Read Online Something She Can Feel by Grace Octavia - Free Book Online Page A

gay sex parties there, too.”
    â€œReally?” May clutched her chest.
    â€œWell ... they’re dealing with a lot,” Evan said, his coolness lifted. With the new job, he became defensive whenever someone brought up something bad about Black Warrior.
    â€œMy Lord!” May bowed her head and began to pray silently. I rested my elbows on the table and shook my head. All this in thirty minutes.
    â€œI remember when children acted like children,” Nana Jessie said. “Down here in the South, they listened to grown folks. Called them ma’am and sir and there wasn’t none of this fighting going on.”
    â€œAnd that was because they got a whupping if they did,” my father added. “Now they just let the kids run wild.”
    â€œIt’s not all bad,” Billie said. “We have some success stories. Like that rapper Dame. I saw him on the cover of Rolling Stone at the grocery store the other day. He had on boxers and LOST painted on top of a cross on his chest. It was hot.” She fanned herself playfully.
    â€œThe one with all the tattoos?” my mother asked.
    â€œWhat you know about that, Mama?” Jr jumped in and we all looked at my mother surprised.
    â€œI’m a Christian—not blind,” she said. “No woman I know could’ve missed that cover in line at the grocery store. You can hardly ever get out of the store without seeing him on the cover of some magazine. And he never has a shirt on.”
    The men looked to the rest of us, but we just diverted our eyes. My mother was right. Dame was the big buzz. While I didn’t listen to much hip-hop, I couldn’t check out at the grocery store or even watch the news without seeing his face. He was bigmouthed and always in the news, shirtless and sweaty, his wild dreadlocks hanging over his shoulders like a lion’s mane as he invaded the covers of magazines with headlines like “Crush the World” or “Take Over.” In the tabloids, he was making love to married Hollywood stars and bed-hopping in London and Dublin. He had a clothing line, a beverage company and, as I’d heard one of my students mention, a sneaker deal. All of the kids at the school wanted to emulate him because he was from Tuscaloosa. In fact, he’d gone to Black Warrior and was one of my former students. But still I wasn’t so sure he was the best role model. The one song of his I’d listened to was about sex and drugs. Nothing unique. The kids needed much more than that.
    â€œSo you women all crazy about some rapper?” my father asked in the silence.
    â€œHe’s not just some rapper. He’s sold millions of albums and he got six Grammys last year,” Billie insisted. “And he’s from here.”
    â€œTuscaloosa?”
    â€œYes, Dad,” I said.
    â€œWho are his people?” he quizzed.
    â€œThe girls at the clinic say he’s one of those Simpsons from Hay Court,” my mother said.
    â€œOh, he’s from out there? I should’ve known,” my father said, going into one of his speeches about how rap was ruining the black community and the world at the same time. He detested any form of rap music and refused to allow the kids to listen to even gospel rap at the church.
    â€œJourney had him in her class,” Billie said when he was done.
    â€œYou did?” My father looked at me as if I’d done something wrong.
    â€œThat was seven years ago when I first started teaching. He just sat in the back. He dropped out halfway through the year.” Dame, whose real name was Damien Mitchell, joined the choir with two of his friends, but instead of singing, they mostly sat in the back of the classroom acting up and Dame would often write in a notebook. Because he was clearly the leader of the pack, I’d approach him sometimes, telling him that he was going to fail and that just sitting in the room didn’t mean he was present. He’d