Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler

by J. M. Benjamin

  “What up?”

  “Yo, Mu got knocked by the feds down in VA.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, yo. His baby moms called me a couple of days ago and told me. She said they took the businesses and seized all the whips and the crib. They found a hundred Gs in the crib and froze all his shit in the bank. Then the other day I heard they shut his stores up here, too. She said that he told her to call me and ask me could I hit her wit’ some paper until he finds out what the deal is. I’m supposed to drive down there tomorrow to hit her wit’ some dough, and stay a few days to holla at a lawyer for him while I’m down there. His shorty in a motel right now so I’ma hit her wit’ enough paper to get a place to stay for her and his son.”

  “Oh, shit, not Mu. I thought he was down there chillin’.”

  “I thought so too, but he told me that he’d been selling to a fed for the past four months.”

  “Damn, that’s fucked up. That shit got me fucked up right now. Yo, when will you be back?”

  “Probably Thursday, so call me Thursday night.”

  “All right. If you speak to him tell him I said one love and to hold his head.”

  That night I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t believe that Mu had got knocked. He was the one who taught me everything I knew about the game. He was the one who put Mal and me on when we didn’t know how to get on. He was the one who used to stress the importance of hitting ’em and quitting ’em in the game.

  Thursday night came and Mal filled me in on all he knew. Mu had been serving the fed for the past four months like he said, but the worst part was that it totaled up to over one hundred kilos in the four-month span, which made him eligible for life in prison. One of his son’s mom’s cousins who was working for him got caught and he agreed to cooperate by introducing Mu to the agent in exchange for immunity.

  The lawyer wanted fifty grand just to take the case as a retainer fee to fight to get the life off his back, ’cause he was a career criminal. We didn’t even know he had been to jail before. Mal said he gave the lawyer half and gave Mu’s son’s moms another twenty to get a place. Mu was scheduled to go to court next Monday so Mal had to hit the lawyer with the rest by then. He said he had it and it wasn’t nothing ’cause things had been poppin’ for him lately. I wasn’t worried about the money though ’cause I know Mu would’ve done the same in a heartbeat. What I was worried about was Mu getting life in prison. I just couldn’t see it. All anybody could do now was just wait and hope for the best.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  On June 17, 1994, I was released on parole with only a few more months left to max out.

  Everybody was telling me that I should’ve maxed out so I wouldn’t have the paper trail when I went home, but after serving over two years you aren’t trying to turn no type of freedom down. I was 220 pounds when I walked out of jail. I had put on fifty-seven pounds and it was my time to shine. Nobody knew I was coming home and that was the way I wanted it. I just caught a cab to the new address that Mal had sent me to where he had moved to on the east end. Mal brought a nice home, with a two-car garage.

  I walked up the steps and rang the bell.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  I could hear the safety latch being taken off the door.

  “Ah, man, my dawg is home!” Mal shouted, wrapping his arms around me, and I hugged him back. It was an emotional scene. The tag-team partners were reunited once again. We sat in the living room for a while and talked, while I bounced my niece Nafisa on my knee. She looked like a combination of Mal and me put together. You knew she was a Benson.

  I took a shower and dressed in the outfit Mal ran downtown and got me until we could go shopping. It felt good to be in some new clothes. After we left the barbershop, Mal drove me around the projects. He told me how he had a team of young guys out there getting it for us. Three of them I knew from when they were little, but they looked different. It’s amazing how someone grows in two years, but then again I was living proof.

  “Yo, niggas is gonna flip when they see you, kid.”

  “Man, I don’t care about none of that. I’m just coming through ’cause you wanted to. Muthafuckas ain’t give a fuck about me when I was gone. Most of them niggas was probably glad I got knocked so they could start making dough.”

  Mal looked at me. “Cool out, yo. You home now. You ain’t got to be all militant no more like you still locked up.”

  “This ain’t no act, Mal. I’m for real. Outside of you and Shareef and a couple of other project heads who was down the Dale with me, I’ve got no love for none of these niggas around here.” Prison had made me bitter. It had also opened my eyes to a lot of things about the game and the players.

  “All right, yo, but be easy ’cause that’s a part of the game. You know how that goes.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Oh, shit, my nigga home,” one kid yelled.

  “Damn, kid, you shinin’,” another said.

  “What’s the deal, Mil?” another said.

  Everybody was acting like they missed me and we was partners before I left. The new niggas on the block and the younger heads were wondering who I was. Some of the li’l jokers were trying to look hard and grill me. It made me laugh. I shook a few hands and took a few hugs on some fake shit because on the real I didn’t feel anything from none of these niggas out here. I was paying more attention to the little honeys in the field who were checking me out. They looked sixteen or seventeen, tops, but they were stacked.

  “Yo, Mil, these our little troopers right here: Nut, Lou, Mart, and this is Rob. You know li’l Nut and ’em. Rob from BK though over in Albany projects.”

  They all said what’s up. I just nodded. They looked bigger than we did when we first started hustling, but I knew they were around the same age, maybe younger, like thirteen or fourteen. One of the li’l honeys in the field was steady clockin’ me, and she looked familiar.

