Midnight (34 page)

Conflict broke his quiet conversation off and called me over. Instinctively, I ran my hand over my Caesar cut, paused for a minute then walked over slowly. They all slanted inwards, converting their circle into a semicircle with everybody facing me. Conflict was doing all the talking.

“I see you wearing fatigues tonight,” he said. I didn’t respond ’cause it wasn’t a question and what the fuck did he want anyway? His ten-karat so-called gold, hanging from his neck, was a poorly crafted pendant of a gun.

“Are you a soldier?” he asked me.

“What’s up? What’d you call me over for?” I asked him solemnly. He broke a half smile. The other three of them, including Ronald and Rolland Smash, were straight-faced.

“Nah, you ain’t no soldier ’cause soldiers know how to get in line,” he said. DeQuan cut in. “Nah man. He’s good. Lil’ man is good,” he said firmly.

“You still calling him ‘Lil’ man’ and now he’s bigger than you,” Conflict reprimanded. The other two laughed. I remained solid.

“This man is about to spread his wings and take flight,” Conflict said to the three of them.

“If you don’t want nothing, I’m gonna push on,” I told Conflict.

“You checking him out?” he asked the other three.

I folded my arms in front of me and looked Conflict in the eye. My green army shirt rose up a little so the metal on my piece could flash a warning into his eye. I knew he was holding. I knew DeQuan was holding. I could see Rolland was holding too. They were all nine or ten years older than me but my nine milli made us even.

“I see how you walk through here styling every day. What I don’t see is how and where you earning,” Conflict said, sporting his two-piece corduroy Lee suit and brown suede Wallabees.

“So?” I answered.

“This is my hood. I hold it down. You should already know that. Anybody earning out here gotta run it through me. Ya know what I mean?” he threatened.

“I got a job. I ain’t hustling,” I said dryly. There was a pause and a standoff.

“What about a woman?” he asked out of left field. “
Every time
I see you, you for self. You got some sugar in your tank?” he asked, still serious faced.

“What?” I asked, not knowing what he was asking me. Ronald and Rolland busted out laughing. DeQuan and me remained silent and straight-faced.

“Go ahead, man,” Conflict said to me. “And stay in your lane.”

I pushed off knowing one thing—this dude, who acted like he already had the best of everything, was hiding some kind of jealousy towards me. He was like a nervous, deadly, and dangerous rattlesnake. I knew he had plenty of bodies under his belt. In fact, he was one of the main cats raising the corpse count in our building.

In the jungle, a rattler, python, mamba, and boa are all poisonous creatures. A tap from the tooth, a too-tight squeeze and death comes quickly. But as my grandfather would say long ago, “There is a mongoose for every snake, a hyena for every lion. Never underestimate anyone.”

Upstairs Naja heated up the dinner that Umma had prepared and put to the side for me. She served it out nicely and sat beside me while I ate. Umma was in the living room placing finishing touches on a few items.

“So how are you feeling?” my little sister asked, smiling.

“I’m good. What about you?” I asked, turning it back around.

“Oh, your life is so much more exciting than mine,” she said knowingly. I smiled.

“Is that right? Tell me all about it,” I asked her since she looked like she knew something I was supposed to know but didn’t.

“Somebody came looking for you today,” she said.

“Who?” I asked, surprised. “Somebody came up to our door?” I asked again.

“No, she came down to Ms. Marcy’s place,” Naja admitted.

“Ms. Marcy let someone in her place?” I asked, concerned for real.

“Ms. Marcy was asleep when the girl knocked on the door,” Naja said. “I opened the door for her and she came inside,” Naja said.

“That couldn’tve been what happened because you know better than to open anybody’s door. You know not to speak to strangers or let them in the house. I know you know. I taught you that,” I said, growing tight.

“She’s not a stranger. She spoke to me three or four times before. On the way to the bus stop sometimes, but usually after school,” Naja said.

“And where is Ms. Marcy when all of this is going on?” I asked her.

“She says hello to Ms. Marcy too. Every time she asks about you. She likes you a lot,” Naja added.

