Young and Hungry

by Ms. Michel Moore

  Alexis sat down on Anthony’s porch, staring at the abandoned house like a hawk watching its prey. She was terrified for the boy they’d left stretched out on the dirty floor. He had stopped shaking before they fled, but had still been bleeding from several huge gashes that graced his cheek, forehead, and right arm, which he’d more than likely used in an attempt to shield himself from Dre’s callous blows.

  Anthony slipped inside his house, still struggling to breathe normally. Barreling through the living room almost unnoticed, he saw that his granny and her bible-toting brigade were still going at it, verse after verse. He wanted to tell his granny and Dre’s mother what he’d just seen, or at least heard, take place. Anthony wanted to let the prayer circle warriors know that the woman they were asking God’s help for had raised no more than a heinous monster who preyed on those weaker than himself. That Dre had smacked him around on more than several occasions, and that the permanent mark on his left upper arm had been made by Dre when he slammed the bathroom door at church on him. Yet Anthony chose not to bring even more chaos and sadness to the day. Instead, he lowered his head and kept quiet. Thank God his normally observant granny hadn’t paid attention to his watery eyes and the blatant paleness of his skin. If she had, that would have been all she’d wrote in the way of calling an ambulance for Dre’s victim, and the medical rig would have been loading him up instead. After inconspicuously taking the cordless phone off the dining-room table, Anthony took a few more puffs of his inhaler, then called 911.

  Anthony went back out the front door and joined Alexis. Neither one said a word. Their focus was on the abandoned house as they waited to see if the injured teen could finally shake off the beating and walk out on his own. Five minutes went by, then ten, before the mentally drained children heard the sirens in the near distance. Turning their heads, they each made eye contact with Dre, who was headed back up the block, solo, calling out for his mother. By the time Dre reached the front of Anthony’s house, the ambulance was pulling up across the street.

  With the noise of the sirens having interrupted the women, they spilled out onto the porch to see what was taking place. Knowing that he’d double-checked his worker now turned victim for any cash and taken his cell phone, Dre couldn’t understand how the boy was getting medical attention so fast. There was no way he could have called the ambulance on his own. Dre had just walked with the rest of his crew down the block before realizing that his mother had locked him out of the house. The ambulance issue was becoming a momentary mystery until he glanced up at his little sister and his neighbor.

  “Yo, how long y’all two been sitting up there?” he quizzed, giving them both the evil eye.

  Alexis didn’t respond as she got up and practically ran behind her mother’s skirt. That was all Dre needed to see to figure out the rest. Mean mugging Anthony, he let it silently be known between the two of them that the beef was definitely on. It didn’t matter to him that his mother was knocking on death’s door; all that mattered was revenge.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Damn. I must be bugging. What in the fuck did that pale-faced bitch on television just say on breaking news?” Dre closed the empty refrigerator door, in total disbelief. Raising an eyebrow as the pit of his stomach growled, the troubled thug couldn’t believe his ears. “Did she say what I think she just said? Oh hell, naw! It couldn’t be,” he said out loud while grunting. “These white bastards must think it’s April’s Fools Day around here. Yo, did you hear that shit!”

  “Come on, dude. Fall back with all that. I’m high as fuck,” one of the guys camped out on the living-room floor complained, smoking the tail end of what was once a nice-size blunt. “I don’t know what that crazy-looking female just said. I told you I’m high as hell and hungrier than a fat kid in the lunch line! Matter of fact, where the food at? Wake your fine-ass sister up to cook some grub. Maybe some of them scrambled eggs she be hooking up!”

  “Man, fuck all that eating bullshit you talking ’bout! Yo, real spit.” Dre turned the struggle-size flat-screen’s volume up as he smiled with contentment. “It’s ’bout to be live all day and night around these parts! That lady just said by noon today Detroit Negroes gonna be living like we in some third world country or some bullshit like that!”

