Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  “Okay, Kamil, yes, you can make it up to me,” she answered.

  “Cool. I’ll be over there later to pick up my gift.”

  * * *

  After hanging out with Ant and the rest of my boys for a few hours I told Kamal I’d be back in time to go to the Christmas party at the Neighborhood House. The only reason we were going there was because they were having a dance contest for a $100 cash prize and we had to show that the best dancers in the town came from the projects, so we were going to represent. We all agreed that whichever one of us won we’d split the money down the middle. It was like getting paid to go to a party because one of us was guaranteed to win.

  Ding dong! The doorbell chimed. It had been awhile since I heard the sound of a doorbell. In the hood, you either knocked on the metal project doors real hard or yelled someone’s name real loud, and if nobody answered, they weren’t home or just didn’t want to be bothered.

  “Mommy, I got it,” I could hear Lisa saying through the door as she opened it up. “I didn’t think you were going to show up,” she said.

  “I’d never make a promise I couldn’t keep,” I replied, quoting what I had learned from Mustafa.

  “Listen to you, Mr. Responsible,” she said teasingly. “You can come in. I have to run upstairs and get your present.” She invited me in.

  When I stepped in, I was not surprised but impressed. I hadn’t gone inside when I came over for the pool party that day, but I knew judging by the outside the inside had to be nice. Their home was neatly furnished. It reminded me of how the inside of our brownstone looked when we were back in Brooklyn.

  “Lisa, who’s that?” her mother asked from upstairs.

  “My friend Kamil from school I told you about. He came to pick up his gift,” she said back to her mother.

  As I sat there waiting, admiring the family pictures on the wall, a tall, slightly heavyset man came walking down the steps. “How do you do, young man?” He extended his hand. “I’m Lisa’s father.”

  “I’m fine, sir, and yourself?” I shook his hand firmly, which was something my father taught Mal and me to do. I noticed a surprised look on her father’s face when I spoke.

  “Pretty good,” he said back to me in an almost a laughing manner. I guessed he was surprised by the manner in which I had greeted him. “My little girl speaks very highly of you, says you’re smarter than her in school,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I don’t think I am smarter than her, because she’s real smart, but I appreciate her saying that about me,” I replied.

  Just as he was about to say something else both Lisa and her mother came down the stairs, resembling each other almost to the point of being twins, but you could tell who was the mother and who was the daughter.

  “So this is Kamil,” her mother said, not asking a question but rather making a statement. “Hello, Kamil.” Her greeting was short.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Matthews? It’s nice to meet you,” I politely responded, wanting to make a good impression on her.

  “So, you’re the one who keeps getting Lisa in trouble for staying on the phone so late at night all the time, huh?” She had a blank stare on her face when she spoke.

  I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or for real. I just looked at her, puzzled. A sense of nervousness lightly swept through my body and I could feel my palms beginning to moisten.

  “Mother!” Lisa exclaimed.

  “I’m just messing with the boy,” her mother shot back, setting me somewhat at ease, but inside I still felt as though she may have been serious. “You speak very well mannered even when you’re on the phone. I can tell your parents raised you respectfully.” I wasn’t sure if her statement was meant as a compliment because her tone was kind of dry. But I accepted it as one anyway.

  “Thank you,” was all I said, feeling as though I was on trial for a crime I didn’t commit.

  She then began her interrogation. “What type of work do your parents do, and have you always attended Plainfield schools?”

  Instantly embarrassment filled my gut. I had overheard enough stories from my grandmother and her friends about how the people on the east end thought they were better and more educated than us to understand why I was being asked that question, based on how she had been observing and studying me. Although I was taught to respect my elders, I refused to let Lisa’s mother intimidate me. She was literally judging a book by its cover, without knowing what was inside.

  “My mother works in customer service for Johnson & Johnson and goes to school at night, while my grandmother watches me and my brother and two sisters. I used to attend a private school in New York, where I am originally from, until we moved out here a few years ago. My father has been in prison for the past four years.” I knew I had won her over with the way I had articulated my words and given her my background history. That was, until my very last statement.

