I DIDN’T APPRECIATE THE little scared straight joke Ma had played on me. Yeah, I took her car without asking but so what, it wasn’t like it was the first time. I admit, at first I was scared shitless.
“Damn man, why the hell didn’t you make a spare key of the spare key?”
“Quincy, shut the hell up and keep looking!” By the time we find out where Ma hid the key she’d be back. I searched all of her hiding spots and still haven’t been able to locate it yet. In a minute, I’m just going to give up and say she must have it on her.
“Did y’all ever find out who that dude was?”
“Who told you about that?”
“Jaylen, told me.”
“Since when did you and Jaylen become so cool that y’all started sharing heart to hearts?” I continue to search through my grandmother’s drawers and little trinkets and nick-knacks on top of it.
“Don’t get it twisted nigga, it fo damn sho wasn’t no heart to heart.” Quincy searched through Ma’s overstuffed closet. “You should have seen yo face when that cop pulled up!” Quincy laughed at my expense.
“Nigga please! You know yo ass was scared too!”
“Yeah, scared ‘cause I had that shit on me…. Did you see how fast Amber high-tailed it out of there?” I couldn’t help but join in laughing. “She was running so hard she was kickin’ her own ass all the way!”
“I can’t believe you gave her yo stash in a situation like that, man that was fowl… even for you.” I got serious for a moment thinking of the ramifications that could have really transpired from that.
“I can’t believe Ma had a cop friend of hers find you to teach you a lesson.”
“Thank God it was fake though.”
“Damn!” Quincy had tilted over a box that sat high up inside of Ma’s closet. It all came crashing down on his head and buried his Jordans.
I looked over at him, “Dude, really? You better pick all that up and put it right back like she had it.” I shake my head and keep my search going on my side of the room.
“You know Remy and Patrón ain’t letting that go so easily right?”
“Didn’t you give them the money back?” I look up at Q who wore a weird look on his face. “You didn’t give it back?”
“Yeah, I gave it back!” Quincy began stuffing the things back into the box. “Thing is… I gave it to the twins to give back to ‘em… now he say, I ain’t give him nothing. Said, whatever I gave to the twins, I gave to the twins!” He emphasized pointing to himself with his thumb. “So, he saying we still owe him a grand or he coming after us!”
“How he goin’ be coming after us when I haven’t made no agreement with them or touch any of that money?”
“What the hell!” I look over at Q being nosey and reading what appeared to be stacks of mail.
“Can you ever mind yo own business bruh? Just put it back and hurry up!”
“Quincy!” He continued to ignore me and just kept reading. I jump across Ma’s bed and snatch the letters from his hand and place them back in the box.
“Don’t you want to read ‘em first?”
“No! I don’t!” I grab handfuls of the piles and raked them back into the box. Quincy grabs my wrist to stop me.
“Read… the… damn… letters man!”
Since he was taking it so seriously, I pause for a moment and began to read the envelopes. “Evelyn Haynes… Evenly Haynes… Evelyn Haynes…..” I look up at Q and shrug my shoulders, “So what? They all address to Ma.”
“You can’t be that fuckin’ naive! Up here! Up here!” He pointed to the upper left-hand corner.
I saw it. But I don’t think I wanted to see it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see it in front of Q. I-I-I don’t know. I do know… I’m not dealing with this right now… now is not the time. I pile all the stuff back into the box.
“What is you doing man? Don’t you want to know?”
“Hell no! I ain’t been knowing! What the hell is knowing going to do now? W-W-What is it going to change?” I stuttered. “Shit!” I cram the box of secrets that my grandmother had obviously been hiding from me back onto the shelf.
“Man, you ain’t going to at least-”
“No!” I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to deal with it and I didn’t want company anymore either.
“What about my demo? I need to turn that in ASAP… tomorrow the last day but I wanted to at least get it in today.”
“Bounce nigga!” I usher Q to the front door. “No disrespect.” I tried to calm myself down because I know Q was only trying to be a friend but right now I didn’t need no damn friend. “I know you're trying to look out for a brother-”
“I get it Ro… ain’t no thang man… hit me up when you can. Please don’t forget that demo bruh… I’m a need that within the hour.”
“I got you! Within the hour. Keep this on the low… about the letters, nobody but you and me… you got that bruh?”
“Yeah… I got it… within the hour tho.”
♥♥♥
I never told Quincy about Remy and Patrón hounding me for a CD. That dude gets extremely out of his hook-up on petty thangs. I burned Q’s demo, and I picked some random beat for Patrón and Remy. I got them both with me in case I run into them fools on my way to Q’s. Maybe they’ll just take this stupid beat and go on about their business.
