Antebellum

  Time had become a blur. I’d overheard SaTia telling someone on the phone that it had been hours since I’d awoken, but it only felt like a few minutes. The security guards and the team from the psych ward had finally been called away, and the only people who remained were a pack of doctors outside that were trying to find their way into my room. SaTia forbade anyone from entering until she had some idea of what was happening.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and stared out the window, trying to hold my sanity together. The window was my only solace. From where I sat, I could only look at the sky, and that became the only constant between where I was and where I’d been. The clouds crept slowly across a light blue background in the same way as they had on the Talbert plantation, and after watching the sky long enough, I almost convinced myself I was still there.

  I feared that if I opened my mouth, my head would explode. Not symbolically or metaphorically, but that it would physically explode. I was having a hard enough time as it was restraining the stampede of my consciousness. I held the reigns for now, but one tug in the wrong direction—one pull with just a bit too much force, and the stampede would plunge itself into the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. And I would be lost for good. I knew that. And so I dared not make a sound.

  SaTia, Mama, Big Mama and I sat silently in the room for what could have either been ten minutes or ten hours. The only sound to be heard was SaTia’s BlackBerry incessantly going off. When it was nearly dead, and she stood to plug it into the wall charger, looking up to find all of us staring at her, she got the point, and placed it in her purse. She sat restlessly for a moment, only to jump up again, flailing her arms.

  “I can’t do this anymore!” she exclaimed, her voice teetering on the edge of a breakdown. “I can’t! Moe, what’s wrong with you? What’s going on??”

  “Nobody knows, baby,” Big Mama said calmly. “All we can do is wait for Moses.”

  “Moses! Moses! Do your hear yourself, Mama Jenkins? It’s Moses! Look!”

  SaTia pointed at me as a tattle-telling child would. “He’s here. He’s up. Look! This time yesterday we didn’t even know if he would live. Now he’s up. He’s back. Look!”

  “SaTia...we know,” Mama said, her voice about as strained as SaTia’s. “We know, okay? You don’t think I want to go over there and hug my son? Wrap my arms around him until my blood stops flowing? You don’t think I’ve imagined this moment every second for the last six months?”

  “Then go hug him! Go hug him, Ms. Jenkins!”

  It was a bad piece of advice. Mama stood up with tears in her eyes and approached me. I looked at her face. I don’t even know what emotions I was feeling, but I threw them all at her at the same time. She stopped, as if jerked by a chain attached to the wall, and made her way back to her seat and collapsed into a fit of tears.

  “Moe...Moe...” SaTia was crying now too, releasing all of the chaos she’d let build within her over the last few hours. “Moe... you gotta give me something...please...Moe...”

  I continued staring out the window into the clouds.

  “Moe...please, you’re killing me. I need to know you’re still here, Moe.”

  Her voice echoed in the background behind me.

  “Moe...Moe, please...Moses.”

  I finally turned to SaTia. Even through her tears she looked at me with realization written on her face. Wanting to test her theory, she walked to the other side of the room, away from my gaze and stood there for a few seconds. I turned my gaze back to the window, and she embarked on her experiment.

  “Moe?” I heard her voice, but it didn’t compel me to turn my head again.

  “Moses?” I turned to face her, and she started slowly walking toward me. “You don’t answer to Moe anymore?”

  I stared at her, only partially understanding what she meant.

  “Your...your name is Moses.”

  I nodded my head slightly, and turned back to the window.

  “Moses, please...”

  I looked at her once more, slightly annoyed. Why wouldn’t she just let me get lost in my clouds again?

  “Moses...you...you have to give me something, please. I’ve got a hallway full of doctors that either want to put you in a straight-jacket or run tests on you from now until God knows when. I’ve got record execs from Cosmos calling and wanting to know whether or not you’re awake and whether or not you’re insane. I’ve got an entire hospital that is getting ready to shut down because so many fans have bombarded this place that it’s getting in the way of their other patients’ treatments. And I don’t know what’s going on with you. I don’t know what to tell people, because I don’t know what’s going on. What happened to you, Moses?”

