Texts from Bennett (8 page)

Harper’s face was impatiently scrunching into a frustrated grimace of disgust. “Look, I know in the Compton ghettos or wherever you’re from, women are called bitches. But in this house, I’m
no one’s
bitch.
Do not
refer to me that way,” Harper said. I could tell she attempted to hold that one in and not say it, but Harper doesn’t hold her tongue. Ever. “Furthermore, no, I definitely don’t
have to
love
anything
he does.”

“If you don’t gots to, den why you act like you does?” Bennett said.

“Because . . . I do enjoy it. I think he’s a phenomenal writer,” she said defensively. “I don’t even like rap or hip-hop music outside of Mac’s stuff.”

“Damn, bitch, you know you don’t gotta kiss his ass, right? He gonna love you no matter what ’cause he sensitive and shit.”

“Yeah. I know I don’t, thank you very much,” she said, nodding her head condescendingly.

“Cool it on the ‘bitch’ stuff, man. Harper tells me when she doesn’t like something. She’s not like that.” I tried to calm the obviously blooming friction between them by provoking some constructive
criticism from him. “Okay, wait. Wait a minute . . . you didn’t like
any
of the song? How about the beat?”

“Yeah. I guess da beat is coo’. But you was kickin’ dat white-people-nerd shit over it,” Bennett said.

The room quieted. I stared at the floor, I guess disappointed in my gut at Bennett’s reaction to my music, but most of all, I was just embarrassed that Harper’s first encounter with Bennett was going like it was.

I could feel a migraine approaching from the tension and stress. The room was again silent for a few more clicks before Bennett postured forward, and, just at that point when a normal person would change the subject, maybe inject some positivity into the conversation, or even apologize he . . . continued to berate me.

“Alls I’m sayin’ is . . . if you gonna make
rap
, den make
rap
. But your shit? You should start a band or somethin’.
Sing
dat shit. Do dat white-boy shit where you put on lipstick and leather tights and spikes and shit.”

Bennett made devil horns out of his hands with his index and pinkie fingers extending.

“What’s dat called? Where you dye yo hair black and be cuttin’ yo’self and shit? Heavy metal? Punk rock?” Bennett said, while pulling a piece of paper from his pocket.

“I don’t know, man, a lot of people are into the kind of song I just tried to play you,” I said.

“Maybe some white hippie bitches like it. But I can help you sell millions of CDs, doo. I can help you feed deez streets!” Bennett said while unfolding the piece of paper. “If I wrote dat shit for you, I could help you get a bigger crowd and hella money. Den we could tour together.”

Harper quietly gazed at me with a look of frustration, disgust, impatience, and rage. I shrugged, shook my head, and closed my eyes.

“Aiight, check
dis
shit out,” Bennett said. “
Dis
is da shit you need to be spittin’ over dat beat. Check it. Dis one called ‘Ghetto Terminator.’ ”

I’m da mothafuckin’ boss, wit’ a big-ass dick.

I make money every day and go hard on chicks.

You little fuck boy, you better duck, boy,

your wife at my crib, I’m about to get sucked boy.

His delivery was crap. He had no rhythm, no ability to project his vocals. His lyrics were full of exhausted gangster rap music clichés. I sat there hearing nothing more than amateur garbage but didn’t say anything. What would criticizing him or trying to show him up do?

Fuck bitches every day eatin’ lobster tail.

I’m a billionaire homie, on my yacht I sail.

I fucked Donald Trump’s wife ’cause she paid me to.

I didn’t even wanna do it though, she
made
me, foo’!

My Ferrari is big, my Lamborghini much bigga.

I’m the Ghetto Terminator, Bennett Schwarzenigga—

“Hang on! Hang on! Stop! Time-out. Time! Out!” Harper interjected.

Bennett stuttered, and didn’t even finish closing his mouth. He just sat there surprised that Harper cut him off like that.

“You’re a ‘billionaire’ all of the sudden? How could you sit here and disrespect Mac’s music like you did, before reciting
that
rubbish?”

