Midnight Page 3

  When we moved in, the first thing on me that got attacked was my clothes. An older guy named DeQuan, who seemed to be in charge of the bench outside of the building door, called me over to his office. I had to walk by the bench to get off the block anyway. I was seven. This cat was about sixteen.

  Instead of gold fronts, DeQuan had two sterling silver teeth. I saw him rocking his clothes with the price tags still hanging on ’em, dangling from his fitted hat or hanging from his kicks or plastered across his pants pockets. Most of his shit was labeled Polo, Ralph Lauren, or Nike. His kicks kept changing up daily.

  “You can’t come outside like that no more. You fucking up the whole look of the building,” he told me with a screw face. I just stood there looking back at him for some seconds. I was just learning how to translate the Black version of English and their slang.

  “What is it that you are talking about?” I asked him. Immediately he started laughing at my accent, my way of talking.

  “All this shit got to go,” he said, using his dutch to point out everything I was wearing, from the kufi on my head down to my shoes.

  “Around here we wear fitted. Put a brim on your hat, my man. And throw them joints in the trash right now, you’re insulting me,” he said, looking down at my feet. He got off his bench and pulled the metal trash can, which was chained to the bottom of his bench, closer to me. I didn’t move.

  He tried to grab my shoes right off my feet. I jumped back and pulled out my knife. He laughed and said, “What the fuck you gonna do with that?” I walked away, past him and the bench and off the block to do what I was doing.

  The next day he was on the bench with two other boys when I came walking by.

  “Lil’ Man, let me build with you for a minute,” he said.

  I had no choice but to pass by him.

  “I’m a big man so I won’t fight you. I’ll give you one last warning about this fucked-up shit you keep wearing. Get rid of it. If you need work, I’ll put you on. But if you come outside one more time with this fucked-up fashion, I’mma put my young brother DeSean on your ass. No knives. Just a fair one, fist to fist, every day until you get it right.”

  His brother DeSean had on Levi’s jeans, no shirt, and the matching jean jacket with some new kicks. He grimaced at me, something I guess his brother taught him to do. I looked straight back at him.

  “I got five brothers. DeSean here is nine. DeRon is ten. You can take your pick. I’ll bring ’em all downstairs and line them up for you. But every day you gonna have to fight one of ’em either way.”

  I could tell he couldn’t tell, or maybe he didn’t care, that I was only seven.

  “We can fight,” I answered him with no emotion. He tried to stay straight-faced but I could tell he was surprised.

  I fought one of his brothers every day for two weeks. Whoever was on the block at the time took it as entertainment. But DeQuan could see that I took it seriously. Slowly, he learned to show me a little respect. Everybody noticed how I never tried to duck out the side or the back of the building. I showed up ready, with no fear.

  I fought the nine-year-old for the first few days. Everybody could see I had more skill. He would start out strong in the beginning but couldn’t make it through to the finish. But DeQuan would have him right out there the next day to try again.

  Next I took on DeRon, the ten-year-old, who had more weight than me, but my father once taught me a way to fight someone who is bigger and stronger. While we was battling, their big brother DeQuan would stand over us yelling at his brother to do this or that, to move this way or that way. When he would see that one of his brothers was losing, he would start threatening him right there on the spot. “You better whoop his ass or I’m a whoop your ass. Get your fist up. Take him down. Take him down or you’re gonna have to fight me next,” he would threaten them.

  On my last fight with the ten-year-old, DeQuan screamed on him so hard I actually felt sorry for him. When it became clear that I had defeated him too, DeQuan made him strip out of his clothes and snatched off his new sneakers. I gave the kid credit for standing out there in broad daylight in his boxers. He gave in to his brother’s orders, but he kept his head up and didn’t cry at his humiliation.

  Always there would be a small crowd watching. Day by day it increased in size. DeQuan did not know he was doing me a favor. He introduced me to the hood as a fighter, a young one with exceptional stamina who never backed down. It helped my reputation a lot and put some of the young wannabees around our way on pause.