  “Yo, Mal, who that li’l light-skinned chick right there lookin’ over here? She looks familiar.”

  “You know who that is. That’s Roger li’l sister, Tonya. Remember we used to always say she was gonna be bad when she got older?”

  “Word! That’s her. Damn! Shorty grew up. What’s she like, about fifteen now?”

  “Nah, she’s a senior in high school so she gotta be at least seventeen. You want me to call her over here?”

  “Nah, nigga, ain’t nothing changed. I still got my push-up skills. I ain’t never gonna lose that.”

  “Shorty don’t fuck wit’ nobody around here ’cause she said she ain’t fuckin’ wit’ no project niggas, so I don’t know, kid, but let me see you work.”

  “Bet a hundred,” I said to my brother.

  “Bet.” He smiled.

  * * *

  “How you doin’, ladies?”

  “Fine,” they all said.

  “Damn! You lookin’ real nice.” I directed my attention to Tonya. “The last time I seen you, you didn’t look like that. I mean, you were still gorgeous, but now you’re more beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said, trying to look all shy and innocent.

  “Do you remember me?”

  “Yeah, you’re Kamil. I used to watch you out my apartment window when you used to be around the New, but you look different too. You got big. You look good, though.”

  Now it was my turn to smile trying to be all modest. “Nah, I still look the same.”

  All the girls spoke at once, “No, you don’t!”

  I started laughing. “Where y’all from?” I asked her friends.

  “The same place you are, the New Projects,” they all sang. They all named their older brothers or sisters and instantly I remembered them.

  They were all cute, but Tonya stuck out above all. “Listen, I’m about to go, but I wanna see you later, that cool?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled.

  “All right, then. I’ma come back through. You gonna be over here or in the New?”

  �
�Here,” she replied.

  “Bet, see you later. Ladies, y’all be good.”

  They all smiled. When I turned around, I ran straight into Shareef.

  “Nigga, what’s good?” He hugged me. “You ain’t been out a whole day and already tryin’ to snatch up the baddest li’l thing in the hood,” he said, laughing. “Damn, it’s good to see you, kid.”

  “You too, bro,” I replied. And it was the truth. Shareef was more than my boy now. He was like a brother to me. We had been through a lot together since we had been in the game. Especially the murders of Ant and Trevor. What touched me the most was he wrote me letters even when Mal wouldn’t.

  “You know where we goin’ right?” he stated.

  “Where?” I was clueless.

  “Shoppin’, nigga, that’s where. You think I forgot how y’all set me out when I came home?”

  “Nah, I know you didn’t. But for real we gonna have to put that off ’til tomorrow ’cause by the time I go see my moms and ’em I’ma be ready to hook up with shorty,” I told him.

  “Man, she a dick teaser. You ain’t getting none of that on the first night.”

  “We’ll see,” was all I said.

  * * *

  My moms and grandmother were looking good and my sisters had gotten big. Jasmine was home on school break. She was in college now. The only one out of the four of us to go. I wound up getting my diploma after the parole board hit me, which my moms was proud of. Kamal stopped going after I got locked up and Monique never went back. My grandmother still refused to move out of the projects even though my moms had gotten back on her feet and brought a little house on the east end. While I was at my moms, out of respect for the time Lisa did with me and the love I knew she still had for me, I gave her a call.

  She sounded half asleep when she answered.

  “Go brush your teeth,” I said to her. When we were younger, I used to always say that to her when she sounded like she had just woken up.

  “Hey, mookie,” she said, suddenly awake.

  “What’s goin’ on, Ms. Mathews?”

  “Nothing much. How are you?” She sounded kind of strange.

  “I’m good.”

  “Tha . . . that’s good,” she stuttered. “Can you please hold for a minute?” she asked me. I guessed at that moment it had dawned on her. “How come you’re not calling collect?” Before I could answer, she answered for me. “Oh my God, you’re home!” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah.” I started laughing.

  “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” she repeated. She started crying. I could hear her mother in the background asking her what was wrong. “Mommy, he’s home,” she yelled.

  “Lisa, calm down.” I tried to calm her but it was no use. Then suddenly the phone dropped.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Kamil?” The voice belonged to Lisa’s mother.

  “Yes. How are you doing, Mrs. Matthews?”

  “Fine, and yourself?”

  “I’m just happy to be free.”

  “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Kamil, Lisa can’t talk right now. Can you call her back maybe tomorrow?”

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, she’ll be all right, just needs some time.”

  I didn’t understand, but I agreed. “All right, I’ll call back tomorrow then.”

  “Okay, you take care.”

  “I will.”

  “Bye.”

  Something was wrong, I just didn’t know what. But I’d have to deal with that another day.

  * * *

  Mal had brought me a Lexus SC 400 coupe as a welcome home present. I went to go scoop Tonya up. I copped some Heinekens and a pint of Hennessy ’cause she liked to drink. We went to Red Lobster to get something to eat and then straight to the Marriot. I asked her if she had a problem with me getting a room. She said no, so I was confident how the night was going to turn out.