  “Say word, oh yeah? A third world country? So what that mean, Dre?” He inhaled while wishing he had money for a hamburger deluxe or at least some chili and cheese fries. “What’s gonna jump?”

  “Damn idiot! It means you should’ve stayed your dumb ass in school!” Dre laughed at his homeboy’s stupidity, knowing it would end him up in jail or dead sometime soon.

  “Man, fuck school and all that. Just tell me what that shit mean. Obama about to pass out some more free phones or something up on the corner? Or is my baby mama about to get an increase on her stamps?”

  “Naw, asshole! It means desperate-ass, grimy throwaways on the come up, like you and the rest of these broke fools knocked out on the floor, about to run wild in these streets! Tonight it’s about to be better than Christmas, income tax time, and any FEMA scam we could run on the government. You best wipe that sleep out your eyes and strap up!”

  “For real?” The young goon instantly perked all the way up, almost forgetting he was hungry. “But why they letting that shit go down?”

  “Because the white man got a master plan brewing down the line for all of Detroit and the rest of these mostly black populated cities—an ulterior motive in store for our sleepwalking asses!”

  “Huh? Damn, Dre. I’m confused.”

  “Of course you are, my dude! Just the way they want you to stay.” Dre knew his words of wisdom were lost on his elementary school dropout homeboy and just shook his head. “Yo, just consider it a gift from the great Caucasian powers that be and get ready for a huge come up, fool.”

  * * *

  “July 30, 2016, will undoubtedly be marked as a day that goes down in history, not only in the financially bankrupt city of Detroit, but across the nation as well. By no later than twelve noon today, a town that has been long known to be forever resilient and tough will systematically go dark. The city officials have already been trying random rolling zip code power outages to save money, but sadly, it has not been enough. The unprecedented action was not viable. Matter of fact, some critics think the brazen “Lights Out” plan caused more harm than good,” said the news reporter.

  She went on. “Nevertheless, one by one, the city’s failing infrastructure will shut down, leaving the declining population at odds. With the federal and state governments at a complete stalemate over the crime-ridden town’s general finances, by strict laws put in place over thirty years ago, Detroit will be forced to endure a sure to be grueling and dangerous twenty-four-hour span without the basic necessities a city needs to survive. Shockingly there will be no electricity, no running water, no ambulance service, and no municipal buildings operating for the duration of that time. Most tragic of all is the fate the downtrodden citizens will face given the terrifying fact that no firemen or police will be on duty to patrol.”

  The world was hours away from seeing the tragic outcome of a major city in the United States of America becoming financially bankrupt thanks to countless crooked elected politicians at the helm, misappropriated funds, a declining population, and the fact that the remaining residents live below the poverty line. The city could easily be compared to the war torn country of Somalia. Tensions had rightfully grown.

  The cameraman nervously panned the already alarmed residents who were starting to gather at the front door of the tenth precinct building as the news reporter delivered her grave commentary on what was bound to transpire in the hours to come. The pair had already been verbally threatened by a rowdy crowd at their last location and been told to go back to the other side of Eight Mile before, as one teen shouted out, “Shit gets real!”

  “The newly elected mayor and the chief of police, who was appointed just days ago, are urging residents to bear arms and protect themselves by
any means necessary. They also have made a statement for all the criminals, arsonists, and anyone else that takes advantage of this horrible glitch in the system on this unseasonably scorching hot July day, and I quote. ‘From dusk to dawn, while you are out victimizing the next person, someone may very well be at your home, stealing from you!’ We here at the Channel Seven broadcasting house wish the city of Detroit good day and good luck. The eyes of the world are watching and the heartfelt prayers of many are with you!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Please, Allah, be with us! It doesn’t make sense. How can the regime walk away from an entire city like that? How? They just give up and walk away? Just like that? No police? No fire department?”

