Fatima saw where this was headed. All she had wanted to do was have an innocent family dinner like they used to. Her heart was in the right place, but it was painfully clear that the devil had other plans. She sobbed while begging her husband and sons to stop yelling and making matters worse. She had come to expect this behavior from Kalif, but not from Hakim. “Come on, y’all. Please . . . This is getting out of control.”
Rasul refused to go further in on his younger son. “Getting out of control? It already has, but I’m about to end this bullshit once and for all. Look, Hakim, as long as you’re under my roof, you’re gonna do as I say, not as you may. Are we clear?”
“You mean like Kalif, who you love so much and who can do no wrong, even though he’s running wild, robbing people, selling drugs, like you and him both do? Is that what I should be clear on?”
Rasul had to hold himself back from taking a swing at his child. Fatima saw the fury in her spouse’s eyes and stepped in between the two of them. There had been arguments in their household before, but none as bad as this and they usually involved Kalif. She wanted Rasul just to give Hakim a pass, but things had gone beyond the point of that happening. Knowing she’d have no chance with Rasul, she then turned to her baby boy. With tears flowing, she pleaded with him to just be quiet and go to his room. Unfortunately, her baby boy was now wanting to become a man. Fatima trembled with worry, knowing what being a so-called grown man who went against her husband entailed. Before she could say or do anything else, Rasul let all the way loose and laid down how things were going to go. And in their household, he had the final word, and his word was law.
“Look, little smart-mouthed nigga begging for my foot to go up your ass, the bottom line is you going back to the mosque and stopping all this church mess—flat out point-blank, period. You gonna stop seeing that bad-influence female and get yourself back on track before you burn in hellfire!”
“Yeah, that sounds about right to me,” Kalif said gladly, agreeing with his father for once. “Hakim, man, fuck that church, and fuck that nonbelieving bitch you running with, and for real, fuck burning in hellfire,” he joked. “I heard it told that shit hot as a motherfucker!”
Hakim was furious. They had been warned. He had enough of them disrespecting the girl he loved. “Dawg, ain’t nothing funny. And I’m not gonna tell your crazy ass no more times to stop calling her out her name! Go somewhere and take your meds, or better yet, go kill yourself!”
Kalif was now on his feet, as well, caught deep in his emotions. “Wow. Dig that. So li’l bro trying to flex up on me, huh? I’m amused you finally got some balls. But let’s see how big them motherfuckers is. Now, like I just said, Hakim, fuck that stankin’ pussy bitch you been running with. Fuck her church, and double fuck that con man preacher that be stealing all the money!”
Hakim was heated. He was here for it and definitely had time. Fed up with the verbal abuse he was suffering at the hands of his father and his brother, he fired back, ready for the consequences that were sure to follow. “Naw, you thieving piece of shit! Fuck you! Fuck Islam and fuck Prophet Muhammad too!”
Those words were it. Those words were the deal breaker that led to full-blown pandemonium. Fatima sobbed, still trying to keep her baby boy out of harm’s way. Rasul headed around to the other side of the table to snatch his youngest son up. Kalif immediately had a flashback of the day he handed the last guy his ass for insulting the prophet. That day was all too fresh in his mind. Ignoring the fact that his pregnant mother was acting as a shield for Hakim, Kalif reached over her shoulder and socked his little brother in the jaw. After his fist made contact, he shoved Fatima to the floor and swung once more. He was blinded by rage. Even though he had broken almost every principle that Islam was based upon, Kalif was still a strong believer and demanded respect for his religions. After pouncing on top of Hakim, he went straight to work. He started pounding his younger brother’s face as if he was no more than a stranger in the streets. Both of his brother’s eyes were swollen in a mere matter of seconds. His lip was busted, and he was bleeding out of his left nostril.
