Psalm 22

Chapter 4

I WASN’T PRODUCTIVE with work and decided against visiting Kurt’s dog but I missed the old snuggle buddy. I grabbed my keys and went to his house. Knocked twice and didn’t wait that long before Kurt opened the door for me. 

“You look like s**t,” I greeted as I looked for the dog. 

I took him for a long walk. We would stop by to take quick breaks, give him water, play with him, pick up his poop and throw it. As we were taking the corner street a commotion can be heard from afar. I quickly picked up my pace and started running. 

“Call the police! Call for help!” was the first thing I heard from the scene. It wasn’t clear what was happening but I took out my phone, ready to make the call. The dog started barking and it made me snap out of a trance. People were running, trying to get a closer look, pushing me and the dog in the process. 

I needed to know what was happening. I lifted the dog and carried it around. “Excuse me, excuse me.” 

I tried to get through the crowd. The body is still on the road and they say help’s on the way. I don’t have a single clue about what’s happening. All I know is that there is an unconscious and bleeding body in the middle of the road and we are all standing here unable to help. I stood there soaking everything and managed to make a call even if I feel like the world is spinning. The person on the other line told me they’ve already dispatched EMTs. 

I called Kurt and told him what was happening in the neighborhood. “And the dog?” he inquired. 

“Oh, he’s safe and he’s with me,” I answered.

  “Please bring him home, and please be safe,” he said.

“Okay, sure.” 

I hurriedly got back to his house and the television was on. He was watching another news and his face was painted grimly. 

“What’s happening?” I asked as I tried to catch what the news anchor was saying. The dog freely jumps to his hooman. 

“They set the building on fire believing the residents and people working there are people of color. They are not wrong. But is it wrong to be a person of color?” said Kurt.

I weakly sat on the sofa. “The guy on the street was a person of color, too.” 

“Motherfucker,” he muttered.

“I’m gonna get back to work,” I told him that and stood up. I was by the door when he asked me this, “How are you gonna work knowing what’s happening right now?”

“What I believe I do best, Kurt. I’ll fu/cking bleed on my laptop.”

***

“HOW ARE YOU?” asked Leynard on the other side of the phone. His Kendra Leynard personality is off work. Leynard, his close friends call him that, called me just as I stepped inside the house. He's very gay, but also ripped. “What are you doing today?” he asked.

“About to do work now. I walked Kurt’s dog outside a while ago. I wasn’t really working today, couldn’t get any creative juices flowing. What’s up?” 

“Do you have anything to promote? I wanna do another episode with you,” he said.

“That’s kind of you. I might do that after I finish writing whatever it is I'm about to write,” I informed him. I would really love to film another episode with him if I do this story right. “Anyway, how are you?” 

“Oh, just watching the news and it reminded me of you.”

“Yeah? You wanna go down that road again with me? Be publicly ostracized?” I teased. 

Leynard snorted. “I gained views, though, it’s perfect. And you know, we might as well go down together and we should put on a show. If ever you want to promote something, hit me up,” he said before he ended the call. 

When I got to my workspace, I checked my emails and groaned in frustration as I read one of the many messages I got from my editor. I work at my own pace and sometimes I forget I have bills to pay. No work, no pay. 

I try hard to write romance novels with happy endings. I create fu/cked up characters just so I could have a development in the story. I slap a few sappy lines and romantic over-the-top actions and the world is alright again. 

I try to ease on the heavy topics I integrate bit by bit in my stories. I was once told it’s hard to love the feminist character in my book and I thought that’s why we need feminism. My aim is to create a following so for now I give what they are begging to find and ogle at. I’m not gonna stop writing the truth just because I got sacked in my old job. So what. I can still write. They didn’t cut my fingers off. I mean, unless they do that…

Anyway, I don’t want to do this half-assed so while writing romance novels and if at the same time I’d thought of another topic the government is trying to hide, for example, or they want us silenced about a certain issue, I’d definitely write my thoughts down and links for citation. 

So that one day when I get into it it’s all there. If I build enough of a fanbase that is strong as Captain America’s ass, and my editor has enough confidence in me, then maybe I’d start doing my own thing and ease into it. 

I write under a different name so that they can’t link me back to 1993: For The People. Unless I out my face and say ‘hey, it’s ya girl, remember me?’. I am one of the many artists but people don’t easily forget. 

After what seems to be a trippy long hours of encounter with my laptop and after all that incessant bleeding and blowing my brains out, I waited outside a coffee shop. 

I’m meeting Pindet and he said he’s running late. Of course I’m always early, cue eyes rolling. Blame it to my parents for teaching me to always go on time and believe that time is of importance. Pindet is one of the few people who stayed in touch with me, along with Kurt and Leynard. They talk from time to time and sometimes we go out together. 

He said he wanted to meet me to sample some tracks, as if I’m an expert on that field but he countered that I am a fan and I said, ‘yeah, but not EDM.’ He assured me it won’t be electronic dance music.

“I wanna get this to CJ,” was the first thing he said when we got inside the coffee shop. The band hasn’t been touring but they are not on a hiatus. I heard they still send samples from one another and try to create something out of it. They have a different following now. The shift was big, but still a lot of people remained as fans, old and new, and supported their cause.

“Okay. If you want to, I can get you their handler,” I said.

“It’s not that. I need to get the support of the people in my closest circle.” 

I arched my eyebrow. “You want a hype group? You wanna get hyped? Hell, yeah, I’ll do it for you.”

“I don’t need to know if it’s good. I want to hear that you believe in it. That it’s evoking something. I want to go back to creating. I haven’t been collaborating with people for quite some time now.”

“Whatever you need, Det, I gotcha,” I promised.

“You’re the best, Francess.”

“What have you been working on?”

“Let me get us drinks first.” 

We continued the conversation when he came back.

“I have the stem files and I looked at the rough list of the album. I played around it for a bit and, well, one song made the final cut. I didn’t like the rest. I just wanna take inspiration from Underneath’s 1993 and I’m hoping more people will join me later in this project.”

“Word travels faster than ambulances anyway so there’s hope for you.” I grinned.

“Pardon? Ambulance? What does that—”

“It’s all over the news. They’re targeting people of color now.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Since when did they not?”

“Fair enough. When can I hear the song?”

“Right now. Let’s go?”

We stood up and grabbed our drinks.