On the Come Up

by Angie Thomas

Rule numero uno of battling? Know your opponent’s weakness. Nothing he’s spit this round is directed at me. That may not seem like a red flag, but right now it’s a huge one. I blanked. A real MC would go for the kill because of that. Hell, I’d go for it. He’s not even mentioning it. That means there’s a 98 percent chance this is prewritten. Prewritten is a no-no in the Ring. A bigger no-no? Prewritten by someone else. I don’t know if he wrote those lines, maybe he did, but I can make everyone think he didn’t. Dirty as hell? Absolutely. But since my dad isn’t off-limits, not a damn thing is off-limits. Rule number two of battling—use the circumstances to your advantage. Supreme doesn’t look too worried, but trust: He should be. That goes in my arsenal. Rule number three—if there’s a beat, make sure your flow fits it like a glove. Flow is the rhythm of the rhymes, and every word, every syllable, affects it. Even the way a word is pronounced can change the flow. While most people know Snoop and Dre for “Deep Cover,” one time I found a remake of it by this rapper named Big Pun on YouTube. His flow on this song was one of the best I’ve ever heard in my life. Maybe I can mimic it. Maybe I can wipe that dumb smirk off Milez’s face. Maybe I can actually win.

That’s when I learned that when people die, they sometimes take the living with them.

“Doc, this is Bri, my niece. She ’bout to murder this beat you got for her.” “Hold up, you made that for this li’l girl?” some guy on the couch asks. “What she gon’ do, spit some nursery rhymes?” There go the smirks and snickers. This is that stale and predictable shit Aunt Pooh warned me about when I first told her I wanted to be a rapper.

She said I’d have to do double the work to get half the respect. On top of that, I gotta be just as cutthroat, and I better not show weakness. Basically, I gotta be one of the guys and then some in order to survive.

It takes several hours, but Malik, Sonny, and I put together a music video for “On the Come Up,” using footage that Malik recorded for his documentary. Like when I say, “Whole squad got more heat than a furnace,” it’s a video of guns on some GDs’ waists. Malik blurred their faces out. “We don’t bust, yet they blame us for murder” brings on news clips from when that boy was killed last year. “I approach, you watch close, I’m a threat,” I rap, and there’s Malik’s secret footage of the clerk who followed us around the Midtown comic shop a few months ago. And just like we said, when I rap, “Pin me to the ground, boy, you fucked up,” Malik puts in a clip of the incident. Will it change the minds of the Emilys though? Probably not. Honestly, nothing will. They’ll never truly understand because they don’t wanna understand someone like me.

I close the door. I just wanna hide under my covers, but my bed feels miles away. I lower myself in the corner and pull my knees up to my chest, which feels like it’s gonna cave in. I wanted that guy dead, I swear I did. Now all I can think about is how a gunshot’s gonna take him like one took Dad. If he has a wife, his death will mess her up like it messed Jay up. If he has a momma, she’ll cry like Grandma cried. If he has a dad, his voice will dip when he talks about him like Granddaddy. If he has a son, he’ll be angry at him for dying, like Trey is. If he has a little girl, she’ll never get a response when she says, “Daddy.” Like me.

They’ll only show her mug shot on the news. Not the pictures of us smiling together on her Cutlass or her cheesing with that GED Jay thought she’d never get. She’ll be called a ruthless murderer for about a week, until somebody else does something fucked up. Then I’ll be the only one mourning her. She’ll become the monster for handling the monster I couldn’t handle myself. Or somebody’s gonna kill her. Either way, I’m gonna lose Aunt Pooh. Just like I lost my daddy.

Nas once called sleep the cousin of death, and I suddenly get that. I could barely sleep for thinking about death. I said six words that may have summoned it. He pointed it in my face. They felt heavy when I said them, like I was taking a weight off of my tongue, but somehow, it’s as if they’re still lingering there. I practically see them and all seven of their syllables.

“The worst thing I’ve done is become poor, Mrs. Jackson!” Jay’s loud, rough. Seems like her voice is using every inch of her body. “The worst thing!” she says. “That’s it! Excuse me because I have the audacity to be poor!” Trey touches her shoulder. “Ma—” “You think I want my babies sitting in the dark? I’m trying, Mrs. Jackson! I go on interviews. I withdrew from school so these kids could have food! I begged the church not to let me go. I’m sorry if it’s not enough for you, but good Lord, I’m trying!”

Who are you?