Embedded Files
Roger (with the Young Master riding shotgun in his head) follows Moore through his glad-handing over the rest of the afternoon, congratulations all around for the new album, for the slot on Soul Train, for the rumors of an upcoming tour to support Ikenga. Moore's smile never falters, never fails, but Roger can see a man forced to put on a brave face from a mile off. Roger doesn't have to wait too long at all to get Moore alone; just a few hours. As the sun goes down and the block party starts to hold less of a kid-friendly/white-kids-from-Berkeley-friendly vibe, Moore starts to drift away from the crowd grooving to the DJ, from the members of Mansa who are socializing and partying. When nightfall hits West Oakland, Moore drifts southwest, down to Eighth Street, and walks by Dominoe, where he looks at the mural next to the doors still covered in yellow police tape.
And as Roger/Maître Carrefour walks up to Moore, standing across from Dominoe, Moore says, seemingly sensing his presence, "So ... I guess I didn't have any choice in the deal after all, did I?"
Roger comes forward, adjusts his leather jacket, pulls out a card. "Sorry, brother, I'm not the one you want to say that to. Well, not quite yet." Roger looks about the place, the police tape. "Rápido, before you do your jive with Him..." Roger looks in his eyes. "...my brother, you do have a choice. You ain't always gonna get what you want-- ain't nobody get all the control in this world, you know? But you do get choices." Roger clenches his right fist, raises it, salutes Moore.
"You keep making right ones, my brother." Then he flips over the vever in his left hand, and lets Kalfu out.
Moore waits for Kalfu. He seems ready and even eager to accept that the man he was talking to the other day has two faces and now he looks into Kalfu's eyes.
"Where's Zeb," he says coldly, levelly.
Kalfu, already a bit put out by Roger's small disrespects, narrows his black eyes, and responds, cold as the grave: "You just full o' respect, aren't you? You will learn some." Then he lightens his Voice. "But you love your old mentor, I see. Well, well. What a good pupil. But does the boy even know where his mentor comes from? What his lessons cost the boy?"
Moore continues to give Kalfu a steely, but less overtly hostile, look. "I don't know where he came from, and I don't know where he went last night when I... dreamed? I saw him floating down the street with a couple of aliens. Or something. I don't know, every fucking thing is weird right now, there are too many coincidences and too many things happening at once. I don't even do dope, man! But I'm starting to feel like I do, I'm starting to feel paranoid... like the story I wrote is starting to come true in real life, you dig?" Moore calms down, and goes over to the front steps of Dominoe to sit down.
"Where did the old man come from, then. Outer space?"
“Oh, he ain’t from that far away. But no, he ain’t from around here. And it’s not a good place he’s coming from— he told you the rosy bits. Beautiful music, alright. But a place of no choices. Of course you feel paranoid, child. They were out to get you. I told you about the chains. But, a little help, a nudge, and a good call on your part, the right set— you know how much choosing the right set is important— and those chains can slip.”
"Slipping out of chains," Moore says, laughing hollowly. "In the last 48 hours my record label is raided by the FBI, my band and I get a call to go on nationwide television, an offer of a national tour with an option for an international leg, and a street concert in Oaktown that ends up looking like a goddam Coca-Cola commercial. And all I had to do was sell out my 'hood, let the Man throw my people in jail, like they always have. And I still don't understand what you have to do any with it."
"You know, Zeb did tell me a lot of stories growing up. Yeah, they sounded crazy but I just figured the man had had his mind blown by years and years of abuse and misery. I wanted to make that other world of his come true, so no old man would ever end up a wino again, you hear? Choice. What choice do I have now? I got ten band members and dozens of families who are planning what they're gonna do with all the money this deal is gonna make them. I could sit here and tell them, nah, we ain't taking the Man's deal and that would be the end of Mansa. My lifelong dream."
"I don't want to be rich, man. I don't want any of that. I just want these kids to grow up in a better world than this. What happens to that message when I'm flying from gig to gig on a private jet? Who on earth would even believe me?"
“You really are one for the tales, you are. Set up like a king, and you’re still looking to suffer, to be martyred, if the world doesn’t match your vision, overnight. You don’t want no compromise, no deals, just your way. Zeb’s way. No freedom for the world, only that vision. That’s not the world. Not the world you should want. Well, you’re not getting Zeb’s world overnight. The cost— you have no idea how high. So you have to make good with this world. And learn how you can change it. And you can. All those responsibilities, and you still can. Learn to take a deal, will you?”
Moore gets tight-mouthed, definitely feeling chastened. "Am I naive to think art can change the world? Childish? Man, I dunno. All I know is I can't do anything else. I tried to be a badass, a Panther, a soldier for the revolution... and I failed. I could not live up to that. I'm just a musician, maybe a teacher."
"Real change doesn't happen overnight. I know that. But I just don't think that any kind of change is gonna happen without waking all our people up. That's got to be first. I just thought maybe I could do that. I feel like a fool now." He wipes a couple of tears away from his eyes surreptitiously.
A spark of light, shining off no light visible, flashes in Kalfu’s eyes, and he smiles. “Ah, there it is. Now you know. Now we’re ready to deal. You finally know the thing you want, something you can do. Something we can deal for. Now, I give you no promise for all, mind you, but some. You can wake some. And, like Johnson, maybe you have to leave the rest of the waking to those you wake up. But it doesn’t come cheap. I think you know some of the price already.”
The Master of the Crossroads looks around at the street, up the multiple ways the roads go from here. And he looks to the dooms that can take Moore now, down some of those paths....
Roger comes to himself. It’s some unknown time later, long past late. Moore’s nowhere to be seen. He tastes a lot of good dark rum on his lips, and that’s how he knows the deal must be done, and be sealed. Sometimes the loa don’t let him know their doings, especially El Diablo, because mortal men are not to. But from what he did hear, he’s hopeful. Very tired, he thanks them once more for allowing him to serve, and walks the long walk back to his car, the streets, and bed.
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