Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  “Yo, just give me a hundred a fifty dollars,” Mu said as we were walking to get something to eat.

  I had $135 from the dice game already. I just had to put fifteen dollars more with that from the money I had been saving, so that left me with $260. Things had definitely worked out for me that day. “Thanks, Mu.” I was grateful for having someone like him in my life.

  “Don’t worry about it, kid.” He gave me a pound and then we ordered something to eat from the shish kebab stand.

  * * *

  Mal and them were in the field when we pulled up. Mu said he wasn’t staying so I got out and he left.

  “Yo, nigga, where the fuck you been at?” they all wanted to know.

  “Me and Mu went to NY.”

  “To pick up?” Mal asked.

  I laughed. “Nah, stupid, to go shoppin’. I told you that I wanted to get Lisa something fly for her birthday, and I told Mu, so he took me to Canal Street to get her this,” I said, pulling out the little bag with the jewelry box in it.

  “What the . . . ! Nigga, you done went all out and tricked all ya dough on that shit for a shorty you ain’t even fucking,” Trevor said.

  “Nigga, what?” I instantly became heated by Trevor’s comment. “Yo, Trev, don’t disrespect me like that unless you wanna get punched in the mouth.”

  “What the fuck you say?” Trevor snarled. I knew my words had caught him by surprise because it was the first time I had ever challenged him, or any of my boys for that matter. But when he made the comment about Lisa, something inside of me just snapped and I didn’t feel like letting it go.

  “You heard what I said,” I barked, walking up on him.

  My brother jumped in between us. “Both you niggas chill.”

  “Mil, that’s your girl?” Ant asked.

  “Yeah, that’s my girl,” I answered without hesitation. “And she do a lot of stuff for me, so I did something for her,” I informed them.

  “Yo, my bad, kid,” Trevor apologized. “I ain’t know that was your girl,” he followed up with, extending his hand. “I didn’t even know you had a girl.” I took hold of his hand and embraced him.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Ant said.

  “Aw, look at the two lovebirds,” my brother teased.

  Trevor and I both turned on him and gave him middle fingers and then we all broke out into laughter.

  “That shit is fly. How much you pay for that?” Mal asked.

  From the looks on their faces, I knew they really wanted to know. “It only cost me fifteen dollars.”

  “Nigga, get the fuck out of here!” they all said at once.

  “Yo, I’m telling you, that’s what I paid,” I said again, as I went off into the story about the dice game earlier and how Mustafa had talked the Chinese man down at the jewelry store.

  “You a lucky muthafucka,” Ant said. “That’s how Terrance used to treat me.” Ant’s tone dropped. That was the first time he had mentioned his brother since his murder last summer. I didn’t know what to say. None of us did. Ant picked up on the tension. “It’s cool, I’m good. I just caught a li’l flashback, that’s all.”

  We all walked over to Ant and gave him a group hug to let him know he still had us.

  * * *

  When I got to Lisa’s house, I didn’t see any cars in the driveway, so I knew that both her parents had already left for work. She had told me how they had jobs that required them to work on the weekends.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning and I wanted to surprise her while she was still asleep. I rang the doorbell four times before she finally answered.

  “Who is it?” I heard her say.

  “It’s Kamil.”

  “Boy, what are you doing here this early in the morning?” she asked as she opened the door wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts with a scarf wrapped around her head.

  “I came to wish you a happy birthday in person.”

  “Aw! Thank you,” she said as she let me in. “Give me a minute while I go wash my face and brush my teeth.”

  “Yeah, go do that,” I said jokingly.

  “Boy, shut up,” she said back, laughing.

  I watched TV as I waited for her to come back down so I could surprise her with her gift.

  “You want something to drink?”

  “Nah, I’m good. I just want you to come over here so I can give you something.”

  “Give me what?” she asked, curious.

  “A birthday hug,” I said, hiding my hands behind my back.

  “Oh! That’s so sweet,” she said, approaching me with open arms. “Ummm!” was the sound she made as I wrapped my arms around her. Once I let her go, I revealed the box that I was hiding behind my back before I had hugged her.

