Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  “Yo, Mal, you seen that?” I asked my brother, never taking my eyes off the car.

  “Seen what?”

  “I think I just seen Shareef serve that white man in that car that rode past,” I told him.

  “What? Get outta here. You buggin’,” my brother said in disbelief.

  “Yo, I ain’t joking, kid. I just peeped it.”

  Seeing that I was not playing, Kamal became serious. By the time I went to point out where I had just seen Shareef, he and the other kid had vanished.

  “He was just up there with some other kid,” I stated.

  “Let’s go see what’s up with Ant, and see if he knows what’s going on,” Mal said.

  Everybody was at Ant’s crib waiting for us, except Shareef. “Why we always got to wait on y’all all the time?” Trevor asked, trying to look serious.

  “Nigga, shut the hell up,” Mal spat back, not in the mood for Trevor’s antics.

  “Ay yo, check this out,” my brother went on. “On our way over here Mil said he saw Shareef by the courts serving some white dude.”

  “What?” was everybody’s reaction to what Mal had just said.

  “You niggas buggin’. What the fuck y’all talkin’ about?” Black asked, sticking up for Shareef, being as that was his best friend.

  “Servin’ what?” Trevor asked, dumbfounded.

  “What do you think?” I replied.

  “Nigga, if Shareef was clockin’ I would know about it,” Black said in his boy’s defense.

  “Yo, you sure?” was all Ant said.

  “I know what I saw,” I told them, repeating word for word everything I’d seen.

  “The nigga ain’t here,” Trevor said. “The only way to find out is to go out there and see what’s up.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” Black agreed.

  Shareef saw us coming, and he tried to walk up to us like he was on his way to hook up with us already. “Yo, what up? Y’all ready?” he asked us.

  “Yeah, nigga, we ready,” Black spoke first. “Ready to find out what the fuck up with you.”

  “Yo, what the fuck’s your problem, Black? Why you comin’ at me like that? You better chill the fuck out, nigga,” Shareef warned.

  “Yo, Shareef, you out here clockin’, kid?” Trevor asked him, hoping the answer was no.

  Just then, everybody heard the sound of a beeper going off. All eyes zeroed in on Shareef.

  “Look at this shit,” Black chimed in disgust.

  “Man,” Shareef started out. “Yo, I knew you niggas was gonna find out sooner or later.” Shareef stared at the ground. “I was gonna tell y’all, but I didn’t know how to.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Black spat.

  “Nah, what you talkin’ is bullshit,” Shareef challenged, now looking each of his friends in the eyes. “My moms lost her job last month and unemployment been bullshittin’ her, and welfare is even worse. My moms ain’t even have enough dough for Pampers and milk for my little sister, let alone to feed a growin’ teenage boy and herself. Why you think I been eatin’ shit up at your house every time I come over, nigga?” He directed his words to Black.

  You could see in Black’s face that he was sorry for coming at Shareef like that now that he knew the full story. “Damn, kid, I thought it was the weed that had you hungry like that. I ain’t know, homie,” Black said to him.

  We all felt Shareef’s pain because it could’ve been any one of us out there doing what we had to do to survive, and deep down inside we all knew we would have. I remembered when moms was going through a rough time when we were back in Brooklyn and my pops stopped sending home money. With something like that, if I were old enough back then there was no telling what me or Kamal would’ve done to help our moms. We weren’t condoning Shareef’s decision, but at least we knew what fueled it.

  “Yo, we understand,” Trevor said, and we all agreed with him.

  “Who you out here slingin’ for?” I asked him, hoping it wasn’t Mustafa.

  “I went to Clyde and explained what was going on at the crib and wit’ my moms, and he took care of me with a fifty pack. If I don’t take no shorts I make three hundred dollars. All he want is seven hundred dollars back off it, no short money. I can’t complain about that,” Shareef said.

  “Yo, this Ice. He works for Clyde too, so we out here holdin’ each other down; plus, Ice hustled before so he schoolin’ me,” Shareef added, seeing all of our attention turn to the kid none of us knew.

