This loudmouth had embarrassed him and had called him out in front of the huge group of gawkers that had gathered, so there was no turning back for Kalif. All the previous times when Kalif had been the focal point of ridicule at school for being different, no girl had ever come to his defense. But now Jada was taking up for him. However, it didn’t look good to have a female fighting his battles. And it didn’t set well with his soul. In Islam, it was a man’s job to be a protector of women. Definitely not the other way around.
Kalif glared at the loudmouth. “Time and time again, I’ve warned you. I done gave you a pass, and you think you bigger than the game,” he growled. “You pissed ’cause ole girl like me? Well, dummy, I ain’t thinking about her, but if I was, you wouldn’t be able to do shit about it but fall back and hope to get my sloppy seconds when I’m done with her.”
“Nigga, say what? You think I care about some ho?” The guy felt small because the gawkers were laughing at what Kalif had just said.
“You heard me, pussy. You wanted a reaction to that shit you was talking, well, you about to get it. So what’s good?”
“Yeah, whatever, terrorist ass. Fuck you, your god, and that fake-ass prophet Muhammad, or whatever his name is!”
It was one thing for this guy to come at him. Kalif could let that shit go. But now the youth with the reckless mouth had insulted Allah and Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon his soul. Now Kalif was going to war. Holding nothing back, Kalif socked his nemesis dead in the mouth. The crowd was in awe of Kalif’s strength, but they were not expecting what came next. Kalif followed up that bloody blow with several more, then easily body slammed the other boy. The boy fell to the floor, and Kalif leapt on top of him and went to work. Loudly chanting verses from the Koran, he zoned out, much as he’d done with his mother years ago. Yet this time no familial bond held him back, and he had no desire to slow down.
For years, he’d put up with working on his firecracker temper, just as the psychiatrist he saw once a week had suggested. But Kalif’s tolerance for abuse and his self-restraint had expired. Making sure this battle would be forever etched in his opponent’s memory, Kalif slowed down his powerful punches. Not missing a beat, he leaned in close to the guy’s swiftly swelling face. “Today you die. Today you will know to respect me and all that I believe in. Today belongs to you,” Kalif whispered into his ear before sinking his teeth down into the teen’s flesh.
Hearing the wannabe thug scream out in pain like a little girl gave Kalif pure satisfaction. He wasn’t done inflicting injuries. He was handing out a life lesson to all that had gathered to see the brawl. With his teeth, Kalif ripped the boy’s ear damn near off his head, and then he spit the detached bloody lobe on the floor. Ignoring the gasps from random females, Kalif went on to bite a plug out of his aggressor’s jaw.
When they saw their once fearless leader was leaking from the mouth and missing part of his earlobe and jaw, the bullies realized the time for action was slipping away. With their leader sprawled on the lunchroom floor, they jumped into action. Yanking Kalif by his shoulder, one of the six wannabe junior goons made his presence known. A struggle between them ensued, and the other five goons quickly jumped in. Though it was now six to one, Kalif took each blow like a champ. There was no way that he was going to go down like this. Arms swinging, jaws cracking, eyes taking direct hits, Kalif’s friends wasted no time showed their allegiance by joining the brawl.
Not wanting to be left out, Jada threw a punch at one of the bullies before some cheering onlookers shoved her back into the crowd. But she would not be deterred. Now was her time to strike. She managed to get in a few random licks and kicks of her own, including when the heel of her shoe came crashing down on the forehead of the loudmouthed leader, who was still lying on the lunch-rooms floor. She grinned with satisfaction when the skin over his left eyebrow split wide open.