  The eleven-year-old named DeLeon posed a problem for me, I thought. The first time I faced him to fight, I figured he must be feeling real powerful surrounded by his two younger brothers seated right there on the bench, and his older brother DeQuan standing right next to him and on point. Aside from the three of them, his thirteen-year-old brother who never sat down was always leaned up against the bench, never saying one word or ever cracking a smile. He stared me in my eyes the entire time. He seemed more foul than the other five and was a threat to me of what was coming up next if I dared to take his eleven-year-old brother down. He was six years older than me and too big. He looked like a fucking cheater, a dirty fighter. So my strategy was to go hard at the eleven-year-old, forcing DeQuan to give me my props, declare me the winner, and to call it all off.

  Instead of getting right down to it, we walked around in circles first, staring each other down. He was slightly taller than me. The crowd was shouting out random shit. Somebody said something funny. In the split second that he looked away to chase the joke, I smashed his face with my right fist. His nose started bleeding. He was in a fighting stance now, looking angry and determined. Still he was making the mistake of having his eyes in the wrong place, watching his blood drops splatter in small circles on the cement. “Keep your eyes on his fists,” DeQuan yelled at him. The kid got amped up and took a swing at me. I ducked. He missed. I landed a big bare-fisted punch in his stomach and he doubled over. “Stand the fuck up,” DeQuan yelled.

  I gave him time to straighten up before I punched him in his face again. His eyes turned red and mucus gushed out of one nostril, mixing with his blood. Suddenly his chest started heaving. Tears started to form in his eyes. His two younger brothers were on their feet now, trying to stop the fight. DeQuan pushed them both out of the way, leaned over, and started screaming face-to-face on his eleven-year-old brother.

  “Oh, you gonna stand there and catch a fucking asthma attack because you losing the fight? That shit ain’t gonna help you win. Cut that shit out!” he hollered at his brother, who could not seem to catch his breath.

  “He needs his pump,” the nine-year-old screamed.

  “He ain’t getting no pump,” DeQuan silenced him.

  “I’ll go and get it,” his ten-year-old brother said, then ran. But the thirteen-year-old brother caught him by the neck of his jacket and held him right there.

  “Now, calm down and take all your shit off and give it to him. You don’t deserve to have nothing,” DeQuan ordered the eleven-year-old. The boy’s breathing got worse. His fingers fiddled nervously with his belt.

  “I don’t want them,” I said. “Those are his clothes. He can keep them.” I walked away. I had shit to take care of and after fighting today nothing on me was dirty. I wasn’t bleeding. My clothes weren’t ripped or split. There was no reason for me to go back upstairs.

  When I got back home, there was a plastic shopping bag against my apartment door. I looked inside. There was a fresh pair of jeans folded with the tags on, a T-shirt, and a crisp fitted. The kicks gave away the sender. They were the brand-new ones like the pair the eleven-year-old wore for the fight.

  I took the delivery three different ways. One, was that DeQuan wanted me to know he didn’t have no problem finding out where my apartment was and who my family was and he would come up to our place whether I was at home or not. Two, that DeQuan was admitting the embarrassing defeat of his eleven-year-old brother. Three, that maybe the thirteen-year-old didn�
��t want to fight me next. I took the shopping bag as a message to me, half threat, half reward.

  I thought about it for two seconds, grabbed the bag, and shot down the stairs to DeQuan’s apartment. I wanted him to understand that I knew he was watching me but I was watching him too. He could come up to my apartment. I could come down to his just as easy.

  Before I could bang on the door, DeQuan pulled it open. He had on new jeans and sneakers as usual. But this time he wasn’t wearing a shirt and his nine millimeter was gleaming, tucked at his waist.

  “What do you want?” DeQuan asked. I handed him back his shopping bag, but couldn’t take my gaze off of his gun.

  “One of those,” I answered, with a nod toward his piece. DeQuan smiled. “Come on in, kid,” he said.

  All five of DeQuan’s brothers were in one back room. There was DeSean, DeRon, DeLeon, and the thirteen-year-old. I didn’t know his name.

