Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  We skipped the diner that night and all went home. We had all agreed that the next day we needed to get up early and go to the handball court.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When we walked up to the handball court nearly everyone you could think of was out there, even the fiends. You would’ve thought it was a family reunion. There were so many cars out there I was surprised the police didn’t show up. I always knew the projects were deep, but to actually see everybody all at one time gave a new meaning to the word “deep.” A lot of guys had just come home from doing prison bids that year, so a bunch of them were looking cock diesel, like the Incredible Hulk, over 200 pounds and better. Most of them were posted up by the fence with Mustafa. It looked like he was holding a meeting there while the rest listened. I could tell he spotted me because he waved his hand for me to come over. We all walked over to where the hustlers and gangsters of our hood gathered.

  Everybody’s face bore different expressions. Most of them possessed smirks while some of them were grilling us hard. I guessed they weren’t so happy about us starting a block beef last night. In one of our talks, Mustafa had taught me that beefing and hustling don’t mix. He said you couldn’t make money if you beefing, because beef drew heat and heat shut the block down.

  “Yo, what up, young bucks?” Mu said in a laughing type of way, shaking his head. “What did y’all get us into last night, li’l homies?”

  “It wasn’t even like that, Mu,” Mal spoke up. “That kid Karim had our sister all hemmed up in the corner and wouldn’t let her go. I told him to get off of her and he started getting all tough, so I wasn’t going to back down ’cause I ain’t no coward. I’m from the projects.” Kamal’s comment got a laugh out of some of the hustlers and gangsters. “I put my hand in his face and he knocked it down,” he continued. “That’s when Mil caught him with the hook and then we jumped him projects style,” Mal finished with.

  If they weren’t laughing before they were as Mal ended.

  “Why’d you have to snatch his chain?” Mu asked. “What, y’all some stick-up kids now?”

  “Mu, it just happened like that,” Trevor stepped in. “We didn’t mean to rob him on purpose. If I wouldn’t have taken it somebody else would’ve ’cause homeboy was out for the count.”

  The laughter increased at what Trevor said. I thought they all found it hard to believe that a bunch of young teenagers did the kid Karim like that, because he was known for being able to handle himself in battle against two to three street guys at a time on the fighting tip. Because he slept on us because we were young, his reputation had been tarnished.

  “Where’s the chain at?” Mu asked Trevor.

  “At my crib.”

  “Go get it and bring it here.”

  Trevor went to go get the chain.

  “Listen, we ain’t mad at y’all and we ain’t gonna let nothing happened to y’all, either, but to dead this y’all gonna have to fight somebody from down there on the one-on-one,” Mu told us. “He may be bigger, he may be smaller, he may be younger, or he may be older, but either way y’all gonna have to knuckle up ’cause y’all messin’ up our money flow right now and we tryin’ to dead this beef as quick as possible, so when Trevor come back we goin’ down there,” Mu said finally. We had no choice but to agree.

  * * *

  Just as it looked when we walked to the handball court was how it looked when we got down to Third and Stebbins. People were everywhere. We rode down there twenty cars deep with at least four project heads in each car. Nobody got out. Mu was leading the pack. He rolled down the window and a big, dark-skinned kid sporting a navy blue Kangol, wife beater, and some blue denim jeans, with three fat gold chains draped with medallions around his neck, came over to Mu’s BMW.

  “Ay yo, Chuck, you get my message?” Mu asked him.

  “Yeah, I got it, and Karim agreed to it. Where’s the chain, though?”

  Mu gave it to him.

  “It’s too hot around here so we gonna meet y’all in the field and it can jump off over there. I got three of my boys who are going to rock and Karim wants to rock with the li’l nigga he said snuck him.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool, whatever. We’ll meet y’all in the field,” Mu said as he pulled off followed by the projects convoy.

  That day you would’ve thought that there was a car show the way all the fly cars were lined up from the projects. Benzes, BMs, Jettas, Jags, Volvos, and Jeeps, and every ride in the line was fly.