Before I can even reach Q’s house, these fools pull up right alongside me. “You know, you’s a lil dumb nigga. I asked you to do one simple thing.” Remy stops and looks at Patrón. “Scratch that… two things.”
“I-I-I got your CD right here.”
“Oh! You hear that ‘P’ he finally got the CD weeks later. That must be a badass beat since it took you so long! Hand it here.”
I fumble with the CD and hand Remy the one I intended for him to have. “We square right?” I continue to head on to Q’s house.
“Holdup!” Patrón gets out of the passenger’s side and hold on to my shoulder as Remy pop the CD into his car stereo.
“So, you’ve been working on this beat for weeks, huh?” Remy turns and looks at Patrón instead of me. “What you think, ‘P’ does it sound like he worked really hard on this here?” Patrón shakes his head no. “I don’t think so either. Let me see the other CD?”
“What other CD?”
“The other CD in your pocket nigga!” Patrón snatches Quincy’s demo from my pocket and hands it to Remy. “Dayum! Now that beat is fire right there!”
“NO! That CD is for a paying customer.”
“Paying customer? I think I’m a bit hurt at that comment. I believe we already paid you a grand that you didn’t deliver on. I’m pretty sure that trumps whatever this chump paid you for this beat.”
“What! No… Q gave you that grand back!” I try to dive in the car over Remy to reach his CD player. They both laugh at me and push me back.
“You sure you want to attempt that again, bruh?” Remy slightly lifts his shirt to expose the gun he wore on his hip. I take a few steps back and raise my hands to surrender. All he needed to do in order for me to let them have the CD was show me that gun. Was the beat that serious to them? Did it mean that much? I wasn’t trying to get shot up for nobody’s demo. I can’t lie, I was more scared now than when the cops pulled up on us last night. After they pull off, I stand there for a minute because I wasn’t 100% sure my legs were working yet. I walk a little bit and then run back to the house to burn Quincy another demo of his to turn in for the contest.
I turn my computer back on and a blue screen comes up. I restart it three more times and each time I get the same result. Quincy has already called and texted and I told him both times I was on my way. I didn’t tell him about the run in with Remy and Patrón because I didn’t want to hear his mouth.
“Jaylen! You know what’s up with this?” I show him what the computer is doing.
“Naw… I ain’t never seen that before.”
I try wracking my brain to hurry up and figure this thing out but I keep coming up e
mpty.
“Ryder might know tho… I hear he good at computers.”
“Sweet! Call him.”
“I won’t be able to get in touch with him until tomorrow when we at school.”
“Fine. Or maybe we can catch him at his bus stop in the morning and see wassup?” I know Q was going to be heated, but it was nothing I could do right now. Besides it's already late and it’s not like he can turn it in now, anyway.
Jaylen and I leave the house a few minutes earlier so we could catch Ryder before we got on the bus. But of course who was standing there when we leave out the door, nobody but Quincy wanting to know what was up and why I was ignoring his call.
We hightail it to Ryder’s bus stop and when we get up to him, he jumps. “Ryder, can we holla at you right quick?” I tell him what’s going on with the computer.
“I-I-I don’t r-really know unless I s-s-see it.”
“Cool! Let’s roll now then!” Q jumps in interrupting.
“Bruh, calm down… I gotta test today… we can handle it when we get home. You down, Ryder?” I asked him because he was standing there looking lost. We walk back to his bus stop.
“Y-Yeah… I’m d-d-down.”
♥♥♥
After school, the four of us dash off the bus and run all the way to my house. I feel bad because I do know how important this contest is to Q. If I didn’t have that test today, I might would have flicked to get it done seeing how this is all my fault, anyway.
“Y-You have a v-virus.”
“Virus? Okay so what do we have to do to get it running again?”
“Only t-t-thing to really d-d-do… is r-reinstall a f-fresh copy of w-w-windows. D-Do you have a r-restore CD?”
“No.”
“So, my demo, the beat… it’s just gone?” Quincy wanted to know.
“My software? Everything?”
“Man, forget your software!”
“My software is what made your demo!” I turn to Ryder. “What can we do now then?”
“I-I have a windows CD at h-h-home. D-Did you ever b-b-back up your s-s-stuff on a h-hard drive?”
“Nah.”
“Ah come on! This is a waste of time. I might as well just forget it!”
I tell Q, “Calm down man and stop being so negative.”
