Antebellum

  I looked around at all the eyes focused on me, and I knew it was time. There were sporadic cheers here and there, but it was quiet enough for me to think straight. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat as I continued.

  “Da Nigga is dead. He died while I was in the coma. Everything he stood for, everything he did, everything he was, is dead. My name is Moses Jenkins. It is no longer Da Nigga, and as such, I don’t ’spect to be called that anymore. All y’all out there wid Da Nigga T-shirts and everything on, y’all reppin’ a dead man. It ain’t me no more. I ain’t nobody’s nigga.”

  I saw jaws drop.

  “From now on, I will take being called Da Nigga as a personal offense. To all my fans, if you really are my fans, take them damn shirts off! Shouldn’t nobody in the hood be walkin’ ’round wid no shirt with ‘I am Da Nigga’ on it! I ain’t makin’ no more music under the name Da Nigga, and if I can find a way to, I’ll have all my old music destroyed. You ain’t heard this from my record company, ’cause they don’t know yet. I ain’t discussed it with ’em, nor do I plan to. From now on, I ain’t nobody’s nigga and I ain’t nobody’s slave!”

  The initial shock of my words had worn off, and the press members were working feverishly, making sure they got every word of what would undoubtedly be the story of the century. Cameramen fell over each other trying to shoot me from different angles, and the crowd behind the press had started a low murmur of whispers amongst themselves. I paused up at the podium, soaking in the reactions, and suddenly felt a sense of calm. I relaxed with both my hands on the podium, and laughed quietly into the microphone. This night would change my life forever. I just wanted to make sure I remembered it clearly.

  “You know...” I started speaking again and the noise died back down. “I got up outta bed and I listened to all my music. I listened to every record I ever released. And, well, y’all don’t know who Roka is, but Roka woulda punched me in the mouth. I’m sure of it. He may have even broken a few of my bones. And Sarah, oh my God, Sarah woulda probably hung me from a tree! They’d probably took turns killin’ me if they heard some of the stuff I said. I jus’...I can’t make music like that no more. Honestly, I can’t. I tried to rap along with the lyrics earlier...and I couldn’t. It was like I ain’t even write ’em. Somebody else did.”

  I felt SaTia’s stare and glanced over my shoulder. She was standing in the doorway and nodded for me to continue.

  “It was always easy for me before, you know? Get a lil high, get a lil drunk, and the words, they just fell right out. I never had to think about what I was sayin’, jus’ about how well it all flowed. Long as the flow was nice, everything was straight. But now I gotta think about it. Hell, I gotta think about everything...”

  A few people in the crowd of fans started to boo loud enough for me to hear it up on the podium. I stood my ground, expecting for the boos to grow. Instead, a larger crowd of people yelled their support, and after realizing how outnumbered they were, the objectors held their peace and fell silent once again.

  “I wanna tell y’all I’m sorry. I know this is gonna disappoint some of y’all. I know a lotta people love my music. Though now, I can’t really tell why. I mean, it was like all I did was bash y’all over the head lyrically. ‘I’ll put a dick in yo’ chick an’ leave you payin’ her rent’? Who wants to hear that? I’m ’bout to get married. I don’t wanna hear about nobody screwin’ my wife.”

  Hands began to shoot up in the press section, and I knew the firestorm had started. I ignored them as I tried to finish.

  “Anyway, I don’t know what my music’ll sound like from here on out. All I can do is promise you one thing...it ain’t gonna sound like Da Nigga. It can’t, after all. Da Nigga’s dead. Thank y’all for comin’ out.”

  All of the press, even the cameramen, managed to throw their hands up and yell my name at the same time. I took a step back from the podium, and Xavier immediately dove in front of me, blocking me again from the camera flashes and media assault. A couple of people tried to make their way up onto the porch, but the police stopped them and forced them back. One person, a taller, stocky gentleman, managed to force his way past the officers and sprinted toward me for questions. I barely noticed Xavier move before I saw the man flying through the air and landing on his back. I wasn’t sure if the cracking sound was the man’s bones or the wood underneath him.

  Having dealt with the man, Xavier quickly directed me back into the house and shut the door behind us. Mama and Big Mama were in the living room, looking at me as I came back in. SaTia was standing in the hallway with the BlackBerry up to her ear and a smirk on her face.

  “It’s Mr. Rose,” she said. “He says you’re dropped from the label if you don’t get down to the office right now.”

  “Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow at 10 a.m. If that’s not good enough, then go ’head and drop me.”

  SaTia relayed the message with pride, while a furious Mr. Rose burst back through the telephone receiver. After a ten-minute rant, he hung up on SaTia, who looked at me with the same grin.

  “He says he’ll see you tomorrow at ten.”

  I saw Xavier smirk for the first time since we’d met, and I turned and headed up the stairs.

  Déjà vu is a strange phenomenon, especially when you’ve found yourself having traveled back in time.

  I sat in a very comfortable chair, with a very familiar looking woman staring sternly at my face and trying to figure out what to do with it. She hadn’t changed at all since the last time I’d seen her, except for maybe having added more Botox to her already numb face.

