The rain got heavier, and it was difficult to see, and the windshield wipers didn’t help much. Still bothered by being shunned, Jada took her eyes off the road for only a few seconds. Those few moments in time were all it took for her to almost lose total control of the car. At the very moment her vehicle roared through a huge puddle of water that had quickly accumulated, she hit a curve in the road. Since she was not holding the steering wheel tight enough, the car hydroplaned. When the four tires came back down to meet the pavement, she was just a few feet away from slamming into the concrete and steel barrier next to an embankment. God was on her side, as she barely got the Nissan back under control.
Oh my God! This is too much. I can’t take much more of this bullshit with Kalif or this street life.
Jada had to calm her nerves before she ended up killing herself and anyone that had the misfortune of being in her path. The next thing she knew, she was parked on the top level of MotorCity Casino and was considering driving right off the edge. Like Kalif always claimed to be, she was a nomad, too, in life. The only thing that had been keeping her sane all this time was her love for and devotion to a man who apparently didn’t feel the same about her. Using the palm of her hand, she banged her forehead, angry she had been such a fool. All the signs had been there all along, but dumbly, she had chosen to ignore them. She had been blinded by love, but no more. From this point on, when Kalif needed her, she wouldn’t be around. Maybe he could find some Suzy Homemaker–looking ho like the one Hakim had hanging on his arm. Maybe a female like that was more Kalif’s speed, especially since he wasn’t giving up the dick.
As it grew dark, Jada continued to sit there, feeling sorry for herself. Staring at the illuminated green top of the Fisher Building in the distance, she let the tears flow. Eyes puffy and nursing a migraine, Jada allowed her self-inflicted pity party to go on for what seemed like forever. Her once perfect makeup was ruined, and she’d bitten off two of her gel nail tips. Ignoring constant calls from her homegirls, even from her cousin Jewels, Jada knew she had to get her mind back right. Not one of all those missed calls was from her schizophrenic hustle partner. He had made no attempt to check up on her. It was so crystal clear what had to go down next. She had to go back to the time in her life when she was team her, not team him. She had to show her girls she was still the same female boss and go-getter she’d been for all those years before she saw Kalif and his crew at the mall.
Starting the engine, Jada took a few deep breaths and shook the last of her “playing victim” demons out of her system. With a new attitude and a new perspective on life, she slowly backed out of the spot where she had just considered taking her own life. Her game plan was to swing by the hotel room she’d been sharing with Kalif, pack her belongings, and temporarily post up over at the booster trap. Jumping down on the freeway, Jada felt reborn, rededicated to her hustle and, most importantly, emotionally detached from a man who could care less. Bottom line was that if it was “Fuck her,” then it was “Fuck him,” and most definitely, it was “Fuck his family.” Stacy included.
* * *
With the sudden downpour, Hakim and Stacy rushed to get the meat and vegetables off the grill. After donning oven mitts, they ran outside and placed everything on the grill into pans. Then they ran back inside and put the smoking hot pans on the stove. Fatima was in the kitchen, helping them to get organized. As the three of them scurried about, ensuring that dinner would be saved, there was an obvious elephant in the room. As a matter of fact, there were several. Each of the trio was deep in thought about Kalif’s impromptu visit.
Renegade to his soul, Kalif had been banned from the house for months now. And just like that. out of the blue, he had popped up, and with some common hood rat in tow. Fatima was more than angry that the child she raised had shoved her to the floor and had savagely beaten her baby boy, and then he had the nerve to show his face here. In her book, he should have been ashamed to see her or anyone else, unless he had come to make amends. But there had been no apologies offered today or before. No phone calls. No letters. No cards or smoke signals, not even to Rasul. Kalif had done what he always did when he did wrong; he’d acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. And worse than that, he’d been mad at the other person for having the nerve to be mad at him.
Although Kalif prayed five times a day, sometimes six, and could recite the Koran front to back, that didn’t make him a good Muslim. Daily, he broke every rule of Islam and made excuses for doing so. Long fed up, Fatima was at ease with him out of the house, a house he’d made so unbearable to be in. Up until today, when she saw his face, Fatima had been content. She had derived the joy from the infant twins, Hakim, and of course her husband, whenever he was at home, and had felt at peace.
