Lousiana Hotshot

plural,” she said automatically, but she could see he didn’t really mind doing this for her, that in fact he was pleased about it, and she thought that if she had put it to him this way in the beginning, he might have been more forthcoming with the favor. But then at the time, she hadn’t really been sure how she wanted it to work. She’d just known she needed Darryl; the world of rap made her nervous. To be sure, she had a poet’s contempt for rhyme that wasn’t poetry, or if it was, then poetry in the service of commercial interests.
    Yet she did feel there was nothing wrong with making money, and in a perfect world that all poets would make money. So what, she thought, was her problem?
    Commercial poetry, perhaps, that promoted violence and hatred, particularly of women. Yet not all rap did, and she knew it.
    It was just baggage she carried.
    When Darryl had elbowed their way within a couple of feet, the Baron himself signaled him. “Hey, man— aren’t you Darryl Boucree? Been knowin’ your work for years. The Boucree Brothers are an institution. Ain’t that right, Thomasino?”
    The man beside him, smaller and seemingly overwhelmed to be in the Presence, showed a good set of teeth, and said, “Tha’s right,” and followed up with a brace or two of nods.
    “Hey, Kassim! Hey, Raynell— got somebody I want you to meet. Hey, Darryl, these are my buddies— and this is my brother, Thomas Toledano. Darryl Boucree, gentlemen, Darryl Boucree of the Boucree Brothers— one of the premier musicians currently residing in this town.” Kassim and Raynell were wearing gangsta rap outfits— baggy pants, backward baseball caps, the whole thing, but the Toledano brothers— if that was their real name— were dressed in casual slacks and shirts, out of respect for the occasion. Talba gave them points for that.
    She also observed that the Baron definitely didn’t talk like a thug. He didn’t speak standard English, exactly, but he came pretty close. That interested her almost more than anything else about him, because she, who always spoke correctly, didn’t even say stuff like “I be ready” in jest, also wrote in dialect, and did it because, as she’d told Eddie, it was the only way she could imagine writing.
    “Darryl. Darryl.” The Baron spoke urgently, as if Darryl might get away from him. He seemed more wound up than he ought to be, even though he’d just performed. She knew perfectly well what that did to you. “You’re gonna hear about these boys soon. Kassim and Raynell, AKA Pepper Spray. They just cut an album on our label— look out for it.”
    Darryl said he was pleased to meet them and Thomas as well, and he was about to get a word in edgewise when a half-drunk dude came and leaned on the Baron and tried to give him a joint, which seemed to embarrass him. “Hey, Nito, come on. Come on, this ain’t no place for that shit. Come on, meet Darryl Boucree. Darryl, my buddy, Benito— Nito, you know who Darryl Boucree is?” Benito didn’t seem interested. “And who,” said the Baron, “is this
lovely
lady with the beautiful hat?”
    He extended a hand to Talba, and seeing his chance, Darryl said, “This…” He paused as if waiting for a drumroll, “is the Baroness de Pontalba.”
    At which the Baron looked utterly nonplussed, like he knew he ought to know her, but couldn’t quite place her. “You’re a rapper, too,” he finally said, as if he’d managed to put his finger on it.
    Talba smiled, and it wasn’t entirely phony. She sort of liked the guy. “A humble poet,” she said. “But I
am
a Baroness.”
    “Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” he said. “Because
I
am a baron.” He said it the way she did when she performed, emphasis on the “I”.
    “Hey, I know you. I
know
ya.” It was the brother.
    Oh. shit,
she thought.
He must have seen me at Baronial Records.
    “I know this chick’s into that shit. She got a book with one of your poems in it. I’ve
seen
it, man— remembered the Baroness thing. Hey, you really are a poet— how ‘bout that? Hey, Tujague, she the real thing.”
    “I can
see
she’s the real thing.” The Baron spoke with an edge of smarminess, the kind of automatic seductive note guys on the street affected without even thinking about it. “Ummm,
hmmm
.”
    No doubt he meant to be flattering, but this was the kind of thing that turned her off about the whole rap ethos. “Hey, maybe we could do somethin’ together sometime— you know, we