Authors: Clever Black
The girl who’d been eyeing Walee and another worker from Chic
Fila sat their order down. “You got the number for me, baby
girl?” Walee asked.
The cashier slid Walee a slip of paper with her name and number and
walked off shyly as Walee’s sisters mocked him playfully. “I
told y’all,” Walee said. “And this whole order on
the house, ya’ dig?”
“I dig ya’, lover boy.” Koko remarked.
The family was kicking back enjoying their meal when sniggling from a
nearby table caught Kimi’s attention. She looked over and saw
two boys eyeing her and Koko.
“Something funny over here?” Koko asked.
“Me and my boy Chablis heard y’all takin’ it to
Narshea over there and thought it was funny,” one of the boys
remarked.
“Chablis?” Koko said. “Why your momma name you
after a wine, boy?”
“He might be sweet?” Walee said before biting into his
chicken sandwich.
“Nahh, cuz. You got me mixed up with somebody else.”
Chablis replied as he stared hard at Walee. “Ain’t
nothing sweet about me so let’s get that straight right now, my
dude.”
“I’m just sayin’, dog. They ain’t gone talk
to y’all.”
“What? They can’t speak for themselves.” Chablis
asked.
“Not while I’m around. We don’t even stay in the
OKC. And they got boyfriends back home anyway so y’all can go
on and kill that noise.”
“Walee, we ain’t—we ain’t got no boyfriends,
y’all.” Kimi told the boys.
Kimi thought the other guy with Chablis was cute with his smooth, tan
skin and wavy hair. He was a little on the chubby side, but she and
Koko were thick themselves; but even if they had stallion status like
their older sisters, it didn’t matter because Kimi and Koko, by
all measures, were real down-to-earth when it came to dealing with
the opposite sex. Looks really didn’t matter all that much,
especially to Kimi.
Koko thought Chablis was good-looking. He was a little shorter than
she, but he was muscular like Dawk, brown-skinned like Walee and wore
dreadlocks. His name didn’t match his appearance in her eyes
and that was turning her off somewhat as odd as it was.
“What y’all up to when y’all leave here?”
Chablis’ friend asked.
“Going to a concert.” Kimi answered.
“Oh, y’all going see Narshea tomorrow?”
“Didn’t you ask what we doin’ when we leave here
today, man? If her thing tomorrow how we goin’ today?”
Koko snapped.
“You ain’t gotta get all technical with a brother,”
Chablis remarked.
“I ain’t gettin’ technical. I’m just stating
the facts.”
“You the nice twin,” Chablis’ friend said to Kimi.
“How you doin’? My name Udelle. I live down in Norman.”
“You got to Oklahoma?” Kimi asked.
“Gone be a freshmen this fall. I’m majoring in
meteorology.”
“Udelle the weatherman,” Kimi said as she smiled. “I
can see that.”
“Really? People think I’m weird for wanting to do that.”
“I think you weird for wantin’ to do that.” Walee
added as he got up from the table to use the restroom. “Y’all
be ready when I get back.”
“Now, look at him,” Spoonie said through laughter.
“Umm hmm,” Koko sighed. “Tryna play like he Dawk or
somebody.”
“Dawk? That’s one of y’all boyfriends?”
Udelle asked.
“That’s our brother. You don’t wanna meet him no
time soon,” Tyke said.
“I will eventually once I become a part of the family,”
Udelle remarked.
Kimi laughed and stuck out her hand and wiggled her fingers.
“What?” Udelle asked.
“The phone number, stupid,” Chablis said as he grabbed
his cell phone and looked over to Koko.
“We stay in the same house, boy!” Koko snapped.
“You know what? I don’t like the way you be talkin’
sporty to a dude. You gone have to change your attitude if you ever
wanna get with me.”
Koko was smiling on the inside. She liked Chablis, but she’d
decided to play hard to get just to see how far he would go to get to
know her. “When she call your friend and talk to him—if
she call—then you can talk to me.”
“Me and him don’t live together.”
“Well, ya’ better camp out over to his house then,”
Koko snapped as she got from the table and grabbed her bags.
“Arrivederci,” she ended as she walked away from the
table, Spoonie and Tyke following her lead.
Kimi got up slowly and grabbed her purse and bags, noticing the look
of disappointment on Chablis’ face. “Don’t worry,”
she said softly. “I’ll call your friend.”
