Midnight (48 page)

“How long will it take for you to get the inspections?” I asked.

“Fuck inspections, lawyers and all those other God damned thieves!” The man had an outburst. “Why should we
give them a piece of our money? My son’s an attorney, the lying bastard! I’m an old-timer. If you want to buy this house, then buy it. If something is broke when you move in, fix it. I’m a straight shooter. I’m asking for $80,000, not a penny less, not a penny more.”

Wondering if this guy was legit or some kind of senile lunatic, I asked some follow-up questions. “You have the deed, right?”

“Of course!” he said. “No deed, no sale. When I bought this house, they gave me a deed. You buy this house, I give you the deed, plain and simple.”

I stood thinking. “How fast can you get the money?” he asked again.

“I’ll have to let my family see the place first,” I told him.

“Your mother, right? It’s always the mother!” he said.

I smiled. “Yes, it is always the mother. No doubt,” I agreed. “We can come by on Saturday around 5:00
P.M.
,” I said. “Is that good for you?”

“Listen, whoever gets here with the money first, gets the house first. I don’t care if you carry it in here in a plastic bag. Money is money. Coins are good too. My wife loves the casino,” he said. “As long as it adds up to $80,000.”

“Okay, I hear you,” I said.

Despite the old guy being a bit unstable, I left the house with a good feeling. If I could get a comfortable expression on Umma’s face, we could buy it. Although, in the back of my mind, I was thinking how once we paid out the eighty grand plus whatever side expenses it involved, we would not have one penny savings left in our Umma Designs account. I would only have my small savings and Umma’s jewelry as collateral or emergency fund. I also thought about the “rent to buy option.” Yet I knew this wasn’t available with this guy who obviously had a little bit of time left and big plans for the money from the sale of his little outdated home.

The MVP prize money at the Youth League was looking more and more appealing and important to me.

“It needs work,” I told Umma. “But, it’s close enough to Naja’s school. We wouldn’t lose any of our customers, and I walked around the neighborhood. It’s mostly older Jewish people, mostly quiet. The backyard is all weeds, but once you put your touch to it, everything will blossom. I know it.”

“And what about Akemi? Will she like it?” Umma asked.

“Akemi likes me. I guess that’s good enough,” I said, smiling.

“Ooh,” Umma said. “You must be right.” She was smiling.

“You are both artists. Eventually the house will become too small to be home to two tremendous talents. But for now, we can make it work,” I told Umma.

We agreed on Saturday at 4:30
P.M.
for a visit. I imagined that no one else would rush there with eighty grand stuffed inside a Hefty for the old man.

Friday I felt powerful, well rested, and optimistic. I raised up early, showered, and then placed my head to the floor in prayer.

When I walked past Akemi’s family store, the metal gate was only halfway up.

All day long working at Cho’s, I looked out for Akemi. By noon Cho’s store was crowded with customers. From noon to two, I watched for her to do her sneaky walk by. By 3:00
P.M.
, quitting time, I felt bad that she didn’t show.

Of course I wanted to rush into her uncle’s store, charge into the back room and grab my girl and dash out their door and never return. But, I knew better. My one big fuckup, the beatdown and bruises, had placed her family ahead of me in some way. I wouldn’t worry. She said she loved me and I knew she did. “Tomorrow,” I told myself. “She’ll show tomorrow. We’ll go see the house together, Umma, Akemi, Naja, and me,
inshallah
.”

Locking my apartment door, leaving Umma and Naja and my longing for Akemi on the inside, I made my way to the game. Now it was about total concentration.

A sold-out concert, that’s what the park was like. All the spaces and seats on the outdoor bleachers were taken. On both sides and down front as far as they could reach
without interfering with our game, the fans stood shoulder to shoulder. Real hustlers, in new rides, parked all around the perimeter. Little boys, pre-teens waiting for their chance to rock and shine, hung from the fences like monkeys so they could see past all the adults who wouldn’t let them squeeze in.

Everybody was cleaned up nice like a fashion show, the models and the onlookers. There was music, all kinds of music, none of it official by a hired out DJ. Instead it was one man’s musical tastes battling the next man’s musical tastes.