  As soon as the words rolled off my tongue and out of my mouth, I hated my dad and resented him even more for having to say where he was in front of someone who was judging me without even knowing me. That day I said I would never forgive my father for putting me through this.

  “Mary, leave that boy alone,” Mr. Matthews came to my defense. “He didn’t come here to answer twenty questions; he came for his gift.”

  I was grateful for Mr. Matthews calling off his wife. He must’ve seen it in my face how uncomfortable it was for me speaking about my dad, as well as how painful. I could tell Lisa picked up on it too because it looked like she had tears in her eyes and was embarrassed by how her mother had been treating me.

  “I didn’t mean any harm, Joe,” Mrs. Matthews said to her husband. “I was complimenting him on his manners. Kamil, if I said anything to offend you then I apologize. Baby, you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” she said, and she left and went back upstairs.

  “I’m going to let you two talk,” Mr. Matthews said. Before he went upstairs he said, “It was nice to meet you, Kamil. I hope you see you again.”

  “Same to you, sir. Enjoy your holidays,” I said.

  “Kamil, I am sorry. I did not know my mother was going to question you, but I know she didn’t try to disrespect you or anything. That’s just how she is with everybody,” Lisa said, explaining for her mother.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I didn’t take offense. You’re her daughter and she’s only making sure you’re not interested in a street thug, especially when I’m the Kamil who keeps you in trouble staying on the phone so late all the time,” I said jokingly, repeating what her moms had said.

  That put a smile on her face. “I knew there was a reason I like you. You can find humor in any situation,” she said. “Anybody who can tolerate my mother is worth staying friends with.” She smiled. There was a brief pause in her words and a momentary silence. “Anyway, here’s your present. Open it,” she said all excited.

  “There better not be no snake in this box,” I said.

  “Just open it, boy,” she said, punching me in the arm.

  “Okay, you don’t have to be so violent,” I said as I began neatly unwrapping the paper.

  “Kamil, you’re slow. Let me help you,” Lisa said as she started ripping the paper off.

  “All right, all right. I get the picture.”

  Once all the paper was off, I took the top off the box and inside was a new black rabbit fur hat with matching black rabbit gloves with leather in the palms, the same identical fur that was around the collar of my white goose-down jacket.

  “Oh, junk! These are fly!” I exclaimed with excitement. “I should’ve known you got me something like this when you asked me did I get a new hat and gloves. Thank you. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift,” I genuinely thanked Lisa. “They’re gonna be sweatin’ me in the hood now, ’cause only the ballers got this hookup,” I said, knowing she didn’t understand my street lingo.

  “Well, I don’t know who the ballers are, but I’m glad you like them.” Her remark confirmed what
I had already thought. “I figured you’d look cute with them on, ’cause ever since the first day of school I seen you with your white goose on and you’ve been looking cute,” she said.

  “Come on, don’t soup me up like that,” I said back to her.

  “I’m for real. That white jacket makes you the cutest boy in the whole school.”

  “Thank you,” was all I could think of to say. “I have to go, ’cause me, my brother, and some friends are going to the party at the Neighborhood House; but thank you again for the hat and gloves. They’re fly.”

  “You get to go to real parties?” she asked as if it were a big deal.

  “Yeah, they have parties all the time on the west end all over. You’ve never been to a party before?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered.

  “Not even a house party?” I asked again.

  “The only party I’ve been to besides here is a birthday party for one of my girls, and there’s no music or dancing, just games and stuff like that,” she said.

  “Wow. Well, if you and your girlfriends want to go and you think you can get away, let me know and my brother and I will make sure you have a good time,” I offered. I had an idea of how sheltered other kids were on the east end, but after finding out that Lisa had never been to a real party, I realized just how much. I remembered when we had lived liked that back in Brooklyn. “I got to go, but I’ll have enough fun for the both of us in case you can’t make it,” I said as she walked me to the door.

  “I wish you could be there,” I turned and said. “’Cause I’m in a dance contest tonight for a hundred dollars cash prize.”

