Page 86 of The Last Man on Earth
“Interesting.”
“Is it?” I say. “I don’t think so.” She pushes my head forward. “Most rappers rap about shit they ain’t never lived.”
“Do you ever feel fake? Or guilty?”
“Nah.” I don’t even have to think about it. “Rap is just like anything else. It’s entertainment. People don’t assume actors live all the movie roles they play, right? You ain’t gotta be a murderer toplaya murderer.”
“That’s different," she says.
“How?”
“I don’t think impressionable black kids like my nieces differentiate between real and acting for musicians.”
I think about that for a moment.
“Well if it makes you feel any better,” I say, “I’ve fucked every bitch and done every drug I rap about.”
She slaps the back of my head, and that shit hurts this time.
“Aye! Be easy.”
She’s quiet for a while before she says, “What about our baby?”
“What about her?”
“First of all, you keep saying her. We don’t know yet.”
“Just a feeling.”
“Well, let’s say her, then,” she says. “Would you want her to get it out the mud like you rap about?”
“Fuck, no. She goin’ to private school. Whole life on easy mode. Fuck you mean.”
Ari bursts out laughing. “And you don’t think that’s a little hypocritical?”
I blow out a long sigh. “I guess so. But it is what it is. I can’t go back and change the shit I rapped about.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she says quietly, stilling her fingers. “I just wanted—“
“To bang on me about what I do.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek from behind. “You mad at me?”
“Nah. You made your point, though.”
“Whew,” she says, laughing in my ear. “Artistic temperament.”
I don’t say anything, just reach over, take her foot, and rub it with both hands. The pads of her feet are rough now, not soft like when I first touched them. But I like that.
“How you feelin’?”
Her fingers are moving in my hair again. “Good,” she says. “Tired, but good.”
I kiss her left calf, then the right. The other foot gets a massage next, then I tilt my head back to look at her, ignoring her irritation.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say. “I know I ain’t bein’ still, but I can’t help it. I love lookin’ at you.”
She smiles. “It’s okay. I love when you look at me. And…I loveyou.”
