by Danyel Smith
A uniform snatched the injured boy by the arm and the boy’s face twisted tight, then opened up slack and wet. Eva looked for blood on the injured kid, in the dirt, on his boots. There wasn’t enough light. The uniform walked the boy out while another officer tried to corral people toward doors. Only a few exited. Eva heard music.
It was Public Enemy: Here come the drums.
Money Min was on the wheels of steel. Changing the course of the night. Giving it a different, dancing ending. People started to move again, together, to PE’s “Can’t Truss It.” To jump up, up, and down.
Min flipped through the Italian DJ’s abandoned records, fishing for a mix. She found House of Pain. Two Irish-Americans and a Latvian type, rapping over terse base and a roiling drum loop. Left fingers on the fader, right fingers slow-twirling the LPs, Min wore her dead husband’s headphones like a thinking cap. Public Enemy’s horns thundered like elephants charging into House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” The song had sirens like Public Enemy was famous for, so the mix sang on multiple levels. Eva rode each current, her knees bent and locked like behind a woolly mammoth’s flapping ears.
Jump up/Jump up jump up and get down.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
Min was rocking. The sound was hypnotic. Eva didn’t have the space in her head to wish she were jumping on the floor. All she was aware of was the mix, the beats, the wave of kids jumping beneath her, rising up and down, a riptide she could joyously dive into. On the shaky scaffolding, Eva bounced.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
It was like War had given Min the skills when he was alive or had sent them to her from wherever he was because she was leaned over the tables like her name was DJ Jazzy Jeff, and she was a gifted boy from Philly whose name would always be, to hard-core hip hop heads, ahead of the Fresh Prince’s for a reason.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
I’ll serve your ass like John McEnroe.
The amphitheater’s ancient walls seemed to shudder in the moonlight.
Then Min went to Kriss Kross’s “Jump.”
Eva gripped the horizontal pole in front of her, braced her feet, and shook her ass to beat the beat. “Jump”—from thirteen-year-old Atlanta rappers who wore their clothes backward and rhymed over the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”—had come out a few months before “Jump Around.” Nineteen seventy. Motown, post Holland-Dozier-Holland. In her soul, Eva felt Michael Jackson’s mute Now. That. I. See. You. In his arms. I want you back over The Mac Dad’ll make you/Jump/Jump. She felt the chimes and harmonies of Motown, the immortality of a number one hit, the glory of two number one hits within the same song. Eva shook the scaffolding harder than Lil John had. These shits were number one for a reason.
“That’s your song?” John called it up at her, and Eva could barely hear him over the music, so she incorporated a nod into her dance as her mind shouted at him, How can you not just see that it’s my song? Can’t you feel it? And that thought took her straight to the Jacksons’ 1980 “Can You Feel It?” and the whole amphitheater scene connected and worked on too many levels to count. Every breath you take/Is someone’s death in another place. The song made Eva think of a 1981 night with her father at the Forum in Los Angeles, the Jacksons’ Triumph Tour. Thirty-nine U.S. cities, began in Memphis, ended with four sold-out nights at L.A.’s Fabulous Forum. Michael, Marlon, Tito, Randy, and Jackie came out to Can. You. FEEL. IT??? At the Forum, in the rafters with her dad, Eva had jumped/jumped. On the Italian scaffolding even she tried to jump/jump. Eva was in a world. She was every place she had ever been, hearing every song she had ever loved. Yes, her body’s every twist and pop said. Yes, I can feel it. This is my fuckin’ song.
Lil’ John shook the scaffolding again, and when Eva looked down at him, he held out his arms like he’d catch her if she fell.
He looks strong enough. I should let him be my angel.
Lil’ John put his hands on the poles again, smiling. The crowd around him bubbled and whooped.
It doesn’t count if the person makes you fall so they can have you in their clutches.
John climbed the lower level of the creaky scaffolding. He said something to his valet, who passed Lil’ John the shoebox, and then ran off toward the stage, toward Money Min.
From the shoebox, John passed Eva a stack of glossy flyers and a handful of cassettes. Boys in the audience bounced and pointed to the sky as if it were the origin of the beat. The valet jumped on the stage.