  Her eyes widened and a grin grew across her face. “Get out of here,” she exclaimed. “You can’t dance.”

  “What? I can do any dance that’s out,” I boasted. “You name it, I can do it.”

  “Like what, Kamil?”

  “Anything. The Whop, the Alf, the Cabbage Patch, the Brooklyn Slide, the Biz Mark, Happy Feet; and I can pop, break dance, and I can even do the hustle,” I bragged. “My moms taught me that. You want me to keep goin’?”

  She stood there laughing. “No, but I still won’t believe it until I see you with my own eyes.”

  “Okay, I’m gonna come over one day and show you and then I want you to apologize.”

  “That’s a deal,” she said. We shook on it.

  “Tell your parents I said it was nice meeting them.”

  “I will.”

  “All right, let me get up outta here. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I could see in her eyes she wished I could stay longer. The word “good-bye” tickled my ears as I made my exit.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Neighborhood House was jam-packed. Bodies from all over the west end and some from various parts of the east end, like cliques from Town House and Meadow Brook Village projects heads who were connected either by blood or just being cool with somebody from the west end, were in the house.

  “Yo, Ant,” Trevor called out. “One of us gonna win that hundred dollars, ’cause I seen most of these niggas at other spots and they are wack. Nobody can fuck with me, you, Mil, and Mal up in here.”

  Trevor was a club head. He was older than us so he was able to get into more parties than we were. He always hit a spot downtown called the Rendezvous, run by a DJ from Third Street named Cheese, and he came back and shared the night’s stories with us. If he learned something new he taught us, and then we would throw our own style into it.

  “Trev, you smell like weed. You been smoking?” Ant asked.

  “Nigga, you know when I step out I gotta have that Buddha in my system or my dancing is gonna be off,” Trevor spat back.

  “Man, it’s not your dancing I’m worried about; it’s your temper,” Ant corrected him. “You know when you smoke that shit and drink, you start buggin’ out, and we wind up getting into a fight or argument with some niggas.”

  “Yo, Ant, chill, nigga. I got this. We gonna win this money and be Audi 5000,” Trevor said in a cool tone. Whenever he talked like that, we knew he was high from the weed.

  “I hope so,” my brother added, “because I don’t want to have to knock one of these jokers out up in here, BK style with the fifty-two.”

  “Man, you don’t know that shit,” Trevor said, running up on Mal with his hands up in combatant mode.

  “Let something jump off and you’ll see,” my brother said, instantly catching and blocking Trevor’s punch.

  “Okay, I see ya work,” Trevor spat, impressed. “But save that for them other muthafuckas. Mil, you know that shit too,” he said.

  I just nodded.

  * * *

  Winning the hundred dollars was too easy. Of course, it was me who won, but had Trevor not been high he would have won it because he was a much better dancer than all of us, but me winning it was just like him winning it anyway. At the end of the night, we all had twenty-five more dollars in our pocket than we did when we got there.

  “Yo, what up. You wanna walk to the diner and get something to eat before we call it a night?” Ant asked.

  Trevor was the first to agree. “Yeah, kid, ’cause that muthafuckin’ weed got me hungrier than a hostage.”

  “Yeah, we wit’ that,” my brother answered for both of us.

  “Let’s get up outta here then.”

  As we were about to leave the Neighborhood House, something caught my attention. I could tell that Mal’s attention had also been caught. He must’ve spotted her right before I did because while I was still trying to adjust my eyes to the sight, he was already making a beeline in that direction.

  “What the fuck?” I heard my brother say as he skipped over to what was taking place. It was our older sister Monique. She was trying to get around some guy who wasn’t trying to let her pass. He had one hand on the wall while his other hand shifted from her arm to her waist, preventing her from leaving.

  Hearing what Kamal said triggered Ant and Trevor off. I had already caught up to Mal, trailing behind him.

  “Yo, nigga, get ya muthafuckin’ hands off her like that,” Mal roared at the kid.

