White Room
Chapter 2: Medusa
Excerpts from Medusa by Silvia Plath
Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea's incoherences,
You house your unnerving head-God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel's shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of departure,
Dragging their Jesus hair.
Did I escape, I wonder?
My mind winds to you
Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous repair.
In any case, you are always there,
Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
Curve of water upleaping
To my water rod, dazzling and grateful,
Touching and sucking.
I didn't call you.
I didn't call you at all.
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
Fat and red, a placenta“Really, Mr. Rosenberg, how the hell am I supposed to photograph him in less than 20 minutes?” Click! Click!
“Well, you better get moving then. He’s got the Blender interview in 40 minutes. We can’t waste anymore time.” Click! Click!
“With all due respect, Mr. Rosenberg, a photographer cannot employ the best of his artistic talent if he only has less than half-an-hour to hone his masterpiece.” Click! Click! Click! “Chin up, Mr. Mathers, the shadow is hiding your eyes. Thank you.” Click! Click!
“Masterpiece? You’re a photographer! We hired you to take some pictures, not to paint the Mona Lisa.” Click, Click! Click!
“Please, Paul!” I finally butted in. Click! Click! “Let him take as much fucking time as he wants. He wants to express his talents,” Click! Click! “He wants to ‘hone his masterpiece’! Just let him!” Click! Click!
“Marshall, we’re gonna to be late for the Blender interview! We were late last time, but this time I’m gonna make sure that we behave professionally and that means we’re going to arrive on time.” Click! Click!
“What are they going to do if he’s late?” muttered the photographer under his breath. Click! Click! “Refuse him? Like hell they will”
I hate photo shoots so fucking much. Everyone fucking yells and screams. The bright room blurs as it spins with activity. All I can do is stand there and pose. Click! Next pose. Click! People are arguing. Click! Next pose. Click! People are running here and there… everywhere and nowhere. Next pose. Click! Sometimes, they let me be creative but it’s always “too weird, too thugged out, not thugged out enough”. Next pose. Click! I wish I were dead. “Mr. Mathers, keep your chin up. The shadows are hiding your eyes again.” Next pose. Click!
In fact, I hate every fucking thing about “promo” week--- that infamous week when my albums come out and the PR people at Interscope insist we spread Eminem-fever so that the new album can sell millions. When I think about it, it’s a clever little scheme that now only works for me. Shit, it’s been almost 6 years since my debut on the world stage, and I’m still number one sales wise. Most other musicians lag off in album sales over the years, and after a while, only have their celebrity “status” to support them. Not me. I’ve been lucky.
It makes me sad because I know I don’t deserve it. I’ve heard so many emcees that are a million times more dope than I am. Their rhymes and wordplay are fucking amazing and their flow is almost perfection. Yet, they never get any deals, and they never make any money until eventually they quit rapping out of fucking frustration. I feel guilty… like I’m taking up space. I’m hogging the fucking spotlight, and I wish I could give it away to all of them. I never asked for the spotlight. I never asked for kiss-ass journalists calling me “the best rapper in the world”. I know that my talent is minimal compared to Immortal Technique, Mos Def, Nas, and J-Live. Critics don’t have to point that out to me! I know! I already fucking know!
“So, Eminem, how do feel about some critics who insist that you have no talent and are a disgrace to hip-hop?” the Blender magazine interviewer asked. He was a scrawny-looking man with dirty blond hair dressed in a black leather jacket with a black shirt filled with weird yellow symbols. I normally hate rock critics because they always gaze at me with that “rap is crap” stare. Rap critics, on the other hand, are better because they can talk to you about the hip hop culture and make you feel at home. However, this guy didn’t seem bad.
“How do I feel about critics who say I have no talent? I say that they’re entitled to their opinion just like I am entitled to my opinion. And my opinion is fuck them! I don’t listen to them anyway.”
The interviewer continued, “Well, you should now that I don’t share that opinion. I think you are tremendously talented, and the critics are wrong.”
“Thank you. I know…” Next pose. Click!
I didn't call you.
I didn't call you at all.
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
Fat and red, a placenta
Paralysing the kicking lovers.
It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon when Kim called. I remember that I was sitting down on a gray couch in the TRL green room while the words for new rhymes danced from the pen to my paper. When I am writing, I am literally in my own little corner of existence where no one dares to enter or exit. I express every fucking thought and feeling in a disorganized order on my paper pad. Every tear, every sigh, every joke, every fit of anger stains the white paper. I pretend the pen is like a cut in which I squeeze out black blood… It dribbles on the paper like rich oil flowing through a desert that takes the form of words. One day, I will not exist. The pen and paper, though… shit, they stay forever…
The blurry faces had become even blurrier… the important voices had become background noise that faded into the New York City honks and clanks… The music from my cell phone was just a dull ring to me…
I didn’t want to answer it. It would break off my concentration. So I let it ring.