  I stared into her face, the face she shared with a woman I loved, and I had nothing to give her. I had so much to tell her, yet nothing to say.

  Big Mama had quietly gotten out of her seat and was now making her way behind SaTia. She placed her hands on SaTia’s shoulders, trying to provide all the comfort she could. Then she sat down on my bed.

  She was on the other side, but just feeling her weight shift the mattress was enough to rattle my sanity again. I quickly turned my head to the window and focused on the moving clouds again.

  “Look, child,” Big Mama said to SaTia. “God does things in this life for a reason. And I’ll tell you right now, one thing’s for sure.” She looked over at me, and I could feel her eyes prodding my skin. “That boy ain’t the same as before. You can see it in his eyes, he done changed. What you got to decide is if you gonna love him no matter what. ’Cause that’s what he needs right now. He needs love.”

  “Of course I’m gonna love him, Mama Jenkins.”

  “Well, stop thinkin’ ’bout yourself and start thinkin’ ’bout him.”

  Humbled, SaTia nodded her head. Big Mama stood up from the bed and made her way back over to the seat she had designated as her own.

  “Mama Jenkins, I’m still his manager, though. What do I do? What do I tell people?”

  Big Mama slowly lowered herself to the seat, her muscles and joints rebelling against her.

  “Child, them people outside don’t know nothin’ but what you tell ’em.”

  “So...I should lie to them?”

  “You should figure out whether or not you believe my boy’s gonna be okay. If you believe it, make them believe it.”

  Nodding her head again, SaTia thought for a second, and then walked over to grab her BlackBerry out of her purse. She made her way over to the outlet to plug it in, but stopped before she did and came and sat beside me on the bed. Her perfume hit my nostrils and I closed my eyes, using all of my strength to keep myself on this side of the asylum.

  “I believe you’re gonna be okay, Moe...I mean...Moses. I believe you’re gonna be okay, Moses.”

  She sounded like Ella, and my heart began racing. I couldn’t help myself. Slowly, I turned my head to face her.

  “You do...you do look different. I can see it now...what Mama Jenkins was talking about. It’s in your eyes,” she said.

  She was Ella. She was SaTia, but she was Ella, too. I could see it now the same way she could see the change in me. She was Ella without the pain trapped in her soul. But she was Ella nonetheless. I’d recognize her anywhere.

  I felt the slightest tinge of hope as I stared at her.

  “You’re gonna be okay, Moses. Alright? You’re gonna be okay.”

  I trusted her now, because I knew who she was. I nodded my head intently.

  “Good. Now let’s let the world know that you’re back...”

  More time passed. Either seconds or hours—I really couldn’t tell the difference. Eventually my comforting sky began to change into shades of purple and red. I found myself standing up, pleading silently with the clouds to not disappear. They didn’t listen. They waved goodbye, and then ducked into darkness.

  SaTia’s voice comforted me. Even while she talked nonstop on her BlackBerry, her voice soothed me in the absence of my daylight sky. S
he smiled at me as she told people that I was back and better than ever—that the coma had only made me more eager to get back into the studio and record new material for the fans that had prayed me through. She talked almost straight through the night, and I listened as long as her voice echoed through the hospital room. Mama and Big Mama had long since fallen asleep, but SaTia’s phone kept going off, and she kept answering it. And every conversation reminded me more and more of who I had been.

  “Mr. Longfire—Channel 7, right? Yes, yes, this is a very exciting time! A statement? Well, just that the man who the world knows as Da Nigga is alive and well! He has come out of his coma and is doing fine. We’re staying here in the hospital for precautions, but as soon as he gets the okay, we’ll be out of here and back in the studio. Have a great night.”

  And later...“Cindy Dawkins—how are you? How’s the show going? Oh, you can get Moses on as a guest? Well, I can’t promise anything now, Cindy. He’s really just hanging out and getting back into the swing of things, but we’ll definitely keep you in mind. Yes, Cindy, I know how big it would be, but we have to think about Moses first. He was almost shot during a television taping before his coma. We can’t risk any sort of flashbacks. That’s not a no—a let me get back to you, okay, sweetie? We’ll be in touch.”

