“And what else?” I asked.
“Um, well, you know I’ve been going to the main New York Public Library, the really nice one, and I’ve been reading all of these books that I would never have been able to get, say, in a little local bookstore. Well, I’ve decided to write a book about my life.”
“All sixteen years of it?” I asked her calmly.
“Come on, take me seriously, really. I’m about to turn seventeen.”
“I definitely take you seriously.”
“Okay, listen to my title,” she said, excited. “The name of my book is My Shahada.”
“I like that,” I admitted.
“On my book cover there is going to be a sword, a star, and a crescent moon. Not just any kind; I’ll ask Umma and Akemi to design it for me perfectly. And I came up with the idea because every book that I find about Islam, or about Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, or about the times when the Prophet was alive and among his friends and companions, they were always books written by men. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be awesome if Prophet Muhammad’s wives would’ve authored books? I would love to have been able to read his first wife, Khadijah’s, book. I’ve read two books about her so far. They were both written by men. It sounded and read and felt like they were written by men. I mean a woman would express things differently. And she wouldn’t forget to include certain things like her true feelings. And men don’t have the same thoughts and feelings and experiences as women do. What if Khadijah had written a book and inside of it, she also spoke about how she saw and experienced the Prophet, peace be upon him. That would be awesome. That would be something only she could do, a story only she could tell, because they shared a closeness that no other person shared, especially not with the Prophet. What do you think?” she asked me.
“Sounds good, even though you are not married to a prophet, but an ordinary Muslim man.”
“Not a prophet, true, but definitely not ordinary. And My Shahada is not mainly about our marriage. It is about my adventure from young girl to young Muslim woman and all of the incredible places, things, people, and events that includes.”
“Do it. You can write in the house or in a bookstore or library. I’ll drop you off and pick you up when you are finished.”
“Is that the only reason you agree, because you’ll know where I am and it’s work that I can also do at home?”
“Not the only reason, but definitely important reasons. Just remember, when you write about Islam you have to be very careful. Believers worldwide, we take it very seriously, and for most it’s passionately personal. So give each word some thought before you write it on the paper. Do good research. I know you will.
“Naja told me what happened at her school about you writing your own prayer,” I said.
“Do you think I was wrong?” she asked me.
“Nah . . . How could it be wrong for you to say a prayer in the language of your soul? And what human could judge the words you speak in prayer to Allah? I do think it is important for Muslims to learn Arabic, though. I also know that there is a definite way of making salat, and then there is a way to make supplication.”
“Supplication?”
“Muslims all around the world, we make our prayers a specific way, with specific movements and in a specific language. But we can all also offer a prayer about a certain feeling or burden or desire or challenge or even a wrongdoing in the language of our heart, and from our soul or mind to Allah. That’s called a supplication. When we do, we pray also that our supplication is accepted by Allah. Since Muslims believe that Allah is all-seeing and all-hearing and all-knowing, no one human can tell you that Allah doesn’t understand your particular language or whether or not Allah accepts your supplication. That’s between your soul and the One who created your soul, I believe.”
“You are so good and so smart,” she said in her sleepy voice, and then turned to face me. “That’s what’s so cool about you. Tomorrow, I’m going to write down my prayer and show it to you. And, I hope to record your voice calling the Azan. Is that okay?” she asked. “And is it okay that we speak about these kinds of things while we are like this . . . ?” she said, referring to our nudity.
“For Muslims, sex is not a dirty thing to feel guilty about. I’m your husband. You are my wife. We can speak about anything. And, I am supposed to go in you, repeatedly.”
“Well, put me to sleep, then,” she said, kissing my chest.
“From now on, I’ll consider your mazaj. I’ll check you before I go out and make sure you feel good so you can hold onto that feeling and wait till I come back to you.”
We slept.
Chiasa’s Prayer
Dear ALLAH,
The Most High, The Most Gracious, The Most Compassionate.
Dear ALLAH
The Only, Forever Present. The Only, All Knowing. The Only, All Powerful.
