Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  “Man, that’s right around the corner, and I’m supposed to graduate in June.”

  “I’m sorry, brother, but this is how it is, we either take it or leave it. They provide you with an education in those institutions, though; you could probably work something out with the education department up in there to allow you to finish your twelfth grade in there. So, what do you want me to tell the prosecutor?”

  “Tell him I’ll take the three wit’ eighteen months.”

  “Good choice. I’ll notify you of the court date either by mail or by phone. Call me next week, or if you have any questions or change your mind.”

  “All right. Thank you, Mr. Bashir.”

  I filled Mal in on everything my lawyer told me when I got home.

  “That ain’t nothing. Shit, it could’ve been worse,” Mal said.

  “Oh, yeah, no doubt, I’ma take it. It’s just that May will be here in a minute and that ain’t really no time to do shit.”

  “What you gotta do?”

  “Spend time with Lisa, for one; go places and do shit. And I ain’t even gonna be able to graduate. That was my main reason for staying in school this long, to get that diploma for Mommy and Grandma. They gonna be hurt.”

  “Yo, you still have time to finish school. Like Bashir told you, they got an education department in there, or you can go when you get to the halfway house.”

  “Yeah, you right. I’ma shoot to Mom’s for a few and then pick up Lisa and I’ll be back. I know Lisa is a good shorty, but she might not be able to handle this. It might be best if I just dead things with us until I come home.”

  “Yo, before you do anything see what she says and how she feels. You never know. I know none of them other chicks you be fuckin’ wit’ ain’t gonna troop no bid wit’ you. They may be good for a phone call, visit, or letter here and there, but not on no consistency-type shit.”

  “Word! I know how it goes. Shit don’t stop ’cause I got knocked,” I agreed.

  “Like I said, Lisa’s a good girl. She’ll probably be there for you.”

  “Yeah, you probably right. I’ma see what she says.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  It killed my moms when I told her. She started blaming herself again, and how she tried to prevent us from turning out and ending up like our dad. Every tear she shed was like a needle sticking me in my heart. I couldn’t bear to see her cry; I had to leave because it was too much for me. I knew that I was going to go through the same thing with Lisa as I did with my moms once I told her, only worse because she was a very emotional female. She cried all night and told me how she’d be there throughout the whole bid, and I believed her.

  I was sentenced on May 5 and taken into custody. I had to go through the whole 4B process all over again for a couple of days before they put me on a sentencing tier. Between the twenty-eight grand I got knocked with, ten grand it cost to be bailed out, and the fifteen Gs the lawyer charged me, not to mention over fifty Gs we spent a few months ago, we had blown through over a hundred grand. It’s funny how one minute you can be living ghetto fabulous and the next minute you’re stripped down to nothing. If it weren’t for Kamal holding it down out there I’d probably be assed out or having to depend on my moms and grandmother; but if anything happened to him then I’d be in jail struggling. I knew that Lisa would do all she could for me if things went wrong with Kamal, but I knew my pride would get in the way of asking because I’d been on my own for the past four years and never had to ask nobody for nothing.

  * * *

  I’d been in the county jail for two months now and I was ready to get up out of here. I was tired of these fifteen-minute visits with Lisa and my moms through the window. Kamal didn’t even come to check me ’cause he said he wasn’t coming to see me through some glass, so he just sent money and flicks that were stressing me out ’cause I wished I could be there.

  If it weren’t for the little cakes and shit they sold I’d have been messed up ’cause they starved you in there with the little portions of meals they served, from the honey bun sandwiches, to banana sandwiches, to other cakes. And trying to work out on the universal weights I looked like I put on a little size. My moms and Lisa said my face was getting fat and I was getting yellow from being out in the sun. My hair even started growing so I got it plaited up in box braids. Niggas do the same ol’ shit in county, trying to get their weight up and talk about how they was doing when they was out and what they had, how many chicks they had, and who was messing with the same chicks.

  It seemed like everybody messed with everybody in every town. Niggas and chicks tricked locally and out of town. I didn’t join the conversations, but I listened. Trina’s and Ke Ke’s names came up a few times. I just laughed because it wasn’t surprising. A few chicks Mal messed with came up too, and some of the names niggas were saying was wifey, me and Mal had messed with and Mal was still messin with some of them, while niggas was sitting up in here putting their word on how they knew their girl wasn’t cheatin’ on them.

  That’s one thing I didn’t get all into with Lisa. She was her own woman and whatever she was going to do she was going to do whether I was out or in, but I trusted her. Besides, what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me. I would hear guys on the phones questioning their girls about where they had been, who they were with, and all of that, stressed out talking about how they were going to kill them when they get out. Mu had told me a long time ago not to ask a question that you really didn’t want answers to or couldn’t handle, so I had no intention of asking.

  Guys would be fighting all the time over bullshit like the TV, the card games, who worked out first, or some old shit that happened on the streets. Sometimes they started out joking and it led into a fight because somebody couldn’t take a joke or somebody crossed the line by inviting them to their private parts.

