Singing Through Siren Sounds Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Scars.
They were all over my body still from the night that Coin died. Officer McHenry wanted me to stop my phone camera when I turned it on. He made me do it. He slammed me on the concrete.
I still have the scars. Sounds. Echoing chambers of deep straining cries. I’d never forget the sound of Coin reaching over the dashboard. He’s reaching for his license. The cop, Officer McHenry was tall, lean tall...blonde with dark brown eyes that had this real intensity to them. I remember the intensity when they looked over at Coin. How had I not noticed the resemblance?
“Hey I’ve been texting your phone man,” Wren says when I walk into the room, “They got this new movie coming out. We definitely should go see it. We can go tomorrow. Or...wait...why you looking at me like that? Not a movie person? Damn. Wait. Are you OK? You good D? ”
Tears were welling up in my eyes. I thought it would be hard to see Wren again but when I look at him now I just see his father. I see the intense eyes that pulled the gun when he saw Coin reach for his license.
Then all of a sudden I remember the voice barking all these orders.
“Put your hands on the dashboard. Put your hands on the steering wheel. Don’t move. Put your hands up. Didn’t I say NOT TO MOVE! What are you doing! What are you doing!”
Then I remember the shot. Coin hadn’t been doing anything. Coin was trying his best to follow the confused instructions of what this man was telling him to do. Wren talking frantically in this moment reminds me of what his father had done. And it all comes back to me and before I know it I’m a fucking mess.
And this white boy has the nerve to walk up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, “You OK?”
“Get the fuck off of me,” I state.
I circle around. All my defenses are up. He might think I’m weak because I’m crying but that’s not the case. I’m angry. These are tears of anger. And sometimes when you’re angry that’s when the most tears come out. We face off in the room in the next few moments looking at one another as though we were strangers. This is the same boy who I’d spent a ridiculous amount of time getting to know in the last few weeks.
“What’d I do?”
“You’re McHenry’s son…”
He pauses.
There is this small inch of me that was hoping somehow the Guidance counselor had her signals crossed and it was all some big mistake. But when I bring it up, I can see the reaction on his face. It’s this shocked reaction. An “Oh shit” reaction. He’s so handsome, just like Officer McHenry. I remember when McHenry shot coin my first reaction to his expression was like that should be a more ugly face. Stupid perfect man can’t even make an ugly face.
That’s exactly how I feel about his son in these moments.
“I can explain.”
“No need. You think this was some sort of joke?” I ask him, “You REQUESTED to room with me. You lied to me this entire time.”
“I didn’t lie. I never lied. I didn’t tell you who I was but I never lied.”
I’m disgusted with him. He wanted to play semantics right now as though I wasn’t the victim of his father’s hate crime. As though I wouldn’t have to live with the memory of Coin’s death for the rest of his life. It all made sense now why his friends were reacting the way they did to me. All of Andrew’s slick remarks made sense too.
And I look at him with a formal disgust, “I’m requesting a room change you crazy son-of-a-bitch. Stay the fuck away from me.”
I want to say more. I want to say so much more but I know my emotion was coming back to me and the last thing I was going to do was make the son of Officer McHenry see me in a moment of weakness.
I walk out of the room slamming the door behind me. And that’s when I cry. I’m sitting on the sidewalk, alone with no car to take me away from this place as white students walk past me. They whisper amongst themselves. I embarrassing. My face gets red. Maybe they think they’ve finally gotten to me. Perhaps they have.
Perhaps knowing the one boy who was nice to me and who I was beginning to consider a friend at the school was the son of Officer McHenry was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. I feel the muscles of my chin tremble like a small child and I look toward the window, as if the light could soothe me. There is static in my head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress I live with. I hear my own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside. It takes something out of me I didn't know I had left to give. That's the way it is when people are hard. It's like a theft of the spirit, an injury no other person can see.
~
“Whattup?”
It’s 40 minutes later and the car pulls up. It’s a black charger with tinted windows. When the window rolls down it smells like weed and newly sprayed cologne. I’m assuming the cologne was used to try to mask the smell of weed.