  You could tell that Black didn’t like the fact that somebody other than himself was holding Shareef down, but he kept it to himself out of respect for Shareef’s situation.

  “Yo, how old are you?” Mal asked him.

  “I just turned fifteen last month on the sixth.”

  “Damn, you look like you twelve,” Ant said.

  “Yeah, I know. My moms said my pops used to look younger than he really was too before he got killed,” Ice told us.

  “Sorry to hear that,” we all said.

  “Nah, fuck that nigga. He never did shit for us anyway. He got stabbed trying to cheat some niggas in a craps game with loaded dice, right on the other side of the tracks, in the other projects as a matter of fact,” Ice told us.

  From the way he talked, we could tell why his name was Ice. He sounded like he was a cold-hearted li’l nigga. We all understood and gave Ice a pound, and then asked him if he wanted to roll with us downtown. He said no and he’d catch us when we came back. I could tell he was a good dude who, like all of us, was trying to make the best out of his situation.

  Just as we were about to leave, he asked Shareef if he wanted him to hold his stash and sell it for him if he sold out and money started coming. Shareef left his package with Ice. None of us uttered another word about what we had just found out. Instead, we all gripped up and rolled out, making our way downtown.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Ay yo, Lee, you got this in a size six and a half?” Mal asked the owner of Lee’s shoe store. Lee’s sat on the corner of East Front Street and Watchung Avenue. We had been going there forever, since we were rocking karate shoes, and Lee had always treated us with respect and gave us discounts on any footwear, because we normally came at least eight or nine deep.

  Lee had the new low-top Delta Force Nikes in all colors and we were all copping a pair. We were guaranteed at least a five dollar discount on each pair because there were six of us.

  “Why every time you come here yo’ feet get bigga?” Lee said to Mal, not able to speak proper English. “All the time you say, ‘Lee, you got size four and a half?’ ‘Lee, you got size five?’ Now you say, ‘Lee, you got size six and a half?’”

  Everybody was on the floor in stitches cracking up at Lee’s comment to Kamal. “Chinaman, just get my size before I rip your green card up,” Mal joked back. Lee laughed and went into the back to retrieve my brother’s size.

  Just like I had thought, Lee knocked off five dollars on every pair. We wound up getting seven pair because Shareef brought Ice a pair.

  “Yo, that kid Ice don’t spend no money,” Shareef told us as we crossed over to Park Avenue and headed to Ferraro’s pizzeria. “I’ve known him for three weeks now and that’s the same outfit and sneakers he’s had on every day since I met him. He a cool nigga, and I want him to hang out with us, if that’s all right wit’ y’all,” Shareef asked, respecting our opinions.

  “If you cool wit’ ’im, then we cool wit’ ’im,” Trevor spoke for all of us.

  “Good lookin’. Yo, pizza on me.”

  There was no other pizza in town better than Ferraro’s on Seventh and Park Avenue. Even when we visited from New York, Mal and I begged our moms to get us slices from the Italian establishment. We all went up to the counter and ordered the type of slices we wanted. Most of us ordered slices with extra cheese and ground beef, except for Ant. He ordered two slices with pepperoni and sausage. He was the only one out of all of us who ate pork. Shareef went into his pocket and pulled out a knot of money al
most the size of the ones I had seen Mustafa pull out. Only where Mu’s knot consisted of hundreds, fifties, and twenties, Shareef’s had twenties, tens, fives, and singles; but it was still a fat knot.

  “Damn, nigga, why you walkin’ around wit’ all that dough in ya pocket?” Trevor said, beating me to the punch.

  “You niggas was acting like y’all was rushin’ me like y’all was in a hurry when we was at the court so I didn’t have time to run in the crib. Besides, it just looks like a lot. It’s only like three and some change.”

  “Nigga, fuck you mean it’s only three and some change? Like that ain’t a lot of money for a fourteen-year-old?” Black yelled at him.

  “Nah, I’m sayin’,” Shareef said, laughing, “I be havin’ more than this sometime, so it ain’t really a lot. Shit, you should see Ice. He be havin’ like a G on him sometimes,” Shareef told us.

