Dirty South
Page 20
What did it matter?
What did anything matter?
He looked out the window of the bus. Toya was back in South Carolina at the Hilton. Mya wasn’t around anymore. He’d cut his entourage down considerably, and those that remained weren’t really friends. They hung around, kept him from getting too lonely, but they played no significant role in his life.
Only one thing to do.
Hit that stage and let the chips fall where they may.
“How much longer ’fore we get to the college?” he called out to his driver.
“An hour, maybe a li’l less.”
Fiasco fell back into his seat.
In three hours he’d walk out on that stage, in Yung Chit country, and give the crowd his middle finger.
They could hit him with whatever they had.
He’d take it.
“I reminisce so you never forget this
The days of way back, so many bear witness the fitness
Take the first letter out of each word in this joint
Listen close as I prove my point”
Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth,
“They Reminisce Over You” (T.R.O.Y)
Chapter 28
Eric
I noticed plenty of security. There was a wall of incredibly huge men with peacemakers on their belts, and Kevlar vests covering their torsos, guarding the perimeter of the stage. The concert was taking place outside. The Georgia air was nice, smelled fresher than the air in Jersey, for sure. There must’ve been eight thousand or so in the crowd. I’d heard more than one person mumble they were coming to see Fiasco’s execution. It was definitely a Yung Chit crowd.
Yung Chit was on record saying he had gunners everywhere.
Despite all the security by the stage, I’d walked over to the auditorium and come through the gates unchecked. The school definitely wasn’t making it very difficult for Yung Chit’s gunners. That worried me sick. My stomach was a bundle of nerves. This was a fight that Fiasco couldn’t engage in alone. So I was here.
I’d texted Lark, asked her to step to the back of the auditorium, by the concession stands. She walked up, her eyes squinted, lines in her forehead. “Eric?” She had a glow to her skin. College was working for her, even if she was only a day into her higher-education pursuit. “Kenya?” she asked.
The worry was heavy in her voice. I suppose my appearance would have worried me too if the shoe were on the other foot.
“Kenya’s fine,” I said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to support Fiasco.” I said support, but I was thinking save.
Lark smiled wide, embraced me.
I hugged her back, of course, but we didn’t have much time.
Fiasco was hitting the stage in about ten minutes, from what I understood.
“I need to get back to see Fiasco,” I said.
“You’d have to speak to Carolina on that. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Can you get me to her?”
Lark frowned. “Don’t even know where she is.”
“Can you find out?”
She studied me briefly. “Let me see what I can do.”
Chapter 29
Fiasco
Normally he prayed right before he went on stage. Not that he was all that close to God, but it was something he did regularly. It set him at ease, relaxed his mind. Your mind had to be relaxed when you stepped on a stage in front of a crowd. Too many performers had gotten in that position, forgotten words to songs or delivered them poorly because their voices cracked. He’d performed thousands of times, in small clubs and even large arenas. Even at Madison Square Garden that one time, which seemed like a million years ago but was only four. No matter how many times he performed, though, it never really got any easier. It took nerves of steel to get up in front of people, make them enjoy your music, make them bob their heads to your songs. So he usually prayed for comfort, for strength. Usually.
Today he wasn’t.
He’d heard the talk. Yung Chit and his gunners.
His bus was evidence that Yung Chit wasn’t just talking.
He thought of the two spiderwebs right in the windows of the compartment where he laid his head at night. That was a violation of the highest order.
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die…
Nope. He wouldn’t pray.
It was what it was.
Chapter 30
Eric
“Come, Eric.”
I sighed a breath of relief, followed Lark. We went back out through the gates, crossed over behind the large bleachers of the auditorium and came up on a grouping of buildings. “Fiasco’s in there,” she said. “They have Yung Chit on the other side of the field.”
I nodded.
“Security’s no joke. You’re worried about your boy?”
“Yes.”
She searched my eyes. “Someone just told me Fiasco’s bus got shot up? That true?”
“He hasn’t answered my calls.”
She gripped my hands, squeezed. “I love you, Poseys. Please be careful.”
“Ditto,” I said.
Then I took another deep breath and headed in to see Fiasco.
He was standing in front of the mirror, throwing punches at his reflection.
I stepped in, closed the door behind me. “Syke Tyson,” I said.
He turned slowly, eyed me. “E.”
There wasn’t much life in his voice. He didn’t appear surprised.
“I came to ask you not to go on stage,” I said.
He shook his head. So he did have some life. “Can’t do that, son. You know that.”
“Your bus got shot at?”
“Two spiderwebs,” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah,” he said. “My bus got shot at.”
“Don’t go on that stage.”
“There ain’t anything you can say to keep me off that stage, E.”
I nodded. He was probably right. I’d considered that before I came.
I pivoted around, moved back to the door and turned the knob.
I stuck my head out into the hall, made a motion with my hand.
I moved aside so she could enter the room, then closed the door behind her. I stepped to a corner of the room, made myself comfortable in the shadows.
Fiasco stopped cold. “Mya?”
“Ruben.”
I hunched my eyes in surprise. Ruben?
“What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “I came to see my brother.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“That makes two of us.”
Fiasco frowned. “I have to do this performance.”
“And possibly get yourself killed. Why?”
“I’ll be fine, Mya.”
“Tell that to Afeni Shakur, or Voletta Wallace.”
Those were the mothers of Tupac and Biggie.
Fiasco sighed. “Album tanked. This is all I know, Mya.”
“So make another album. Nobody handed any of this to you. You hustled, grinded. Keep grinding, Ruben.”
“Been tough without you around. You were always the voice of wisdom. I’ve made some bad decisions.”
She moved closer to him. “Me, too,” she said.
“I need you back in the fold.”
“You’ll stay off that stage?”
“The college is expecting me to—”
Mya cut him off. “Eric has a plan. It’s a damn good one, too.”
“Yeah?”
She told him my plan.
Fiasco looked over at me. I nodded.
He made a fist, pounded it against his chest, against his heart.
I swallowed, looked at the time stamp on my cell phone. “It’s showtime,” I said.
A week later there’d be footage getting a lot of love on YouTube.
A scrawny, reformed nerd from the Dirty Jersey would commandeer the stage
at a concert in Georgia. He’d come out, to the surprise of the crowd that was expecting the rapper Fiasco, and he’d rap the lyrics from a Fiasco song. Then he’d rap the lyrics from a Yung Chit song. Then he’d rap the lyrics to one final song.
Queen Latifah.
“U.N.I.T.Y.”
By the end of the third song, it would be pandemonium.
A chant would rise to the sky.
Yung Chit, Yung Chit, Yung Chit.
And then a second chant.
Fiasco, Fiasco, Fiasco.
Both rappers would come out and end their beef, right there.
They’d embrace on stage, give one another a pound.
There’d even be talk of doing an album together.
That scrawny, reformed nerd from New Jersey would even get to spit a hot sixteen on that album.
Who knew he had skills, too?
PEACE YO WE OUT!
DIRTY SOUTH
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3762-3
© 2009 Phillip Thomas Duck
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