Fathers House: A Preview

by C. Edward Baldwin

  ***

  An hour later, Yung Cain featuring Prodegee finally took the stage. The crowd had grown restless and anxious. A single shout of, “We want Cain!” quickly dominoed into cascading waves of “We want Cain! We want Cain! We want Cain!” And just when the anticipation had reached its crescendo, the lights went out, casing the gym into complete darkness. Everyone fell silent and looked anxiously toward a stage that was no longer visible. A computerized voice counted down, rushing from the large speakers, “Five…four…three…two…one.” A blast of music ripped from somewhere on stage, quickly leading into the obviously familiar beats of Enuff. Bomph-bomph. Bomph-bomph, boom-dum-boomph. A sea of teen heads started bobbing in rhythm with the song’s beats. A spotlight beamed on the center of the stage, revealing Prodegee furiously playing an electric keyboard. A rush of applause and delighted screams erupted from the gymnasium floor. By the time Cain’s voice exploded from the two large speakers, the gym was in total pandemonium.

  For the next thirty minutes, Cain owned the stage and the moment. He worked the room like a born showman. He strutted back and forth across the stage, rapping songs that every kid in the gym seemed to know. He artfully plucked towels from a stack that had been placed near the back of the stage. He wiped his face with each before tossing it into the crowd. The girls shrieked with delight. Wherever the towels landed small skirmishes popped up before quickly dissipating, leaving one girl gleefully hopping in place while tightly holding her newly acquired prized possession.

  After his last song, Cain stood in the middle of the stage, basking in the glow of perfection. His face beamed; he was clearly enjoying the moment. The crowd screamed for an encore. So he’d ripped Enuff again. The underground song had amassed a great number of YouTube hits. Many of the kids knew the words by heart, and again, rapped along with him.

  Cain looked over at Prodegee. Sweat was rushing down the kid’s face. His eyes were rolled into the back of his head. The kid had totally lost himself in his beats, really feeling them. He didn’t look like himself. He looked otherworldly. To Cain, he was looking at Jimi Hendrix reincarnated. The whole moment was surreal. If he could have, Cain would have stopped time, freezing the moment into eternity. At that exact moment, he could not imagine anything sweeter.

  He gazed out at his sea of adoring fans. He thrust his arms high in the air. He felt triumphant, confident that he’d just treated them to a glimpse of greatness. He wondered how many of them had truly understood what they’d just witnessed. Really, how many people who’d seen LL Cool J or Lil Wayne perform early on, say at a house party or a block party, had realized that they had been watching future rap legends? Very few, he imagined. Most of those witnesses­to-greatness probably couldn’t even see past their own hoods, much less one of their own ascending to points well beyond them. But the naysayers and disbelievers hadn’t stopped either LL or Lil Wayne, and nor would they stop him.

  There was a smattering of adults in his sea. Any other time this would have pleased him, as he considered himself influenced as much by the music of his mother—artists like Prince, New Edition, and Run-DMC, as he was by his own favorite hip hop artists. He had visions of being a generational star. But he was weary of these particular adults, and he seriously doubted that any of them were there for his music.

  He stared for a moment at Uncle Mayo who looked as uncomfortable as ever in an expensive suit. He was standing at the back of the gym with the reporter who’d written the news article on Calvin’s beating. Cain knew why the guy was here and it wasn’t for the anti-gang message that Uncle Mayo was pushing. He wondered how Mayo could be so blind. Cain frowned at the reporter’s photographer who was lurking nearby and was spending considerable time looking at the girls rather than looking through his camera lens.

  Then he saw them. The two of them were standing together at the opposite end from Uncle Mayo, near a fire exit, both looking like they hadn’t a care in the world. And he supposed not, it was his butt that was on the line, not theirs. The fact that they were there concerned him. He dropped his arms—the signal for Ronnie to cut the lights which he did promptly, casting the room back into complete darkness. Thirty seconds later, the lights flicked back on, and Cain and Prodegee had disappeared from the stage.