Midnight and the Meaning of Love

  “Your language sounds really nice. What is it?” the store attendant asked.

  “Arabic,” I answered.

  “Wow, really? I would never have guessed,” she said, seeming surprised and a little unsure.

  I purchased the suit to please Umma, period. I was not interested in impressing Naoko Nakamura.

  In the shoe store next door, the shoes designed by Bruno Mugliani best complemented my foot and the Armani suit. For a few hundred dollars they became mine. I was watching my money pile closely. I didn’t want to see my father’s diamond disappear without my holding something of true and great value in my hands in exchange. For me this would not be this suit or these shoes. It would only be my wife.

  Umma read my thoughts, it seemed. She opened her leather purse and came out with ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “The suit is my gift to you. Put this away with the rest of your money.” I accepted her sincerity and thought to myself, This is how it is between my mother and I. We are both giving each other everything that we have to give so our blessings in life keep going back and forth between us. Afterward, I led her into the hunter’s and wilderness store and Paragon’s for the rugged wear that I preferred to rock.

  We shared a meal at a restaurant that Umma selected because of its name, the Tamarind. Umma loved the sweet taste of this tropical fruit and even used it in her cooking from time to time. When she saw the unshelled tamarind dangling in the restaurant window, she nudged me and we stepped inside. It was an elegant place, each dining area secluded by a beautiful curtain. The cuisine was Indian but the decor was familiar to us, the Sudanese.

  Once seated, Umma closed the curtain and relaxed her thobe covering. She and I ate comfortably yet lightly. We shared palak paneer and dahl tadka. Instead of any of the wonderful breads that come from India, we had vegetable samosa. It’s something like a beef patty, but instead of beef, it’s seasoned vegetables and potatoes stuffed and tucked in a fried triangular bread. Soon after the meal, an Indian approached, smiling ear to ear. His name plate had only one word on it, one really long name with eighteen letters. He drew back the curtain and held it tightly in his left hand. Immediately he introduced himself as the manager and offered two complimentary dishes of coconut ice cream. “A gift for your bride,” he said, staring at Umma.

  “She is my mother,” I corrected him.

  “Oh, Mother India!” he exclaimed happily.

  “No,” I said seriously, while giving him the stare of a polite warning.

  He then shifted his focus onto me asking, “Oh, but she is not from India? She is wearing henna. Is she Arab, then?”

  “No,” I said feeling impatient.

  “What, then?”

  “African,” I answered in an even tone.

  “African?” he repeated, looking puzzled. I thanked him for his creams and told him, to please release the curtain. I was used to Umma drawing attention. Like the sun, even when fully covered, she was still radiating.

  “Please come again.” The manager extended his business card to me as we were preparing to leave.

  I accepted it politely, then grabbed Umma’s hand and carried our shopping bags in the other. We taxied directly back to Brooklyn for a few dollars over the normal price.

  Chapter 13

  WEDDING GIFTS

  I picked up my heat and headed to East New York to meet Ameer. I wasn’t expecting any beef, but I wasn’t sleeping either.

  Ameer was seated at the top of the bench in front of his building, a female between his legs below, his backpack still on his back when I rolled up.

  “You made it.” He smiled, still joking like I should be shook in his hood.

  “Dana, this is my man, Midnight,” Ameer introduced some girl.

  “What’s up?” she asked softly. I didn’t answer back.

  “C’mon, let’s move,” I told Ameer. He caught that I wanted him to lose the girl. We both knew that he never acted right when females was in the cipher. He got up and we headed into his building. When he turned the key in the lock, he pushed the door open and we stepped inside. I followed him into the living room.

  “You could chill right here.” He left. In the hallway he ran into his moms.

  “Why you not at work?” he asked her, sounding surprised.

  “I left early. I had a headache,” she told him, sounding as if she could still feel the pain.

  “That’s ’cause you and Pops stayed up too late last night. I heard y’all in there arguing.”

  “We wasn’t arguing. We were discussing,” she corrected him. “Who’s in the living room?”