However, after a while, I had second thoughts. What if it was Hailie? Or someone like Dre or Fifty telling me about another crew we were suddenly beefing with? Shit, maybe they left a message.
Indeed, they had… I didn’t recognize the number that had called me. It was definitely not Hailie or anybody from Detroit because it was a New York number. There was still a possibility it could be someone from the Shady/Aftermath office. I press the button and listened to the message.
“Hey, Marshall! It’s Kim… Guess where I am? New York! Yeah, Adrian is taking me on a whirlwind romantic tour of the world, and our first stop is here… When I found out you were here, I couldn’t fucking believe the coincidence and I just had to meet you one last time before we fly to Paris. I know you’re pretty busy so I suggest we meet you somewhere—anywhere, I really don’t care. I just want you to meet Adrian. Oh! I gotta go, baby. Bye!” END OF MESSAGE
I didn’t quite know how to take that. In fact, I never know quite how to take Kim’s new boyfriends. Should I be happy for her? Should I be sad because our relationship never worked out? Should I be happy for me because she is such a bitch and I’m so glad to have her out of my life? Should I be jealous of her because---- no wait, scratch that… I meant, jealous of him… yes, I’m jealous of him… I’m not fucking jealous of her… That was a weird error… but just to clarify one last time, I’m not jealous of Kim… I’m not…
Anyway, I should play the good “ex-husband” and call her. I could meet them at my hotel lobby after 9:00 at night when I was done with all of the radio interviews. I’ll just sit there and smile and pretend like I care about their life together. He’s probably another one of those random drug-dealing retards that she always picks up. I laugh. A retard and a crazy chick… what a destined pair! Holy shit! I barely saw Kim after she was released from drug rehab a couple of months ago. The only times I saw her were when she tried to play the “good mommy” game (Amazingly, we still have shared custody of Hailie). Ha! Let them have Paris… The motherfucking idiots…
I am sick to death of hot salt.
Green as eunuchs, your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!
There is nothing between us.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! It’s Eminem… AHHHHHHHHHHHH”
The fans… I used to think that they were the most suffocating thing about my job. However, now I find them kind of amusing. They obsess and think about a person who they will never meet. Some do meet their idols, but, of course, the idol thinks they are “suffocating”. Besides, if they ever got to “know” the idol, they would be… trust me, so fucking disappointed. That’s why they’re funny! That’s why those fucking museum guards tell you not to touch the statues… because you, stupid moron, will smudge it, and it won’t be perfect anymore. Then, the museum will have to give everyone a refund because of your stupidity, asshole. It’s better not to touch. But that message is lost to the fans. For that reason, I’m standing in the middle of a crowded room of screaming fans desperately reaching out to me. The anacondas were ready to choke me.
“So, Em,” said the TRL interviewer. “Someone in the TRL audience wanted to know how the relationship with your mom is?”
I did not hesitate. “Oh, well, I’m not going to really talk about my mother. There are still some legal issues there. The only thing I will say, though, is there is no relationship with my mother. That’s it.”
Off, off, eely tentacle!
There is nothing between us.
I hated talking about my mother. No, not hated--- that’s the wrong word… I dreaded talking about my mother. I even refuse to think about her… The fucking messed up shit she did to me and said to me. I sometimes try to get all the pain out of my head and into the rhymes on my paper. But there are so many fucking things and not enough words in the English language to express them. There are not enough drugs in this world to make me forget them and not enough blood in my body to cleanse them. I hate her so much! I only think about her when I have to… She is out of sight and out of mind… But why does she still follow me everywhere I fucking go?
Before I knew it, it was 9 o’clock. Time to meet the Beverly Hillbillies, I chuckled to myself. The air was warm in the “VIP” private section of the hotel lobby. This part of the lobby was a separate room--- always completely empty and reserved for the celebrities who have developed people-phobia and need a cage to feel safe in. The green curtains that separated the rooms of the lobby were perfect bars for the cage. There was a fireplace in one side of the room that growled and roared with rage for a minute until finally, the fire decided to accept the fact that it was stuck in the fireplace forever. It was a decorated cage, though, with walls filled with pictures of people that lived long ago and of Old New York. Everything stood still with the exception of my 40 oz. and my pen and paper. I was alone. I was safe. It was a beautiful cage.
