Midnight

  “The proper thing is to wait. Even Muslim men who are older than you have to stew in anticipation of their bride. They don’t go about dating her. The more you see her before the nikah ceremony, the more you increase your chances of slipping up. Allah requires that things be done in proper measures,” Umma said.

  “To marry is a sacred thing,” Umma said. “Your entire life together with your wife will be a constant discovery. The Americans want to know everything of their mates before they marry. The American fiancé takes full knowledge of his woman’s body before she becomes his wife, if she ever really does become his wife. But they exhaust, drain, and use one another before even their wedding day.

  “By marrying young, you are not doing a wrong thing. You will be fascinated every day for a long, long time. You will share something with your wife that you have not shared with anyone else. Each thing she reveals to you will excite and amaze you more and more. You will learn her. She will learn you. You will both teach and learn. You will grow together, struggle together, celebrate together, suffer together, create, and guide new life together, inshallah.

  “You two will lock out the distractions of Satan and this world, and the temptations of the liars.” Umma was dropping bombs and our living room was a scene of constant fireworks in the black of the early morning.

  “Tomorrow I’ll write a letter to Akemi’s father. I think it is the right thing to do,” I confided. “I am not asking for his permission, because the Quran does not require this. But I want him to know who I am, how I feel about his daughter, and that he can be certain that I am a good man with a true intention to secure her and be her husband for a lifetime.”

  Umma spoke of the ceremony she would set up. We both agreed to keep it short and very simple. As her lips continued to move, my mind drifted towards the reality of the inevitable fight, Akemi’s uncles and her male cousins. I knew they would come to snatch the jewel from me, as I had somehow snatched it from them. It was not how I wanted it to be. It’s just how it was.

  On our estate my father once said to his friend in a gathering of men where I was seen and not heard, “You will know that you love a woman when you will do anything to woo her, win her, and keep her, when you would even protect and defend her honor with your own life.”

  • • •

  On Friday I mailed a three-page letter that I wrote in the passion of the late night, to Akemi’s father. After the introduction, I put it plain and simple: “I respect your daughter and I thank you for bringing her into and bringing her up in this world . . .” I maintained a humble tone, as I believed I should have. I explained about my faith and its requirements and our love. I explained that we planned to marry according to my faith. I told him about our boutique company, “small but profitable and expanding every month.” I assured him that I could and would take care of Akemi and that furthermore, I would enjoy doing it. That she and I would continue to grow and learn together as husband and wife. I invited him to write back and share his thoughts. I told him that we would both love his well wishes and that the State of New York wanted his permission. That Akemi and I were not planning a big ceremony, just a simple exchange of vows.

  The next day I placed the marriage form and the letter in an envelope and posted it to Akemi’s father.

  36

  THE BLACK TEAM

  “Even though our first game is just a scrimmage, we need to go in there and set the tone of dominance. We got home court advantage. The game will be right here on the outdoor courts, new nets, but everything else is the same.” Vega was squatting while we were sitting on the gym floor after a serious and thorough practice on Friday night.

  “I’mma run down the starting lineup, but y’all already know the deal. You know who the strongest players are. If you’re not one of them I don’t want no back talk, just get your game up,” Vega said.

  He ran down the top five, started with my name and then Panama’s name and on down the line. By now, Vega had all twelve team members’ names by heart, and had even given a couple of dudes new names.

  “You seven who ain’t in the starting lineup, this is no time to chill. You might hear your name called next Friday night at the game and if you do you better hustle hard like you one of my top five, got it?” Everyone agreed.

  “We gon’ practice every day next week,” Vega ordered. The team groaned. “Whatever else you into, you gotta put it on pause. Get into this. You gotta make me look good,” Vega said, like he had something big riding on the game.

  “We playing the red team,” Panama said.

  “Red vs. Black,” another player said.

  “Coach, you gon’ have to wear all black next Friday night ’cause every time we see you, you got something red on,” Braz said. “You can’t be repping for the other side.” The team agreed.

