On the Come Up Read online

  True.

  “Even if he does call between four thirty and five thirty, you’ve still got time,” she says.

  “I know, I’m just—”

  “Impatient. Like your daddy.”

  Let Jay tell it, I’m stubborn like my daddy, smart-mouthed like my daddy, and hotheaded like my daddy. As if she’s not all those things and then some. She says Trey and I look like him too. Same smile, without the gold grill. Same dimpled cheeks, same light complexions that make folks call us “red bones” and “light brights,” same dark, wide eyes. I don’t have Jay’s high cheekbones or her lighter eyes, and I only get her complexion when I stay out in the summer sun all day. Sometimes I catch her staring at me, like she’s looking for herself. Or like she sees Dad and can’t look away.

  Kinda how she stares at me now. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  She smiles, but it’s weak. “Nothing. Be patient, Bri. If he does call, go to the gym, do your li’l battle—”

  Li’l battle?

  “—and come straight home. Don’t be hanging out with Pooh’s rough behind.”

  Aunt Pooh’s been taking me to the Ring for weeks to get a feel for things. I watched plenty of YouTube videos before that, but there’s something about being there. Jay was cool with me going—Dad battled there, and Mr. Jimmy doesn’t tolerate any nonsense—but she wasn’t crazy about me going with Aunt Pooh. She definitely wasn’t crazy about Aunt Pooh calling herself my manager. According to her, “That fool ain’t no manager!”

  “How you gon’ shade your sister like that?” I ask her.

  She scoops Cajun rice onto the plates. “I know what she’s into. You know what she’s into.”

  “Yeah, but she won’t let anything happen—”

  Pause.

  Jay puts fried okra on the plates. Then corn on the cob. She finishes them off with soft, fluffy biscuits. Say what you want about Popeyes’ biscuits, but they’re neither soft nor fluffy.

  This is Popkenchurch.

  Popkenchurch is when you buy fried chicken and Cajun rice from Popeyes, biscuits from KFC, and fried okra and corn on the cob from Church’s. Trey calls it “pre–cardiac arrest.”

  But see, Popkenchurch is problematic, and not because of digestive drama that may ensue. Jay only gets it when something bad happens. When she broke the news that her aunt Norma had terminal cancer a couple of years ago, she bought Popkenchurch. When she realized she couldn’t get me a new laptop last Christmas, Popkenchurch. When Grandma decided not to move out of state to help her sister recover from her stroke, Jay bought Popkenchurch. I’ve never seen anybody take their aggression out on a chicken thigh quite like she did that day.

  This isn’t good. “What’s wrong?”

  “Bri, it’s nothing for you to worry a—”

  My phone buzzes on the table, and we both jump.

  The screen lights up with a number I don’t recognize.

  It’s five thirty.

  Jay smiles. “There’s your call.”

  My hands shake down to my fingertips, but I tap the screen and put the phone to my ear. I force out the “Hello?”

  “Is this Bri?” an all-too-familiar voice asks.

  My throat is dry all of a sudden. “Yeah. This is she . . . her . . . me.” Screw grammar.

  “What’s up? It’s DJ Hype! You ready, baby girl?”

  This is the absolute worst time to forget how to speak. I clear my throat. “Ready for what?”

  “Are you ready to kill it? Congratulations, you got a spot in the Ring tonight!”

  Two

  I texted Aunt Pooh three words: I got in.

  She shows up in fifteen minutes, tops.

  I hear her before I see her. “Flash Light,” by Parliament, blasts out front. She’s beside her Cutlass, getting it in. Milly Rocking, Disciple Walking, all of that, like she’s a one-woman Soul Train line.

  I go outside and throw my hoodie over my snapback—it’s colder than a polar bear’s butt crack out here. My hands are freezing as I lock the front door. Jay left for class a few minutes ago.

  Something’s happened, I know it. Plus, she didn’t say it was nothing. She said it’s nothing for me to worry about. Difference.

  “There she go!” Aunt Pooh points at me. “The Ring legend-in-the-making!”

  The ponytail holders on her braids clink as she dances. They’re green like her sneakers. According to Garden Heights Gang Culture 101, a Garden Disciple’s always gotta wear green.