Eva reached down and took the flyers. Saw that the cassettes were the remix of a new single from Peace&Love, with “lost” tracks from War, and a bonus debut track from “DJ Money Min.” Just then, at the hands of the valet, a poster of War unfurled, heavy as a dictator’s, or one from The Gap. It was a new poster, this time of War with arms raised in victory, Peace and Love beside him, saluting their DJ with homely scepters of microphone. War with the look of wanting to fly away, of having been pressed into a service he was built for, but had been used against him.
The crowd was out of hand. The uniforms by the doors with their stern faces and long guns were trivial and small. There was nothing in the dirt bowl to tear up, or it would have been wrecked. People were starting to stomp and get stomped again.
Can’t truss it.
Public Enemy number one! ONE one ONE one!
Money Min had gone back to PE. Lil’ John hit at Eva’s boot, but she knew what she was in a great position to do. She tossed the flyers up, and they fluttered down like giant confetti.
I drop jewels like paraphernalia/I’m infallible, not into failure. Eva tossed shrink-wrapped cassingles into the air one by one, then by the twos, and people grabbed for them and snatched them from each other, and picked up flyers to retoss them or stuff them into pockets. Not into failure. Eva loved that line. Gang Starr featuring Nice & Smooth. From Smooth B’s verse. The hot shit from Chrysalis right now. “Dwyck,” the hottest shit out, period.
“¡Sopra qui! ”
“Over here ! ”
“¡Mas aqui! ”
Lil’ John handed Eva more and she threw them up and out, and she was ecstatic. He gazed at her like she was a half a mile from heaven. When Eva looked down again, Lil’ John gave her a thumbs up, and then twirled his index fingers around each other as if to say, Wrap it up, enough. Don’t want to give away too much. Then he pointed his thumb at himself, at Eva, and over his shoulder, saying they should leave.
She pointed at her groups, and then held up her own index to say, One minute.
Lil’ John pointed across the stage to the promoter, and nodded, like he needed the same minute. This mute exchange gave them both the feeling that they’d much in common, and that the road to sex and mutual respect would be easy.
Trix was beneath her, scared and ready to go. Giada stood there, too, disappointed. The crowd hooted for more prizes, but Eva climbed down.
“You coulda fell,” Lo-Note/Lois said.
Eva frowned at her. “That’s the kinda shit goes through your mind?”
She and Lil’ John’s individual minutes turned into an hour, but when Eva got back to her hotel later, tired and needing to pack for the drive south to Ravenna, Lil’ John was at the bar on his third lemon liqueur and soda. He saw her, pulled a wad of lire from his pocket, looked at it for a second like he might attempt to figure out the exchange rate, then placed all the money on the counter, walked over to Eva at the elevator, and stepped on with her. She pushed a button, and he didn’t.
“Imperial Court,” Lil’ John said, “didn’t even go on.”
“Neither did Trix.”
“You don’t care?”
The doors opened with a ping, and Eva stepped off.
“I care,” she said, looking at him from the quiet hallway. “But shit happens.”
He took this as a summation of her personality and as such, an invitation. Lil’ John stepped from the elevator. “That attitude’ll get you far
,” he said as they walked.
It’s gotten me this far. “You don’t know what my attitude is.” Eva unlocked her door. He followed her in.
“I think I do,” he said, plopping down on a chair. “You’re glad I came up here.”
“You’re glad you came up here.”
“Sit by me.” He flushed pink, but didn’t look bashful.
“You got that chair,” Eva said, “pretty well filled out.”
Lil’ John stood, paused, and then sat on the bed. “Then I guess I’ll move over here.”
She sat next to him. “You’re smooth as hell,” Eva said dryly, feeling nice and smooth herself.
“First time you had somebody up here?”
Guys. Always checking their place in line. “I’ve been here one night.”
“So I’m asking.”
They were talking toward the television cabinet. Their shoulders were touching, and if they faced each other, they’d be kissing. Eva thought for a second about the last person she’d had sex with, Imperial Court’s manager. Brother called Fred Truth, after Hampton and Sojourner. He couldn’t make the trip. Jacked his back up in a minor car accident, plus his girl was about to have their second baby. Truth was all up in mine, though, like he loved it.
