Thugs Cry

by Ca$H

  The stretch limo glides toward the upscale ballroom on Peachtree where Sparkle’s album release party is being held. Inside the chauffeured vehicle me and baby girl are joined by her Mom Dukes who flew in from New Jersey for the occasion. We collected her from the Peachtree Plaza Hotel where she has a suite for the weekend.

  When we reach the ballroom and step out in the warm spring night air, the paparazzi spots Sparkle, whose face has become well known from the video for the hit song she did with Scare Me, and flash bulbs blinds us.

  Sparkle, whose that fine chocolate brotha escorting you on his arm?

  What happened to Scare Me? I thought you two were dating?

  What do you think about people comparing you to Mary?

  Smile for the camera.

  How does it feel, girl?

  The hordes of paparazzi and radio and video show personalities rain questions and requests at Kayundra.

  “I’ll tell you how it feels as soon as I wake up. Right now I’m trapped in a wonderful dream!” she replies and flashes her beautiful smile, which makes her sparkle, as we are escorted through the horde and a throng of fans by ballroom security.

  We’re seated inside the ballroom’s auditorium at a VIP table with Preston, Scare Me, his man Young Jeezy, and several suits from Platinum Entertainment. Sparkle is seated between Preston and Scare Me. Myself and Sparkle’s Mom Dukes, who is Sparkle’s manager, are seated at the end of the table. We don’t trip, this is Sparkle’s night.

  The entertainment begins with other Platinum artists performing. An hour and a half later the ballroom grows quiet with anticipation of Sparkle taking the stage to perform the single that will be the first release from her CD entitled A Long Journey.

  Sparkle comes on stage to a deafening concophony of applause, whistles, hoots, and shouts. She smiles and raises her hand for silence. The crowd quiets down.

  “Before I perform for y’all,” she says into the mic, “I want to thank God first; He knows my journey and he brought me through. I also have to acknowledge my mother, thank you so much, Mom.

  “To my soulmate…baby, you know who you are and how very much you mean to me. No matter how far I go in the music world, I owe it all to you because you believed in me when I had stopped believing in myself. I love you, baby.

  “Last but certainly not least, thank you Preston, and all the dope producers that worked their magic on my CD. Scare Me, keep scarin’ ’em off the mic.”

  Soft melodic music begins to play and I see Kayundra transform into Sparkle, belting out song after heartfelt song, captivating the audience. I smile with pride as I recognize joints from when Kayundra first began writing songs, right after going to rehab. Other songs, she has sang to me at home. Now on stage, those same songs come from a depth inside of her that entrance me.

  Scare Me joins Sparkle on stage for the final song, the hip hop meets R&B joint, “By Your Side.” The single might be on Sparkle’s CD but Scare Me murdaz it! The audience goes crazy after he spits his first verse:

  You know how a nigga was livin’ when we first hooked up, boo/ in these streets doin’ what a nigga gotta do/ so don’t ask me now to give it up/ just hold me down, we gon’ live it up/ And nah, I don’t need you to show ya ass like Trina/I need a quiet shorty on my side like nina/calm and steady and seldom seen/yet lethal when she step on the scene, nah mean/I be lovin’ you ’cause you not petty, always beggin’ for baguettes/Dolce and Gabbana and other designer shit/Lil Kim wanna be bitches, like poison, make a nigga so sick/them and their gold digging clique/that’s why niggaz don’t wife them hos/be like my man Kimbo slice them hos/get high, cut and dice them hos/neva see our peeps throwin’ rice on them hos/Mom Duke sharing advice with them hos/my mans thankin’ Christ fa them hos/so don’t change Ma, you gon’ Sparkle in the end/you ain’t gotta pull up, get out, tits out/to chase his benjamins/you ain’t gotta fuck fast, lose class, tat his name across ya ass/to be dude’s girlfriend/when he bounces for another chick, what happens to the tats then?/are you just a rat then?/I’ma leave you wit’ some wiz/let dude handle his biz/If he a real nigga he know what real is/and when it’s time to ride, you not a bitch, you a bride/ya name might not be Nina but you’ll be by his side.