  “Regime,” Hassan teased, repeating his elderly father’s choice of words. “It’s America, Pop. They do what they want over here. You’ve been here enough years to know that. Now, if you want me to book you a first-class flight back to your beloved motherland, I will. You can join the war. Maybe be a foot soldier or something like that!” Full of sarcasm, the also Iraqi-born youngest son mocked his father’s outrage and confusion at the barrage of news reports about the officially bankrupted government and the abandoned city they owned and operated a business in. “And please, Pop, speak English. You know it’s hard for me to understand you and Mom sometimes.”

  “Hassan, stop playing around with that foolish talk. This is serious. And in the name of Allah, please hurry up!” He grabbed his red- and cream-colored head wrap and wooden prayer beads after finishing his hot herbal tea. “You should be ashamed of yourself, having so little respect for our native language. We are not a part of America, no matter how long we have been on this devil-tainted soil. I keep telling you and your brothers that! Now, you heard what the news just said, and I know them savage-minded coons have heard too! We don’t have long before that area turns into a madhouse. It will grow very bad very, very soon!”

  “Yeah, I heard what they said. And I’m coming, Pop. Just let me finish ironing my shirt.”

  “Your shirt?”

  “Yeah, my shirt! Just because you don’t care how you look doesn’t mean I don’t care about my appearance.” Hassan continued spraying light starch on the thin designer fabric. “And, Pop, stop with all the name-calling in English or Arabic.”

  “Hassan, you are being foolish! This is an emergency, I tell you! Very, very serious! There will be no power or running water in all of Detroit. This is a tragedy! The abeeds will try to do anything today. We have to be ready for the animals at all times. I keep telling you and your brother that! They can’t be trusted. Blacks are not your friend. They don’t even like themselves. No race on Allah’s earth is like that.”

  “Yo, Pop, stop it! You tripping. Everybody black ain’t all bad! It’s people in all races that trip out. Hell, your own brother and his sons are not perfect.”

  “Don’t ‘Yo, Pop me’ with they nigga talk. This situation is serious, Hassan, and can’t no black person be trusted, not even the ones that follow Islam, and not even Obama! Now hurry up, son. This is serious, I tell you. Time is running out. We must rush.”

  “I know it is, Pop. I know. But what? I’m supposed to look crazy out in them streets because Detroit gone broke? They ain’t got that bread, but I still do!” He primped, still talking in slang, despite his father’s blatant objections.

  “You don’t have any money, Hassan. The money is mine until the day I pass over to paradise . . . old money I brought from the old country. And I don’t know what you call yourself getting all pretty for. Those people over there don’t care how you look.” He lowered his head at his third-born son’s ignorance. “My misguided son, when will you learn those fools care only about you letting them go five or ten cents short on a bottle of liquor? They’re a bunch of wild animals, and by noon today they will all be uncaged, with no one to answer to!”

  “Listen.” Hassan, the younger of three brothers who helped their father run a Linwood and Glendale liquor, laughed proudly, sticking out his chest. “Me and Mikey got a reputation to uphold on the block. They love us over there.”

  “Love? Did you say that?”

  “Yeah, Pops. Love. We like gods! We got love in the hood! Now, what’s it gonna look like if we show up to work looking like you? Well, at least me.”

  “Gods? Please, son, don’t talk stupid to me. Those people don’t love you, Mikey or Amir at that house of sin nightclub he owns.” The arrogant father took pride in what he said next. “And what’s wrong with the way I look? I dress appropriately. I’m Muslim. The Koran says . . .”

  “Look, Pop, before you go around talking about what the Koran says, look in the mirror. People buying liquor from us and Amir is just as haram as you selling it to them, so chill on all that judging. It’s twenty-sixteen. Everybody just trying to do them!”

  “Twenty-sixteen? Do them? The next thing you’re gonna condone is all that wicked homosexual behavior running rampant in the world! Stafallah! That’s what is really haram. They’re all going straight to hellfire!”

  “What?” Hassan paused, brushing his thick, black, low-cut curls. “You tripping, Pop. Chill!”