  “What do we do with you this time, Mr. Jenkins?”

  Her voice had the raspy tenor of a long time cigarette smoker, and her perfume proved no match for the nicotine aroma on her clothes. Still, I appreciated her. She reminded me of a time long gone.

  “Your face has changed. I don’t think it needs much makeup, just a slight brush here and there, and you should be fine.”

  She glanced uncomfortably at the man with midnight black shades standing to my right.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you,” I told her.

  “That’s not what the papers say.”

  “You don’t believe everything you read in the papers, do you?”

  I turned and cut a smirk at Xavier, who stood stoically by my side, watching the makeup woman closely as she reached for her brush and began lightly tapping my face.

  “X, you gotta stop scaring people everywhere we go, man.”

  “Can’t help it.”

  “Yeah, you can. You gotta start carrying around a box of kittens or somethin’.”

  Xavier averted his eyes from the makeup artist and looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew him well enough by now to know that he was silently telling me to shut up. I laughed out loud and turned back so that the woman could finish her job.

  It had been almost a year since the press conference, though it seemed as if it was just yesterday. Life had been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride since. And here I was, sitting back in the exact same chair, being beautified by the exact same woman at the Phil Winters Show. So much was still the same, but so much more was different.

  SaTia made a grand entrance into the room. She no longer burst in all frantic as she used to. Now she made every step count.

  Her transformation had drawn so much attention that she’d been offered four or five modeling gigs in the last six months, but she’d turned them all down. The only thing she modeled was her ring, and she did that for free.

  Her heels clicked across the floor as she walked up and, to the dismay of the makeup artist, kissed me deeply.

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Hey. What’s up? I thought you were waitin’ in the audience?”

  “I wanted to come back here and let you know what was up.”

  “Where’s Danielle? Isn’t that what you hired her for? You s’posed to be sittin’ down and lookin’ pretty.”

  “Danielle’s running around maki
ng sure everything else is straight. I wanted to come back here myself.”

  “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “Phil Winters is still a bit shook because of what happened last time you were on his show. He’s beefed up his security and got the network to have plainclothes cops in the audience.”

  I turned to Xavier. “We still got our plainclothes guys in the audience, too, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah. One in every section.”

  “Damn! Half the people in the audience gonna have guns!” I laughed nervously.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, baby. Everybody’s here for your protection. Winters’ audience seats almost three hundred people. We need all the security we can get.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

  “Is that it, babe?”

  “Almost. Winters also got the network to shell out for bulletproof glass. The cameras won’t catch it, but there’ll be a clear shield around you all. The only people behind it will be you and Winters.”

  I turned to SaTia with concern in my eyes.

  “What about X?”

  “Winters said he’d feel much more comfortable if Xavier stayed on the other side of the glass.”

  “Naw, that’s not gonna work. I told Phil months ago, if I’m gonna do the show, X has got to be with me onstage. If he feels that uncomfortable with it, we can just cancel.”

  “I told him that already, and he’s not willing to cancel. He knows how much revenue this show is going to bring in. He asked me to come in and ask you how you felt about it.”

  “It’s X or no show.”

  “Alright. X, please don’t shoot Phil Winters during the interview, okay?” she said playfully as she leaned down and kissed my forehead.

  “Okay,” he nonchalantly responded.

  My beauty queen turned and walked back to the door with inaudible theme music playing to her stride.

  “See you out there,” she called, and walked out.

  Almost immediately afterwards a skinny brown girl with a short ponytail rushed into the room.

  “Mr. Jenkins! Mr. Jenkins, they’re ready for you!”

  “Danielle, we’ve talked about this. Calm down, okay? They not about to do the show without us.”

  “Okay...” She bent over and took several deep breaths. “Alright... I’m calm. Mr. Jenkins, they’re ready for you on set.”

  “Thanks, Danielle.”

  I let the makeup guru dab my face one more time, and then stood and made my way to the door. Xavier had long since quit the formalities of escorting me places. Everywhere we went now, we went side by side.

  I spent more on legal fees for him than I did for myself, but I couldn’t complain. The man was good at his job, and I never went anywhere without him.

  We walked down the hallway as though we owned the entire studio. All of the pandemonium in the hallway stopped as we made our way through, and everyone stood frozen in place. We could smell the fear of some of the staff members as they trembled in our shadows. Others stared at us in awe, as if we were superheroes on our way to go and save the world. Either way, no one dared to stand in our path. We walked undisturbed straight through to the set.

  As we were getting ready to walk out, Phil Winters came and met us at the door. He was sweating so much that he’d commissioned one of the staff members to do nothing but follow him around and dab his face and forehead. He was flushed and bright red as he shook our hands.

  “Yo, Phil, you don’t look so good, man.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little nervous about the show. I still have nightmares about the last time you were here...no offense.”

  “None taken. Did you talk to SaTia?”

  “I did.” He turned to Xavier as his lapdog found more sweat on his eyebrow to wipe clean. “Please don’t shoot me, okay?”

