“Hey, bitch,” said Scatter. “Hey, faggot. I just addressed you and shit.”
“Sup,” I told him, carefully.
“Sup, he tells me,” Scatter said, laughing. “Sup.”
Francis had warned me to stand up for myself. You just need to do it once, he had said. And in that bus shelter, he was watching me, waiting for me to act. I could feel the taffy in my stomach pulling, churning. Under my breath, I told Scatter to fuck off. A couple of the bigger youths chuckled, and there was a quick show of surprise on Scatter’s face, an embarrassed glance to his friends, before he recovered. He put on his own smile, as if he had been waiting for this. And then he drew from his coat a knife.
It was a hunting knife of some sort, the kind you see advertised on late-night TV, its blade shining blue in the light. Scatter held it at me, the tip of the blade low, out of sight of most people on the street, almost now touching my groin.
“Like that?” he asked.
I was ready to mumble something, not an apology, but something to try to defuse the situation, but then Francis, without taking his eyes off Scatter, slowly brought his hand up to the knife and clasped his fingers around the naked blade.
He reached and closed his hand around the weapon.
For seconds there was struggle as the two boys stared at each other. In the end, Francis was left holding the knife in his bloodied hand. And if Scatter’s face momentarily showed shock, maybe even concern, this quickly vanished. He huffed a laugh through his nose, and backing casually away, he gave voice to all of the other quiet witnesses, even me.
“Fucking crazy,” he said.
Both Scatter and Francis earned reputations after that. The one holding the handle of the knife had ultimately proved himself unable to let the cutting continue. Even with his clear advantage of grip, Scatter had let go of the knife, and this display of weakness cost him, regardless of his efforts, through increasing postures and acts of aggression, to correct it.
But the one holding the blade earned something very different. And in the many retellings of the story, Francis’s hand was not just cut but gashed to the bone, red ropes of blood falling to the ground. Francis proved that with one gesture, you could forever confirm a reputation. Not only that he could stand his ground but that he could, when pushed, go mad.
—
On the evening of Jelly’s audition, Francis touched up his fade in the mirror for a good hour, and even in the heat, he insisted on wearing a thin black jacket with a fur collar. He rolled his eyes at the two-toned do-rag on my head, but he didn’t say anything.
The plan was to meet most of the boys from Desirea’s at the concert site itself. Francis would be driving. After we collected the car from the barbershop, we made a stop at the Waldorf, to pick up Aisha. She wore her ordinary clothes, but also a cap, the only concession she would make to anything like a B-girl style. She squeezed into the back with me. We drove to a “good” part of the suburb, one with detached homes, to pick up Raj from his parents’ place. He was dressed in a bright yellow track suit, a two-legged banana, but when he saw my own attempt at an outfit, he glared.
“No way,” he said to my brother. “Him? You brought him with you?”
“Just relax,” my brother said. “He’ll be cool.”
“What the hell is that thing he’s wearing?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“That thing on your head. You look like bloody Aunt Jemima!”
We picked up Jelly last from his building, a low-rise named the Rosedale. The building slanted as if it were leaning into the soft and grassless ground. The front yards were muddy lengths of earth, and there were rusted cars on cinder blocks, a mush of old pizza boxes, clotheslines with dirty-looking clothes on them. Jelly was waiting outside with a little kid who might have been his brother. They bumped fists and hugged, and the kid watched, waving again, as Jelly lugged a crate of records to the car. When we pulled away, the kid yelled “Good luck!” but Jelly didn’t look back. He was wearing his same thin grey hoody. He kept looking nervously at his fingers, but when he caught me looking he hid them under his arms.
“Okay,” he said, suddenly. “Let’s do this.”
When we reached the Ex, we parked and met up with the rest of the crew and walked as cool as possible to the stadium. There were some posters up of the performers flanked by women in tight shorts and bras and sporting glittering chains and bracelets. There was already a long lineup for the auditions, which led to a tent off to the side. We took our spot at the end of the line, which crawled slowly towards a group of bouncers checking ID and taking names. Pulsing music in the air.
