The World Doesn't Require You Read online

  As always, he was right. I nodded. I had no more time to waste on self-loathing, or on arguments. We could deal with the nonsense between the Deity and the Kid after our trials. The battle over our name would come up again and I was sure I’d prevail, but I’d have to prevail some other time. I strummed my guitar and scatted a bit to get into tune. At that moment I was a fool; I thought all this practice, all this music, all this land really mattered. The drummer drummed, his rhythm precise. The singing chick screamed, making stupid-looking pained faces along the way. The keyboard coon hit sour notes more foul than the pigs rooting in their own shit. Together, we were the Whore-uh, good-intentioned noise with the ambition, though no ability, to become real music.

  Then there was the matter of slapboxing. My faith in the art had been shaken over and over. And now I wasn’t sure if all the breathing, the training dummies, the sparring, the movement, the forms, were worth a damn. It did nothing to stem the tide of my rage. The singing chick was said to be among the most advanced students, but even she couldn’t control her anger toward me. All that Be not boastful and speak only wise words bullshit. We weren’t training to compete professionally or even for self-defense, just for exercise and clarity of mind; so that when we fell into deep concentration, we didn’t also fall into deep sleep. Forms XI–XXXVI were outside the bounds of any training we could receive at the Temple. If we wanted to study further we had to visit one of the other Ruins, and a few of us did, not many. I heard the Kid was among those training at a Ruins just down the road. In all my time I had only gotten to Form III; to think that not only the singing chick, but also the Kid, had surpassed me created in me a fury that even months of training couldn’t save me from. It was all bullshit, though, everything. I had long surpassed Form III, even if the masters refused to promote me. I could never fathom the jealousy involved with the decision to hold back my advancement, but I didn’t dwell on it. I was here for music, not slapboxing. However, the reluctance of the masters to recognize my abilities shook my faith in them and in the arts. But also, I can’t forget the first time my faith had been so shaken.

  Master LeRoi Stone’s School of the Slapsmithing Arts was located at a Ruins house not too far from the Temple and you should have heard his students grunting and chanting through forms training in the morning. It echoed through the Cross Riverian air at dawn to mingle with our music. All those slapsmiths dreaming of becoming another Stone LeRoi—that was the name he went by when he won the World Brawl four years running. Master LeRoi’s students were prideful and loudmouthed, some of them drunkards. They went into Port Yooga repeating their master’s platitudes. Slapsmithing is the highest form of hand-to-hand combat and can best any boxing, wing chun, mixed martial arts, you name it. At times they would start brawls at the bars, and generally disrupt the Port Yooga nightlife.

  Bobby “Stonefists” Duggins, a mixed martial arts fighter from Port Yooga, was similarly arrogant, also a drunkard. Tell your master to come see me, he told Master LeRoi’s students. Tell him to try fighting me and we’ll see if your slapboxing is superior.

  Much to the dismay of his students, Master LeRoi ignored Duggins’s challenges. One day, tired of all the shit Master LeRoi’s students talked, Stonefists made his way to Slapsmithing Arts. It wasn’t just that he appeared on the school’s doorstep with an air of disrespect. He punched his way in, knocking a few students to the floor. I will keep knocking your students out until you face me, Master Coward!

  Master LeRoi appeared at the top of the stairs and stepped calmly. You could only see his rage if you looked at his brow, the flames in his eyes.

  You’re rude and ill-tempered, Master LeRoi said. I’ll be happy to give you a lesson in decorum if you come back this time next week.

  News of the match spread throughout the Ruins and even beyond. It was billed as Stone vs. Stone. We packed ourselves in. I couldn’t believe the amount of people who came to see Duggins’s shaming and demolition.

