The Meeting

Yelawolf and Eminem meet for the first time.

“So I get off stage right?

Drop the mic, walk up to these hot chicks and I’m all like

Sup ladies, my name’s Slim Shady

I’m the lead singer of D12 baby

And they’re like Oh my God it’s him

Becky oh my f*****g God it’s Eminem!

I swear to f*****g God dude, you f*****g rock

Please Marshall please let me suck your c**k”

-          “My Band”, D12

 

Marshall tries to tell himself that the kid isn’t that cute when he first meets him. He’s got some weird tattoos on his neck and the dumbest haircut this side of the United f****n’ States of America, but he’s gleaming. He wonders briefly to himself if they got the right guy.

“’Ey man!” the kid says as he extends his right hand, another weird tattoo on it �" a deer? �" with a smile as wide as Marshall’s driveway. So he shakes his hand which is boney and vaguely damp �" nervous �" but he doesn’t smile. If this cat was disappointed by the emotion, or lack-there-of, he didn’t show it.

“Hey,” Marshall says as the Big Bad Wolf’s gleam fades to black. He sees the shadows under his eyes as if he just got back from a nine-to-five job without the chance to sleep. The latter makes a bit more sense; his nervousness shows like vibrations from a Soni-care toothbrush.

WillPower and KP, people whom Marshall knew vaguely, were standing very close �" almost protective �" to Yela as if Marshall was a viper ready to attack. He guesses that it’s not that far from the truth. So, he gives them an upwards nod as if it’s a sign of, “It’s cool” and they part from Yela like the Red Sea. Marshall tries, but fails, to not act like Moses.

“Come on,” he says and the wolf turns into a lovesick puppy as he follows Moses into his studio. Marshall, for the first time, thinks that maybe this kid is (a little bit) cute. But, it isn’t like Marshall is going to force the kid to get down on his knees in order to get a co-sign. However, he can’t deny that the though crosses his mind. Once. Twice. Maybe three times.

“A’ight,” he says with a sigh. “Let’s get down to business.” Yela laughs. Marshall realizes a moment later why. With a chuckle he sits down in a plush seat, offers the other one across from him to Yela, all without looking at him. He was still shy; it wasn’t like they were friends yet.

“So when do I start?” Yela begins and Marshall almost shakes his head rapidly in shock like a Looney Tunes character. Instead his eyes go wide and he finally locks his gaze with Yela’s. He had to hand it to the kid, cocky and arrogant and he had just been signed to a major label a couple of months ago.

“Excuse me?” he was almost livid with anger that he didn’t expect. He’s ready to literally �" okay maybe not literally �" ream into Yela when suddenly the kid smiles (gleams) brightly and laughs. Marshall feels little bubbles popping inside of him. Okay, he thinks, maybe he is just a little bit cute.

“I’m just kiddin’ man!” Yela says with a southern drawl. Marshall knows that there isn’t a way to act like he knew it was all a joke, but he can’t help smiling. Marshall almost scares himself when he realizes that he isn’t hiding it, but as soon as it happens, it leaves. Yela’s too. “I just wanted to see how you’d react.” No s**t. “But seriously, thanks for calling me in. I appreciate it.” I’m sure you do, Marshall thinks to himself.

“You’re welcome. You’d be a nice addition to my label,” he says like he’s reading from a script. Which is, he believes, not all that far from the truth. “I think that you have amazing potential from what I’ve heard on Trunk Muzik.” Yela’s eyes go wide at that.

“You’ve heard Trunk Muzik?” he asks, sounding shocked.

“Yup.”

“Did Jim Jonsin play anything else?” He sounds like the world depends on Marshall’s answers, the thing is Marshall doesn’t know which one will relieve the kid, so he decides to just tell the truth.

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God…what did he play?” Yela sounds like he ran a triathlon, so Marshall is very careful about his answer.

“Some older joints…” Who the f**k says ‘joints’? “Like Kickin’ �",”

“S**t. I knew it. I’m sorry. I was young.” Marshall’s afraid to admit that he actually likes the song. Regardless, he grins at Yela.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says softly. Yela gulps and stares at his feet; stupid shoes, old and conceited. Marshall realizes abruptly that the song could be life or death for the thirty year-old sitting across from him. He knows what he needs to do. “Meth lab in the back and the crack smoke pills through the streets like an early mornin’ fog…”

Yela’s eyes immediately shoot up as Marshall lets out the first lyric of his infamous song Pop the Trunk, hand gestures and grin included. His eyes then light up and he smiles as bright as the Detroit skyline, and Marshall thinks �" no, he knows �" that this kid is cute. This kid is…special. And he can become even ten times more special is he was signed.

