“Well, four—”
“You’re making my case for me, brother,” she said. The lawyer, Brother Bamba, smiled. “And coffee’s going for?”
“Uh,” said Moon. As if he were inserting his head into a noose. “Buck-seventy five. Buck-fifty if you bring your own mug.”
Bamba laughed. Like Seshat was just about to roast Moon’s beans.
But sitting at carrel #4 and managing their Facebook group, Rap was shocked. He knew Brother Moon’s business wasn’t raking cash, but never thought it could actually go under.
“There are ’net cafés on Jasper Ave charging five bucks for one coffee,” said Seshat. “One coffee! How you sposta to keep your doors open when you’re clearing eight bucks a night after expenses?”
“Eight bucks and twelve cents,” smirked Bamba. “To be fair.”
She smiled. “You’ve got no focus here. You’re selling everything. People coming by for data recovery wanna know you can handle super-sensitive material! Them walking in and seeing money transfer, phone cards, Yoruba statuettes—” (those she did from memory; then she scanned and pointed and blasted) “coconut oil, prayer mats, mango juice, Black baby dolls, Zapp CDs? You’re selling Zapp? Some raggedy-ass copies of Jet and Final Call, mouse traps, dashikis, fishing rods, hair-extensions—”
She was making up the last few, but she had Moon and Bamba laughing. Rap was still amazed at the sight of Moon with his peers. Whole different man when he wasn’t forced to be in command, keeping everything moving and everyone safe.
Not that he wasn’t nice to him and JC and the other Street Falcons. But here, with his old friends, the colossus got to power-down to human scale.
Wished he got to see his mother do that. Not when she sat on ten committees a week and did fifty home visits a month, independently contracting for Catholic Social Services, Mennonite Centre for Newcomers and every other NGO she constantly had to hustle for work.
She didn’t have a man, not a real man, not all to herself—except for the one in the honeymoon shots in front of those Sudanese pyramids. Wasn’t like other Somali mothers, getting to take off her hijab with her husband and kids. Yeah, she didn’t wear hijab, but all that meant was she didn’t have one to take off. No man around to laugh with and lean next to on the couch while debating the news or weep with over sappy TV shows or movies. No man to come with to parent-teacher interviews with or the school play. And she was too busy to’ve gone to those by herself anyway.
Seshat said, “This menagerie bursting your seams here isn’t doing any favours to your business cred.”
“Look, I do the data recovery upstairs,” protested Moon.
“Doesn’matter! People coming in here and smelling patties and seeing people spill Ting all over themselves are not thinking, ‘This place should be entrusted with my hard drives.’”
Seshat triangle-snapped on that, and Bamba did a Jamaican flick. Moon shook his head, smiling.
Rap finished his Facebook letter to Sixpac and JC and hit REPLY.
“Why not add printing and photocopying?” said Seshat. “Print-on-demand? Hell, just go into publishing. And add a driving school. And more groceries, of course—”
“Okay, okay! I surrender! So what’re you suggesting?”
“About time,” she said. “Can I have a coffee?”
He chuckled and poured for her.
“Thank you. Now,” she said, sipping. “Damn, that’s nice. Ethiopian?”
“Tanzanian.”
“Right. I can taste the Kilimanjaro. Anyway, Bamba and I were thinking. Place next door is still empty, right? After those shootings, people aren’t exactly lining up to rent it.”
“Yeah . . . ?”
“Why don’t you divide the Hyper-Market in two? Keep the cyber café here, put almost everything else next door?”
“You just said I couldn’t earn enough profit to keep one place open, and now you’re saying lease two?”
“Tweak your rates,” said Bamba. “A bit more for coffee, a bit more per hour. Not much. Add more net stations with the freed-up space. Next door, put all your goods.”
“How’m I supposed to afford that? Not to mention extra computers?”
“Where’d you get these?” asked the lawyer.
“Venezuela.”
“Chavez PCs?” Bamba laughed. “My man Brother Moon does not change. I love it.”
Rap checked out his PC, never having thought about where they’d been made. If someone’d asked him he’d’ve said China. But if they could make them in Venezuela, why not in Nigeria or Uganda or Sudan? They have oil, too.
