“What if it breaks?” he asked, trying to cover all of the angles.
“My machines are all brand-new, come with a warranty and a repair kit and instruction manual. Anyone can follow the instructions. It’s user-friendly machinery.”
“And what’s the cut on the profits?”
“The cut?” I repeated. “Once you buy it, it’s yours. You keep one hundred percent of the profit. In certain cases, where I own the machine and you own the establishment, you can give me a space in your place and we can agree to what percentage we want to share on profits, or the establishment can rent me the space at a small flat fee. I pay the rental fee and keep all of the profits.”
“And when the machine is sold out, who’s going to restock it?” he asked. I smiled.
“If you have purchased it, you restock it,” I said. He leaned forward.
“Where are you getting these machines from?” he asked me, sounding more like an investigator than a potential customer.
“Which businessman reveals the details of his supplier?” I asked him swiftly. He flashed a rare smile.
“You said you have paperwork for these machines, son, am I correct?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Then I can just look at the paperwork and it should state clearly where the machine is coming from and how I go about securing my warranty,” he asked like he had triumphantly finally cornered me into confessing some illegitimate or illegal affair.
“Yes, but if you are looking at the paperwork and at your warranty, it would mean that you had already purchased and ordered the machine from me. You would be my customer. So of course at that point, I would share all of my information with you,” I said.
“How much per unit?” he asked me.
“Depends on what you order after reviewing the photos of the machinery. It also depends on which size and type of machine you chose, and what it dispenses. Could be soda, waters, chips, books, candies, hygiene products, toys, or even shoes.”
“Good idea, son,” he said, turning suddenly positive. “You’re not the first one to have this idea though. I looked into it before. After some research, it seemed like a real rip-off. They wanted to charge me big money up front to buy the machine. Then I would place the machine in my church or business establishment. Then they said for me not to touch the machine. Their company had men who restock, men who repair, et cetera. Then they offered me ten percent of the profit. I told those con artists to stay clear of me before I report them to the Better Business Bureau. How do I pay for something, put it in my place of business, can’t touch it, and they come into my place and take all of the money out the machine and give me a dog’s share?”
“Was it an American vending company?” I asked.
“Of course! I buy American. I drive American cars. I support American workers. I am an American.”
“Well, Reverend Broadman, I’ll keep it one hundred with you. My machines are from overseas. My sales are ‘clean sales.’ Once money changes hands, it’s yours. If you see me on your property after I’ve sold you a machine, I’m trespassing,” I said. “This way we give you total control, one hundred percent profit, which is what you paid for.”
“How did you come up with this idea, young man?” he asked, reminding me that he and I are not peers, and that I am only a teenager.
“I got the idea while traveling in Asia.” I kept it brief.
“Oh yes, son, Chris told me that you were married to an Asian girl. I thought he was joking his old man. Typically a fella from your generation calls his girlfriend his wife,” he said, chuckling.
“I am married. But I don’t discuss my wives the way I discuss my business,” I said. He looked at me, his elbows on his desktop now and his fingers interlocked in front of his face. “No disrespect, Reverend Broadman,” I said, because it felt like I needed to say it just to keep things respectful and even. He stood up and left.
Returning with Chris close behind him, he cleared the way for his son to repay me. Chris counted it out. All of his bills were twenties and fifties.
“Thanks, man,” I said. With the reverend hovering over him and me, I offered, “Would you like a receipt?”
“Son,” the reverend said.
Chris answered him. “Yes?”
“Not you,” the reverend scolded his son. “You are a debtor. Your friend is an earner, an asset. Your friend understands that his life is a corporation and he is making the best use of his time on Earth.” Then he turned towards me.
“I don’t know what you two are going to make out of horseback riding. When Chris first mentioned it, I thought it was a fine idea because he said ‘one free lesson.’ I agreed to it. After listening to you speak, son,” he said to me, “I can see you have a lot of unique ideas, the art of influence, and great salesman skills. You’d fit right into the Baptist tradition. Come by tomorrow with your vending folder—you might have made a new customer out of me. But, I’ll believe it when I see it. That’s the difference between business and faith.” He chuckled.
Outside on the step in front of Chris’s brownstone, I told Chris, “I gotta get moving.”
“About Lila,” he said.
“I’m good. I’m married. I’m not cock-blocking,” I said, putting my disclaimer on it.
“I know, I wasn’t speaking on that,” Chris said, and he seemed unusually serious. “She’s a white girl. What do you think about that?”
“Women are women,” I said, and I meant it.
“My mother would kill me,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, and I didn’t know the answer.
“Our family is on display. Everything the reverend’s children do is a reflection on Christianity. That’s how we are raised,” he said.
“Does Christianity say that you can’t marry a white girl?”
“Nah.” He broke his solemn mood and laughed. “Jesus does not say so, but my mother says so, and up until now, I have not had no type of beef with Moms. We good,” Chris said, folding his arms in front of himself.
“Do you plan to marry Lila?” I asked him.
“No, but I’d like to have the option to marry whichever girl I choose,” he said.
“What does your father say?” I asked.
“He would offer me a negotiation and some type of compromise.”