No one was selling franks or peanuts and popcorn like The Garden, but people were brown-bagging beers. The smell of herb made ghetto clouds, and the females was swinging hard ’cause they smelled money.

Coach Vega was amped all the way up like a coke fiend. But he was drug free and hell-bent on his squad making him look good. It was the first time we ever seen him not wearing anything with the color red in it. He was dressed up more so for the after party, or in his mind the victory celebration. He had enough cologne on for all the dudes seated in the first row of both bleachers. I swear I doubted this cat had ever played basketball himself. But he was three parts—passion, personality, and style. And for whatever it was worth, he made every member of our team feel like he gave a fuck for real.

We warmed up. The red team showed up looking like a bunch of niggas in a lineup. They had eleven players, not twelve, and about seventy-five people trailing behind them going nowhere, ’cause there wasn’t more seats available. Their rowdiness caused a melee. It took about five to seven minutes to clear it up. Ameer was in the middle of everything. All I could think was,
That’s all he needed
. These people are like gasoline to his match, and he was loving it.

I slapped myself in the head to jar me out of friendship
mode. I came to play. I came to win, and somebody had to leave defeated, no doubt.

After the first quarter, I had the whole schematic figured out. Based on Ameer’s funny stories about his teammates, I pegged who didn’t like who, who was hogging, who was hating, and so on. In our huddle I put Panama up on the setup. I would take care of their captain, Ameer, he would check their number-two man, Specialist, and we would leave their man Noodles wide open ’cause he was no good.

Panama accepted the plan then told me he was gonna break their center’s eyeglasses ’cause he couldn’t see without ’em. Then we would have two men on the court that posed no problem at all.

Vega paced but didn’t interfere. The crowd hung on our every move. A lot of showboating went down, but by the end of the game it was 87 to 69, our favor. Panama “accidentally” broke the glasses and pulled down twenty-eight points. I pulled down thirty-four, the rest of our team stepped up and did their thing as well.

We got some instant cheerleaders stomping on the court. Female teens made up a team song on the spot. With their T-shirts flipped over and pulled down to make halter tops, tight jeans, cutoffs, and miniskirts, they cheered and bounced for us, the hook ringing throughout the park, “ ’Cause we’re Black, Hey! And we Dominate, Wooa!”

Vega had us in a tight pack. He was tryna set up the after celebration. But cats were telling him they wanted to scoop up the girls and go their separate ways. Panama leaned on cats that we could scoop up the girlies tomorrow at the jam. “It should just be the fellas tonight.”

I was looking over towards the red team. They were in the process of blaming one another and fucking each other up before they even got all the way off the court. Ameer wasn’t
running no risks. He was off to the side, had his arms around two girls and his back towards me.

I told my team, “We did good but this wasn’t even officially game one. We gotta keep the pressure on them.”

“On who?” Mateo, one of our team members, asked me.

“On every team we play!” I answered, feeling the rush of adrenaline.

Vega threw his arm around me. Vega, me, and the whole team walked. I told the coach I had to go to work early in the morning so I had to break out.

It didn’t help my story that Bangs was standing beneath the lamppost in a sparkling white tee that said MIDNIGHT in big bold blue letters plastered over 34 Ds.

Panama looked, smiled, and said, “I see where you headed and I understand.” He laughed, his gold frames around his white teeth standing out.

I walked over to Bangs. I would have been crazy not to.

“I can’t believe you’re standing still,” I said.

“I got three minutes before I start running.” She smiled now, shifting her pretty legs back and forth, and her deep-dish dimples spread.

“I know you’re gonna walk me home, right?” She smiled again.

“Of course,” I told her, bouncing my ball.

“Did you tell your girlfriend about me?” she asked.

“What’s there to tell?” I teased.

“Don’t break my heart,” she said. “And when you smile look the other way, my eyes and my heart can’t take it.” She placed her hand on my face and mushed it in the other direction away from her.

“What you wanna do, Bangs?” I asked her, stupidly believing that if I stepped up she would take some steps back.