  This was my first time seeing the fifteen-year-old, who was almost as tall as DeQuan. I found out his name was DeMon. Each of them was sitting on one of two beds. Only the eleven-year-old with the asthma was sitting on top of his hands and had his head hanging down.

  “Get your fucking head up,” DeQuan barked on him. “And keep it the fuck up,” he added. Meanwhile, the thirteen-year-old, still standing, stared me down with hatred. I was wrong for thinking that he didn’t want to fight me next. Even though he was almost twice my age, he looked like he wanted a crack at crashing my skull.

  DeSean, the ten-year-old brother, turned away when he noticed it was me, and looked out the window instead.

  “Look this man in his eyes,” DeQuan bossed him. Now all six of them were staring, focused on me.

  DeQuan had a wall no one could see because from the ceiling to the floor, it was covered by crisp sneaker boxes of all kinds. They were perfectly stacked like in a small store.

  “DeMon, give me box number seventy-seven,” he told his fifteen-year-old brother. The brother hesitated at first, then he sped up and pulled the box out for him. DeQuan took the box from his brother and told me to follow him down the hall.

  In a dark corridor of their apartment, DeQuan squatted down to speak confidentially. He opened the top of the sneaker box, revealing two guns sparkling on top of white tissue paper. I could see one was a twenty-two, the other was a nine.

  “A’ight, little man, from now on you’re gonna work for me,” he said but I cut him off.

  “No!”

  When I saw the anger moving into his face, I corrected myself. “No thanks,” I said. “How much is it?”

  “These cannons are big-boy toys,” he said, raising up from his squat like he was reluctant or now refusing to sell it to me.

  I waited silently for him to quote the price. He’s a businessman, I thought to myself. If he was any good at it, it was his job to move his product. He felt my point.

  “It’s three-fifty for the nine, two hundred for the twenty-two. Bullets included,” he told me, cool and confident that he had out-priced me and trapped me in his employ.

  I put my hand in my pockets and peeled off five hundred and fifty dollars. “I’ll take both of them,” I said, pointing toward the weapons. For the first time ever, I saw him actually hesitate. His eyes stayed on my small money stack.

  “A’ight, little man, but you gonna have to learn to work with other people for real. I can sell you the pieces. That’s what I do. But I cannot let you walk around in those fucked-up clothes. I’ll sell to you if you change into the clothes in this shopping bag. It’s a compromise,” he said, staring at me in the form of a threat. I looked at him and thought to myself, this fashion shit must be their American religion. Then I thought again. Protecting my mother, Umma, is my religion. So I accepted. “Deal.”

  He took the money. I took the bag and the sneaker box and started to leave.

  “Show and prove.” DeQuan demanded, but I didn’t understand.

  “Put ’em on now,” he ordered. He seemed used to giving orders and having them followed. “And let me tell you this, little man. This is Brooklyn. No matter if it turns two hundred degrees in the summertime, we don’t rock sandals. No ‘man sandals,’ you got it?” he said. “If I ever see you wearing these sandals again, you’re finished,” he threatened with his most serious tone yet and pointed his trigger finger to the head.

  That was my official introduction to NYC. That’s how I came up on my first two guns. That’s how I got introduced to New York fashion and styles.

  “Leave all that fucked-up shit you had on right there.” He stood over me.

  I laid my kufi, my linen pants, my white silk Islamic shirt, and my sandals to rest. These were all high-quality, respectable clothes made of the finest materials. Where I am from, jeans are considered casual clothes used when laboring, doing construction, working on the land, repairing the house, or maintaining the vehicles. But in Brooklyn, my African dress clothes made me a target and I was prepared to turn my situation around and do what I needed to do to protect my family.

  I never rocked another pair of sandals.

  Word of mouth in Brooklyn was as powerful as the call to prayer back home. Word of mouth in Brooklyn was even more influential than the talking drum beat in my southern grandfather’s village. So in less than twenty-four hours, the whole building knew I, the young fearless one, was packing.