  Yeah, she’s ’bout that life. Her arms and neck are covered in tattoos that only GDs can decipher, except for those red lips tatted on her neck. Those are her girlfriend’s, Lena’s.

  “What I tell you?” She flashes her white-gold grill in a grin and slaps my palm with each word. “Told. You. You’d. Get. In!”

  I barely smile. “Yeah.”

  “You got in the Ring, Bri! The Ring! You know how many folks around here wish they had a shot like this? What’s up with you?”

  A whole lot. “Something’s happened, but Jay won’t tell me what.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “She bought Popkenchurch.”

  “Damn, for real?” she says, and you’d think that would set off alarms for her, too, but she goes, “Why you ain’t bring me a plate?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Greedy ass. She only gets Popkenchurch when something’s wrong, Aunt Pooh.”

  “Nah, man. You reading too much into this. This battle got you all jittery.”

  I bite my lip. “Maybe.”

  “Definitely. Let’s get you to the Ring so you can show these fools how it’s done.” She holds her palm to me. “Sky’s the limit?”

  That’s our motto, taken from a Biggie song older than me and almost as old as Aunt Pooh. I slap her palm. “Sky’s the limit.”

  “We’ll see them chumps on top.” She semi-quotes the song and pecks my forehead. “Even if you are wearing that nerdy-ass hoodie.”

  It’s got Darth Vader on the front. Jay found it at the swap meet a few weeks ago. “What? Vader’s that dude!”

  “I don’t care, it’s nerd shit!”

  I roll my eyes. When you have an aunt who was only ten when you were born, sometimes she acts like an aunt and sometimes she acts like an annoying older sister. Especially since Jay helped raise her—their mom was killed when Aunt Pooh was one and their dad died when she was nine. Jay’s always treated Pooh like her third kid.

  “Um, nerd shit?” I say to her. “More like dope shit. You need to expand your horizons.”

  “And you need to stop shopping off the Syfy channel.”

  Star Wars technically isn’t sci—never mind. The top’s down on the Cutlass, so I climb over the door to get in. Aunt Pooh pulls her sagging pants up before she hops in. What’s the point of letting them sag if you’re just gonna pull them up all the time? Yet she wants to criticize my fashion choices.

  She reclines her seat back and turns the heat all the way up. Yeah, she could put the top up, but that combination of cold night air and warmth from the heater is A1.

  “Let me get one of my shits.” She reaches into the glove compartment. Aunt Pooh gave up weed and turned to Blow Pops instead. Guess she’d rather get diabetes than get high all the time.

  My phone buzzes in my hoodie pocket. I texted Sonny and Malik the same three words I texted Aunt Pooh, and they’re geeking out.

  I should be geeking out too, or at least getting in the zone, but I can’t shake the feeling that the world has turned upside down.

  At any second, it may turn me upside down with it.

  Jimmy’s parking lot is almost filled up, but not everybody is trying to get in the building. The “let out” has already started. That’s the party outside that happens every Thursday night after the final battle in the Ring. For almost a year now, folks have been using Jimmy’s as a party spot, kinda like they do Magnolia Ave on Friday nights. See, last year a kid was murdered by a cop just a few streets away from my grandparents’ house. He was unarmed, bu
t the grand jury decided not to charge the officer. There were riots and protests for weeks. Half the businesses in the Garden were either intentionally burned down by rioters or were casualties of the war. Club Envy, the usual Thursday nightspot, was a casualty.

  The parking lot club’s not really my thing (partying in the freezing cold? I think not), but it’s cool to see people showing off their new rims or their hydraulics, cars bouncing up and down like they don’t know a thing about gravity. The cops constantly drive by, but that’s the new normal in the Garden. It’s supposed to be on some “Hi, I’m your friendly neighborhood cop who won’t shoot you” type shit, but it comes off as some “We’re keeping an eye on your black asses” type shit.

  I follow Aunt Pooh to the entrance. Music drifts from in the gym, and the bouncers pat people down and wave metal-detector wands around. If somebody’s got a piece, security puts it in a bucket nearby and returns it once the Ring lets out.

  “The champ is here!” Aunt Pooh calls as we approach the line. “Might as well crown her now!”

  It’s enough to get me and Aunt Pooh palm slaps and nods. “What’s up, Li’l Law,” a couple of people say. Even though we’re technically cutting the line, it’s all good. I’m royalty thanks to my dad.