The wait felt like forever, and already this was an irritation. Every once in a while we’d hear some music start up from inside the audition tent, some kid throwing down for a while, and then the music would suddenly cut, maybe because the time was up or the patience of the listeners was spent. I was stuck right behind some middle-class white kids wearing the sort of gear hardly anybody could afford. Nikes, Air Jordans, Louis Vuitton. They joked around, making gang signs with their fingers. They complained about some of the acts. “Watered-down sell-out crap,” said one. “Now Frontman, he’s the real shit. Nigga actually did time in jail for assault and shit.”
I was standing with Aisha, and I twice caught her looking at Francis, who was fidgeting, craning his neck to attempt to see into the tent, or else checking again and again the crate of records Jelly had brought. The shadows of game booths and rides at the Ex were lengthening, and the sky behind the monster rides turned burnt orange.
Finally, we were within sight of the bouncers. They were all beefy and tall, and they wore T-shirts that read “Regal Sport,” one of the event’s main sponsors.
“The stage looks clear now,” Francis told them.
“Relax, guy,” answered one of the bouncers. “You’ll get your turn.”
“Okay,” said another. “You superstars are in next.”
A stage was already set up with turntables, a mixing board, and speakers. In front of the stage was a table with five chairs, but only two guys were sitting there. One, probably a promoter, was dressed in a white shirt, but the other was the Conductor, dressed in chains and a black blazer, loud white Jordans on his feet. As we entered, White Shirt kept talking to him as if we didn’t exist, but the Conductor nodded at us and gestured to the stage. Jelly lugged his crate of records to the turntables, and Francis helped him set up, adjusting the headphones, testing the sound, angling a number of records out of the crate so they could be seized when needed. They had Technics 1200s in the battle position, and a mixing board with more dials, switches, and stuff than even Jelly had probably ever seen before. There was a moment when they were ready, and they both looked at the judges and the rest of us watching, and then at each other. They didn’t touch hands. Francis just nodded and stepped back.
It began, surprisingly, with voice. Once before, in Desirea’s, Jelly had played from a cassette tape something that had stumped even the Professa. It was in a language I didn’t recognize, and when it was over Francis said it was balwo, a style of singing from Somalia, and usually about love. And now Jelly played it again, letting the words ring in the empty air for almost ten seconds before he went to work. A drum and bass line was added, and then, seamlessly, relentlessly, other music was layered in. Soul, rocksteady, even calypso and Congolese rhumba. Francis was passing and grabbing records when needed. I heard artists that the Professa had already named for me: Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, Etta James. I heard tabla and the silly of disco. I heard a guitar lick from Hendrix. A blues rift sped up into a digital future. He overlaid voices on top of one another, messed with time, and made a man sound like a woman and a woman like a man, the truer feeling and meaning of a song suddenly emerging through the work of his hands.
“Shit,” whispered Raj, standing beside me.
We were stilled. It was more than we had imagined, bigger and wilder. Weirder, even for Jelly. Nothing seemed beyond
his reach. Country western, punk. The Conductor was all attention. Styles and voices bled together, music tunnelled into noise into music into noise. White Shirt waved for it all to stop, but Jelly was too zoned in to stop. He woke only when Francis touched his shoulder, and then he dialed everything down, lifted the needles.
The boys rushed to Jelly to congratulate him, while Francis stood aside, breathing heavily, a smile on his face. The Conductor was standing and clapping, and when he could be heard he thanked Jelly and the crew for the sample, said it was great, that Jelly had real talent. He told us to keep the peace and to stay in school, and then he and White Shirt went back to talking. We all stood there waiting for something more, but I wasn’t sure what. Finally, Francis spoke up.
“Do you want hear some more from him?” he asked.
“Thank you,” said White Shirt, without even looking at him.
“He could do another set, really quick.”
“Thank you. There’s another group waiting.”