Seeing his wife now on the floor, holding her stomach, Rasul stopped himself from punching Hakim, as well, for being overly disrespectful. As Fatima screamed out in agony and asked Allah to help her, Kalif was finally brought out of his wrath. After standing up, he looked over at his brother, who was lying in one corner of the room and was balled up in the fetal position, and then at his mother, who was lying in another corner and was hysterical. Rasul was trying his best to comfort Fatima. He ordered a semi-dazed Kalif to call an ambulance. Kalif did not react. Either he didn’t hear his father, or he didn’t care. Instead, as if nothing was going on, he reached over the table, took a half-eaten piece of baked chicken off one of the plates, and took a bite. Without saying a word, he then walked out the front door and left it wide open.
* * *
Having passed by Henry Ford Hospital, the ambulance pulled into Harper University Hospital. That was where Fatima’s doctors were and where she felt the most comfortable going. After they rushed her into the emergency room, she was swiftly taken to the high-risk pregnancy unit. After being examined by several physicians, including her own, she was put on bed rest for the remaining months she had left before delivery. She was told she could go home and be in her own bed. However, if she experienced one more scare like the one she had just endured, her doctors would have to admit her or possibly induce labor. As she lay there, trying to regain her composure after all the drama she’d just gone through, she looked over at her husband. He had tears in his eyes for her, but anger at their son still filled his heart. This was obvious to Fatima, who had been by Rasul’s side for years, through the good and the bad.
“So after all this, can you just leave it alone? Can you just let Hakim figure it out on his own? You do know it’s against the teachings of Islam to force your beliefs upon someone else, don’t you?” she said quietly.
Sympathetic to his wife’s wishes, Rasul begrudgingly agreed to let the matter rest. However, he made it perfectly clear that Hakim was going to have to apologize for speaking to him as he had if he wanted to remain underneath his roof. “There’s no way in hell that boy ain’t gonna bow down.”
Fatima had once felt the same way their youngest son was feeling now. Taking a small sip of water from the white Styrofoam cup on her bedside table, she braced herself for a conversation that was a long time coming but way overdue. “Rasul, I love you with all my heart, and I always have. But just as you treated me and my feelings as if they didn’t matter years ago, you doing the same to our son now. Even though I agreed to get back with you, I was far from being naïve. If that no-good Kenya you worshiped so much had lived, you would have been raising Kalif with her, not me. See, my love for you was one of purity. Yours for me was one of necessity and convenience. Am I wrong?”
Rasul wanted to protest but couldn’t. The truth was exactly what it was, the truth. He had basically chosen another woman over Fatima back in the day. But that was the past. And just as Fatima was still holding on to the past and harboring animosity, he, too, was holding on to it. He knew that was why he favored Kalif over Hakim. That boy was the last link he had to his old life, which included Kenya James, the boy’s maternal aunt. Even though it had been over two decades since he saw Kenya for the last time, his mind often wondered, What if?
Fatima was not blind. Whenever she caught her husband drifting off into deep thought, she knew Kenya’s ghost was present. And she felt that this ghost would forever haunt her and their relationship. She had realized early on that she could never be number one in Rasul’s life, and neither could their own biological child. So instead, she and Hakim just existed for him. Consequently, they had formed their own bond, just as Rasul and Kalif had done. And so they were all living in a house divided. And that house of division came tumbling down earlier today, and they would probably never be able to rebuild it. The foundation had not been strong from the jump.
“B
ae, I’m sorry if you’ve felt like that. I swear it was never my intention to treat you or our son like that.”
“Well, if you want to make things right for me, Hakim, and these girls”—she made a circular motion as she rubbed her stomach—“Kalif has to go once and for all. You saw how he beat my baby all in his face. And you saw how he just pushed me down like I mean nothing to him. That monster wouldn’t even call for help! Mix all that with the mess he out in them streets doing, and it’s just shameful. Now he has to go, or me, Hakim, and the girls all will. It’s that simple.”
Always in control of his family, Rasul wanted to argue the fact. Yet he knew his wife was right. Not about one or two things, but about them all. Kalif was hardly at home as if was, so telling his oldest boy he was no longer allowed back inside the house he had grown up in was seemingly effortless. But then again, where Kalif was concerned, nothing was ever easy.