  They were all there, and it was going down. The guys Mal, Ant, and Trevor had to fight were all about their size, maybe a little bigger, but nothing compared to the size of Karim.

  That night, the dark must’ve made him look smaller, because now that I saw him in the daytime he was huge. He looked as if he had been locked up before, a few times to be exact. Words of my father, “The bigger they are the harder they fall,” resonated in the back of my mind as I watched my brother prepare to fight first. The kid he had to knuckle up with was no match for him. Mal kept catching him with the okey-doke, faking him with the left and catching him with the right. To finish him off, my brother faked like he was swinging a hook, then dropped down, grabbed him by the calves and earth slammed him like the way they did in WWF. After that, it was over. All the project heads were amped, even the shorties who were out there.

  Trevor didn’t do as good because the kid had a longer reach and kept popping the jab in his mouth. His lips were all busted, and he couldn’t get in, except for one time he caught the kid good in the eye and it turned black and blue on impact. He caught Trevor again and busted his nose. When Trevor felt the blood, out of anger and frustration he rushed the kid and the kid somehow got behind him and put him in a sleeper hold. Mu broke it up before he could put Trevor out, though. When they broke it up, Trevor still wanted to fight, but Mu said it was over.

  Ant’s fight was a good one to watch. Him and the kid was going blow for blow. At the end, they both had black eyes, bloody noses, and busted lips, but overall I thought Ant took him because he was the smaller guy. The whole time watching the fight I could see the kid Karim over there talking to one of his boys about how he was going to beat me up, but the more I saw my boys fight the more amped I got.

  “You ready, kid?” Mu came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” was all I said.

  “Yo, you young bucks wanted to see how it feels to be in the game, well, this is a part of the game right here. This is a part of the flipside of the game. You gots to put some work in on the block.” Mu addressed all of us, but I knew he was really talking to me.

  There was no turning back. By now, more cars had pulled up. All you heard were car doors slamming as we got back to the field. Mu told Mal and them to go wait by the court while he kicked it to me.

  “I’m gonna be straight with you, kid,” Mu started out saying, “you got the hardest fight out the bunch. Now if you don’t want to fight let me know and I’ll tell them ain’t nothing, and then we’ll just get into some gangsta shit after that, know what I’m sayin’?”

  I knew Mu wanted me to cop out but, to tell the truth, I wasn’t scared. Win, lose, or draw, I was going to fight and I had planned to fight hard. Besides, I felt that if I could knock that kid out with one punch before, I could do it again.

  “Nah, Mu, I’m going to fight. Either he’s going to beat me up or I’m going to beat him up, right?”

  “Right, kid!” Mu answered proudly. “But if you don’t want to fight no more just call my name and I’ll stop that shit immediately.”

  “Yo, if he knocks me unconscious then break it up, but other than that I’m not going to give up.”

  “I always knew you had the heart, kid. I respect you for that and everybody else will too,” Mu said. “Now kick that nigga’s ass.”

  Me and Karim squared off. “Knock him out, baby,” my brother yelled as I made my way to the center of the circle.

  “Yeah, knock me out, li’l nigga,” Karim mocked my brother, while
flinching, trying to intimidate me.

  Instead of jumping, I leaned back just in case he actually tried to throw a punch at me. For a minute neither one of us didn’t throw anything. I could hear the voices in the background, some rooting for me while the others were against me. Then out of nowhere Karim swung a lazy hook and missed, and left his jaw clean open; but I didn’t take the shot because the hook he threw was unexpected, even though I saw it coming from a mile away. I still didn’t throw any punches. I was timing him, just like my father taught me. “Watch the shoulders,” he would tell me.

  I must’ve had my foot out too far because Karim tried to hit me with the old school and sweep my leg, hoping to knock me off balance, but he was too far back and I pulled it in just in time. I guessed he got tired of waiting for me because he launched an attack with a barrage of punches, hitting nothing but air because I slipped, ducked, and sidestepped everything he threw my way. And that was all I needed.