While Ryder reinstalls a fresh copy of windows on my computer, I remember that I burned the beat on a CD. The only thing was, we had to sift through all the CD’s in my room. Some looked through the mounds of CDs on my many spindles and I sifted through the ones sprawled out on the floor.
Having nothing else to loose but time, I re-downloaded the software I used to make Quincy’s demo. Found the beat on CD and recorded Quincy as he rapped his song, “Son of a Battlefield.” He was flowing nicely but kept messing up and having to restart from the beginning each time.
“Damn! This is useless! I’m not going to make it!”
“Q! Calm down and do it right! If you keep trying to rush through the song… we won’t make it! We got a little less than two hours to get there.”
He calms down and we make it through for the last time. I snatch the CD from the burner and toss it on the floor with the rest of the cluttered collection and burn a fresh demo.
“How we goin’ get it there in less than an hour?” Quincy paste back and forth.
“Roman… I need you to go grab my prescriptions from the pharmacy and put some gas in the car first.”
“Ma! I’m busy right now!” Q stops in his steps and bugs his eyes at me letting me know this was our way to get the demo to the station. “Alright Ma, give me the keys and stuff.”
“Don’t go nowhere else, Roman. And don’t you ever make another copy of my keys again, ya hear me?”
“Yes, Ma.” Soon as Ma tosses me the keys and gas money, the CD ejects itself. I snatch it from the base and hand it to Q as if handing him a baton in a relay race. We all follow suit and run from the room.
CRACK! Jaylen steps on one of the CDs and cracks it to pieces. “Come on!” I yell at him. “Don’t worry about that right now… we have to go!”
I turn the blinker on to turn into the gas station. “What are you doing?”
“Ma said to get gas first.”
Quincy leans over to check the gauge. “Naw… we got enough to get there… just keep going.”
I shrug it off and continue on to the radio station.
“I just want to give everybody they props on not letting me give up.” Quincy smiles to himself and swallows before continuing on. “Ro, for doing all this for me. Jaylen, for thinking about Ryder. And Ryder, for coming to the rescue.” He turns to look in the backseat. “Really man, you don’t even hang with us… but you came through and did the impossible.” He gives Ryder dap.
“Alright… alright… cut all the sappiness before you start balling into tears.” Everyone laughs. But we felt the heartfelt of Q’s words and it made me feel good to go above and beyond to get his demo to the station.
The car began to slow down and hesitate until it rolls to a complete stop.
“What’s going on?” Quincy asked.
I try to turn the ignition again. Nothing. I look at Quincy. “I think we out of gas.”
“You have gots to be kidding me!” Quincy raises his hand and pounds himself in the head.
“I-Isn’t the s-station a couple of b-blocks that-a-way?”
Without saying another word to each other, I put the car in neutral and the guys pushed it to safety. Q grabs the CD from the car, I lock the doors, and we all take off running toward the radio station.
“Don’t even bother. They not taking no more people.” A broke down wannabe Nicki Minaj spat in our direction.
“What?” I look at my cell to check the time; it was just a few minutes after six.
“Man, forget that! I’m going in… we done went through too much to just say forget it off of what one person says.” Quincy rushes in through the door and we all follow suit.
Quincy heads up to the front desk and without even looking up, the receptionist speaks before Quincy can get a word in edgewise. “We not takin’ no more demos, the contest is closed.” She continues to ignore Q and goes back to speaking into her headset.
“That’s bullshit!” Quincy begins to cause a ruckus. He looks at the clock on the wall. “It’s not even five minutes after! Naw, I want to see the manager!”
We gather around Q to try to calm him down and let him know acting like that is not the way to get things done. I go back to the front desk and asked the receptionist if we could please speak to the person that’s head of the contest.
“Do you have an appointment?” I look at her like she was stupid because she knew I didn’t have an appointment.
“Can we please just speak to the person in charge? It’s an emergency.” I tried my best to speak for Q.
She presses a button and says, “DW, there’s some kids here that’s dying to see you.” She looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “Have a seat.”
After waiting fifteen minutes we were getting antsy thinking this DW character wasn’t going to show after all. A few men walk out moments later, sporting tailor-made suits so I know they had to be of importance. On the finger of one man, held a huge gold ring with the initials iced out in bling that read, DW.
“That’s him right there!” I shrug Quincy. “Black suit, red tie… go!”
Quincy walks up to the men and breaks in to the conversation politely. He explains his situation and the guy completely ignores anything he said.
