God Don't Like Haters (2 page)

The wind is loud in my ears, just as loud as
my screams.

"Aaaaaahhhh!"

I'm plummeting toward the earth and there's
nothing I can do to stop me and it feels unfair and so fucking
terrifying! My robe snatches off of me and the wind takes it and
now I'm falling in bra and panties. My screaming isn't helping but
I keep doing it.

The hotel parking lot is below me. It's
getting closer!

Four hundred feet.

Three hundred feet, and dropping faster.

"Aaaaahhh!"

At two hundred feet, I hear other people
screaming and I think I see fans pointing. It’s at this point I
know I’m going to survive. Because I’m too young to die, because I
have a legal commitment to Eliyah and his company now, because it
just wouldn’t be fair if I—

Splat!

CHAPTER 1

7 YEARS LATER

Kirbie Amor Capelton

"Slow down, woman. You're driving too fucking fast.
Don't you know we got pills in the trunk? Enough to get us thrown
in prison for life? Kirbie, slow the fuck down!"

I looked over at my boyfriend Archie Waters.
He was sitting in the passenger seat with a puzzled expression, as
if he didn't know why I was speeding. But I had told him a thousand
times before we left California that I needed to be back in Kansas
City before 9 pm to record a song that could really get me noticed
in the mixtape arena.

"I wouldn't have to drive fast if we would've
left sooner," I said accusingly.

I didn't slow down. Fuck that. We've never
gotten pulled over on an out-of-town trip and I've sped through the
Midwest region plenty of times. We always took the other necessary
precautions, though, to counteract my lead foot. Low key vehicle:
2015 Volkswagen Passat. Up-to-date paperwork: license, stickers,
insurance. We kept our seatbelts fastened too.

We were fine.

But teaming up in the recording booth with
Slim Eight, an underrated but talented underground rapper from
Houston, Texas, only came around once in a lifetime.

Archie said, "Are you tryna blame it on me
that we didn't leave sooner? That's your fault, not mine. You and
Mark were talking nonstop about bullshit."

"No, we weren't talking about bullshit. We
were talking about music. And that wasn't why we were late and you
know it."

Mark was our pill plug. He
sold the best ecstasy pills on earth. They were branded
as 
Purple Gorillas
. Each pill had
a gorilla shape stamped into it to distinguish it from the
lesser-quality 
Transformer
 x-pills. Me and
Archie—or just Archie, if you wanted to exclude me—had an exclusive
deal with Mark that nobody else in the Midwest could
get.

Outside of the drug game,
Mark was an undiscovered California rapper. His rap name was Mark
Beltrán, the last name a play on his Spanish roots as well as a
reference to the South American drug cartel that was rumored to
have a heavy stake in the music industry. Mark was a terrible
rapper. The
 worst.
 He couldn't ride a beat if he was hogtied to it. But he
studied the music industry and lived music like I did and we often
had some interesting talks that stretched longer than Archie would
have liked. But today we didn't talk that long because I had
somewhere to be.

"That music
shit 
is
 bullshit," Archie said. "It's a hobby. Both of
yall—you 
and
 Mark—are delusional if yall think yall are gonna get
rich off of that shit. Yall need to stick to what yall know. And
that's hustling."

"I don't wanna hustle forever, Archie. I
don't know about you, but I'm looking for a way out that'll benefit
both of us and our families as well."

I switched lanes, zoomed past several cars
that shouldn't have been on the highway at all, let alone the fast
lane. Then I switched back to the fast lane and started coasting.
This Passat had some get-up!

"And why are you tryna blame being late on me
talking to Mark? We were talking while you were loading up the car.
I'm late because you took off this morning and went to the casino.
We were already late when we went over to Mark's."

"I didn't go to the casino. I told you
that."

"Where'd you go?"

"I went to drive around Mark's neighborhood
to make sure the scene was cool beforehand. I caught a flat on the
way back."

"Liar," I said.