“You think you’re fly,” Lil’ John said, and tugged a bit of her hair.
He’s corny. “I am fly.”
“Kiss me, then.”
“Kiss you.”
“Yeah. Think you can condescend,” John said, “to that?”
CHAPTER 12
PeaceLove&Money
The All-World
United Tour, 1992
Eva had to wipe her mouth after each kiss. Wipe her chin and even the tip of her nose.
He’s the most slimy kisser in the world. I like the way he handles me, though. I hate a tentative toucher.
The sex was over.
So fun. Sex twice with two condoms. Sex all flirty and fancy. Oh, and with liquor. So no shyness. I had on my Big Bad attitude. All nasty and daring.
John pulled on his drawers, grabbed his jeans and undershirt, and went to the bath.
The way he looked, sitting against the headboard. Way I stood up and dropped my skirt to the floor—smooth. Lifted my shirt over my head and I was unhooking my bra and walking toward him and climbed on top. Yeah. Feeling good, feeling high, feeling like I wanted my body touched. Not thinking, Does he like me? Does he respect me? Should I be with him? Am I doing too much? Too soon? Too nastily? YUCK. Never that.
Was more like, Homeboy looked fine as fuck, and he was confident even with his gut a bit too thick. He’s got that sexy scar on his chin, looks not that pasty, straight clean teeth, a grown-out buzz cut, girl lashes, top and bottom … Gray eyes—I think they’re gray. Him looking at my lips, checking the boobs, stretching out glances, feeding me drinks. White boy. White boy from Strong Island trying to represent! I wanna just close my eyes, replay the sex in my head … Have I ever been so nasty with any man? Have I ever been so … free?
Yeah, I have, if I’m honest. But with Lil’ John, goddamn. It don’t seem like role-playing. The shit seems real.
He stepped back in smelling like soap, toothpaste, and Eva’s body. She was naked still, except for her boots. Lil’ John fell onto her. She bit his lips, he sucked on hers. Eva used her forearm to mop her face and he didn’t remark on it.
Both wanted to lie in bed and talk and kiss and have more sex. Neither knew how to communicate that without seeming needy and already too infatuated. Eva shifted clumsily, reached for her panties and shirt. John hopped up and pulled on his hoodie.
“I’ll see you on the road, though,” he said, like she’d mentioned something that would make seeing him on the road difficult, when she’d said nothing at all. “At Ravenna or wherever.”
“I might not make that stop. They got this chick from the London office. She’ll deal with Trix and I.C. I got shit to do back in—”
“You make me laugh,” John said.
“That what I do.” She said it hoping she’d not betrayed herself with a rise in her voice on the do. She thought, too, that while he was talking shit, Lil’ John was extending, even if it was just for moments, his stay in her room.
“Not in a bad way, but you take yourself crazily serious.”
“I am crazy,” Eva said, “and I am serious.”
“Especially,” John said, “for a girl.”
Black girl? Or white girl? Wise girl? Or wild girl? “I’ll wake up tomorrow with a new attitude. Promise. Just for you.”
“You should have a new one now. After how you were just acting.”
“You mean how you were acting?” White boy! she thought, please. It was good, but please.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Tell me.” Eva liked this game.
“Thinking, ‘White boy, please.’”
She smiled a little. “You’re familiar with that sentiment, then.” A dis, an endearment. A two-word stooping-down-to, a welcome. Like “nigga,” Eva thought, but without slavery and Jim Crow and red-zoning and separate water fountains and shit behind it.
“It’s come up before,” John said smugly.
“And what’s your usual response?”
“My response is, that’s not what you was saying an hour ago. ‘White boy, please.’ Ain’t gonna get into all that moaning you were doing. Way you were bouncing. My thumb all in your mouth.”
She felt fucked with. He was fucking with her. But this is what she liked—a skilled bluff-caller.
“Why just the thumb?” he wanted to know. “You don’t like it? Head? Or you don’t give head to white boys?”
“I don’t give head to white boys.” She hadn’t. She’d had sex with two or three, but to suck a white boy’s dick was further than she wanted to go. To go down on a white boy was too generous. Seemed enough of a treat for a white guy to be in the bed with her. And he gets head, too? From this mouth? Nah.