  I still hadn’t said a word, but SaTia had been speaking enough for the both of us. She must have spoken to two hundred people before she finally sat down. Her eyes were heavy and her body looked limp.

  “I think I’m done for the night,” she mumbled as her phone rang one last time. But then she looked at the number, took a deep breath, and stood up, magically energizing herself again.

  “This is the last one I take, and then I’m done. I’ll be at it again in the morning.” She put on a fake smile and hit the speaker button on her phone so that I could hear the other end as well.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Ms. Brooks. This is Mr. Rose from Cosmos Records.”

  “Hello, Mr. Rose!” SaTia feigned surprise at hearing who was on the other end of the line.

  “Can you tell me what’s going on, Ms. Brooks? I’ve heard a little bit of everything at this point.”

  I could see SaTia’s eyes as she pondered how much information she wanted to share with the record executive. She paused before she answered, and Mr. Rose read her pause accurately.

  “Ms. Brooks, listen...I understand you’ve been doing damage control all day. Believe me when I tell you that all of us at Cosmos appreciate it more than you know. Moses is by far our highest-selling artist, and we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure he gets back to one hundred percent. But this is just you and me talking now, Ms. Brooks. The only way I can fix what’s happening is if I know about it. You’ve got to tell me straight up—what’s going on with our man?”

  Mr. Rose’s words stirred the ashes of the fire still within my chest. SaTia was too exhausted to have her usual filter, and gave in to Mr. Rose’s sincere tone. I could see the resistance melt off of her face as she continued her conversation.

  “Mr. Rose, I don’t even know where to start...”

  “Well, then, let me ask the questions, okay? First, is Moses out of his coma?”

  “Yes, he is. He’s sitting right here in front of me.”

  Mr. Rose could not hide his excitement.

  “Thank God! Thank goodness!”

  “I’d thought that was common knowledge after all of the news stories...”

  “I hadn’t heard from you, or from him, so I wasn’t taking anything at face value. Now—is it true that he stabbed a doctor?”

  The ridiculousness of the question caused SaTia to stumble over her tongue. “Wh...wh...I...what...what are you talking about?”

  “That’s one of the more prevalent rumors that’s been going around.”

  “That Moses stabbed a doctor?”

  “As ridiculous as it sounds, yes.”

  “I can’t believe you would listen to that...”

  “As I said before, Ms. Brooks, I hadn’t spoken to you all day. All I had to go on were the news reports and the Internet.”

  “Umm...no, Mr. Rose, at no point did Moses ever stab one of the doctors, okay?”

  “But he was enraged, right?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “Great! Do you know how great that is? Da Nigga wakes up from his coma pissed off at the thugs who shot him. That’s epic. The inner city is going to turn this guy into a super hero. Oh my God, this is amazing!”

  SaTia looked at the phone incredulously.

  “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened after Moses woke up from his coma?”

  “He...he had an episode. He had come out of the coma, and the doctors burst into the room! They must have frightened him. He jumped out of bed and acted as if he was trying to protect us.”

  “Wait...wait...so he did actually jump out of bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t stumble? He jumped out of bed on his own?”

  “Yeah, is there something wrong with that?”

  “Well, that’s been one of the rumors that has been going around, Ms. Brooks. So at least one of them is true.”

  “Why would him getting out of bed be a rumor, Mr. Rose?”

  “It’s not him getting out of bed, it’s him jumping out of bed! I’ve seen at least fifteen doctors on the television this evening testifying that no one who is in a coma for six months should even be able to walk on their own—much less be able to leap out from under the sheets! I told you, these ghetto kids are going to turn him into a superhero...super Nigga! Hahaha!”

  SaTia looked over at me, realizing the truth in Mr. Rose’s words. I shouldn’t have been able to jump out of bed. I shouldn’t have been able to do much except open my eyes and maybe lift a finger or two. She looked strangely at me as the exec continued.

