Jackpot. Chapter 7
In the alley behind the coffeeshop, José crouches beneath the steel lid of a half-empty trash can. He wishes he’d emptied the trash into the dumpster before climbing in, but like the patient turtle, he cannot emerge from his shell until the danger has passed. The back door opens and out comes Pete and the MC. Pete pops a cigarillo in his mouth and the MC lights it with both hands. José’s throat itches and he swallows every drop of spit he can muster.
“I saw a girl eating popcorn,” says Pete.
The MC turns pale. “No, I’m sure she was just––”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
The MC crushes some gravel under his shoe. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant I’ll go investigate.”
“You won’t just investigate, you’ll deal with her. My nerves are fried enough as it is.”
“Alright, Pete.” The MC disappears back inside.
Pete takes a deep satisfied drag and cackles as he exhales. “It’s good to be on top, baby. You’re gonna kill it up there, Pete. And besides, Argile can’t live forever.” He grows quiet and thinks of all the things he’ll say to the old man on the day their paths finally cross. But for each jagged stab of his wit, Argile has a kind and perfect response that deflects Pete’s insults right back at him. In his heart, Pete knows Argile has no pride to defend, and that his anger is directed at a phantom. But this only makes him angrier, and he wishes there were a popcorn stand nearby so he could flip it over and stomp it all into smithereens. He throws his cigarillo on the ground just as the MC returns.
“The popcorn’s gone.”
“Good.” Pete storms back inside.
When the door clicks shut, the MC gives José the signal. He climbs out and kicks the trash off his legs.
“Do you think anyone will notice the stains?”
The MC laughs. “Besides me, you’re still the best-dressed hombre on the block.”
José doesn’t buy it, but knows his words are what will matter most.
“Here. Put these on.” The MC hands him a classic nose-moustache-glasses disguise. José puts it on and it’s perfect. There’s no way anyone will recognize him before the critical moment. The MC opens the door.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Does this place have an upright bass?”
The MC rolls his eyes. “José, it’s a coffeeshop. Of course it does.”
“Can you play it?”
“What does it matter?”
José grabs him by the shoulders. “This’ll only work if you’re on bass––and not only do I know you can play, I know you’re good.” He pulls out a record of some of his favorite poets reading their work, backed by The Friends of Poets Backing Band, a legendary group who, at the apex of their careers, disappeared without a trace––until now. For on the cover of the record, the MC himself is on bass, lost in a trance as Banks Nwokeji reads his famous poem, “Faxing Documents and Acquiring Credit Cards: The Modern Road to Success.”
The MC shakes his head. “I haven’t played in years, not since––”
“Not since Pete told you to stop?”
The MC stares at his shoes.
“Yeah, I asked around. I heard what happened.” José shakes him. “Have some self respect, man! You’re John fucking Smith! Pete got booed that night because his poems were bad, not because of you!”
The MC sniffs. “I know. But Pete’ll never let me MC again if I play tonight!”
“Well I’ve got some good news for you, amigo. If we pull this off, you’ll never have to take orders from Pete ever again.”
The MC’s terrified, but he can’t hide from the truth––José’s right. Someone has to stand up to Pete, and if it isn’t them, then who? If not today, then when? Time slows to a crawl. A car whooshes down the empty street. The rattling air conditioner shifts into his awareness. The low hum of an airplane glues it all together and John Smith hears the music of the world once more.
“Alright. I’m in.”
John and José take the stage and murmurs leap from the crowd like salmon as folks see through José’s disguise and recognize him as the poet who crossed Pete. Everyone’s shocked he has the guts to come back after the thrashing they gave him, but even more shocking is he got John fucking Smith to come out of musical retirement to back him up. Fortunately John put José’s set in slot seventeen, the slot Pete always takes his bathroom break during, so no one feels pressured to start heckling. José steps up to the mic and John puts his fingers on the bass. The sound of a coin flipping echoes over the quiet crowd. It’s a calming sound that represents odds better than José possesses. John plays an F sharp, one of the most interesting notes of all, followed by a G flat, a tasteful continuation. José begins an epic poem, written in the impressively difficult terza rima form, about the son of the man who invented lip balm. John fills in the spaces between words like the soft, expected bounce of a tennis ball upon the court after it’s hit, and the audience soon realizes the poem is a metaphor for Massimiliano I’s rise and fall from power as the only emperor of Mexico. The lighting guy dims the lights to match the mood and gives José a thumbs up, and as this final element of the ideal poetic atmosphere falls into place, it dawns on the audience that behind José’s allusions to Massimiliano I lies a critique of another grand figure closer to home. The toilet flushes.
As he leaves the bathroom, Pete pretends to dry his hands off by wiping them on his pants. Stupid etiquette, if he didn’t get any piss or shit on himself then what’s the point of washing up? To provide cover for the slobs of the world? If so, the slobs have won, because he would die from embarrassment if anyone ever called him out on his hygiene.
But when no one even glances at his lavatorial emergence, Pete knows something’s amiss, and when he sees José on stage wearing a stupid disguise, his blood boils all the bathroom germs right off. The crowd is hypnotized like moths to a flame, like deer in the headlights, like mosquitos to a mosquito lamp, like fish to an anglerfish––Pete’s poetic mind races and stumbles and falls into clichés and isomorphic similes, clawing against the truth that the world that was beautiful and his has been fouled and desecrated beyond all hope of cleansing. Doesn’t José realize he’s destroying everything Pete’s worked for, dethroning him, relegating him to the status of a mere participant? A firmament opens and Pete sees himself cast into the dustbins of poetic history, a footnote in the monumental life of José Jones. Pete stumbles and clutches a wooden column, hugging it with both arms and sliding to a crouch. Such beauty! Such truth! He has to leave. Were he to stay, he could do nothing but debase himself, admit he was wrong, that José is the better poet, the better man. A shadow falls over him and he looks up past the well-shined shoes of the tall old man looming overhead, silhouetted in the dim light.
“You’ll never live up to my legacy, Pete. You never even got halfway. You’re done, boy. Finished!” says Argile.
“No!” Pete shouts. “I’m not done yet! The world hasn’t seen the last of Pete the Poet!” The people nearby shush him and he stands up on wobbly knees and bolts for the door. He hears Argile laugh and stretch taller behind him, smells the popcorn on his breath, jostles through the bobo dolls and out of the coffeeshop and runs down the dark street, menaced by a presence far more terrifying than a vegetable-toting mob.