  He had no way of knowing how much everyone hung on every word he spoke and how his words would affect all of us. We all sat in Ferraro’s enjoying our pizza and kicking it the way we were used to doing. As the day ended, we all made our way back to the projects. We eventually all took it in for the night. All of us except for Shareef. He stayed out on the block.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I had $275 put up and tomorrow was Lisa’s birthday. I wanted to get her something real nice, but I just didn’t know what and from where. I couldn’t ask my mom or grandmother to help me pick something out because they’d want to know where I got the money from. Honestly, I didn’t do anything wrong to get it, but they’d never believe that. Between what Mustafa had given me and saving my lunch money, that’s how I really saved up. The only person I could ask was Mu.

  Mu and the rest of the older heads were having a dice game up at the handball court when I rolled up. From the looks of things, Mu had the bank because he had a stack of money in his left hand and the dice in his right. As I got closer, I could hear him saying as he rolled the dice, “All down is a bet. Money on the wood makes the game go good; now open up the pussy so I can dick you niggas out ya paper.”

  “Yeah! Cee-lo, niggas! Nobody move, nobody get hurt,” Mu said while collecting all the money that was on the ground in front of all the betters in the cipher. The same group of guys who had bet before dropped more stacks of money again, along with a few others who now wanted to get in the game. There were at least a couple thousand dollars scattered over the blacktop. I heard some of them say they were betting what they had placed under their foot while stepping on a stack of dough.

  “Aw, you done fucked up now. My li’l peoples done came up in the spot,” Mu said, referring to me as he noticed me off to the side. “If you don’t want to lose ya shit better pick it up before I throw these babies,” he warned them all, but nobody listened.

  “Nigga, just roll that ace and let me see ya face,” one kid said.

  “A hundred four or better, slick talker,” Mu said back to him.

  “Fifty you don’t,” a next kid said.

  “Bet! Mil, come here,” Mu hollered. “Blow on these, baby boy, and if I hit, that fifty is yours.” He put the dice in my face.

  I blew on them, and made a wish too, because I really wanted to win that fifty dollars. Mu shook the dice, threw them in the air, and snapped his fingers.

  “Get ’em, girls!” he exclaimed, as the three dice hit the wall. Two of them stopped on the number three as the third one kept spinning. All the betters moved in closely, anticipating the third die to fall on the number one, so that Mu would have to pay them back a portion of their losses he had won. Then, all of a sudden, it just stopped.

  “You see it, niggas!” Mu yelled. “Head craps!” The die landed on the number six. “Mil, get ya money while I get mine.”

  “Man, I ain’t payin’ this li’l nigga,” a disgruntle better exclaimed.

  You could hear a pin drop when Mu paused from collecting his winnings and looked up. “You gonna pay one way or another,” Mu stated coldly. His eyes went from light brown to charcoal black within seconds.

  Before I had time to determine whether I should get out of the way or stay put, the angry better shoved a fifty dollar bill against my chest. “Man, fuck this wack-ass game,” he then mumbled before storming off.

  “Fuck you too, sore loser.” Mu laughed as he finished collecting his earnings. No one else said anything or involved themselves. Their only concern was placing their next bet, hoping to get back what they had managed to lose so quickly.

  I told Mu I needed to speak to him, so he played a little bit longer, rolled Cee-lo again, and just when I thought he was going to pass the bank, out of the blue he flung the dice in the field and said, “You niggas ain’t gonna win with my rocks!”

  Mu’s action was the cause of a lot of angry expressions on hustler’s faces. If looks could kill, Judkins Funeral Home around the corner would be holding Mu’s funeral, but nobody said anything. This was not the first time I had seen someone do what Mu had. When someone had had a good roll, they usually tossed the dice. Sometimes the loser would even throw them if he got bucked with them.

  “Today was a good day,” Mu said, handing me a bunch of singles as he finished counting his winnings. “Damn, I struck ’em for forty-two hundred dollars, kid,” he told me. “That ain’t bad. That ain’t bad at all,” he repeated.

