As I walked through my heart started racing with excitement like it was when I first woke up that morning. I knew that in just a few moments my dad would be wrapping me up in one of his famous bear hugs, and then he’d toss me up in the air as if I were lighter than a feather. Then he’d do the same to my brother and sisters.
When we stepped into the visiting area, as usual the place was crowded. People were everywhere, men, women, and children. I was looking all around trying to spot my dad, but I was so short that I couldn’t locate him in the crowd. I couldn’t see a thing. Apparently, my moms must’ve spotted him, because she began pushing her way through the crowded room of visitors as we followed. Then, all of a sudden, she just stopped.
I immediately began looking around for my dad. I was sure that any minute now he would be busting through the crowd. To my surprise, as the crowd parted, I looked up and there was my dad sitting right there in front of us. He was smiling and looking as if he was having a good time. His muscles were bulging through his shirt, and his afro was all neat the way it always was. Everything looked to be normal, except for the fact that he was being fed cake by some pretty, light-skinned girl; not prettier than my moms, but a lot younger. He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t even see us standing there. It wasn’t until my moms called his name that he noticed us. With record-breaking speed, my dad had made it from where he was sitting to directly in front of my mom and us.
I could see the tears beginning to roll down my mother’s face as she tried to find the words to say to my father. And then they just spilled out. “I hope that tramp was worth your family, because you just lost it!” Her words started out weak but ended strong.
None of us knew what was really going on, but I knew that something was wrong; and seeing the unfamiliar look on my mom’s face confirmed it all as she turned to us and said, “Kids, let’s go!”
Just as we were about to exit the room, my father came up behind my mom and grabbed her by the arm. He began to try to explain whatever it was that needed explaining. “Wait a minute, hold up!” he yelled. “That broad back there don’t mean nothing to me. You’re the only woman I love and I’m not tryin’ to lose you over some nonsense. How you think I’ve been makin’ all that money I’ve been sending home for you and the kids?” he asked; and then answered his own question. “Because that broad been bringing me stuff up here that I would never ask you to bring ’cause I love you and care about you and the kids too much to disrespect you like that,” he said, looking around as he lowered his voice.
I could tell whatever he was talking about he didn’t want the Bad People to hear him. But not only did the Bad People not hear him, neither did my moms. It was as though his words had fallen on deaf ears.
Wiping her face, my mother calmly spoke. “I won’t play this game with you anymore. I love my children and myself too much to throw my life, time, and love away on someone who only cares about himself, who thinks he can buy everything and that fast money is the best money. Money isn’t everything. You can’t buy love and happiness, and the fast way isn’t always the best way, Jay. How can you say you love me and you’d never disrespect me? What do you call having another woman up here when you have a wife and kids?” my mother stated.
My father started to answer, but my moms cut him off. “Save it, Jay. I don’t even want to hear what you have to say. I’m tired of all of your lies. I can’t take it anymore. It’s over!” she cried out.
Since I was the closest to her, my mother took hold of my hand and she began walking away, with my brother and sisters trailing along, leaving my dad standing there. Hearing my mother’s words and not knowing the next time I’d see him, I couldn’t help but take one last look back at my dad as I walked alongside my mom. As long as I lived, I’d never forget the expression on his face as he watched us leave. As he stood there, shaking his head, he had the look of someone who had just lost something very valuable and didn’t know where to find it. I didn’t fully understand at the time but that day marked the first day of a new life for all of us; and that was the last time I ever saw my dad while he was away.
CHAPTER ONE
Twenty Months Later
“Grandma, I finished my homework. Can I go outside now?”
“Okay, but if you go on the other side don’t cross those train tracks. Walk your tail around and stay away from that handball court. Don’t let me catch or hear your butt was over there, Kamil, you hear me?” my grandmother warned. The handball court was where all the older people hung out doing illegal things. I knew better than to defy her. She didn’t play when it came to following the rules or, rather, her rules. Besides, I knew it was because she was concerned about my safety.
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.
“Can I go too, Grams? I’m done,” Mal asked, straightening up his books.
“Yeah, you can go too; but what I tell you about calling me Grams like I’m some old woman or something? I told you before about picking up that street talk and bringing it up in this house with you, boy.”
“Excuse me, Grandma,” Mal corrected himself.
With the exception of her long silver hair, nothing about my grandmother indicated that she was an old woman. She had smooth almond-colored skin and a perfectly round face. Even though she had given birth to my moms and six uncles, she wasn’t a big lady and stood only five feet tall. I had seen pictures of her when she was a teenager and she still looked the same. She was small in size but huge in heart and was full of life and full of energy. She always said, “You’re only as old as you feel, and I’ll be twenty-one years young on my next birthday.”
After the last time we saw my dad, things began to change. Actually, everything began to change. We moved out of our neighborhood in Brooklyn and moved in with my grandmother in the projects. She lived out in New Jersey, where my parents were originally from.