  “So he’s walking, talking, and doing everything else on his own, correct?”

  “Well, not exactly...”

  “What do you mean ‘not exactly’? What’s going on with him?”

  “Well, frankly, he hasn’t said a word since the episode earlier.”

  “So he’s still upset from it? He’s taking his time to calm down?”

  “No, Mr. Rose, that’s not it. He’s not talking at all. It’s been almost an entire day, and he hasn’t spoken.”

  Mr. Rose’s pause signaled that he’d reached the first significant problem since he’d been on the phone.

  “Listen, SaMia—can I call you SaMia?”

  “It’s SaTia.”

  “I’m sorry, SaTia. Do you think this is something mental? Has he forgotten how to talk?”

  “No, he spoke to us before the doctors came in earlier.”

  “So he could talk if he wanted to?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

  Another pause, and then Mr. Rose started to laugh.

  “I’m sure this is a temporary thing. I’m sure he’ll wake up in the morning and be talking his head off.”

  SaTia looked over at me again, and I looked back at her.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Rose. There’s something different about him, now. I don’t think he’ll talk until he’s ready.”

  “Well, when will he be ready?”

  “I don’t know, but honestly, I don’t think it’ll be tomorrow.”

  I listened as panic began to weigh down Mr. Rose’s breathing.

  “Okay...okay...let’s not get too hysterical about this.”

  SaTia’s act was amusing to watch. “Mr. Rose, what are you talking about?”

  “Look, I’ll send a shrink over tomorrow, okay? Best in the city. He’ll come in, turn Moses’s head upside down, shake it a bit, and we’ll have him back talking again in no time.”

  “I’m not letting Moe talk to a shrink! The only people who have been in this room in the last twenty-four hours have been myself and his family—and I think his head has been turned upside down enough as it is. No s
hrink.”

  “Well, then what do you suggest we do, SaTia?”

  “We wait for him to come around. Wait for him to talk again on his own.”

  There was another moment of silence on Mr. Rose’s end of the phone, and I found myself wondering what his face must have looked like on the other end.

  “Maybe you don’t understand the gravity of the situation at hand, SaTia, so let me explain it to you. We’ve had the biggest occurrence in hip-hop history, maybe even music history, happen to our artist. To a Cosmos recording artist! And this event, if played right, could be worth millions of dollars in revenue. And at the center of it all, we’ve got a rap artist who won’t talk.”

  “I still don’t understand the major problem, Mr. Rose.”

  Rose could no longer hide his frustration. His voice went up two octaves as he blasted back at SaTia. “If Moses won’t talk, he won’t rap! If he won’t rap, then he might as well have stayed in the coma! He can’t give interviews, he can’t do movies, he can’t do anything! How are you not seeing this?”

  “Do you even care that he woke up from his coma today?”

  “Of course I care! He’s the biggest thing on every station! We’ve gotten reports that another hundred thousand units sold today alone because of this! Moses Jenkins is the most important man in my life right now! My job is to get him back to the public as quickly as possible so that he can generate more revenue. And he can’t generate anything if he won’t talk!”

  “I don’t understand why you can’t leave him alone and let him get better? You said it yourself—the record sales are soaring. He’s golden right now. Why not let him come around in his own time?”

  “Because nobody has that kind of time, Ms. Brooks. Nobody has that kind of time! He is our artist. We don’t wait for him. We tell him what to do and how to do it, and then we sit around and watch it get done! Right now we’ve got major networks, publishing companies, movie producers, clothing lines, I mean, we’ve got everyone lined up waiting for him to step one foot out of that hospital. Nike even wants to have him endorse a shoe! But none of that can happen if he stands in front of a television camera like a deaf mute. These inner-city kids aren’t going to look up to a deaf mute, Ms. Brooks. They’re going to emulate the guy who had his chest blown wide open, spent six months in a coma, refused to die, and then came back seeking vengeance on the people who shot him!”