“I wanna do whatever you doing,” she said and smiled again. “You should see me at my house laying on my bed
wondering where you at and why you ain’t calling and what you doing now and who you doing it with.” She would pull on a new finger with each question she was wondering about.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked her.

“Nothing that I really want to do,” she answered. We arrived at her door.

“You coming in, right?” she asked.

“Oh no, I gotta go. I gotta work in the morning,” I told her. I walked off hard as a brick. The urge within me was growing stronger every day. It was the adrenaline from the training and the sports, the hordes of girls, the cheering and the encouragement.

My mind switched to what was real. Every day I was yearning for Akemi. I might not have said it aloud, but I really wanted to touch and feel
her
womb with my fingers, with my tongue, my dick. I didn’t want nothing in between me and her flesh; no rubbers, no plastics, no creams, no patches, no pills. Just natural body to body, I wanted to be all over her and I wanted her all over me as her body flowed into some of those hot-ass yoga positions.

Late night I listened for Akemi’s voice on the voice mail. It wasn’t there. Instead, aside from our regular and new business customers, both Sudana and Ameer called.

“Good game,” Ameer said when I called him back.

“Man you gotta get those knuckleheads on your team to knuckle down,” I told him.

“Them motherfuckers is embarrassing,” Ameer said. “Never in my life . . .”

“Yeah, but you the captain. You gotta provide the leadership. You conquering them guys instead of building them up.”

“You right, I gotta go, man. Check you Monday night. I got a slimmy on my side,” he said.

•   •   •

Saturday there was no Akemi in sight. I was feeling miserable now. It had been seven days and six nights and I couldn’t hear a word from her.

I called her house knowing her uncle wasn’t home and therefore wouldn’t pick up her phone. I knew he was right down the street in his store.

Her phone rang and rang and rang.

I called her cousin’s house knowing I shouldn’t, but I did anyway.

“Is Akemi there?” I asked.

“No, she doesn’t live here, as you know,” her cousin said smartly. I took a deep breath, knowing that I wouldn’t get nowhere fighting the cousin. So I tried to be easy.

“Listen, I know you’re mad with me, but I really love Akemi. I just want you to tell me if she’s okay and what’s happening, that’s it.”

“She’s okay,” the cousin said, softening a bit. I didn’t respond. I figured I’d give her space to talk if she was willing.

“She’s locked up in her art studio. There’s no phone in there. She’s mad at all of us because of you,” the cousin said. “She fights for you, you know. And she is in so much trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” I asked, really concerned.

“It doesn’t matter. If you really love her as you say, you’ll leave her alone. She has work to do. She has to finish up her projects for the show,” she said. “It’s a big deal, you know. You act like it’s nothing. But it’s everything to her father.”

“So, that’s what you decided, huh?” I asked.

“I decided?” she asked.

“Yeah, you’re the one making all the decisions. You’re the one speaking to everybody, me, Akemi, all the families. You’re in control! I see that now,” I said, leaning on her.

“Oh, believe me, Akemi does whatever she wants to do. She knows where you are, doesn’t she? If she’s not coming around, maybe she doesn’t want to anymore,” her cousin said, sounding pissy.

“You got it,” I said. “My bad, sorry to bother you. Later.” I hung up.

Umma’s facial expression finally said yes.

Naja said, “It’s gonna take us a year to clean this mess up and paint these walls and it stinks in here.” She was right.

“We’ll have to let a lawyer look at the paperwork first,” I told the old man.

“It’s your money. Spend it how you like. The first one who gets here with—”

“I know. We’ll contact you first thing next week,” I promised.

At home, we sat on the floor reviewing the paperwork and organizing the details of the steps we needed to take before purchasing the house. We both wished that we could finalize the purchase of the house, yet we both knew from experience that only fools rush in. A lawyer would cost some fee; however, a good lawyer might save a lot of agony in the long run.

Afterwards, we studied the one hundred questions, agreeing that we would go through the citizenship ceremony on this upcoming Wednesday. It would be nice to have the citizenship in place, prior to the purchase of the new home.

Chris called. “Me and Ameer are going up to that party at the high school tonight where the black team practices,” he said. “You want to meet us over there?” he asked.