  “I’mma be in pocket. You make sure you young ones is in pocket. And let’s get some paper in our pockets!” Vega pressed.

  “Word up,” everybody said.

  “What about these fucking police? Seem like they be just wanting something to jump off when we be leaving the practices some nights,” one player asked.

  “What you expect? We the black team!” Vega said. “And look at Midnight, Panama, and Jaguar. I mean we really the black team!” Everybody laughed. “When they first showed me y’all I said, ‘Ah shit they set me up.’ I knew the police was gonna keep fucking with us,” Vega joked.

  “Yeah, but we pull the girlies,” Panama hit back. “Most of y’all yellow niggas can’t hold ’em.” He reversed it on Vega.

  “Seriously, fuck the police. We ain’t giving them nothing to go on. We ’bout this here basketball hustle right now. Just move together as one team, and when you see them motherfuckers don’t say shit. Keep it moving and keep your mouths closed. Got it?” Vega said with a dead serious looking face. I thought to myself, that’s exactly what Vega did last time, walked right past his own car and away from the police. He kept it moving and didn’t say shit until we was all down in the train station.

  In the men’s locker room, Panama pulled a flyer off the wall. “High School Jam,” he read. “Yo, listen up, check this out. There’s a party next Saturday night right here in the gym. After we smash those red boys on Friday, our whole team should show up to this Saturday joint and scoop all the honeys up. Let these niggas know who runs this motherfucker.”

  37

  THE FERRIS WHEEL

  Cho hit me with my cash on Saturday. His store was mad busy from early morning so he was caked up. We worked his spot like we been together for years, served each customer swiftly and moved them right out. At 3:00 P.M. when my shift ended, a next wave of customers showed up. I stayed and grinded with him until it all lightened up and cleared out.

  He counted out $180 and put it in my hand. It was the most I ever drew in one day of work at the fish spot. It amounted to $20 an hour on a 7:00 A.M. till 3:00 P.M. shift, plus one hour overtime.

  Akemi showed up. I saw her through the window. Cho saw her too.

  “Japanese girl looking for you,” he said and flashed a rare funny smile, closed lip and revealing none of his teeth, the corners of his mouth pushed up.

  I ran down to the basement, showered, and changed. I had to be fresh all over. When I came around the corner, she was on the side of the building like when I first met her. She switched her style up again today. She had her hair zigzag-parted like a ghetto girl and pulled tight. The long ends were braided and wrapped around in two wicked braided buns that sat on both sides of her head like ram’s horns.

  No gloss or lipstick, just a splash of glitter that made her eyes sparkle more.

  Soon as she saw me, her pretty natural lips parted and her smile spread wide. She stopped leaning on the wall and stood waiting.

  I wanted to take her to the store and buy her some pants to wear underneath the white linen dress she was rocking. But I took her to the jeweler and bought her some diamond studs instead.

  “No gift wrap,” I told him. “Just cle
an ’em up with the machine and get me some alcohol wipes.”

  I took her earrings out, cleaned her ear lobes with the wipes, put some alcohol on the stems and poked them through her two holes, which had healed nicely.

  When I looked at her, it was perfect. Diamonds rock with linen, and expensive clothes like the ones she wore needed to be complemented with authentic jewels. They looked clean. She looked clean.

  It set me back, money-wise. I had to dip into the money in my left pant leg that I usually keep just in case. But I was learning that when you are really in love with a female, you don’t give a fuck about spending your money on her.

  Fingers, not chopsticks, that’s what we used at the Ethiopian restaurant where I took her for dinner. Now she was addicted to flavor. So she was real excited by the dishes of spicy foods. She dipped two fingers into a tiny sauce bowl and sucked them. Her pretty eyes filled up with water from the heat of the peppers.

  I could tell she loved the scenery, the pictures, and cloths in this African restaurant. Her eyes shifted slowly from wall to wall and carving to carving. Everybody’s body swayed some to the voice of Bob Marley seducing his girl to “Turn Your Lights Down Low.”

