Numbers (2 page)

“Come on, this is too much—all the games! I’m not that good at Pictionary, but I’m pretty good with music. Can we play Name That Tune next?” Numbers leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, not showing his frustration, but he was getting vexed
with the interrogation. He knew he could ask for his attorney at any time and put an end to the questioning, but he also knew they’d probably try to lose him in the system for who knows how long if he did.

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” Agent Flask said, his square, chiseled face showing little reaction. He left the pictures spread out on the table and walked out of the interrogation room followed by the well-dressed agent. Detective Lockhart walked over calmly with a smirk on his face and abruptly slammed both of his fat hands down on the table, but Numbers did not react. O’Doul kicked one of the chairs toward Numbers, causing it to fall at his feet, and still Numbers did not flinch. O’Doul followed Lockhart out of the room, leaving Numbers alone with his thoughts.

Numbers began to reminisce about his childhood, recalling the many lessons his mentor, Crispy Carl, had taught him. One of the defining moments, a moment that shined like a beacon in his mind, was during one of the last times he’d seen Crispy Carl.

Numbers went to visit Carl at his one-bedroom hovel in 60 Carlton, right behind the building where he lived. Old Crispy Carl wasn’t doing too well. He was very sick, with no money, no health benefits, and no family to take care of him. Except for Numbers’s occasional visits, he was on his own in every sense of the word. But Crispy Carl never complained about his circumstances because he said his fate was his own doing. Although he never let on, he did look forward to the visits from Numbers; he loved the boy like a son.

“Who’s that?” Crispy Carl called from his bed, alarm in his ailing voice.

“Who else did you give a key, old pimp?” Numbers strode through the door.

“That’s you, Numbers? Where you been?”

“Getting my hustle on, of course. Somebody gotta feed your decrepit ass,” he joked.

Crispy Carl wasn’t offended by the remark—only a foolish man got upset by the truth. “You seen any of my hoes out there, Numbers?”

“They my hoes now, so stop sweating my bitches.”

“Young pimpin’, I taught you everything you know.” Crispy Carl laughed himself into an uncontrollable coughing fit.

Numbers ran to the kitchen, got Carl a drink of water, and then helped him sit up to take a drink.

“Hey, young pimp, it’s okay. We all gotta leave the game one way or another. But let me tell you this so you don’t make the same mistake I made. When you leave the game, you want to roll out with C-Lo as your last number, you dig. See, if you go out with four-five-six, you can make the bank whatever you want it to be when you leave,” making reference to the popular gambling game where three dice are used. “That’s called having an exit plan. Crackers know how the game is played. They got 401(k) plans, pensions, and IRAs.”

Crispy Carl paused to make sure Numbers understood what he was talking about and to gather his breath. “In the streets we ain’t got none of that shit. Shit like that is foreign to cats like us that’s hustling on the street every day. Still, that don’t mean we can’t set ourself up to live comfortable when it’s time to put our cards down. You got to be smarter than the rest of these chumps out here. They think that quick money is gonna last forever, and ain’t nothing lasting forever, feel me?” Crispy Carl sat up in his bed a little more. “See, the problem is these fools start believing their own hype like their shit don’t stink. I’m guilty of that shit myself, young player, so believe me when I tell you, you got to get out when the time is right.”

Numbers thought about what his mentor was saying. “How will
I know when it’s that time? I’ve been hustling as long as you’ve known me, Crispy Carl.”

“You’ll know when to get out the game, but you have to start planning for your exit not now … but right now! You come a long way from the little runt I met at the number spot way back when. I’m proud of you for always being the man of your house.”

It could be said that Dupree Reginald Wallace was a natural-born hustler—he had to be. His father bailed out on him before Dupree was old enough to remember what the man looked like, and his two little sisters’ father was kicked out by his mother when Dupree was eight, earning him the title of man of the house by default.

Dupree lived with his mother and twin sisters on the first floor of building 79 North Oxford Walk in the Fort Greene housing projects—one of the most frequented and notorious buildings in the hood. Building 79 bustled with activity; the stoop was always overflowing with people entering, exiting, or congregating.

Dupree was outside walking the fence the day his stepfather was banished from their lives. Walking the fence was one of the things the kids did to amuse themselves that summer. The challenge was to keep your balance and walk the length of the gray chain-link fence from the stoop—right under the kitchen window of Dupree’s apartment—all the way around to the Park Avenue side of the building, a good 150 feet, give or take a few. Dupree had become one of the best at balancing himself and walking the fence like it was a tightrope. Even the blare of the boom box on the stoop blasting the sounds of Melle Mel and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s new raw rap street gospel—
“It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder”
—could not distract him.

But Dupree’s grace on the fence did not come without trial, error, and pain. Three years earlier, when he moved into the neighborhood at the innocent age of five, he attempted to follow after some of the older boys tightroping the gate. Chap, Marcus, and Raymond were eight or nine years old; only Marcus’s little brother, Jarvis, was the same age as Dupree. Dupree wanted to show the boys he could keep up, so he mounted the fence. His first mistake was wearing hard-bottomed shoes, which made his task slippery at best, if not impossible for a novice. His second mistake was not having his shoelaces tied properly. And his third mistake was that he didn’t know any of the boys he was mimicking.

As Dupree began attempting to walk a nearby fence not far from his new building, Chap grabbed the fence and started shaking it vigorously, shouting profanities and anything else he could think of to rattle Dupree’s concentration. “You fuckhead … You gonna fall … You can’t do it with them church shoes on and them big-ass feet.”

