A Moment of Silence: Midnight III Page 3

  Shoulder to shoulder with many men moving like a stampede on the Sahara, a pack of ’hood-hyenas cut across the flow of the movement diagonally in front of me. Girls grouped up like desert foxes, wearing bleached-out jeans and fresh kicks, tight tees and hair gelled, followed close behind. A young mother held one baby in her left arm while walking a four-year-old with her right hand, who dropped a pacifier. Instinctively, I squatted to scoop it, handed it to her young son, and saw one lion moving behind her turn left and another lion turn right. And over the kid’s shoulder, the approach of my target was revealed.

  Sideways, he was the sidewinder type, a poisonous viper that usually sneaks around rapidly sliding sideways across the desert effortlessly. Closer now, he saw me squatted there with my milli in my grip. He froze. His own frightened feet were fucking him over. Shook, he was empty-handed and solo. The nasty shit he did, he had to do alone. He did it. He knew it. I knew it. He knew that I knew. In his eyes was fear. His left eye was bandaged where Chiasa’s razor thin and lethally sharp blade had already cut him. I leaped. Punched him hard in his injury. He raised his fist in the aftershock. I punched him in his stomach. Big, slow, and stupid, he had left it unguarded. All those jail push-ups and that bench-pressing gave him the look but not the technique. His body buckled from the blow. His jaw dropped open. Speeding, I shoved my barrel in his mouth. Made him deep-throat it. He pushed back but couldn’t move me. As he reached for me, he choked on my black steel. I squeezed off six in him to make sure only he swallowed the bullets and no one else in the crowd. I never want innocent blood on my hands.

  Now his face was mangled and soaking in the blood of his brains. His whole body was jumping, shaking, in a jerking motion like a worm with its head cut off. His intestines were blown out of his sides. His blood was mixing with his pee and his shit, which splattered, and stained, and stunk. He wanted to be ’hood-famous. Now he was beyond recognition. Now, he would only be known for the last six seconds of his life. For peeing and shitting out of fear in his Guess jean shorts, and for getting hunted and slaughtered on the block like a beast.

  More shots were fired. Not from me, but they sounded not too far away. Familiar, I figured young cubs was shooting into the air, just to fuck with the cops for shutting down the sound system. A bottle got thrown from the roof, smashed open, and caused a ripple in a crowd.

  “Here come the jake!” someone hollered from the window ledge.

  It was as though everybody out here had shot him dead ’cause some started running and bumping into others who already had been running since the split seconds that the six fatal shots got fired. Mamas were hanging out of opened project windows like curious monkeys.

  Some ’hood-heads stayed still, chilling like they was huge elephants who owned the block, the building and the people, blocking the path of police on purpose while acting like they wasn’t doing what they was doing. Another mother covered her young daughter’s eyes with the palm of her hand so she wouldn’t see what she would probably see many times more if they stayed living on my street. A small crowd surrounded the dead body like circling vultures. Talking, laughing, some shocked but nobody crying. Now the switched-on sirens were screaming, so no one in the crowd could hear themselves thinking or speaking or being spoken to. The stage crowd, politicians and performers, had scattered like rodents, nearly knocking one another over to escape the audience.

  The police cruisers were deadlocked in the chaos of the party, and street exits and entrances were blocked off by them. So they charged like heavy-hooved wild pigs where they must’ve believed the body was stewing.

  Searching for the shooter must’ve been crazy. Staring into a sea of faces that all “fit the description.” Young, black—real black, armed and dangerous. For them, that’s every man moving.

  I lowered the hood of my black Champion sweatshirt.

  Don’t react. You move the action. Make your enemy react to you, I heard my father’s voice in my head. I eased my right hand into my right pocket to remove my glove.

  “Brownsville, never ran, never will,” so I walked. My milli tucked till I could toss it, the burning-hot barrel feeling like it was branding my black skin blacker. I was walking casually, unloading my adrenaline, dismissing my doubts, regrets, and disappointment that I should have made his murder more brutal and even more painful for him. Maybe I should’ve stayed and skinned him alive, then hung his dead body from the streetlight to let regular niggas on the block know to stop letting foul men live—men who fuck with little girls who don’t agree, don’t have titties or periods, or even desires to be talked to, followed, chased, cornered, or touched.