Knew about Venezuela from Mr. Ani, always talking about the revolutionary president with African ancestry and wiry hair, calling him “our Bolivarian brother.”
“Don’t worry about the money,” said Bamba. “Sister and I will come in with you.”
Moon’s head rocked back. A smile slid open, curious. Then it clicked off. “You . . . serious?”
“I’m a lawyer,” said Bamba. “I’m always looking for a good place to launder my money.”
Moon laughed. Seshat said, “And I’ve been in Social Services fifteen years. That’s more heartbreak than anyone should have to take. Plus I have years of experience with my parents’ store.”
“That’s right!” said Moon. “I forgot . . . they took over, uh—Caribe’s Soul Shack on Whyte Ave?”
“Yeah. Turned it into Miss Thang’s. Still going strong—even selling our own line of Miss Thang fashions. I was general manager my first four years as a social worker. And I still do the books.”
“Well,” said Moon, “I can’t lie. That would really . . . pull my ass outta the Swamps. And if I could make enough money to maybe hire a coupla these kids to do the dailies—” (Rap’s heart started pounding like a drum-and-bass beat track) “—I could spend more time—”
Seshat: “Building up the Laboratory.”
Moon: “‘Laboratory’?”
“Bamba’s word,” said Seshat. “I like it.”
“Cuz we’re Alchemists?” asked Moon.
“And,” said Bamba, “because we’re not the Shemsu-Heru anymore. We’re something new.”
“We need an HQ,” said Seshat. “I’ve been talking to my City Councillor, Mohinder Bhatia. He thinks he can get us a storefront cheap, or even free, ’specially in this area, cuz we’re doing youth outreach. Say it’s a lock if we can do some tutoring and get some drop-outs.”
“Sister . . . you . . . you’re a miracle-worker!”
“Think about it, Moon—they’re on crocodile-backs down at City Hall, terrified you’re gonna sue the police department, the mayor, everyone, for police brutality. City’ll throw grants, facilities, whatever atcha just to avoid a lawsuit they know YouTube’ll make them lose.”
Bamba said, “And if we get the storefront, there’re federal grants through Multiculturalism and Citizenship.”
“And we should be leveraging your fame as a crime-fighter, Moon,” said Seshat. “Using that Youtube of you, putting together all those news stories—”
“Oh, you mean the stories claiming I was a drug dealer?”
“No, the ones saying you were a heroic entrepreneur intervening in a deadly situation to save a couple of kids. We market that properly, tie it in with the video? You’re suddenly the hottest martial arts teacher in town. ‘Study with the famous Sensei Ani!’”
“Sbai Ani. And I’m not famous.”
“Oh yes you are. And you should be more famous,” said Bamba. “And before you can protest, no, not for ego, but because that fame can make building the Laboratory that much easier.”
“The Street Laboratory,” said Rap, sitting at his carrel.
All three adults turned to him.
Wasn’t like they hadn’t been ignoring him. He hadn’t even joined the conversation until that point.
They traded glances, nodded.
“I like that,” said Brother Moon. “The Street Laboratory of Kush.”
A spark—zap—rippling u
p his spine. Like he’d just carved hieroglyphics on the wall around the Step Pyramid, lines that sunrise would kiss golden for ten thousand years.
So let me you tell the whole story
Of the Street Lab-ra-tory
The Falcons, without guns
Will conquer all and take the glory . . . .
7.
11:49 PM IM response from Sixpac:
UR DLY ALCHMY WS ATOMIC
10 AM 2MRW
11:50 PM IM response from JC:
B there fo sho
Got yr bk, bra
Rap grinned, and his own grin felt like ice cubes.
Clicked off IM, back to Word. Kept refining. Kept reciting against an instrumental version of PE’s “Revolution.”
8.
Sixpac. Brother had magic wands for fingers.
Black magic-making, and jaw, knee and fingers came down on the final conjuring.
JC, Rap, stunned.
“So,” said Sixpac, smirking into their silence, “something like that?” said Sixpac.
“That was DOPE, kid!” said JC, rocking his mini-dreads.