“Taz...you came…”
“Hell yeah I came. You good man…”
I look around. The white kids were staring. I could imagine the conversation now. They were probably talking about the ghetto ass boy that I called up to come and get me. Taz has that thing about him too. The kind of thing where he didn’t give a fuck how white folks looked at him. His swag just speaks volumes for him. I wish I had that kind of swag. I wish I didn’t care.
“Can you just...take me away from here?” I plead.
It’s the only thing I can think of saying. He doesn’t answer with words. He just does a head gesture that lets me know it’s OK to get in. That’s when he turns up his music to it’s Max. The sound of J-Cole spills out of his stereos causing a bunch of white kids to completely turn around and stare as though this was the biggest commotion they’d ever heard in their lives. And that’s when he speeds off making sure his wheels burn the pavement as he leaves.
For a while he keeps his music up. And it was all this hype, angry rap music. The kind of music Coin would play. And it made me feel comfortable. It made me feel at home. The base is so loud it vibrates the glasses that I managed to sneak on before leaving the room. Taz doesn’t say much but I find myself looking over at him seeing the cool way that leaned back, one hand on the wheel, the other one grabbing onto his crotch. He grabs a blunt that is half gone, lights it and says something.
I point to my ear letting him know I can’t hear him. I notice he’s been staring at me. Staring at my body. I have a short sleeve shirt on and he seems to notice something that bothers him.
“Are those scars?” He asks me out of no where.
Scars.
“It’s nothing.”
Taz turns the music down. He looks angry “They happened that night didn’t they? That fuckin pig did that to you?”
“I’m good.”
I’m hoping he turns the music back up but he doesn’t. He turns around and stares over at me. He has this pretty boy light skinned thing that but he seemed to be fighting against how pretty he was by tatting himself up all over the place. Even on his face. It didn’t work. Beneath all the gangsta, he was one of the prettiest niggas I’d seen in my life...effortlessly.
“So whattup, youngin’?” he asks.
“Youngin’? I’m probably older than you,” I laugh.
“Yeah you are but still. You my youngin,” he smiles back at me, “I gotta look out for you. So who fuckin’ with you?”
“It’s nothing…” I state but when I see the face he gives me, I quickly add, “I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh aight,” he grunts, inhaling the weed deeply into his lungs, coughing a bit but then turning to me and saying, “So why’d you call?”
“I just needed to get away.”
“No. I mean why’d you call ME,” he states, “You coulda called Kesean. He is warming up to you. Or Pompey. You know that nigga think he the black Batman always trying to help niggas out.”
I laugh. There was a rawness to Taz. Something that makes me keep turning to him as he’s driving and navigating my way through his facial expressions. He has these long eyelashes that and these pink lips.
I shrug, “I dunno. Guess...for some reason I thought about you.”
“Oh word? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He turns to me and winces.
“Don’t crash yo,” I smile back, “It ain’t that serious…”
He puts his eyes back on the road but there is still this smile on his face from cheek to cheek, “Well then stop makin a nigga feel special.”
“Ok I’ll stop.”
“Nah I’m just fucking with you. I like it,” he responds.
There is this silence when he says that. It’s not awkward. It’s only silent because he has filled the gap of silence with this long drawn out smile. Our eyes connect when he’s driving to the point that I think he’s going to hit something or drive off the road, but he has so much control of the car. He whips it through the traffic gliding at a speed that I usually don’t go. He swerves through the cars like some sort of street racer. I wonder if he always drives this aggressively or if he’s only doing it because I’m in the car. There’s no real telling. Regardless of how aggressive he’s driving though I feel safe for some reason. I know that he won’t let anything crazy happen to me.
I sit back in the car. My hands drop down to the partition between us. I put my hands on the arm rest and that’s when I feel his fingers. I don’t think he means it or anything but I pull them back harshly when I feel his fingers in a way that definitely makes things awkward.
“You good?” he asks, because of how fast I pulled back.
“Yeah, just thinking about Coin.”
For some reason it just feels right bringing him up. I’m getting too comfortable looking at Taz. I’m getting too comfortable staring at his pretty face, his high yellow complexion and getting sucked into his perfect white teeth as he continuously flashes me his wincing smile. He has something about him that is teasing. Something that makes me feel a little too comfortable.