  “Go and see for yourself,” Ameer told her. “It’s someone you like.”

  Ameer’s mom appeared. Before I could look up to see her face, I saw her heeled house shoes and bare legs. I stopped at her hips and shifted my gaze away from her.

  “Still playing shy, hmm?” she said.

  “How you doing, Mrs. Nickerson,” I answered without looking.

  “You supposed to look at a lady when you’re talking to her,” she teased boldly. “Can I get you something to drink?” She asked.

  “No, thank you,” I answered, still not looking at her.

  “Come on back here or she gonna keep messing with you,” Ameer called from the back room. I got up and walked around his moms.

  “What time is your practice?” he asked.

  “Six o’clock for the black team. How bout y’all?”

  “The red team, um, we meet at seven. I hope the coach shows up though. Last time he was talking about he got held up by his probation officer.” He laughed. “But we doing good. We ain’t dropped a game yet,” Ameer said.

  “How? We beat y’all,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, but that didn’t count remember? Just a scrimmage. For all the official games, we ain’t been beat.” He smiled.

  “How long y’all think you could keep that up? You gonna have to face us in an official game eventually,” I told him.

  “Yeah, not this week but next week, Saturday. I got the schedule right over there,” he said, pointing to his dresser. “The red team is ready for y’all, no problem.” He smiled confidently.

  I was just about to start talking shit, a competitive thing me and this cat, who is my best friend, had going on for about seven years now. We only rivaled each other when we were alone. When we were out there on those streets, we stuck together—me, Ameer, and Chris. I realized suddenly that there was a chance that I might miss the game next Saturday. What if I’m still in Japan? I thought to myself. So I cut myself short and just let Ameer brag alone.

  “So you got my wedding gift or an excuse?” I asked him, joking with a serious face.

  “I got it. Look, it took Chris and me a long time to figure out what to buy you. We fucked up our whole Saturday last week try’na get it right,” he said, as I pictured them shopping for my gift on the same day that my wife disappeared.

  “Even my pops threw something in a box for you.”

  “Word” was all I said, surprised and feeling moved about my two best friends.

  “What you thought, we ain’t got love for you?” Ameer asked.

  Those words hit me hard. I been so long in America that I wasn’t used to any male saying something with feeling toward another male and meaning it, no bullshit, no perversion.

  “Nah, nah, not like that,” I said, at a loss for words.

  “I’ll go get it,” he said, and went into his closet and pulled down a big box.

  “Hold up, let me get Chris on the line.” He pushed the speakerphone button and I could hear Chris’s phone ringing.

  “Hello,” Chris answered.

  “Chris, what up, nigga?” Ameer said.

  “Homework and homework and homework and punishment. What did you think was up? And, brother, why do I gotta be called ‘nigga’?” Chris asked.

  We all laughed.

  “Oh, what’s up, brother?” Chris asked, realizing I was in on the convo.

  “All good,” I said.
r />   “Did you open the joints yet?” Chris asked.

  “No, he ’bout to open ’em now. I knew you wanted to be in on it, so here it go,” Ameer said, same as if Chris was sitting right here in the room with us.

  Ameer threw a package at me. I caught it. “Open it,” he ordered. I took a look at it. It was wrapped in brown paper bag. There’s a big difference between when a man wraps a gift than when a woman wraps it. I thought to myself. When I saw the Andis brand name, the same brand that my barber uses, I said, “Clippers.” I thought it was a real live gift. I smiled.

  The small card taped on the clipper box had only two words written on the outside, “Stay sharp!” When I opened it, I laughed.

  “Condoms, make sure you use ’em.” Ameer laughed, then Chris was laughing also. I slid ’em into my front right-hand pocket and didn’t say nothing else on the topic. Ameer tossed the second package at me. I suspected it was some type of gag. The box was wrapped in aluminum foil. When I took the wrapping off, I didn’t know what it was. I laid it on the bed and sat there looking at it.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s a papoose!” Chris shouted over the speakerphone.

  “A what?” I asked again.