We started seeing less of my moms because she was now working two jobs. When my dad had been there, he did all the working. Even when the Bad People took him away from us he used to send money to my moms, but then he just stopped. I never really knew what type of job he had, but I knew that it had to be a good one because we never wanted for anything, and never had to struggle—up until now, anyway. All I knew about my dad’s job was that he used to travel a lot and would sometimes be gone for days, even weeks, at a time. I guessed he was some type of traveling salesman, so when I was asked what my father did for a living I just used to say he was a businessman.
In spite of my moms working, there were a lot of strangers coming to the house demanding money when we still lived in Brooklyn. At first, I used to think that they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but then I knew that it couldn’t have been them because she wouldn’t have opened the door. I didn’t figure out that all the strangers were bill collectors until the gas and electric got turned off, and we had to move from our brownstone because my mom couldn’t maintain the rent while raising four kids on her income.
Don’t get me wrong, Jersey was okay, but still it wasn’t New York, so like anything else that’s new or different you had to get used to it. I knew a lot of the kids out here in the projects though, because every summer my moms used to send Mal and me to my grandmother’s to spend time with her, not knowing that my brother and I had to fight the whole time we were out there just to prove that we were tough New Yorkers. Jersey kids thought New York kids couldn’t fight. They thought that we only knew how to rob and steal or, in our case, they thought we were too uppity to know how to defend ourselves. But my dad and uncle used to box and they taught us. After all the fights we had, we were finally accepted in the Jersey ghetto as two of the boys; and we looked forward to our summer trips to Plainfield.
“Yo, Ant, what up?” My brother spotted one of our homeboys from building 532.
“Chillin’, chillin’, what up with you?” They gave each other a pound and embraced one another.
“We tryin’ to see what’s goin’ on out here in the hood,” said Mal jokingly.
Ant was twelve years old, two years older than me and one year older than Kamal; but he treated us as if we were all the same age. We learned a lot from Ant, because he grew up in the streets so he was more hip to how things were running out there.
His father was where we used to go visit my dad; but he told us that his dad was away for selling drugs. It was Ant who broke me out of saying that the Bad People had my dad and started me saying he was “away.” The more he began to educate us about where we now lived, the more Mal and I began to question what it was our father was really away for.
Ant also had a brother who sold drugs. He was only seventeen, but he already had a 1980 Caddy, similar to the one my dad used to drive. Ant told us how his brother always bought him the freshest clothes. They were fly, too, and Mal and I were envious, especially since we were still wearing some of the same gear we had since we moved from New York, and now we had to share our clothes and wear hand-me-downs from the Salvation Army.
“Let’s go over Trev’s crib and see what’s up, see if we can put together a free-for-all or something,” Ant said.
“Bet,” Mal and I agreed.
Trevor lived in building 120 on the Elmwood side of the projects, and he was Ant’s best friend. Their families were actually two of the first to move into the Elmwood Gardens housing projects back in the sixties and they were close, so it was only right that when they were born and grew up they became close themselves. I found out my grandmother was one of the first to move around here after my grandfather had died from a heart attack, and she couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage on the house they had lived in for four years until his death.
“Who is it?” we heard Trevor asking from the other side of the door.
“It’s the police. Open up before I kick it in!” yelled Ant, trying to disguise his voice.
“Kick it in and you’re gonna pay for it, nigga,” Trevor yelled back as he opened the door and embraced his best friend, recognizing Ant’s voice.
“Trev, what it is?” said Ant.
“You know, maxin’ and relaxin’, that’s all. Mal, Mil, what up? We got muthafuckin’ New York in the house!” he shouted, and laughter began to fill the little apartment.
“Forget you,” said Mal, laughing along with them. It was something we were used to, not being from Jersey. It was our own little joke.
Once Trevor closed the door behind us, the rest of the crew began pulling their beers, cigarettes, and weed back out. Everyone had hidden whatever they were doing when Ant pretended to be the police. All of our boys hung out over at Trevor’s crib doing the things they knew they couldn’t get caught doing at home, except for Ant, unless they wanted to die at a young age; but Trevor’s crib was cool because his moms worked mostly all day, so he practically had the house to himself Monday through Friday.
“Nigga, why you gotta play so muthafuckin’ much?” Shareef asked Ant.
“Man, cool out. Trev knew it was me.”
Outside of Trevor and Shareef, the rest of the gang consisted of Quadir, Shawn, Mark, and Black. Everybody was pretty much around the same age, between the ages of eleven and fourteen. In fact, I was really the youngest out of the bunch and the littlest, too; but I was accepted just the same, because I had heart and wasn’t afraid to fight.
“Yo, Mil, come hit this spliff, nigga. This that shit right here,” said Black, coughing from the smoke. Black was the oldest and had the most experience around the projects. His real name was Bernard, but he earned the name Black from the darkness of his complexion.
“Nah, man, you know I don’t smoke, kid. I don’t even know how to,” I answered, shaking my head. I knew he was trying to be funny because he knew my brother and I didn’t smoke or drink.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot you a young whippersnapper,” Black joked. “But you still my nigga, even if you don’t get any bigga,” he added in a laughing manner, while taking another pull of the joint. “This is for you, baby boy!” He held the weed wrapped in white paper in my direction before passing it to Quadir, who gladly accepted it.
