Shauna’s newborn lies sleeping in a crib in the center of the room while Shauna huffs, groans, tries to drown out Marcus’s quick talking, but I’m the only one who really hears her. I reach the bottom of the stairs, the ceiling only seeming to get lower, competing voices filling up the empty space until the whole room is about to burst. The basement is smothering, but my brother’s voice is the flat familiar that makes me remember why I stay down here, breathing this recycled Old Spice air and listening to Shauna’s noises.
I enter the studio and I’m immediately thrust into a world of men and music that leaks into every corner of the room, some track Marcus is laying down in the booth. I see him there, behind the glass, eyes closed, wingspan stretching into some mythical version of my brother’s embrace. Tupac might just be shivering in his grave because my brother don’t know how to spit, and the only words I can hear in the mess of his tongue are bitch and ho and this nigga got chains and I wanna tell him this room knows how he hurled into our toilet for two weeks after Daddy died because his body cannot bear grief. This room knows how the only chains he got are from those machines that spit out plastic containers for fifty cents at the arcade. This room knows the only bitch he got is me and I’m shrinking back, trying to disappear myself into the doorway the way Marcus disappears us in his lyrics.
The studio isn’t clean or expensive enough to be considered a recording studio by any professional standards, but my brother and his boys have made it into a haven and decided they are godly in this room, the same way I felt godly at the height of the swing with Alé, before reality hit. An illusion that just keeps feeding itself.
Marcus recedes into silence and the beat stops still, his eyes settling on me through the glass. The boys chorus my name, Tony standing up from the couch to put his arm around me, his body engulfing mine in its muscle mass and quiet. Marcus nods to me from behind the glass and I exit Tony’s arms, pushing open the door to the recording booth, where I find my brother’s warmth, his body beyond the beat.
My fist hits his stomach lightly, but all I feel is the tight push of his muscles. Marcus always flexing. “Hey, we gotta talk.” I try to whisper so the boys won’t have to hear, even though Cole can hear it all through his headphones anyway.
“Let’s talk.” Marcus’s face tells me all I need to know. It’s shut, every cavity of feeling closed down.
“Look, Mars, we don’t got enough money for no rent increase. You over here without a job and I can’t handle it no more, so—”
Like most days, the moment I try to speak, Marcus inserts himself. His voice fills up the whole room and it’s like he’s gone to war with the air, leaving me with nothing. Marcus pretending I am not standing here, that the paper I left him this morning ain’t nothing but a lost cat flyer.
“Aight, Ki, don’t be going on this I don’t got a job bullshit. I got a job, so how ’bout you go on home and let me finish my track. Shit.”
He doesn’t even take a beat before he’s rambling about his new verses, talking about how he’s gonna make it big.
It didn’t used to be like this.
About six months ago, Marcus was at a bar when he heard our uncle Ty’s voice come on, rapping the same way he always has. Marcus looked him up and found out he had an album coming out, that he was signed with Dr. Dre’s label and making bank in L.A. It unleashed something in Marcus and the next day he quit his job at Panda Express and started hanging with Cole every day, hell-bent on becoming Uncle Ty. I tried to give him his space, let him feel his rage, but it’s been too long now and whether he likes it or not, he needs to start acting like a grown man again.
I look up at him, trying to search for a little bit of me in his face and finding nothing but a fingerprint beneath his ear.
He sighs. “It’s fine, Ki.”
“We don’t got enough money to make rent every month as is. In two weeks when we out on our asses, pretty sure it ain’t gonna be just fine.” I slip my hands back into my pockets so he doesn’t see the mess I’ve made of them, picking at them while his words stampede. “I’m out looking for jobs before you wake up every morning and all you ever do is hang out with Cole and Tony and pretend like it’s getting you somewhere. You ain’t even acting like my brother no more.”
“Oh, we back on this shit.” His eyes glaze over, stuck in the same place on the wall.
“Marcus, please.” I don’t want to beg him, not while Tony and Cole are on the other side of the glass, snickering and sipping on their beers.