"Hop off the phone, college
I know it's so important
I'm focused on fortunes, yeah, yeah
I'm scorchin', show her out to shortage
I rock Air Forces, don't force shit
Not burnt, I'm raised in the darkness, huh
Long hair-air-air, blow her-er-er
Juices and berries ain't no perk (uh-uh)
Ice cream, my sneaks look like Big Worm (come 'ere)
Get it big, get the facial, oh
Never let the bullshit faze ya, look
You're too big, you're too big, you're too big, big…"
Smino—"Rice & Gravy"
Erik found the radio station.
But he was too late.
Buttafly left a mere five minutes before he arrived. The scowl on his face frightened the station manager and Erik stomped out with twisted lips and a gray mood descending upon him as he headed back to the dorm with raindrops falling from the sky. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he tried to lose himself in the people scurrying to get out of the light rain while searching for new buildings. Many stared at map apps on phones and he felt less alone in orienting himself on the campus.
A few female students ogled him as he made his way back inside the main entrance of his building. One in particular caught his attention as her eyes made like elevators and dragged up and down his physique. Short and chunky with a cute smile, and gorgeous brown skin, she tossed back straightened hair that fell to her shoulders and curled under at the ends. Erik liked the way she walked twisting her hips as she moved among new students answering questions and pointing out directions. She must've been one of the student volunteer guides. Probably a junior, she waved at Erik and he pretended to be lost just to talk to her.
"Hi. Need some help?" she said.
Her upturned nose reminded him of a cute little doll.
"Chocolate City?" he said trying to add the sound of confusion to his voice.
She smirked and pointed to an elevator behind him.
"Take that elevator and you'll find it on the fourth floor."
"What if I get lost," he said moving close to her.
She was feeling him for sure. He was already imagining her legs up in the air on his little twin bed upstairs.
"I doubt that since I saw you taking your stuff up there earlier," she quipped playing with her hair.
He glanced down at her volunteer name tag.
"Busted, Alexis" he laughed, "I'm Erik."
"Nice to meet you, Erik."
She shook his hand and he held it a few seconds longer than necessary to let her know what's up.
"You stay in here too?" he asked.
"Yeah, Spanish House."
"Are you a fluent speaker?"
"Si, mi madre es de Colombia."
"Es genial ser bilingue."
"Hablas espanol muy bien. Cuanto tiempo llevas estudiandolo?"
"Learned from my mother. She was fluent and I grew up speaking it in Oakland."
"Is your mother Latina?"
"Nah. Good ole Black American hood girl. Geechie roots."
Erik glanced around.
"I'ma let you get back to helping people. You know where I stay so look me up if you ever get bored."
"What makes you think I get bored around here?"
"My bad. Look me up when you want to get into some thangs around here."
Her lips quirked and the twinkle in her eye told him she was down for whatever he wanted to do. A large crowd of students mingled in the space as Alexis pulled out her cell phone, and the business around him distracted Erik for a moment as he saw a few young Black men walk toward the elevator he needed to use. More dorm mates he assumed. Erik was about to whip his cell out to get Alexis' number when the sound of a woman's voice froze him.
It was her.
Erik glanced around trying to find the face that matched the voice. He knew Buttafly was Black, so that helped narrow the search in the sea of very few Black women. Lunging toward the direction her heard that melodious siren call, his eyes swept left and right. He honed in on a statuesque Black woman with dark brown skin that sat like satin on her face. Wild curls were pulled back from her face and she had the most piercing almond eyes he had ever seen in his life. Her full perfect cupid bow lips made him lick his own as he stared at her. Ma was stacked and packed inside a tight black long-sleeve sweater with criss-crossed lacing across the chest giving him a peek at big lush mounds that had his mouth watering. Her bottom half was encased in black jeans that hid none of the curves in her wide hips and made her big thighs look surreal. She arched an eyebrow at him while he tried to find the ability to breathe.
"Excuse me," she said.
"Huh?"
"You're blocking my way," she said annoyed.