“Yo, Trev, we was comin’ over here to see if we could get a football game goin’ on the other side, but you niggas up in here getting all high and shit, so that cancels that,” Ant said disappointedly.
“Maaaan, ain’t nobody all high and drunk up in here, nigga,” Trevor said defensively. “You always comin’ at us sideways every time we tryin’a have a good time, actin’ like we some of them junky and whino muthafuckas out there on the block. We just havin’ a little fun, know what I’m sayin’?” Trev stated. “Besides, the alcohol and weed make me play better and harder anyway, so let’s rock. You ain’t sayin’ nothing!” he concluded with a smile before Ant had a chance to rebut.
We were all used to them going at it like brothers. It was comical to us and we knew it was all in love. At some point, we all had gotten into it with one another, but the next day we would be right back to kicking it again like the boys we were.
Everyone jumped up hearing Trevor’s words and one by one we began spilling out of his apartment, headed over to the field on the other side of the tracks.
“We ain’t got all day, momma’s boys,” Black was the first to yell as we approached the field.
“Word up,” Shareef followed up.
While everybody else crossed the train tracks to get to the other side of the projects, Mal and I walked around, remembering what our grandmother had told us, so they all had to wait for us. Kamal stuck up his middle finger at Black’s comment while I stuck mine up at Shareef. Before it could escalate to anything else, Trevor started picking teams.
“Me, Quadir, Shawn, and Mark, against you, Mil, Mal, and Black,” he said to Ant. “Reef, you ref the game.”
“Why the fuck I gotta ref the game?” Shareef questioned.
“Nigga, you know why you gotta ref the game. ’Cause ya ass is wack and you don’t know how to play,” Trev said, as we all burst into laughter. Everybody around the projects, with the exception of Shareef, was good in everything we played, from football to basketball down to baseball. Although we weren’t originally from the projects, Mal and I loved playing sports just as much as we did watching them, but when it came to God handing down skills and talents in the athletic departments Shareef was standing in the wrong line. He couldn’t catch a football even if it landed in his hands; he couldn’t swing a bat if his life depended on it; and he couldn’t dribble a basketball unless he used two hands, no matter how many times we tried to teach him.
“But I can fight,” Reef spat back. That was his response every time.
“I bet you won’t win if we jump ya punk ass, nigga,” was Ant’s comeback each time, as we laughed even harder.
Up ahead of the field was the handball court. All of the older teenagers and old heads hung out up there, either hustling, getting high and drinking, shooting dice, shining up their rides, kicking it to girls, playing ball, or just coolin’ out.
I was always good with remembering faces and names, so I knew all the hustlers and the cars they drove, too, and they knew who Mal and I were, through my dad and Uncle Jerry. It wasn’t until Ant’s brother told him that my dad was a street legend out there that I began to realize my father wasn’t any type of traveling salesman.
The more we hung around Ant and the rest of our friends the more Mal and I learned. I didn’t want to at first, but as time went on I had no choice but to believe what they were saying about my father. In passing, my brother and I would hear some of the hustlers saying things like, “Their dad was clockin’ major dough,” or “Their dad was paid.” Because of who he was in the streets, we received a lot of respect from the people who hung out by the handball court.
While we were out there playing football, we noticed that guys were beginning to scatter, running all over the place; and then we saw the police jump out of their unmarked and patrol cars from everywhere, both in plain clothes and uniforms. Some guys sprinted into the housing projects complex while others made a mad dash for
the bridge and the train tracks. Just as I was about to move out of the way, one of the fleeing runners seemed as if he was about to hit me with a football tackle. I tried to maneuver out of his way but it was too late; he was already up on me. I braced myself for the hit.
“Li’l Mil, hold this,” he said as he continued to fly right past me, headed in the direction of the train tracks.
I knew who the guy was. Everybody knew. His name was Mustafa. He was a nineteen-year-old hustler from the projects who was known for being thorough, a ladies’ man, and one of the best dressers in the hood. Ant told us how he was well respected by all in the streets, young and old, and didn’t take any junk from nobody. Without giving it a second thought, I took what Mustafa had handed me and shoved it into my left sweatpants pocket. A few seconds later, one policeman, who was out of breath from giving chase, came to a complete stop in front of all of us.
“Hey, you kids, did you see anybody drop anything by you?” the plainclothes officer asked us.
“No, sir,” we all answered in unison, knowing that even if we had we still wouldn’t have answered him truthfully.
“All right, well, we need you to clear this area so we can search it,” he said.
We were used to one of our playing sessions being broken up because of something that had happened up by the handball court. There was always something going on in the West End Gardens housing projects known as the Bricks. Because the ones we lived in were newer, they called the Bricks the Old Projects and ours the New Projects. Hustlers from both sides would go back and forth over the train tracks hanging out and hustling unless they were beefing with each other. When that happened, we weren’t allowed to play on the other side. But for the most part everyone got along.
Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler Page 2
