We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. We just looked at each other dumbfounded.
“You heard what I said, pack your stuff and get out before I call the cops and give them this junk and let them take you out of here.”
Just then my grandmother walked in. “Sister, please! You’re not thinking straight right now. Those are your babies,” my grandmother came to our aid.
“Mommy, stay out of this. These are my kids and I raised them, and before I let them disrespect me I’ll disown them. They are no longer welcome in this house,” she said.
“Sister, I helped raise them too and I think you’re wrong,” my grandmother said to my moms.
“You think I’m wrong?” my moms screamed back at my grandmother. “Well, wait until I put their asses in jail tonight then,” she said, picking up the phone next to my bed. She began dialing. “Hello?”
“All right, Ma!” Mal shouted, pressing down the phone. “We’re leaving. You ain’t gotta call no police on us.”
Everything was happening so fast. It was like one big nightmare. I couldn’t believe this was happening, but it was and it was real. My grandmother went and got Mal and me some black garbage bags. By now tears were streaming down her face. We began putting all of our belongings in them. When we were done, my grandmother gave us a kiss and hug, and told us not to worry, that she would straighten everything out; but somehow I didn’t see that happening.
Monique and Jasmine were both standing in their nightgowns crying as well as we dragged our bags out. Jasmine waved bye, and Monique asked where would we go. I told her that we’d be at Trina’s crib until we got situated; and then we left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
It took awhile for someone to answer the door, but then Reecie came. “What’s up, Kamil?” she asked, half asleep.
“Yo, Reecie, me and Mal need a favor. My moms found some stuff in our room and she flipped out and kicked us out. We ain’t got anywhere to go. I was wondering if we could crash here until we talked to Mu.”
“Oh, shit! Yeah, you know y’all welcome here,” she said.
“Thanks,” we both said.
Trina must’ve heard my voice because she came out of her room. “Hey, baby, what’s up?”
“My moms put us out,” I told her.
“What? For what?” she asked.
“She found a clip in our room and flipped out. Reecie, what time is it?” I asked.
“Almost twelve o’clock.”
“Yo, I don’t even want to talk about this right now; I just need to get some rest so we can go to school in the morning. You think you can get Mal some covers or something so he can hit the couch, Reecie?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Yo, kid, that was my bad,” Mal said.
“Don’t sweat it,” I told Mal. “It could’ve been either one of us who slipped like that,” I said, knowing that he was referring to him being careless leaving the clip in the drawer.
I went in the room with Trina and fell out.
The next morning, before we went to school, we went to check with Ms. Richards because Shareef’s car was gone so we thought they might’ve released him last night into her custody, being that he was still a minor. Shareef’s mom answered the door.
“Good morning, Ms. Richards,” I said. “Did Shareef get released last night? ’Cause I see his car ain’t out here.”
“Come on in, you two,” she told us. When we stepped inside the apartment was a wreck. That was unusual, I thought, because Shareef’s mom always kept a neat home.
“I don’t think they gonna let my baby go.” She sighed. “The police came back with a search warrant, and tore this house apart. They ain’t find no drugs in here, but they found a whole lot of money in Brian’s room. They confiscated his stereo, TV, VCR, video games, and said they had a warrant saying they could take the car. They asked me did I have the keys to it and I told them no, so they called for a flatbed and towed it away. Brian called me this morning right before you two got here, and said that his friend Ice was in the county jail with a seventy-five thousand dollar bail, ten percent with a bondsman, and for me to call one and bail this boy out.
“I told him how they came in here and found all that money, and he starts yelling at me about why I let them in the house and how it was over twenty-five thousand dollars he had in there. My heart can’t take it. I tried to tell Shareef to stop before, but he wouldn’t listen. Now, look. I still got the eight thousand dollars he gave me to put in the bank for our house, but I ain’t using that to bail nobody out of no jail when me and my baby struggling, and I ain’t got no job. Now that Brian’s locked up, I got to rely on that money in the bank. I’m going up there in a bit. Y’all stop by later and I’ll let you know what happened then.”