The glint of a silver necklace around her neck caught his attention. A small crescent and star hung from it. Erik stared at her face again and tried to come up with a smooth line or something charming to say, but her voice obliterated his ability to think or do.
"Hey, Diša, we're over here!"
Three Black women waved at her and the dreamy vision before him stepped around him with a huff in her throat.
"Rude ass," she muttered.
"Are you Buttafly?" he blurted out after her.
"What?"
She placed a hand on her sexy hip and he was lost in her eyes again. Erik was so thrown off that he wanted to fade into the wall. Instead, he moved closer to her.
"Are you Buttafly? The radio DJ? I listen to you all the time."
Her eyes softened.
"Yeah, that's me."
"Disǎ!"
Her friends were impatient.
"Sorry to hold you up. I just wanted to say that I enjoy your work. You know music, even the obscure stuff…"
Her eyes started to glaze over. She was done with his ass in that loud room filled with noisy undergrads. He felt dopey and insignificant in her presence. In his dreams he was always suave when he met her. He imagined her swooning over him as he impressed her with his pedigree and intelligence, but that beautiful woman tolerated him like a fly buzzing over a picnic table.
"Thanks for listening to the show. I'm glad you enjoy it. I need to get to my people," she said pointing.
The tone she spoke with gave him chills. Her voice in person was incredible. The rich texture of it made him tingle. He wished she could whisper in his ear and talk to him about anything. She glanced at his mouth that was parted and then her eyes danced back up to his. For a moment, it seemed like she caught what he tried to throw her, but it vanished. Erik stepped back from her, and she swung her hips moving like a sensuous queen heading to her throne. His heart thumped in his chest and his throat was drier than the Sahara. Erik's hands sweated and he moved like a battery that lost all its juice.
"Fuck," he uttered with awe in his voice.
His dream girl, Buttafly…Diša…curved him like a motherfucker. The dismissal stunned him. He touched the light hairs on his face and ran a hand over his hair. Other women were jocking for his attention but that bad bitch told him to move out of her way. Perhaps it was because she was older. She looked unbothered by his advances, even as a fan. It wasn't arrogance, just pure confidence that she wasn't entertained by people wasting her time.
Erik gathered the rest of his shattered swag and made his way to the elevator. It was time to regroup and figure out a way to have a better meeting with Diša.
###
Diša Woods tugged on the cream-colored hijab she placed over her braided hair as she walked into the MIT campus prayer room. She made a commitment with her father to at least attend Jumu'ah prayers every week even if he didn't keep up with her other prayers during the week. The Religious Activities Center seemed quiet to her as she stepped in to tend to her spiritual health.
She unfurled her intricate red and yellow Persian silk prayer rug in a corner away from a few women and men who were already kneeling and awaiting the call to prayer. Closing her eyes, Diša thought of Allah for all of five minutes before her mind wandered to what she was going to play later that afternoon. Word had gotten to her that she would be one of the headliners at the Bliss Lounge's Cut Creator show in Washington D.C. Diša spent hours at her home practicing on her turntables trying to create the soundscape that would impress her hero, the dopest DJ on the East Coast, DJ Geechie Dan of the old school Danger Mouth Crew. She didn't care about impressing any other MC or turntablist, just gaining Geechie Dan's respect was her dream.
Bowing and allowing her prayers to ascend to heaven, she did her best to focus on being a good Muslim woman although she was a heathen at heart. Unlike her siblings, Diša had moved away from the mosque life. She gave up covering her hair all the time back in high school when her parents divorced. They had been pretty liberal in allowing their children to decide what faiths they wanted to follow since Daddy was once part of the Nation of Islam as a teen, but moved to more traditional Islam as an adult. Her mother was old school Baptist until she joined Agape International in Culver City and became more of a New Age spiritualist. Her parents met there and when Diša was born, she was raised to decide for herself what she wanted. The family went to Agape and the local Mosque, so she became a bit of a free spirit. Lately, she found herself gravitating toward Islam again. Her father battled throat cancer and sought comfort in his Quran, and Diša's going to the student Religious Activities Center made her feel closer to him from so far away every Friday. She knew that back in L.A. her father would go to his mosque if he felt well with her brother, and she did the same in Cambridge, three thousand miles away.
