Angel's Revenge (25 page)

The women were dressed in black, and the Muslims blocked all entrances and exits to the cemetery. Rahman wasn’t taking any
chances with his enemies. He knew them all too well, because he had once been one of them and hadn’t hesitated blazing several
funerals in his past. So he prepared himself for all possibilities.

He stood stone still, watching as Salahudeen’s body was lowered into the ground. They were all well aware of the risks. They
all knew death was a strong possibility and sometimes a consequence of what they were doing. Still, losing Salahudeen was
painful. Rahman would miss his longtime friend.

Rahman felt someone looking at him. He glanced up and met Ayesha’s gaze. She had been watching him and knew he was hurt, but
she also knew he was angry. She could see him boiling inside. But somehow he found the strength to maintain his composure.
He flashed her a slight grin to let her know he was all right.

Hanif approached him. “
As-Salaamu Alaikum
,
Ock. How you?” Hanif inquired, giving him a hug.

“All praise is due Allah. To Allah we belong and to him we return.”

“True indeed,” Hanif agreed. “But are you okay?”

Rahman didn’t respond.

“Rahman, I need to know. We got a lot of brothers upset and ready to flip for the wrong reason. We can’t change from fighting
for Allah’s cause to fighting for revenge. That, my brother, is not Islam. Justice, yes. Revenge, no. The difference is intention.”

Rahman understood what Hanif was saying. He had already been to war within himself. He wanted to avenge Sal’s murder but knew
the fallacy of reacting on emotion. Anger clouds and love blinds, but a thinking man remains unswayed. He was prepared to
turn up the heat on the streets, not for revenge but for justice.

Before he responded, his cell phone rang. He excused himself from Hanif and answered his phone.

“Speak.”

“I’m sorry about Sal,” Angel said with true remorse.

“We ain’t got nothin’ to say to one another,” Rahman said and hung up on her.

A few seconds later his phone rang again.

“Roc, listen. I know you’re upset, but on my
word,
I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t know anything about it. That was all Roll,” Angel explained.

Truthfully, Angel wanted to solve the problem, not squash it like Roll had tried to do.

Rahman knew Angel was telling the truth, but there was no way back, no way to return.

“Roc… Roll is gone. He ain’t a problem for neither one of us. I took care of it. I just wanna make this right. I really do,”
Angel offered.

“There’s nothing…”

“The area we discussed, the one you wanted. It’s yours. Period. I’m in control now and it’s yours. You take it and you handle
your part of the city. I’ll handle mine.”

She was trying to compromise but that was a luxury he didn’t have. His cause wouldn’t allow him to. Outside, he remained stone
but inside, he was in turmoil. He had to say no, but to do so brought him one step closer to what he dreaded. An all-out war
with Angel.

“No deal. I want all the drugs out of Newark. Anything less, I won’t accept. You wanna pick up where Roll left off, then you
inherit his beef,” Rahman said calmly.

“I remember a time when your beef was mine, yo. Now the same vow means the exact opposite.”

Rahman closed his eyes tight against his emotions before speaking evenly and firmly. “The next time we meet, we meet as enemies.”

Silence filled the air for a moment.

“I… I know there’s no way we can avoid that now. Either you gonna kill me or I’ma kill you. But regardless, we both lose.
But know this, Roc. Whatever happens, I love you.”

His heart silently returned the sentiment.

“Salaam.”

“Siempre.”

Angel sat on the couch in Capo’s safe house, staring at the money counters. The machines counted endlessly until the rickety
sound became meaningless to her. With the money coming in since Roll’s death, they didn’t count it as often as they weighed
it. They had calculated that a million dollars in small bills filled a duffel bag made to hold two basketballs.

Capo sat across the room with headphones strapped to his head, feeding the machine then taping the stacks and depositing them
in bags.

Angel looked into his eighteen-year-old face. He was a brown-skinned Puerto Rican but his features were clearly Latino right
down to his curly brown hair and bushy eyebrows. She watched him, wondering how long he would live before the life took him
under.

Goldilocks came out of the kitchen with a glass of water for Angel. Her shapely figure swayed as she walked. She smiled when
she noticed Angel watching her.

“Here you go, boo,” Goldilocks said, handing her the glass, then curling up on the couch next to her.

