Sister Mischief (13 page)

Tess comes at the genre via us, church, and the radio, so she’s less of an archivist than Marcy, more of a vocalist, and the only one of us who openly likes indie rock as well as hard soul: Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Beyoncé, Jenny Lewis, Sheila E., Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith, Imogen Heap, Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday, Res, Feist, Janis Joplin, Karen Dalton, Laura Nyro, Lady Gaga, Dionne Warwick, Etta James, and Diana Ross. Rowie and I both fall somewhere in the middle. For me, any kind of music has always been about the lyrics — the Saul Williams and Bob Dylans and Mos Defs and Talib Kwelis and Rakims and Leonard Cohens of the world — but lately I’ve been, like, a mixtape sleuth on the Internet. J. Period and K’naan actually did a mash-up of K’naan and Bob Dylan that almost made me crap my pants; someone else smashed Jay-Z and Radiohead into Jaydiohead, and I dug that too. Rowie brings the global beats, the less local, border-crossing and harder-to-classify: Panjabi MC, M.I.A., Nneka, Yelle, MC Solaar, DJ A.P.S., K-OS, Jamez, SA-RA. We’re both also way into oldies — old country like you slow-dance to in lonesome bars, Motown soul — and, paramount of all, badass chick MCs: Queen Latifah, Invincible, Lady Sovereign, Princess Superstar, Peaches, Missy, Lauryn Hill, Lil’ Kim, MC Lyte, Roxanne Shanté, Salt-n-Pepa, Bahamadia.

“I am officially changing the subject.” Tess waves her hands. “In the hopes of drumming up some buzz about 4H, I invited some people to come see us at this show.”

“What? Who?” Rowie panics. “Why would you do that? Who did you tell? If you invited Prakash Banerjee, you and I are over.”

“Of all the people she could have told that we’re playing one song at an open-mike night, why is Prakash Banerjee the one you’re afraid of?” I ask.

“Because he’ll tell his parents he saw Rohini Rudra at the LocoMotive when Raj and Priya think I’m just going to drink milkshakes at Home on the Range, and then his parents will tell my parents, who will then be disgraced,” Rowie answers in her father’s thick Indian accent, as though it were obvious. “Not so many Bengalis in Holyhill. We talk.”

“We should actually go to Home on the Range later — that place is my fave. Four words: bottomless chicken noodle soup,” I say, trying to distract her.

“Ro, will you relax?” Tess says. “You’re totally bugging. Why would I invite Prakash? He’s probably already got plans with his larper friends.”

“Who
did
you invite?” Rowie asks.

Tess shrugs, playing with her iPhone.
²⁹
“Just a few people I thought might be into it. Anders, obviously. He’ll probably bring some people. Oh, and I ran into Jane Njaka today and told her to stop by if she wanted.”

29. TheConTessa @4H4life:
Come check out Holyhill’s hottest hetero/homo hip-hop crew at the LocoMotive 2night. 10 pm. Free.


“Tess, did you invite Jane to our hip-hop show because she’s African?” I tease her.

“I like Jane!” Tess says.

“I do too. I’m just playing with you.” I go to ruffle her hair; she ducks.

“We have to plan our first 4H meeting,” Marcy says.

“But where are we going to do it?” Rowie asks. “Are we seriously going to meet in the warming house? It smells like wet dog in there.”

“Let me worry about that.” Marcy grins. “The ConTessa’s on the right track. We drum up some underground buzz and then we can just start calling meetings. Right now all we gotta worry about is spreading our message and recruiting support.”

“Wicked.” I nod.

The James pulls off the big highway onto a desolated stretch of older highway cross-hatched with railroad tracks. The LocoMotive used to be a stop on the Soo Line Railroad, which ran from the upper Midwest (or, as I like to call it, the deep Midwest) to Canada.
Soo
is a synecdochic abbreviation for the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad; I like its whistle, a slow train shrieking in the night:
Sooooo.

A smattering of cars sit in the parking lot. I hear a soft country voice singing Bob Dylan. I notice how cold it’s getting. Little paws of anxiety begin to pad along the walls of my stomach as we unload our equipment from the back hatch of the Jimmy. I hear a harmonica through the window and think that if I liked boys, I would like boys with harmonicas.

“Hometown boy.” Marcy jerks a thumb toward the music.

“Like Bob Dylan isn’t country?” Tess asks incredulously.

“Not like
you’re
country,” Marcy snaps back.

“Bob Dylan is the prophet of the plains states and that’s pretty much all there is to it,” I say, silencing the argument. “Let’s go get our flow on.”

Rowie looks pale again. “Oh,
hell,
no.” I nudge her. “Don’t get freaked.”

“I’m not freaked.” She looks darkly at me. She forces a grin. “I’m psyched.”

Tess and Marcy are walking up ahead, still bickering. I reach for Rowie’s hand in the chill October night. She brushes my fingers, her depthless black eyes flickering at me for a minute, but ducks when I go to put an arm around her.

“Party looks crackin’,” she says, eluding me.

I give up, ignoring the sting, and follow her into the old station, now a big, dark space with high ceilings and echoey acoustics. The Dylan boys finish as we walk in. We peel off our coats and are offered hot tea with lemon by a gentle, leather-faced, leather-pantsed woman who seems to be coordinating the bands. She has piercing blue eyes and one thick gray braid over her shoulder; she introduces herself as Vera.