“Why did he even come by here? What did he want?” Fatima bent down and placed one of the pans in the oven. “He has some nerve. I can’t wait until your father gets back from visiting S. P. Black in Muskegon. He’s gonna have to do something about Kalif once and for all.”
“Ma, I don’t know why he was here. I didn’t really give him a chance to say. After he asked where Dad was at and why he wasn’t answering his calls, that was it. When he found out, he was back being on that gangster talk tip he does.”
“Well, I hope he has at least been taking his medicine. And I hope he leaves us alone,” Fatima said before she opened a cabinet and took out plates and a few medium-size bowls. “He has got to be crazy, just showing up, with that face-painted whore prancing around my backyard as if she belongs here, acting as if he’s done no wrong.” Hearing that Rasul had not been answering the troubled boy’s calls did give her a small bit of comfort. It meant that maybe for once he was on her side and not Kalif’s.
Stacy wanted to remain quiet. Hakim had already read her the riot act for speaking to both Kalif and the girl he was with. When she’d returned to the backyard after running behind his older brother, Hakim had wanted to ask her to go home, but he’d chosen to just suck it up and move on. But he had firmly informed Stacy that this was family business that didn’t concern her. As she stood over on the far side of the kitchen now, she listened to her boyfriend and his mother go on and on. She couldn’t believe half the things they were saying. She was not naïve in terms of what Kalif had done as far as jumping on Hakim and even knocking his own mother on the floor, but this was still their son and brother. And no matter how much of a sinister human being they made him out to be, she thought that he had seemed as if he just wanted to belong. Stacy felt she had seen something in Kalif that she had never seen in Hakim. The prodigal son seemed to have a hungry drive and a strong confidence. She had heard it in his speech. Had seen it in his demeanor as he moved. And most certainly had noticed it in his eyes.
After they all sat down at the table and started to eat, Fatima had to excuse herself, as she had heard one of the babies crying.
Not wanting to cause a further rift between herself and Hakim, Stacy vowed to hold her peace. Yet she could not do so. “Hakim, I swear, I’m not trying to overstep my position. Especially after you asked—or should I say, ordered—me not to.”
“Okay. And?” A disapproving expression on his face, Hakim looked up from his plate. Moving his fingertips around his fork, he felt his anger build. Though he was generally even tempered, he had had about all he was willing to take where his older brother was concerned. Far from being a fool, he, like Jada, had easily noticed the strange vibe that seemed to develop between Kalif and his girl. Despite the fact that he had held on to Stacy tightly, he hadn’t been able to stop her from squirming free and going to Kalif’s side to ease his so-called pain.
“I mean, at some point, don’t you and Kalif have to forgive each other? You can be the bigger person,” Stacy urged, wanting a reconciliation between the brothers and an end to their beef.
Hakim put his fork down. After moving the chair away from the table, he stood. Shaking his head, he decided to divulge to Stacy the underlying reason why Kalif had been exiled fr
om the family. “Okay, guess what? Since I see you so much on his trail and think he’s the victim here, check this out. You the real reason he can’t come around here no more.”
“What?” Stacy’s curiosity had been piqued.
“Yeah, see, when I stopped going to the mosque all the time and started hanging out with you at church, what did you think was going to happen? What did you think my people were going to say? How did you think they were going to take that? I mean, I was raised with Islamic beliefs, and just like that, they think I turned my back on everyone. My mother was disappointed, but she felt I was old enough to make my own choices. My father was disappointed and pissed. He still is.”
Stacy looked stunned. If Hakim’s family harbored those feelings toward her, they had done a good job of masking them. “I know your mom is always super nice to me. But is that why your dad seems so standoffish?”
Hakim shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Come on, Stacy. Why do you think that every time you come over here, he conveniently finds something else to do? Or somewhere to go? He doesn’t like you. He doesn’t even like seeing your face.”
“I never noticed it, I guess. But wow. That’s not cool at all.”
“Well, pay attention next time. You’ll see.”