  Standing in the center of the ring before the fight, Master LeRoi went in for a dap, as was the slapsmith tradition. But instead of a five and half hug, Stonefists gripped Master LeRoi’s hand and shook it like a businessman. The confusion in Master LeRoi’s eyes. It was that damn handshake that did it, we said later. A real live coon-fu master, Stonefists shouted. His people cheered with joy. We cheered his eventual destruction. The fight was scheduled for twelve rounds of three minutes each. Stonefists needed only twenty seconds. Master LeRoi raised his palms, preparing to slap, and Stonefists hooked him with a fist to the jaw that sent him stumbling. As Master LeRoi wobbled backward, he tried to counter, though his air slaps made him look like an undisciplined child. Stonefists leaned in with a barrage of confident precise blows to the body and lastly the chin. When Master LeRoi fell upon his back, Stonefists mounted him and continued raining punches.

  Such a sad and pathetic figure, this Master. Some called for the ref to step in and pull Stonefists off of him. Naw, let his hands swing! I screamed. Master LeRoi had been a fraud all this time. It was early in my tenure at the Temple and it was either there or sleeping on the streets. I wondered, though: if Master LeRoi is a fraud, then his school must be fraudulent and perhaps Duggins is right and slapsmithing is fraudulent, and Master Teacher Deity relies on slapsmithing to clear his head to make music so perhaps he’s a fraud and his music is fraudulent and the Temple is fraudulent too. To pursue those thoughts would perhaps mean I would have to leave my new home and my new mission for the uncertainty of a Cross Riverian sidewalk, so I steeled myself and dove into my studies.

  Those thoughts had returned near my trials. More specifically they returned with the Kid’s arrival. Sometimes I would see Master LeRoi’s battered face flashing through my mind. I’d then imagine the Kid’s face suffering beneath my palm.

  After that day, Master LeRoi’s school emptied of students and Master LeRoi himself walked off into the Wildlands, never to be seen again.

  I also held that image of the Kid: his back to us—me, the Whore-uh, his cat, the livestock, Master and Mistress Deity, all the masters, all the students—as we watch him walk forever off into the Wildlands.

  Perhaps I spent so much time daydreaming in the weeks before the trials that I became unfamiliar with reality. Bickering occupied the space in our lives we usually reserved for sleeping and eating. My eyes felt full, on the verge of bursting. Somehow all our practice had only served to make us sound like the clanging of hundreds of metal garbage cans accompanied by a chorus of screeching cats. It would take the entire force of my abilities to pull us together.

  On the day of our trials I spent the morning meditating and listening to my breaths. The Deity’s wife said that’s how Phoenix Starr used to spend the mornings of his shows, but I had started to think that was all a lie like everything else I had been made to believe. He probably spent those mornings drunk or something.

  I caught the singing chick drinking a beer and we argued out of habit. Told her she wouldn’t ruin my chances by flopping around like a drunken bird. She mumbled something about Janis Joplin, but I ignored her. In truth, I cared nothing about the beer. I closed my eyes and went back to meditating.

  When she wouldn’t stop with her noise, noise, noise—all that noise—I walked all around the farm watching the chickens, the goats, and the dogs. As I entered the open field where the cows grazed, I realized just exactly how wound up I was thinking about the trials. I was so eager to hear someone tell me I had talent. My mind shifted into chaos, into ruins, the thoughts coming in so quickly. Now I thought about Mistress Deity in the sun, her dress drenched in sweat, slithering on the ground to our music; not that that was something she’d ever do, but what is man without his fantasies? I approached the woods where no one could see me. I looked left and right to make sure I stood alone among all that nature before I gripped myself. The open air passed against my exposed skin, raising goose pimples along my flesh. After a few moments, the hot liquid shot out of me and I felt my nerves tingling all at the same time. A gia
nt tree would one day grow where I seeded the earth. As I zipped my pants I saw Osiris a few feet away. His eyes—both the milky and the golden one—widened in disgust.

  Hey there, little guy, I said walking toward him. He trotted away. I followed as if I needed to catch and silence him. After all, it seemed he and the Kid had mastered the art of interspecies communication. And as I chased, I imagined grabbing the cat and twisting his head, snapping his little neck. He reached a shed-like place on the far edge of the grounds where the farm bordered the Wildlands, a broken-down thing I always ignored when I took these walks. The Kid stood outside smoking a cigarette. Hair had started growing back on his face and on his head. I realized then that I hadn’t seen him in some time.