Something that makes me think I need to remind myself that this is Coin’s best friend.
“He cared about you,” he states.
“I thought you just found out about me.”
“That’s what I had to tell the others,” he states, “But Coin told me a little bit before the rest of them. He was worried about how Kesean would react and him and Pompey were having issues at the time over something. So he told me.”
“What’d he say?”
We spend the car ride talking about Coin. I guess it was what we should have been doing the entire time. He talks about how Coin really cared about me. He talked about how Coin loved to hear me sing. According to him, Coin talked about me all the time to the point that he felt like he knew me. Maybe that’s why it felt so comfortable around Taz. It felt as though Taz knew me even though he didn’t. He felt comfortable around me so I felt comfortable around him back. As we are talking I don’t even notice we are pulled over until we are actually pulled over. We’re just in the car talking and before I know it I’m smoking with Taz as well. I get so high that time passes without me even knowing.
He tells me stories about him. We spend so much time just laughing. I’m imagining Coin in all the situations that he says.
“He’s kill me for telling you this but I remember were in this very car. These celebrity girls saw us and just went nuts. She was so drunk yelling at us through the car windows to fuck her. It was the ghetto version of Romeo and Juliet. Chick got us all in trouble. Imagine how ratchet you have to be to get kicked out of a drive-in movie theater?”
We both break out in laughter. Real laughter. The kind that comes straight of the stomach.
Out of no where, high off weed, I turn around and realize finally that we haven’t been moving for the past two hours, “Wait. Where are we?”
“I wanted to show you something,” he tells me, “Got caught up in the good convo. Hold up. Let me get your door for you.”
He gets out the car and runs to the other side of the car to get my door. He opens it for me and smiles. He’s clearly high. I can see it from his slanted eyes and the smile spreading across his face. He was definitely having a good time and I had to admit so was I. I hadn’t thought about Wren, the shooting or the school for a few hours now.
I’m shocked when he opens the door for me. It just seems like something that not even Coin would have done. I’m shocked but I’m a little amazed. As I get out of the car I can’t help myself but to say, “I could have gotten the door for myself.”
“I know you probably used to niggas catering to you, but I’m not trying to step on Coin’s toes and shit man. The door just doesn’t open from the inside…”
We both start laughing again as we’re talking. The lingering laugh carries on as we are standing outside looking at one another.
He leads me to this building. At first I think it’s a warehouse. I think I must be crazy. This gangsta is taking me to an empty warehouse and it’s actually getting dark before I know it. This place looks like it’s in a grimey side of the neighborhood too. I should be scared when I cross a field that is littered with crack pipes, used condoms and empty beer bottles. The thing is though I’m with Taz and he doesn’t look scared. Not even a little bit. So I put on that same brave face and follow him.
We end up in an empty warehouse. It’s large with windows all along the back wall that let the little bit of light in from the fading sky.
I’m confused, “What is this place?”
I turn and he’s not standing where he was a moment ago. I’m so busy looking around that I lose Taz for a moment. When I find him he’s on the stage and notice music coming from the stage. It’s the sound of a keyboard and I see the large old piano propped up among other instruments on the stage of this place.
“Yo honestly when me and my crew first heard your voice, we were floored,” Taz states, “You are what I imagine an angel sounds like. It’s cool if I say that to you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be OK if you said that to me…”
Taz shrugs, “Ionno. I wouldn’t want my best friend’s boyfriend to get no ideas like I’m hitting on him or something…”
“Why would I think that? You think just cause I’m gay, I’m automatically question the sexuality of every guy I meet?”
“Ayo check ya attitude,” he grabs me up as I walk past the piano. It’s hard in a way that creates this physical intensity between the two of us but still somehow turns me on in this weird way, “I didn’t even say all that.”
He smiles after pulling me like that releasing me to let me know he was just playing. I hope he doesn’t realize I’m blushing as I push away. He had no-idea I liked him grabbing me up and trying to check me like that. I liked it a lot more than I should have.
When he releases me I’m still on the bench that he’s playing on.