  Persecution is worse than slaughter, a line from a sura in the Holy Quran moved through my mind. Maybe I should’ve tortured him.

  Now the police were surrounding the body, pushing the crowd back, and pulling out the chalk and yellow tape. A few of them dashed into the crowd in different directions.

  Last look: the cluttered crowd was thinning. I wouldn’t be looking back no more. Just facing forward, keeping an even pace as most scrambled. Now I was politely passing by the parked in the middle of the street police bus. The doors were flung open. Soon they would sweep and pile randomly cuffed-up, roughed-up prisoners in there and haul them off. I had already put distance between me and them.

  Dropped down between two parallel parked cars two blocks over, I tossed my nine in the iron-slotted gutter after wiping it down with the white washcloth that I normally rocked in my back pocket. The cops would want the murder weapon. I wouldn’t make it easy on them. I’d forced them to get low, crawl into the gutter with the fist-size water bugs and their rat rivals. The men in blue were already dirty. I’d make them get filthy, wade in the water, and inhale the stench of the project toilet shit.

  “Police, stop!” I heard as I raised up. I didn’t stop, didn’t turn. Just walked swiftly to the nearest subway station. Shook ones turn when they hear those two words, afraid they’ll get shot in the back by the Glock. I have zero fear; I believe that when it is my turn to return to Allah, I will. Fear was trained out of me from when I was young enough to walk on this earth. Fear only Allah.

  Terror, not fear, had gripped me though, when I was out checking the whole length and width of my ’hood. Looking in the front, sides, and back of the buildings, searching down shortcuts and alleyways. Peering through car windows and parking lots, and even climbing up “the dumps” where trash is heaped up high.

  The terror of hurting my Umma’s heart, our mother. The terror of losing my little sister, oh Allah. The terror of her becoming ruined and raped and unprotected like too many fatherless American girls. The terror of her losing her honor, of me failing my father, my culture, and my faith.

  Terror had soaked through my pores and seized me, when I had seen a body laid out and white-sheeted and being carried to the ambulance, only to overhear people saying, “It was some old lady from the building who caught a heatstroke and died.”

  As I looked everywhere and walked and searched in every direction from my Brooklyn building, my terror made my head get even hotter, and it felt like my own blood was boiling up my body organs. Yet, I have no fear of any man living and zero fear of my own death.

  Frightened boys turn when they hear “Police, stop!” Ruled by their fears for their entire lives, both their bodies and their thoughts freeze up. If you stop when you hear those two words, you are revealing that you are the one they’re looking for and that you know it. Especially when you’re in the same street packed with plenty of people. The cops could be talking to anybody. Probably by now they were following four or five or fifty different niggas who “fit the description.” I had already breezed by tens of youth snatched and lined up against the building with their hands in the air, the ones with the wildest reactions laid out on the pavement cuffed. I saw some soft-boiled boys, the type that would break and crack open like eggshells within minutes. Soon as they got in some private space they’d start snitching on their friends and even on family and would e
ven tell on people the cops ain’t even asked them about. Giving up information believing that it would somehow save them, and saving themselves would be all that mattered, because cowards can only think of saving themselves.

  I reversed it on the cops, by acting and not reacting. Made the cops doubt their suspicion of me by never looking back or over my shoulders, and by remaining calm, detached, looking straight forward and keeping it moving.

  As my feet moved down the subway stairs, I felt a second set of feet were stepping in my same rhythm directly behind me. On the subway platform I moved in and out of the outgoing crowd until the train stormed in. I stepped into the second-to-last car, with a group of random riders. Doors closed. Train pulled out. I was heading to the dirty door that connects one train car to the next, thinking that either way, I had achieved my objective: to move the action away from my Brooklyn block where I had lived for seven years. My ’hood, where I was often seen but never known. Where I had fought but never mixed or mingled. Investigate me! No one there had ever known my name. “Midnight” was the only name some could use or tell. My Umi, my sister, and both my wives lived safely elsewhere outside of the borough of Brooklyn, forwarding address unknown by even my closest, truest friends. Insha’Allah.