This was catastrophic. Fuck. How awkward. I appreciate a girl going up to bat for me, but this was just nothing even close to awesome. Nothing about the two of them meshed together. There wasn’t even tension. It was more like two boulders, with rough edges and rigid surfaces, trying to quietly rub against each other.

“Da fuck you mean?!” Bennett exclaimed, with a deeply wounded look on his face.

“You don’t own a fucking Ferrari! What the fuck are you talking about?” Harper snapped, with an almost amazed look on her face. “That sounded like a bunch of idiotic nonsense!”

She was
mad
.

“You said all of twenty seconds’ worth of lyrics and still offended me multiple times! You
do
realize that women don’t just get naked and give blow jobs all day? Seriously—do you?”

Bennett was shocked. He tried to swallow but his throat was jittery and nervous. He had puppy-dog eyes. I was shocked too. I tried to swallow, but I just sat there still. Wanting to hide.

“Damn . . .” Bennett said, looking down at the piece of paper.

“Go ahead, finish. I just . . . fuck. Maybe I just have no idea what I’m talking about,” Harper said, looking into the distance, visibly irritated.

I felt like my parents were arguing. Bennett disliking my music didn’t bother me that much, but the fact that these two were at each other’s throats within minutes was horrible.

A few minutes of silence went by. Bennett stared at the sheet of paper, defeated. Harper and I stared into space. All was unsettling, until Bennett broke the silence.

“Mane. I gotta piss. Can I use da bafroom?” he asked.

“Uhhh. Yeah, dude, it’s upstairs and right next to the refrigerator. You can’t miss it,” I said.

He stood up and quietly walked upstairs. It was obvious that he was rattled by what had just happened and appeared to be leaving the room out of overwhelming sadness and/or hurt.

Once I could hear his footsteps creaking in the ceiling above us, I turned and peered at Harper.

“Was that necessary?” I asked.

Her eyes popped open and she hung her lower jaw in a dramatic droop. She looked amazed by the apparent audacity of my question. “Was it
necessary
!? Are you fucking joking?” she snarled.

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying what, exactly?”

“Whoa. Relax. You’re really mad right now.”

“Relax?
Relax?
I’m going to fucking kill someone. These people fucking smell. I can’t even count on my fingers and toes how many fucking things they’ve collectively said that were inappropriate.
Relax?
And it’s only been an hour!”

“Whoa, slow down. Babe, babe, babe.”

I went over and sat next to her on the couch, then grabbed her hands and tried to console her.

“I didn’t want to do this in the first place. But you basically made me. I feel like the walls are fucking caving in on me right now!” she angrily whispered.

“Okay, calm down, they’re my family, remember? Not friends. Family.”

“They’re not
my
family, though!”

“I know. But I’m your family. Or I’m gonna be, soon. The fact that I love them should mean you love them, no?”

“You love these people?”

“Of course I do.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. She cooled off a bit. Her temperament changed slightly. The venom in her voice had dissipated.

“These people are trash. You know that, right? They’re not even white trash. They’re just trash,” she said.

I rapidly blinked and looked around the room, trying to absorb how those comments made me feel.

“Soooo. My mom’s sister is trash?” I asked, deciding I was borderline offended.

“Yeah, kinda. She is. I’m not saying that your
mom
is.”

“They grew up in the same house. They had the same parents. They’re basically the same person.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes, longer than the few minutes we sat in silence a few silent minutes before that. She cooled off much more. I cooled off too.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. That was a rude, shitty thing to say,” she said apologetically.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry you have to deal with this,” I said apologetically.

“Can we at least do
one
thing?” she asked.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Can we try to get rid of them as quickly as humanly possible?”

“Definitley, yes.”

“Like soon though?”

“That was the plan from the beginning. But, yes, I’ll start encouraging them to leave soon and to think of this as a quick little pit stop on the way to their new place.”

“Okay.”

“But one thing. Will you do
one
thing then? For me?”

“What?”

“Please,
please,
go find Bennett and apologize. Not necessarily apologize, but just . . . try to get him to come downstairs and finish his rap song for us. You don’t even have to listen.”

“
Baby!?
Did you not hear all the shit he said about your music?” she exclaimed, startling me.

