The Lone Rapper of Jerome

Parents, before you succumb to the urges of suburbanite-flight, and upheave pupating adolescents in pursuit of the simple life, consider this story… It all began as one family’s seemingly natural progression away from inner-city violence, over-priced lattes, & traffic-out-the-wazoo, but as with all decisions there comes a cost, and unfortunately the cost is high for one particular displaced teenager, and the small community that now must learn to cope with it’s presence.

The Smalker’s recently decided to leave their fiscally gratifying lifestyle in L.A., for a quiet lifestyle in the historical mining town of Jerome, AZ. Unfortunately, having not consoled their teenage children of this move (being that it was obviously a selfish move on their behalf), it has resulted in at least one lone-teenager having to etch a niche in a town that simply doesn’t understand just how def she is.

Alienated in her own mind, compelled to act “street-smart” and “bad-ass” without actual prior fiscal/emotional/life hardship, & forced to share a bathroom, this particular teenager is going to the streets to spread the word, displaying her wanton oppression as if she owned it… You go girl…

But Jerome, AZ, much like most of the mountainous regions in AZ, has since been over-run by emigrating hippies & artisans, who are too self-absorbed seeking self, outside of self, to prepare themselves for anything quite this annoying. ‘Cause whom amongst us is truly prepared for the street-smacking, jive-talking, bad-ass rhyming rhetoric of a 17yr-old, L.A. suburbanite, who’s been notoriously B.A.D...

But she is out and about, loud ‘n’ proud everyday, parading through the streets rapping to her hearts content. Bursting into bars and gift shops, breaking into spontaneous street-rap, and threatening the meekest in the crowd with the prospect of “a cap in the ass!”, only to receive a dazed look, and an occasional; “wha?!” from her confused victims.

A fellow classmate, also a CA emigrant was quoted as saying, “It’s like, I dunno, like she doesn’t belong here, like, you know, like she’s totally out of her crib.”

But with her regular public raucousing and near-sociopathic social interactions, Jerome has just about achieved a level of discomfort & discontent that could only result in the use of group hugs, hypnotism, sweat lodges, & counselors. But before pursuing the obvious aversions to the problem, Jerome has asked the local university, N.A.U., to see if perhaps there might be something gained by studying this poor, misplaced creature. Who knows, there may be a genetic link between her and other creatures that display Batesian mimicry, perhaps she has speciated away from her brood and is evolving into a common street thug, or perhaps she is an infectious, metastasized cancer that exudes phospho-organic compounds and should be irradiated while her body dangles gracefully from the downtown gallows, as a warning to all others who dare disturb the peace. The plausibilities are as mysterious as the creature itself…

We chose to take a minute and try to communicate with this “Sally”, as her parental organisms have deemed her. First, we tried capturing her attention with pit-fall traps, but only managed to capture several VW’s. Next, we tried tranquilizing her, but her numerous gold medallions acted like armor, making her impenetrable, and we once again returned to our motel defeated. Then in a desperate attempt, we offered her free food & an i-pod, she was completely spellbound and unable to resist. So, we sat with this mountainous enigma, eyes locked in suspicion. She spoke, “Wassup, dog?”, to which we quickly referenced our street-slang translation manual and replied, “not much, mofo, whassup wit u?”… at which point we both dropped our dewlaps and began a succession of head-bobbings not yet seen before in human interactions, but certainly clearly stating that “all was cool”, “we ain’t packin’”, & “Yo, baby-cakes, if you weren’t underage, well… you know…” After which all was chill, and we continued our conversation. Much was lost in translation, but since most people don’t really listen anyway, we felt there was no true loss.

In fact, when the conversation had finally ended, it was as if we’d gained a friend. We now realized that Sally was just like the rest of us, except more fraudulent, and had dreams and aspirations, too. Hoping one day to save-up to buy a grill, but realistically will probably have to settle for a tie-dye t-shirt, or homemade ice cream. We bid our farewells, and as Sally rapped-off into sunset, we couldn’t help wonder why we take these stupid stories. I mean really there’s real things happening in the world and we’re stuck doing satire, god-dammit!

Goodbye, Sally. We hope your assimilation back into humanity is “cap-free”.