Seconds later security guards swarmed the lunchroom. They surrounded the pile of brawling kids and snatched the ones off the top first. Kalif was near the bottom of the pile, and he managed to squirm away from the security guards. His adrenaline was at an all-time high. While all the others in both “camps” were ready to call in a day, Kalif’s thirst for blood and revenge did not waver, and he continue to throw punches at whoever was within arm’s reach. With each blow he landed, he gave a yell in Arabic, and his voice seemed to echo throughout the lunchroom, rendering the mostly African American student body speechless. He managed to knock one guard unconscious, but that didn’t stop him. Unbeknownst to his parents, Kalif had deliberated omitted taking his prescribed meds for three days straight, despite having recently been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in addition to his ADHD. Although he had maintained his composure, for the most part, when the bullies started taunting him, Kalif was now in a full-blown rage. It was if he had the strength of several heavyweight cage fighters.
As the crowd scrambled to get away from Kalif and his wild wrath, Jada didn’t move. In fact, she continued to attack the bigmouthed leader, who was now cowering in a fetal position, begging for mercy. The hands and feet she was putting on him had more to do with her own personal experience than with just taking up for a fellow classmate. She, too, had been bullied by the fake thug and his homeboys for being overweight and having a severe case of acne. She had never once confided in her older brothers about the bullying, and up until this point, she’d held the pain and humiliation she felt deep inside. She’d often been depressed in the past, but on this day, she had an awakening. She wasn’t going to take it anymore.
Unfortunately, before she could celebrate her newfound freedom, one of the young thugs swung on her right before he got body slammed by a security guard. The thug’s fist connected directly with her temple. Just like the loudmouthed bully who had started the brawl, she was now leaking. However, although she was dazed, she never lost her balance and stood strong on her feet. Seeing that she was a bit stupefied, one of the security guards took advantage of the situation and grab hold of her arm. Then backup security personnel handcuffed both her and a still defiant Kalif and led them out of the lunchroom through separate exits.
As Kalif and Jada left the lunchroom, the two of them locked eyes. Having no remorse for what she’d done, Jada smiled at Kalif. He nodded at her, acknowledging that she was a true soldier and would someday make someone a good wife. Regrettably, this brawl, although not Kalif’s fault, was not his first, and he had yet another go-round in the disciplinary office. His and Jada’s punishment was simple and swift. Both of them got expelled from school.
* * *
Fatima hung up the phone, having just received the latest rundown of Kalif’s antics from the principal. She turned to her husband, who was standing by the kitchen doorway. “He needs to be put away after what they just told me. He needs the type of help we can’t give him. Rasul. Why won’t you listen to me? We’ve tried everything. Considering the way he was even brought into this world, he is cursed. He was born a nuisance.” She took a deep breath. “I would say his father’s crazed bloodline runs through that boy. But it’s easy to see in him the personality and demonic spirit of his auntie, who was fucked up in the head. I still pray for my best friend, who had to live with that monster of a sister all that time.”
As Rasul listened to his wife not only urge him to have Kalif caged up like some wild animal, but also drag his once secretly beloved Kenya through the mud, he wanted to object. The father of two boys wanted to tell her to leave Kalif to him and tend to their biological son, Hakim, who was visibly her favorite. He wanted to say that if she loved her deceased best friend as much as she claimed, she should be able to embrace her son. As he began pacing the floor, he wanted to tell her to stop criticizing Kenya. She was deceased, and there was no need to point fingers or blame her. But Rasul knew it was best to hold his peace, because his wife would never get over, forget, or forgive him for his constant devotion to another female, dead or alive.
He decided then that he’d just go sit on the front porch an
d wait for Kalif to return home. In the back of his mind, he knew Fatima was right. They were raising a savage. Working hard on being a new person himself, Rasul knew that the old him would have beaten Kalif senseless with his bare hands until he bled out of both eyes for all the trouble he continued to cause. As he sat down on a chair on the porch, he silently prayed for patience.
Chapter 6
After getting kicked out of Central, Kalif was moved to an alternative high school and was thrown into a mix of the worst young hoodlums and thugs in training Detroit had to offer. Blackening more than a few eyes and never backing down in any altercation, during his senior year he quickly rose to be one of the most notorious soon-to-be alumni the faculty had ever been elated to get rid of.