  I get a couple of smirks too though. Guess it’s funny that a sixteen-year-old girl in a Darth Vader hoodie thinks she’s got a shot in the Ring.

  The bouncers slap palms with Aunt Pooh. “What’s up, Bri?” the stocky one, Reggie, says. “You finally getting on tonight?”

  “Yep! She gon’ kill it too,” Aunt Pooh says.

  “A’ight,” the taller one, Frank, says, waving the wand around us. “Carrying the torch for Law, huh?”

  Not really. More like making my own torch and carrying it. I say, “Yeah,” though, because that’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s part of being royalty.

  Reggie motions us through. “May the force beam you up, Scotty.” He points at my hoodie, then does the Vulcan salute.

  How the hell do you confuse Star Trek and Star Wars? How? Unfortunately to some people in the Garden it’s “nerd shit,” or as some fool at the swap meet said, “white shit.”

  Folks need to get their space opera life right.

  We go inside. As usual it’s mostly guys in here, but I see a few girls too (which is reflective of the small ratio of women to men in hip-hop, which is total misogynistic fuckery, but anyway . . .). There are kids who look like they came straight from Garden Heights High, folks who look like they were alive when Biggie and Tupac were around, and old heads who look like they’ve been coming to the Ring since the Kangol hats and shell-toe Adidas days. Weed and cigarette smoke linger in the air, and everybody crowds around the boxing ring in the center.

  Aunt Pooh finds us a spot beside the Ring. “Kick in the Door,” by Notorious B.I.G., plays above all of the chatter. The bass pounds the floor like an earthquake, and B.I.G.’s voice seems to fill up the entire gym.

  A few seconds of Biggie makes me forget everything else. “That flow though!”

  “That shit is fire,” Aunt Pooh says.

  “Fire? That shit is legendary! Biggie single-handedly proves that delivery is key. Everything isn’t an exact rhyme, but it works. He made ‘Jesus’ and ‘penis’ rhyme! C’mon! ‘Jesus’ and ‘penis.’” Okay, it’s probably offensive if you’re Jesus, but still. Legendary.

  “A’ight, a’ight.” Aunt Pooh laughs. “I hear you.”

  I nod along, soaking up every line. Aunt Pooh watches me with a smile, making that scar on her cheek from that time she got stabbed look like a dimple. Hip-hop’s addictive, and Aunt Pooh first got me hooked. When I was eight, she played Nas’s Illmatic for me and said, “This dude will change your life with a few lines.”

  He did. Nothing’s been the same since Nas told me the world was mine. Old as that album was back then, it was like waking up after being asleep my whole life. It was damn near spiritual.

  I fiend for that feeling. It’s the reason I rap.

  There’s a commotion near the doors. This guy with short dreadlocks makes his way through the crowd, and people give him dap along the way. Dee-Nice, aka one of the best-known rappers from the Ring. All of his battles went viral. He recently retired from battle rapping. Funny he’d retire from anything, young as he is. He graduated from Midtown last year.

  “Yo, did you hear?” Aunt Pooh asks. “Ol’ boy just got a record deal.”

  “For real?”

  “Yep. Seven figures, up front.”

  Goddamn. No wonder he retired. A million-dollar deal? Not just that, but someone from the Garden got a million-dollar deal?

  The music fades out, and the lights dim. A spotlight shines directly on Hype, and the cheers start.

  “Let’s get ready to battle!” Hype says, like this really is a boxing match. “For our first battle, in this corner we got M-Dot!”

  This short, tatted guy climbs into the Ring to a mix of cheers and boos.

  “And in this corner, we got Ms. Tique!” Hype says.

  I scream loud as this dark-skinned girl with hoop earrings and a short curly cut climbs into the Ring. Ms. Tique is around Trey’s age, but she spits like an old soul, as if she’s lived a couple of lifetimes and didn’t like either one of them shits.

  She’s goals to the highest degree.

  Hype introduces the judges. There’s Mr. Jimmy himself, Dee-Nice, and CZ, an undefeated Ring champion.

  Hype flips a coin, and Ms. Tique wins it. She lets M-Dot go first. The beat starts up. “A Tale of Two Citiez,” by J. Cole.