  “It’s for your shorty. We already know you gonna fuck up at least once and not use the condoms. So you put your son in there and use it to carry him on your back,” Chris explained.

  “We were gonna buy you a car seat for the baby. But then we realized you didn’t have no car!” Ameer laughed.

  “No car!” Chris shouted. “He ain’t even got a driver’s license!”

  Embarrassed by these two fools, I ran my hand over my Caesar cut, a habit. I saw now that this wasn’t just gonna be a few gifts but a bunch of jokes that led into a full-out ranking session. So I leaned back to get my head in the right frame of mind to fire back on these boys.

  There was a moment of silence between the three of us, for no particular reason. Then Chris said, “Give him the real gift.” Instead of throwing something at me, Ameer walked it over and placed it in my hand. It was kind of heavy and covered in white gift wrapping paper with gold strips and a slim gold ribbon. I could tell that they paid an extra two dollars to have the female at the store register gift wrap it right. I could see it was a serious gift. I unwrapped it, held it up, and looked at the box, then opened it. Inside was a brand-new video camera secured in styrofoam along with the battery and all of the accessories.

  “Yo, this is crazy. It’s nice,” I said, meaning it. “It’s real nice.” I was genuinely shocked.

  “Yeah, we figured since you got so much going on in your life, you might as well make a motherfucking movie! That’s the only way the rest of us gonna be able to know what’s really happening with you, ninja!” Ameer said.

  “No, seriously, though. We thought you did something strange but good, getting married and all. We couldn’t do nothing like that. Your wife, she’s really pretty and different and me and Ameer spoke on it for a couple of hours about how we admire you and shit for the way you handle yourself,” Chris said, bringing a true feeling to all of us without even being in the room.

  “Man, what can I say? Thank you, both of y’all. I’m not sure how to use this thing,” I said, flipping the heavy box around, surveying it. “But I’m sure I can figure it out.”

  “Well, if you need some practice, you can come shoot me on Friday night when I’m rocking the green team,” Ameer joked and jumped up, faking a move.

  “On Friday night the only thing I’ll be shooting is the rock. I got a game, black versus blue on our home court,” I told ’em.

  “Alright, I’m out. You two showing off. I got to put my head back in these books or else.” Chris laughed. “I’ll catch up with y’all at the dojo tomorrow night.” He hung up and the loud dial tone sounded.

  “Here, let me get you a bag,” Ameer said, leaving the room.

  I sat there with my head down, thinking whether or not I should say something to them about my trip to Japan instead of just dropping out of sight for a week or so. Would I lose or risk anything by opening up and filling these cats in? The gifts they gave me were completely unexpected. They made me feel even more at ease, not because of what they were, but because of the intent behind them.

  Ameer returned and handed me an ugly brown paper bag. “Here, throw it in here. Disguise it. It’s better like that” was all he said.

  “I gotta make a run,” I announced, lifting my head and straightening my back.

  “To where?” he asked.

  “Japan,” I answered. He looked at me real serious, paused for nine seconds, and then busted out laughing. “You see, this is what me and Chris be talking about. You just now made it sound like you was going to the corner store. Meanwhile, you going to Japan?” he asked, seeming amazed. Then we both heard the metal knocker banging on his front door.

  “Hold up,” he said. But as soon as he moved to step out of the room, his moms darted out of her room first and dashed to answer the door. I could tell they were both expecting something unexpected, because instead of treating it casually, Ameer stood watching the door from the back hallway. I was watching the door too, from behind him.

  “Uh-uh, bitch. I know you didn’t have the nerve to knock on my door,” I could hear his moms saying. She was talking, not screaming. Yet her words were loud and clear and forceful. Ameer shifted and was now blocking most of my view. As soon as his mother stepped into the hallway outside her apartment door, I stood up and followed him.

  “You think I’m stupid? You think you can come to my apartment looking for my husband?” I heard her say, her anger rising with her volume. Ameer snatched open the front door. His presence had no affect on his moms. His mother shoved the girl up against the neighbor’s door, which was directly across the hall. The girl crashed against it. “I’ll beat your motherfucking ass!” Ameer’s mom said, grabbing the girl’s clothes and keeping her from falling to the floor. The girl tried to push back, but she was slow and got beat down.