“Give me her name and stop playing around,” I said firmly.

“She has a strange name, Heavenly Paradise. Isn’t that the same thing?” Naja asked. “Aren’t Heaven and Paradise the same place?” she asked again. “I know in the Quran, Heaven and Paradise are the same place.”

“What did she ask you?”

“Once she asked if you have any girlfriends. I told her no. Then she asked what school you go to. I told her I didn’t know the name of your school. That’s not a lie, is it?”

“Anything else?” I pressed.

“She asked how old are you. She asked how come you’re never home. She asked if me and her could be friends. Today she asked if I could give you something for her,” Naja said.

“Is that it?” I asked, wanting to collect all of the information while Naja still remembered it clearly.

“One minute, I’ll go and get the letter.” Naja dashed to her room. She returned. “Here, Heavenly said to give this to you. She said to make sure no one else sees it.” She handed me the envelope. I opened it and read:

I’m ready to make you my God. Stop frontin’ and come see me, apartment 8F. Peace.
It was signed, “
Heaven On Earth
.” Even without her signature I would’ve known it was her by the words she chose.

The Five-Percenter females covered themselves with what they called “three-quarters of cloth.” But what difference did it make if she was covered and
still
living foul?

“What does the letter say?” Naja asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” I answered. “Just sit down right here so I can tell you the rules again. You have to listen carefully to what I say. It’s for the security of our family. Do you understand?” I asked Naja seriously.

“That’s not all,” Naja said strangely.

“What?” I asked.

“Heavenly gave me a gold chain. She put it on my neck so I wouldn’t lose it. She made me promise to give it to you and no one else,” she said sweetly.

“Where is it?” I asked, worried about how the story kept spreading out more and more.

“Umma has it,” Naja answered. She might as well have hit me on the head with a brick.

“Heavenly said to give her chain to you and if you wear it, then you’re her God and she’s your Earth
and
she’s my sister. She said, ‘If you don’t want my chain, you should bring it back to my apartment and only give it back to me in my hand.’

“She asked me to tell her what you said the next time me and her talk together!” Naja sat there really seeming like she thought Heavenly was her friend. I wanted to tell her that no seventeen-year-old girl’s gonna hang out with a seven-year-old child who she’s not related to.

“I wasn’t gonna mention anything about the necklace to Umma, because Heavenly said not to, but when I took off my
hijab
, I wasn’t really thinking about the chain. Umma saw the necklace right away. Then I had to tell Umma the whole
story,” Naja said, looking worried that she had gotten me into some trouble.

“Listen, Naja, this girl is not your friend and she’s not mine either. None of these people around here are our friends. None of these people around here are like us. They don’t believe what we believe. They don’t live how we live. If you love this family, then you have to understand what I am about to tell you. You have to understand the rules and you have to remember. And there is no space and no time for any mistakes, understand?”

“Yes,” she answered, with tears now falling from her big eyes onto her little face.

“I love you. Umma loves you, that’s it. Your friends are your same age, the little girls who go to your same school
only.
Anyone who asks you to keep a secret is not your friend. There are no secrets for you to keep away from Umma and me. Ms. Marcy is your sitter. She is supposed to take you to your bus every morning and pick you up every afternoon. If she is ever not there when your school bus drops you off remain with Sister Fatima, your bus monitor. She knows to call Umma in any emergency situation. Don’t go anywhere with anybody else, no matter what. Don’t talk to anybody else no matter what. Don’t take anything from anybody else no matter what. In Ms. Marcy’s house and even if you’re up here in our apartment don’t open the door. Keep it locked. Always let an adult answer the door or leave it alone. No secrets with anyone outside of our family, no one, no matter what. You got it?” I asked her seriously.

“I got it,” Naja promised.

“Now repeat it,” I told her.

“
The whole thing?
” she asked.

“The whole thing,” I ordered her.

She repeated it and repeated it well. She was no dummy. In her school she had to learn long
suras
from the Holy
Quran. After she learned them, and the teachers discussed them, she had to recite them in front of her classmates. I made her recite the rules back to me three times. Then I sat her down so she could write them out as well.