I noticed how tired Ms. Richards looked. “All right, ma, we’ll stop in to check on you and the baby to make sure you good.” When it rains it pours. First, we got put out and now Shareef got hit hard and him and Ice were both knocked off. “Tell Shareef we said what’s up and we here for him if he needs us,” I told her, and then we went to school.
* * *
School just wasn’t the same that morning. Too much had happened in one night and I couldn’t concentrate in none of my classes at all. All I kept thinking about was the words that my mother had said to us, and how hurt she looked. It was the same look she had when I was eight years old and saw my father with another woman the time we went to visit him on his birthday.
I still couldn’t believe that she had put us out, though. That was the last thing I would have ever imagined.
I felt bad for Ice, but I knew there was nothing that we could do to help him or Shareef, because Mal and I had just got in the game, and we didn’t have that type of money to be bailing Ice out. If we did, we would’ve definitely helped out because we knew that he was good for it.
As for Shareef, he couldn’t get bail. It was up to the judge whether he’d be released. I didn’t want to be in school today, so at lunchtime I decided to leave early once I found Kamal.
“Hey, stranger, where you speedin’ off to?” I heard Lisa’s voice say.
“What up, Lisa? I’m lookin’ for my brother so we can get up outta here.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.
“Nothin’, I just don’t want to be here today. I feel cluttered. Today’s not a good day for me,” I lied.
“You sure you’re not sick or something? Because you don’t look like yourself today.”
“Nah, I ain’t sick or nothin’ like that, I told you I feel crowded. I just need to get up outta here,” I said to her in an almost nasty way.
“Excuse me!” she shouted sarcastically. “I didn’t mean to be nosey.” She began walking off.
“Lisa, wait!” I yelled, reaching out for her arm. “I didn’t mean to talk to you like that. I apologize. Things are just crazy for me right now at home and I think I’m kinda stressed out, that’s all.”
“Aw, I knew something was wrong because I can see it all over your face,” she said. “I understand, though. Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“Nah, not right now,” I said back to her, but wishing that I had the nerve to tell her.
“Well, I’ll call you later to see how you’re doing and see if you wanna talk then.”
“Nah, let me call you ’cause I don’t know when I’ll be in the house tonight, all right?”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to you later.” She waved good-bye and went her way.
Meanwhile, I was preoccupied with the many thoughts running through my mind. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something.
CHAPTER FORTY
Mu had an angry expression on his face when he saw us walk through the door of Reecie’s crib. “Yo, what the hell happened, kid?” he asked.
I began explaining everything that took place the night prior, while he listened. The only thing I left out was the fact that it was Kamal who had put the clip in th
e drawer, and not me. But it really didn’t matter which one of us had actually left it there, because it had belonged to both of us and either way the end result would have been the same.
“You didn’t even have to take the shit in the crib with you,” he said. “It don’t take but a hot minute to run that shit over here and give it to Trina. I told you before, Mil, never lay ya head where you shit at, didn’t I?” Mu stated, not really looking for an answer because he knew that I knew better. He shook his head and began to calm down.
“Yo, the damage is already done now, so ain’t no need in dwelling on that no more. Our next thing we need to worry about is findin’ you two a crib of ya own, somewhere close around. How much paper y’all got put up?”
Between what we made yesterday before the narcs came, and the two grand we had stashed, we had about $2,400, plus a nice amount of product left. It would’ve been more, if my mom hadn’t flushed the clip that she found down the toilet before she kicked us out.
“Like twenty-four hundred dollars,” I told Mu, “and another twenty-four hundred dollars in work.”