“Shhh. Yeah. I did. It’s fine. He’s just being a punk. Go say sorry. Even if it’s a fake apology. Just go. Okay?”

She stood up.

“Okay. If it means we can go to Vancouver, I guess I can do that,” she said, stretching. “I’ll go find him.”

She walked up the stairs. I could hear her footsteps creaking the floor through the ceiling above. I started getting a vision of Harper and Bennett bonding, and being cordial with each other. The relief of her not being upset anymore gave me a minor wave of euphoria, which I translated into the hope that her and Bennett would end up becoming the best of friends.

I sat there relaxing on the couch, amazed by the way human beings interact with each other. Sometimes we are these amazingly complex creatures who communicate in powerfully abstract methods to help each other solve the mysteries of our infinitely expanding universe. Other times though, we’re nothing more than highly evolved monkeys who scream and throw poop at each other. If it wasn’t for us inventing the wheel, agriculture, language, and the Toyota Tundra, we’d be mid-foodchain, tops.

Harper stealthily walked back downstairs to the basement. She looked flustered. Concerned.

“Uh. Bennett has locked himself in the bathroom. And . . . it . . . it sounds like he’s crying,” she said, concerned. “Fuck. I really hurt his feelings. Oh my God.”

“
What?
” I said.

“I was looking around for him and heard some tapping in the bathroom. So I walked over to the door and kinda eavesdropped for a second. Yeah, he’s sniffling and breathing all heavy.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No. I’m not. Maybe you should talk to him,” she said.

We followed each other up the basement stairs, through the hallway, and beyond the kitchen, to the door outside of the kitchen
bathroom. I leaned my head toward the door and lightly suction-cupped my ear against it to listen.

I could hear Bennett deeply sniffling. It sounded like he was sobbing. This wasn’t good. The level of guilt that began to overtake me was difficult to reckon with. I looked at Harper and silently raised my eyebrows, mouthing the words,
What the fuck?

She stood there silently, confused.

Every thirty to forty-five seconds, Bennett would sniffle loudly. This went on for a few minutes before the toilet flushed and the door squeaked open.

“Whoa! Fuck!” Bennett yelped, completely startled. There was no sign of him crying at all.

“Uhhhh. Dude? Are you okay?” I asked.

“Uhhhh. Yeah?” he said, looking at Harper and me. “Fuck y’all niggas doin’? Listenin’ to me take a shit? I was taking a shit!”

“Oh,” I said. “OHHH!” I said again. I felt like we were encroaching his space, but I also wanted to apologize. I decided to mutually apologize for both myself and Harper, so she didn’t have to say anything herself.

“Hey, man, we just wanted to both say sorr—”

“Wait a second, how were you taking a shit?” Harper asked, cutting me off, peeking her head inside the bathroom.

“Whatchu mean how? How else?” he said.

“Well, considering there isn’t any toilet paper in this bathroom, I’d like to know. Did you shit and not wipe?” she said.

Oh yeah! Duh!

“And were you crying in here, dude?” I asked.

“What? Cryin’? Fuck naw, I wasn’t cryin’! I never cried in my life, Cuz. Thugs don’t cry homie; I seen it on National Geographic. Gangstas have no emotions, homie,” he protested a little too much.

I got close and studied his face. His eyes were completely dry.

“Bennett, I hate to be nosey, but what did you wipe with? This bathroom doesn’t have toilet paper,” I asked.

“Yeah it do!” he said.

“No, it doesn’t. I make sure none is in there, so no one poops in it,” Harper said.

“Bennett, were you crying, man?” I asked again, with more intensity in my voice, but empathy to let him know it’s okay if he was, in fact, crying.

“Nahhh! Quit actin’ like I was cryin’! What da fuck, mane!” he exclaimed. “Homie, do you cry? Is you a thirteen-year-old girl faint-in’ over Justin Bieber, homie? Damn, loc!” He sniffled.

Harper walked into the bathroom and began investigating. She was a highly persnickety person who was extraordinarily difficult to lie to. When she smelled blood in the water, or had an inkling that a lie was being told, she turned the entire world upside down waiting for clues to fall from your pockets. It drove me mad when she did it to me.