  We started sipping on the Henny and chased it with the Heinekens; I was starting to feel the cognac. Tonya damn near quoted my whole rap sheet from back in the day about how I dressed, and what type of shines and whip I had. I could tell she studied me because some of the shit she said I didn’t even remember I had.

  By the time the drinks were done, I had sexed Tonya three times and put her to sleep. Between the two years and three months I did and her tightness, I was cumming every five minutes. I knew after that night Tonya was going to be my new little honey. My welcome home was just what the doctor had ordered.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  For the rest of the summer Mal, Shareef, and I went everywhere together, and did everything together. We went to all the Greek Fests, Freaknik, Belmar, Philly, Jones Beach, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Bike and Black College Week in Daytona and Miami, even the jazz fest in Cancun. I was off parole so I could go wherever. I went crazy when we shot out to Vegas. It was like five Atlantic Cities in one, but I still loved AC because after I gambled I could dip back up to Wildwood and cool out. I was an amusement park junkie so we hit all of them like Great Adventures, Kings Dominion, Action Park, Dorney Park, Coney Island, and even Disney World. Sometimes we took chicks, so I would take Tonya.

  I had called Lisa back that next day and we talked for a while. She told me the reason she acted like that was because she was seeing somebody and she felt guilty when she heard my voice on the phone because all the love she had for me resurfaced. If any other female would’ve said that to me I would’ve been like yeah whatever, but Lisa was different. She was the realest shorty I knew. That’s why I believed her. And even though I wanted more, I agreed to still be friends.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The summer was ending and I was ready to turn it up around the way. Even though we had four little dudes out there pumping for us, there was still just something about being in the projects, in the midst of everything. Mal didn’t like the idea of me being out there like that especially since it bought him back out, being that we still followed the same rules of the game that Mu had taught us, about holding each other down and watching one another’s back at all times. Even Shareef started coming back around. It felt like the projects used to, back in the day.

  One day it started raining right in the middle of an intense dice game we had going on, so we took it inside of one of the buildings. I had the bank, and my arm was on fire. I was up like four or five Gs when we got in the hall, and I was ready to roll again. It was so noisy in the hall we couldn’t even hear ourselves think. I knew people in their apartments wanted to complain, but nobody dared to since there were so many of us in there; but they wouldn’t hesitate to call the police on us.

  Once I saw joker’s money down on the ground, I rolled the dice again. I didn’t roll a point, so I went to pick the dice back up, and as I did, all of a sudden, it got dead quiet in the hall. When I looked up, everybody was looking at me and then behind me, so that put me on point. I had my burner tucked in my waist, and I knew that if it was the police behind me I was going straight to jail with a fresh charge.

  At first I thought it was the stick-up boys, but I knew it couldn’t have been them because niggas would’ve been acting different, so I knew it had to be Five-O. I cupped the dice and turned around. It took me a minute to figure out exactly who the person was standing there in front of me. I knew he wasn’t a cop. I stared at him for a second, and then it registered. Standing there just a little taller than me, and about twenty pounds more, was someone I hadn’t see since I was a kid. It was my father.

  “What’s up, boy?” he said.

  I was speechless.

  “Oh, you don’t know who I am now, looking just like me?”

  I grinned because he was right; it was almost like looking in the mirror. “I know who you are.”

  “Can I get a hug then?”

  I opened my arms and he embraced me. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

  “I missed you, man,” he said just b
efore I broke away.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said back to him. “When did you get home?” I asked.

  “Today.”

  It had been twelve years since I had seen my dad, and if it weren’t for the strong resemblance, he would’ve looked like a stranger to me. “How you been?”

  “Good, good, it’s good to be out.”

  Those were the same words that I used to describe my release.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “He went to get something to eat, but he’ll be right back.”

  “Man, you big. You put all that weight on while you were locked up?” he asked me.

  I was surprised. “What?”

  “You heard me. Oh, what, you think I don’t hear things ’cause I was locked up? Sometimes you find things out quicker in the joint than you do on the streets. You should know that. I’ve been hearin’ about my son in the penitentiary for the last six years.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “Ha! You sound like your ol’ man with that line.”

  “Nah, I sound like me.”

  He looked at me funny. “Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll be back through later. Where can I find you two at?”

  “If we’re not here, we at home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “We’ll be here.”

  He chuckled. I figured he laughed because I refused to tell him where we lived. “All right, it was good seein’ you, Mil-Mil.”

  I hadn’t heard that name since I was a kid. A name only he called me. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Tell your brother that I was here.”

  “I will.”

  The whole time we were talking everybody who was in the dice game was just listening and looking. Each was in their own thoughts of their childhoods, and about the last time they had seen or heard from their fathers. It was as if as though that was all of their fathers who had just left, because we were all raised without Dad, hoping for the day he’d return.

  Mal thought I was joking at first when I told him, until everybody who was there confirmed it. He had the same facial expression I had when I turned around and saw my father standing there.