  The gym goes nuts, but me? I watch the Ring. M-Dot paces, and Ms. Tique keeps her eyes on him like a predator watching prey. Even when M-Dot goes at her, she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react, just stares at him like she knows she’s gonna destroy him.

  It’s a thing of beauty.

  He has some good lines. His flow is okay. But when it’s Ms. Tique’s turn, she hits him with punch lines that give me goose bumps. Every line gets a reaction out of the crowd.

  She wins the first two battles, hands down, and it’s over.

  “A’ight, y’all,” Hype says. “It’s time for Rookie Royale! Two rookies will battle it out for the first time in the Ring.”

  Aunt Pooh bounces on her heels. “Yeeeeah!”

  All of a sudden, my knees feel weak.

  “Two names have been drawn,” Hype says, “so without further ado, our first MC is—”

  He plays a drumroll. People stomp their feet along with it, rattling the floor, so I’m not completely sure if my legs shake as much as I think.

  “Milez!” Hype says.

  Cheers go up on the other side of the gym. The crowd parts, and this brown-skinned boy with zigzags cut into his hair makes his way toward the Ring. He looks around my age. A big cross pendant hangs from a chain on his neck.

  I know him, but I don’t, if that makes sense. I’ve seen him somewhere.

  A slim guy in a black-and-white tracksuit follows him. Dark shades hide his eyes, although the sun’s down. He says something to the boy, and two gold fangs glisten in his mouth.

  I nudge Aunt Pooh. “That’s Supreme.”

  “Who?” she says around her Blow Pop.

  “Supreme!” I say, like she’s supposed to know. She should. “My dad’s old manager.”

  “Oh yeah. I remember him.”

  I don’t remember him. I was a toddler when he was around, but I’ve memorized my dad’s story like a song. He recorded his first mixtape at sixteen. People still used CDs back then, so he made copies and passed them out around the neighborhood. Supreme got one and was so blown away that he begged Dad to let him manage his career. Dad agreed. From there, my dad became an underground legend, and Supreme became a legendary manager.

  Dad fired Supreme right before he died. Jay claims they had “creative differences.”

  The boy with Supreme climbs into the Ring. Soon as Hype hands him a mic, he says, “It’s your boy Milez with a z, the Swagerific prince!”r />
  The cheers are loud.

  “Ooh, he the one with that stupid-ass song,” Aunt Pooh says.

  That’s how I know him. It’s called “Swagerific,” and I swear to God, it’s the dumbest song ever. I can’t go around the neighborhood without hearing his voice go, “Swagerific, so call me terrific. Swag-erific. Swag-erific. Swag, swag, swag . . .”

  There’s a dance that goes with it called the “Wipe Me Down.” Little kids love it. The video’s got like a million views online.

  “Shout-out to my pops, Supreme!” Milez says, pointing at him.

  Supreme nods as people cheer.

  “Well, shit,” Aunt Pooh says. “You going up against your pops’s manager’s son.”

  Damn, I guess so. Not just that, but I gotta go up against a somebody. Stupid as that song is, everybody knows Milez and they’re already cheering for him. I’m a nobody in comparison.

  But I’m a nobody who can rap. “Swagerific” has lines like, “Life ain’t fair, but why should I care? Why should I care? I got dollars in the air. I got dollars, I got dollars, I got dollars . . .”

  Um. Yeah. This won’t be hard. But it also means that losing isn’t an option. I’d never live that down.

  Hype plays a drumroll again. “Our next MC is . . . ,” he says, and a couple of people shout out their own names, as if that’ll make him call them. “Bri!”

  Aunt Pooh raises my arm high and leads me to the Ring. “The champ is here!” she shouts, like I’m Muhammad Ali. I’m definitely not Ali. I’m scared as hell.

  I climb into the Ring anyway. The spotlight beams in my face. Hundreds of faces stare at me and phones point in my direction.

  Hype hands me a mic.

  “Introduce yourself,” he says.

  I’m supposed to hype myself up, but all I get out is, “I’m Bri.”

  Some of the crowd snicker.

  Hype chuckles. “Okay, Bri. Ain’t you Law’s daughter?”

  What’s that got to do with it? “Yeah.”

  “Aw, damn! If baby girl is anything like her pops, we ’bout to hear some heat.”

  The crowd roars.