Dear ALLAH
The only ONE who is Sufficient. The only ONE who is Above Need.
The only ONE whom every soul needs.
Dear ALLAH,
Creator of the sun and the moon and the stars,
Of the planets and the universe, within and beyond.
Dear ALLAH,
Creator and Painter of the sky.
Maker and Mover of the mountains,
Creator and Stirrer of the oceans,
Shaker of all worlds,
Bringer of the waterfalls.
Dear ALLAH,
The only Immaculate Expressor.
Creator of the heartbeat, the soul, and the breath of life.
Creator of the mind, the memory, and the imagination.
Dear ALLAH,
Creator of the earth, the sand, and the soil.
Creator of the seeds and the roots, the plants and the flowers,
The trees and the fruits.
The Supreme Healer.
Dear ALLAH,
The Life Giver, The Life Sustainer,
The Owner, The Maker, The Designer of all souls.
Dear ALLAH,
The One, to whom all souls must return,
To answer, for our living choices, actions, and deeds.
Dear ALLAH,
Above all.
Dear ALLAH,
Above any.
Dear ALLAH,
Who has no equals, no partners, and no children.
Dear ALLAH,
Maker of all souls, of all men, of all women, of all angels and all Prophets.
Dear ALLAH,
Author of the Book of the Right Hand.
Dear ALLAH,
Master of our fate, Master of our destiny.
Dear ALLAH,
Master of the day of Requittal.
There is no God but ALLAH.
None is worthy of worship but ALLAH.
ALLAH is the only One whom I worship.
Dear ALLAH, I want to be good and not evil.
Dear Allah, I want to be true and not false.
Dear ALLAH, I want to live right and not wrong.
Dear ALLAH, I hope to become pleasing to ALLAH,
Made pleasing by ALLAH, Insha’ALLAH.
24. IN POPULATION
Ninety days in the box. Wish I had ninety more, which gave niggas ninety-nine reasons not to test me. I went in as an “ayo.” That’s what they called “accused youth offenders.”
Super-solid like steel, mind clear as spring water, my heated heart’s temperature turned cold as ice. I’m doing my murder walk, to establish peace in my area. It didn’t take nothing for me to figure out that in this jail world of reversals, the murderer gets top ranking. These dudes with lightweight charges had to play invisible, or either step aside or fall back.
Dorm style in the youth house I’m in now. No walls separating bed from bed. No individual cell doors to slam shut, no privacy. Zoo-style, one CO watched “the cage,” through a thick Plexiglas command center. The second CO did the rounds, and of course he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Besides our dorm area of sixty-six, there were many young pr
isoners jailed in individual cells in the Robert Donovan Youth building where overall, there are more than five hundred inmates. There were two corrections officers assigned to every group of a hundred.
“Get the fuck up! You on his bed,” a Brooklyn dude who I never saw before said to some unknown cat lying on the cot I had used for one day only, before the riot jumped off in the day room and I got boxed. The cat, who was lying down, looked up at the dude barking on him. Then he glanced towards me. He stood up and stepped away from my cot. He looked around the overcrowded room like a homeless beggar with no place to go. The dude barking the orders kicked the stationary cubicle that was behind the bed. “Take all your shit with you. Don’t nobody want your photos of your stank-ass momma,” the barker said.
