Smokey shakes his head. “Just another day in the life,” he says, raising the bottom of the platinum Fubu shirt that’s hanging down to his knees, before sitting down on the studio sofa. “What up, AJ?” He turns, nods his head, then winks seductively at AJ’s cohost, Free. She coos and bats her eyes.
“Smokey Cloud,” she says, breathing into each word as if she’s on the brink of an orgasm. “How’d you end up with that name?”
Smokey laughs nervously. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he says.
“Come on. What you got to lose?” she asks. Smokey stops and thinks about it. He looks into the crowd. No longer was he Smokey from Twenty-second Street. He was a new man, an icon. This new man overshadowed the boy he was in Detroit. He now knew love internally and externally. What could he possibly do to compromise that? For the first time in his twenty-year-old life he knew complete satisfaction.
“It’s like this,” says Smokey, the weight of his platinum chain and diamond-studded “S” charm propelling him forward as he spoke. “In the hood everybody got a nickname. Sometimes we call it like we see it—if somebody look like a cat, we might call him Garfield. Other times we don’t call it like we see it. Sometimes we see shit and call it everything else but what it really is. It’s like that in the hood. A spade could be a spade, but then again it could be a diamond. Depends on who you ask, when you ask them, and why you askin’. You can call a kid who stinks Flowers, or a brilliant girl Blondie. It’s crazy like that. That’s how I got my name—they call me Smokey ’cause Smoke is black and they said I was everything but.”
“That’s deep,” says AJ.
“It’s just real,” says Smokey.
“Now that you mention it, Smokey, a lot of our viewers out there are probably wondering, and I know you probably want to set the record straight, what exactly is your racial background?” says AJ.
Smokey pauses; if AJ had asked that question on the street six months ago it would have been his last. But this was far from a street in Detroit. It was the big time. Smokey had made it. He left his belligerence right beside his boredom, angst, and anger back home in the middle of nowhere.
“I never knew my daddy,” he said, trying to sound as detached and unfazed as possible. “My mom never talked about him. I know for a fact he was black, though; he left the state so he wouldn’t have to pay child support. My mother’s white, but that ain’t got shit to do with me.”
The audience laughs, but Smokey isn’t joking.
“Smokey, your rhymes are so real. Where do you get your inspiration?” asks AJ.
“Well, from the streets, man. I’m from the streets, born and raised. A lot of cats got they ears to the streets, and more props to them, but I got ten toes, a face, and a belly. You know what I’m saying?”
The audience cheers.
Free touches his shoulder. “Growin’ up in the streets must have been hard. A lot of brothas just like you are either dead or locked up. How did you manage to make your way to the top?”
“You know what, Free? I’m glad you asked that, because a lot of y’alls don’t understand why my album is called Gladiator. When I rhyme I ain’t just throwin’ shit together, aight? I ain’t Nelly or Chingy. Every word I write means something. When I say I’m a gladiator, I’m telling you how I survived. Coming up, it was a lot of situations where it was either me or the other nigga. Being a gladiator is all about knowing you gotta choose you, every time.”
Suddenly a hand shakes him and Smokey wakes up.
“Dude, wake the fuck up,” said the voice behind the hand reaching into the little white car Fashad had ordered Smokey to drive to the corner. “You trying to get us caught or something?” asked the boy, trying to sound experienced beyond his age.
“Fuck you,” said Smokey, yawning as he stretched. He had never seen this one before, but he knew he was the one because his braids were the longest Smokey had seen in Detroit besides his own. He was light, bright, and damn near white, just like all the others Fashad hired. He rolled his eyes at the pip-squeak, like Michael Jordan sizing up Lebron James. Because the boy was so curt and insistent, Smokey purposefully took his time getting out of the car.
The boy was nervously biting his fingernails and fidgeting about like he was a virgin. For Smokey this was an everyday thing. He casually let his body weight sway from his left foot to his right, and walked with delayed reaction to the concrete floor. He was sure that made him look cool, ’cause he’d seen older kids do it when he was little. He’d never done it before in public, but he felt he could get away with it around this kid. They went through Fashad’s car dealership to the back end of “Fashad’s Fix-it Service.” As soon as they were inside, the boy started with the questions.
“You’re Smokey, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The cocaine is in there, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s from Fashad, right?”
“Stop asking so many goddamn questions, Oprah. You getting on my motherfuckin’ nerves.” Smokey tried to sound more annoyed than he was, hoping he’d intimidated the boy. Instead the boy only looked confused.
“What? What’s happening?” said the boy.
Smokey was a little upset that he couldn’t even intimidate a high school kid, but he got over that once he heard the excitement in the boy’s voice. It was the same excitement Smokey’d had in his own voice when he first agreed to start dealing. It was going to be thrilling, dangerous, manly, and respectable. Instead, it was full of procedure and order taking. There was waiting and driving, driving and waiting. It was time for a change, and Smokey knew just what it was.
Today would be Smokey’s last on the job. He’d been saving, and he figured he had enough to make his dream a reality. He was done with Detroit, done with Fashad. Smokey wanted to be something more than an ordinary nigga on a street corner wishing he was extraordinary. And nobody was a superstar in Detroit. He was going to New York to become a rapper, and more. An icon like Diddy and Jay-Z.