  I messed with a few guys from out of town, not all of them, some. Even though Plainfield stuck together like Shareef had told us before, I realized just because they came from the area didn’t mean they were cool. You had snakes from all over that came in all different shapes, forms, and colors, and there were definitely some from my town in there. I met a few guys who were cool from other towns and we kicked it here and there on some regular.

  The one thing I noticed the most though was that jokers could come to jail and be whatever they wanted. There were guys I knew from the town who were straight-up soft, but in there they were acting like they were killers or something. Then there were guys in there I thought were stand-up cats but were in there messing with guys who were gay. You had dudes who were living like kings on the streets who were living like crackheads and dopefiends, and crackheads and dopefiends living like kings. Jail was crazy, but the way I was out in the streets was the same way I was in here.

  They finally shipped me out of county after four months. My lawyer had told me that there was a backlog in the system—that’s why it took so long to get out of county—so I still had to do six months at whatever prison they were going to send me to.

  I went to reception in Yardsville to get classified. When the nurse examined me I weighed 155 pounds. I was 143 pounds when I first got knocked, so I gained twelve pounds.

  When I went to the rec yard guys were yelling through their windows who knew me. They were trying to tell me to stay there and who was there from the town and from the projects, but when I went before the class comm. I didn’t get a chance to talk. They just told me where I was going: a youth correction center in Annandale.

  The Dale, as it was called, was as sweet as it got for your first time being in prison. It was structured like a college campus, but you knew it was a jail by the COs who worked there. They had dorms called cottages, and I was in one with the most guys who were either from the town or the county. I got a job in the kitchen, the first real job I ever had. Here I wouldn’t work a nine to five at Micky D’s if my life depended on it, but I come to jail, bust my ass, and let them slave me for ninety dollars a month.

  “Be
nson, visit,” the officer yelled.

  That was the highlight of my week, seeing my girl or my moms, even though they both cried each time they came to see me. I always felt bad when my moms came up because her tears reminded me of the ones my dad had caused. I also felt ashamed that I was putting my own girl through the same thing my dad had put my moms through.

  Mal came up once with Shareef and brought me some KFC and pizza, and we just polled about what was going on out on the streets. Mal said it was hot out and he ain’t been doing nothing but chilling. He told me his shorty was pregnant and due in July so he played the house mostly. He told me a lot of chicks were asking for my address and he had been giving it to them, but I told him that ain’t none of them chicks got at me and to stop giving my information out. I was only focused on hearing from Lisa. Shareef pointed out all the girls he was creeping with who were up here visiting dudes.

  “Hey, mookie,” Lisa said, giving me a hug and a kiss. “You get bigger every time I come up to see you. What are you eating?”

  I smiled. “That’s all that bread and poultry I be eating, plus what you be bringing me and hittin’ that iron.”

  Four and a half months down the Dale and I was up to 180 pounds. They made sure you had plenty to eat. Some guys preferred prison over the real world they lived so good, which seemed crazy to me. I wanted nothing more than to be free.

  “Have you heard about the halfway house yet?”

  “Nah, not yet. I’m still waitin’. It’s been almost five months now, so my name’s got to be coming up soon.”

  “I miss you; I’m ready for you to come home.”

  “I know. I’m ready to come home too, but it’s up to these people. It’s whatever they say. They callin’ the shots.”

  Lisa began to cry. “I can’t wait until you come home because my mother and father be bugging out now about you calling the house collect and how you writing me from jail. I’m ready to get out of there.”

  “Mal don’t be giving you the money for the phone bill like I told him to?”

  “Yeah, he does, but I got to call him ’cause he’s always doing something so he forgets, and I don’t like calling like I’m begging him.”

  “Nah, it ain’t about beggin’. That’s my paper too. He’s giving you what belongs to me. But don’t worry about it. I’m going to call tonight and tell him to just hit you off.”

  “Kamil, it’s not about that; it’s not about the money at all. I still got the money that you gave me before you left, so money isn’t the problem. The problem is I want you home and you can’t be there.”

  I didn’t know whether she was saying she didn’t know how much longer she could take this like she missed me, or didn’t know how much longer she could take this like she wanted to end it. I wiped her face.

  “Stop crying. I know it’s been rough for you out there, and it’s been rough for me too, but these places are designed to tear relationships apart, and put a strain on them. I know that one day seems like a lifetime to be apart when you miss and love someone, but I already have half my time in, and within a month I should be getting furloughs so I can come home on the weekends. I need you stay strong and stay focused for the both of us, ’cause I don’t want to lose you over no bullshit.”

  As I listened to myself talk, I wondered if this was what my father tried to say to my mother just before she told him she couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You’re not going to lose me. I’m not going anywhere. I was just saying how it was hurting me not having you there with me. Do you know what it feels like to love someone so bad you’re not able to eat or sleep because you miss them so much? That’s what I’m going through out here.”

  Just to hear her say that she wasn’t going anywhere was a relief because I thought for sure that I was about to lose her, which would’ve hurt me because throughout the past eight and a half months I had become so vulnerable and dependent on her. It would’ve felt like I lost a body part. I had said and shared things with her about myself that I had never told no one before, not even my brother. Things only me and God knew about.