“Pacman,” said Rap, “you’re like DJ Premier. Or Hi-Tek!
JC: “Man, you’re like, like, like Pete Rock or suh’m. Or the RZA! Rap, check this out. I’ma play it back with the drum track.”
Sixpac got off his bed, put down his e-bass, then leaned past JC at the computer to hit SAVE on the live track he’d just fed to Fruity Loops file. Tappetty-tap-tap, and then merged it all, and then PLAY.
And then drums, and synth tracks, and noise FX, and the ultra-low-frequency bass blackness.
A trillion air molecules jumping, thumping, crumping on the same beat at the same time for the same rhyme in Rap’s mind.
And between the megaspeakers, thunder.
“Thank you so, so much for this!” said Rap, leaping out of his chair. “This is gonna be amazing! Put the Pyrites on notice!”
Sixpac raised his fist, dropped a dap on Rap, took one back. JC followed.
And while the air was getting funky from three teenaged boys and three hours of constructing beats, they didn’t even notice the stank. When they finally broke upstairs, they only did it outta thirst.
Sixpac. Hard to believe he was third- or fourth-cousins or whatever with JC. The brother’s place was a clean, newish split-level with a driveway in front. The Jowhars were the only truly middle-class Somali family Rap’d ever seen.
Only three kids—practically childless by Somali standards. Sixpac’s dad was an engineer with Stantec. His mum was a nurse. His older brother, a Commerce student at Concordia, owned his own Hyundai minivan with only one dent and just a few chips in the paint.
And Rap’d finally agreed with JC to work with Sixpac because even though he felt totally outclassed by the taller, way better-looking, carved-biceps eighteen-year-old, it turned out that Pac was actually a decent brother, and he’d leapt at the chance to help Rap out.
Back downstairs in Sixpac’s room drinking Barq’s and cream soda, no one bothered to open the window or even the curtains.
Sixpac’s computer desk and shelves boasted their bounty: two drum machines including an 808, a waa-waa pedal, a patchbay, two Technics 1200 turntables, a Roland keyboard, and a sixteen-channel mixing board.
But JC went after the small. Something on the shelf, no bigger than a credit card, but clearly gear. Picked it up.
Sixpac said, “Portable scratch pad. But no inputs or outputs. So my whole thing is, I’d use . . . that one.”
JC picked up the unit Pac was pointing at, size of a small mixer or a big external burner.
“Arc 3,” said Sixpac. “Whole thing is, you got twin loop banks, pitch control. Use that and the Ion together, you’re good to go.”
“But this’ll be outdoors,” said Rap. “Won’t the sound get eaten up in all that space?”
Sixpac smiled, pointed to the closet.
Rap slid aside the double doors.
Thing came up to his waist. Sat on its own dolly.
Had two car batteries wired into it, strapped on with bungee cords.
Sixpac hit a remote. The volume meter crackled to life: a cosine of radiant blue LEDs. The thing hummed directly into their bones.
“Me and my brother built im outta spare parts,” said Sixpac. “We call im Optimus Prime.”
Rap and JC, whispering like they were at mosque:
“Awesome.”
9.
Friday morning. Moon and Rap brushed dust off their knees, finished fiddling with the web cam, then tippy-toed off the roof.
Downstairs at carrel #12, Rap clicked on the desktop’s AERIE icon.
Onscreen, four peregrine falcons chirped and squawked in silence.
“I can set up a mic if you want,” said Rap. “Do you have an all-weather one?”
“Think so,” said Moon.
“I can put a link in our Facebook group, so everyone can watch the falcons whenever they want to.”
“You kids today are different,” said Moon. “Watching chicks online aint what it usedta be.”
Rap laughed. Moon put a quick squeeze on Rap’s shoulder, let go. Rap didn’t flinch. He actually smiled, even though Mr. Ani couldn’t see it.
The door jangled and the massive Somali Mothers Crew rolled in, twenty-kids-strong, led by JC’s mum.
Thanks to Rap’s tutelage, Moon offered up maalin wanaagsan. Got some smiles and impressed mugs from the women, and ma’a-salaama in return.
