Kevin Coval

call and (tepid) response

in my mother’s kitchen over a bowl of frosted flakes
it clicked. something i’d been contemplating for weeks.
i called Marc Cohen immediately and told him
he should run for class president.
i would be his campaign manager
and introduce him to the eight-grade student body
by kicking a rhyme.

it was 1988, rap had yet to hit the shopping mall.
Marc was skeptical, but every night of the campaign week
i worked on writing and more importantly how my mouth looked
in the mirror when words came out.

by thrusdsay night i was a minute and fifteen seconds
of mostly Grandmaster Melle Mel mimic at the end
of Beat Street, his eponymous elegy for Ramon (rough!)

but in the early hours of that friday morning
when birds kicked a symphony in the trees near
my window in the sub-division of Pheasant Creek,
i thought the end needed something more, something
to move the crowd of thirteen and fourteen year old
North Shore, majority Jewish assimilated, upper income kids
who liked wham and def lepard. i dug into my growing crates
of memorized bits and ah-ha-ed when the b-side of The Fresh Prince
and DJ Jazzy Jeff’s, He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, tape popped
into my head like a toaster pastry.

the morning was pre-AIDS Magic
showtime in the all-purpose room
a cafeteria with a stage, hundreds
of chairs facing the podium. giggles
and whispers whipped the air like crickets
until Mr. Feely, the industrial arts teacher
and 8th grade class advisor unfortunately
named considering the rumors about his wood
shop after school, introduced the candidates.

each contender was set to address the polity.
Marc was in the middle, like Monie Love,
but before he took the mic, i entered stage left
commanded the crowd clap their hands to a beat
which didn’t exist, but all the emcees started that way
and it’s true, white people are like a bootleg rolex
we can’t keep time, but i rode the jagged rhythm,
four-fifthed my way through the written verse
monosyllabic heroic couplets regaling the virtues
of Marc Cohen: the funny kid i’ve know since grade three
we wrestled at my house / he rolled in my dog’s pee
but we got older / got tough, got bolder / got to be Jr. High residents
make some noise for your next class president (ha!)

admittedly the crowd kept quite.

but you don’t stop the body rock
and i didn’t have enough good sense
to exit. i wanted to make Wood Oaks Jr. High
bounce to this, take all our mid-puberty
bon jovi loving energy and make the roof fire
or at least spark a bit, or kindle, a modest bbq
perhaps. i wanted the cafeteria transformed
into church, at least what i thought church
might feel like, a church in Wheaton maybe,
but still not bad for a room full of Jews.

undeterred i went into my appropriated call
and response: ladies all the ladies, all the ladies
in the house say Marc... say Marc... homeboys
make some noise let me hear you say Cohen...
say Marc Cohen... everybody, Marc Cohen rocks
the spot, let me hear it... say Marc Cohen rocks
the spot... a little louder Marc Cohen rocks
the spot... now scream... yeah, now scream...

and in reality a few friends perhaps
raised there voice over whisper, but
in my head i was baptized, a head,
ready and able to move the crowd.