Under normal circumstances, a teenager’s senior year was filled with excitement, both for the child and the parents. A pinning ceremony. Cap and gown pictures. Homecoming dances. And, of course, the prom. But Kalif’s final year of high school was mentally draining for his family. It was a year not of celebration but of disappointment. Despite the fact that the grades he received at the worst alternative high school in the city were decent, Kalif was a known menace to the staff and, as of late, to the local police. Kalif was far from interested in what his family thought of him or in being a role model for his younger brother. It was his parents’ job to raise Hakim, not his.
Kalif banded together with a group of weak-minded troublemakers who were out to instill just as much fear in others as he was. Before they found Kalif, the only thing Li’l James, Pit Boy, and Keys had needed was a leader with some sort of a brain. And in between his respectful prayers to Allah five times a day, Kalif offered them that. Although he would tell his cohorts about the benefits of Islam, he didn’t discriminate against his boys because of their faith or lack of it. If the next man wanted to eat his breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the devil or wanted to marry his ugly daughter, it was not Kalif’s concern. As long as that guy was putting in work for the good of the team, he was good to go.
Repeatedly, the twisted teen ringleader came up with scams and schemes to get revenue and pull them out of poverty. They had their hands in everything, petty or not, and wreaked havoc right and left. Hitting local car lots was simple. So was stealing car radios, catalytic converters, tires, and air bags. As time passed, the crew’s need for money grew, and so did its size. Their rapid growth led them to attempt bigger jobs. They began stealing entire vehicles in Metro Detroit and taking them to a chop shop in the North End. Some jobs worked out perfectly. They hit licks and came up with their pockets on full. However, other jobs went terribly wrong, resulting in stays in juvenile or near death at the hands of the hardworking residents and Middle Eastern shop owners that had the fortune to catch them red-handed in the act of stealing. With their smash-and-grabs at the liquor stores that graced every neighborhood corner, they never had a shortage of bottles, scratch-offs, or Newports.
Kalif had his mob running into the Korean-owned beauty supply stores and snatching expensive bundles of weaves, clippers, and anything else of value. They were in and out before anyone could even think about calling the police. Knowing that the response time of Detroit’s Finest was one of the worst in the nation, Kalif recognized that this type of crime would be simple to pull off. With Michigan being an open-carry state, just about everyone and their mother carried a gun, so business owners were scared of being shot. And most foreign business owners would rather fight with the insurance company to get a check for their loss than stand before a judge and answer for shooting a possibly unarmed black teenager, not to mention that they might face certain deportation.
When one crime got to risky, Kalif, a mastermind, would come up with another and would swiftly move on. Misguided in his faith, he claimed that Allah spoke to him in his sleep, telling him how to survive in this wicked, coldhearted world. Most of his homeboys were skeptical of that, but they never openly questioned Kalif, for fear of being cut out of the financial windfall they constantly enjoyed. Either way, the self-ordained Linwood 4Lyfe Posse, as they were referred to in the streets, were wilding out. However, they were stupidly documenting some of their crimes on video.
* * *
“Okay, we almost there. Get ready to pull over so we can get this bread.” Kalif watched the numbers on the houses increase.
When they reached the Grosse Pointe home listed on the small piece of paper he held, Kalif ordered the driver to stop the vehicle. Having prepped his boys on how things needed to go down, Kalif and the other occupants piled out of the car. In an attempt not to draw unwanted or unneeded attention to themselves, no words were exchanged. All of them were dressed in off-white paint pants and shirts so that no one stood out from the rest. Kalif took the lead and made his way to the back of the house. Raising his hand, he signaled that the rear double-glass door was still unlocked.
He’d been at the house in the earlier part of the week, doing a landscaping job with one of the Arabs from the mosque. That guy had told him that the home owner was almost three times older than his wife and made major money working as an exclusive legal consultant for one of the local auto factory, either Chrysler or Ford. I swear, this is gonna be the only day I do this bullshit. I ain’t cut out for being no do boy, Kalif had thought as he planted flowers on the back patio that day. With the curtains open, he had easily seen that these people were living like a king and queen. He was from a two-parent household, and he and his little brother hadn’t grown up struggling by any means. And His father still kept his hand in the game, so the family had stayed good. But that was his father’s money and his hustle. Kalif was all about becoming a man, standing on his own two feet, by hook or by crook.