“Holy s**t! Eminem knows my song!” he says more to himself and God than anything. Marshall studies the kid’s features and he sees a flush on his cheeks and dimples; he thinks his heart might explode.

“Hopefully I’ll be singin’ a lot more…” he alludes open-endedly. Yela’s face goes serious for a moment, laced with the ghost of excitement and a bit of hope.

“Seriously?” he asks in disbelief.

“When do you wanna start?”

“Holy s**t!” he says again, exasperated. He looks into Marshall’s eyes and all of the air leaves his body. Oh my God.

“Welcome to the team,” and Marshall hands Yela a contract that treads over buttons and soundmixers, things that he might be able to see Eminem use one day.

“Where do I sign?” Yela can barely get the words out he is breathing so hard, his heart thumping a bass beat in his ears. His chest almost caves in as Marshall hands him a pen, the ink running so smoothly across the dotted line.

As a final act of brethren, him and Marshall embrace. Yela feels…strange as electricity shoots through him. Marshall feels �" he’s positive �" the hairs on his neck stand on end at the contact. As soon as the current begins it ends, and Marshall is left empty, almost broken even. Yela stands awkwardly and only coughs to break the silence.

“You know,” he begins, “I didn’t really need this.” And Yela thinks it’s literally the dumbest thing he’s ever said and Marshall just smiles his stupid smile, looking at him like he doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.

“I’m sure you didn’t, but I’m pretty sure you need me.” And it’s so cocky the way the words flow over his lips that Yela thinks for a minute about the creek water he grew up around. “Interscope may be holding your hand, but I’m holding your balls now Mr. Wolf.”

And Marshall stares into Yela’s eyes, so evilly blue and rich in acid. Yela thinks it’s so menacing �" sexy? �" but devious. They shake hands wordlessly, Marshall not yielding his penetrating gaze.

When Yela leaves the room, it faintly occurs to him that he never even read to the contract.

~*~*~

Michael recalls sleeping on his side when he was a child. In his little trailer, it gave young Michael a full view of the outside world through a wood-rimmed window, the dingy white front of the plastic door leading outside, and of his mother’s bedroom door �" always closed tightly. Some nights there would be the low hum of her bed posts thumping against the wall, and with a smile Michael remembers how he never knew what was going on �" until today obviously. Regardless, that little familiar position on his flimsy, stained bed with the itchy sheets gave him comfort, so he always repeated the gesture in every hotel room, every apartment he ever lived in. It didn’t take long for his to wonder how his new boss slept every night.

Could he give him any more comfort during those cold Detroit nights? Would Marshall say yes to facing the door on his side as Michael wrapped his arms around him from behind? Would he feel the heat of his tatted body and beg for-

“Yo, Wolf…you a’ight?” JDot asks with a face that verges on looking like a train is aiming towards him. Yela, not quite Michael anymore, wonders briefly if he was caught masturbating or something, but looks down to find �" sadly �" no evidence of the sort. He must’ve been daydreaming, looking like a lust-filled animal. He pushes the disgusting, disturbing, lethal thoughts away like a drug habit that wouldn’t leave.

“Uh, yeah,” he lies. Just as the words leave his mouth, KP and WillPower arrive with beers.

“Though we’d celebrate,” and they both sit down around Yela and JDot. He’s the last one to extend his beer in celebration, but the first one to say Thank you, Marshall.

The words stained his lips but he kept a smile all the same.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout the future, Wolf?” WillPower asks. KP is left in the dark as Yela doesn’t pretend to not understand.

“No,” first truth. “Thinkin’ ‘bout how I need to find some more good bars in Detroit now,” lie number two. But he says it quietly as if maybe God won’t hear. WillPower, KP, and JDot nod in unison with comparable grins, but wary of Yela’s sudden hesitations. Yela smiles and takes a pull of his beer to ease the tension with a soundless lie, which leads to him polishing off the whole brown bottle.

As the alcohol burns his throat, he realizes that his smile was one lie that he couldn’t keep from God.

~*~*~

Marshall hates elevator music. He wonders often if it’s because he’s afraid of elevators, or if he’s only afraid of elevators because of the music. It’s not like the music that they have in his Donkey Kong games (which he’s currently playing with meticulous hand motions) that bring him joy and nostalgia. No, it’s more like taunting screams from the people that he can’t protect. He worries sometimes if one day one of his masterpieces will become a violent symphony in one of these terrifying environments.

He grimaces as poor little Mario is hit by a bypassing barrel. F*****g Donkey Kong.