Chapter 10
It was the dawning of a new day. Kalif had finally linked back up with Ibn. They met at a restaurant in Dearborn, and there the game plan was laid out. Ibn explained how he would go down to the city-county building on Woodward, where they had listings of homes for sale. Also, he let Kalif know that he had a person tracking all the court actions and foreclosures in Metro Detroit. If people were losing their home or were even close to it, Ibn knew. He was a real estate piranha with a hidden agenda in tow. After a few meetings of the mind, Ibn put young Kalif in a position that could only bring him money. Normally, Ibn and his family kept their business dealings tight, close to the vest. But Ibn was a renegade. He always went against the grain. He saw that same mentality in Kalif, and he wanted to benefit from that quality. He knew that since Kalif was African American and his credit was fresh and untapped, he could use him to make certain moves the Arabic community was being blackballed for.
Kalif had enough of his own money to purchase two single-family dwellings at auction, and Ibn fronted him the funds for a third. Kalif was off and running. Since the prior week, when his father informed him that he was no longer welcome at the house, he’d been staying in a hotel room. That had been eating up some of his cash on hand, but now the young warrior felt things were about to change. Always plotting the next caper, he and his boys had hit several more suburban homes, thanks to Jada and her girls.
Jada and Kalif had been spending more and more time together. Some nights she even stayed with him in the hotel room. Even though they slept in the same bed, Kalif never tried anything. Although most men would consider Jada a dime, Kalif was more interested in her mind and her moneymaking skills than in getting some pussy. Jada, of course, still yearned for there to be more, and she prayed that her time to be Kalif’s wifey and number one would soon come. Until that time, she continued to prove to him her loyalty.
Jada and her overly flirtatious crew had recently met a few white businessmen out at a strip club by the airport. After a few drinks, the men had loosened up and bragged about their fabulous homes, their high-maintenance, pain-in-the-ass wives, and their expensive vacations. After getting even more intoxicated, the black meat–thirsty businessmen let their guard all the way down and joined the scheming females in a hot tub at a nearby hotel. While all the girls but one kept them entertained by doing this and that, that one girl went through the men’s pockets and took pictures of their IDs. Jada had then put Kalif up on game, and the rest of this crime had been on him and his boys. In the end, everyone had got a cut, and all had been good.
Jada, Kalif’s ride-or-die, always opted to reinvest her cash in helping Kalif’s vision and dreams materialize. The scar-faced beauty knew that what was good for him now would one day most likely be good for her. Jada had recognized Kalif’s greatness years ago, even before he had realized it.
Before buying those houses, Kalif had stacked enough extra money to kick things into full gear once he had them, and he had made a list the length of his arm of the materials he’d need to get his house-flipping business all the way off the ground. After the auctions, he headed to the Home Depot on Seven Mile and Meyers Road, and right outside the store, he found all the skilled labor he needed to renovate those houses. The workers were posted up in their own trucks, their tools ready, and they worked fast and for cheap wages.
Whenever Kalif needed a clean-out crew, he knew where to go. There were plenty of willing men down in the Cass Corridor, near the homeless shelters. If Kalif got a few guys from down there, he’d always make sure they were well fed, besides getting paid. If some needed shoes or coats, Kalif made sure to provide those as well. Ibn had provided the blueprint for Kalif’s charitable deeds, and that was what Kalif followed. He believed that if he did things correctly, soon he’d have one of those Black Cards Ibn had boasted about.
In no time at all, one of his dilapidated homes was transformed into a respectable house. No sooner had he got windows installed and the doors put up than Kalif heavily insured the property for as much as possible. And since the house was not located in the best of neighborhoods, Kalif had one of his homeboys’ uncles post up at the place. Kalif was no fool. He knew that as soon as he put in fixtures and a hot water tank, let alone a furnace, the thieves and crackheads would be ready to relieve him of them.