Now the dorm room of sixty-six males, side by side like sardines in a can, were all watching for him to pop. It’s universally understood that a man who mentions any other man’s mother in a foul way wants to fight. But the one who had been lying down, who was now standing up with his back to me, just squatted and cleared out his cubicle. I didn’t know yet whether to give him props for discipline during a heated confrontation or to count him as coward. When he grabbed his notebook, his loose papers fell out and so did some photos. He nervously collected them. I saw one. The woman in the photo was a face that is known to me. Rapidly rewinding through my mental file of faces, I swiftly realized the woman in the photo was from my Brooklyn block. She was a chick known for fucking and fighting a nigga called “Mighty,” which was short for Mighty Dollar. He was the leader of the Cash Crew, some brash and ignorant thieves that robbed the same people they lived on the block with. My eyes bounced back onto the dude who was clearing out of my spot. He wouldn’t look up, over, or directly at me. I quickly noticed that he couldn’t look any man in the eye. When he stood and turned I confirmed this. His fear was so strong it painted a black aura that framed his face, outlined his body, and shifted with every move that he made. Yep, I thought. This is the humiliated young kid from my block. The chick in the photo was the one the barker had called his “stank-ass mother.” The kid was older now, obviously. He was taller, physique broader, but still his stance was weak and his eyes couldn’t conceal his cowardice, same as from his childhood. When I once peeped it back on our Brooklyn block, I had handed him a flyer from my dojo, suggesting that he start training immediately.
I didn’t say anything. Fear kept him staring at the floor. Instead, I was calculating how there would only be a few minutes or hours before the scared kid would be reclining and happen to notice that he’d seen me before. More importantly, he knew where I lived. Same place he used to live before he suddenly disappeared for a couple of years. And he had seen me with my Umma and my sister in the elevator and walking on and off the block from time to time. Crazy, how a man can get locked up in an alternative world where he thinks he can be anonymous among strangers, only to acknowledge what he already knew: that all the boys and men from his block check in and out of that same alternative world, like people check in and out of a cheap motel. Some for brief stays, some for long stays, some forever.
“Money, you good now . . .” the barking kid said to me now that my cot was cleared. “Hey, listen up!” he shouted to the sixty-five others like he was somehow boss over our dorm. “When ayo comes back from the box on a tier three, show him some respect,” he ordered. Some inmates kept their heads down. Some nodded agreement. Most minded their business, but a random crew of familiar faces from the riot smirked at the barker and made subtle signals like they planned to get at him.
I walked away from the cleared cot towards one that was open in the corner. It would be hard for the CO to see that cot ’cause of how it was tucked beneath the radar of the command center. More importantly, I wasn’t interested in sleeping with men side by side and above and beneath me. And I damn sure wasn’t interested in no nigga preparing my bed for me like he was my bitch.
“Money, that’s my spot.” The barker called out his claim to me, but with no threat or force in his tone.
“Move, then,” was all I said, calmly and straight-faced. Now he had sixty-five mouths laughing at him. Standing over the corner cot with my arms folded in front of me, I told him, “Pack it up.”
“Get gully for it!” one of the smirking dudes called out to the barker. I could tell from the tone it was a challenge. I didn’t say shit ’cause I didn’t know what “get gully,” meant. From how each inmate eased up and turned in my direction like they was about to watch a showdown, I figured out “get gully for it,” meant to fight for something you wanted to keep.
“Nah, nah, nah . . .” the barker said, swiftly canceling the setup for a fight. “This man been sleeping on a hot steel slate all summer in the box. He deserves a good night rest,” he nervously joked as he packed, turning from bully to clown. The sixty-five peeped his game, the smirkers signaling one another, acknowledging his defeat. A few laughing and some booing; even the frightened kid from my block, whose named dropped down into my head, had a hidden half smile. He was named Lavidacus.
Being solid, solemn, and a man of steel in the Rikers adolescent dorm worked well for me. First night back in population, I only spoke four words. The evidence in my stance eliminated the need for me to talk. The others backed down voluntarily. That was for the best. If anyone presented me with the opportunity to get back in the box, I would snatch it. But it had to be under the right circumstances. Now that I believed that we were always being filmed, taped, and recorded, I had to remain mostly silent and use my fighting skills only for self-defense. This way when my lawyer researched the reason for my second trip to isolation, she would see an ayo who was a good guy, not a predator. I understood my position. Until my manslaughter two plea deal was all worked out and signed off on, and until I understood fully how much time I would serve, I wouldn’t let any of these ayos put me in jeopardy of an even more extended stay.
