I regretted it. I sounded like his mother.

  “I’m on my best behavior,” he said. “None of that for me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Dame, we can’t wait any longer,” Naima said, rushing onto the patio with her clipboard. “The crowd is about to get rowdy.”

  “I’m good,” he said. “My guest is here.”

  “Wonderful. It’s so nice to see your family supporting you,” she said disingenuously. She looked me up and down and sneered, as if to say in so many ways she was sure I was Dame’s older sister or aunt visiting from wherever. “Nice slacks.”

  I was growing tired of her nasty routine. I said, “I can’t wait to see you onstage, baby,” and kissed Dame on the lips.

  Her eyes went from tired to tortured. She slammed the clipboard at her side and trotted off in a huff.

  “Now, I went from being a baby to being your baby?” Dame laughed.

  “I was just fighting fire with fire.”

  “Yeah, Naima is one of my promoters. She’s never been shy about wanting to come home with me.”

  “I guess you haven’t done that,” I pressed.

  “Of course I have. Did you see her butt?” he joked playfully.

  “See, that’s why she was acting crazy.” I slapped his arm.

  “I’m a man... . I’m a man.”

  Dame’s show was fully phenomenal. Just as he’d mesmerized the kids at school, he easily controlled the crowd at the Apache. He had a live band and two backup singers. “This is what I do for fun,” he said when he finally managed to get through the crowd and was up on the stage. “Other people go to the mall, go out for dinner, kick it with some broads, but when I’m not selling out arenas around the world, I do this. Up close and personal. Because I’m a real MC and ain’t nobody gonna test you like the people in the street.” Everyone went insane, hollering praise at him. And by the time I paddled up to the front so I could see just a bit of the show in the packed room, Dame was hopping around the stage, pushing his energy off into the crowd like he’d been performing all his life. He was electric. On fire. Sweating and flexing. Building up so much intensity in the room, so much give and take between him and the crowd that was so close they could touch him, it had almost become sexual. And then he took off his shirt and a girl standing right in front of me nearly fainted into my arms. It was a good thing she had her girlfriend there to help though, because I didn’t even move to catch her. Like the other open-mouthed women standing around, I was too busy watching Dame. Beads of sweat dripped over his tattoos. They rolled down slowly as he continued to rhyme about something I couldn’t hear, tumbling toward his navel and then around the V-shaped slits his taut pelvic muscles made just above his—

  “Journey !” Dame’s voice boomed through the microphone. Hearing my name, I shook and refocused my attention away from the V shape to see that it was now right in front of me. “Journey!”

  Dazed, I looked to see that all of the women lined up in front of the stage were now looking at me.

  “Journey!”

  I looked up at Dame.

  “Yes?”

  “Come on stage,” he said, holding the microphone to his side and reaching down to help me up.

  “Me?”

  “Come on.” He beckoned again and I reached for his hand.

  “Now y’all know when Dame comes to town, there’s always gonna be something real special,” he said as one of the band members brought a chair up on stage and instructed me to sit in it. I sat down and looked at Dame, wondering what he was going to do and praying he wasn’t about to embarrass me in front of all of these faces I didn’t know. “This time, something real special came to me,” he went on and I saw the girls I was just standing beside turn from looking confused to jealous. “I won’t bore y’all with the details, so let’s just say, this is someone from my past. And I brought her up here tonight because I’m about to drop a rhyme that’s going on my next album. Y’all all right with that?”

  Excluding the sour-faced women, the crowd cheered and Dame looked at me and smiled.

  “And she needs to be up here because the song’s about her.”

  “No,” I mouthed to him nervously. I couldn’t believe he was putting me on the spot. I looked at him hard, but he just kept smiling and turned back to the audience.

  “You know how when MCs be about to spit a rhyme about some personal shit, they usually be like, ‘I don’t want people to get the wrong idea’? Well, I do want you to get the wrong idea about this one. It’s called ‘Teacher’s Pet.’ Yo, drop it.”

  The band laid down a melodic, upbeat groove. The two singers, who’d stepped away to sip on water bottles placed on a table at the side of the stage, rushed back to their microphones.

  “Teacher’s pet. Teacher’s pet. Everybody wanna be the teacher’s pet,” the two women sang slowly in unison as he bopped his head to the beat.

  Sitting there, I didn’t know if I wanted to hear what he was about to say or if I was dying to hear everything he had to say. I looked out to see if I could find Billie’s face, but instead, there was just Naima, standing at the foot of the stage with a grimace on her face.