He looks up to me from the piano. At this point he’s strumming along on his keyboard freestyle. The music is like a stream of consciousness and I have to admit Taz is talented. More talented than I’d seen anyone on keyboard in a while. It’s kind of sexy seeing him sitting there effortlessly creating classic after classic with his fingers while staring at me with the same intensity of some predator in the middle of the night.
“Sing for me,” he states.
“I don’t do that shit no more man,” I respond.
“Nigga----quit frontin’,” he states, “We just seeing somethin’. It’s just you and me. Quit playin shawty. Sing for me. I wanna hear that angel voice…”
He leans in and shoves my elbow with his elbow. When I look up our eyes catch. He smiles. I smile. His smile is so intoxicating. It’s worse than any alcohol I’d ever tasted in my life. And then there was that intense stare. Taz was kind of intimidating. He seemed outside to look like a warm flame with his pretty boy exterior. But then you see all the raw sides of him too from his tattoos, to his intense stare, to the hood way he acted. He was much more like a wildfire burning in every direction. Setting everything in it’s path on fire.
And right now I was burning up.
“If you're tired and confused
And you don't remember who you're talking to
Your concentration slips away
Because your baby, sweetheart, sugar's so far away…”
He catches up to me on the piano. Staring at me with an interested smile as he begins to perfectly strumming the sounds of Luther Vandross on the piano.
Our eyes dance together as our bodies have meshed into almost perfect symmetrical rhythm. Vibes spill out from everywhere. We are so much in tune that I’ve begun snapping and stomping in addition rhythm to get more in the groove. We are feelin’ it. We are something else in that moment.
“And there's a rose in a fisted glove
And the eagle flies with the dove
And if you can't be with the one you love
Honey, love the one you're with (that's right)
Love the one you're with
Turn your heartache right into joy
She's a girl and you're a boy
Get it together
Make it tonight
You aint gonna need any more advice.”
I don’t know how it happens that things get weird but they start getting weird first. We are leaned into each other. We’re smiling ear to ear.
“And the eagle flies with the dove.
And if you can’t be with the one you love…”
Then suddenly he stops playing. I stop singing. Our smile fades and it’s complete silence. There is this shockwaves between us as we somehow both come to the realization at the same time how hot and intense this had become.
All of sudden we realize the music has drawn us together. So close that we could almost kiss.
I could go for it right now. And I do.
And he swerves. Completely swerves away as though he’s playing ball with Lebron James in an NBA final. I almost fall forward off the bench. I look over at him wondering if he’d done it on purpose and then I see how uncomfortable he looks. It says it all in how quickly he makes room between him and I.
“Damn I just noticed I’m late for a party…”
How convenient.
“Oh man. Well guess I’ll go find something to do…”
“You can just come along,” he states.
I’m confused. Just a moment ago he swerved away from me like I had some infectious disease or something. And now he was inviting me along to his party.
“You want me to come to that…”
“Yeah,” he states shrugging a little bit like it’s not big deal, “Everyone’s gonna be there. The boys are gonna be there. I’m sure they wanna see you.”
It was about the boys. I just shrug. The last thing I wanted to do was have to go back to my dorm room and have to deal with Wren again of all people. So I shrug as well and we leave that moment with Luther Vandross out there.
~
We are driving to the party when the awkwardness causes him to look up at me and say out of no where, “So what you know about Luthor Vandross?”
“He’s my idol. One of my favorite artists. Everyone says I sound like if Luthor and Lauryn Hill had a love child.”
He thinks about it for a moment.
“Oh shit, you do. Nigga that’s the perfect description of your voice,” he realizes and we both laugh for a moment breaking whatever awkwardness we were feeling from the moment when he dodged my kiss.
“I love it man. Luthor is the first black singer that I realized was gay.”
“What nigga? Luthor was not gay,” he grunts.
He seems to take that a little personal. I can hear it all in his chest. It makes me laugh actually when he says it.
“Bro, Luthor was gay.”
“Nuh-uh,” he states, “You gay boys always trying to turn someone gay!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask still laughing but then realize the scowl on his face. He was serious. Very serious.
There was nothing playing in his tone. He really took it hard that I accused Luthor Vandross of being gay.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Nah, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
“You flirting wit’ me all day,” he says out of no where, “You’ve been at it all day bro.”