  On the warm streets of New York, her legs looked pretty in wedged Espadrille heels with a thick, pale-pink ribbon that crisscrossed around her ankles and up until just below her knees, like a ballerina in pink toe shoes.

  We walked in and out of some of the Manhattan shops, her curiosity constant, me waiting on the sun to ease down. Amusement parks always looked better in the night.

  On the train I sat her on the inside. We rode hand in hand to Coney Island, home of the greatest ghetto amusement park. I passed on the idea of dropping two or three hundred at Great Adventure in New Jersey. Besides, in Coney Island, there were no searches or metal detectors.

  She didn’t mind. When she saw the rides, the lights, and the swarms of people her eyes lit up. She was having a blast and wanted a little taste of everything. She wanted some cotton candy to try. I bought it. She took two bites and that was it. She ate a tiny piece of funnel cake, but mostly slid her finger in the confectioner’s sugar then sucked it. I bought two medium-sized colorful lollipops. She left them in the wrapper, stuck one on each side of her braid buns and rocked them just like that.

  Most of all, she wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. We got on line. The metal cages swang down one by one, with couples jumping in and threesomes stuffing themselves in then being ordered out.

  I helped Akemi inside, then climbed in myself. The joint rocked back and forth.

  “Pull the safety bar,” the attendant reminded us. He left then to hit the switches.

  The wheel jerked and took off. While the wheel spun around, we looked at the people way down below and the colorful lights that lit up the area. We could even see the dark waters of Far Rockaway Beach. I thought about how this was the first time in a long time that she and I had been alone. Now we were hanging in the air, swinging back and forth trapped in a cage.

  • • •

  She put her hand on the back of my neck. We started kissing. Between the rocking, and the light wind blowing into our faces, and her breathing, and the spinning, and the feeling of dropping when the ride swung down, the sensation was crazy.

  The metal bar held our bodies back in one crazy uncomfortable position. But I could feel her tongue and her lips, and I was sucking her soft, smooth, and pretty neck.

  When I touched her bare leg, she moaned. It was a kind of whining like a cat. She leaned her head back like the feeling was too much. Then suddenly, the ride jerked then stopped. We just sat there.

  “Come on out. It’s over,” the ride operator said.

  We were back on the ground. We walked a little.

  The music from the DJ booth of the Himalaya ride was blasting. It was loud, crowded, and fun.

  Next we hopped on the line for the El Dorado bumper cars. It was a mad rush like everybody had the same idea at the same time and wanted to get on the same ride. But as we stood there, I could see that every ride was packed with people tryna get on. It was a slow moving maze. Some people was pushing. Some people were cutting the line. The people on the line closed in tighter, trying to stop the cutters. It was a Brooklyn crowd.

  Akemi was pressed against my back. When the heat from her body disappeared, I turned to her. Akemi gasped, and I figured someone had stepped on her foot. Then I saw that a female had her hand around one of Akemi’s braided buns and was pulling her backwards by the hair. She was falling. Just as I grabbed her away from the girl, another girl’s fist came crashing down on Akemi’s face. Akemi dropped to the pavement.

  “You picked this Chinese bitch over me? You must be fucking crazy,” the enraged girl screamed. Her face was all contorted like a evil comic-book monster. I took one real good look at her. It was Homegirl, backed up by a group of her female friends, including Redbone.

  Hurt and shocked, Akemi held both of her hands over one eye. I picked her up from the ground and put both my arms around her. I froze. If it was a male attacker, I would’ve killed him. A group of boys, I would’ve fought ’em all. But, it was a group of girls led by one crazy broad.

  On instinct, I pushed Homegirl out of the way so I could get Akemi out of the overpopulated, fenced-in line. Homegirl fell backwards but up against the bodies of her friends, who caught her. They all started screaming and three of them threw their drinks onto Akemi’s dress.

  “That’s what you get, bitch!” Homegirl yelled.

  “Fry me some chicken wings, bitch,” Redbone screamed.