“I’m sorry. I’m just really…this is my first time. I just want to make sure you’re one of Fashad’s boys,” said the boy.
“I don’t like to talk about that shit,” said Smokey, coming close to cutting the boy off, wondering why the boy would want to speak of the unspeakable.
“Talk about what?” asked the boy.
Smokey ignored him, but the boy’s words annoyed him. He wondered how anyone could be so nonchalant about something so serious. He pushed the boy forward, and the boy stopped with the questions. They walked a little farther and finally got to the restroom. “Take off your clothes,” said Smokey.
“Don’t you want to know my name first?” said the boy seductively.
“Nigga, I ain’t with that gay shit,” yelled Smokey, almost ready to fight.
“It was just a joke.”
“Take your motherfuckin’ clothes off and shut the fuck up.”
The boy began to take off his clothes, then stopped. He looked at Smokey as if he were thinking about something, then went behind a stall.
“What? Now you trying to say I’m gay or something?” asked Smokey.
The boy didn’t answer.
When they were both naked Smokey sloppily threw his clothes over the stall, and the boy slid his neatly folded shirt and pants underneath. The two switched clothing and left the restroom, reentering the empty car-repair shop.
“If this is a body shop, where are all the cars?” asked the boy.
“Who said this was a body shop?” asked Smokey.
“I don’t know. The commercials on TV…the commercials on the radio…shit, the signs.”
“You can’t believe everything you see. You for damn sure can’t believe nothing you hear. And if you think this is a body shop you must not be looking at the signs that are worth looking at,” said Smokey, feeling grown, and less annoyed, because he was teaching someone something.
“Oh, so that commercial with all them bells…”
“They ain’t bells, th
ey’re trumpets,” Smokey corrected.
“You know what I mean…that’s fake?”
“The commercials are real. They just aren’t what they seem.”
“What’s the difference.”
“You know what a commercial is. You see a man pop up talking about Fashad knows quality in the middle of the ball game, that’s a commercial. That makes it a real commercial. The fact that that man is Fashad makes the commercial not what it seems. Nothing with Fashad is ever the way it seems. You should know that by now.”
“What you mean? Because he sell drugs? Shit, everybody know that.”
“I ain’t talkin’ ’bout drug dealing.”
“What you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” asked Smokey, incredulous.
“No!”
“You know!”
“No I don’t!”
“You don’t know,” said Smokey. No matter how much Smokey didn’t want to admit it, the fact that the boy was in the dark and he was in the light, no matter how dark that light was, gave him a special feeling. In that instant it felt like nothing else mattered, like he belonged somewhere, and knew exactly where. Like he was something more than just a pawn in Fashad’s game.
“You sample that shit or something?” asked the boy.
“Nigga, just give me the keys,” said Smokey.
“Where are yours?” the boy said and handed Smokey the keys to his red Mazda.
“They’re in the pocket, dumbass,” Smokey responded.
The boy felt his pockets like he was afraid he’d lost them. Smokey could tell the kid was trying to pace himself, but nevertheless he ended up practically running to the car, then speeding away.
Smokey shook his head. “Pathetic,” he sighed as he opened the door of the boy’s car. He heard a rattling in the back as he slammed the door shut, but figured the car was just in need of a tune-up. He looked back as he put the car in reverse, and saw a man in the backseat.
“What the fuck!” yelled Smokey.
“The name’s Bill,” said the middle-aged, round-faced white man. “Don’t get out.”
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRUMPET SOUNDS
CAMEISHA
After Dream got done cuttin’ today she roll her eyes like she mad at me for something. Twenty years old. You would think the bitch would understand. Who they think I’m doin’ all this shit for? Myself? I ain’t been able to do nothing for myself since the day she was born. These kids these days is just so damn ungrateful.
And it ain’t just the kids, neither. Fashad keep yellin’ at me about getting the red roses replanted in our front yard. He the one that picked them all when I went to visit Momma a couple years ago; he can get his high-yellow ass out there and plant them again by his damn self.
What make it so bad is that I’ve been giving him the silent treatment for the past few weeks and that dumb nigga hasn’t even noticed.
I tell you! These motherfuckers are driving me crazy. If it wasn’t for my favorite stories, my best friend, and home shopping I don’t know what I would do.
Speaking of shopping. And Fashad. Yesterday I bought this blond wig that look just like the one Erica Kane wore when she was trying to take off with her third husband’s money. My best friend said he didn’t like it, but that was only because Erica isn’t wearing hers anymore. He said Fashad might like it, and I had to tell him about Fashad. Fashad don’t notice a damn thing I do. I could be ass naked on the couch when he come home—if he comes home—and Fashad would walk right past me.
Take yesterday, for example. We practiced the drill, Fashad came home, ate some leftovers, and went to sleep. Woke up the next day, jacked off in the bathroom, then went to work, or wherever it is he goes. Probably over her house.