It worked.

One of Dupree’s shoelaces got caught in the fence, causing him
to lose his balance and come crashing down on the hard cement, headfirst. Blood spurted out of his skull as if it were a split water hose. One of the boys, thinking Dupree was dying right before his eyes, screamed with fear, “His brain is leaking!”

Nearby, seventeen-year-old Big John was sitting on the stoop smoking a stogie when he heard one of the younger boys’ screams. He had the physique of a full-grown man and was naturally muscular. Running toward the source of the noise, Big John acted quickly and untangled Dupree’s shoelace from the fence. Then he ripped the tank top he was wearing off his back and placed it on Dupree’s injured skull. “Are you okay, kid?” Dupree was unresponsive and groggy, sliding in and out of consciousness. Big John didn’t know Dupree, but recognized him as the new kid that had just moved into the first floor. He scooped him up in his arms and rushed the boy to the steps of their building.

By this time another kid had run and told Dupree’s mother what happened. Jenny was running out the door when she saw Big John flying up the six steps that led to her door with her child cradled in his arms.

“Bring him in the house and set him down right there.” Big John followed her instructions and placed her baby boy on the couch. “Oh my God, how did this happen? My baby! Oh God, please don’t let my baby die!” At first, she thought to call the ambulance. Although the Cumberland hospital was right across the street, maybe three-quarters of a football field’s length away, she knew it would take the ambulance forty-five minutes to make a one-minute trip. The paramedics feared coming into the hood and gave less than a damn about servicing the underprivileged.

Jenny put cold, wet towels on his head and gently picked up her boy and prepared to walk him to the hospital. Big John offered to carry him, but Dupree’s mother would have none of that—this was her firstborn, her baby. At the emergency ward, the medics tended to him immediately at Jenny’s insistence.

Dupree ended up being okay, and Jenny was forever grateful to Big John. He became one of the first friends they made in the PJs.

The aftermath of Dupree’s injury was twenty-two stitches, a bald spot on the right side of his noggin, and a scar for life.

Now Dupree was being cheered on as he approached the point of the fence near the stoop and his kitchen window.

“Man, I don’t think anyone has walked it that fast before!” Jarvis gushed in approval. Jarvis and Dupree were now best friends.

“Get outta here,” Chap hated. “He ain’t do it faster than me.”

“Yes he did,” Jarvis rebutted, now in Chap’s face.

“No way.”

“Way.” They continued to argue.

Dupree was not paying them any attention. He was still up on the fence, but instead of walking he was looking through his kitchen window.

“You don’t do nothing around here anyway! You a liar and a cheat! You can pack your shit and get out!” his mother screamed at his stepfather. Her toned body was coiled and ready to strike, and her big almond eyes appeared to be even larger than usual.

“Bitch, who you think you mouthing off to?” Elroy lashed back. He was six foot one, with flawless brown skin. Most of the women in the projects thought he was very good-looking, but it was hard to see that now, with his face all contorted. Elroy stepped into Jenny’s face, invading her space. Although she stood barely five feet tall, she was a fireball and refused to take any mess from anyone—especially a man.

“Elroy, I don’t have time for this shit. Go on chasing them hoochies, I’m done. You out there fucking whatever’ll get naked for you and ain’t even taking care of your daughters.” She turned around to walk away when Elroy grabbed her by the back of the neck.

“Ah!” she gasped, pain mixed with anger.
If I get free of his clutches, he gonna wish he never put his hands on me,
Jenny promised herself.

Dupree jumped off the fence and raced up the stairs. He wouldn’t have been able to run any faster if he had on a red bodysuit with a lightning bolt on the chest.

Big John was perched at his usual spot on the stoop talking with some other people, puffing on a cigarette and listening to his music. “Easy, little man,” he warned lightly.

Dupree paid Big John no mind, flying right past him and through the open lobby door. His little husky frame blasted through his apartment front door as he yelled, “Don’t hit my mommy!” He was furious. This was the first and last time he would ever see a man physically abuse his mother.

Their two-bedroom apartment was small, sparsely furnished, but neat. The living room contained one long daybed that sat up against the left wall, and on the right there was a dining table with a black-and-white thirteen-inch TV on top. Elroy was in between the kitchen entrance and the dining table shaking Jenny by the back of her neck. She struggled to escape his grip, to no avail.

“Bitch, don’t ever turn your back on me.”

Dupree ran at his stepfather swinging with all his might and was greeted by a backhand to his left cheek. He had heard people say they would slap fire out of a person’s face before, and now he knew what they meant. His cheek was ablaze as he lay sprawled out on the floor near the refrigerator, crying in pain.

Realizing what he’d done, Elroy froze for a moment, letting up slightly. But that moment was all Jenny needed to slip from his grasp. In an instant she made it to the kitchen and snatched up the black cast iron frying pan that lived atop the stove. In her best imitation of Billie Jean King, she swung the pan until it connected with her target.

In a fit of rage, she continued to practice following through with
her forehand. “Don’t—you—ever—put—your—hands—on—me—or—my—son—ever—again—in—your—life,” punctuating every word with a crack from the frying pan until she had beat him down to the dull brown project-tiled floor.

Hearing what sounded like someone in a world of hurt, Big John rushed up to the apartment. The door was open. When he saw what was going down, he grabbed the pan from Jenny.

“Ms. Jenny! That’s enough–you’re gonna kill ’im.”

“Dupree,” Jenny called to her son, “come here, I need you to go to the store for me.”