“What kind of compromise?” I asked.
“He would say I could date Lila, but not marry her.”
“How you gonna do that?” I asked. “You think you could be riding around with that young lady and not go in her?”
“Yeah I know, that horseback riding is some real sexual shit, isn’t it? She was driving me crazy on that horse.” He laughed, reflecting.
“I know. I watched you flip on me, your friend of seven years, after seeing her for seven minutes,” I joked him.
“Nah, I just know how you be hemming everything up in every situation you get into. I’m not as fast as you, so I had to make it clear that I had dibs on that.” He laughed again, but his laughter shifted back into thought. “I could use a condom,” he said suddenly. “Long as I don’t get her pregnant, which would kill my moms, I’m good.”
“So with Christians, you can go into the women without marriage?” I asked.
“You’re not supposed to, but everyone does. It’s not the fucking that upsets the church. It’s the getting girls pregnant. That’s a huge mistake, a total fuck-up,” he said, and his words silenced me. As a Muslim, I could not understand him right then. I couldn’t understand his faith. I couldn’t understand parents that say yes to fucking and no to young marriage, or marriage based on race, or the worst, parents who say yes to fucking and no to babies, new life.
“I know you think that’s crazy, right?” he asked, reading my mind or facial expression or something. I didn’t answer him right away. I wanted to say true words that he could think about and consider and even do. I was pushing around the “street version” of my explanation, and the faith version of my explanation.
“I
think men be thinking that taking a woman as a wife is taking a loss. But if a good man links with a good woman and they marry, he will see, feel, and be able to count up the benefits. For example, your father seemed surprised that a young man could build a business. I don’t have to chase pussy, because I have a wife. Imagine how much time and aggravation that cuts out of my schedule. It leaves me with plenty of time to build my business.”
“Yeah, but if you marry her, you’re stuck with her. What if you change your mind or just get tired of her?”
“If you look at your wife as just pussy, then you went about it in a wrong way,” I told him. “If you choose a good woman and you genuinely like her, like her thoughts and her jokes, and her beliefs and her conversation and expressions, and her talents and feelings, you develop a real love for her. You’ll respect her and the scary thing is, once you have her, you need her. Then the love grows.”
“I don’t know,” Chris said. “My mind tends to convert everything into math. Guess I got that from my father. If I get married at fifteen, by the time I’m twenty-five, I’ll have been married for a whole decade! I might be a whole different dude by the time I hit twenty-five. Then I might look at my wife as an obstacle that I need to move out of my way.”
“If you get married, nine months later, you’ll become a father,” I said, and paused and looked him in the eye. “So yeah, you will be a whole different dude. You’ll be one of those ‘responsible people’ who your father talks about. On the other hand, you’ll be so amazed at how loving your wife brought forth your son, and how your son looks like you and becomes your new challenge. That’s where you get to prove what kind of man you are, by how you raise your son. Just think, you’ll be in your father’s position. Your son will be in the position that you are accustomed to right now.”
“That’s deep,” Chris said, thinking. “I can’t imagine being in my father’s position. That’s crazy. He controls everything: my mom, our house, my sister and brother, our family business, our place of worship, my studies, my money, everything, down to the last detail.”
“And he will continue to control it for as long as you delay your manhood,” I said.
“That’s a fucked-up comment. What do you mean, ‘delay my manhood.’ I’m a man,” Chris said forcefully.
“It doesn’t matter what you say. It only matters what you do when it comes to manhood. As long as you are a dependent, you will be considered a boy without options. You will be ruled and loved, but not respected. Our parents respect us when we begin to put into action all of the lessons they took the time to teach us, and when what we put into action brings about real results,” I said.
“Whoa! Hold up, I need to write that down,” Chris said, shifting the mood into playful, something he definitely had a talent to do even when me and Ameer get into our disagreements.
“I didn’t plan to get married,” I told Chris as soon as the thought dropped into my mind. “I was about training my body for war, fighting, and working and building my mother’s business. But then a diamond dropped down from the sky, right at my feet. As a man, and for any man, if you saw a diamond in the soil or on the curb or at your feet, could you just leave it alone, walk away and forget about it? Nah, instinctively you are going to pick it up, look around and see if anyone else saw you pick it up, or if it was someone else’s diamond. Soon as you confirm that no one else saw, and that there was no previous owner, and that the diamond is just something extremely valuable and natural that the Maker made, and that it was your diamond, delivered by destiny, you’re gonna pocket it, keep it, cherish it, protect it, love it.”
“Nice metaphor,” Chris said. “But what if five years down the line you find a second or third diamond?” He seemed to be preoccupied with the idea that one woman could not satisfy a man.
“As a Christian, that’s all you get is one diamond. A Muslim man can have up to four, without sin,” I said, feeling good about Islam and the way it flows smoothly with the natural science of man. Chris laughed.
“Damn, man, that’s harsh. That might be the reason Christian men are all afraid to marry. Just one wife for life. Do you plan to have four wives at one time?” he asked me.
“I already told you, I didn’t plan to have the first one. But the diamond was right there at my feet. I don’t plan on leaving any diamonds behind that Allah allows me.”
