Chapter 3- Havin' Inferiority Complex Fuckin' One's Confidence
I woke up with a start and a terrible headache. As my vision cleared, I saw that I was in a car but not on the driver’s seat. I snapped my head to the right and gave a start, seeing Keid in the picture, behind the wheel with one hand draped over it and the other shuffling the stuttering radio of his car.
“What happen?” was my first question.
His eyebrows automatically rose as he realized I was awake.
“Cocaine. You spaced out. Didn’t know what to do. Thought I’d bring you with me.”
Recollection of Keid handing me the drugs floated over to me. But after that---- blank.
“Uh yeah… did I… do something stupid?” I feared the worst.
“You didn’t.”
I suddenly calmed down.
“You said… some things though.”
“Like?” I tilted a brow. Keid shifted his gaze from the road to me. “You sure you wanna hear it?” his turn to tilt the brow.
Now, I don’t do blush. Never. I’m pretty shy, but I hardly ever blush. But Keid’s expression told me something weird must’ve been said on my part, or he wouldn’t have looked so amused and funny. Keid hardly ever looked so taunting.
“I don’t wanna fucking hear it.” I grumbled, and looked on ahead through the windscreen.
“Guessed so.” His Irish blue eyes were back on the road again. “But gotta say, man, you’re fucking hilarious.”
I blushed again but didn’t react.
The radio was now working. It was on a hip hop station where some host was about to play someone from the D, here to surprise everyone with his diabolical rhymes.
“Here’s for y’all hip hop diggers out there. He’s known as the best white rapper yet. To hell with Vanilla Ice. A killer with rhymes, known for his controversial times, he’s none other than the new white boy in the hood…. EMINEM!”
Hi! My name is (what?), my name is (who?), my name is, (chicka-chicka)- SLIM SHADY!
Excuse me
Can I have the attention of the class for one second?
Hi, kids! Do you like violence? (yeah, yeah!) Wanna see me stick nine inch nails into each of my eye lids?
Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did? Try ‘cid and get fucked up worse than my life is?
My brain’s dead weight
I’m tryin’ to get my head straight, but I can’t figure out which Spice Girl I wanna impregnate
---- The song ended and the host started blabbering about some shit so Keid switched the station. We’d shared laughs as long as the song had lasted, because, true, the guy knew how to be funny. After awhile I sat there in silence, eyes on the road, deep in thought. It was like this guy always made me fall in doubt and contemplate the chances of my survival. I don’t mean Keid. It was the guy they just played. Eminem. The ultimate fame gain white rapper everyone was talking about. He was the franchise now. The name on every kid’s lips. Immensely controversial, he had media attention on him 24/7. And he was from Detroit. The same streets I am driving around in with Keid right now. He was from here, and he’d made it. And wasn’t it just too much of a coincidence that we’d never met? Though we are both rappers and battle and from the same fucking place. I’m even sure his hangout spot woulda been The Shelter and Hip Hop Shop like me. Yet we’ve never met. To think, I’d seen him in posters and not in person while we are both striving in the same business of entertainment and belong in Detroit. I wouldn’t admit it openly, but I’d’ve liked to meet him. He seems like a great rapper, with a bag full of bitch-slapping insults and complex lyrical content. Not to overlook the fact that he’d survived. The hate, the discrimination--- and life in this hellhole. No one’s the richer here. Though, to say, the only difference between us would be he wouldn’t have had dealt with the women issues. He’s a male, I am female. My mother fucked it up for me. Thanks a lot, mom!
I wondered who he went to for his demo. Did I miss them? Maybe I should pursue them and dump Davey Mase? But it wouldn’t look good. Davey’s giving me the shot; I gotta take the shot, no matter who it comes from.
Oh fuck dicks.
“Turn around, turn around, turn around!” I blurted out aloud.
Keid seemed shaken. “What the fuck, Pristine? You live in fucking 810!”
“I do. But please take me back to 16. I gotta meet my fuckin producer for studio time and I fuckin forget it. Dammit!” Keid swung the car around, as he must’ve caught the desperation in my voice and what this all meant.
After shouting out directions to him, I chilled down on the way there.
“You serious?”
“What?”
Keid looked over at me. “Are you really trying to be a rapper?”
I flinched but I hoped it didn’t show. Calm down, Pristine, you know you get that a lot.
“Yeah.” I replied, gazing out the window as we passed suburban Detroit.
“Uh I didn’t mean to come across that way, it’s just… I’ve never seen you at it so I don’t know how good you are.” He emphasized, in a low voice. “In fact, I’d love to watch you freestyle sometime.”
Finally, I looked at him. The deep ocean blue orbs of his eyes stared right back, meaning he meant what he’d just said. “Yeah, sure.” I said before turning back to the window.