  As I ducked and sidestepped his arsenal of undelivered blows, I caught him right in the gut. Karim bellied over, trying to protect his stomach area, causing him to leave me a clean shot to the head. I caught him straight in the temple. I could hear the crunching sound of my young knuckles as they connected with the side of his face. Like a Rocky movie, when Sylvester Stallone has delivered that final blow, the reaction of my punch seemed to be in slow motion. He made an attempt to grab hold of me as his legs gave, but I moved just in time. The next thing I knew, the kid Karim was laid out in the circle.

  The projects went crazy like we had just won the Super Bowl or the NBA championship. I couldn’t see nobody ’cause I was focused strictly on Karim, seeing if he was going to get back up; but he didn’t, and right then I knew that I had knocked out somebody older than me on a one-on-one.

  “Yeah! That’s what the fuck I’m talking about!” I heard someone say.

  “Yo! Mil! You got skills, kid,” someone else said.

  “That li’l nigga ain’t nothing to fuck with,” another said. I heard so many different things, but I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to know why my hand felt funny.

  When I looked at my right hand it had already begun to swell and my pinky knuckle was out of place. It was evident that I had hit Karim so hard I had broken my hand. I could see some of Karim’s boys helping him up off the ground while the others from his hood got in their respective cars and began to roll out.

  “Yo, I seen it in your eyes that you were going to take homeboy out,” Mu said to me, putting his arm around my neck.

  “Mu, I think I broke something, kid. It ain’t feeling right,” I told him.

  Mu looked at my hand. I knew I had broken my knuckle. “Yeah, kid, your shit is broke. You gots to go to the hospital,” he said.

  “Man, my mom is gonna kill me when she finds out,” I said as Mal and them walked toward me and Mu.

  “Yo, you was just out here puttin’ in work on some gangsta shit and you worried about what your moms is gonna do when she finds out?” Mu said to me. “Young buck, you shout out. Don’t worry about all that; this is what we gonna do,” he started saying.

  “Mal, go home and tell your moms that your brother was playing on the monkey bars at Green Acres and fell off and sprained his hand, and somebody drove him to the hospital. By the time she gets up there, Mil will be getting checked out by the doctor,” Mu said.

  Kamal did as he was told. Mu drove me to the hospital. They admitted me, but they couldn’t do anything until my parents or legal guardian was present, so we just sat in the lobby waiting until my moms got there.

  “You did good today, kid,” Mu said. “That’s gonna be the talk of the town for a minute, and you gonna get a lot of props in the hood. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “I am,” I said.

  Just then, my moms walked in. “Are you all right?” she asked with a worried look on her face.

  “Yeah, I’m okay, ma. I just messed one of my knuckles up playing on the bars at the park.” It killed me to lie to my mother just then, but it was either that or be banned from going outside for the rest of my life.

  “I know, your brother told me,” she said. Noticing Mustafa, my mother said, “Thank you for brining my son up here. Here, take this for your time,” she said, reaching in her purse and pulling out a twenty dollar bill.

  Mu smiled. “Oh, nah, I can’t accept that. It was no bother, no problem at all. I was glad to be of help. Li’l man, you take it easy.” He gave me the head nod.

  “Well, thank you again,” my mother said to Mu. “I really do appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mu responded as he left the hospital.

  Just as I figured, my pinky knuckle was out of place and they had to put a cast on my hand until it straightened back up. They had wanted to cut my hand open and reset the bones, but my mother wouldn’t allow it because they told her it would leave a permanent scar. While examining my knuckle the doctor made a comment about my hand looking like I had hit something real hard in the head or something the way that it was swollen. I almost fell off the table when he said that, not trying to look at my moms.

  “Nah.” I laughed. “I fell off the monkey bars at the park,” I told him.

