Early the next morning, Connie drove the Ford pickup toward school.
Emily rode shotgun.
Alex stretched out across the back seat to steal back some of the sleep he’d lost.
As for Tony, he hadn’t been to school once since he quit the football team.
On the radio, Big A, one of the better-known DJs in Chicago, was in the studio with a host, happily picking over the latest on the gangster rap group N.W.A.
It was the morning drive slot, and the show had a very large audience.
“So, Big A — which side are you on? Eazy-E or Ice Cube?” the host asked.
“Eazy-E, obviously.” Big A planted his flag.
“And your reasoning?”
“Because I’m Big A and he’s Big E. Hahahaha—” Big A delivered the worst joke in the state and then enjoyed it enormously.
“Uh.” The host had nothing.
The room went cold.
“All right, all right, no more jokes. It’s simple. What is there to say about a man like Cube?” Big A turned abruptly serious.
“By all accounts his parents work up at UCLA. Kid’s had a comfortable life since the day he was born. And he puts on a patterned bandana and gets up and sings gangster rap on behalf of the man in the street — you don’t find that ironic? It’s like — it’s like margarine calling itself butter. I’ll keep it short. He’s a fake.”
“But from what’s been reported, the story about Eazy-E skimming Cube’s money looks solid.” The host took the opposite chair on purpose.
“Cube wrote half the songs on an album that sold in the millions and only saw a sliver of the money—”
“What would make a middle-class kid like that turn on his own people? Money.”
Big A’s contempt was total.
“Cube is a commercial artist, pure and simple. His whole purpose is to get paid. Him leaving is good for N.W.A. The talent that’s left are real brothers, real gangster music, men who’ll actually say the thing out—”
“Okay, we’ll leave the N.W.A gossip there for now. Let’s take a break.” The host cut Big A’s enthusiasm off fast.
N.W.A’s record cursing out the police was forbidden on a great many radio shows, and the host would like to keep his job.
Inside the studio.
“You scared the life out of me. Hold it in a little longer, or I stop booking you,” the host warned him during the commercials.
“My fault.”
Big A owned it.
He came in and cut these segments to eat.
“What’s the next block?”
“The hit song off Lil Lori’s new album.”
The host took out a cassette case and passed it to Big A.
“I’ll do plenty of the talking on this one, you understand.” He tapped the case.
“Never heard of anybody named Lil Lori in my life.”
Big A took the case, spotted the Old Joe Music logo on the sleeve, and remembered.
“Old Joe’s still out here pushing that pretty boy?” He opened the case, took out a thin fold of bills, counted it, and tucked it into his trouser pocket.
“Countdown, end of break, ten, nine—” came the engineer’s voice in their headsets.
“Same as you.” The host was still uneasy.
“Don’t say anything stupid.”
“Relax.” Big A patted his pocket.
“When I’ve been paid, I do good work.”
“All right, welcome back. Coming up next, a new song from Lori II — ‘Thrift Shop’!” The host went to work like a professional.
“Lori is a newcomer, his record has only just gone into promotion, and the Chicago music press has already given it very high marks, with everybody agreeing that the kid has a very bright road in front of him. The self-titled first album will be turning up in the major record stores any day now, so if you’re looking to get in early, you’ll want to watch for—”
The drums came in with the saxophone behind them, and the host shut his mouth at exactly the right moment.
Three minutes and change, and the song was over.
“Big A. Say a word.” The host kicked the chair of a man who appeared to have been stunned.
“What do you think of that?”
“Motherfucker, I am blown the fuck up!”
And Big A was off laughing again.
The timing worked out neatly.
They reached the school and Connie parked.
“You gonna be somebody big?” she asked, turning around.
“Why would you ask me that?” Alex came awake.
“They were talking about that song of yours on the radio like it was the second coming,” Connie said.
“That’s not my song, it’s Lil Lori’s song.” Alex corrected her.