“Point blank. The contest closed at 6:00. Not 6:01. Not 6:02. And definitely not 6:45. I’m sorry son but rules are rules and we at Gimmie Sum DAP Records pride ourselves on the straight and narrow. We don’t cheat our artist or ourselves.” The men in back of him giggled like little school girls.
“You’re from DAP Records… not the radio station?”
“Yes. I was here to supervise the entries for the contest to make sure that there’s no funny business going on… like a
llowing someone to enter past the allotted time.”
“Okay, well forget the contest. Can you just take my demo and listen to it?” I could tell that Quincy was getting beside himself because he was getting nowhere with this DW character. Quincy was losing all sight of himself. Putting himself out there and doing something he never would have ever done otherwise. Beg.
“Humph!” DW puts his hand in Q’s face and wave it. “No solicitation.” He and the other guys he was with left out the door leaving Quincy to pick up his pride and any self-respect he had left off the floor.
Quincy stood there for a while in that same spot where those men left him. We stayed seated in the lobby chairs and waited, not taking our eyes off of Q. When he finally turned to leave out the door, so did we.
Quincy stopped at the edge of the parking lot, broke his demo in half, and kicked it in the gutter. “I hate this freakin’ life! With the shit I got going for me, I’ll never be nothing! I might as well be dead!” Q takes off walking down the street.
Ryder catches up to him and says, “Y-y-you never know what God has in s-s-tore for you. It c-c-could be a r-reason why God d-didn’t want you to g-g-go through those d-d-doors.”
“Shut the hell up talking to me gay boy!”
“I-I’m not g-gay! I’m j-just saying that s-s-sometimes we might not r-realize why God won’t let us do s-s-something no m-m-matter how hard we t-t-try. You might f-find out later on d-down the line.”
We all knew when Q got out his hook-up to just leave him alone until he cooled off. But Ryder didn’t know because he never hung with us.
Q gets up in Ryder’s face. “Why the hell do you keep talkin’ to me nigga! Ain’t neva had a bitch since a bitch had you! You don’t know what the hell I’m dealing with or what I’m going through!” Q was so heated. It was the first time we had seen anything that resembled a tear fall from is eye. “Somebody betta’ get this faggot ass nigga before I drop his ass!”
Quincy stops and sits on the curb and balled his eyes out. No one has ever seen any of us cry. I didn’t even think it was possible, let alone think I’d ever see Q of all people doing it. He was ballin’ so bad I think tears swelled up in all of our eyes. I took my eyes off him because I’d be damn if I be the next nigga in line to drop some tears for another nigga.
I tell you what though. Seeing Q sitting there crying, almost made me wish I’d taken that bullet that Remy was willing to exchange for Quincy’s demo. But in all honesty, if he’d shot me, he’d just take the demo, anyway. I knew Q was passionate about his music, but I didn’t realize the extent of it. I thought he didn’t really care that much about anything, but obviously music, was his life, the way football was mine.
Jaylen and I got to Ryder just before he touches Q’s shoulder and stroll him a few feet away from Q. “I-I just want him t-t-to know we’re h-here and we u-understand.”
I tell Ryder, “Just give him a minute and let him have his space. He knows we’re here for him.” I vowed right then and there to avenge the pain I’d caused my best friend by any means necessary.
We walked slowly inch by inch when we see Q wipe his face and stand to his feet. Ryder tries to walk back to where Q is but we stop him again. “He’s still not ready yet. He’ll let you know when he’s ready.”
When Quincy finally catches up to us he says, “If any one of you niggas repeat what you seen, I’ma kill ya.”
We all shrug our shoulders and say, “Seen what?”
After Quincy was feeling a little better, he taps Jaylen and I on the shoulders and says, “Watch this.” He laughs a little first and says, “GAYBOYSAYSWHAAAT!”
Jaylen and I remain silent and Ryder turns around and says, “W-what?” For a moment, we all forget what had just taken place. All the drama. All the disappointment. We laugh as if none of that had ever happened. But only for a moment.
Seeing the car in sight, we discussed who would walk to the gas station and get the gas after getting the gas can from the car. Quincy opted out and told the three of us to go so he could have some more time to think about things as he sat in the car.
Ryder stops dead in his tracks and yells, “I’M N-N-NOT GAY!” He had just gotten Quincy’s joke. We shake our heads on his slowness and I fumble around in my pockets searching for the car keys.
“Nigga! Come on, I just want to get home right now!” Quincy was becoming impatient.
“Hold up. I can’t find the keys.”
“That’s because you left them in the ignition.” Quincy sits on the curb and drops his head.
24 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HUNTER SANTOS
I smile all the time so that nobody knows how sad & lonely I really am.