My Boyfriend's Murder (The Clandestine Series)

Chapter 4

Friday, October 12

The night of the party...

I gave a good solid knock on the weathered metal screen door. It rattled like a disposable tin baking pan, and the bottom corner was bent out like someone had kicked it. I took a step back as a couple moths dipped down in front of my face and fluttered to the bright LED moth trap that hung over the rock bed by the foundation of the house where they were zapped and tortured before falling to their death. Music blared from inside. The switch for the doorbell was hanging by wires. Probably not safe. I didn't want to wind up like the moths. I knocked again and the door swung open.

Maddison was standing on the other side wearing baggy sweat pants and a tank top. She was large in stature and she had one eye that turned inward. Everyone called her Mad-Eye which she hated. She was the only girl to work for Will's construction, and from what Colton told me she did a damn good job. She could carry twice the amount of wood compared to the other workers. She blocked the entry like a brick wall. "Password?" She asked over the noise.

The password changed for each party. I couldn't remember what Colton had texted me. I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through messages. "Time to spill the tea," I read.

Maddison pulled the door open and I came in. The lights were always dimmed, I supposed it made it difficult to see how messy the house was. To the left there were eight older men sitting around a dining room table gambling under a chandelier made out of recycled wine bottles. To the right there was Will, Erik, Mateo, and Aiden sitting on a modular sectional watching Josiah rap. Colton stood with a mic adding lyrics to the background.

Maddison came to stand behind the sectional.

Rapping was something that united them after Corona virus shut down the clubs. Even though group get togethers were strictly prohibited they didn't care. It was their way of saying fuck off to social distancing and they weren't afraid of dying from a virus.

Colton told me when they first started, they used to rap to Karaoke. They were great imitators. It was their dream to become like Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, or other famous rappers who were legends, old gangsters, who had made it into money and power despite coming from poverty and racking up police records. They realized karaoke rap, about someone else's life, wasn't going to make them famous. They needed a narrative of their own lives to make it happen.

They began experimenting writing their own lyrics with their own life experiences and mixed it to the rhythm they put together on a rap rhyme app. They supported each other in liking each other's songs until they had a long list of followers, although, sometimes it seemed like a competition. Who had the most followers? Who had the most votes?

Colton categorized the songs he wrote into certain categorical subjects. There were songs about money, getting drunk, smoking weed. Songs about making trouble, and songs about lusty big booty babes.

There were songs that introduced a new rapper, like Snoop Dogg's Who Am I (What's My Name), and Eminem's My Name Is. Even though these songs had a silly undertone the purpose was clear; listeners wanted to feel like they knew who was singing. In the rap world they want to have a connection to the rapper, not just hear a good song. The more personal the songs were, the more popular they could become, or so Colton believed.

Josiah rapped in the mic, "...the policeman did more jobs than he was hired for. He was the officer, the judge, the jury, and the headsman. He shot my father in his car over a traffic violation. I was ten years old and watched my father die. By the time the ambulance arrived he was cold and all I could do was stand by. Just like George Floyd my father's six feet under.

"Another black man goes down. The policeman still around. How many more black men he gonna knockdown?

"My cousin walking downtown passed a bank when suddenly he's jumped by four policemen who broke his face for matching a description of a "scary black male" that robbed the place. Guilty before proven innocent. Booked behind bars for days. Lost his job. Finally released when video proved it wasn't him.