“Dang. Okay, I guess I will. But you didn’t say what Kalif not being welcome has to do with me. I’m lost.” Stacy was caught up in a whirlwind of truths exposed.
Hakim had been hiding the harsh reality of what had happened that night from Stacy. He truly cared for her and didn’t ever want to do anything to hurt her feelings or break her heart. She was a nice girl and didn’t deserve to suffer because of his family’s hang-ups. However, she wouldn’t stop pressing him. She wouldn’t stop low key jocking Kalif, so she needed a dose of get right. “Because just like my father, Kalif doesn’t like that I have stopped going to the mosque and hanging out with my Muslim friends. And for that, he blames you. They both do. So that day, like all the others, they ganged up on me.”
“What?” Stacy’s eyes bucked. “Are you serious right now or just playing around?”
“Naw, I’m dead-ass serious. As serious as this scar on my face. Kalif and my pops are thick as thieves. They always have been. Truth be told, the only reason he got kicked out was that my mother finally put her foot down and threatened to take the girls and bounce.”
“Oh my God!”
Hakim continued with Stacy’s strong double dose of reality, knowing it would break her spirit down. “So yeah, my father and Kalif was tag teaming, calling you a bitch and a ho. They would not stop. I kept asking them to stop. And my mother was begging them to leave me alone. But they wouldn’t. Especially Kalif. He was calling you every single ugly name he could think of, saying you made me turn my back on Islam. When I finally had enough and stepped to him, it was on. We got to bucking.”
Stacy was speechless. Maybe now that the peacemaker knew the truth, she would fall back on all that Kalif worshiping she’d been hell-bent on doing. After a strange silence, Stacy burst out crying. With her face buried in her hands, Hakim felt a small bit of remorse, but she needed to hear the real and get off his brother’s nut sack. Wiping her tears, she announced that she was ready to go home and that she didn’t know if she ever wanted to return. Without trying to persuade her to stay, Hakim obliged. Like her, he was too emotionally drained to argue.
As he drove Stacy home, Hakim made up in his mind that one day, somehow, his big brother would pay for all the pain, humiliation, and now heartache he’d caused in his life. Rasul and Fatima may have allowed Kalif to get away with treating people like they were no more than a piece of shit. They had sheltered Kalif from the consequences of most of his horrid actions. They’d blamed Kalif’s violent outbursts on the fact that he was on meds or he was adopted, and they’d used that as an excuse not to mete out punishment. But to Hakim, that special treatment would one day cease. He’d make sure of that.
“I’ll call you later,” he stated as he pulled up to Stacy’s house. It was more of a question than a statement.
“Yeah, we still have to talk about prom.” She gave him a faint smile, indicating that although her feelings were hurt now, she’d get over it. She was optimistic. “And trust, one day your dad and brother will both like me.”
“Neither one of them matters to me, Stacy. Believe that!”
When he pulled away from her house, Hakim thought about all the scholarship offers he had received and about his future.
By the time Fatima returned downstairs after calming down not one, but both the girls, the house was empty. The only thing she could do was shake her head, for she knew that somehow Kalif and his bad karma had ruined yet another family function.
Chapter 15
I swear, I don’t know who my father thinks he is. I mean, what in the entire fuck? First, a nigga kicks me straight outta the crib like I really was sleeping there anyhow. Then, when I’m out here in these Detroit streets, doing my thing, putting in work, he hating. How in the hell he trying to block my hustle? I’m out here living my best life, and he letting my mother dictate his. I don’t know what happened to the man my pops used to be. Maybe old age done crept up on him or some shit like that. Whatever the case is, ain’t nobody or nothing gonna stop me or slow down my flow. I’ma get this bread until I take my last breath and Allah calls me home, accepting me into paradise. For now I’ma make this move and deal with the self-righteous “Do as I say, not as you may” Rasul Akbar.
Not about to give it any more thought, Kalif put his game face on. After pulling up at the West Side gas station, he parked his truck over toward the end of the building, away from the pumps. He killed the engine, then sat back and gathered his thoughts, devising what exactly he was going to say. He’d been trying to get at Ibn ever since that awkward reunion with his baby brother, but he had not received an answer. Just as Rasul’s cell was doing, Ibn’s was going straight to voicemail. After texting once or twice, Kalif quickly figured out what must be going on.