Moon offered tea, but Mrs. Abdi was there on business. So were the other two muhajabaat, women Rap’d never seen before. Mrs. Abdi wanted Moon to lead some kind of something on autism for their community, starting with explaining to these other women what it was.
Rap scanned the little kids. A few seemed obviously off to him. Jackie Chan’s little brother was with them, bobbing and droning.
“Well, the thing is,” said Moon, “scientists have been wrong about autism for a long time.”
“Whatt do you mean?”
“They used to diagnose autism just by looking at how kids behaved. But that’s like looking at a car’s windshield or hood to figure out what’s wrong with the engine.”
“So whatt are you sugg-a-jestingk?”
“The new thinking is that in up to fifty per cent of kids, they’re really suffering from seizures.”
Mrs. Abdi looked confused. Rap translated the concept, and when that didn’t work, subtly mimed.
She reared back like she’d smelled something awful. “My son has never done that.”
“No,” said Moon, “but seizures can be absolutely tiny, so tiny nobody sees them. From the outside. But with an EEG, a brainscan, we can see them from the inside.”
“Brain-scan?” Like Moon’d said they should open up her kid like a tin of anchovies.
“It’s nothing dangerous. An electro-encephalogram. It’s just like an X-ray, but safer. It’s a way to measure electricity flowing inside the brain. Our thoughts are basically electricity.”
One of the other ladies had a back-and-forth in Somali with Mrs. Abdi.
“She wants to know whatt is happeningk insidte her son’s brain, if whatt you say is true.”
Moon looked at the ceiling, then back to them. “Okay, see, the brain works . . . like a city’s electrical grid. So a seizure is like lightning hitting the generators and the lines. Makes equipment go into overdrive in some places and knocks out power in others. Surges and blackouts, simultaneously.
“When kids have these seizures, they’re overloaded. Everything’s too much for them, so they can barely make sense of what’s going on around them, let alone learn about their world. Sometimes not even enough to learn words, or how to behave.”
Mrs. Abdi translated parts of that, then relayed another question. “So why do our kidts get these seizures or autism here, but nott back home?”
“It’s probably environmental. Certain fungi, you know, like mushrooms? But right inside the soil? They can cause seizures. Toxic plants. Pestic
ides. Heavy metals—”
“What?”
Rap explained in Somali.
“Yess, okay. Like, mercury?”
“Exactly,” said Moon. “Or chromium, or iron—they can leach right out of cutlery, cooking utensils . . . . Lead, definitely. Too much lead, or any of these other poisons, and you could end up trapped inside your own body, like a corpse. Or a zombie.”
Mr. Ani opened his hands, like he was holding a body right there.
“Looking on the surface was never enough. But now we know better. Now we know that if you look inside, see what’s wrong, we can get the right medicine to, well, to resurrect these children. So they can live with us. Talk with us. And love us.”
Translations. Excitement.
“So,” said Mrs. Abdi, “where do we gett these ee-ee-jeez?”
10.
Wednesday. Blue sky. Hot sun. Amped berimbau music twanging across Beaver Hills House Park while the capoeristas flipped and pivoted halfway between breakdancing and taekwon-do.
The battered Hyundai minivan pulled up next to the park. Rap, JC and Sixpac jumped out, popped open the back doors of the van, then dollied the massive Optimus Prime onto the sidewalk before rolling it into position.
Pac’s brother Luqman flicked on his hazards. Red alert. As the wheel man.
JC plugged the Arc 3 portable DJ station into Optimus Prime with a single yellow RCA digital cable, then connected the mic. Sixpac clicked the remote and the mega box flickered blue.
Rap’s heart was beating so hard it felt like someone punching him in the throat.
JC hit the button.
Beats ripped through the crowd like IEDs.
“ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO,” said Rap, voice echoing against the downtown buildings of Beaver Hills park.
Repeated the one-two a few times to pull the audience from the capoeristas and give JC and Pac enough time to finish their sound check.
Rap cupped his mic. “We ready?”
Pac nodded. JC did a test-scratch on the Arc 3’s wheel.
The Alchemists of Kush Page 13