“You think she gone hollar at me?”
“Like she been doing? Yeah.”
Chablis laughed and said, “Yeah, she got me today. She cute
though.”
“Thank you.” Kimi said as she walked away from the table.
“Talk to you later, Udelle.”
Udelle threw up a peace sign as he watched Kimi walk off. “I
think I’m gone marry her someday, homeboy.” he said.
“Look at you, man,” Chablis said through laughter. “You
don’t know nothing about Kimi and Koko ‘nem.”
“Don’t matter. Sometimes you just know, Chablis.”
“Either way—you got the hook up dog,” Chablis sang
as he and Udelle pounded fists and continued on with their meal.
*******
“Siloam? You comin’ out to do the formalities?”
Doss asked as he knocked on the threshold of Naomi’s office,
where Siloam was sitting behind one of the desks.
“Yes, sir. I just have to sign this check and I’ll be out
there.”
Doss walked into the room and closed the door and walked over and
stood before Siloam. He knew of her endeavors to assist Jane Dow in
reaching stardom, but the five-thousand dollar check she was signing
was a bit much in his eyes to pay a Rolling Stone magazine editor
whom she hadn’t met in person and had only been communicating
with through email.
“Are you sure this guy is legit,” Doss asked as he pulled
a chair up and sat before the desk. “It’s unusual for an
editor to request monies from a new band.”
“It really isn’t, Doss. Rolling Stone gets solicitations
from new bands all the time. Payola is a way to weed out the
competition.”
“Some of the hottest bands started from nothing, you know? They
earned their keep through good music and making the right
connections.”
“You know someone inside the music business?”
“Not off hand. I guess I’m tryin’ to tell you to
not get your expectations up too high because they’re con men
all around us.”
“Thank you for your concern, Doss. This project, though? This
is very important to me. I see my younger self in Jane and I wanna
see her make it.”
“Does she want to make it?”
Thirty-one year-old Siloam Bovina bowed her head at that moment. For
a while she’d been wondering if what she was doing was for
fifteen year-old Jane’s benefit, or was she living vicariously
through a young woman who had youth and time on her side, something
Siloam herself was short on as far as music was concerned. She
believed her time had passed, despite her musical abilities, and in
her heart she felt as if she was making the right move.
Jane Dow was real good with the drums and the guitar and had a strong
voice, much like Siloam in the past. The only problem with Jane was
the youngster’s drug habit. Marijuana and liquor was her
pleasure, and the monies she and her band made from playing fairs and
bar-b-cue contests around the state of Oklahoma was all spent getting
high. Still, Jane was one hell of a performer and Siloam felt that
the world should know of this youngster’s talent.
“If she can conquer the drugs she’ll make it, Doss,”
Siloam said proudly. “All she needs to know is someone cares
and has her best interests at heart, which I do. I admit, part of it
is to see what I would’ve become, but Jane does what she does
because she loves it—the music I mean. And that is the thing
compelling me to invest my own money into this project.”
Doss nodded his head, understanding Siloam’s motives
completely. The last thing he wanted, however, was to see Siloam, a
woman he viewed as his own flesh and blood, be taken advantage of by
anyone, including Jane. He had a feeling that Siloam would learn a
life lesson dealing with this editor in whom she was sending her
money to and he’d made up his mind that he would set aside
$5,000 dollars to reimburse her should she be met with adversity from
this purported Rolling Stones Magazine editor from New York City.
Siloam didn’t have much in life, although hers had been quite
an adventurous one. Doss and Naomi catered to her every need and she
earned pay working the ranch, but for the most part, Siloam was a
woman without many possessions at the present day and time, but Doss
and Naomi had written her into the family’s will. Siloam would
be taken care of always and was given freedom to do as she pleased;
and even though she could ask Doss and Naomi for anything within
reason and receive it, she was the type of person who paid her own
way and had earned her keep years ago.
For as long as Doss could remember, Siloam had always been a
free-spirit, a person who lived each and every day to the fullest and
made no plans for tomorrow. It was a flaw to a degree, but the flaw
Siloam carried was innocent. She wouldn’t hurt a soul and was
optimistic always. To see her hurt, would hurt the hearts of the ones
who cared for her; Doss was a man who cared, and he would aide Siloam
wherever possible as she embarked on what he knew was the road to
fame. What form that fame came in, Doss was uncertain, and it was
also a chance that Siloam’s dream would remain just a dream.