“I was not flirtin’ with you all day,” I respond.
It goes from having a good time to tense really quick. Him calling me out like this is uncalled for. I’d thought we both had an understanding of how he felt about me when he swerved away like he was disgusted. He didn’t have to now circle back after making me feel comfortable just to call me out. And it’s not even the fact that he called me out but it’s how he does it. It’s the anger in his tone.
“So why the fuck you tryin’ to kiss me nigga?”
“It just...happened. Look I know you’re not gay.”
“You worried about the wrong thing bruh,” he states, “Fuck all dat gay shit. Your boyfriend was my best friend. The man just fuckin’ died bruh. And you tryin’ to kiss me and shit? That’s where your mind is?”
I have to admit when he says it I immediately feel bad. I feel angry. I feel defensive. But even more so I start to blame myself. I didn’t know if he meant to shame me but it works. It really fucking works.
“You’re right. You know what. Maybe I shouldn’t go to this party. Can you drop me off?”
“We already here…”
He pulls over to the side of a house. He gets out and walks over to my side of the car and opens the door for me.
I don’t get out.
“I’d rather go home.”
“Chill,” he states, “Just give me 20 minutes. If you still ----in your feelins’ or whatever, we can leave.”
The way he is talking to me right now walking away before I get the chance to respond just makes me feel like the asshole side of Taz was coming out. He could either be charming as fuck or he could be the piece of shit that is walking away from me right now after basically telling me to get the fuck out my feelings after he called me about not caring about my dead boyfriend’s memory.
He was making it seem like it was all me. As though we weren’t really vibing in that moment when we were playing Luthor.
As if I made up all the chemistry myself.
That was bullshit.
I’m so pissed off about it that I don’t even realize us walking up on Pompey and Kesean in the party until it happens. I notice they are in the corner of the house party. Outside there is a bbq going. Not too far from us Pompey and Kesean have attracted the attention of a group of big booty girls that all looked like Instagram Models. When Taz joins the group I swear one of the girls stops breathing for a moment.
I guess Coin’s group were really attractive.
Surprisingly when I show up, I’m able to pull their attention away from the girls, even if for just a few moments, Pompey states, “How was rehearsal?”
“Rehearsal?” I ask.
“You didn’t ask him?” Kesean asks Taz.
Taz is acting awkward. He’s acting like he had an attitude. Maybe he was so disappointed in me trying to kiss him still. He answers even though it’s in a distant tone, “We didn’t get to it. We did the rehearsal. He’s legit…”
“What are ya’ll talking about?”
Pompey leans over to me, “We want you to be in a band with us.”
“A band?”
“A cover band. We’re going to call it Coins. In memory of my nigga.”
A cover band. I’d never been in a band before.
Kesean follows up saying, “I’ll be on drums. Pompey on guitar. Taz on keyboard and you will be our lead singer. We already got someone wanting to book us to perform at a protest in the Park.”
I shake my head, “No way. I don’t sing anymore.”
“Yo what the fuck is your problem?” Taz asks, “You going to not perform because of that little disagreement.”
“I never fuckin said it had anthing to do with the disagreement. I just don’t want to sing.”
“Ya’ll two good?” Pompey asks.
“We’re fine,” Taz states.
We weren’t fine. I’m sure he wasn’t going to act like it wasn’t something personal in front of his boys. The tension was real. He was offended that I had attempted to kiss him. I was pissed off because he was acting as though that moment was contributed to solely by me. This attitude was coming on strong and it was coming out of no where. We had enjoyed our day so much. The entire day felt like something out of the dream. Until the attempted kiss. Now everything had turned upside down.
“I’ll go enjoy the party. You boys have a nice night.”
Taz mutters something under his breath. Something negative. Probably even calls me a bitch for all I know. I’m not sure what he says but I roll my eyes and walk away. It seems almost as soon as I did the big booty girls start walking up. From the bar inside Taz and I make eye connection. That is moments before he walks up to a girl and grinds up on her.
I look away and turn when I see a boy standing there.
“Want a drink?” he asks.