He hesitated for a second and then he said, “Right now that ain’t enough but, listen, this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna try to find a li’l studio apartment or something in the area, and put up whatever it cost to move in for y’all. Whenever y’all stack up enough dough you can hit me back then. As for the necessities, you gots to cop that yourselves, like beds and shit like that. By the end of the week I should have a spot for you, so try to make as much paper as you can and have ya re-up money ready to flip so you can make back what you gotta spend on this crib. It’s time to step your game up ’cause you out on your own now, and it cost money to survive and maintain out here,” Mu pointed out. “You ain’t got Moms and Grandma to clothe and feed you no more, and keep a roof over ya head. You gots to do all that shit for yourselves now, kid. This is what the game is really all about. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and only the strong survive; the weak get stepped on and over.”
Mu was staring us straight in the eyes while he talked to let us know that what he was saying was real. Mal and I both knew that what he was saying was no joke. It was real.
“We understand, Mu, and we appreciate what you’re doin’ for us, ’cause we’d probably be somewhere living on the streets if it weren’t for you,” I told him.
“Never that,” he said. “As long as I’m alive y’all ain’t never gonna ever be fucked up like that, and that’s on the real. We’re family now.” Mu had officially taken us under his wing as a mentor and a father figure.
“Since y’all home early from school you might as well go out there and put some work in ’cause you know tomorrow’s Thursday and I’m goin’ over. Tonight might be one of those nights when you can pull an all-nighter, know what I’m saying?” Mu said to us. He was right; we definitely had to step our game up.
Mal and I wasted no time hitting the block. “Yo, what y’all doin home so early?” Ant asked, as we rolled up on him and Trevor.
“We need to make some money,” my brother said.
“Y’all heard about Shareef and Ice?” Trevor asked. “That’s fucked up and they took Shareef’s ride.”
“We know. We spoke to his mom this morning and she told us,” I said. “Ice’s bail is seventy-five Gs with a bondsman, and they found over twenty-five Gs in Shareef’s room. I don’t know if that was theirs together or all Shareef’s, but Shareef wanted his moms to bail Ice out before he knew they raided the crib.”
“Damn! Them niggas had twenty-five Gs in the stash?” Trevor asked. “Them muthafuckas was puttin’ that work in, kid. I ain’t think they was holdin’ like that,” Trevor finished saying.
“What’s up with you two niggas, though?” Ant asked.
“Nothin’, just chillin’,” I said back.
“Something’s up.” He wouldn’t let it go. “Don’t bullshit me,” Ant said, insisting something was wrong. Ant had been around me and Mal long enough to know how we acted when something was not right. I was glad to have a friend like him who could pick up on stuff like that. Mal stepped in and told him what went down.
“Get the fuck outta here,” Ant and Trevor both said at the same time.
“I can’t believe ya moms went out like that,” Ant said.
“You think your grams gonna be able to fix shit up?” Trevor asked.
“We don’t know, but it don’t even matter ’cause we can’t hustle and live there anyway, so we can’t go back there,” I told them.
“That’s crazy!” Trevor exclaimed. “Especially since they’re the reason why y’all started hustlin’ in the first place, to help them.” Trevor was right. It was a crazy situation. What started out as a way to help our family ended up being a way to hurt it and break it up. Now we had no choice but to hustle if we wanted to survive ourselves.
“Yo, you know one of you can stay at my crib and the other can stay with Ant’s,” Trevor offered.
“Nah, we cool but we appreciate that though,” I said.
“So what are y’all gonna do then?” Ant asked.
I told them what Mu was going to do for us and I could see the admiration in their faces as I spoke.
“Mu is a good muthafucka,” Trevor said first.
“Yeah, that’s why he probably last this long in the game, ’cause he got his shit together,” Ant said.
“Yo, it’s money comin’ out here, too,” Trevor told us. “We been doin’ our thing all day so we’ll help y’all move some of y’all shit so you can get ya paper right for the crib.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I told them. “We know y’all got ya own shit to pump.”
“Man, that shit ain’t nothing. Y’all shit is more important, and y’all our boys so we here for you,” Trevor said back.
“Yeah, yo, if y’all out here all night, then we out here all night too,” Ant joined in.