  Unlike SaTia, Phil was being as serious as the heart attack he looked as if he was on the verge of having. Xavier nodded his head.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? Okay...that makes me feel a little bit better.” Phil was still jittery as he turned to face me again. “The show’s getting ready to start. I’m going to skip the jokes and go right into your introduction. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s great.”

  “Alright, see you on set.”

  He walked away with his staffer bounding behind him, trying to wipe the back of his neck. I waited until he was far enough away, then turned to Xavier myself. “Seriously, man, don’t shoot him. Okay?”

  “I’m not going to shoot him. I don’t have a reason to.”

  “Yeah, but he might try and nudge me on the arm or something, you know? Just for fun.”

  “No, he won’t. He’s too scared. He won’t move from his seat.”

  “Yeah, you probably right.”

  “Everyone I’ve shot has been trying to attack you. I don’t know why people think everywhere I go I’m going to shoot somebody.”

  “You know the media blow stuff outta proportion, X. Don’t let it bother you. You know I got your back. Long as you never pull a gun on me again, we good.”

  “Moses, I...”

  “Naw, no more apologies. We good, aight? If I had the story you had, I’d probably pull a gun on everybody I saw.”

  Xavier nodded his head guiltily.

  “’Sides, you wasn’t ever ’bout to shoot me, right?”

  “No, I wasn’t going to shoot you. You might have had to help me clean James up, though.”

  I laughed and gave Xavier dap as the applause from the audience began and Phil walked out onstage. True to his word, he went immediately into my introduction.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight’s show will be a historic one. For the first time since his earth-shattering press conference held almost a year ago, Moses Jenkins will be interviewed tonight here on this show! The last time he was here was eventful to say the least, but when my producers found out that he was willing to come on our show yet again, considering all that happened before and especially all that’s happened since, we decided it was an opportunity that we could not pass up. I know that many of you at home, as well as many of you in the audience, have mixed emotions about our guest today. Rumors have spread like the plague since he’s come out of his coma, and it’s safe to say that he is now the topic of international conversation and debate. Tonight, for the first time since standing on his front porch and shocking the world, he will speak for himself. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Moses Jenkins.”

  I couldn’t tell the boos from the cheers and applause. It all faded together into a white noise that I’d become used to. I walked out onto the set with Xavier right beside me, and he made his way to the back of the couch and stood tall behind me as I shook Phil’s hand and took a seat on the couch.

  Every once in a while, the boos would get louder than the cheers and vice versa, the crowd engaged in a noise war over which faction could be heard the loudest over the other. Eventually, the uniformed officers standing in the audience intervened, and the audio soldiers died down and eventually fell silent.

  “Mr. Jenkins, welcome back.”

  “Thanks for havin’ me, Phil.”

  “I don’t even know where to start. We could spend all night talking about what’s happened to you.”

  “Yeah, I know. You ain’t got that kinda time, though.”

  “Tell me about it. Let’s start with the question that everyone seems to be asking: Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?”

  I laughed whenever people asked me that, as if there were no other explanation for how I was acting.

  “No, Phil, I’m not crazy.”

  “What happened while you were in your coma?”

  “I had a revelation. An epiphany. I just couldn’t do things the same way anymore.”

  “Okay, so tell me what happened with Cosmos Records?”

  “I went to the execs at Cosmos and I told ’em I wanted all my old stuff taken out the stores. I ain’t want it sold no more. They ref
used, of course, ’cause of the money they would lose. So for my next album, I went back, used the same beats from all my previous projects, and changed all the lyrics. According to my contract I still owed them records, so that is the record they got.”

  “And they’ve accepted it?”

  “They have to! I wasn’t makin’ anything else till I went over and re-recorded all my old stuff. I can’t take my old albums away, but at least I can give the fans a choice, you know?”

  “They threatened a lawsuit, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. They tried to say I violated my contract by using the same beats, but it was all bull.”

  “So how do you think the new album will perform?”

  “It’ll be crazy! For every fan I lose here in the U.S., I believe I’ll gain ten overseas!”

  “But will you lose fans here in the U.S.?”

  “I’d imagine. Some people just can’t feel what I’m tryin’ to do, and that’s cool. You can’t force ’em.”

  “Yes, but you have to admit, Moses, some of your new lyrics that have been leaked are a bit controversial...”

  “Like which ones?”

  “Let me see...” Phil went flipping through some of the papers he had on his desk. “Here’s one.”

  Subconsciously, here’s what this CD is

  Lyrically stopping racists from ever having a kid

  I give ’em the biz

  Like a slave fed up to his ears

  And blowing off his master’s powdered wig

  I stayed small till my people needed me to get big

  Till they needed my words to wipe away their tears

  And if it takes for you to die for them to live

  Then say goodbye to your family, thank the Lord for your years

  “I mean, you’re talking about killing people here, right?” he asked.

  “I’m talkin’ ’bout killing people who were tryin’ to kill me or my ancestors back in the day. If you ain’t a racist, then these lyrics shouldn’t bother you.”