  Looking through a backwards reflection cast on a dirty train door window, my eyes were scanning movements and faces. They paused on someone lovely, exotic, and familiar. My heart skipped half a beat before fast-forwarding. It was not time for love or longing, only for carrying out the plan to its completion. In this plan there are no comrades on purpose. I’m strictly solo.

  “Hibernate the heart,” my sensei had taught me. In extreme situations or in captivity, isolation or torture, only the hibernated heart will allow the fighter to prevail.

  Again my eyes paused, then doubled back to confirm what I sensed. D-tec, undercover detectives, were only undercover to themselves. The street-trained eye could see them clearly. On my side of Brooklyn, they were usually black like us. But they were different from everyday street cats. They didn’t have the swagger or the rhythm of the full-blown bold and ignorant niggas. They lacked style, wore the wrong fitteds and bogus jewels, which could only be wrong. Worn-too-long kicks is always dead wrong, because we either clean ’em or trash ’em when they get marks or specks on them. That’s why we walk like we stepping on air when we sport ’em. Even our laces had to be flawless. The D’s lacked ease. They were uncomfortable with themselves, uncomfortable with their jobs, and uncomfortable in our ’hoods, even if they came from ’em.

  Train stopped, doors opened. I saw the D was still sitting, staring in my direction at the back of my head. Would he get off? He didn’t. Seemed like he was waiting to see if I would. I didn’t. He sat fingering his pager, looking into the slim screen. He stood up, one hand grabbing hold of the overhead strap while the train shook slightly as it moved forward while still pulling left to right. He was facing my direction. Took one step towards me, and then . . . pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop . . . seven shots. Sounded like a 22-caliber. Nah, not a 22, it was firecrackers with the fuses connected to make them fire off rapidly and sound lethal. Then a stink bomb was let off. The smell and the smoke fogged the air and the train car lights went black for a half a second, as they often do. Fire flared up in the opposite corner from me.

  “Remain calm,” a male voice shouted excitedly as the riders jeered and scrambled. Only one man seated and wearing headphones didn’t panic. His head was bobbing rythmically to the music he must’ve been listening to. There was only one way to go, towards the dirty door that I was blocking. Glass broke and someone sprayed the extinguisher and another pulled the red wooden handle of the emergency stop rope. The train jerked hard and screeched and screamed to a halt. The crowd that was pressed against me fell backwards. Lights off again suddenly. In the coughing, cursing, and confusion, I opened and shot through the door past a pissy homeless man laid out on the seat, who I couldn’t see but could smell. I dropped down from the last train car and onto the train tracks.

  All New Yorkers know, pull the red emergency stop rope and the train gets stuck for a long time. Still they stay put, scared of getting electrocuted or suffocated out in the train tunnel where only the young wild wolves would venture. An A train recently got stuck and some Wall Street regulars got the shakedown: wallets, jewels, cash, coins, and even eyeglasses, shoes, and technology. They made them run it all and escaped through the tunnel. Now the subways in all five boroughs were crawling with police at every platform.

  Walking through the darkness and cutting through the thick fumes that substituted for air in the underground, I was headed on foot to the next station, without the train, without the crowd, without the D-tec. There was one urgent thing that I had to do now, that I wasn’t comfortable doing until after I had finalized the execution.

  3. THE SILENCE

  Thirty-six minutes after midnight and four nine-millimeters aimed at my head and my heart. Two police dogs, more like wolves or tigers trained on dark meat and human bones, were standing still and strong on long leather leashes. Three NYPD, one undercover, two transit police, and a small crowd collecting as six more NYPD came storming down the subway stairs. Far too many cops, I thought to myself, to arrest one man for the murder of a nobody. Everybody else is still. Still they shouted, “Don’t move!”