  “Scare Me’s gritty rhymes accentuated Sparkle’s soulful voice to form a melodic street ballad that is sure to be as hot as their first collab’ earlier this year on Scare Me’s triple platinum CD I Came To Take The Throne, reports The Source a few days after the record release party.

  “Sparkle’s first CD is soulful and deep…deep…deep! She sings about her battle with drug addiction, self-hate, and self-doubt before finding love and inner peace. Her lyrics make it clear that she’s been through hell, but now it’s her time to Sparkle!” reports BET’s Roxy.

  On Atlanta’s 107.3 the host says to her listeners, “There’s a buzz going around that rapper Scare Me and Platinum Entertainment labelmate Sparkle are doing more in the studio than making hits. But I don’t know, unless my eyes deceived me, I coulda swore I saw a fine brotha sportin’ Sparkle on his arm last week at her album release party, and it wasn’t Scare Me. Take my word for it y’all.

  I’m in my whip, on my way to a meeting with a client who balls for the Atlanta Hawks, when I hear that on the radio. A few minutes later, my phone chirps. I put my Bluetooth in and answer.

  “What’s good?”

  “Baby, are you listening to 107.3?” Kayundra asks with detectable anger in her voice.

  “Yeah, I’m listening. And I heard that.”

  “I’m about to call my publicist and have her to call the radio station and demand an apology! I want a quick end to that false rumor about me and Scare; it’s disrespectful to you.”

  “Ma, I’m not stressin’ over that shit. I know what the deal is, yo. That’s the nature of the beast, that’s the entertainment industry. Yo, listen! That’s yo’ joint they’re playing.” I say, smiling as Sparkle’s single “A Long Journey” plays on the radio. Just hearing that joint has a nigga teary-eyed because I know what type of journey it’s been for shorty. To fans, it’s a song. To myself, it’s a chronicle. I’m so proud of my girl I wanna roll down the car window and yell, “that’s my baby’s joint they’re bumpin’ on the radio!” but my swag is too humble to get down like that.

  While the song fills up my whip I say over the volume, “Shorty, you can’t go calling every radio station and magazine that reports rumors about you. You’re in the limelight now, ma; remember what Preston said, ‘a lot of what’s printed and reported about entertainers is exaggerated or straight up false but it helps their popularity.’”

  “Still, it’s disrespectful to our relationship.”

  “As long as you and I know the truth I’m not trippin’, yo.” I assure her ’cause I’m not an insecure dude.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. I love you.”

  “Love you back. I’ma call you as soon as I get done meeting with Josh Smith. I’m gonna do a party for him.”

  “Alright, baby. Don’t be sweatin’ none of the Hawks’ cheerleaders. Let me find out,” Kayundra teases.

  “Nah, baby, neva dat.”

  When I get home Kayundra and I talk while grubbing on the JR Cricketts hot wings that I brought home for dinner. I describe to her the lavish party that I’m planning for my man Josh Smith’s birthday and show her the invite list; all of ATL’s big name athletes and entertainers are being invited.

  “You are too! Josh specifically told me to make sure that you had an invite,” I tell her.

  “He did not!” she playfully punches me in the arm. “He doesn’t even know who I am.”

  “Nah, fa real, ma, he told me he loves your CD,” I say honestly and Kayundra blushes.

  With her first single blazing the charts, the label as well as Freeda, Kayundra’s mother/manager, have lined up dates for Kayundra to appear live on various video shows such as 106 & Park, syndicated radio shows, and even Oprah who is interested in the story of Sparkle: overcoming her brief but serious addiction to cr
ack, and how that battle influences her music.

  What’s apparent to both myself and Kayundra is that her life is about to become a whirlwind of appearances, travel, and performances, and she hasn’t even scheduled a concert tour yet.

  I’m happy for my girl but she’s concerned that all of the travel will tear down our relationship.

  “Few relationships withstand the superstardom, rumors, and the temptations that come with the life,” is the consensus of our friends.

  “Do you call her Sparkle now?” asked CJ the other day when he was in town. I suspected that my nigga was being sarcastic.

  Still, I’d replied straight up, “Sometimes, because that was my pet name for her before all of this.”