[Third Person POV]
The sun was just setting over the horizon, setting it ablaze in its descent. Pristine had found the studio where Davey Mace worked or which he owned. She was now trudging her way to it, after having thanked Keid for the ride---and the drugs. Pristine was sure it was her first time doing cocaine and hopefully not the last. Though the amount she had was minimal, and the spell had worn off, she felt like she wanted it again. Damn.
“Bitch you on drugs?” Davey’s first words were a blow to her heart.
“No.” She lied. “Why would you even think that?”
“C’mon, don’t lie to me. I won’t do nothin’ just tell me the fucking truth. I hate liars.” Davey flared up.
“I had a little…” Pristine mumbled. “Cocaine…”
Davey left the door open for her turned his back on her and strode in. Pristine helplessly followed, cursing herself for choosing drugs over studio time. She could kill Keid for giving them to her—if all this affected her chance of getting the shot Davey Mase was ready to give her. Hopefully, she wished, Davey would, even now.
The building they were in had two levels and the upper level they were now approaching had two working studios. From the outside, it was like any other rundown warehouse Pristine had seen in Detroit. Fact was you wouldn’t even know it was a fucking studio except for the big name plate Davey had put up on one of the walls to make aware.
Pristine found herself inside one of the two recording studios, inadvertently in the control room. There were two chairs in front of the sound board, and a pair of doors was situated on the wall that ran along next to it. Pristine knew they led to the isolation booths, which she could see from the see-through wall of glass running down the ceiling to end just above the sound board, like a window. Davey took one of the chairs behind it, and sat down without inviting her. Distressed, she stood and stared at all the equipment in the room, helplessly yet with a look of longing etched onto her despaired face.
“Oh come on, for god’s sake, put your ass down here.” Mase’s voice croaked but he didn’t look at her. He probably meant the other chair so Pristine quietly did what was told.
For a while, Davey didn’t say anything to her as he worked on the mixing console, busily. She just silently observed his actions and her eyes were quick to follow every trick his hands were pulling. Then finally he swung around on his chair, facing her.
“What you got there?” he nodded up at her. She blinked.
“Thought you said you got some shit finished up for me?” Davey raised a brow.
Pristine breathed heavily, suddenly nervous of showing them to him. Scraps of paper that could be nothing to anyone else but her. She’d worked hard all these years. Just this once, she wanted to let go and try herself. Get herself out there, to see if she could strike a response.
So she slowly pulled out stacks of folded paper from both of her back pockets. They were contorted and immensely damaged by wrinkles. Pristine cursed herself for not being careful, but seeing she still could read what was written on them, it didn’t matter anymore.
Pristine cleared her throat and glanced up from her lyrics at Davey’s expectant face. “So uh you uh want me to begin?”
“How many songs did you finish, Knight?” Davey asked.
Absolute astonishment showed on Pristine’s face as he grinned. “Can’t I call you by your stage name?”
“Yes... you can.” Pristine lied and averted her gaze, since she got too uncomfortable under his questioning one. “I have done like twenty of them over the course of few months, though if you ask me, I’d prefer twelve of them over the rest.”
“A’eight. That’s okay. Show me what you got.” He chimed.
“Like right now?” Pristine blinked twice. Davey sighed. “Yes, Pristine. Right now. You want studio time, you got it, just first show me if I’m doin’ the right thing investing my time on you.”
Pristine kept her mouth shut and nodded. Suddenly the temperature in the room went up; the heat flushed her cheeks and brought the sweat out on her forehead. The aftermath of her occasional addiction- the headache she woke up in got even worse. But she closed her eyes and breathed. When she opened them next, she began.
Pristine POV
I finished rapping the last verse to an all engaged Davey, looking at me solemnly. He was a great listener, I’d give him that, because not for once did he stop paying attention to my rapping or the lyrics or the flow. I felt as if I could trust him on this.
“So?” I cleared my throat. “Whatchu think?”
He didn’t answer but asked, “Can I see them?” his eyes pointed to the lyrics papers on my lap. I nodded and handed them to him without objection. I waited all the while his eyes invaded the sheets, and in between he mumbled something to himself, I thought, since they were barely audible enough for me to hear.
Finally he looked up, eyes grave. To be honest, he was starting to scare the shit outta me now.
“Am I scaring you?” he asked, staring at me closely. I looked away and back at him. “You are, kinda.”
He chuckled, running his hand through the thin, light blonde layer of hair on his head. “That’s what I get when I tryna critique people’s talents. So back to the point,” He sat up straight, clearing his throat. Then he looked me in the eyes.