  Dame looked back at me and then he started rhyming:

  It’s like you and me,

  And me and you,

  I couldn’t pass your test

  even if I wanted to.

  It’s like me and you,

  And you and me,

  I couldn’t pass your test

  because past you I couldn’t see.

  His flow was quick enough to keep up with the tempo set by the band but still slow like a poet’s, so I could hear each line. A serious and almost longing look on his face, he turned from me to the crowd and stepped up to the edge of the stage.

  “Yo, check it,” he went on:

  I wanted so bad to leave childhood behind,

  My childhood crush, I’d leave that at the same time.

  Her hair, her scent, her smile just let it go,

  But you can never leave your teacher, yo
u can never let

  her go.

  Between the verses, the singers sang the chorus, improvising in the background in call and response fashion when he started to rhyme.

  I used to sit in the back with my boys and just chill,

  But when she walked into the room, my universe just

  went still.

  She was the sun, the moon, the stars and I was just in

  orbit,

  Do anything to touch her, I’d do anything just for it.

  I thought the love would end when I got up and left,

  But the real truth is, your face was etched in my chest.

  Like a poem, like a song, like a book, like a psalm,

  You had the teacher’s pet, wrapped up inside your palm.

  And it’s no mystery now, no secret anymore,

  I’ve been to hell and back and you’re the one I long for.

  I’m haunted by your beauty, your angelic face,

  And then I came home to see that someone took my place.

  But it’s nothing ’cause I’ve been at this hustle for a long

  time.

  And if I have to reach you, love, then teacher’s pet will

  have to climb.

  Go however, wherever you say it’s gonna take,

  And tell old boy that even Jesus couldn’t stop the Lord’s

  fate.

  So,

  It’s like you and me,

  And me and you,

  I couldn’t pass your test

  Even if I wanted to.

  It’s like me and you,

  And you and me,

  I couldn’t pass your test

  Because past you I couldn’t see.

  Like my heart, the faces before me went from worry to wonder and then froze in amazement.

  The friend of the girl who almost fell into my arms mouthed, “Who is she?” And I was thinking the same thing. Because listening to what Dame was saying, I was sure he wasn’t talking about me. Yeah, he’d made some passes at me and we’d had some heated moments, but his words were the feelings of a man infatuated, a man with a plan to win someone. And that couldn’t be me. Of all the women in the room? Outside the club? Out in the world? That couldn’t be me. I was wearing slacks.

  When Dame was done, he came over and hugged me amid the crowd’s cheers and coos. Only this hug was a bit more uncomfortable than the others: After learning what I’d heard, I felt a need to protect myself. It was one thing for me to toy with having a crush on Dame, but for him to pronounce his desire for me in such a public way—in any way, period—seemed like a development toward something I neither anticipated nor wanted. Yes, it was exciting being up there and having this half-clothed, successful young man pine for me in front of all of those girls who were probably twelve years younger than me, but all I could worry about was what Dame intended to do next. And how I could stop him.

  “Thank you,” I said, as I rose to walk off the stage. My words were gracious, yet distant. Dame looked at me quickly and the same concern I was feeling was in his eyes. It seemed he might be wondering what I was thinking and worried that maybe he’d gone too far.

  Benji helped me off the stage and Dame pushed into what he announced was his last song, switching the mood in the room from tender and open back to the raw and rugged excitement he’d injected before.

  As I walked toward the bar where Billie was supposed to be waiting, the crowd went on like nothing had happened and the show would never end. But I was wondering what I’d say to Dame when it did.

  “Excuse me,” I said, sliding around a couple who was locked in a shameless make-out session in the middle of the floor. When I almost passed, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turned quickly to be sure it wasn’t the lip-locked boy who was literally swallowing the face of his date.

  “Journey,” Clyde said, “I was trying to get to the stage to you.”

  “Clyde?” I said as if I hadn’t seen the man in decades, which wasn’t true, but his face certainly wasn’t one I’d expected to see there.

  He was smiling wide and when he reached to embrace me, I saw that Ms. Lindsey was standing behind him.

  “Hey, Journey,” Ms. Lindsey said, waving.

  “Karen?” I questioned this time with even less familiarity. “What are you two doing here?”

  “This one just had to see Dame perform,” Clyde said, “and because he didn’t do anything in Tuscaloosa, I agreed to drive her to Atlanta.”

  “Don’t act like it’s all me,” Ms. Lindsey said playfully. “You were the one talking about how this would be cheaper and we could get out here to have a little fun.”

  “And I was right, too, because the show is hot! I’m mad it’s already over.”