Francis continued standing there. The boys from Desirea’s were now gesturing at him to come along. White Shirt turned to a switchboard technician and gave a “what the fuck?” look.
Francis cleared his throat. “So you’re going to contact us if we win?” he asked.
“Yeah, kid. Sure. We’ll definitely contact you.”
—
We’d already planned to celebrate that night at Desirea’s, and Dru said he’d better get back to help set up. Gradually, the boys started to leave, each giving props to Jelly before heading off.
“Monumental,” said the Professa.
Aisha gave me a hug and said she probably couldn’t meet up at Desirea’s. “It was great,” she said to both Jelly and Francis. “That’s the truth. It doesn’t really matter what a promoter thinks. You’ve already won.” But I thought her voice sounded a bit too gentle, and Francis just swallowed and nodded. We were left, Francis, Jelly, and me, and it all seemed to suddenly catch up with my brother: the sleepless nights after the shootings and before the audition, the sheer expectation reduced to a single performance quickly cut off. Francis agonized that the set-up had been all wrong, the turntables were positioned too high and didn’t seem calibrated, the needle wasn’t on point, they never gave us enough time.
“Will they even know how to find us?” he said. “Do they have our contact info? Did anybody see them even write it down?”
Jelly shrugged. The lineup had disappeared now, and the bouncers were still outside the audition tent, joking around. Aside from them, no one else was around, except for some cleaning staff, picking up all the trash left outside. Francis looked back at the tent and the bouncers and then started walking in their direction. Jelly and I followed.
There were four of them outside now, one black and three white, and at first they ignored us. But then one tapped the other and they all turned to look.
“I need to talk to the promoter,” Francis said.
“Sorry, guy. Show’s over.”
“We just need to talk with him.”
“You heard me, guy. You ain’t getting in.”
They were crowding in front of him, and they were huge, professionally huge, full of weight-gaining powders. “Regal Sport” blaring on their chests. Francis stepped closer, staring, and suddenly everything felt very tense.
“Listen to me,” explained Francis. “We were just in there.”
“Oh, you was just in there,” said the black bouncer.
“We were auditioning. We were performing.”
“Oh I see, you guys were performing,” the bouncer said. “You was doing your thing? You and your homies? Your niggaz?” He crippled up his hands into some fake gesture. The white bouncers laughed.
Jelly touched Francis’s shoulder, but Francis shrugged his hand away. Jelly touched him again, this time gently on his arm, whispering something, but my brother didn’t respond. The bouncers continued to laugh. I could see Francis’s eyes start to tear up. He swallowed.
“We’re going in,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” said the black bouncer.
“Francis…” I said.
“Yeah, Francis, how about you listen to the little bitch there—”
The punch hit the bouncer hard on the nose, a sick crunch, and he stumbled back. The fight started immediately. In situations like this, when it’s desperate and you’ve probably got no chance at all, you’ve got to go all in. Jelly probably knew this best, because we both did our best, swinging wildly at the bouncers. Jelly at least seemed to connect, but my knuckles barely glanced against anything before I was hit heavily, my jaw smashed bad to a numbness not a pain. I was struck twice in the ribs with something that felt like a bat before being put in some sort of hold. My shoulder was tearing, and I could do nothing but watch two bouncers beat on my brother. They’d kicked his legs out from under him, and he was on the ground trying to protect his head from fists and boots.
“Fucker broke my nose…” said one bouncer.
“Hold him down,” said another.
“Fuck him up. Do his face.”
Jelly had been put in an arm hold too, and he was screaming as the bouncers kept kicking Francis in the stomach, face, standing on his fingers. I heard other sounds coming from my brother, grunts and swearing, a sound like a stick hitting a sack of wet sand. I heard strained sounds made by his mouth and lungs, but no words. I heard myself saying stop. My mouth now filled thick with salt.
It did stop. A man was shouting something. It took some time before the words became clear, and for me to realize that it was a man calling from the tent. Francis was quiet, curled away from me.