“I’m gonna be totally frank with you and drop the bullshit. This is what I’ve gathered after listening to you for the past half n hour. You’ve totally grasped the concept of rap art. That is an accomplishment- I ain’t no stereotype, I say-but you’re the only girl I’ve ever heard rap like that. And I thought JJ-Fad was good, but you, you rap from the heart. Which is great if you get across to people. Your lyrics are made for deliverance. They appear as if they need to be out there, since you try to put emotions in them more than anything else. But they are too simple, in comparison to what’s out there right now. So, complex lyrical content is your problem right there. You could do a little bit more on your wordplay too, Pristine. You’re funny but I hate to say this- a trash compared to other rappers out there, I’ve been underground awhile now so I’ve laughed my ass off at a lotta punches and disses they serve to each other in there. You get it? I know you battle and you win too. But you’re, I don’t know, let’s say you could do better. Like go and listen to some shit out now, like that white guy out there now, what was his name?”
“Eminem.” I quietly prompted.
“Yeah, him. Now, he’s funny. Like hella funny for to be going commercial.” Davey Mase said. “But he’s been underground too, and back in there they don’t even leave your grandma outta the rape jokes too.”
I nodded for him to continue. “So, all in one, you’re a good female rapper. Yes, female. Sorry to sound like such a fucking discriminator, Pristine but that’s it.”
When he didn’t say anymore, I swallowed to wet my parched throat.
“So you think I can’t make it?” I asked, anxiously.
Davey’s gaze didn’t waver. “Who said that?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He suddenly grinned. “C’mon, I ain’t no Prophet sitting here, predicting the future. I run a studio, I give young artists chances and feed off of them. I just laid out my opinion for you. But I never said I wasn’t going to give you a chance. In fact, I do want to see what you can spark.”
I felt the corner of my lips twitching, but I refrained from smiling as I wondered out loud. “But you said I wasn’t good enough?” fuck, I was asking too many fucking questions.
Davey kept up with his goofy smile. “Who said that?” he swiveled on his chair and started clicking some controls. “Let’s brush you up a little, shall we?”
[Third Person POV]
As Davey spent the evening teaching her some of the things, or just showing off his new digital recording equipment, Pristine bit down hard on her bottom lip, subconsciously wondering how much it’d cost her to pay Davey back. For all the studio time. For herself to be out there. But she didn’t concern Davey with it, she was hardly confident of herself. She had firmly believed in Davey’s judgment, in fact too firmly, and now wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to do this. Suddenly, to her, working at Burger King’s, flipping burgers and spitting on onion rings seemed a whole lot better of an idea than putting herself out there in front of people and getting trashed on for terrible music. Count on her being a white girl to double the embarrassment and unpalatable judging.
These disturbing thoughts were still occupying her mind when she took the 8 mile bus back home.
The bus was empty except for a few old men workers returning home, who sat scattered around the seats. No one had occupied the last column of seats so Pristine felt welcomed to put one of her legs against the pole for support and rest the other one on the armrest of the preceding passenger seat. She always wore her jeans loose, so she had no problem sitting as she liked, and in fact, sort of glared at an old black man staring through round glasses at her, strangely like a meerkat. She had been deep in thought, ignorant of him at first but when she did catch him staring, she looked out the window to avoid being uncomfortable. When she cut back again to find him still staring, she adjusted her incorrect sitting posture.
She got off the bus to walk the rest of the way home. Striding the sidewalk, she put on her Sony MDR headphones and played some tracks from her Walkman to pass time. For some reason unknown, she hated walking alone and despised silence especially when doing so. The flickering neon sign board of a cheap roadside diner caught her eyes as she stopped and debated going inside. She stepped in, found it near empty as it was late night hour and went to sit at one table by the window. An old menu card lay tattered on it and she picked it up, reading it while listening to Tupac’s California Love.
The waitress came up, looking like a male lady. Pristine slid her headphones down to her neck. “Whah do yah waana ohdah?” which Pristine translated to ‘what do you wanna order?’
Trying not to let the woman wait for her, Pristine quickly ordered. As she was just about to put the headphones back up, an argument going on in the corner of the trailer caught her attention. She stared at the couple deep in disagreement, looking like ready to jump on each other. The guy was looking like he was holding back, clenching his fists by his sides, trying hard to not let them grab the girl’s long curls. The girl meanwhile squealed at him, her hands moving along with her free curls of hair, almost ready to slap the guy across the face. Pristine waited till that happened, which she knew would happen, and went back to listening to hip hop just as the staff members of the place came up to stop the guy from hitting the girl back and breaking havoc.
A/n: That bus moment with the old man is influenced by the one in 8 mile when Rabbit goes home in a bus. I thought it was kinda funny the way the old man was staring at him, and his response. So I put it in here, in case of Pristine. Pristine also sits the exact same way Rabbit does. (creepy) but I donno if I was able to describe it to the best, so I thought I'd mention this. The video quality is pretty bad but it's the only one I could find. Anyway, if you read it, liked it, please vote & comment if you wanna.
Thanks.