In her room I had her post her writing up on the wall above her bed.

Umma finished up around 1:00
A.M.
After straightening up her work area she came into my room.

I had spread newspaper across an area of my floor. On top of the newspaper I had the ones, fives, tens, and twenty-dollar bills separated. In another area, I had separate piles of coins. In another pile were the few receipts I carried for the day, a pile of new orders and inquiries, a short stack of new business cards and my thin notebook of contacts, phone numbers and addresses.

“Who is she and what does she want?” Umma asked, holding up the fourteen-karat gold chain with the word “Heavenly” written out in script letters at the center.

She’s nobody,” I answered. “She’s nobody to me,” I assured Umma.

“Every female is somebody,” Umma said solemnly. “Every female you involve yourself with leaves her trace on you, good or bad. Did you encourage her?” Umma asked.

“Umma, my word to Allah, I said nothing, did nothing with this female.”

“Then she is a desperate woman and desperate women set traps. Make sure you don’t lower yourself to her.”

I was disappointed. I worked very hard for Umma to trust that there is no greater love or respect than the love and respect that I have for her, and now it seemed that this one silly girl had brought in the only moment of doubt about my character that Umma had ever felt.

At least I understood now what kind of problem Conflict had with me. Like the sucker he was, he couldn’t keep his girl
in check. Did he really believe he could eliminate every cat she craved? There were many before him and he obviously wasn’t even the end of her line. Even if he tried, her cravings would still be there. Then what would he do?

As for the small matter of her chain, damned if I move, damned if I don’t move. If I didn’t give it back, she’d come on to me even stronger. If I brought it back to her, somebody would see me at her door and start sounding the alarm. Either way, word would get out that she was thirsty for me. Someone would lie and say I was fucking with her. Word of mouth in the hood is stronger than the beat of the drum in my grandfather’s village.

All I could see was more conflict with Conflict for no real reason at all.

Thursday dissolved so quickly. The day just flew by filled with usual and unusual errands and familiar and unfamiliar faces.

For the first time, Umma and Naja were not sleeping at home. I had escorted both of them to The Palace Hotel. Umma and Naja would remain there with the family of the bride, who had arrived earlier in the day from the Sudan. There were five rooms booked under the bride’s father’s name, and three rooms under the groom’s father’s name, not including Fawzi’s incredible suite. There would be an Islamic gathering, males hosted separately from the females.

The goal was clear for Umma. She was working for the groom to make the bride’s family feel comfortable in an unfamiliar place. She was to do what she does best, make everything look and smell and feel beautiful.

I felt relieved after I left them safely in The Palace. I told myself that I could feel relieved like this every day, once I had both of them out of the area in Brooklyn where we lived. I had already decided that the week after the wedding, we would begin looking at various affordable properties, since we would be in clear reach of our financial goal.

My day was spent traveling and meeting up with and checking in on independent contractors who were retained to perform some service or other for the huge wedding ceremony on Sunday.

However, even training at the dojo and practicing with
the basketball team, I felt lighter with Umma and Naja safely tucked away and surrounded by people who at least, in general, believed the same exact things, no surprises.

Late night alone, I played my music in the apartment. I could walk around with my shirt off. I could exercise in my underwear. In my bedroom, I could throw my knives without a second thought, with the bedroom door open. After my repetitions, I could collapse on the floor staring at the ceiling thinking about Akemi.

Her phone call began with her silence, then just her breathing, then words, “
Mayonaka hansamu arigato gozamasu
.” She was thanking me. That part I could tell.

Those were the only words she said that I understood. The words that followed were all in Japanese, but she seemed so sure about speaking her language to me. I just listened to her soft sound, which slowed down and then sped up, suddenly excited. I decided from her rhythm and melody that she received the balloons, maybe even the flowers I had sent to her uncle’s store, and that she would come along with me on Saturday after work to the ceremony.

Her call ended strangely with her silence. Then I could hear her breathing, a pause, and then the words “
Mayonaka Aishiteru
.” The next sound was the click.