My mistake. I had been moving through life as an individual, believing that as long as I work hard and live right and respected limits, as long as I created businesses and stockpiled my paper and jewels, that was good enough. Now, I see that it’s not only the hustlers and gangsters and politicians that need armies. Every man needs an army of brothers; every man, every family, every neighborhood needs an army of real men.
It’s not just a numbers game, I’m thinking. It runs far deeper than that. A man could be a part of an army of one hundred, or one thousand or ten thousand or one hundred thousand or one million. But the value of that army or that team is in the value of each of the men it is made up of.
I looked to my left. Each man cuffed and chained together alongside me today—we look alike. We each speak English. Still, we don’t share a common language. We know it too. So even though we are shoulder to shoulder, we don’t speak. We don’t say. We don’t ask. In fact there is no “we,” unless the chain gets yanked, or an order gets called out or the leash gets lashed. Then, reacting on impulse, we would either start or stop moving, we either sit or stand.
Locked down on my birthday, I’m thinking, Now I have lived more years in Brooklyn than I lived at home in the African Sudan. My body is here. My mindset is from the other side of the world.
My mistake. Muslim men are supposed to give daa’wa. Daa’wa is spreading light, teaching and/or introducing and/or inviting one or more people to an understanding of Islam, about Muslims and the Holy Quran. To give a man an understanding is to give him the keys to the universe. To hand a man a Quran is to give him the answer towards straightening himself, strengthening himself, and becoming useful to himself, his father, mother, family, and ’hood. I failed to do that. In fact I just watched quietly as men without understanding lived recklessly—some I knew, some I did not know. I just swerved around them, building and working and praying and being rewarded in so many ways.
Now I’m asking myself, what is the value of being one man who has a true faith, strength, family, and business trapped and surrounded by men who have none of that, who don’t even want it or know that it is missing and who don’t have any idea how it would feel or what it would be like if they did?
Inspiring other men to become believers, who are not perfect, but who are humbled and striving, is the starting point of building an army of men. Not just a band of niggers or a gang of fools or a heap of heedless heathens. I looked to my left at these men who are cuffed here, who I am cuffed to, and felt I knew for sure that the last thing they wanted to hear about was faith. They probably would figure I’m in the same cuffs, same as them, and in the same place, same as them. So, shut the fuck up.
Without an army of believing men I’m in a tight spot. There’s no human to plead my case, who has an understanding.
In the East, where I hail from, men have honor. That doesn’t mean that they are perfect. Yet they are better off than men over here, who have no honor at all.
Honor is honesty in action, fairness in action, and integrity in action. Integrity meaning a man has a set of guiding principles or beliefs that he bases his movements, decisions, and actions on. He doesn’t trade those beliefs for anything. If he sees one man or a thousand men doing something that he does not believe in, he doesn’t join them, isn’t swayed by popularity but guided by principle or faith. I’m not certain if honor is something that can be taught to any random man, or if it is something that a man must be born into. I am certain, however, that in order for a man to have honor, he has to have seen other men living and acting with honor. Otherwise, he would not have a blackprint of or a feeling for what honor is or what the value of having honor means to him and to the men who surround him every day. Having friends and brothers and sons and fathers and grandfathers who are men of honor is peace. Having men without honor and without knowledge of the meaning of honor is chaos. Without honor, each man is an open enemy to the next man.
I could bond with men who are not Muslim if they were men of honor. I could bond with men who are Christians or Jews if they were men of honor. I could bond with men who had not yet chosen a faith if they were men of honor. However, I could not bond with any man who is dishonorable.
Back home across the globe, I could tell a million men about the day and the night of the execution. Not one of them would misunderstand the reason the deed had to be done. Each of them would know, without discussing or debating, that a man’s women, his mother, wives, sisters, and daughters, are his honor. Back home, you couldn’t and you wouldn’t be a man chasing another man’s little girl, filling her with fear and trapping her in a basement, unless you were ready to die, willing to be executed. Back home, even if you were a man filled with perverse feelings, you’d rather cut off your own hands or kill yourself than disgrace your parents by dishonoring yourself, them, or a neighbor. Back home, if by some stroke of chance or destiny you did dishonorable deeds, instead of you being left alone and accepted, you would become a target. The man whose honor you violated would be expected by all other honorable men to deal with you severely. Once he served you with death, he would be welcomed back into the brotherhood of men. Each man in the brotherhood would have done the same thing given the same or a similar situation. As a show of respect, they would never again mention the foul offender or his foul offense to the honorable man who murdered him. They would all know, without being reminded, that such unlikely violations can only be overcome through silence.
Over here in America, the dishonorable ones are accepted and sometimes even welcomed, and often are given authority over other people’s lives, while the honorable ones are dealt with dishonorably. Despite my plan to make a confession and be judged based on my deed and punished based on justice, and to serve my punishment honorably, I am caught up in a snafu. Even if I explained, men over here would not understand. And even though I feel down today, jerked around on a chain, taking baby steps, part of a shameful parade, I still feel more sorry for them than I do for myself.
