again. But AnnMarie’d turn her back and listen to him telling her about the new one out by RZA, the raw sound, the hip-hop breakout.
You got to have a work ethic, feel me—got to know how to show your swag but also be a businessman. You want to go out to Jamaica, fine. Talk to JJ, Paul Red, gather up the young rappers, make a mixtape. Then you think distribution, you feel me.
Yeah, okay.
We was at the Palace last night. Big Mike, he step aside, let me have a go—we tore the place down. People went stupid for that shit. People went dumb.
Tha’s crazy. I wish I coulda been there.
Yeah, yeah, he’d say.
And she’d wait, halfways holding her breath. Wondering what he gonna say next, wondering what gonna come next.
You work on your a cappella, I lay you down too.
Ann Marie smiled.
Stupid in the head with love.
She started to sing every day. Walking to school. In choir, math class, earth science—it don’t matter, a melody floated through her head. At home, she started taking long showers, singing one song after another, sometimes switching up the rhythm of a cover song, letting a note hang in the air, stretching it out for as long as she had breath, Carlton banging on the door, yelling, Ain’t you clean yet. But she didn’t care. Fuck him.
She’d heard the stories. How Darius got into it. The fights, stabbing people in the head, sticking up stores. It was outlaw, Far Rock through and through. One day they was out walking. Heading to Three Kings for the steak and eggs he got hungry for. They passed a fella who glanced her way and before AnnMarie knew what was happening, Darius had stepped to him—
The fuck you looking at? The fuck you doing, put your eyes back in your head
. In the restaurant he slid into the booth, flipped open the menu and said, What you want, AnnMarie? I got you. And she’d smiled, her eyes swimming across the page. She’d seen the boy flinch. She’d seen it.
He showed her what was behind the door, pulled it open when she’d asked. It was a walk-in closet. No clothes in there. Just a bed on the floor, a perfect fit, no room for anything else but a orange crate with candles melted down and a bottle of E&J. No room for anything ’cept two bodies, laying side by side. When she turned in the doorway, he didn’t step aside. They stood there, nearly touching, and it didn’t take much to close the space between them, his lips on hers, drawing her in. First kiss. Sweet kiss, fingers brushing skin.
She thought it was funny, him throwing up gang signs shirtless in front of the mirror,
blat blat blat
. She watched him make his face hard, curve those fingers just so, the whole world afraid of him. Even Carlton musta heard who he was ’cause the day Darius came by to pick her up, he hid in her room. Darius said, Is that him and AnnMarie nodded, watching him cross the living room, push open her door and stand there, his back to her, saying something she couldn’t hear. But Carlton stopped bothering her after that, stopped talking to her altogether. Two ships passing. She’d think, Who you now, punk ass. Who you now.
Three weeks they’d been together, getting serious for real, like candy and song dedications, when word spread that a house party going down at 36 Gipson Street. Teisha and Sunshine put her in this badass off-the-shoulder tee, skintight Jordache and a pair a heels she had to practice walking in they so high. They left without Niki, Nadette tsking, saying it’s her own fault she late. And AnnMarie didn’t care right then, her head buzzing, giddy ’cause she going out—the girls was taking her out and Darius had said, I see you there.
By the time they arrived, the party was spilling people, boys mostly, most a them old, high-school age and older. AnnMarie felt her heart thumping as Sunshine leaned in and said, See that fella next to Darius—that’s Big Mike. We wanna get noticed, we gotta get to the mic.
AnnMarie watched Teisha and Nadette push their way through the
You got to have a work ethic, feel me—got to know how to show your swag but also be a businessman. You want to go out to Jamaica, fine. Talk to JJ, Paul Red, gather up the young rappers, make a mixtape. Then you think distribution, you feel me.
Yeah, okay.
We was at the Palace last night. Big Mike, he step aside, let me have a go—we tore the place down. People went stupid for that shit. People went dumb.
Tha’s crazy. I wish I coulda been there.
Yeah, yeah, he’d say.
And she’d wait, halfways holding her breath. Wondering what he gonna say next, wondering what gonna come next.
You work on your a cappella, I lay you down too.
Ann Marie smiled.
Stupid in the head with love.
She started to sing every day. Walking to school. In choir, math class, earth science—it don’t matter, a melody floated through her head. At home, she started taking long showers, singing one song after another, sometimes switching up the rhythm of a cover song, letting a note hang in the air, stretching it out for as long as she had breath, Carlton banging on the door, yelling, Ain’t you clean yet. But she didn’t care. Fuck him.
She’d heard the stories. How Darius got into it. The fights, stabbing people in the head, sticking up stores. It was outlaw, Far Rock through and through. One day they was out walking. Heading to Three Kings for the steak and eggs he got hungry for. They passed a fella who glanced her way and before AnnMarie knew what was happening, Darius had stepped to him—
The fuck you looking at? The fuck you doing, put your eyes back in your head
. In the restaurant he slid into the booth, flipped open the menu and said, What you want, AnnMarie? I got you. And she’d smiled, her eyes swimming across the page. She’d seen the boy flinch. She’d seen it.
He showed her what was behind the door, pulled it open when she’d asked. It was a walk-in closet. No clothes in there. Just a bed on the floor, a perfect fit, no room for anything else but a orange crate with candles melted down and a bottle of E&J. No room for anything ’cept two bodies, laying side by side. When she turned in the doorway, he didn’t step aside. They stood there, nearly touching, and it didn’t take much to close the space between them, his lips on hers, drawing her in. First kiss. Sweet kiss, fingers brushing skin.
She thought it was funny, him throwing up gang signs shirtless in front of the mirror,
blat blat blat
. She watched him make his face hard, curve those fingers just so, the whole world afraid of him. Even Carlton musta heard who he was ’cause the day Darius came by to pick her up, he hid in her room. Darius said, Is that him and AnnMarie nodded, watching him cross the living room, push open her door and stand there, his back to her, saying something she couldn’t hear. But Carlton stopped bothering her after that, stopped talking to her altogether. Two ships passing. She’d think, Who you now, punk ass. Who you now.
Three weeks they’d been together, getting serious for real, like candy and song dedications, when word spread that a house party going down at 36 Gipson Street. Teisha and Sunshine put her in this badass off-the-shoulder tee, skintight Jordache and a pair a heels she had to practice walking in they so high. They left without Niki, Nadette tsking, saying it’s her own fault she late. And AnnMarie didn’t care right then, her head buzzing, giddy ’cause she going out—the girls was taking her out and Darius had said, I see you there.
By the time they arrived, the party was spilling people, boys mostly, most a them old, high-school age and older. AnnMarie felt her heart thumping as Sunshine leaned in and said, See that fella next to Darius—that’s Big Mike. We wanna get noticed, we gotta get to the mic.
AnnMarie watched Teisha and Nadette push their way through the
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