  Behind us I could hear the crowd cheering Dame off the stage.

  Considering the near-impossible odds that I’d run into these two people at that club on that night after Dame just confessed his feelings to me on stage and Billie was floating around somewhere in the club with Mustafa, I thought surely the Lord was ...

  “But forget us. Why are you here?” Ms. Lindsey asked. “We saw you on stage.” She pulled my arm knowingly as if we were friends.

  “It’s not like that. That was just a joke up there.... He’s quite a jokester,” I said as comically as I could. I even added a chuckle that Clyde and Ms. Lindsey cordially joined in on. “Dame just wanted me to see him perform, so I drove up.”

  “All this way by yourself?” Ms. Lindsey said, concerned.

  “Is Evan—” Clyde tried to ask, but Benji came pushing between us suddenly. Ms. Lindsey rolled her eyes at his large frame like she’d come up against him in a fight in another life.

  “Dame wants you to come backstage,” Benji ordered more ardently than usual. He didn’t even look sideways at Ms. Lindsey and Clyde. “Come with me.”

  “Oookay,” I said at his abruptness. “I’ll see you two tomorrow?” I looked back at Clyde and Ms. Lindsey.

  “Sure,” they agreed, smiling again, but I could tell they still had questions floating in their minds.

  Benji took my arm, and we pushed through the crowd that had now turned into a full after-party. I looked around for Billie and Mustafa, but I still couldn’t see them. The club was so small and we were just a few feet from the bar. I was hoping they hadn’t snuck off somewhere. It was time to go and I didn’t want to risk having them run into Clyde and Ms. Lindsey. It was enough that they’d seen me. And I knew it would be a few hours before I had to worry about folks at the school chattering if Ms. Lindsey went and shared the news. And if I knew her like I thought I did, there was no “if” involved. But there was nothing I could do to stop things at that point. I just needed to get out of there.

  “So, did you like the show?” Dame asked. He was sitting on a furry red couch that someone had obviously moved from inside the club. I sat down next to him, but left a clear space between us. I didn’t want Ms. Lindsey or Clyde or anyone else to walk up and get the wrong idea about us. But even with that space and the rawness of the confession in his lyrics still in my mind, I felt an energy pulling me toward Dame. There was a stimulating shine in his eyes and even though a towel now hung over half of his sweaty, naked chest, it was hard not to notice how solid and flat his pecs were—like cutting boards and the tattoos there had been etched with some sharp knife. The beads of sweat looked like drops of thick honey and like all the other women buzzing around Dame, it was hard not to look and wonder what it tasted like.

  “It was okay,” I said, giving my best effort at looking away. This was about getting over my crush, not getting closer. The only progress I’d made so far was getting caught.

  “You okay? You seem nervous,” Dame said.

  “I’m—”

  “No,” he cut me off. “You don’t need to explain. I know what it is. I put you on the spot. Right?” A few of the guys he’d been sitting with came over. “No doubt! Tell that nigga to call me, so we can get up in the studio,” Dame said after they had a brief exchange.
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  “Well, it’s that—” I tried when they moved on, but Dame cut me off again.

  “I know,” he said. “But I had to get it off my chest.”

  “What do you mean?” I saw a few ladies from the crowd who’d managed to slip onto the enclosed patio stroll by slowly in front of us, but Dame looked right past them.

  “I’m feeling you, Journey.”

  Hearing him say my name again, the way he did, all smooth and new, made me feel like lightning was bolting through my body. I was shaken off my axis. And while I didn’t realize it then, suddenly, I’d forgotten all about Clyde and Ms. Lindsey and whatever else was waiting outside.

  “What?”

  “Man, I used to think it was a crush or just an old thing I had for someone in my past, but it’s not going away,” he said as openly as if we were sitting in a café and not surrounded by dozens of fans and industry folks who were trying to get hold of his attention. “I’m feeling you. I’m fucking crazy about you. And don’t laugh at me, but a part of me thought that when I went home, you’d be all old and married with kids and just wrinkly ... but you’re more beautiful now than you were then.”

  “D-D-D-Dame,” I stuttered, “I don’t think this is the place or time to discuss that.”

  “So, you’re saying you don’t feel the same way, too?” He reached for my hand and pulled me toward him. “Look at me. Tell me you don’t feel the same way. That you’re not at all interested. Because I heard it in your voice the other day on the phone.”

  “Dame, I’m a married woman,” I whispered even though no one could possibly hear me over the chatter. “And I’m ten years older than you.”