Many have tried to achieve accolades in the music world, sacrificing
health and family and chasing after a vision that remained just out
of reach the entire journey. And in the end, they were left shattered
souls with a wealth of bad memories, victims of scams and hurt
feelings that would leave them bitter and envious towards those who’d
actually made it.
Siloam was up against a stacked deck in Doss’s eyes, but he’d
been holding hands with death for nearly three decades. If he could
survive in his world, then Siloam could surely survive in her world,
especially with help from time to time from those who loved her; but
it would be her journey, her experience, one to be watched from afar
because it was truly an amazing thing to see Siloam, who had no stake
in the matter, other than to see Jane Dow succeed, pour her heart and
soul into a project she held dear to her heart.
“The family will be waiting out on the patio for you,”
Doss remarked as he stood up from his seat. “Now,” he
then said with a smile to lighten the mood, “we got two old men
out there in my father and Mendoza, who are worse than the sand man
at the Apollo. If Jane doesn’t come correct, she’ll get
tapped dance off the ranch.”
Siloam chuckled and said, “Trust me Doss—this little girl
has a way with music. It’ll be a performance to remember.”
“Make me a believer today.”
“Did Kimi ‘nem make it back?”
“Yeah. The whole family waitin’ on you. Come on out and
emcee this thing. We wanna see what kind of a manager you are. See if
you know talent,” Doss ended as he walked out the room.
*******
“Girl, I ain’t know you get high and shit,” Koko
said as she took a toke off a thick blunt Jane had rolled for
herself, the twins and Walee.
Jane Dow was a pudgy fifteen year-old standing barely five feet tall
with hazel eyes and had short brown hair and a face full of freckles.
She was a gorgeous Caucasian/Lakota Indian and a lifelong resident of
Ponca City. She grew up on the west side of town in a trailer park
close to where Dawk’s girlfriend Oneika resided. Her parents
were meth addicts who peddled marijuana from time to time and often
spent weekends in jail on domestic violence charges.
Jane’s home life was a dysfunctional one; music was her escape,
right along with drugs. She often got high to deal with the constant
arguing and occasional fights inside her home, but when she got high
before she performed, she became entrenched in her music. She was a
cover singer that could mimic everybody from Connie Francis to Evelyn
Champagne King, and nearly any voice in between. Her idols were Billy
Joel, Teena Marie, and the guitarist Slash from Guns ‘N’
Roses.
Jane had a lot of problems in her home life and it sometimes spilled
over into her performances; acts that often left Siloam perplexed and
equivocating the subpar presentations to her drug use. The two would
often argue and Jane was hard to deal with sometimes for Siloam, but
through it all, Jane knew what she had in Siloam and always tried to
do her best. For a fifteen year-old with drug addicted parents and a
drug addiction of her own, however, the road wasn’t always an
easy one to travel. With that aside, Jane Dow always did her best to
put her best foot forward.
Taking the blunt from Koko, who was coughing uncontrollably, Jane
took a toke herself and exhaled the smoke and said, “I been
gettin’ high since I was twelve. My momma, daddy and me got
high one Saturday night watching a Oklahoma Sooner game and it was on
after that.”
“I wish the hell my momma would pass a blunt to me,”
Walee said as he sat atop his father’s tarp-covered Camaro.
“Y’all hear that caterpillar crawling,” he then
asked.
Jane, Kimi and Koko laughed aloud at that moment. “How the fuck
you gone hear a caterpillar crawlin’” Jane asked through
sniggles.
Jane Dow’s parents had the fire weed. Marijuana they grew
themselves inside their trailer home and dried until it was brittle
and potent. All four were dazed off the blunt and had gotten the
giggles off Walee’s last remark.
“She said Oklahoma,” Koko laughed. “Kimi you gone
call Udelle? ‘Cause I wanna talk to Chablis.”
“Shit. I don’t know what I did with the number,”
Kimi replied as she grabbed her purse.
“You lost the number,” Koko asked in a panicked state.
Kimi laughed at that moment. “Your ass sittin’ there
playing hard to get. I knew you like that boy.”