  A few days after I copped, I saw my old sandals dangling from the telephone wires that ran from pole to pole way up high throughout the hood. I didn’t flinch. It was a symbol, a reminder to me of where I was and who I had to be to hold my position.

  5

  THE LOST BOYS

  There is no place for fear in a man. There is no place for fear in the ghetto.

  I considered myself to be at war with every single nigga I ran into, the big ones and the small ones. So I stay fit and strapped. It was no either-or situation for me. In my room I pushed my bed up against the wall and into the corner. I needed the floor space. I did my pushups, situps, and pullups like it was part of my religion.

  In the hood, I noticed a lot of out-of-shape types, either too damn skinny or too damn fat. Instead they hid behind the barrels of their guns.

  My father taught me that it is always better to have a choice of weapons. So I trained my body, my hands, and my feet to be my weapons too.

  Seven days a week in our apartment, I did my unofficial training.

  In a Brooklyn Ninjitsu school I did my official training. My teacher, who students called Sensei, was a thirty-something-year-old Japanese man who owned a nice-sized space that we called the dojo. It wasn’t a cramped storefront that had different kids dropping in and out all the time. It was a large, spacious four-room facility.

  We were trained to fight in the largest room. We had lockers in the locker room. Private lessons were offered in the smaller back room. Sensei had his own office to chill in. The walls were lined with photographs of real fighters in wicked stances, some even flying in the air. The expressions on their faces revealed their killer instinct as though the photos had just been snapped seconds before their opponents’ defeat.

  The students were all handpicked and selected to train by Sensei. Some people’s money he turned away easily. He wanted youth who were serious about fighting and defending something based on a real principle, and not just for the hell of it. He kept sharp rules on attendance and honor. He never screamed and never joked either.

  Sensei told us stories of ancient men who constantly had to fight to defend themselves and their families against individuals, corrupt armies and governments. He demonstrated how they used everything they had to make weapons, and went up against their enemies even though they were completely outnumbered and favored to lose. I considered my situation to be just like that. Coming from a foreign land, I did not trust the United States’ authorities. I didn’t even trust the American people.

  Even when I came across those born and raised in the U.S. who introduced themselves as Muslims, I took them for jokers. They lived ope
nly and carefree against the laws of Islam.

  I could not trust my new neighbors. We looked alike but I didn’t understand the way they talked, lived, and acted. Now I was mastering an ancient martial art form and converting myself into an urban ninja warrior.

  My Brooklyn education came quick. The hood ate slow cats. I made it my job to learn the faces of every boy and man in my Brooklyn building. I learned from meeting DeQuan that I needed to know who was related to who, brothers, cousins, and uncles. I ranked each one of them in my mind based on the angle and position they played. I learned quickly that every man in the hood got an angle.

  The lowest were the drug fiends. Yet they were the easiest to spot. They were broken men, women, and children worse off than beggars and willing to do anything for anybody for a hit of their addiction. They were going nowhere fast, aging right before my eyes, bent over, scratching, and thoughtless. I’d seen a few of them when we moved in. At first I thought they were poor people. Even back in the Sudan there are poor people. I soon found out and understood their condition. It wasn’t that they were poor. A poor man can fight and have a chance of winning. A poor man can earn and build and become victorious. A fiend is a just a fucked-up, zombie, half-dead loser.

  Close to the bottom were the schoolboys. They got up every morning and went to school just like they were told. They came home from school every afternoon, just like they were told. They was no real threat to me or anybody else. I kept my eye on them anyway. It wasn’t long before I peeped their style. Most of them were a bunch of cowards. When I would see one of them alone, I could smell their fear. They would give a quick, nervous “Hi,” and avoid eye contact. Then when I saw them grouped up with their friends, on the stairwell or on the train, or just playing the curb, they acted powerful. In a group they liked to bum rush and knock people over just for the fun of it.

  One schoolboy punk named Manny tried to intimidate me once with his crew. About fifteen of them walked close behind me from the train station to my building. They would step up their pace, come up close on my heels, then bust out laughing. I knew they was waiting for me to turn around. So I didn’t.