  “Cool out, ma! Come off her,” Ameer ordered. But instead of stopping, his mom now held the girl by her hair, yanking her head left and right. The girl started swinging her hands, more slapping than punching, trying to get Ameer’s mom off of her.

  The neighbor must have heard the bumping against his door and opened it. Both Ameer’s mom and the girl fell into the entrance of the neighbor’s apartment. Ameer’s mom was on top, getting the best of the girl. The neighbor who opened his door jumped back. We were three men watching a girl get rocked by Ameer’s mother and not one of us making a move. Then Ameer stepped up and pulled his mother off of the girl.

  “Don’t pull me. Pull that bitch,” his mother scolded him fiercely.

  “Ma, stop. Stop now. What you doing that for? She just came up here to check me, that’s all.”

  “Check you? She came up here looking for your father, that little sneaky bitch.”

  “Ma, she came to check me. I saw her outside when I came home from school. I told her to come up here, for real,” Ameer said, trying to convince his mom as the girl pulled herself up and attempted to straighten her clothes. A short pile of her hair was lying on the hallway floor.

  “C’mon, ma,” Ameer said, calming his mother in an effort to ease her back inside, where I stood, by using his body to lean on her. When she was all the way in, he stepped outside of the apartment to deal with the girl, closing the front door and leaving both me and his mother on the other side. His mom’s breasts heaved in and out as she tried to normalize her breathing. She placed one hand on her breast and held the other in the air, gesturing and saying to me, “I’m sorry you had to see that.” Then she began tugging at her camisole top, smoothing it out for no real reason. It was real revealing and there was no extra material there for her to use to cover anything up. She was bare-legged with short shorts on and no high-heeled slippers this time. She brushed up against me to pass me by. But then the front door opened again and she turned and looked back. It was
Ameer’s father standing there. She turned all the way around saying nothing and walked toward her husband. But she didn’t stop where he stood. She grabbed her front door open. Ameer was still standing there talking to the girl, calming her down.

  “She’s here to see you, right?” Ameer’s mom asked Ameer forcefully.

  “Yeah, ma. I already told you that,” Ameer said.

  “Then bring that bitch inside,” Ameer’s mom demanded.

  “That’s alright, I’m good right here,” the girl finally spoke.

  “Bitch, you had the balls to knock, right? Ameer, bring her in here,” the mother demanded again.

  Ameer grabbed the girl’s hand and walked her into the apartment, past his mother and father and me, and down the hallway into his bedroom.

  “I heard you got married,” Ameer’s father said to me matter-offactly, ignoring the heated scenario.

  “I did” was all I answered back, mostly stunned at the situation. “Thank you for the clippers,” I told him, trying to break up the tension.

  His wife’s glare was on her husband only. She ignited the hallway with her fury. Soon there was very little oxygen to breathe. She looked like she was in killer mode, although she was still silent.

  “I’ll go say peace to Ameer. I gotta get over to basketball practice. I’m running late,” I said, excusing myself and heading back into Ameer’s room, where the door was now closed. I knocked once and pushed it open.

  “I’m out,” I said, seeing the girl seated on his bed, her legs drawn in, her arms resting on her own knees. She was a pretty, smooth-skin, black girl with white teeth and a slim, curvaceous body. Her eyes didn’t look innocent to me. She didn’t even look like a victim of a brief but wild ass whipping. There was no fear in her eyes, remorse, or regret. Instead, she looked real determined about something. Even with her hair messed up, I could see why Ameer might have been attracted to her.

  Ameer handed me the brown paper bag with my gifts. I closed his room door and left. I didn’t see his parents anymore. Their bedroom door was closed now. I went back and opened Ameer’s door one more time. “Come lock your front door. I’m leaving. There’s nobody out here,” I told him. He followed me, saying nothing. Their front door shut, and I heard the lock click.