  “You are under arrest,” a stern and stout uniformed cop barked at me, face-to-face as another patted me down asking me, “Do you have any weapons on you?” No response from me, so he picked up his speed searching my ankles, back and front pockets, and all the places where any man could conceal a weapon.

  “Don’t you hear an officer talking to you?” A solid, broad-backed policeman slammed me in the stomach with his nightstick, as the one searching me pulled my box cutter out of my side leg pocket.

  “He’s clean, nothing but a box cutter,” the searching cop said. “And he only got six dollars on him.”

  “Impossible,” the stern and stout arresting officer told him.

  “Get down on your knees,” the broad-backed nightstick cop ordered me. “And put your hands behind your head.” Now he had both hands around his gun instead of his nightstick. The stick for when he thought I was guilty of possessing a concealed weapon. His gun drawn for after he was sure I was not carrying a weapon.

  I stayed standing. A young looking, frightened rookie-type cop leaped over with a swiftness and stung me. A strong electric current ran through each of my veins. As my body overheated my legs began to buckle, and the broad-backed cop forced me down with his nightstick. His gun now in his left hand, the nightstick in his right, I was not on my knees, but was facedown on the pavement. He put his foot on my spine, using his heavy shoe and shifting his weight to press and hold me there. He pushed his nightstick against the back of my neck to be sure my face was mashed into the filth of the pissy subway cement. The stern and stout cop yanked my hands behind my back and cuffed me. The other officers began to huddle as the broad-backed nightstick cop shouted orders to disperse the small late-night crowd. He didn’t want any witnesses as he attempted to crush me to death.

  The two unleashed tigers approached me. In a haze, I watched the cops observing their canines’ every action, eager for them to send even a slight signal. The police dogs sniffed me but didn’t bark or growl or roar. They searched the area surrounding me. Disappointed, ninety seconds later, the cops called their loyal dogs back.

  “You have the right to remain silent . . .” the stern arresting cop explained.

  Silence, I thought to myself, in a flash of a second. I don’t believe there is one American who knows what that is. They are a nation of chatterers, speaking even when there’s nothing good, right, or true to say. Talking nonstop trash, and completely unfamiliar with the pause. Even when the greatest American tragedies occur, they can only reserve and observe a moment of silence.

  Now the black leopard of Sudan will show them the true power and meaning of slience.

  NYPD and transit cops a
nd even the plainclothes detective argued over who caught me. Caught me, I thought to myself. Even after just having been electrocuted with the Taser, I was clear that I had walked right down into their nest on my own two feet, of my own free will. The fool who needed murdering, I had already murdered with full intent and zero regret. And the second and final deed I had to do had already been done. I had no plans to take down no cops, even though I could’ve waged war against them till the end. I could’ve run and hid myself away in any number of places. I have a house of love in Queens, where my women welcome me warmly, respect me, enjoy me, love me, and serve me. I have my two closest friends, Chris and Ameer, who would’ve both put me up till the heat was off me, or at least till it died down.

  But a true man never leads a trail of pain or war to his own house or to the homes of his loved ones. Men fight. Men work. Men defend. Men murder. Ninja-trained warriors burn their trail and all traces that jeopardize their team, territory, or goals.

  I know the deal. Now that I had done what had to be done, I’m like mercury or radiation to all who know and love me. I made a conscious and clear decision. I understood the seriousness. Now, I need all pain and punishment to fall only on my shoulders. I need for my sister and mother and wives to be untouched, unseen, uninterrupted and unknown to anyone who we, and they have not chosen to be a part of our world. I need family and friends to stay far away from me. Further, I need not even one of them to attempt to see, talk to, or even contact me, not even by letter. They each should deny that they ever knew me. Treat me like I’m dead and remain completely silent until I hit time served and my hands, mind, heart, and body are all free.

  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law,” the cop said. The law, I thought to myself. How can there be a law without trust between the lawmakers and the people? People don’t ever expect to be protected by the law. People don’t even expect their loved ones to ever be protected by the law. People don’t expect justice from the law. People don’t ever expect the lawmakers to obey the laws they made. So there is no law, just bandits with authority versus bandits without authority.