  “Kamal?” Monique was surprised to see Mal and me.

  “Who the fuck is you and why the fuck you mindin’ my business, li’l nigga?” the kid barked back. You could tell he was older than us and he had to be a hustler by the gold in his mouth and the rope chain around his neck.

  Not backing down, Mal matched both his stare and tone. “That’s my muthafuckin’ sister and I ain’t your muthafuckin nigga, nigga!” Mal shouted while putting his hands in the kid’s face.

  I knew it was about to go down ’cause I started getting those butterflies in my stomach like I usually did when I was about to fight or Kamal was about to get into it with somebody, so I positioned myself right on the kid’s blind side. He didn’t even notice me. He probably thought I was passing through. As soon as he tried to knock Kamal’s hand from out his face that’s when he became aware of my presence, or at least he felt it. By the time his hand had smacked my brother’s, I was catching him with a right hook on the side of his face. For a twelve-year-old, I packed a power punch like a grown man, and I was just as quick. When I landed the punch, I could see the kid going down. Kamal immediately followed with an uppercut to the kid’s jaw to ensure that once he went down he stayed there. Nobody really knew what was going on until they heard my sister Monique screaming over the music that was coming out of the Neighborhood House’s gymnasium. Trevor and Ant wasted no time stomping homeboy out when he hit the ground.

  “Yeah, nigga! NPP in the house,” Trevor yelled as he snatched the kid’s rope from around his neck.

  “You ain’t never had a project ass whippin’ like this before, punk-ass nigga!” Trevor continued his assault on the hustler, who was unconscious.

  “Trev, that’s enough,” Ant hollered, seeing that the kid on the floor was out, blood all on the ground. “You gonna catch a body, nigga.”

  “Stop it! Stop, y’all,” my sister Moni
que yelled at us. It was the first time I had actually heard what she had been yelling. We had all blanked out and focused on putting the beat down on the hustler.

  By now everyone had gathered to see what was going on, but I guessed the hustler was by himself ’cause ain’t nobody show up to help him. Besides, I saw more project heads than anything, so if he had boys so did we. Noticing security headed our way I grabbed my sister by the arm and ran for the exit door.

  “Nique, what the fuck you doing up in here anyway?” Mal questioned our sister once we reached the outside. “Does Mommy and Grams know you here? And what the fuck you got on, looking like one of these skeezers?” he said angry.

  “Mal, I don’t have to answer to you. You ain’t my father; you’re my little fuckin’ brother. You and Mil come in here with your little punk-ass friends like y’all some fuckin’ gangsters,” she reprimanded him. “I didn’t need your help in there. I could handle myself,” she said all in one breath.

  “Yo! I ain’t trying to hear that shit. Take your fuckin’ ass home before I drag you there myself.”

  Growing up, my sister was the toughest out of all of us, but tonight Kamal was in charge and he wasn’t playing any games. Just looking at him, you could see that. He looked twice his size, as if he grew in the last half hour. It was true Monique was the oldest but, at that moment, it was as if Mal were the big brother and Monique the little sister.

  “Mal, you’re overreacting,” she tried to explain. “That boy wasn’t hurting me; he was about to let me go until you came over there. Do you know who he is and where he’s from?” my sister asked, like the hustler was the mayor or somebody important and we were supposed to have known who. “That was Karim from Stebbins.”

  “I don’t care who that nigga was or where he’s from; all I know is he shouldn’t have had his hands on you like that, or he wouldn’t have gotten his ass kicked in there.”

  I was down with my brother 100 percent just like I knew Ant and Trevor were, but it wasn’t no secret. Although we didn’t know him by face we all knew of the kid Karim by name and where he was from. He was one of the youngest hustlers from his block who was getting a lot of money and, from what we had heard, when it came to his crew, they were just as deep as the projects. Not only did we jump him and beat him unconscious, Trevor had robbed him of his chain. So, according to the streets, no matter what, that kid’s rep was on the line and this thing was far from over. We all knew we had started something and we had no idea how we were going to get out of it or finish it.