Ain’t this about nothing. Pops probably got that dude so spooked, he really ain’t gonna put me up on that next level of play a brother needs. But one way or another, I’ma make it do what it do.
Kalif leaned over to the glove compartment and opened it. After grabbing a small stack of assorted bills he had inside the glove compartment, he counted out close to fifty-eight hundred. When he added what he had in his pocket, he ended up with eight racks in total. In the middle console, he kept rubber bands. Since he’d started hustling, he’d picked the trait up from his father, of all people. After double wrapping his funds with a royal-blue rubber band, he stuffed the money in his front pocket.
Allahu Akbar.
Kalif jumped out of the truck, then swag-strolled across the lot. Before he could make it a few yards, a man asked him if he could spare a few dollars. He shook his head no and kept walking. Then two teenagers promised him that they had the strongest weed in the city. Turning both of them down didn’t deter their hustle. They went right on to the next person that pulled up. After entering the small building through the side-by-side glass doors, the seasoned thug headed toward the front counter. Seeing the same faces he’d seen when he met Ibn, Kalif felt at ease when they all greeted him as if he belonged. When they signaled for him to come behind the counter, as he’d done before, Kalif grinned.
Once back there, Kalif got right to it. He asked the older looking of the three guys back there, the one with the carved wooden cane, if he had heard from Ibn.
“No, I have not spoken to him since sometime yesterday. I thought he was having you meet him again up here. But I guess that’s not the case.” The guy gave Kalif the eye as the other two made sure their pistols were handy.
Kalif saw the potential deadly play that was about to go down, and swiftly squelched any reservations the men may have developed. “Hold tight, fellas. I come in peace. I’ve been calling him, and he ain’t hitting me back. I’m trying to do this business with him, and he bullshitting.”
/> The older-looking guy, whose name was Nieem, nodded for his people to stand down as he rubbed at his long gray beard. The older man saw this as a possible opportunity, not a threat. He hadn’t been ear hustling when Ibn and Kalif spoke at the gas station, but it had been hard not to overhear Kalif complaining about his father’s blatant interference. “Look, I will try to call him for you. My cousin is crazy sometimes. He gets caught up in dressing fancy, messing with females, and does not take care of business that is important to family.”
Kalif didn’t say a word as Nieem placed the call. Instead, he made himself at home, taking a cold juice out of the rear of the cooler. After twisting off the top, he downed the apple-flavored juice in almost one gulp. By the time he was finished, he could tell that Ibn had answered for his cousin. By the sound of Nieem’s tone and the look on the others’ faces, it was not hard to realize the conversation was not going well. With each foreign word spoken, Kalif saw the chances of him getting some extra bread to really come up dwindling. He put both hands in his front pockets and felt the money he’d brought in with him. Even though whatever Ibn had in mind could help elevate him to the next level financially, Kalif was not in the habit of begging. He wasn’t going to beg his mother to stay at the house. Beg his father to allow him to make money. And, lastly, beg Ibn’s sand nigga with an attitude pussy ass to put him on.
After Nieem ended the call, he faced Kalif. “Okay, Kalif. It’s like this. Ibn said your name got some sort of red flag by it. You must have caused another person some sort of grief. Or is it about his affiliation with your father? Tell me something, so I know how to proceed with you. Or I, like my foolish little cousin, will have to part ways with you. But don’t worry. That juice is on me.”
Nieem was used to dealing with regular hood fools that came into the gas station, asking for a handout, or stayed out there in the lot, begging. But this wasn’t that. And never would be. If he was expecting a straightforward answer, Nieem did not receive that. He’d never met Kalif before yesterday. He did not know how the young man thought or operated. He didn’t know that standing there, waiting for Kalif to plead his case, was a futile act. Whether he knew it or not, he was looking at a Detroit thoroughbred. Someone cut from a different cloth. A man whose pedigree would not allow him to grovel.
Carl Weber's Kingpins Page 12