Kalif had ear hustled as the elderly home owner’s much younger, uppity wife complained on the phone to one of her friends. She bragged about all the money her husband constantly spent on her, the plastic surgeries that she’d had, and the many fur coats he’d blessed her with. When she laughed about the fact that the old man’s dick wouldn’t stay hard even with the little blue pill and then gloated about leaving him soon, Kalif shook his head. Taking her husband for everything that he was worth all because his dick didn’t get hard anymore was wild. Then he heard her mention that there was a burglar-alarm system in the house, but that it had not been worked properly for over a year. Hearing that was a godsend, for he knew that information would come in handy sooner rather than later.
The master plotter started to scheme. Maybe doing this petty landscaping job for his father’s friend would pay off, after all. When the wife noticed Kalif’s strength as he dug a small trench in the backyard, she invited him in. She had him bring a designer trunk down from her attic and then casually mentioned that her husband was out of the country, on business. Even though it had a padlock on it, the truck was extremely light. Using his cell phone, Kalif had inconspicuously snapped pictures of the visible valuables inside the house when she went to get her purse in order to pay him a few dollars. Wanting nothing more than to snatch those valuables up while he was there, Kalif knew he’d be the number one suspect once the crime was discovered and would undoubtedly be locked up before nightfall. Instead, he left the back door unlocked on his way out and hoped her high-class ass would too lazy to double-check.
Now, with his crew behind him, Kalif opened the back door. Thanks to the hustle gods, everything was just where Kalif had seen it during his first visit. Armed with huge Home Depot garbage bags, the crew all put on thin latex gloves and went to work. It was on, as they wasted no time on admiring the over-the-top furnishings. There would be time for that later, when they were back at their spot. They went from room to room, from floor to floor, ransacking the place. Jewelry, rare coins, laptops, and even what appeared to be expensive camera equipment were the first to be loaded up. The wife’s collection of furs was then quickly stuffed into the bags, followed by countless designer purses.
Kalif smiled as he thought about the braggadocious white Barbie doll on the phone sometime tomorrow, cry
ing to one of her friends about the loss she had incurred. But he knew that she would add that her old, “no dick getting hard” husband would easily replace her treasured items. She would have to leave him another day. So this was the perfect come up on what had been a slow week of thievery for Kalif.
In a low but strong whisper, Kalif ordered his team to speed up and get the last items they could into the bags. Aware of not wanting to get caught up, he checked the time on his cell. They were on a mission, and time was not on their side. Kalif had staked out the wife’s comings and goings for a few days straight. He knew they had a little over fourteen minutes to be in and out before she returned from the gym. As his boys snatched up everything of value and filed out of the house, they knew they were going to eat good and celebrate tonight.
Kalif lingered after his team left. In the far corner of the living room, he spotted the trunk the woman had him bring down from the attic. The lock he had seen on it that day was no longer there. He crossed the room, and when he opened trunk, Kalif felt as if he’d won the hood lottery. Titling his head to the side, he rubbed his chin with his gloved hand. Sometime after he’d brought the lightweight trunk down, it’d been filled. If he and his homeboys didn’t get anything else out of this suburban household, they had to have this. This was the mother lode. Momentarily, Kalif stood motionless, admiring the ridicule number of firearms. He didn’t know why the old man and his wife had so much firepower or why she’d placed everything in the trunk. Kalif could only speculate that she had gathered them all to take with her when she broke out, but he could really careless. Those guns belonged to him now.
Before the hooligan made another move, his cell rang. Normally, he would not stop to see who was calling him in the middle of a job, but his mind told him otherwise. Upon seeing that the caller was one of his boys out in the waiting vehicle, he paused. Why in the fuck this nigga calling me? Of course, he then answered. “Yeah? What up, doe? Speak on it.”
Carl Weber's Kingpins Page 6