* * *
Young men moving in a line like lions, a fifth of them real lions, four-fifths of them lion’s prey, and me, the black leopard. I was looking over my surroundings, scanning faces, monitoring movements, even the slightest gestures. I was at the front of the line from my dorm, leading the walk to the right of the line on the floor. I was the first to get searched. Therefore the first to get served and the first to be seated in the cafeteria as the CO shouted, “Twelve minutes, ladies! Shovel it in, clean up, and move out. Then we’ll let the next group of girls eat! You know the routine. No time for talking or touching . . .” He called this out as he touched and talked nonstop. “Fight and you go straight to the box. Do not pass go. No commissary cookies, just tissue to wipe your ass . . . maybe!” He continued his rhythmless rude rhyme. Now I knew that Correction Officer Gordon liked to call men “ladies,” and younger men, “girls.” He liked the sound of his own voice. His strategy was to keep each man on guard and aggravated and uncomfortable even while eating. But to me, all that talking was a cover-up of his false pride mixing with his real fears. I knew he could count. Must wreck his nerves to try to manage a hundred men at a clip without him even having a young and fit physique, or more importantly, a Glock, like a real cop.
Three minutes in and eight trays hit the tabletop and eight youths dropped down and seated themselves beside and across from me. In a lowered voice one of them said, “This is the Murder-Mayhem-Money table.” Now sixteen eyes were all on me. I didn’t react. Then two more trays dropped down.
“Good looking out,” one of ’em said to me. I knew him, and I had snatched him out of the pile-up during the riot and before he could get smashed with a chair or slashed with a shank. He was one of DeQuan’s five brothers. Him and his brothers’ names all sounded connected: DeQuan, DeRon, DeLeon, DeSean, and DeMon. The oldest one, DeQuan, was the gunrunner from my Brooklyn block. He also sold me my first two guns when I first arrived to America, a twenty-two and a nine-millimeter. Over the years I bought bullets from him and even a silencer. None of it was a favor to me. He sold guns. I needed them. I paid
full price, cold cash for every piece I purchased, starting out when I was seven years young, determined and eager to protect my Umma and my newborn sister in a strange and dangerous neighborhood.
I was on my Brooklyn block one night about seven months ago, when DeQuan got caught red-handed and he and all of his five brothers’ project apartment got raided. Weapons, weed, and sneaker inventory got seized and they each got cuffed and locked, even the fifth brother of his, whose name I never found out. DeQuan had later caught a murder charge on top of all them other charges. Now his youngest brother, DeSean, who was nine years young when I first fought him, was sixteen and seated at my table at the opposite end of me. He’d bulked up solid and got his grimace right so he could be safe among the lions and leopards and taken as true. When I didn’t answer him, he stood up, grabbed his tray, and walked to where I was seated. He tapped the kid across from me with his tray and said, “Move down.” The one he tapped seemed solid and strong also. Yet, he hesitated. A second of hesitation in a place like this causes a man to lose ground. But he flipped it. He stood up and ordered all the guys seated next to him to move over one, just to show he wasn’t the low man in the crew. Each man shifted. Now DeSean was seated at the top of the table directly across from me.
“Yo! Move up!” He called his man from the other end of the table who he had been seated with to come over. This shit was reminding me of the gangster musical chairs in East New York at the party where Ameer was the DJ. “Sit right there,” he told his man in a respectful tone as he stabbed his plastic fork into his powdered eggs. All inmates’ utensils were small and made of plastic. All eggs were powdered. Most meat was “meat-looking,” but was made from soy.
“This is my man Ramel, a.k.a. ‘Slaughter,’ ” DeSean introduced us.
“I seen your face in the East before,” he said to me. His head was tilted as though he believed someone could read his lips and he was preventing that from happening. “You rock with that kid turned DJ, Romeo Red. You Romeo Black,” he said, like I was ’hood famous. “Word I remember. That was the last summer jam I went to before coming up here to Rikers,” Slaughter said.