He’s this brown skin boy with a low cut Caesar and a scruffy beard. He wasn’t a lot of the more hood boys at the party. He had on a clean cut white shirt on that was a little tight because it stretched against his muscular upper torso.
I look at the drink a few times, “Not trying to drug me are you?”
He laughs, “Nah, but I seen you on tv and when I heard that voice I was wondering what else that throat do…”
It’s not the first time a gay guy has hit on me in a straight party. And from the look of him when he reaches down and adjusts his crotch I could tell he didn’t a fuck how straight this party was. I realize that when he grabs me by my hand and takes me outside to a shaded area in a corner.
Almost immediately he is all over me, “So what’s your name again, Bae?”
He starts asking me questions like that. And I know that he’s attractive. I know that I should really be paying attention to what this sexy boy is saying to me but my eyes wander for some reason and I realize that the boys aren’t that far from me. Actually I notice Taz has turned all his attention over to me.
He wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was staring at us at this point. It wasn’t even close. It was the opposite. He WANTED me to know that he saw me.
I throw my arms around the gay boy with the tight shirt. I don’t know why. Maybe it was petty but I wasn’t going to be the fool in this situation. I wasn’t going to let Taz get away with portraying me as some thirsty boy.
I dunno how it happens but I turn around and feel the boy’s crotch up against me as we start grinding together to the music playing in the party
Two seconds laters I hear a bit of a gasp.
“FAGGOTS!”
I’m shocked when I see that it’s Taz who is standing there. He’s pushed the sexy guy against the wall hard. Things look like they are about to get heated but Pompey and Kesean get there in time to break it up and calm their boy down. Taz is screaming from the top of his lungs across the party.
“We don’t want to see that faggot shit,” he is saying, “WE DON’T WANT TO SEE THAT FAGGOT SHIT!”
I think I’m in some weird 1990 straight white suburban reaction to the AIDS epidemic propaganda video. I am beyond embarrassed when it happens. I’m shocked to see Taz with this level of hatefulness in his heart. I knew that he was uncomfortable about the kiss but I hadn’t known he was full blown homophoboic.
~
I meet him in the parking lot. Kesean and Pompey weren’t there. Just Taz. He’s leaned up against the hood of the parking lot. It’s awkward when I walk up to the car. Not even 10 minutes ago he’d just called me and the boy dancing on me the F word. A part of me didn’t even want to ride home with this homophobe.
But honestly after what I’d been through with him switching up on me tonight, but I had no choice. And a part of me felt like Wren wasn’t so bad. At least he hadn’t called me a faggot.
I needed to get home but I be damned I was going to let him get away with his hatefullness.
“Yo----you’re a fuckin asshole…”
Just as I’m talking to him I feel him grab onto my shirt. I think he’s going to straight up beat me the fuck up as he throws me against the side of his car and presses up against me but after slamming me he doesn’t do anything but stare at me.
Then he reveals the REAL reason he is mad.
Time seems to slow down. My breath mingles with his and then he just crashes my lips to his and kisses me.
I kiss him senseless.
Taz’s tongue sweeps into my mouth, hot and demanding, tasting of mint, that fruity cocktail he just drunk at the party and something that’s uniquely and entirely Taz.
His hands grab my hair and as he angles his head to deepen the kiss, desire washes over me like a tidal wave.
I moan into his mouth, a guttural sound that I don’t even recognize as my own, and I shift my body so I can feel more of him. I want to feel everything, l –
“Taz where are you!” The sound of Pompey’s voice immediately dissolves the haze of lust I’m floating on and isn’t until then that I realize exactly why Taz felt some type of way about the boy at the party.
I notice him not backing up even as Pompey is searching for him. He keeps touching my body. And I notice him touching my scars.
“Show me all your scars….”
I’m confused, “But...why?”
“I want to see how many times you needed me and I wasn’t there…” he whispered, a tear rolling down his face.
I’m confused, “What for Taz? What do you plan on doing?”
“I plan on giving the world the same scars that you have…”
And that’s when he kisses me again. Even though Pompey has found us he does it again. In front of Pompey.
He was full of passion. He was full of anger.z
He was full of scars.
And that ’s when I realize I was going to join the band with him. And together we would get revenge for those scars…
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