  They put a cast on my hand and then I was discharged from the hospital. The doctor told my mom that I would have to keep it on for at least three to four months. That was a long time, I thought.

  As we were leaving, my moms asked the nurse at the desk for a marker. I didn’t know what for until she began writing on my cast. She wrote in red letters, I LOVE YOU, MOM, and she colored in the heart.

  That was the first out of many signings that I would get on my cast. Like Mu said, my fight with Karim was the talk of the town, and I had the cast on my hand to prove it. Luckily, my moms and grandmother didn’t catch wind of it because that would’ve been my behind.

  Right away, I had twenty-five to thirty names and signatures on my cast, from my boys to a lot of old heads in the hood, down to my immediate family. But besides my mom’s and grandma’s signatures, Lisa’s was the one I read the most out of all of them. She wrote on the forearm part of the cast, LISA WITH LOVE FOREVER & ALWAYS! I’m not saying she was in love with me, but just seeing the word “love” told me that I meant a lot to her. The cast thing definitely had its benefits.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was New Year’s Eve, 1986, about to be 1987, and everybody was looking forward to the New Year coming in. Trevor was having a Ball Drop party at his crib because his mother had gone to New York with a friend to see it live and she left him the apartment for the evening. Mal and I had to damn near clean up the whole house from top to bottom just to convince our mom and grandmother to let us spend the night over at Trevor’s crib. We would’ve cleaned four houses just to make it to the party because we knew that it was going to be more than worth it.

  “Happy New Year!” everybody yelled when Mal and I stepped into the place. The music was pumping and the house was jam-packed. You could smell a combination of weed, alcohol, fried chicken, and sweaty teenagers from all the dancing. I saw Black and Shareef tag-teaming some shorties in a sandwich in the middle of the living room floor. There was nothing like a house party.

  Trevor and Ant were approaching us with two cups in their hands. “Happy New Year, homies,” Trevor said to Mal and me, as he passed me one of the cups that he had in his hand while Ant handed Kamal the other one that he had. “Let’s toast!” Trevor said.

  We all held our drinks together up in the air to honor the New Year’s toast and then we drank. Lately it seemed like every time we got together on the weekends we were drinking to something, whether it was celebrating something good or some type of tragedy. Either way something that called for a drink was always happening in the hood. At least that was my excuse for all the drinking I had been doing.

  Both Trevor and Ant had healed up from the bruises they had from the fight the day after the Christmas party. We even sat around drinking and talking about that day. When the
fight is actually happening and you’re getting your butt kicked or you’re kicking someone’s butt it doesn’t seem funny; but after it’s all over, you start remembering all types of stuff about it that’s hilarious. Especially if you’re drinking, or smoking weed, which my brother and I still hadn’t graduated to.

  “Yo, we thought y’all wasn’t gonna make it,” Ant yelled in my ear.

  “Man! We had to clean up the whole dag-on projects just to get to this piece,” I told him, exaggerating. He just laughed.

  “We’re trying to get a couple of these shorties to stay the night so we can really have some fun, know what I’m saying?” Trevor said with a lustful expression on his face.

  “Yo, kid, Mil and me ain’t trying to mess with none of these skeezers up in here. All the older heads already ran through all of them and ain’t no telling what them dirty-dick niggas got. I ain’t trying to get burnt or catch some crabs, know what I’m saying?” Mal mocked Trevor.

  “Whatever, man, you two do what you want and Ant and me gonna do what we want. Ain’t that right, Ant?”

  “Yo, I’m with Mal and Mil on this one, kid. These shorties up in here trifling. They okay to dance with and bug out with, but not to be sticking my joint up in them,” Ant told him.

  “You scary-ass virgin muthafuckas! Y’all probably ain’t had pussy since pussy had you,” Trevor shouted back. “I’m gonna show you how to do ya thang tonight.”

  “Okay, show us how it’s done, playboy,” my brother said to Trevor.

  “Happy New Year to the NPP,” Black and Shareef said together while walking up on us.