  “Happy birthday,” I said, handing her the present.

  “Kamil, ohmigod! What is this?” she asked with excitement.

  “You won’t know until you open it,” I answered.

  She looked at me for a second, smiled, and then took the top off the box. When she saw what it was, I knew by the way her face lit up she liked what she saw.

  “These are beautiful!” she said in awe. “I can’t believe you spent this type of money on me.” Her tone was appreciative.

  “Don’t worry about the money. I just wanna know if you like them.”

  “Like them? I loooovve them,” she emphasized. “Thank you.” Her reaction caught me off guard. Before I had a chance to counteract, she had already removed her lips from mine. It happened so fast I wasn’t able to describe how her lips felt. “You wanna see how I look with everything on?” she asked, bringing me back to reality.

  “Yeah, of course. Try ’em on,” I told her.

  One by one, she began putting the earrings in her ears. Then she turned around and asked me to put the chain on her. When she turned back around to face me, she looked like a million bucks. “Well, how do I look?”

  “Like a model,” I answered.

  She stood there, smiling. She made her way over to the living room mirror to take a look for herself. “Ooh, this isss nice.” She admired the accessories draping from her ears and neck.

  “I told you.”

  She walked back over to me. “Kamil, can I ask you something without you getting offended or mad?”

  “Yeah, you can ask me anything. What’s up?” I replied, wondering what she wanted to ask me.

  She took a deep breath. “You didn’t do anything illegal to get this for me, did you?”

  I burst out into laughter. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “No particular reason,” she said. I could tell she was embarrassed. I remember thinking how I should have been the one embarrassed.

  “It’s just that, I can tell that everything cost a lot of money, that’s all, you know?”

  “I’m a good saver and been saving all the money that I come across or earned,” I said, cutting the topic short. “Anyways, you supposed to appreciate the gift, not worry about how much money it cost.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you again.” She moved in, wrapped her arms around my neck, and kissed me again. This time it was slower and I was able to savor the moment. “This is the best present anyone could have ever given me,” she confessed after breaking our lip lock.

  I knew that she really did love the gift, but I wasn’t convinced that she believed my answer of how I had gotten it.

  Even though I had laughed it off, it did bother me that she felt she had to ask me that question. That day, I wondered, if I were from the east end and not the projects, would she have been so concerned about the price of her gift, or questioned whether I had done anything illegal to pay for it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Yo, where Black at?” I asked Shareef on our way to school.

  “I don’t know, kid. I went by his crib and ain’t nobody answer,” Shareef said. “With all the late-night pumpin’ I been doin’ for Clyde I didn’t think I was gonna make it this morning my damn self.”

>   “When’s the last time you seen Black, Reef?” my brother asked.

  “It’s been a minute, ’cause I be tryin’ to do my thang and he be off doin’ his thang. You know he really ain’t understanding my situation like he claims he does, so I had to break away from him. But between me and you I think he’s clockin’ somewhere on another block or something, ’cause he be having money out the blue too. Like knots of dough,” Shareef told us.

  “Nah, not Black.”

  “He probably got a job or something on the down low, and just didn’t want to tell us,” Mal said.

  “He’s just been acting real funny lately. He’s been looking different lately, like I don’t even know who he is,” Shareef told us. “When’s the last time y’all seen him?”

  It had been a minute since we had last seen him, we told Shareef.

  “Not since the time we all went downtown to cop the new Deltas together,” Mal recalled.

  “Damn, kid, that ain’t like Black to not get at us for that long period of time. Something is definitely up.”

  “We’ll check him out and see what’s goin’ on after school,” Mal told Shareef.

  “All right, yo. I’ll get up after school,” Shareef said, as we all went to our homerooms.

  * * *

  Ant and Trevor were playing Atari when me, Mal, and Shareef got to Ant’s crib.

  “Yo, how you niggas get in here?” Ant asked.

  “The door was unlocked, that’s how,” I replied, heading to the kitchen to get something to drink.