These men who are chained and seated beside me come from a culture without honor. I know. There’s a thousand of them living in the Brooklyn projects where my family used to live. They don’t even know what’s wrong. They don’t even know what’s missing. They have no god and no father, no beliefs and no motivation to find out. Their worried and broken mothers and frightened girlfriends, baby mommas and sisters and daughters, were scurrying around the corridors of the Brooklyn court building talking to their enemies and captors, bartering for their sons’, brothers’, and boyfriends’ lives. Their women, who are also without honor or husbands or protection, and who are also without standards or understanding, were willing to give up anything, say anything, do anything . . . oh Allah . . . to get their men out of bondage.
My mother, wives, sister, and unborns . . . I would never allow them to come in here, to see me this way, or to even be seen by my captors. I would never give my enemies the opportunity to lay eyes on them, to trade words with them, to take money from them, or to lay hands on them, la kadar Allah (God forbid). They would not have the chance to make their evil offers to my women, or take sacrifices from my mother or wives, or to question or interrogate my young sister, or to run my women ragged because of the desperation they feel because of me in cuffs and chains or behind bars.
I will keep my family separate from the heat. I feel good about that, could take anything and face any circumstance as long as they were protected, I told myself.
Yet, my failure to give daa’wa, to teach and to strive to create a brotherhood of men, to share what I know for sure, might be the cause of my temporary downfall. I know, if I am here, cuffed and chained and forced to be still and deep in thought and self-criticism, it meant that I am suppose to be. Allah is showing me something, teaching me something.
When a bad thing happens to a Muslim, we don’t say, why did God do this to me? No, we say, what did I do wrong to earn this punishment? We believe that all that Allah does is perfect. We are the flawed ones.
We
also believe that each of us will be tested, challenged, perhaps given a taste of evil. In these times, we don’t move further away from Allah. We move closer.
Still, my failure to build an army even with the closest of my friends weighed heavily on my heart.
8. THE WALL • A Reflection
“Yo Chris,” I said when he picked up the phone.
“You back? I thought you gave up on the BK and decided to chill in Japan.”
“Nah, nothing like that,” I said.
“Hope you shot some footage with that movie camera so we can check it out when we finally see you,” he said. Then he asked me, “Why you calling from a pay phone?”
“It’s summertime, man, you still on punishment?” I flipped it on him.
“Oh you got jokes. Nah, I’m good now,” he said.
“Wanna work?” I asked.
“What’s the job?”
“I got a home owner in Queens who wants to hire a crew to build a wall.”
“A wall?” he repeated.
“Around his house,” I explained.
“That’s manual labor, my brother. How much is the pay? Not minimum wage that’s like three dollars an hour,” Chris said.
“The pay is good,” I told him.
“What’s that mean?” he asked me.
“It’s good enough for me, and you know I’m about that paper,” I said, and he laughed.
“Is Ameer working on it too?” he asked.
“Yeah, he’s down.”
“Then the money must be right,” Chris said.
“Let’s us three get up before dojo tonight. I’ll kick y’all the numbers and the schedule then,” I told him.
“A’ight,” he agreed. “Let’s meet at the Curry Shack at four then. That’ll give us enough time.”
* * *
“We all got blacker,” Chris said. He was holding the door open as Ameer and I both rolled up at the same time, coming from opposite directions.
“Sun must’ve been sizzling in Japan. I didn’t think this brother could get any blacker,” Ameer said as he embraced me and gave me a pound.
I saw what Chris observed. We had each been in the sunlight, skin blackening. I checked Chris was out of his Air Force Ones and into some Stan Smiths. Those kicks were for tennis players. He was even rocking the green Izod instead of Polo.
“You been on the tennis court?” I asked him.
“Tennis!” Ameer repeated before Chris could answer, as though it was an illegitimate sport.
“My father signed me up for tennis lessons. I had to accept them if I wanted him to ease up and end my punishment,” Chris said.
“Oh, it’s part of the punishment,” Ameer joked him.
“I thought of it that way at first, but it’s an alright game. Try it. The girlies be out there playing in their miniskirts ’n shit, bending over chasing down balls.” We all laughed.
“Let me get two beef patties,” Ameer ordered. “And a ginger beer.”
“Two more and I’ll have the same,” Chris said.
“Give me two chicken patties and a side of cabbage,” I ordered. “And two bottles of water.” We grabbed the last available table and waited. “Let’s get down to business,” I told them.
“Let’s eat first,” Chris said as he jumped up to pick up our tray from the register and pay the cashier from our group fund.
“Why you speeding?” Ameer asked me. “There’s so much to talk about. We gotta update you on some real shit. And you need to tell us something about this fucking ‘voyage’ you went on.” Then he lowered his voice some. “I got your joint,” he said, referring to the burner that I let him hold while I was away traveling.
“Same as it was?” I asked him, meaning had he used the weapon for any reason. It was cool with me if he did, but I needed to know for sure.
“I flashed it on a few, but never fired,” he said discreetly.