“Marshall?” I heard a voice so unfamiliar.
After putting my pen and paper down, I looked up at this strange woman. She was a blond and pretty--- a little rough around the edges but still very pretty. Although not heavy-set, she had a nice athletic body and wore a green dress which showed off her blue eyes. I felt like I knew her once. But it was impossible because I had never seen this person before in my life.
“Kim?” I hesitated to ask. I could be wrong.
“Yah… Who the fuck did you think I was?”
“Hell, you talk like Kim… but you don’t look like Kim.” I was confused.
She had the same hair, same face, same tit job. However, she looked different.
“Well, thanks, ass! So how the fuck is Kim’s supposed to look like then?”
Yep, it was Kim…
“You look different… Where the fuck did you get that green dress?”
“It’s not green! It’s motherfuckin’ JADE… Adrian got it for me. Speaking of which…”
“Kim,” said a voice behind her, “Angel Pie, aren’t you going to introduce me to your ex?”
“I was just getting to that, sweet cakes!” she answered.
Goddamn it! Angel Pie? Sweet cakes? Diabetes, kill me now!!!
Adrian’s presence almost frightened me in a weird way. Not because he was menacing, but because he was not… if that makes any sense. The man easily towered over me with his black suit looking like James Bond’s lost twin. His hair was dark and slicked back with some much gel that the hairs stood paralyzed on the top of his head, comically helpless. While he smiled with a flashy grin, I noticed his shifty eyes dart around the room as if he was avoiding me, which was good because I felt my face grimace for a millisecond at his sight. His contorted mouth moved a million times a minute as he went on and on about how glad he was to finally meet me. I just shook his hand politely. Next pose. Click!
“We left Detroit two days. We’re only staying in New York until tomorrow,” he continued, “Then, it’s off to Paris, then Madrid, then Casablanca, and finally we are sailing on a cruise ship to the Bahamas.”
“Oh?” was all I could think of saying.
“Goddamn, Marshall,” said Kim. “Isn’t he the best? Did you know that he is a District Attorney?”
Holy shit! I was expecting for Kim to bring me Uncle Jed but instead, she brought me Uncle Scrooge.
“Actually, sugar plum, I was your District attorney,” Adrian added.
“What?! You were the prosecutor that put her in jail?” I couldn’t motherfucking believe it. Shit!
“He saved my life!” Kim proudly snapped back.
“Well, it is actually a very interesting story. When I was handling Kim’s case and determined to put your ex-wife behind bars because… you know, she broke the law; I couldn’t help noticing her entrancing beauty. I knew that she was a good kid at heart, but someone had to bring out that goodness. I noticed there were many ‘people’ in Kim’s life that encouraged her drug-taking.”
The sly piece of shit tactfully mentioned the word “people” so as to not offend me, yet later on, I realized that he meant me. But at that moment, I was too busy trying to make sense out the story.
Adrian continued, “So, I was glad when your wife was only given months in jail and a short stint at rehab because then, I had a chance to truly help her. I began to visit her regularly in jail and then at rehab.”
“So, wait a minute,” I butted in. “If he was visiting you, Kim, then, how come I never heard about it? Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“No offense, Marshall,” Kim answered. “But you can be so goddamn unpredictable at times!”
“Fair enough… but I still have a fucking right to know, don’t I?”
“No, you don’t!” she barked back, “What I fucking do now is none of your fucking business, you possessive piece of---“
“Shhh…” Adrian graciously stepped back into the conversation swifter than a fucking ballerina. For the first time in ten minutes, I was glad to here his voice. “Let me continue telling the story. During my rehab visits, I began to fall in love with this beautiful angel here. I, awkwardly (by my own admission) asked Kimmy out, and we fell madly in love with each other, didn’t we, my little cupcake”
That speech seemed to calm Kim down. “Yes, we did, my darling snookums…”
In my mind, I longed for the days when Kim would date drug-dealing retards. At least, they never compared Kim to dessert dishes.
“When we get back to Detroit, I’m taking a cooking class. Now, that I’m drug-free I can finally be a real mother to Whitney, Hailie, and Alaina.”
Cooking class? Kim Mathers, the Stepford wife! I started to have my doubts on whether she was really off the drugs. She seemed really passive like she was given a lot of sedatives. Holy fuck! That must be it! I was right! You see, Adrian really is a fucking retard drug dealer who is filling Kim up to the brim with drugs in exchange for pussy… Yeah, that’s the only logical explanation.
