Chasing Paper

“Big bank, I make big bank,” rapped a 16 year old, not-so-up-and-coming hip-hop artist by the name of Payper Chaser. His real name was Chase Pipers and he thought it so clever that his stage name incorporated his legal name in some way. In his eyes, “Payper” was a great slant rhyme with Piper, and there’s no reason to take the time to explain how he fit Chase in there.

Chase’s favorite rapper was Drake, and he wished to emulate him in every way he possibly could -- that is of course without “biting,” a word that, in rap, means to copy something original from another rapper. It’s number one on Rap’s 7 Deadly Sins. Even an accusation of biting, slander or not, damages an MC’s image. Chase tried hard not to bite anything from anyone, but when he found out Drake carried a small black notebook on him at all times to write ideas into, he could not pass up something so practical. He figured no one he would ever encounter would know who he got the idea from, considering the Youtube video he learned the information from only had about three thousand views.

In a closet illuminated by a green LED light, Chase rapped into his microphone, which he worked an entire summer filling fire extinguishers at his grandfather’s company to buy. His lips moved against the nylon pop filter as he recited, “Imma baller homie, don’t play games, you rappers all talk about the same thangs, I’m by myself in my own lane, if you-” Chase took a breath and rolled his eyes in frustration, “dammit.” From the open window in his bedroom, his microphone picked up an argument outside of his home. He threw his headphones onto his desk, then walked to the window and slammed it shut. As soon as he started to walk back to his makeshift recording booth, four gunshots rang out.

Payper Chaser collapsed to the floor and covered his ears. As he laid there, it was dead quiet. Movies taught him that the coast was clear once tires peeled off in a situation like this, but that cue never came. He uncovered his ears after about thirty seconds, but remained on the floor for a minute longer. It was Thursday, so his parents were out to eat with the Bergers, and he lived in an unfinished suburb near a highway so he had no neighbors to call the cops to check on the situation.

Chase’s eyes darted to his phone on the desk, and for a split second he thought about calling the cops. But because of his gratuitous commitment to street code, Payper couldn’t call the cops and risk snitching -- number two on Rap’s 7 Deadly Sins. It’s a nearly equally devastating accusation as biting, depending on the type of rapper you are. He vigorously shook that thought away and said to himself, “What do snitches get?” and so he army crawled back to his window, took a breath, did the sign of the cross, then got on his knees and looked out to the street. “What the-,” he whispered to himself as he stood up, his eyes widening as the situation revealed more of itself. A body outlined with blood laid perfectly in the middle of the circle created by the streetlight. Chase put his hand over his mouth. He looked up the street - next to a silver car, within the shadow of the side of the road, laid a second body. Chase started to feel light headed and nauseous. He shook his hands in front of his chest as if the memory of this moment existed in them, and if he moved them enough, it would float away. It did not.

He paced in his room as he thought about what to do: Should he call someone? Who would he call? What would his idols do? His best friend Manny was from North Philly, had he ever been in this situation? What did he do? Could he help?

Yeah, yeah, maybe he could help.

In a flash, he was across the room at his white Ikea desk. Chase grabbed his phone and frantically unlocked it. Scrolling through his contacts as fast as Busta Rhymes’rapped during his verse on “Look at Me Now,” he mistakenly bypassed the “M”s entirely.

Struck by a thought, he looked away from his phone and to the wall. He realized how much inspiration a situation like this could spark. Thus far, he’d released four songs on Soundcloud and none of them were played more than a hundred times, and half of the comments were atrocious. Payper threw his phone on the bed, ripped his bedroom door open, and sprinted down the stairs. At the front door he paused, took a deep breath, did the sign of the cross, then opened his front door and walked outside.

The highway that ran alongside his neighborhood wasn’t as busy as it should have been for 8:30 on a Thursday night -- still, it was the only sound he heard other than his heart beating in his ears. Chase looked at each body. Since the one in the light was closer to him, he walked toward it first. As he neared it, he was able to see just how much blood there was. It was a young man, and he could not have been older than 20. Chase thought nothing of his age though; he was more worried about the mere fact that there was a dead body and smoking gun in front of him. He cautiously crept closer to the body and slid the gun away with his foot, not moving it more than two feet from where it previously laid. He analyzed the still body from head to toe -- there was one bullet wound in his chest and one in his thigh, each of them glimmered.