Sometimes I thought Archie
was trying to sabotage my music career. For the last week I had
been telling him about Slim Eight and the possibility of me and my
indie labelmate, Coras Bane, recording with Slim It could open
doors. But Archie had possibly slammed those doors shut by taking
off this morning. I knew he was at a casino or somebody's gambling
house.
 I know he
was.
 He was a compulsive gambler. In
Kansas City, I had to make some calls to have him banned from the
Boats, but he'd just go out and get his fix whenever we were out of
town. If you questioned him about his addiction, he'd just
say, 
You can't take the money wit'
you when you die. Might as well spend it.

Those were the words of people who thought
the future would never come. But I had big plans for myself.
Tangible dreams and goals of greatness. 

I would have let Archie drive to California
by himself but I was afraid he'd gamble all our drugs—

Woop! Woop!

Panic struck me as I took a look in the
rearview mirror and saw the police with their lights on. Bastards
snuck up on me.

Archie looked back and quickly turned back
around. "Goddammit, Kirbie! I told you to slow down!"

"Dammit."

"Pull over."

"No! We have life in prison in the trunk,
remember?"

"They can't search unless we let 'em."

"That's what the law says but that doesn't
mean they're gonna abide by them." I kept driving, then reached
under my seat for my .380 pistol. I set it on my lap.

Archie looked at me like he was about to have
a heart attack.

I'm not letting nothing get
in the way of my success, 
I said to
myself.

CHAPTER 2

Andre "Coras Bane" McDougald

"So where's Kirbie Amor? Ain't she supposed to be on
the song with us?" Slim Eight asked me. 

"She'll be here in a minute," I said.

"First time I heard her blow, I was riding
with my nigga in Dallas. I had to ask him who that was. That's how
I ended up getting in contact wit' you."

I nodded. "Kirbie can sing her ass off."

Slim Eight was smoking a
blunt I rolled for him, a blunt I didn't charge him for, which was
something I only did for people I networked with. He was giving us
a verse for a song on my upcoming mixtape 
Swope Park Gritter Vol. 2 
in
exchange for a verse from me and Kirbie on his upcoming album, so I
wasn't worried about a measly blunt.

"I'd compare Kirbie to Jazzmine Short," said
Slim Eight. "She got that street bitch flow."

"Kirbie is harder than Jazzmine was," I said.
"Kirbie's voice is smoother and her lyrics are killing
everything."

"I don't disagree. That's what caught my
attention. Never heard a female sing about selling pills and
smacking niggas wit' pistols. She sings it like she really does the
shit too."

She
does, 
I wanted to say.

"Do you write her lyrics for her?" he asked
me.

"Nah. She writes her own shit."

"Wow. So did Jazzmine Short. And speaking of
Jazzmine, did you hear about her husband La'Renz 'Buddy Rough'
Taylor?"

I shook my head no.

"He's supposed to be getting out of prison
this week, according to GabbyTV. I can't believe he threw that
bitch off the balcony and only got seven years for it. That's what
money will do for you."

I had heard about the La'Renz/Jazzmine story
when it happened, only because it was broadcast on every major
network in the country. But I didn't keep up with celebrity updates
and blogs and things of that nature. It didn't interest me. I was
more concerned with song creation.

Slim Eight puffed the weed and bobbed his
head to a looped instrumental that had been produced by my nigga
Gee Beats, who was here—in the physical sense, at least—sitting
down at the helm of his audio workstation adjusting the levels. In
Gee Beats's lap sat a Hennessy bottle. That's how he worked—drunk
out of his mind.

I was the only sober one in the room. For
R&B-flavored songs, I liked to have a clear head.

"This beat is hard!" Slim Eight said.

Gee Beats was nodding with him. "That's the
only beats I know how to make."

I looked at my Rolex watch.
It was half past the hour. Kirbie was supposed to be here by now.
This late shit was starting to become a habit for her. She always
had excuses related to why she was late or why her verses weren't
ready, and her excuses always involved her boyfriend Archie. She
needed to decide 
real
quick
 if her boyfriend was more
important than her music.