  “First you niggas just walk up in the crib like you pay rent up in here, then you go up in the kitchen like you buy groceries in this muthafucka,” Ant said, half joking, half serious.

  “Nigga, we been doing this for years; now ya punk ass wanna say something all of a sudden?” Mal joked back, and everybody laughed.

  “What’s goin’ on, Albert Einsteins of the ghetto?” Trevor asked.

  “Chillin’, that’s all,” Shareef said back. “Yo, Black been over here? ’Cause he didn’t show up at school today.”

  “Nah, yo, we ain’t seen him all day. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him in a minute,” Trevor told us.

  “I saw him last night,” Ant cut in. “But he act like he ain’t hear me callin’ him. I peeped him again comin’ out his building like around ten thirty last night when I was goin’ to the Dumpster. At first, I didn’t know it was him ’cause he had on all black with some black beef gloves, but you know how Black walk all goofy and shit; that’s how I knew it was him. When he didn’t answer I just said fuck it and came back on in.” Ant shrugged his shoulders.

  “Shareef said that he think Black is clockin’ on another block ’cause he had a fat knot on him the last time he seen him, but that doesn’t sound like him,” I said. “You know how much he hates drugs.”

  “Y’all went by his crib?” Trevor asked.

  “Not since this mornin’ before we went to school.”

  “Yo, he gotta be home because he watches his li’l brother until his moms get home at five, so let’s shoot over there,” Ant suggested. He and Trevor ended their game and hopped up.

  * * *

  “Yeah, what up?” Black answered the door with the safety latch on. He looked like he just woke up.

  “Nigga, what you mean ‘what’s up’? Open the fuckin’ door and let us in,” Trevor said to him.

  “Hold up a minute,” Black said, closing the door on us.

  “Yo, something funny with this nigga kid. You see how he lookin’?” Trevor asked us.

  “Word!” Ant said.

  “Yo, chill out until we get up in there and see what’s up,” I said.

  “He ain’t just start lookin’ like that either,” Shareef said. You could hear the chain sliding off the door.

  When we walked in Black’s little brother was sleeping on the couch. Black went and sat back in the chair he must’ve been occupying before we arrived. He had on a wife beater that should have been white but was now beige, and a pair of boxers with some house slippers. There was a slight foul odor in the air that I couldn’t put my finger on but was vaguely familiar.

  “Yo, why you ain’t come to school today?” I asked him.

  “Man, fuck school. I ain’t wit’ that shit no more,” he dryly remarked.

  “Come on, Black baby! I thought we went through this already,” Mal said.

  “Yo, that school shit ain’t for everybody. It ain’t even definite I get a job if I graduate. I could still wind up havin’ to work at Mickey fuckin’ D’s,” he spat.

  “Black, I thought we agreed that we was gonna finish out school,” Shareef said to him.

  “Nigga, please.” He laughed. “You out there slingin’ and shit. Pretty soon you’re gonna quit too,” he said to Shareef. “If you don’t get knocked off or smoked first!” he added.

  “Fuck you, Black,” Shareef said.

  “Yo, that was some fucked-up shit to say to your man,” Ant jumped in.

  “Yo, I ain’t speakin’ nothing but the truth,” Black stated. “Niggas play for keeps in the game, and if you don’t deserve to be makin’ it them muthafuckas is gonna take it by any means necessary. Sooner or later if the narcos don’t catch your ass, the stick-up kids will.”

  “Yo! But ain’t you out there somewhere pumpin’ too?” Mal asked him.

  “Hell no! Who the fuck told you that?” he wanted to know.

  “Where you get that knot from I seen you with a couple of weeks ago then?” Shareef questioned.

  “And what you doin’ dressed in all black at ten o’clock at night for?” Ant asked.

  “None of your muthafuckin’ business,” Black snapped back. “What is this? I ain’t on no damn trial or nothing. I ain’t gotta answer to you niggas.”