“Word up,” Chris said. “Thanks, brother. That’s a whole lot to think about.”
“See you in morning at the wall.” I bounced.
19. HUSTLER’S LEAGUE • A Reflection
“You was MIA,” Machete said. “Where’d you bury the bodies?” he joked without a trace of laughter. I didn’t laugh, either.
“I know you didn’t show up empty-handed. You must got like a nickel bag for each of us. Some’um to hand off in exchange for being gone,” a dude named Dolo said. He wasn’t usually a starter. He wouldn’t usually be saying nothing. Since I had been in Asia, he must’ve got some burn.
“We could do it favela style like back home. Give him forty licks for the forty days he been out. No face, no fight back, just body shots. Just take it, ’cause you owe us,” Braz, the black-skinned Brazilian, said.
“Could be forty days was how long it took his people to get up the bail money. I been there before,” Jaguar said.
“Four players times forty licks no fight back? That’s 160 shots to the body. He’ll be fucked up for the playoffs,” Panama Black, the team captain, said.
“And what? We been winning without him,” Big Mike, who played the center position, said, and everyone fell quiet.
“Winning by one point, two points, or one three-pointer or one layup. We bring him back to our team and we can sweep the playoffs,” Panama strategized.
“True, but he gotta give up something,” Machete said. “We want to smash the opposition like captain said, but at the same time, we each going for delf, setting up to win that twenty-five-thousand MVP cheddar. Only one of us can snatch that,” Machete said, serious grilled, and everyone began looking around at one another like individuals instead of teammates.
“I’ll be mad as a motherfucker if this cat makes a crazy comeback and grabs MVP. Word up, he won’t make it home safe with that stack in his backpack,” Big Mike said it and he meant it, but everybody laughed some about it.
“I say we keep ’em,” Jaguar said. It’s to our own benefit. And if our team wins, the starting five each pulls down ten thousand. That ain’t the same as twenty-five thousand, but that ain’t no joke, either. I didn’t forget. Last game this man played, he fed the whole team, never hogged the ball, set each of us with some clever pics, good shots, and he rebounds. He only hit one shot in the whole game, but it was the shot that won it for us.”
“But check, this cat ain’t saying nothing,” Dolo said. Then gave me the deadpan stare as I sat silently on my ball while they stood in a half huddle, hashing it out.
Coach Vega was leaning on the closed-up bleachers. He had given the black team of the junior division of the Hustler’s League half an hour to debate, then make a decision whether Midnight is on or off the team. Clever, ’cause he and I both knew that Santiaga had already made that call and that decision. Business-wise that was all that mattered. Team-wise, I respected how Vega played it. He set the team up to think and believe that they had final say. That way bringing me back on wouldn’t cause any player to resent him. Vega always knew how to keep himself looking good. It was also the only way for him as coach to protect the team spirit that moved, and was the key to, the unbreakable momentum of the undefeated squad.
All eyes were on me. I could feel that my silence was causing tension to spread out.
“I agree with my man Machete, and with Big Mike,” I said calmly. “I been gone too long to be a real contender for the MVP twenty-five stacks. So, I’ll give that up. But Big Mike, if you win that and see me in the ski mask, don’t get tight. Remember that was your idea,” I added, and everyone laughed except him. “Braz, I’m moved, man.
You was counting the days I was gone like one of my women. Thanks for missing me so much. I missed you too, man.” And all cracked up, even Braz and Big Mike, and the tension was wiped out at least for now.
Dolo tried to turn it around. After the laughter, he said to Braz, “I thought y’all Brazilian boys was real men. What was you talking about, licks and body shots?”
“It’s licks and body shots if we in the same gang. It’s the Uzi if we not. Fall back,” he warned Dolo.
“Time’s up,” Vega said, clapping his hands a few times. “What’s the word?” he asked the team.
“We take him back. It costed him twenty-five thousand though. That is, if he could have won MVP,” Panama Black said.
“So we all in agreement?” Vega pushed it, underlining that it was the whole team’s choice.
Machete extended me his hand. I took it and stood. The team clapped, and Vega was clapping too. Only Dolo wasn’t. He knew he just got knocked out of the starting position. In thirty minutes, he lost ten thousand dollars. Nobody spoke on it, but I pay attention. Dude had panic and fury in his eyes.
“That’s some bullshit!” he hollered. “How we know if he even still got it? Dude could be rusty with the rock. Dude could be doo-doo,” he said. The whole team was jeering.
“Hold up! We ain’t gonna fall apart over this. Dolo held it down for a month,” Panama shouted.
“But we already made the decision,” Jaguar said.
“Take your Wiz gift certificate. Sit on the bench. Shut your mouth and be satisfied that we let you stand in, even though your game was never that nice,” Braz said. The gym got quiet. Dolo was sizing up the situation. I could see that he knew he was outvoted, outmaneuvered, and outnumbered. Yet I knew this kid was gonna run out and run back in with either his heat or his street crew or both. I didn’t feel to kill the kid. I even understood his point, but his style was crooked, unpolished, and wouldn’t win him no friends or upgrades on the black team.