And I needed to decide if she was worth
keeping on the label, if her gift for singing was worth more than
her absences. I wasn't in a good position to be booting anybody off
of the team either. Especially Kirbie, because rappers always
requested her for songs because she was dope and, let's face it,
partly because she was beautiful and they wanted to fuck her. My
label, Swope Records, was no Def Jam, and couldn't even compare to
Mount Eliyah ENT. But Swope did have a respected name regionally
for putting out quality music. On the underground rap scene, we had
clout. And I didn't want the label's name to be smeared by a
reputation for tardiness.

It would probably be less of a hard decision
to get rid of Kirbie if ... if I wasn't in love with her.

Slim Eight gave me a bored look. "I'm ready
to get in the booth."

"Get on in there," I said. I tapped Gee Beats
on the shoulder. He looked at me with red, glassy eyes. "Set Slim
Eight up. He's ready to spit."

"We're not waiting on Kirbie?" Gee asked.

"Nah. Waited long enough. She can lay her
verse last."

Slim Eight was tall, 6'8" to be exact—hence
his moniker—so he had to duck down a little to go inside the booth.
We watched him put his headphones on and then tap the mic three
times, testing it. Gee Beats gave him the thumbs-up to start
rapping.

This was Gee Beats's studio, located inside
of his basement on 60th & Terrace. We had been recording out of
his basement since middle school, and the set-up had come a long
way. Gee had acquired just about everything he needed to make
professional quality sound. He had an elaborate audio interface,
top-of-the-line microphones and headphones, speakers, acoustic
panels—you name it, Gee had it. The only difference between him and
the majors was that Gee's studio was located in the ghetto and not
in some Manhattan sky rise.

"Has Kirbie called?" Gee Beats asked me, as
we watched Slim Eight sway side to side during his impressive
southern flow.

"Nope," I replied.

"Are you gonna call her to see where she's
at?"

"That's not my job. I'm not her daddy."

"You act like her daddy."

I cut my eyes at my drunk
producer. He smiled and took another sip of his Hennessey. He
looked like Will Smith in the movie 
Hancock, 
but without the super
powers.

"If she was yo girl and not Archie's, she
would be here," Gee said.

"But she's not my girl."

"She should be."

"I have a girl," I said.

"Monifa is not a girl. She's the devil
reincarnated."

Gee Beats knew my
situation. He knew I wanted to be with Kirbie. But she had a man
and I had a ... problem. Her name was Monifa Chavis. And I was only
with Monifa for financial gain. Sounds harsh, call me what you
want, but it's true. Monifa's brother, Milo Chavis, was my weed
plug. He didn't just have any kind of weed either; he had that
super strain 
OG
Tahoe
. That rare shit. If I ditched
Monifa, then I ditched my plug and ultimately the resources that
kept Swope Records functional.

I was stuck.

But the plan was to get Swope Records to
sustain itself financially, then I could ditch Monifa and Milo and
rape the music business legally. Then I'd be able to have Kirbie
Amor at my side, as my one and only.

I stood up out of my seat.

"Where you going?" Gee asked.

"Nowhere. I'm just about to take a selfie,
post it to The Site."

"I thought you didn't take selfies."

"I'm stepping outside of my box like Kirbie
wants me to."

"Oh. Don't get me in the picture then. My
hair ain't cut."

I laughed. "Nigga, yo hair ain't never
cut."

I put my phone in the air
after tapping the front-facing camera icon. I lined my face up with
the left side of the screen, giving me room to fit Slim Eight in
the frame behind me. He was going to be captured in the middle of
rapping his verse. An action pic. 
Our
rap fans love action pics
, Kirbie had said
once. In the lower right hand corner I managed to squeeze in the
top/back of Gee Beats's head. His haircut was going to be in the
photo whether he liked it or not.

Ha!

I tapped the
screen. 
Click.

After a couple more finger taps and swipes of
my screen, the picture was uploaded to The Site. All I had to do
now was wait for Kirbie to see the caption I wrote for her.