  He called my name and waved.

  Hey, I replied.

  What you doing all the way out here where the exiles dwell?

  Got my trials tonight. Needed to wander to calm down.

  Good luck, man. I passed a couple trials already. Master Long-Headley told me I’m making great progress, better than she’s ever seen. Feel like I can run across water, I’m moving so fast. Feel like I’m Phoenix Starr. They even told me I scatted like Phoenix Starr. Well, they kind of told me that. Not really. What’s the name of your band again?

  The Whore-uh.

  Funny name.

  Man, it’s not funny. It’s got bite and edge.

  Hey, if it works for you, man.

  Passed a couple trials, huh? You just got here.

  Yep.

  That’s what it’s all about, Kid, I said. Getting that work done so people’ll know you. When I was little, I said I’d either be an artist or a serial killer. Either they’re gon’ feel my love or feel my pain. One way or another they gon’ know me.

  It’s not about that at all, chief, the Kid said. Master Deity said everyone’s inconsequential eventually. All the great masters die someday. Look at Phoenix Starr. He’s gone. Only his music exists. He’s become music.

  A whistle squealed from inside. Tea? he said, and I followed him over the threshold. A mattress sat in a corner. That and little else. A radio. Some books.

  I’m sorry anybody got hurt with that fire over by the rice farm, he said, pouring hot water over tea bags into two white porcelain mugs. Real sorry. I just hope we can avoid anything like that over here.

  I heard someone died.

  Yeah. He paused for a long while. Master Teacher Deity talked with me about it for a long time. People at these Ruins farms are so darn stubborn. We haven’t made any headway with forming any alliances. It’s gonna happen again, and—

  You on the delegation committees? I asked, as if I didn’t already know. Which ones?

  Both.

  How’d you swing that?

  He stopped talking and tilted his ear as if he heard a sound. The Kid stared out the window for a bit.

  You wouldn’t believe the tricks your mind can play out here sometimes, he continued. Isolation, man. Sometimes I think about the dude lying there bleeding out on that rice farm. My teachers helped me to understand it all. Working on a song about it now. Give that dude some life back as best I can. The master teachers taught me so much about the art, but about life too.

  Ever think that the master teachers are wrong a lot of the time? Like, you ever wonder if them niggas are getting old?

  I’ll put it this way, Slim. One day the people out there are going to come and get us. The Deity wants to run from Ruin to Ruin. We can’t be running forever. I don’t want to hurt the Temple. It’s given me so much. But it’s gonna be gone, Slim. It’s prophesied. A long time from now Cross River’s gonna be gone too. I feel it crumbling even now. And I’m gonna be gone and I want people to understand what was in the soul of the earth beneath this little piece of planet. What made the folks walk around like they do. Sometimes I think I can save Cross River, man. Save the damn Temple from itself. I’m not making any sense. It’ll make all the sense out in the world someday, I think. I don’t have enough time, though. The master teachers do what they can. They’re only human, though, Slim.

  Osiris ran by, batting about a crumpled piece of paper.

  I looked at my watch; it was six minutes until the trials. I didn’t imagine that time could slip so quickly. It would take me more than fifteen minutes to get over to the performance space and there was the matter of setting up. There would be no time for a sound check. I felt the whole world twirling from me. I told him I had to go and he dapped me up.

  Yeah, chief, I’m sorry I can’t come to your trial, he said. Real sorry, man. This song is calling. You understand, right?

  The Kid turned from me and began scatting softly. I watched him and then I began to run.

  The singing chick was pacing when I got to the back of that converted barn. The whole band raged at me, their voices grating against my nerves. Even my friend the drummer grilled me. I went first for my guitar. My instincts should have told me to first calm the band, reassure them that no matter what we’d rock the fucking place. I peeked at the audience. Most of the students and all of the masters had come to see us perform. The children were out, squirming with impatience. The masters sat at a table away from everything, perfectly perched to deliver their judgment. When they arranged themselves like that we called them the Pharaohs for their authority and regality. I hadn’t quite understood yet at this point that I’d never achieve such nobility, not in this life. Now they bent their brows in annoyance as they chatted and made faces of disbelief; no doubt it was my tardiness that irritated them, even though Master Deity always wandered in late.