“I’ve told you before. At school, don’t connect me to that song in any way at all. All I want is somewhere quiet to study. And don’t believe one word out of a radio DJ. Every last one of them is paid to say it.”
“But—” Connie tipped her head, thinking, and decided it was a shame.
“My poor brother. If you let those girls know you write songs for Lil Lori, believe me, you could say goodbye to being single on the spot.”
“What’s so pitiful about being single? I’m fifteen. It’s a wonderful age for concentrating on schoolwork.”
Alex slung his bag over his shoulder and strode off to class.
There was, it had to be said, an upside to this high school.
Nobody cared that you’d been gone ten days or two weeks.
The teacher taught his lesson and that was that; there was none of that performance where a classmate asks whether everything is all right at home.
Alex went back to keeping his head down and put his energy back into his studies.
He chased down the math syllabus like a man possessed, made up his English and his lectures, and then, in the orchestra rehearsal period, won back the lead trumpet chair with a single solo.
Between the high-intensity recording sessions of the past few weeks and the genuinely gifted musicians Old Joe had brought in to cut the thrift store track — day after day of it — the musical instincts native to this body had finally come back nearly all the way.
That left gym class as the only boss he hadn’t beaten.
Alex started deliberately putting work into conditioning as well. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Buried in his books, losing track of the sun and the moon, he let a whole week slip quietly by.
On the weekend, Tony — who had been running all over Illinois with Lori — came home for the first time.
“Sales are good. Thousands of copies on the first Friday. Stores are already on us to restock. They’ve printed ten thousand cassettes and Old Joe’s started talking to a CD plant.” Tony was thrilled.
Judging by the report he brought back from his first week on the job, life had been treating him well; he had on a black suit and sunglasses.
“Last night we played that underground club across from Old Joe Music, and the girls were out of their minds.
If it wasn’t for me and Muffler—” he spread his arms wide in the signature intercepting posture of the celebrity bodyguard, “—Lori doesn’t get out of that room.”
“Ahem.” Alex, busy at the stove, reminded him to consider other people’s feelings.
Al was still eating and sleeping at their house and still hadn’t gone back to the restaurant.
If he hadn’t turned out to be able to cook, Aunt Susie would have run him out days ago.
“Whaddya say, though? Al, come back with me. We’re about to start running promo outside Illinois and we’re short on hands.” Tony had come home with an assignment.
“Pablo told me to tell you: he’s your agent and he’s going to look after you.”
“He’s scared I’ll run my mouth and wreck Lori’s beautiful future. That’s all.”
Al rattled the pot in his hands and answered without heat.
“I should have a share of all of it.”
“Don’t you have a share right now?” Tony didn’t like that.
“You gotta face reality.”
“Reality is I got kicked out like a dog.”
“Uh — Al.” Alex decided to talk this man out the door.
Video games running until all hours were a genuine tragedy and they were wrecking his ability to study.
“Don’t do anything stupid twice. You need to understand that the cut a young artist actually gets out of record sales is pretty small. The bulk of it comes later — performance money, concert revenue, appearance fees, all that. All you have to do is go back. As long as your voice is on Lori’s album you’ll be up on that stage too, and you’ll have a share of all of that money. Giving it up the way you’re doing is just a waste.”
“It should have been a big share.” Al was still stuck on that.
“What the fuck are you even talking about anymore?” Tony finally went off.
“A small share is still a lot of money,” Alex said.
Al stopped talking, set the pan down, went upstairs, and shut the door.
“This guy! He really thinks this is his house now, huh,” Tony said, helpless.
Al didn’t go back with Tony in the end.
That night, Alex half heard someone crying in his sleep.
He got up and put his head over the edge of the bunk.
Al was down there with his arms around the blanket.
“I can’t take it. I can’t take it,” he was saying, the tears sliding down.
“I grew up on the South Side. I can’t stand these people, every one of them stuffed full of business and lies. I can’t stand the thought of going back there and playing like nothing happened and getting along with them. I’m scared that one day I’ll pick up a gun and wipe them all out—”