“It’s for your voices,” she insists, refusing us as we try to offer her money for the tea. “These boys are almost done, and you’re the next slot. Do you need any help setting up?”

The four of us look at one another and shrug. “I think we’re good,” Marcy whispers. “We’re pretty portable.”

Vera nods solemnly, examining us. “How old are you girls?”

“We just want to play. We’re not gonna get into anything, swear,” I say.

She gives a half-smile, seeming to believe me. “How do you want me to introduce you?”

Rowie grins. “We’re Sister Mischief.”

We take in our surroundings, preparing. The crowd is mixed: a bunch of white indie-rock-looking teenagers sneaking slurps of flasks, a lot of college-aged kids who look mostly Somalian, including the guys now onstage, a pack of Vietnamese and Hmong kids, a few older sketchy white guys trolling for God knows what. Tess goes through her breathing exercises, stretching her arms, opening her chest. Every guy in sight checks her out, inevitably. As Marcy warms up her drumsticks, I scan the crowd for familiar faces and spot Jane Njaka with a boy who looks exactly like a shorter, wider-shouldered version of her. We lock eyes and wave, and I feel relieved to see a friendly face.

As we assemble our traveling band, I stop for a minute to watch the act onstage. Guessing by the Somali audience’s reaction to them, I’m guessing they’re the magnet that drew the crowd; right now they’re finishing up a fun, unexpected cover of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” with some sick Afrobeats layered underneath it. A baby’s fist of intimidation tightens in my stomach. Marcy punches me.

“Ferocious. Don’t forget to turn your mike on.” Marcy holds out mikes to me and Rowie. We take them, and Vera raises her eyebrows questioningly at us:
You ready?
Suppressing a shudder, we nod.

“Next up, straight out of Holyhill”— a few assholes boo until hushed by Vera’s ice-blue daggers of disapproval —“we have Sister Mischief. I’m going to need a round of applause for Sister Mischief, please.”

Most of the audience claps halfheartedly. One African dude winks at me as I walk up to the stage, and I smile back when I see a harmonica in his back pocket. From the shadows in the back, we hear an unexpected commotion of preteen whooping. Squinting, I make out Rowie’s little sister, Lakshmi, and a small company of her annoying eighth-grade cronies. Rowie herself gives me an accusatory look, but I throw up my hands, unaware of how that crew ended up here or how they got in. She glares at Lakshmi, then shakes it off.

“Check, check,” she says in a low voice into the microphone. Marcy sits down at the drum kit and cues up the backbone beat, giving us a few measures to settle into it, then Tess layers in our bastardized samples on her portable Casiotone electric piano, from M.I.A. and the Wilcannia Mob’s “Mango Pickle Down River.”

“Hip-hopsters!” I hear someone call derisively.

“Uh,” Rowie sounds tight-throated as she ignores the jeer and begins to move to the beat. “I got DJ SheStorm,” she says, gesturing to Marcy, prompting a little clapping and a few uncomfortable titters from the crowd. “ConTessa in the house.” Tess busts a responsive riff, prompting more serious applause.

“MC Ferocious getting down with mad flow for heteros and homos,” I say, warming up to the flow, ignoring the dwindling titters. “We’re Sister Mischief, Holyhill’s first interracial gay-straight hip-hop-positive alliance. Let’s get queer, y’all. Here it is.”

We break into Rowie’s newest chorus together:

“MC Ferocious,” Rowie says, looking expectantly at me.

I’m ready.

Rowie answers my call.

The enthusiasm from the audience builds as we repeat the chorus; some people are moving and clapping. Lakshmi and her friends begin to shake it like jailbait, which I’m sure is embarrassing the hell out of Rowie — but no, I look over, and she actually seems to be enjoying it. Jane and this guy who I think must be her brother get up and dance too — even Vera is bobbing backstage and gives a hoot. I see Anders Ostergaard and two of his douchebag white-hatted — oh, God, fucking Chuckles Knutsen is under one of the white hats — friends glowing in the dark mid-crowd.

Rowie and I are going hard at the second chorus and Marcy’s throwing down some fiendish, fiendish beats when Tess lets loose with this
motherfucker
of a rangy high note. Not dropping the flow, all three of us — along with the audience, who are all wondering how such a gorgeous growl emerged from this tiny girl — look at her in astonishment. Tessie can’t keep from singing.

Rowie finishes:

Marcy drops the final beat, and the moment hangs thick and wordless in the air as we wipe the sweat from our brows, look at one another, and give an awkward bow, not knowing what else to do. I can feel the sweat trickling down my armpits like ants on a lemonade spill. There is staggering, awful silence for a number of seconds. It draws on. Someone sneezes. I’m looking at my knees and starting to want to die when I hear one barbaric whoop. It starts slow, and builds, and catches. The room detonates.

I raise my head slowly and people are hooting and clapping in this totally impolite way. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had. It doesn’t last as long as I’d like it to — because ideally I’d like it to last, you know, forever — but as we hand the mikes back to Vera and she tells the audience to tip their waitresses and drive safe now, the glow just won’t shake off; it hangs on to us as the people we know gather.

“Dude, you guys are going to be, like, so famous!” Lakshmi screeches, throwing her arms around Rowie, which is sort of like throwing a water balloon at a cat.