  I had shown up at the right time, I had thought. With the fifty I had gotten at the game and the singles Mu gave me, I picked up a quick hundred-and-something bucks. There were at least seventy-five singles in the stack that Mu had given to me.

  “Yo, what’s up, Mil? What you wanna rap about?” He leaned up against his Benz.

  “I got this female friend from the east end. She’s like my girlfriend,” I began to ramble. “And tomorrow’s her birthday and I don’t know what to get her or even where to go to get her something.”

  He just grinned at me. “Okay, playa! I see you turnin’ into a real ladies’ man.”

  “Nah!” I laughed back. “I ain’t tryin’ to be no playa. I’m just tryin’ to show this girl that I really like her. Besides, every holiday or any special occasion she’s always buying me something or doin’ something for me, and I ain’t been able to do nothin’ for her, so I wanted to go all out now that I got a li’l something saved up,” I said, letting him know how much Lisa meant to me.

  “You never cease to amaze me, man,” Mu said. “I respect you for that and I’m gonna help you get ya li’l shorty something nice. Let me go get this dough from these li’l niggas and we gonna be out.”

  * * *

  If my mom knew that I was in New York right now she’d have a fit. I didn’t even know we were coming out here until I saw Mu pay the toll for the Holland Tunnel, but by then it was too late so I just went with the flow. Mu found a parking spot on Canal Street. As many times as I had been on Canal Street, going back and forth from Brooklyn to Jersey, before we had moved, I had never actually been on the street on foot to shop, or for anything else for that matter. As we walked, all you could see were stores filled with car and house stereo equipment, all the latest gold that the hustlers and rappers wore, and stores that had clothes by the bunches.

  “What did we come out here for, Mu?” I asked.

  “Yo, one thing you need to learn about females is that they all love jewelry.” He smiled. “I don’t care how old or how young. That’s why we out here, to get your shorty something nice to wear.”

  It wasn’t hard to tell Mu knew more than I did about females, and he never told me anything wrong since I’d known him, so I was going with his suggestion. “All right, but one thing I know is that she doesn’t like big chains.”

  “You wouldn’t get her no big chain anyway. That’s tacky on a shorty. You gots to get her something that’s nice and some earrings to match, you dig?”

  “Mu, I don’t got enough for all that. I like her, but I don’t want to break myself.”

  “You think I’d bring you all the way out here if I didn’t have your back, kid?”


  “No,” I replied. “I wasn’t sayin’ that. I know you got me, I just wanted to do this on my own,” I said, hoping he would understand.

  “Nigga, you is gonna do it on your own. You pick it out, spend what you willing to spend, and if it don’t cover what you like then I got the rest.” That sounded like a good deal to me so I rolled with it.

  We went up in some Chinese jewelry store that Mu said he got some of his jewelry from and I started looking around. It was like Fort Knox up in there. Gold was everywhere, chains, earrings, bracelets, gold teeth, you name it, and it was there. There was so much to choose from, but I had finally seen something that I liked that I knew would look cute on Lisa.

  There was an advertisement of a little rope chain with a female’s name on it and a pair of medium-size earrings with the same name too.

  “Excuse me, how much is that chain and those earrings?” I asked the Chinese man behind the counter. He opened up the glass slider, checked the back of the nameplate on the chain and the side of the earrings, and said in his best English possible, “Chain, hundred sixty dolla, earring eighty dolla, wit’ name everyt’ing.”

  “Come on, man!” Mu jumped in. “I come in here all the time to buy my shit and you can’t even cut my li’l brother a break?” Mu pulled out his knot. “Two hundred dollars right now and the name put on today,” he told the Chinese man. I didn’t even know it took two to three days for the names to be put on, until I noticed the sign off to the side, but the way Mu was handling it I knew the man was gonna have it done today.

  “Okay! Okay! For you, two hundred dollar for name and everyt’ing, you buy today,” the Chinese man told Mu. “Come back two hours.” He wrote a receipt out while asking for the name that I wanted to put on them. Mu gave me the receipt and then we left.