Angel didn’t respond. She just sipped her water and wondered when Goldilocks’s love for her would make Angel kill her, too.
She wondered when love would cloud her vision, blind her judgment, and cause her to make emotional mistakes. In the high-stakes
game of street survival, Angel could not afford any mistakes.

Angel remembered a time when Dutch, Craze, Zoom, and Roc occupied a room like this. There used to be laughter and arguments,
love and trust, and nobody’s mind was exclusively on the money. But with Dutch, Craze, and Zoom gone and Roc her sworn enemy,
the taste of success curdled in her mouth like spoiled milk.

“Fuck!” she bellowed so loudly that Capo heard her over his music. She stood up angrily.

“Shut that fuckin’ machine off! It’s drivin’ me crazy!” she exclaimed, holding her hands over her ears.

Goldilocks stood and wiggled up to her. “Baby, you…” but Angel’s eyes silenced her.

Capo saw the abrupt change in her demeanor and quickly shut the machine off.

“What… what is we doin’? What are we here for?” Angel wanted to know, looking from face to face.

Capo was puzzled. “Countin’ paper like we always do?” he replied.

“No,” Angel retorted, Dutch’s dragon chain swinging with her movements. “What are we doing here? In this position, huh? Where
we at, who we are?”

Neither could understand what she meant so they didn’t say anything. Capo thought Angel was losing it, and Goldilocks tried
to soothe her.

“Baby, sit down and relax. You just have a lot on your mind. Let me give you a massage,” she offered, but Angel yanked away.

“Relax? Relax?! Bitch is you crazy? Don’t you know right now there’s a hungry muthafucka out there goin’ all out to come to
get what we got, and you want me to relax?!”

Angel appeared hysterical yet her mind was totally clear.

“When they come, we got ’nuff guns to go around!” Capo boasted.

Angel snatched the headphones off his head.

“You dumb fuck! You think we the only ones wit’ guns? Huh? Kazami had guns, and Dutch took him out. Dutch had guns, and the
mob pushed him out. Young World had guns, Roll slumped ’im. And we slumped Roll. Do you think that’s it? You think one day
you won’t get slumped?” she asked him, staring into his eyes until he looked away.

“Do you?
Digame!
” Angel screamed. “Do you think I could be slumped, Capo? Would you slump me, Capo?”

Capo knew Angel was crazy, but he had never seen her like this before. “Naw, yo. We family,
la familia
, remember?” he replied, shifting in his chair.

Angel laughed in his face. “You lyin’, Cap. You lyin’ and you know it.”

Capo hated to be called a liar, but he feared the consequences of being judged one even more.

“My word, Angel. Death before dishonor, you know that,” he vowed.

“That ain’t got shit to do wit’ what I asked,” Angel retorted. “Push come to shove, you better slump me because I won’t hesitate
to slump you,” she hissed, then looked at Goldilocks. “Or you.”

Goldilocks’s heart jumped. “I would never do anything to hurt you, lover, you know that.”

“Do I?” Angel asked, then again to Capo, “Do I?”

“Let’s hope it never comes to that,” Capo replied.

“Fuck hope! It better not come to that because I promise you all, I won’t lose,” Angel replied, sitting back down, laying
her head back and closing her eyes.

“Count the money.”

I
n the next days after Sal’s funeral, Rahman made it a point to spend more time at home with his family. He didn’t neglect
his responsibilities on the streets, but he kept his word to Ayesha. His home was like another world. He cut the grass, went
to his son’s Little League games, and cooked dinners with Ayesha. Despite the turmoil in the cities of New Jersey, home was
his sanctuary, his shelter in the storm.

Rahman sat on the sofa in the living room, watching Ali and Aminah play while Anisa slept peacefully in his lap. He looked
at his children and understood what it was all about. Everything he was trying to accomplish revolved around them.

Peace.

To be able to raise his children in a safe neighborhood and to send them to good schools was what it was all about. Creating
a legacy that could be passed down through the bloodline of establishing an economically, socially, and morally sound community
was what it was all about. Rahman didn’t want only for his children. He wanted for all ghetto children everywhere. Not everyone
was fortunate enough to make it out of the ghetto. People became doctors, lawyers, stars, and politicians, but instead of
staying in the community and using its resources, they took their talents and finances to the sanitized suburbs and left their
old neighborhoods to wallow in the mire.

