Something She Can Feel (14 page)

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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: Something She Can Feel
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In the verse, Dame was talking about the music industry and other rappers and how he wanted to break through. Everybody wanted something from him. Everybody wanted to “take” something and try to “remake something” and not give credit. Then he said only God could “take and make,” so he was going to take and make and he was going to be God. A god. Any god.
I felt my forehead crinkle. I was used to black men referring to themselves as God, a god, but it sounded ludicrous. The very concept of God was perfection and man, destined to die, was innately ungodly. A maker or not, it wasn't something that could be debated.
“What you think?” he asked, turning the song off before it was over.
“Well, I think it's ...”
“Be honest. I ain't come all the way to get you to have you blow smoke. I want to know what you think.”
We were at a stoplight. I saw two girls from Black Warrior walking by on the sidewalk on the other side of the truck. They were wearing tight jeans and cutoff T-shirts that showed the muscles in their stomachs. Just before the light changed, one noticed Dame and pointed toward the car.
“Dame!” they both squealed, jumping up and down like kangaroos beside each other. A few other people walking by turned and looked, too. Dame nodded his head coolly as if we were in a music video and smashed his foot on the gas.
“So?” he continued, weaving into the traffic in front of us.
“What does it matter what I think? Obviously, I'm not your target audience.”
“Oh, you're starting to sound like
them
now.”
“I liked it. I liked the beat. The organ was interesting. It all flowed together.”
“What about what I said?” he asked, looking at me quickly.
“The whole thing about breaking through the industry—I got that.”
“But?”
“But I just don't know why you had to bring in the stuff about God.”
“You have a problem with me saying I'm God?”
“I don't have a problem with it. Like you said the other night, you can say what you want to say. I just don't think it's necessary.”
“So, you don't think the black man is God?”
“No. That's crazy. God made man. Man can't be God.”
“Spoken like a true Christian.”
“I'm not hiding behind my religion here. I don't have to do that,” I said. “I'm not some Bible-toting fanatic.”
“I was about to say, I did notice that you didn't pray over your food the other night.”
“Very funny.” I sighed. This was where my beliefs seemed to constantly come under the microscope with people. Like I told Kayla, they all wanted me to be one-dimensional—my faith, my life. But sometimes I didn't pray over meals. And I didn't care. I wasn't even sure that it mattered. Sometimes I didn't want to go to church. And a lot of times I made up silly excuses and flat-out lied to my own parents. I didn't know if that mattered either. I'd never say any of that aloud, but it was true.
“I didn't mean to put you on the spot,” Dame said, obviously looking to see if I was affected. And if it had been years ago, I might have been. Then I was overly concerned with how my spiritual path looked to other people—is she saved, isn't she saved.... But as I got older and it got harder, I decided that me loving the Lord had to be enough. I couldn't pretend I had the Bible all figured out just because my father's a pastor. He chose that when he got saved after years of running the street. I was still a work in progress and willing to admit it.
“It's not that. I just don't want you to think I'm so small-minded that I can't even consider your idea of man being God,” I said. “I do question things sometimes. But I believe in one Creator and that's it.”
“Look, I was raised in the church just like every other kid in Tuscaloosa. And I believe in God, but I think, if people are going to say we're made in His image, they may as well accept the responsibility that they're Gods, too. Like, your parents, they made you. So you're a part of each of them. Right?”
“Yes,” I answered, noticing that it was getting dark outside and looked at my watch to see that it was already 8:30 p.m. Time was rolling fast beneath the wheels of that truck. Evan had meetings and he probably wasn't home yet. But he'd be looking for me soon. I thought to call, but I was enjoying the conversation and company too much.
“So in a sense, if you're a part of both of them, then you're them.”
Dame sounded like a poet reading at one of the poetry readings in the Hay Center at Stillman. Listening to him, it was hard to imagine he was a high school dropout. All of this clearly mattered so much to him.
“I can't say no to any of that,” I said.
“Now, if we connect that to man, then man should just accept that he's God and stop claiming he should act ‘godly,' and just be a god. I think it's some real bullshit when people say they want to act godly, but they're just men. If you say you're a god, you have no choice. Your word is your bond. You're not the God. You're God's son. Still a god.”
I looked at Dame and I knew I was grinning. He was so wrapped up in his ideology, he was now tapping on the steering wheel and getting loud.
“What you laughing at?” he asked, just as I burst out in laughter.
“You're so serious about this,” I said. “You should've seen how intent you were.”
“Hell yeah. I'm trying to build,” he said, laughing now, too.
“Well, that's very
Tupac-narian
of you.”
“You know 'Pac?”
“Of course.”
“No doubt. That's exactly what I'm talking about. 'Pac had a lot to say about personal responsibility and living up to your potential. That's all a brother's trying to say,” he added, his voice mockingly militant. We both raised our fists and continued laughing. “You know, it's crazy. All those years I was away, I just kept thinking what it would be like to come home and kick it with you and now I see, it's cool as hell,” he said.
“Oh, now we're kicking it?” I asked.
“You know what I mean. Just like, talking to you like a real person. Not my teacher. Just another person.”