I don’t know who she is, and I really don’t care. I mean, look at this house. Six bedrooms. Four bathrooms. A pool, and a garden so big you can smell the flowers from my living room. Fashad set me and my kids up right. I ain’t got to want for nothing. Taj and JD can go to a real school where the kids’ parents wear suits to work. Dream doin’ her hair thing, and all I got to do is stay here, shop, cook some dinner, and wait for my friend to come over so we can watch the stories together. If Fashad wants to go do whatever with some chick, then I can’t stop him no way, but I’m not gonna bite the hand that feeds me.
If she wants to roll around in the bed with Fashad for nothing, then that’s on her dumb ass. She can have him, as long as I have the money. As much time as he spends with her you would think he would leave his money over there, but of course not. I’m the wife. I’m the workhorse, the one who has to put up with his shit. She probably wouldn’t lift two Korean-manicured fingers to help his lying ass.
I need to stop. I’m getting all worked up. My life ain’t golden, but a whole lot of folks got it a lot worse. Besides, this wig is going to look cute on me, whether Fashad notices it or not.
XANDER
Dream crept in late for the third day in a row. Again she peeked through the door to see if she had a client waiting. Again she heard her coworkers dragging her family name through the mud.
“I don’t get it,” said Faye Jackson, who was sitting on one of the waiting chairs, raising her overtly broad nose in disgust. “What’s so good about Fashad Douglass? I mean, he fine, but what’s so good about him?”
“It ain’t just about him being fine and rich,” said Xander.
“What is it, then?” asked Daryl. The whole shop stopped to listen.
“Do y’all know what love is?” he continued. “You don’t fall in love with somebody’s face, and you for damn sure don’t fall in love with they wallet.”
“Whatever,” said Daryl.
“Y’all don’t get it. Y’all just don’t know what it’s like. Loving a man is like a heartbeat. You can’t stop it unless you die,” said Xander, the only true romantic of the bunch.
“What about a heart attack?” said Faye pessimistically.
Dream figured they’d wander away from the subject of her and her family long enough for her to enter the room without causing conflict, though she walked in with her head facing downward, as if they couldn’t see her if she couldn’t see them.
“It’s nice of you to show up,” said Daryl. Dream neither looked at him nor responded.
“Xander,” said Daryl in a way Dream knew was intended to make her feel she wasn’t worth the time it took to curse her. “Why you all sad and shit? Just yesterday you said you had a man you was going to leave Detroit with. Now you talking about heart attacks and death.”
Xander, wondering what he could tell them without betraying confidence, paused. His lover of eleven months, ten days, and approximately three hours was a jealous God of iron fist whose love and punishment were equally passionate. Still sifting through what was allowable and what was forbidden to say, he recalled the night before.
Xander slung his arm around the bed with his eyes closed, hoping to feel his lover’s hard body. He’d learned it was easier to just feel around than to open his eyes and see that empty space. Not looking toward the space his hand had just rubbed, he opened his eyes to search the room. Xander saw him naked, and dressing in the bedroom doorway.
“What you doin’?” asked Xander.
“What it look like?”
“You leavin’?”
“I been here for three days.”
“I ain’t ask how long you been here, I asked if you was leaving,” mumbled Xander.
“What?”
“Nothing,” said Xander timidly. “When you comin’ back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You goin’ back to her?”
“I never left.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means we’re not gay.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We fuck and then we go home to separate places. No trips to amusement parks on Gay Day. No cooking each other’s dinners. We’re not fags, Xander. We’re two niggas who enjoy each other’s c
ompany, and nothing more.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What it always means.”
They both spoke in unison: “Good-bye.”
Fashad slammed the door shut on his way out. Xander rolled into the space left by his lover. He grabbed the pillow, hugged it, took in his lover’s scent, fully expecting to go back to sleep and settle for dreams of him, as he always had. Thirty minutes later he still lay wide awake; something inside of him wouldn’t let it go this time—the five-hundredth time they’d made love. He knew better, but his hand drifted to the cell phone on the desk beside his bed. He flinched as he pressed one on the speed dial.
“You gonna come back later, aren’t you?”
“If I got time and I feel like it. What I tell you ’bout callin’ me during the day and shit. What do you want?”
After replaying the story in his mind, for both his own and his lover’s privacy, Xander figured his story was okay to share with the shop.
“I called him after we made love and told him I just needed to hear his voice.”
“Ewwww…that’s a no-no,” explained Daryl. “These MSMs don’t like to hear none of the sentimental shit. They just want to hit it quick and forget they did it.”
“What’s an MSM?” asked Faye.
“A man who sleeps with men,” said Daryl, sounding like an expert. “What did you do after that, Xander?”
“I just held my breath and waited for him to say something. Then he finally said: ‘What you mean you need to hear my voice?’ I thought about it for a second, then I just decided to come out to him.”
“What?” asked Faye, looking around the salon to see if anyone else was as confused and repulsed as she was. “What do you mean you came out to him. He was fucking you yesterday, he should know you’re gay.”
“Well, not necessarily,” said Daryl. “His man is on the down low, so he probably thought Xander was too. There’s a big difference between what you do in the bedroom and what you do in the rest of your home.”
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