  Look, the singing chick screeched to me. You got to take the drum solo out of the first song and let me—

  You’re naïve, the drummer replied. You’re never going to really sound soulful until you grow the fuck up.

  The singing chick shouted at the drummer and I could hardly tell her singing voice from her shouting one. I got tired of looking at her ugly frown. The drummer let his long arms hang at his sides, bracing to slapbox with her. She walked toward him, ready to slap blows onto his left eye. For a moment I hoped he would slam his fist into her face, just as hard as he’d hit a man. Just one good punch. She had mastered more forms than the drummer, but with his fists, with a punch he could become Stonefists battering Stone LeRoi all over again. Stonedrums vs. Stoneface. I looked at my watch. The restlessness of the waiting crowd; I imagined they’d already turned against us.

  Can we play now? I asked, but it wasn’t loud enough and everyone kept bickering until the Deity’s wife came outside.

  You guys look and sound ridiculous, she said. Get it together. You need to take the stage now or Dave will have you forfeit your trials. You could be expelled. I hate to see people fucking up their goddamn trials.

  When we finally got to the stage, Mistress Deity introduced us as the Whore-uh as I had instructed her and the rest of the band groaned loudly like children.

  We started playing and quickly became one with the music. It was like I could see the notes when I closed my eyes. I tasted them. They tasted like chocolate. We played like we loved one another.

  I scatted as if I were Starr. I felt the flames rise beneath me. I was Starr coming back from the ashes. Then I was past Starr. I was what he had promised to be. We played two, three, five songs, until Master Deity stood and held his right hand aloft, ordering us to stop.

  He stuck out his bottom lip and flashed a frowning face, deep with the craggy contours of a weathered valley.

  Slim, you lead this, um . . . so-called band, right? I nodded. It doesn’t appear as if you’ve learned much in your time here. Why didn’t you let the girl sing more?

  I didn’t respond, but I felt my face sinking.

  Everything was too fancy, he continued. None of y’all just played, you all had to do some trick to go with it. Scatting should be you talking to the river, the universe, the stars; you, Slim, sounded like you were talking to a bowel movement. It all sounded like . . . like noise. I’m sorry. I can’t promote any of you.
Y’all need more work.

  It went on like that for what seemed like an hour or two, each master teacher standing and tossing in an insult, offended that this was what we had done with their teachings. After it was all over and I looked at my watch, hardly any time had passed. I didn’t bother to hang around to talk it over with the band. I had no interest in what they had to say. There would be no more Whore-uh. I realized it the moment I stepped from the stage. Eventually, I knew they would stray, take up with other students. Find some other sap to build the Roda around. These people were backstabbers that way. Even the drummer. Someone told me later that the Kid had started scatting with them. I never saw it, but I wanted to stab him.

  In the nights after the trials, I sat out front for hours watching the stars. I wondered if they knew music and could appreciate mine in a way that the great Master Dave the Deity could not. Dave’s wife came out and sat next to me after I had been there for a while on one of these nights following the trials. She sat close like we were lovers or at least good friends.

  Tough luck, huh?

  It sucks, I replied. We worked hard on that.

  Yeah, it’s possible to work hard and still come up short. Don’t worry. I’ve seen worse than that. Much worse. I’ve seen people get expelled on the spot.

  I wish he had done that to me.

  Told you to let the girl sing more. You guys just need a little more work. That’s all.

  Fuck them, I said. Fuck music.

  Mistress Deity shook her head and took a large orange from the pocket of her dress. Don’t be like that, she said. She removed the thick skin from the meat of the fruit and handed it to me in segments. She pulled out another, peeled it, and softly placed the pieces on her tongue.

  You have the wrong perspective on this, she said. What you’re doing is too important to rush. Take your time, young man.