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“Spoken word?”
“Kind of what it sounds like.”
“Which is…”
“Poetry spoken out loud.” I shake my head. “But it’s more performance than poetry.” It’s kind of hard to explain the exhilaration of spoken word poetry or slam poetry. He’ll experience it soon enough.
“I can tell you like it by the tone of your voice.”
My brows jump at his comment. I hadn’t said much, answering his questions somewhat curtly, but then again, even with four years of distance, he knows me better than anyone.
“You like it so much that you’re willing to risk your mother’s wrath to slip out of the house at midnight,” he muses.
The light changes and we’re off again.
At our next stop, I offer an explanation. “I love it because it’s exciting. The energy. There’s nothing like it. It’s not just poetry. It’s rhythmic. It’s loud. It’s passionate. The audience gets involved. Especially during a slam. The audience is judge and jury and how they react determines who wins the contest. It gets intense.”
“Sounds like a rap battle. I look forward to seeing a poetry slam,” he says, misspeaking the words. It’s slam poetry, but his mistake is adorable and I don’t bother correcting him. He’s almost pensive in the way he says it, as if the idea just came to him.
I already know he’ll love it. It fits Marku’s competitive personality. The warrior, the made man in him. He may be seen as the jokester of his crew, but he started killing at a young age. They age fast, thosemafiemen. An image of Marku flutters to the forefront of my brain, of him in the center of a crowd, spewing words in a flash of staccato rhythm. Not just any words. My words. It’s a strikingly beautiful image, a tantalizing fantasy that makes my heart hurt.
I thrust it away brutally. I don’t need Marku in my space. The last time we shared something together, I never touched another soccer ball again. I may take him to his first slam, but that’s where the buck stops. Poetry is mine.
A pang of guilt pierces me. Slam is about being expansive, about free expression, and about community. If he wants it, I have no right to keep him from it.
“Well, let’s see what you think about this open mic,” I comment blithely. “You might think it’s pretentious and ridiculous. You might make fun of it.”
He shoots me a look. “You like it.”
“I do.”
“Then I won’t make fun of it.” He leans closer, close enough for me to feel the whisper of his breath caress my cheek. “No matter how badly I want to.”
I move away and roll my eyes. “There you go with the jokes again.”
“Jokes are good.”
“Except you sometimes use jokes to deflect.”
He nods slowly. “Perceptive of you to notice.”
I’ve always noticed when it came to him, even when I didn’t want to. But the fury over the locker room incident has dissipated, and now he’s being more than accommodating. He’s curious about this part of my life, a part he knew nothing about until recently. And he’s interested because it matters to me. We shared many common interests in the past, but that was when we were kids. I can’t deny that watching him being curious over something I introduced him to is flattering.
His eyes grow serious. “I don’t joke the way I used to…”
That old drive to comfort him surges forth. Had it ever died completely? I somehow doubt it because I can tap into it so quickly. “I suppose I can tolerate it a little then,” I say with a wink, in hopes of chasing the shadows from his eyes. “But not about the poetry.” I shake a reprimanding finger at him. “Never poetry.”
He makes as if to bite my index finger and I quickly yank it away. “Not about poetry. Got it.”
A car horn blasts behind us. The light had changed without either of us noticing. Marku lifts his hand in the air as if to say,forget about it, and then we’re off again. He makes a turn westward and we drive through the hopping streets of the East Village until we reach the club.
CHAPTER13
MARKU
We’re back in the Bowery.
Despite my best intentions, I can’t seem to stay away from this place. If this neighborhood seems gentrified during the day, it looks hella dangerous at midnight. We’ve leave the trendy Village bars and nightclubs behind us and the Bowery stretches out in front of us, a long, dark, and desolate avenue. I park near the café. The only signs of life are splashes of light coming from the corner bar and a blast of noise whenever the Bowery Poetry Café door opens.