  CJ nodded his understanding then surprised me by saying, “I gotta give her props, she can sing her ass off.”

  “Yeah, she do the damn thing.”

  CJ shook his head as if in disbelief.

  “She deserves her shine, dawg,” I’d said, to which he’d responded, “I guess so. I just hope she don’t forget that her ass wouldn’t be shining if it wasn’t for you.”

  “That’s not true, fam, but let’s not go there. I appreciate the love, nigga; it’s been there since we were snot-noses. I just wish you wouldn’t be so hard on my girl. She’s good peeps; the fame won’t change what’s in her heart for me.”

  “I feel you,” said CJ. “I just wanna see you get ya just rewards for all that you did for the girl. Remember, I saw her when the only ‘sparkle’ she had came when she put the flame to a rock.”

  “Son, Allah blesses those who deserve blessings. Real talk, though, my reward is seeing shorty drug-free and living her dream.”

  “That’s what’s up then,” he conceded.

  “Anyway, what’s up with you? Shit done simmered down?” I inquired.

  “I’m the last nigga standing, yo,” he boasted.

  “Be safe, bruh.”

  “I’ma do that, always,” he’d promised before saying he’d hit me up later.

  The house phone rings while me and Kayundra are talking.

  I wipe my hands on a hand towel and answer the cordless. “What it do?”

  “Is that how you answer your phone, my brotha?” A hint of playfulness is in the caller’s voice.

  “Oh, what’s good, Wahida?”

  “As sailum alaikum.”

  “Wa alaikum as sailum.”

  “I’m waiting on those other chapters,” says Wahida Clark, The Queen of Thug Love Fiction, and my prospective publisher.

  “Yo, I can’t lie; I haven’t been writing,” I admit.

  “I know how it is, get at me though. And give my congrats to Sparkle.”

  “Will do.”

  “Aight. Peace out.”

  I hang up and say to Kayundra, “Wahida Clark said to give you her congrats. Maybe we can get her to write you into her next novel.”

  “Nope. Too much drama be going on in her books, but I love ’em,” replies Kayundra who is a big Wahida fan.

  TWENTY-SIX

  SPARKLE

  Wow! Sometimes it all feels like a dream!

  That can’t be my song on the radio and atop the R&B chart. Is that really me in that video on BET? My face on the cover of Essence and Don Diva? Am I Sparkle for real?

  Wow! Every time I pinch myself I realize that this is really happening to me. Three or four years ago, who would’ve believed that I could accomplish all of this? The first two singles from my CD both reached the top of the charts, now the third single, “By Your Side”, my collab with Scare is number three on the R&B chart and number two on the rap chart.

  I’ve appeared on so many radio and television programs in the past six months I’ve lost count. Some days I love it; other days I just want to go back to being unknown. I love performing; it’s all the other stuff that wears on a sistah. I know, I should be happy, right? But I am not, and I know why.

  Wait, let me back up a bit.

  My music career may seem to you an overnight success story; that’s hardly the case. Even while Raheem was incarcerated I had begun trying to break into the music industry by sending copies of my demo to various industry heads. What I quickly found out was that there are a lot of horny bastards in the industry and they aren’t all male. Niggaz and chicks wanted to sample my “goodies” in exhange for listening to my demo. I wanted to get into the industry but I refused to lay on my back to do so. I had stooped that low for crack, I wasn’t about to go out bad again.

  I never told Raheem about the indecent proposals I’d gotten from those who I’d approached with my demo, because I was afraid that if I ever got my big break he might wonder if I had given in to one of those unscrupulous industry heads.

  When Raheem came home from prison and I recommitted myself to getting a record deal, I was fortunate to know someone who passed my demo on to Scare Me, who was about to drop his debut CD. Scare liked my voice and asked me to do a collab with him. And as they say in this industry…“the rest is history, baby.”

  Now here I am with a double platinum CD that has produced three hit singles; I’ve just begun a thirty-two city concert tour with Scare Me, Young Jeezy, Keisha Coles and a couple of lesser known artists; the five concerts we’ve done so far have all been sellouts, and the reviews are insane!