Mal and I didn’t know what to say. If it didn’t make me seem like I was weak, at that moment I would’ve shed some tears from the love Ant and Trevor had offered us. That day, our bond had strengthened more than ever.
* * *
It was four in the morning before we all decided to shut shop down for the day. We originally planned to hustle until at least 8:00 a.m. to catch the early morning smokers who needed a blast before they got to work, but this was the first time for any of us pulling an all-nighter, and we were practically asleep on our feet. With the four of us moving my and Mal’s work, we got rid of fourteen clips, the most me and Mal had ever made in one night, thanks to our boys.
Ant made $285 off the three clips I gave him, and Trevor made $290 off the three he had. I thought that if I wouldn’t have told them they could take shorts they wouldn’t have, because they always took straight money. Mal said he took fifty dollars in shorts on his four clips and I had taken thirty-five dollars on mine, which wasn’t bad since Ant and Trevor took twenty-five dollars total in their shorts. We made almost $1,300 off fourteen clips.
Trina gave me her keys so we could get in without waking her and Reecie. She was a trooper for real and I was starting to care about her more and more. She even told me that I could stay with her and Reecie for as long as I wanted to. I told her how much I had appreciated it, but I wouldn’t feel right because I was supposed to be able to take care of myself, and not have to depend on a woman. Besides that, Mu had always told me never to move into a chick’s crib, because when she got tired of you, she could easily throw you out because it was her place, even if you were paying all the bills; and I didn’t want to end up in that type of situation. She said she understood, but even if she wouldn’t have, I would have never moved in. Now that we were basically homeless, it was time to make a bad situation better.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Me and Mal never missed a day of school that whole semester. We figured taking the day off wouldn’t hurt so we could try to knock the rest of the clips off and be able to flip more by the time Mu came to pick up the dough. Knowing he’d be on ti
me, as tired as we were, Mal and I went back out at nine, with only four hours worth of rest, giving us four more hours to scrape up a couple of extra dollars.
Ant and Trevor said they had gone back out at eight and caught the early morning paper before the patients went to work, like we wanted to do. They said they sold three out of their last five clips within forty-five minutes because they were the only two who had base. Everybody else who had been out since six a.m. had dope.
By the time Mu pulled up, we had pumped four and a half clips. We would’ve moved more but, by eleven o’ clock, the block was packed. There were mad heads out, so money was going everywhere. We made $435 off the four and a half clips, because a lot of straight money was coming through. We only had five and a half clips left, and Ant and Trevor sold out, so we went to Ant’s crib to get their flip money and then I shot over to Reecie’s to get with Mu.
Trina was holding all of my and Mal’s dough, so when I got there I went in the room to count up. Everything came to $4,320 when I finished counting. My heart was pounding just to know that all that money belonged to my brother and me, and that we had made it with our own hands on the grind. I took $120 out of the singles, put $1,200 to the side, and gave Trina the three Gs back. Ant and Trevor were flipping a G, so with all that together was $2,200. We were sure to get some nice extras with that, at least ten to fifteen, I was thinking.
“What up, Mil?” Mu greeted me.
“Nothin’ much, just tired than a mug. We didn’t really get in until four in the morning and then went right back out at nine. It was rough last night, but we did our thing. Ant and Trevor stayed out there with us and helped. Between yesterday and now we moved almost twenty out of the twenty-four clips we had left,” I told him.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” Mu said, giving me a pound. “Step ya game up, kid. That’s how I used to be when I was out there hand to handing it. How much you flippin’?” he asked.
“Me and Mal flippin’ twelve hundred, and Trevor and Ant flippin’ a G.”
“I see them li’l niggas tryin’ to come up too, huh? That’s good. Y’all got more so you should flip more ’cause you gonna need all the shit you can get. Product is money; that’s what you and Mal need. Go get another five hundred dollars to flip ’cause the first is almost here and that’s ‘Mother’s Day,’ when everybody gets their checks and shit, so money’s definitely gonna be coming.”
Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler Page 19