“You have. And if you haven’t, you will.”
Future tense. Caught it. “I love a dreamer,” Eva said, daring to toss out “love,” as he’d dared to speak of tomorrow. His eyes stared into hers, and then plainly at her breasts, and then back in her eyes. Eva liked John’s nerve.
“You’ll do it in Ravenna,” he said.
“Dude. Make no assumptions—”
“I’m not your ‘dude,’ dude. And you know damn well you’re going to Ravenna, and to Bologna, and every other place on the tour.”
“You been tested?” She asked it quick, like it didn’t matter.
Took him a second. “Yeah.”
“Why?” I know this fool isn’t in a high-risk group.
“Because I fucked a lot of people.”
A lot of women.
“A lot of females,” he said. “If we were home, I’d show you the test slip.”
She looked at him for some proof that he was virus free. For proof that he’d find her again, so they could have sex and get to know each other better, even if it was just for the tour.
“You’re gonna do it,” Lil’ John said, back on topic. “You’re gonna go down on me.”
“You didn’t ask me. If I was tested.”
“You’re tested. Because you asked me if I was.”
“That’s your method? Real scientific. I hope you’re careful.”
“I was just careful with you.”
Careful with me. Eva’s insides surged in his direction. Because she wanted badly for him to come back to bed, and she didn’t want him to have that power over her, she exercised discipline: “It’s time for you to go, Lil’ John.”
“You know my name’s Ron Littlejohn.”
Of course she knew. Ron Littlejohn’s father had negotiated on behalf of too many Motown artists to name. Big Lil’ John (called that as hip hop began to dominate, and as his son rose in the business) had untangled publishing rights behind the Philadelphia Sound and worked for charting black stars whether the charts were top-heavy with disco or Dur
an Duran, whether the hit songs were about being born in the USA, about girls named Mandy, dogs named Brandy, or hot fun in the summertime.
The Littlejohn mystique ran deep. Ron’s grandfather was rumored to have been the man next to the man who booked Billie Holiday when Holiday was with Basie. Some said Ron’s grandfather cooked mendacious books for Decca in the 1930s and ‘40s. Some thought the biggest Littlejohn had pimped Louis Armstrong for almost all Armstrong’s early money. But the truth was that in the forties, Ron’s father’s father had sold heroin at Harlem spots to jazz drummers and blues singers, was run out of town for reasons both played down and overblown, and ended up on the scandalous team that launched California’s biggest jazz festival.
So Ron’s Long Island family had for three generations made money, one way or another, mostly off black music and had had for those sixty years the kind of comfort level around blacks that white people in the American South tend to have—the kind that comes from exploiting, but comes also from being in close quarters with (and believing that close quarters lead to an understanding of) the negro.
Some extremely tight relationships had existed between the Little-johns and their clientele. There’d even been love. Ron’s uncle, also a lawyer, was still married to a Dominican woman who’d been one-third of a girl group in the early sixties. Ron’s mother had taken a three-year leave of absence from his father and spent it with a burly seventies soul singer. Eva wondered how any feeling between the Littlejohns and their black associates could have been real. How could any partnership, friendship, or love affair escape the ill dynamic of whites paying to see blacks interpret joys and pain? Of blacks interpreting for and selling grief to those whose father’s father’s fathers shaped and honed or stomached it?
Us allowing it. Participating. Us fighting it, and mostly losing.
Where’s the goddamn purity? Right there in the Italian hotel room. Eva’s mind swirled. Their dominance, just their sheer numbers make me sick sometimes. Always at the head of everything in this business. Behind this, above that. The few of us that rise up as owners or CEOs or chairpersons, why do we all seem like puppets? Does it seem like that, or is it really, actually like that? I can work within it. Shit, I win within it, but no one can claim a black-white relationship in which race isn’t a factor, if not the factor. A relationship in which the dope sold, the spot booked, the record made, the song marketed, the hire made, the drunkenness shared, the addictions managed, the love made ain’t shot through with who did what to whom when and who allowed what to go down because. Who could come to the table, let alone a relationship, with hands unmuddied or unbloodied?