  “We the same niggas who care about your ass,” Ant said, getting tight. “The same niggas you drink wit’ and smoke wit’, been playing football and all that shit wit’, so don’t try to front on us like you don’t know who the fuck we be, Black.”

  “Yo, you know what?” Black said. “Get the fuck out of my crib.” He waved us off in a dismissive manner.

  “We ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til we find out what’s up wit’ you,” Trevor spoke up for all of us.

  “Oh! Y’all ain’t goin’ nowhere, huh?” Black repeated. Then all of a sudden, we saw it.

  Black was brandishing a gun. Everyone froze.

  “Now I’m gonna tell you niggas one more time: get the fuck outta my crib,” he said, pointing the black .25 semiautomatic right in Trevor’s face.

  “You doin’ it like that, kid?” Trevor said, staring Black in the face. “You pullin’ out on your boys? You a killa now?”

  Black cocked the weapon back. “Man! Just get up outta here.”

  “Yeah, all right, nigga, but you better keep that joint on you twenty-four seven,” Trevor told him, neither impressed nor fazed by Black’s actions.

  “Come on, Trev,” we said, pulling him toward the door.

  “Yeah, get him outta here before I send him outta here,” Black antagonized him.

  We all left the way we had come in. A million and one questions went through all of our heads, trying to figure out what made Black flip.

  “Yo, that nigga lost his fuckin’ mind,” Trevor was the first to say once we were safely out of Black’s apartment.

  “Damn, that nigga whipped out on us, yo,” Ant said.

  “I told y’all somethin’ was up with him, but I think he must be getting high off that shit or something pullin’ a stunt like that,” Shareef said.

  “I’m with Shareef on that one,” I agreed. “Did you smell that? And where did he even get a burner from?” I asked.

  “Fuck where he got it from; what’s he doin’ pullin’ it out on us like dat?” Mal said.

  “Like I told him, he better have that shit on him twenty-four seven, ’cause if I catch him sleepin’ I’m gonna break his fuckin’ jaw,” Trevor said again.

  “Yo, he’s gonna come t
o his senses and apologize and explain, ’cause that ain’t him,” I said.

  “Man! Fuck that nigga. He better not try to come around with that ‘I’m sorry’ shit.”

  “What if he accidentally pulled the trigger or even on purpose and shot one of us?” Ant asked. “That’s it, I’m done wit’ that nigga, kid,” he ended.

  I couldn’t believe what had taken place with Black. That day I didn’t recognize my boy. It was as if he were possessed. Either way, I knew after that incident, things would never be the same between us and him; I just didn’t realize how different they would be.

  * * *

  Almost three months had gone by and none of us heard from or about Black, until one day Mustafa called us up to the courts while we were playing football in the snow out in the field. A few guys from another block were standing with Mu when we got there.

  “What up, Mu?” we all said.

  “Yo, where your other boy at?” Mu asked us. Seeing the puzzled looks on our face Mu rephrased his question. “Where’s Black at?”

  When he asked that question, my alarm went off in my head and I knew something was wrong. “We don’t know, Mu. He doesn’t hang with us anymore,” I told him.

  “Why not?” he wanted to know.

  “He just doesn’t,” I said back.

  “Man! Fuck that; if you ain’t gonna tell ’im then I will,” Trevor said as he began to recap the day we were at Black’s.

  “Mu, I told you!” one of the kids from the other block said as soon as Trevor was done.

  “Yo, did you know your boy turned into a stick-up kid?” Mu asked us.

  We all looked at each other like Mu was speaking another language and we didn’t understand what he had said. I remember thinking, Black? A stick-up kid? It made sense. It explained the money, the dressed in all black with beef gloves, the gun, and it was definitely in his blood. His father was an old-school stick-up man and small-time bank robber.

  We all shook our heads no.

  “We knew shit wasn’t right with him, but we wouldn’t have never suspected that,” Ant said.

  “We thought he was pumpin’ on the next block,” Shareef said.

  “Are you sure, Mu?” I asked.

  “Yeah, li’l nigga, we sure,” one of the kids from the other block said to me.