When prayers were finished, Diša shared a bit of small chat with fellow Muslims before she walked to the radio station to do her set. Sometimes she got stares from people. It was rare to see a Black Muslim woman on campus in a hijab. She kept it on all day Friday in honor of her father. At the Walker Memorial building that housed WMBR, she changed in the restroom into a red tracksuit and trainers. Once she was in the booth, she got right to it.
"Welcome to The Cosmic Café. I am your host, Buttafly. I have a lot of new music to share with you and some classics from around the diaspora. Sit back, relax, and let me take you our special place. Tonight's spoken word poem is by Najmah 53 and it's called 'Lineage'…"
Diša mixed poetry, Hip Hop, Deep House and EDM into her set and midway through she decided to do a live mix session with a few vinyl albums she had. She felt good, texted her father and brother, and looked forward to picking up samosas for dinner later. Feeling frisky with trivia she played a traditional Friday segment of "Guess that Groove" where she mixed in songs and had callers phone in guesses. She slipped in a coveted CD with songs she never uploaded because she wanted to hold onto the rarity of them. East African Club Music from her Dad's partying days. The phone lines lit up and she patched in a caller on the air.
"WMBR and you are speaking to Buttafly. Give me your guesses," she said with a playful tone.
She allowed a trippy instrumental to play as she waited for the caller to speak.
"Ozomatli's 'Cumbia de los Muertos'…Joi Gilliams 'Ghetto Superstar" feat. Big Gipp…Gilberto Gil's 'Quilombo o el Dorado Negro'…and Zelita K'tuna's 'Zana High Life Part 1'."
"Well, damn. You named everything correctly. Who am I speaking too?"
"Erik…Erik Stevens."
"Okay, Erik. You win my admiration and respect because that last tune is so rare that even the old heads I know can't get it right. But I'm curious, you said Zana High Life Part 1, this is the only song released on the Dolby compilation album. There isn't a Part 2—"
"Nah."
""scuse me?"
"Nah."
The finality of that voice made her curious.
"Do you know something I don't?" she chuckled ready to flex her music history chops.
"The Dolby compilation is the edited mix—"
"Edited mix, wait a minute—"
"I have the full version."
"Full version? This is the only version."
"The only version released outside of Wakanda."
"How do you know this?"
There was a long pause and Diša thought the man hung up.
"Caller?"
"I own the full original version."
She sat up in her seat.
Zana High Life was one of those deep underground rare grooves that music heads fought over. She paid over five hundred dollars for a CD burned copy of a copy. The song was over twenty years old and Diša lost her mind the first time she ever heard it.
"I can bring it to you. Right now if you want."
"Email it to me," she said.
She threw on some pre-set music and took the caller off air.
"Nah."
The voice on the end was gritty. Kind of smug.
"You could be lying," she said.
Muffled noises, and then she heard the sound of Zana High Life, and for fuck's sake, it wasn't the version she had.
"I'm here for another hour, can you make it?"
She couldn't hide the zeal of excitement in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm not far. I'm on campus."
"What's your name again?"
"Erik."
"Okay Erik, bring that music."
He hung up and Diša's brain thought all kinds of thoughts. If she could get her hands on an extended Zana High Life, her fucking set in D.C. would be…stellar.
Her eyes watched the studio clock tick away, and she had ants in her pants wanting to sneak out of the booth and see if that Erik guy showed up. She ended with a mellow mix of trance music and when she grabbed her bag of vinyl records to take home, she bounded out of the studio with eyes darting around.
Nobody.
Her shoulders slumped and she waved to the studio manager before leaving the building. She rounded a corner and a tall young man with very curly hair and diamond earrings in his ears stepped to her. He smiled and two bottom gold slugs shaped like cat's teeth gleamed back at her. She recognized him from somewhere.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
"I'm Erik. The caller."