  “Paint my toenails, bitch,” the other one barked.

  “And Brooklyn don’t wear white before Memorial Day, bitch!”

  I held three of the girls back. But one of them snatched the lollipops out of Akemi’s hair and started beating her with them. A group of girls started leaping over the rail. They Brooklyn mobbed her. Akemi ducked down by the bottom of my leg where they couldn’t reach her. I kicked one of ’em with my one free leg. I pushed the rest of them down one by one. The crowd started spreading and splitting, until we was out of there.

  Everybody watched the whole thing happen. They talked. Some cheered. Others laughed or screamed. Some fools even tried to block our exit to keep the fight going strong. There were no cops around. That was a good thing. The Coney Island ride attendants were caught up watching the brawl, so the bumper cars were at a complete standstill.

  I grabbed a pile of napkins from Nathan’s. I was wiping the soda off of Akemi, but it was sticky on her skin. Her hair was unraveled and fucked up from all the pulling. Now her right eye was swelling.

  At a small clothing booth, I paid ten dollars for a blue XL “I Love Coney Island” T-shirt and pulled it over Akemi’s stained wet dress. We hopped in a cab. “Jackson Heights, Queens,” I told the driver.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her, not knowing what else to say. I felt like shit. I had failed to protect her.

  “Hai,” she said softly, but I could see her eye was already blackening.

  I did not know what the fuck to do. Her dress was soaked in Coke, which looked like diarrhea on her expensive linen cloth. Her eye was black. I could also see how I had left a big purple passion mark on her neck. It looked like I had fucked her up, abused her, beat her with my fists.

  I had to either take her to the hospital, or take her to her uncle’s house. Either way I was fucked. Trained not to panic, I took deep breaths. Calmly, I told the driver, “Turn around.” Then I gave him my Brooklyn address.

  “For that address pay up front, twenty dollars plus whatever the meter says when we get there,” he said. I put my twenty-dollar bill in the metal cup attached to his shield that separated the driver from the passengers. He grabbed the money, made the turn, and sped off.

  As we pulled up on my block, I saw Conflict sitting in his parked car, Heavenly at his side. They were both stretching their necks like giraffes to see what I was doing. I held Akemi close and tight on an angle away from the two o
f them. I walked her past and up the walkway into the building.

  As I unlocked and entered the door to our apartment, I was already explaining myself to Umma. Naja was excited to see Akemi, but instantly her face went from joy to complete shock.

  In rapid Arabic I recounted the events for my mother.

  Akemi stood with her head down. Umma stepped in and put her hand below Akemi’s chin and pulled her face up. Umma’s eyes brought tears to Akemi’s eyes. Once she saw Umma’s expression, she knew exactly how bad it was. Umma took Akemi into her room. Naja followed them.

  I went for the telephone. It was still early, 10:10 P.M. I was hoping to speak to Akemi’s cousin to control the damage on the other side. I could easily see this thing blowing up into all-out war and complete mess and disaster.

  Luckily the cousin picked up. I started putting my quick plan in place.

  “I need your help. Don’t say my name please,” is what I asked her. The cousin was quiet on the phone for a few seconds.

  “Are you in a room alone or with others?” I asked her.

  “I’m alone now, why?” she asked.

  “Listen, Akemi is all right. She is with me. We went to a park and she got jumped by some girls.”

  “Oh no, why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, jealousy, robbery, something,” I said.

  “Where were you? How could you let this happen to her?”

  “I was with her. But, there were a lot of people there in a crowd and we got separated. I’m sorry. But she is at my house now and I am taking care of her,” I said.

  “She has to go home!” her cousin said, raising her voice.

  “I know, but she can’t leave just now. Her dress is ruined and my mother is helping her. I just need you to do us a big favor. Please call your uncle and tell him that Akemi is spending the night with you,” I asked her.

  “I can’t do that! If this is some kind of joke, or if you two are trying to spend the night together, don’t include me. Akemi will get into sooo much trouble. Put her on the phone please.” The cousin was tensed.