One time he got stuck in an elevator. Paul was on his phone, screaming like a madman. Surprisingly, it was like a lullaby to his ears as it drowned the mindless noise of the music surrounding the small space �" until Paul hung up.

“They’re on their way, the fire department.” Marshal could barely hear him as the horrible crescendo hit his ears as fast as his body hit the floor.

Marshall shudders at the memory, which results in the death of Mario number two. God damn it, Donkey Kong.

Thing is, elevators are supposed to help people. Lord know how people would survive if they had to take the f*****g stairs once in a while. He supposes that wheelchair- bound individuals were pretty pissed when Johnny-good-legs boarded the craft to go up one floor. But elevators are supposed to be a handy alternative that aid the general public, taking them from point A to point B in a shorter period of time than the span of a frightening piano ballad. But this amazing piece of technology (including the one in his own Goddamn house) allowed not just people in need but lazy f*****s the opportunity to take a journey. And now…now look where we are.

Marshall thinks for a moment about how sometimes…sometimes major improvements are a person’s greatest downfall.

He winces as Mario �" so close to Princess Peach �" falls off the ladder and is attacked by Donkey Kong before he could even stand up. The words Game over flash across the black screen. Marshall sighs, promising that he’ll beat his high score one of these days, but a part of him hoping that he’ll break it; he doesn’t know if he really wants to advance to the next level anyway. He takes too long to press “okay” and suddenly some awful music starts playing.

~*~*~

Michael storms in, drunk, vulnerable, happy. He giggles as he realizes that he knocked over a little coat-rack from the front of the room that spills forth several miscellaneous items of clothing. A jacket, KP's. A hat, WillPower’s. A hoodie, his. And a yellow scarf. He giggles again at the fact that he has no idea whom it belongs to, but with a drunken mind he pictures the faceless person it may have belonged to.

A woman, most likely, maybe one with long blond hair wound in a tight ponytail; her sweater dandelion yellow, a color darker than the scarf, bouncing in the wind on her way to her office in New York. Suddenly, on a Saturday evening she goes to her closet, bleeding with stunning clothes of every color just to find that her favorite little scarf is gone…lost in a hotel room in Detroit from an exhausting business trip.

He stops giggling and confusion (laced with curiosity) grips his face as he picks up the scarf, studying the story he conjured that (probably) isn’t true. He crosses the entry way to the bed, leaving behind an open door and a dismantled coat-rack as he sits down slowly, never taking his eyes away from the scarf. His hands bring it up to his hot face and he takes a big, strangled whiff. He realizes, to his disappointment, that it smells like the hotel room; the original smell faded away it seemed as it had been locked in here for too long. He peels it away from his greasy skin as it hits him that no one cared enough to remove it or find out where it truly belonged.

Marshall.

And he throws the cloth away from him, as far as it could go until it fades into the darkness of this cold room in this cold city. He discovers, with alcohol staining his blood, that the only people who care if you’re missing are the same people that hope you will be found. The difference between him and that scarf, he assumes, is that no one cares that the scarf is missing.

Marshall.

“Wolf, you goin’ ta sleep?” KP asks from the open doorway. It’s too dark to see the fallen coat-rack. To KP, everything is just fine.

“Yea,” Michael replies absently. I’m not a wolf, he wishes he could say. I’m a coward.

“’K,” and KP leaves with the creak of an old door in an old city, in an old room with an old scarf.

So, under an alcohol shower Michael lays down without removing his shoes or praying to his Lord and Savior.

Instead, he slowly closes his bloodshot eyes filled with too much poisoning evidence. The last thing he sees before falling under is Marshall’s face.

It doesn’t even register that he’s not lying on his side when sleep consumes him.

“If you want me baby

I’ll take care of you

You’ll probably do me wrong, now

Yeah it’s sad but true

You’ve got your problems baby

I’ve got my problems too

I won’t judge, I don’t care, I won’t tell

What have they done to you?”

-          “Brown Sugar”, Yelawolf

Author's Note

Okay so first chapter is done. Each chapter will be posted on Saturdays (no promises if I miss one or something) and the beginning of each will start with an Eminem lyric and end with a Yelawolf lyric. Tell me what you think! :D

Reviews

[grisly]

perfect

[Kaylor Mason]

these guys . . . Yelawolf and Eminem . . . were they gay for each other? I mean, in reality? I don't know anything about this kind of music, nor am I familiar with these artists . . . I just barely recognized Eminem's name

[Jess]

Lol nah man it's just fanfiction between two rappers. I should probably put a disclaimer or something. None of this happened.

[penis-pigeon]

aaahhh this is greaaat!