Gotham (13 page)

Na
ti's breath lurches. He steadies himself and nods. In this second he is not remotely nasty. He is a lost boy.

‘Let's put it in one them big bags,' he says, ‘with clothes all around.' He clears his throat, focuses on something in the air between us, then looks at me. His eyes are still shiny but he puts on a smile. ‘You showin' Australia all that?'

‘It'll cut out before the bag's involved.'

‘Cool. You showin' the rest?' The smile reshapes itself. It's cockier, dirtier.

‘We might drop a little pixilation here and there, I suspect.'

I restart the camera and he settles himself in his seat and nods.

‘Your branding's all very vaginal.'

He laughs. ‘Catch the salmon while it's running.'

He looks to Smokey for affirmation or a high-five, but Smokey has one hand deep in the Big Brown Bag, with the other holding the purse clear until he's made a nest for it.

Na
ti frowns. ‘I'm all about family now.'

It comes out sounding like a line he's read somewhere, one of those things famous people say, the lie of a broken politician or CEO who has lost the confidence of the board. In this second though, I think he means it. In the interview, it's a car-crash non sequitur, but for him it was the next direct unfiltered thought. I don't know what family he has other than his second-and-a-half cousin, who can probably thank Na
ti for the great suit and the gold on his teeth, but who tends to the bags and takes what he's given.

‘So, what do you want from this? From the life you're leading now? Apart from more photos like the one on your phone.'

‘I wanted them cargoes.'

It's another piece of a thought. He is full of drugs and sex, and sad notions are surfacing out of the black water.

‘You wanted some other things more,' Smokey says, in a tone that's almost gentle. ‘And you got
them. Anyways, Alexander Wang gonna be making pants a while.'

‘That was shitty, maxing out the card in Bloomingdale's.' He's talking to Smokey, but I'm still shooting. ‘It wasn't supposed to be like that, not there.' He looks at the camera and holds up his hand so that his palm fills the screen. ‘You cut that. You cut that, okay?' I instinctively move the camera and his hand follows. ‘I'm gonna answer that question again. You ask it again and I'll answer.'

‘Sure. We'll keep rolling and I'll cut it later.'

I will. He'd look as mad as a snake on a hot road with all those scatty ideas one after another—salmon, family, pants, credit cards. I could run it as is with a clock in the corner and no one would believe it.

Take two. ‘So, what do you want from this?'

‘What do I want from this? Drake's got a waterfall.'

It's a rapper's answer, bring in another rapper to benchmark yourself. It's the start of some bullshit, but the correct kind of bullshit for the territory. His eyes flick towards the camera and then back to me.

‘And stables. He's got a waterfall with two bitches on their knees. Statues. And a grotto. I want that shit.'

‘What about inner peace?'

It's the real unanswered question, though the chance won't arise to give it its due, not even over the final mouthfuls of the world's greatest beef Wellington, candlelight glinting from my recorder. Statues and a grotto. Inner peace might as well be tossed in now, sounding like a joke, to see what he makes of it.

He smiles a smile that he never intended, not a rapper's smile at all, no condescension in it. He gives a hur-hur-hur laugh, deeper than I thought it'd be. ‘Yeah, that too. Maybe not
this week. Inner peace ain't so good for the rhymes.'

‘So, stables. Have you got any horses?'

‘Do I got horses?' He looks straight at the camera. ‘Do I got horses, Australia? No. Drake got no horses neither. But he got stables, see. I want enough stables that I got me a mews.'

His head rocks as he laughs, and light flashes on his teeth. He holds up a fist and Smokey bumps it. It's perfect for the festival website, exactly the kind of soulless bragging and wordplay we look to rappers for.

‘LyDell, you got a little…' Smokey indicates the crusting around Na
ti's left nostril. It's catching the light like quartz.

Na
ti wipes his face and blood smears across the back of his hand.

‘Motherfucker.' He wipes again, streaking the blood across his cheek. He gives a big wet sniff and presses both hands on his face, finger-tips
meeting over his nose. He blinks, mouth-breathes. ‘How about a Kleenex, bitches?'

‘Pinch it,' I tell him, demonstrating on myself. ‘Just pinch it.'

Smokey fidgets in his seat, lifting his hand towards Na
ti's face, then pulling it back. Rakim passes a box of tissues from the front without turning around. Smokey pulls out a handful, prises Na
ti's tented fingers away from his nose and clamps the tissues in place.

‘Now pinch it,' he says. ‘You heard the man.' He takes another tissue from the box and wipes his hand before looking up at me. ‘We get final cut, yeah?'

A beef Wellington is waiting when we arrive at the restaurant, but the next is two minutes away, so Na
ti decides to take that and give me
the older one. The place is empty, the kitchen closed but for Na
ti's production line. There is no suggestion that I be given a menu. A great beef Wellington that has spent a few minutes under a hot lamp is still, by my reckoning, likely to be a great beef Wellington. And it's deep into the night, not near a meal time for me anyway.