I saw the bouncers walk back to the tent. Francis got to his feet, but he looked dazed, haunted, as if he didn’t know exactly where he was or what had happened. Jelly tried to steady him, but my brother again shrugged him off. I got up last, wincing at the pain in my ribs. Francis was spitting blood and softly chanting nonsense, and Jelly spoke to him through what sounded like mashed lips. Francis bent, holding his sides, to pick his cap up from the ground. He brushed it carefully and put it on. We began limping away.
“You there!”
It was White Shirt. He was standing at the entrance to the tent. He was gesturing at us with his phone.
“You come back here and I’ll call the police,” he said. “Do you understand? I’ll have you thugs arrested.”
—
My ribs ached when I breathed, and when I ran my tongue over my lip it tasted like liver and didn’t feel like part of me. My mouth filled with liquid salt. But it was Francis who looked ruined. His left eye was swollen shut and leaked a thin fluid. His nose was a mess, and his lips were torn. The blood kept coming from his nose, and he kept wiping it away with the bottom of his shirt.
Jelly helped him get into the car. He even ridiculously put on his seat belt. Jelly wanted to take him to a hospital, but Francis kicked up a fuss. “No way,” he said. “They’ll bust us for fighting. No way.” We stopped at a gas station to use the brushed-steel mirror in the washroom to clean up. But we were interrupted by an attendant who, standing at a safe distance, said he’d call the cops if we didn’t push off.
Jelly pulled out into the street again. “I’ll clean him up at Desirea’s. With the rest of the boys.”
“No,” I said. “Please, just drop us both at home.”
“He needs our help. He needs his people.”
“I’ll go home first,” said Francis. “My hat?” he asked, but it was already on his head.
—
Mother stood up from her seat on the couch. She was dressed for bed but sharpened immediately, staring at her eldest son with widened eyes in the blue and flickering light of the television.
“Francis!” she said.
He stumbled towards her. She closed her eyes while she held him, and then gently pushed him away to look at his face, her nose flaring. We’d done our best, but he still looked a mess. Mother used the sleeve of her own bathrobe to gently wipe at the sweat
and crusted blood on his face. My brother wore a look of pure sorrow.
“Francis, what happened to you?”
She pulled him close, said she was going to get him help. Whatever it was, whatever he’d done, she was going to get the right help, she promised. He started to make low moaning sounds, deep within his stomach. He began whispering apologies to her for everything, for his face, for his blood upon her clean nightdress, for the hard work she’d always had to do.
“Hush, my son. Stop speaking. Please stop crying.”
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
“Hush now. Sit here on the couch, Francis. Please just stay still. I’m not leaving you, I promise. I’m getting things for you. Gauze, ointment.”
“I’m so very sorry about everything,” he said.
She hurried to the bathroom, and I heard her open the cabinet behind the mirror, rummage through the shelves, the metallic sounds of things falling into the sink. I went into the bathroom to help. I put away the toiletries that she knocked down. I held her shaking hands and told her that it’d be all right, and she closed her eyes and spent a moment steadying herself. But when we both returned to the living room, Francis was gone.
“PLEASE,” AISHA WHISPERS TO ME. “You have to get up.”
I’m in the living room, on the couch, and in the same clothes I’ve worn since returning from work to break up the party. It feels like early morning but it’s very dark, the room cold, a sleet blowing noisily against the windows.
Aisha crouches beside me. “There’s been an accident.”
“What? Where…Who?”
“Your mother. She was wandering across the avenue. Jelly with her.”
She’s saying something more to me, but I don’t hear. I’m up so quickly that I’m dizzy, stamping on my shoes. In the rightmost lane of the avenue, I see cars parked with their headlights shining upon a small group of neighbours, a man standing before them to wave away traffic. I run closer and see Mother on the ground. She is wearing a nightdress that is wet from the road, and I pull the material lower over her legs. She is breathing. Her right leg looks swollen and badly bruised, and her eyes are pressed tight, signalling that she is conscious. Jelly is by her head, whispering to her.
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