If it wasn’t for the imminent threat to his family, Rahman would have moved them back to Newark. But he was street enemy number
one and the risk was too great.

He prayed he would see the day when Newark would be cleaned up and safe, a place where old people didn’t have to worry about
being robbed or assaulted and where women didn’t have to exploit themselves to get by. His mission was to change things for
the better, and he was willing to kill and die to make it happen.

“Abu, are you goin’ back to jail?” Ali asked as he looked up into his father’s face with the questioning eyes of a puppy.

Ali’s question took Rahman by surprise. But before he could respond, Aminah sucked her teeth and said, “You stupid boy. Abu
ain’t leavin’, are you Abu?”

“Don’t call your brother stupid, Minah,” he gently scolded. Then he turned to his son, “What made you say that, Ali?”

Ali shrugged his shoulders, afraid that he had said the wrong thing.

“Ali, are you lying to me? You do know what made you ask.”

He hesitated for a second before replying. “Mommy. I heard her praying to Allah that you don’t go back to jail.”

Rahman didn’t know what to say or how to respond. Of course going back to prison had crossed his mind. Every time he grabbed
his guns, he took his chances with the law. He had killed in spite of the cause he claimed, and in court it would be called
one thing… murder. The judgment would be life without parole, or worse, the death penalty.

“Ali, do you know how much I love you and Mommy and your sisters?”

“A lot?” Ali smiled.

Rahman smiled back. “A whole lot. With all my heart. I’ll do anything to protect you. I’d die for you. And yes, I’d even go
back to prison.”

“But I don’t want you to die, Abu! And I don’t want you to go to prison,” Ali begged. “Allah will protect us, right?”

How do you explain to a child that sometimes in life people have to die to be free, that sacrifices must be made, and sometimes
that means giving up everything?

Rahman picked Ali up off the floor and put him on the couch beside him.

“I don’t want to die either, Ali, and I don’t want to go to prison, but… what if somebody tried to hurt us? What would you
do?”

“Fight,” Ali barked, balling up his little fists.

“Even if you got hurt, too?” Rahman asked.

Ali nodded vigorously.

“I’ma fight, too, Abu,” Aminah added, swinging at an imaginary opponent, making Rahman chuckle.

“I know you would, baby girl. But sometimes when we fight, we don’t always win, do we? But does that mean we stop fightin’?”

“No,” Ali and Aminah said in unison.

“That’s right. We keep fightin’. You can never give up.” Rahman paused to consider the consequences of losing. “I have to
keep fighting. You understand?”

They both nodded their little heads.

“But you won’t lose, will you Abu?” Ali asked, looking up to his superhero, the master of his universe.

Rahman smiled, but inside, he trembled.

“Insha Allah. I won’t.”

While Rahman savored his time at home, the summer blazed in the inner city for more than the obvious reasons. A sweltering
heat wave had blanketed Jersey along with a heat wave of gunplay.

Bodies piled up on all sides, both Muslims and gangstas. From Newark to Atlantic City, niggas died or came up missing as the
two opposing forces waged war for control of the streets. Bombs were planted and people were kidnapped in retribution. The
Muslims fought for peace in the hood, and the gangstas fought for a piece of the hood. The police had their hands full but
understood very little of the underlying causes. They could clearly see, however, the effects of the war being waged.

The Muslims were determined to stop the flow of drug money, so Angel decided to stop the flow of their money as well.
They want to fuck with my paper, let’s see how they like it when I fuck with theirs.

Angel and her gang broke up vendors and pushed them off their street corners, making it just as hard to sell oils as it was
to sell drugs.

Both sides took losses. It came down to who would break first. Angel was relentless and Rahman was resistant, both keeping
it hot but avoiding the obvious target.

Each other.

“Ock, if you kill the head, the body will die,” Hanif tried to tell Rahman one Friday after Jum’ah prayer service. They were
standing outside the masjid on Branford Place. “If anybody knows how to hit her, it’s you,” Hanif concluded.

Rahman had been thinking the same thing, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy. Angel had the same thoroughbred instincts he did.
Too many Muslims had been hurt and killed, so the time had come to strike at the top. With Angel out of the way, Rahman knew
he could squash the petty wannabe gangstas like roaches.