In Chase’s room, Drake’s “Hotline Bling” rang from his phone as his mom called. The phone sang and vibrated underneath his pillow as he made his way toward the other body. His adrenaline moved him out of the streetlight and into the darkness. Naturally, the diminished light prompted him to reach for his phone’s glow to guide him. “Shit,” he whispered to himself as he walked, touching one empty pocket after another. Before he could reach the body, Chase tripped over something on the ground.

Once he regained his balance, he bent down and picked up an empty backpack. Chase squinted at the ground -- blending into the pavement was another bag next to the body. Again, he slid the gun away with his foot and analyzed the figure: face down with two shots in his back. Chase slowly placed the empty bag down and picked up the other. It had a little more weight to it. He stepped into the glow of a streetlight, checked his surroundings to ensure no one was around, then unzipped the bag. Chase reached his hand in and pulled out a bundle of money. He looked around once more, then ran into his house.

Drake was on his fourth encore of “Hotline Bling'' as Chase ran into his room. He shut the door, then grabbed his phone and silenced it. He had three missed calls from his Mom and a text message that read, “We’re going to be leaving the restaurant soon, is McDonald’s good for dinner?” He put his phone in his back pocket, then dumped the money onto the bed. There were ten bundles of twenties equating to two-thousand dollars a piece. “Twenty racks,” he said to himself with wide eyes. He stumbled away from the bed and ran both of his hands through his hair.

Outside, a car screeched to a stop. “Oh my god, Chase!” his mother yelled from the street. Chase’s head moved on a swivel from the money, to the window, then back to the money. He ran to the bed and threw his new found fortune back into the black bag. The front door opened and slammed. “Chase?!” his mother shouted from downstairs. Her high heels quickly clicked against the wooden floor. “Chase?!” she cried out again, running up the stairs. “Chase?” she said, slightly out of breath, as she opened his bedroom door. The room was empty. “Mom?!” Chase called from the closet. She ran to his voice and slid the door open. Chase sat curled in the corner of the closet. His mother bent down, “Are you okay, honey?” He looked as innocent as a puppy and said nothing, just shook his head yes.

Downstairs, Chase’s father spoke with a policeman. There was yellow tape around the scene. The bodies were being carted away by paramedics.

Upstairs, Chase sat next to his mom on his bed and ate a Big Mac. A stocky police officer stood in front of him with a notepad. “You didn’t hear a car pull off after the gunshots?”

“No. I just heard the shots and ran to the closet,” responded Chase.

“OK,” the officer said, closing his notepad.

“Is that all?” Chase’s mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer said, “The empty backpack indicates a drug deal gone wrong.”

Chase’s mom looked at the officer, half inquisitively, half shocked.

“He probably came to a dropoff without the drugs, probably kept them at his house, and planned to kill the guy he was meeting with, and the other guy had the same idea: keep the money, steal the drugs. If you ask me, I’m glad they both went out shooting. Makes my job a whole lot easier,” the officer gave them each a smile and a nod, then turned to leave the room. “You a singer?” the officer inquired, pointing to the makeshift studio with his pen.

“He’s a rapper,” Chase’s mother said with a smile.

The officer looked a bit confused and didn’t say anything, just turned around and left.

“Alright honey,” Chase’s mom said, “I’m gonna go get changed and get into bed. You sure you’re OK?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Chase responded, holding back a smile.

“OK,” his mom said with a smile. She kissed his head. “Goodnight honey.”

“Night, mom.”

She got up and walked out of the room. His father stomped up the steps. From outside of the door he whispered, to Chase’s mom, “is he okay?” She just shook her head yes. He called out to Chase, “night bud.”

As soon as his parents’ door shut, Chase got on the floor and dragged the backpack out from underneath his bed. He went up on his knees and poured the money onto the bed. He couldn’t believe it.

“Big bank, I make big bank, I spend 20,000 one night, Easy, Ten toes to the street, You don’t want no beef,” Payper Chaser rapped into the mic more vigorously than ever before. He bobbed his head as he played the verse back to himself; the beat’s bass boomed through his headphones.

In the song “Takeover,” a legendary diss track by Jay Z, he raps “You ain’t live it, you witnessed it from your folks pad, You scribbled it in your notepad and created your life.”

Payper Chaser unknowingly violated number three on Rap’s 7 Deadly Sins: never pass someone else’s life off as your own. And although it isn’t technically as heinous of an offense as biting and snitching, it can strip an artist of all validity and truth -- making anything they’ve ever written and recited insignificant.

The End