“Oh yeah,” I told him. “We handle the cannon same as we handle the sword. Like Sensei taught us, ‘Don’t pull it out unless you’re ready to use it.’ ”
“It worked for me. Next time, niggas that need to know, know,” Ameer said confidently.
“What you gonna do next time you see ’em and you ain’t got it?” I asked him. “That’s why you don’t flash it. Once they know you holding, they gon’ go and get strapped and come looking for you. Then what?” I asked him seriously.
“What y’all talking about? Damn, I stepped away for a few seconds and missed something,” Chris said, holding the tray with all of our orders on it. Neither me nor Ameer said a word. Chris caught on and didn’t push it. He broke the tension like usual. “Grab your shit off the tray. Do I look like a waitress?” Chris barked, then laughed as we each reached in for our food and drink.
“It’s not always serious like that,” Ameer said solemnly after we were all paused and eating. I didn’t follow up ’cause I meant what I said.
On a napkin, I drew a rough diagram of the dimensions of the wall. “The house is here,” I said, drawing a small model to mark the placement of the house. “The wall goes like this . . . It’s nine feet high all the way around. There are three sides: left, right, and back wall, and of course they all have to connect and line up perfectly.”
“A brick wall, right?” Chris questioned.
“Cement blocks,” I said swiftly.
“The owner must have something valuable inside that house. Good for us. He’ll be ready to pay up,” Ameer said.
“The pay is seven hundred dollars for each side. There’s three sides and three of us, so that’s seven hundred for each of us,” I told them. “We get paid when it’s completed.”
“We gotta get him for a deposit. Just in case,” Chris said, thinking aloud and sounding like his father, the Reverend Christian Broadman.
“Word up,” Ameer said. “What if we build it and shit, and the cement dries, and for some reason he’s talking about he don’t like it. Ain’t like we gonna knock it down and start over again.” We were looking back and forth at one another as though we could see each other’s thoughts.
“I’m sure I can talk him into that if I keep it reasonable. Say, one hundred for each of us as a deposit?” I checked their eyes.
“Cool,” Ameer said, and Chris agreed a split second after him. “Seven hundred dollars, nice,” Ameer continued. “It takes all summer to make seven hundred dollars working in that bullshit city summer work program around my way.”
“My pops ain’t gonna say no to seven hundred dollars in my hand. That’s seven hundred less out of his pocket.” Chris laughed.
“We start every morning at eight a.m.,” I said.
“Damn,” Ameer said.
“And we quit at two p.m. each day until the job is done,” I added.
“Why can’t we just bust it out all day long every day until it gets dark? We’ll finish faster,” Ameer proposed.
“No, he doesn’t want none of us on his property before eight a.m. and he doesn’t want none of us on his property after two p.m. each day. Those are his rules, nonnegotiable.”
“Sounds crazy. How did you meet this guy anyway?” Chris asked.
“He got the idea in the hardware store where I was picking up a few things,” I said, intentionally dodging.
“It’s cool. Now that I think about it, if we finish two p.m., we got the whole rest of the day to get a pickup game or whatever else pays,” Ameer said.
“Back to you, black man!” Chris joked me. “What about that footage?”
“Black is beautiful,” I shot back calmly.
“Is that what your girlies tell you?” Ameer asked me, only half joking.
“My women,” I corrected him.
“Whoa . . . that’s right, ‘wife’! Not ‘wifey,’ ” Chris said. “I respect that,” he added, straight-faced, and I could feel he was sincere.
“You come back flexing, huh? Showing off?” Ameer asked me. It didn’t sound like he was joking, either.
“Nah, nothing like th
at,” I said solemnly, and I meant it. Retreating into my thoughts, I was thinking that I wanted the opposite of showing off. I had not told either of my best friends that in addition to my first wife, Akemi, who they had each met one time only, at our unique and unplanned wedding at our dojo, I now have a second wife. In fact, I never planned to tell them about her, either. If Akemi had not come high-stepping into our dojo that day, unannounced, in her Manolo Blahnik sandals, causing each of the male fighters’ jaws to drop down when they saw those pretty Egyptian cat eyes and thick lips. Black-haired Akemi, so sleek in her silence, her elite feminine fashions, unrivaled and extremely attractive, her walk mean and provocative, yet there was nothing loud about her except her feelings for me. If she had not showed up that day, I never would have introduced them to her. My wives are not showpieces to me. Both of them, when seen by any man capable of recognizing raw, natural, genuine beauty whether fully or partially covered, cause a man to react. So now they stay covered or out of most men’s view, on purpose.
“When do we start?” Ameer broke my retreat.
“Tomorrow, eight a.m. Everything is in place: wheelbarrow, cement mix, the scaffold, the cement blocks, and all the tools we need. Just wear some beat-up jeans ’n old Tims, long sleeves even though it’s hot, and work gloves. He will supply the hard hats. Be ready to sweat and get dirty.”
* * *
“Must’ve been some type of fence here before,” Ameer observed, staring down into the soil. It was day one of our job building the wall.
“Probably,” I said, looking into the deep line in the soil that ran across the perimeter of the backyard. “It’s a good thing for us, though—it shows us exactly where the wall belongs.”