  “Let’s go take some pictures,” I said.

  “We take pictures every week.”

  “And we gonna keep taking them until I get out ’cause you looking different every time you come up here.”

  “Yeah, right. Anyway, have you tried to finish school yet?”

  “Nah, too much shit be goin’ on so I ain’t even look into it. I’ll do that when I get in the halfway house.”

  “Visits will terminate in fifteen minutes. I repeat, visits will terminate in fifteen minutes,” the speaker announced.

  “Damn! That was a quick-ass two hours.”

  “I’ll be back up next week, so just call me tonight.” I could see the sadness in her eyes and I knew I was the cause and could do nothing about it.

  Right before the final call I said, “All right, gimme a kiss so I can let you go. I don’t want you to have to wait at the back of the line because it’s a lot of people here today.”

  “Visits are now terminated. Please start exiting the visiting area.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Dear Mr. Benson,

  We have reviewed your request for our halfway house program and we have agreed to consider you for the program. Your approval date is March 17, 1993.

  That was the news I had been waiting for. That was less than a month away and fourteen days after my birthday. All I could think about was how I was out of that hellhole. I really hit the weight pile hard and got my weight up before I was released. I called everybody and told them the good news; I mean, everybody like Mal, Lisa, moms, and them. They all were happy for me, especially Lisa.

  For the rest of the month I just chilled. I counted the days down until my day was to arrive. By now I only had a week remaining.

  “Ay yo, Mil, you wanna rock with me in spades?” a kid named Sneeze from my projects asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll rock. You know I’m the best in the building anyways.”

  “Yo, we playin’ for cigarettes, you good?”

  “Yeah, I got smokes. How many a game?”

  “Five packs a man.”

  “That’s cool. I got like six cartons, even though we ain’t gonna lose. Who we playin’?”

  “Some Newark kids; they bums.”

  “All right, I’m comin’.”

  The cards just weren’t falling our way. These bum-ass niggas beat us out of ten cartons, and they couldn’t even play. I didn’t really care ’cause I was leaving next week anyway, and I still would’ve had a carton left after I paid my five. Sneeze put his five in a brown paper bag with mine and we paid them. Sneeze and I were kicking it in the dayroom when they came up.

  “Yo! What the fuck y’all niggas think, we soft or something?” the tall, skinny one said.

  We both stood up. “What? Fuck you talking about?” Sneeze retorted.

  “Nigga, you know what we talkin’ about. Five of them cartons was dummies. Them shits was stuffed with newspaper.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just looked at Sneeze.

  “Nigga, them shits was legit. Get the fuck out of here.”

  “Yo, Sneeze, stop playin wit’ me, kid, and get mine to me.”

  “Nigga, you paid already,” Sneeze told him.

  The kid caught Sneeze in the face and they started banging out. His partner tried to hook off and I caught him. He grabbed me and we started wrestling. I kneed him in the face while I had him in the headlock. He was punching me in the back and ribs.

  “Break it up! Break it up! Code thirty-three. Code thirty-three. Cottage ten.”

  Unbelievable. Six days to go and I get into a fight and go to lockup for ninety days. On top of that, I lost my status and my date to go to the halfway house. It looked like I would be doing the rest of my months in jail.

  Mal understood because he was from the streets, but my moms and Lisa didn’t. They took turns: one chastised me while the other expressed her disappointment and hurt. The
re wasn’t anything I could do or say. The damage had been done.

  I got out of the box seventy-five days later, fifteen days early ’cause they needed the cell, and I was scheduled to see parole in two weeks. I was glad I wasn’t seeing them from the box because they would’ve definitely given me a hit. When I got out, Lisa’s phone had a block on it. She said her parents put it on there, but then I got a letter from her saying she wasn’t coming up this week because she couldn’t deal with seeing me right now. I didn’t even write her back. I decided not to until I got my fate from the parole board.

  The fight had cost me in more ways than one. Not only did they deny me community release, but they also gave me a twelve-month hit, which would damn near max me out, and I still had three months left on my stip to do. I called my brother and told him, but I didn’t call anyone else. Lisa had written me a few more times asking that I please respond and let her know what was going on, but I never did. She stopped writing and stopped coming to visit me.

  * * *

  Six months later, my brother came to visit me. “Yo, what up, kid? You looking good. I ain’t know ya shit was knotted up like that.”

  “Yeah, I be getting it in.”

  “What you putting up.”

  “I can hit four and some change.”

  “Word? How much you weigh?”

  “Like one-ninety something.”

  “Damn! I weigh one eighty-seven, but my shit come from drinkin’ and shit.”

  “How my niece doin’?”

  “She all right. She’s getting big.”

  “How you?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You heard from Lisa?”

  “Nah. I ain’t seen her nowhere out there, either.”

  “It don’t matter. I’ll be home in about six more months. What made you come up here today?”

  He hesitated. “Yo, I had to tell you something that I couldn’t tell you over the phone.”