  “No I’m not! The world is going mad! And if you don’t be careful while running around, going against my word, and socializing with them black, Ebola disease–carrying animals at that store, you gonna feel the hot flames of hell just like them!”

  “And all of them over there in that hood ain’t wild animals, especially my girl Alexis,” Hassan announced with certainty while continuing to get himself together for the day. “She good people. I keep telling you that time and time again! My girl is official.”

  “Your girl . . . your girl?” Pops angrily stroked his long graying beard. “So now that bony, pole-swinging porch monkey running around in a tiny skirt is your girl, huh? The one that has that bastard baby? The one you sneak in the rear of the beer coolers when you think I’m not looking? That young girl? Stafallah. Stafallah. Your poor mother would grow sicker to hear such things come out of your mouth. You need to ask Allah for forgiveness for even saying such a thing.”

  “Pop! What’s wrong with you?” He stared his father directly in the eye. “You gotta stop talking about her like that. She’s a good girl. Alexis is in school, getting a trade. She’s different. She has a plan. We have a plan.”

  “No, Hassan. Plan or not, she’s not different from her people. It’s impossible.” The elder of the two stood his ground in his lifelong, generationally taught beliefs. “That girl is gutter filth, like her entire begging family, especially that no-good, thieving brother of hers, Dre, who you insist on thinking is your friend. I keep telling you time and time again to stop having her behind the store counter like she belongs there. She doesn’t. That young girl is hungry. She knows we have money in this family, old money, and she wants to get her greedy, non-deserving black paws on some of it.”

  “Look, Pop, fall back on all that! That’s my girl you keep talking bad about,” Hassan argued while still showing respect for his elder, as he’d been taught since birth. “I don’t hear you saying all that stuff about Mikey’s wife, and the entire family knows she cheats on him and treats him like garbage. Her you worship, while Alexis, who treats me like a king, you hate.”

  “Well, Mikey’s wife is at least Muslim.”

  “Alexis can convert to Islam tomorrow. Then what?”

  “Well, Mikey’s wife is still our own kind. Her bloodline is not tainted.”

  “So what?” Hassan got in his emotions as he tried to prove his point. “When is the last time you seen her pray, or even drive past a mosque, for that matter? And at Ramadan, she didn’t fast one day!”

  “Hassan!” The racist, set-in-his-ways old man raised his voice, hoping to end the discussion so that they could be on their way to the store. “When will you learn, male or female, blacks can’t be trusted? I keep trying to tell Amir that much, as well, when he insists on bringing that big black slave that works for him around me.” He once again spoke in Arabic. �
��I’m telling you like I told Amir and Mickey. Don’t be a fool living in a fool’s world. You can never relax when they are around. The moment you do, you will one day regret it. Now let’s leave.”

  Ignoring his father’s constant insults in both languages about the people who spent their money and bridge cards every day to enable them to all live as large as they were was working his last nerves. He knew the hood respected him, despite what his father believed. And the way he was regularly putting it down on Alexis, he would bet his life she was in his corner. Time and time again, she’d proven her loyalty.

  Taking into account that the clock was ticking, Hassan made sure his ailing mother was without needs and was resting comfortably. After double-checking his overall appearance in the gaudy gold-trimmed, floor-length mirror, he grabbed his cell off the charger before shoving his wallet in his rear pocket. With his licensed gun on his hip, Hassan finally was ready to make the short-distance drive from Dearborn, the city he called home, to Detroit. As he and his father climbed into the white cargo van with the dented passenger door, Pops got a call from his middle son, Mikey, asking if he’d seen the early morning newscast.

  * * *

  “Pop, I’m already here at the store. People in the neighborhood are running up to my car, asking if we’re gonna be closed for the day or what.” Mikey glanced over at his vehicle door to make sure it was locked. “I finally drove off from their needy asses so I could call you in peace.”

  “Don’t you tell them thirsty abeeds nothing. You hear me, Mikey! Not nothing! Not even Tommy.” The father’s heavy Middle Eastern accent filled the van.