“No. Not there.” Coop pointed to a creaky brown door next to Dollop. It could have been one of the many nondescript front entrances that lead to the upstairs apartments in downtown Duncannon, but the window of this door was covered with duct tape.
Coop pushed it open and led them inside the narrow hall. At the end was another door, just as sketchy as the first one. Black paint chipped off the wood. The ruby red shined in the dull, yellow light.
“Where are we?” Matty asked, no longer a giddy fake drunk. “Is this some kind of sex dungeon?”
“No, Anastasia.” The door creaked open, and they walked down a short flight of stairs that led to a small concert space. Coop breathed in the familiar musty smell mixed with sweat.
Two rappers battled on a stage made of wood pallets. Regular basement junk like bikes and cardboard boxes was pushed to the corners of the room. There was not a chair in the place. The small crowd mashed up to the stage to watch two rappers perform. Matty banged his foot on a washing machine.
“This is an actual apartment basement,” he said to Coop.
“Most nights of the year, yes.” Coop led them to the side of the room, where gasps of moonlight slipped in through the dusty windows. “But once a month, it becomes Squadron, where rappers can battle it out.”
“So two rappers go on stage and try to out-rap each other?” Matty asked.
“Pretty much. It’s all improvised. They try to one-up the other, like throw the other off his game with a mad lyric or sick burn.”
“What does the winner get?”
“A brand new car!” Coop said in a game-show announcer voice. “Acclaim. The love of the audience. The knowledge that they are the better rapper. A lot of rappers use this space as a place to try out new material, and the competition helps them get better.”
The rapper on the left mocked the other rapper’s Converse sneakers. Coop heard many words that rhymed with Chucks. One in particular. He wondered how accustomed Matty was to profanity. The crowd roared with approval for the insults. Both rappers tore into the words with passion and ferocity.
“Do you do this?” Matty asked.
“This isn’t all that happens,” Coop said. He hopped up on a stack of boxes marked CDs and Books. “Squadron is only half the night. They have an open mic section. I’ve seen some amazing rappers.”
The audience let out an OOOOH at what was probably a truly epic taunt by one of the rappers.
“Have you performed?”
“I’m still new to this crowd. I still need to pay my dues.”
“You pay dues for an open mic night?”
“You have to listen first before you can be listened to.”
“So do you want to record an album?”
Matty sounded like a parent, asking about Coop’s post-college plans. He didn’t like when people asked him about his rapping. It was personal. Matty was the only person who knew he came to these shows. He let Matty in. He supposed the least he could do was give him some answers.
“I want to go to the International Songwriters Conference eventually. The connections you can make are priceless and can be your ticket to playing sell-out concerts and winning Grammys.” Coop thought of his poor Copenhagen sock, less bulky than it should be. His family came first for him, but he still held out hope of attending in the future. Being an artist was all about having impossible dreams. “It’s probably prudent of you to get my autograph now.”
Matty cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re working on something good?”
“I’m getting there. I don’t like talking about it too much.”Not to mention that none of my ideas are worth talking about.Coop still cringed at “discussion section in my bed” and other horrible lines that’d come out of his supposedly functional brain.
“The more I talk about an idea, the less special it becomes.”
“And the more expectations you have,” Matty said, like he pulled the words right out of Coop’s brain. “I don’t like to tell people about the projects I’m working on until I know they can work.”
“Me, too. I believe in minimizing all potential embarrassment.” Coop had more fun watching Matty sway to the beat than the battle itself.
“Man, I’d love to go to Europe,” Matty said. “It’s expensive, though.”
“I’m saving up.”With a side hustle I definitely can’t tell you about.
The music stopped. A man in a white undershirt and baggy jeans hopped onto the stage and held both rappers’ hands, about to crown a winner. He asked the audience to make some noise for their favorite. The Chuck insulter won in a landslide.