Kalif was used to being in his own world, but he missed his pops. He wanted to get in touch with him and show him how he was coming up in the world with this house thing. It had been a little over a month since they’d last spoken. Kalif knew the harsh eviction notice he had received was not his father’s doing. He knew Fatima had been the driving force behind it. He knew she had had something against him ever since he was a small child. And after finding out the extra details related to his adoption by Rasul and Fatima, he could easily understand why the only mother he knew would be bitter and full of animosity. Several times he had picked up his cell to call Rasul, but he hadn’t placed the call. One day they’d link back up, but now was not the time.
Instead, Kalif would pray to Allah to guide his hand and steady his often troubled mind. Sometimes the medication he took from time to time worked, and other times it didn’t. He fought through any mental blocks he would suffer, knowing that getting these houses completed was the most important milestone on the road to becoming a real boss.
Chapter 11
Jada and her girls had been getting over for months. They had all been bringing something to the table quality-wise. They were on a roll. They felt unstoppable. If there was a scamming scheme going on in Detroit, there was no doubt those femmes fatales had their manicured hands in it somehow. Seductive, they were always on the prowl. Jewels was not only Jada’s cousin, but she was basically the enforcer of the tight-knit group. Even though they all rocked out together, bitches being bitches, there was always the possibility of bullshit. Who had the best weave, whose eyelashes were on fleek, and who had the most men on their line. Jewels kept everyone in check.
It had been a long day. Jada, Jewels, TayTay, and two other girls, Nia and Euri, had been out handling business. The day before they had driven out to Birch Run premium Outlets, and today they had gone to Great Lakes Crossing Outlets. The trunks and the rear seats of both vehicles they had taken were packed. Any and every garment, purse, and accessory the five-woman team had shoplifted was stuffed inside. TayTay and Euri were good at swiping, so they had really stepped up and added to the piles of illegally gotten goods. Nia hadn’t wanted to be outdone, so she had written a few bad checks.
On the road heading back home, a semi had jackknifed on I-75, causing a major backup. Instead of crying about the wait, they had exited at Oakland Mall and had made it do what it do. Bags in hand, they’d then gone back to their cars, knowing the traffic was clear by then. Before long, they had finally made it back to Nia’s house. Now they slowly sorting through everything while smoking a few blunts and finishing off a bottle of pink moscato.
With two of the girls on the Far West Side, working Michigan Avenue, and the other three holding Eight Mile down, they had multiple strip clubs on lock both east
and west. With duffel bags filled to the top with every designer you could think of, and with countless packs of expensive hair stolen from out-of-town beauty supply shops with low-budget security practices, they were making money hand over fist. When things would slow down, they had other work to do, as Jada always had the girls lined up to step off into some real gangster white-collar-type shit. They knew it was dangerous, but they also knew the payoff was exceptional. It was a spin-off of the bullshit they used to do out by the airports. But this was a few steps up in the “oh hell, naw” department.
A bad experience was what had led Jada to consider white-collar work. It had all started when she called a meeting with the girls to discuss a new business venture. “Okay, so I have everyone’s accounts set up. For the most part, most of the information is false. The only thing authentic is our pictures. And as soon as the shit goes down, I’ll make sure our pages go dark and are deactivated immediately.” Jada had smirked, knowing this was going to bring them even more money to jack off. They had been planning a trip to Dubai in a few months, and they would need all the cash they could get in order to spend freely.
After downloading both Backpage and Tinder, each girl had logged in and started to troll for possible victims. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for a gang of “definitely married but lying about it” middle-aged men to make contact. The game plan was easy. The girls seductively teased the men online. After their soon-to-be victims were good and on the hook, phase two came into play. They arranged to meet up in person. Most times in public. Yet in an extremely out-of-the way place. None of the girls were concerned with the men seeing them, then getting turned off. As polished as they were from head to toe, they were banking on it being the complete opposite. The married men would lust after them all the more. When they met up with the men, the girls took pictures of their initial meeting on the sly and secretly recorded their conversations. The rest was like child’s play. As soon as the men pulled up their pants, the extortion would begin.
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