“I know what you mean,” I admitted. “I didn't think you were as mature as you are. I was expecting you to be cursing every five words and drinking forties. You'd be all gangster and rhyming for no reason.” I started moving my arms around like I was an angry rapper prowling a stage.
“Oh, MCs are just like anyone else—at least if they want to survive in this industry. We have to turn it off and on. You can't be all hard all the time. Hip-hop is on
The View
...
Good Morning America.
Now, you can't come at Regis and Kelly like, ‘Y' know what I'm say? Know what I'm saying, my nigga?' ” We both laughed. “That silliness won't sell any records and this is all about money. Trust me. You're hood in the 'hood, but when you leave, you let that go. Hip-hop done grown up. We sip
champagne when we thirsty
now
—
that's Biggie
.”
“I know Biggie Smalls, too. I'm not
that
old,” I protested, slapping his arm gingerly.
“I don't know,” he said, “with all this stuff about you not liking music.”
“I never said I didn't like music. I said I don't listen to much hip-hop.”
“Well what about your own music? What's up with that?” he asked, and in his voice it seemed he'd been in the church the other week when I couldn't sing. And I hadn't sung since then. It was a fact that presented an internal dilemma I wasn't ready to consider. So I just stopped talking about it and thinking about it and no one had bothered to bring it up again. But I knew I had to figure something out. I couldn't teach music if I couldn't sing.
“Nothing, I guess,” I said, lowering my voice. “I'm just not singing right now.”
“Not singing? You've got to be kidding me, right?” He slowed the truck down and pulled into a spot at a Waffle House. “You have to be singing.” There was a sense of urgency in his voice. He really couldn't believe it.
“Just not right now. I'm kind of taking a break,” I answered.
“We can't have that. Man, if you'd only seen yourself when you sang. I didn't like going to church, but whenever you sang, I'd sit and just shake my head in amazement at how pretty you sounded. Even with my eyes closed and my ears covered, I could hear that voice. And other people could, too. They'd be talking and passing notes throughout the sermon, but when you got up, it was like a light was in the room. People would be like, ‘There's that Journey. Y'all listen now.' I was stuck wanting to be a thug, but I'd listen. I'd sit up and listen.”
“I'm happy I had that effect.”
“It was more than an effect. It was like magic that somebody could sound like that. I was thinking, man, if she goes into the industry, Whitney, Mariah, even Aretha and Patti—they can just hang it up and go on home.” He looked at me, and I squinted my eyes to show that I knew I in no way compared to any of the names on that list. I had a church voice. A homegrown church voice that no one outside of Tuscaloosa needed to hear. “I'm serious,” he continued. “You never thought of that?”
“I did a few times, but everything I need is right here. Why go out there and deal with the industry you hate so much when I can just sing for the Lord in my daddy's church?”
“Well, you just said you're not singing right now anyway. What are you doing?”
“You know, to be honest, I don't know sometimes. I ...”
“Just say it,” he pushed.
“I ...” I hesitated again and looked out the window. “Sometimes I think I'm ready to just get out there. I even got this passport I keep in my purse.” I tapped my purse. “I thought someday I'd get out and see the world. Maybe sing. Maybe even write some songs. Who knows.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, I don't have any stamps yet. It just never seems like it's the right time. There's always something else going on.” I ran my hand over the bulging part of my purse where my empty writing pad was hidden and thought of Evan and the possibility of a baby.
“The world is waiting,” Dame said softly.
“What?” I turned to look at him.
“It's just waiting for you to return. Maybe you'll start singing again when you do.”
“Maybe,” I replied somberly, thinking it sounded silly for me to return to a place I'd hardly ever known or explored. And feeling foolish that it was true.
“Hey,” he said, his voice suddenly filled with an enthusiasm to break the mood. “You know where they have some great music tonight?”
“Where?”
“Fat Albert's!”
“You mean that old shack in the woods?”
“There's only one.” He smiled at me and it was clear he was inviting me to go over there with him. “It'll cheer you up.”
“Oh, I can't do that.” I looked at my watch. It was going on 10 p.m. “Evan's home by now. He's got to be waiting for me. And I have to teach in the morning.”
“It's early,” he said. “And we won't stay long. Just a little while.”
“But I need to go. I have work to do and—”
“You need to get out to hear some music.” He cut me off. “You need to be close to the art, so you can create it.”
“Art at Fat Albert's?” I looked at him cross.
“Look, I'm trying to sell this to you,” he said jokingly. “I just want you to come. Be out with me. Aren't you having a good time?” He groaned. “Ain't nothing really going on over there right now anyway.”
I looked at my watch again. I probably should've called home, but I knew if I did, Evan would just insist on my not going. It was still a little early. I could listen to some music and be home by 11. I lied to myself.
 
 
Fat Albert's was in the back of the forests surrounding Black Warrior River. It was an old, windowless, rickety shack that somebody should've forgotten about in 1930 or something, but people still managed to tiptoe through at night or during the earliest hours of the morning to rub shoulders. And getting there did require some tiptoeing. Either that or a pickup truck, which we weren't at a shortage of in Alabama. The place had actually been built by a black bootlegger named Albert during prohibition in the early twenties. I heard people say he built it so far back in the forest so the police couldn't get their cars there to bust up the party. But my grandfather said no one who wasn't rich really had cars back then and the police had only one car which was always broken. So someone was wrong.

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