“Marshall, baby, I just wanted to tell you that…” she paused for a minute. “I don’t want you to worry about me anymore. Meeting Adrian was just about the best thing that has ever happened in my whole life—other than, of course, giving birth to Hailie and Whitney. My life has really turned around and for the first time, in my life I feel happy. I don’t feel like a lunatic… I feel… normal.”
My heart stopped. She said it… the magical word… the n-word…
“We’ve actually been really busy in New York sightseeing, going to see the statue of liberty, shopping around fifth avenue and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah and blah and blah , blah , blah really fun time blah, blah, blah and blah……………”
I couldn’t concentrate anymore… She feels normal…. Could that be why she looks so placid, so bright, so happy? I remember the last time I saw Kim, which was about six months ago before she was arrested and sent to rehab. Her hair was strung out, her eyes twitched, and she breathed drugs and sex. She was the only person in the world who was more dead than me, and who was much deeper than six feet under. On our foreheads, we were stamped as lunatics and damned forever to walk the streets lost. But I could always count on Kim being a little crazier and… less normal than I was. Kim was the only person in the world who surpassed me in the art of madness.
During those moments, I thought to myself, I will not lose Kim! There must be some way I could prove that this asshole Adrian is a fucking fraud and then, hopefully, Kim could wake up from the fucking spell that Adrian has over her… and then, Kim could be Kim again… the Old Kim, the "Jerry Springer" white trash Kim…
My Kim….
But after a minute, I gave up not because I had lost the desire, but because it was impossible. Kim would never listen to me and that fucker Adrian would convince her that I was trying to win her back (even though, I’m not!) and Kim would still remain the normal good wife of the District Attorney forever.
No, now she was gone. She had found happiness before I had. She had found normalcy before I had ever imagined that there was such a thing. Throughout the conversation, Kim kept giggling at every stupid thing that shit head said. I tried to see that if her change in personality was just a phony act, but I failed. Every giggle seemed real, every smile was genuine, and her eyes reflected a shining hope that was so foreign to me. I casually glanced at her wrists and arms… The scars where she had cut herself during her suicide attempts were almost gone. It was almost magical how scars like that can disappear after 5 years. Yes, her scars were gone while mine… mine still flashed at me like neon light bulbs. I’ve always felt bad because I was the one that taught Kim how to slit her wrists. I taught her which veins to cut, which are guaranteed “fatal” veins, and which ones are “temporary bleeders”. I taught her how to hold the blade and drag it across the skin, slightly pressing it so that just enough blood leaks out. I have always felt responsible for Kim’s personal hell… I remembering people telling me that I was the one that was keeping Kim from achieving true happiness, and hastily, I would always answer that Kim and I were meant to be together. Shit, it looks like those people were right…
Goddamn it! I was jealous of her. She escaped… I hadn’t…
Ghastly Vatican.
I am sick to death of hot salt.
Green as eunuchs, your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!
There is nothing between us.
I barely noticed them leave. Suddenly, the hotel lobby became much bigger and emptier. The roar of the fire had finally lulled. The pictures on the wall were more menacing. Holy shit! I was being suffocated by this emptiness… I had to leave.
As I stepped out of the “VIP” lobby and into the “real” lobby, I seemingly forgot I was Eminem. I felt the people staring at me like a tiger who had just escaped from the circus. To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t care… Fuck them! Fuck them all! Goddamn it!
Then, I saw her. If I were given the chance to go back in time, I would have, at that moment, stricken myself blind so that I could never see her. But, I saw her sitting at the bar, drinking a martini, and waiting impatiently for someone. For me? The woman was a tall, beautiful black girl with deep dark eyes and a proud curved-in mouth. Her hair was let down and adorned with a yellow flower. This beauty was dressed in a Hawaiian dress with a lai…. Sometimes, without my glasses, I can’t see a thing… but during this particular instance, I could see her… her curvaceous body, her delicate arms. She was my angel, I thought. She was my last hope. This was Sara Tyler….
Off, off, eely tentacle!
There is nothing between us.Author: bellababyblu@hotmail.com
These stories are for entertainment purposes only. They are completely fictitious, and the authors mean no harm to EMINEM, his family, friends, or anyone else that may have been depicted as a 'real life' character. No money was made on the fiction here, either directly or indirectly, i.e. paid advertising. In other words - it's just a bunch of shit we wrote for fun. Please don't take it seriously.