Imagine my surprise when the Two Pack rapping guy said that, yes. I could participate in the white elephant gift exchange.
“Most of them voted against it,” said Two Pack. “But I’m the lead rapping guy and I said yes.”
“Well, thanks,” I said. “That’s super nice of you.”
Up until that moment, the event had been limited to rapping guys, backup rapping guys, hoes, and that one guy who dials a phone at the beginning of some of the rapping songs.
On the big day, Two Pack tore into my gift and didn’t say anything. He didn’t even touch it; just sort of balanced it on his thighs and stared at it, with his arms hanging limp to the sides.
“That’s a big book!” shouted one of the rapping guys.
The Two Pack rapping guy was silent. He didn’t even look at me.
“It’s a thesaurus,” I said nervously. “You know. In case you’re working on a rapping song and you get stuck on something.”
Nobody said a word. Even the hoes were silent, which was rare. The Two Pack rapper put the gift under his seat and then gestured to the rapping guy sitting in the chair next to him.
“Go,” said Two Pack.
The young rapping guy opened his gift and held it up proudly. Even though it was another gun, the fourth that night, it drew strong praise from everyone in the circle.
I watched them from the rooftop that night. They were walking to the parking lot with their gifts. Suddenly, the Two Pack rapper lifted the thesaurus and began thumbing through it in silly, theatrical motions.
I was too far away to make out what they were saying, but I could tell from smiles and light shaking of the surrounding rapping guys that they were laughing.
“Oh, no! He’s doing me!” I thought. “Two Pack is imitating ME!”
To witness an interaction from that kind of distance is to submit to something that stretches itself along the distance between light and sound. And though the sensory experience is still that of seeing sights and hearing sounds, taste might be a more accurate way to describe what transpired in that moment. Taste. The shock of the awakened sense. The flavor of something, changing, taking shape. The aftertaste.
I watched them laugh. They shook gleefully, bent back and doubled over, but it wasn’t until they were already starting to climb into their cars that the sound of their laughter reached the rooftop; a cruel confirmation that I’d blown it.
THE END.