  So why am I alone in my hotel suite in Chicago crying my eyes out? Because…

  I am pregnant!

  Preston and Mama drive me to the abortion clinic after finally convincing me that having an abortion is the best thing to do under the circumstances. They both argued, “You have to think about your career.”

  “Other recording artists have had babies…Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, my homegirl Faith,” I rattle off a few names.

  “And their careers plummeted afterwards,” says Preston.

  “Un-huh,” Mama cosigns.

  “I can’t kill this baby, Raheem would never forgive me,” I say.

  “He doesn’t have to know.”

  “Mommie! How can you stand there and suggest that I deceive the man I love?”

  “Mmmpf! You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  Maybe Mama and Preston are right, but I keep hearing Lauryn Hill’s voice singing, “Now the joy in my world is in Zionnn…” Her song reverberates in my mind like it’s chanted by my subconscious.

  Lauryn gave birth to Zion; are you going to kill your child?

  Now I’m stretched out on the examination table, legs spread wide in stirrups. The pain is almost unbearable.

  “Push! Push! I see the head!” says the doctor.

  I scream and push harder.

  A moment later, I hear a tiny voice wail. The beautiful sound of my baby.

  “It’s a boy,” exclaims my doctor wiping him off, wrapping him in a warm blanket, then handing my son to me.

  I hold him in the crook of my arm, crying tears of joy. “Ooh, you look just like your daddy. You precious boy,” I coo.

  Suddenly the doctor yanks my beautiful baby out of my arms and shoots him in the head with a gun almost as big as the baby!

  “You wanted an abortion right? Well, that’s your abortion, bitch!” the doctor snarls, then tosses my dead baby in the trash can.

  I scream and scream and kick until…

  “Wake up! Kayundra, honey, wake up!”

  I open my eyes and see Mama sitting on the edge of the bed in my suite. The bed sheets are wrapped around me like a satin straight jacket.

  “Honey, what were you dreaming about?” asks Mama, wiping away my tears then untangling me from the bed sheets.

  “I don’t know, Mama.” I lie.

  “I’m calling Preston and I’m telling him that you need a break. And I say that as your Mom, not your manager.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not. You need rest; I’m calling Raheem,” says Mama, pulling out her cell.

  “Really, Mama, I’m okay. I just had a bad dream.”

  I cover her cell with my hand, preventing her from calling my man
, who I know will demand that I shut it down.

  Two weeks later the tour is in Charlotte, North Carolina, when I pass out on stage in the middle of my performance. I wake up in the emergency room to find doctors fussing over me.

  R&B songstress faints during concert. Her boo to the rescue! reads the headlines in the entertainment section of the local paper the next day.

  Below the headline is a picture of Scare Me lifting me from the stage floor into his arms. I don’t have to read the accompanying story to know its contents. I worry that the photo and story will be picked up by national newspapers and magazines and will embarrass Raheem, who is flying into Charlotte today. Mama called him this morning and told him what happened.

  My record label issues a press release explaining the episode as “extreme exhaustion.” I’ll miss the next four concert dates then rejoin the tour in VA.

  Immediately, rumors pop up that I’m back on drugs. To dispel the rumor, following the advice of Preston, I give an on-air interview from my hospital bed so that my fans can see that I’m not inside some crack house getting beamed up.

  “I’m fine everybody. Just exhausted. I love you guys!” I cheese for the TV cameras and wave to my fans out there.

  The nasty rumors quickly fade and I’m set to rejoin the tour. Only the doctor who examined me in the emergency room and Quida, one of my backup singers who I’ve befriended, know that what really caused me to faint on stage was my having an abortion the day of the incident. Having loss a lot of blood during the procedure, it was foolish of me to try to go on with the show. Doctors can’t divulge a patient’s medical information to the public, and Quida won’t tell it, we’re tight as thieves. So my secret is safe.

  I do feel guilty; maybe that’s why I’ve begun to do a little light drinking. Only champagne, and I’ve taken a few tokes on joints. Not too often, though, because when I smoke weed it makes me feel worse about what I did than I felt before I smoked the shit.

  Maybe I need to attend an aftercare meeting? Could I be on the verge of backsliding?