"I've seen you somewhere before."
His dimples distracted her for a moment and he handed her a small USB chip. High end. With a…shit…a Stark Industries logo on it.
"I ran into you at my dorm building. The Meet and Greet gathering? I told you I was a fan?"
His eyes dusted over her hijab.
"I didn't know you were Muslim," he said.
"I don't always wear this."
"You look…stunning."
His eyes dropped from hers and he seemed shy all of a sudden. It was actually adorable. He was like a big clumsy kitten.
"Thank you."
She pulled her new notepad out and pushed in the USB chip.
"That won't let you copy it. I just put the song on there, along with some other Zelita music."
"How were you able to get this?" she said listening to the extended Zana High Life.
He hesitated to answer, but then he relaxed after some mental decisions from what she could see.
"I'm half Wakandan. My Dad brought this music from his country."
"Wow, this is…ah man…this made my whole day Erik…it's Erik, right?"
"Yeah."
His smile grew bigger when she said his name.
She stood and listened to the whole song and her mouth fell open with the next song. Zelita K'tuna was a band whose music sounded futuristic even after twenty plus years. This stranger handed her a prize greater than she could imagine for a die-hard music stan.
Her cell buzzed. She checked it.
Hollis. Her ex husband.
Diša let out a tired sigh. She forgot he was coming by her house to hand over the paperwork that gave her full ownership of the house they once shared. So much for fucking her professor and marrying him on the fly when the sex was good. It was thankfully over and they were leading separate lives for two years. Kept it all quiet and private so MIT wouldn't get a whiff of it. Hollis was waiting for her and she wasn't ready to see him. He could sit in her living room and wait.
"You want to grab a coffee, Erik?"
She turned off the music and pocketed the USB chip.
Shiny dark brown eyes drank her in. She was only a couple of inches shorter than him and even though he had a young face, his eyes were so much older looking. He glanced at a watch and she saw a crease grow across his forehead.
"If you have to be somewhere else…"
"Nah, I just…there's this girl I'm meeting to study with—"
"Another time then. Thanks for the music—"
"Wait, I can go have coffee. I'll text her and tell her to meet me later."
"It's okay, we can do a raincheck."
"I want to be with you."
Diša whipped her head around.
"I mean…, I want to spend this time with you. I can tell you about the music."
"I'd like to hear about it, and show my appreciation for you bringing it to me."
Erik picked up her DJ bag filled with her vinyl she brought for her radio show.
"There's a little spot not too far from here," she said.
He followed her to the coffee shop and he was quiet the whole way making it weird for her. As they stood in line, she asked him what he wanted and he requested a double espresso. She bought him a muffin to go with it and they grabbed a table near the window.
She was about to ask him about Wakanda when his eyes grew big staring out of the window. A man with an expensive suit and expensive shades walked past, stopped, and walked back to the window pointing to Erik.
"You know him?" she asked sipping her latte.
Erik covered his face with his hands as the man from outside came inside whipping off his shades. Diša nearly choked on her drink when she saw his face.
"They told me you were headed this way. Lucky I caught you!" the man said with a loud theatrical way about himself.
"Hey, Tony," Erik said as he shook his head like he was ashamed to be seen with him.
The thick dark waves of hair and the cultivated goatee accentuated a face that was never denied anything. He turned to Diša and held out his hand.
"Hello, there, beautiful, I'm Tony Stark. Ah…Stevens. You never fail to find gorgeous women to hook up with wherever you go. You think Princess Vivienne would be upset to see you with this beauty? You two still seeing each other?"
Diša watched Erik drop his head on the table.
"Mind if I join you?" Tony Stark asked.
"Be my guest," she said.
Erik's whole mood shifted, and right before her eyes, that fluffy kitten turned into a sharp sophisticated cat. And Tony Stark spoke to him like a pal.
Who the fuck was this kid?
