“I will travel, Umma. And I will fast while traveling,” I assured her.
Her approval was revealed as she smiled brighter than the New York moon. I knew it would please her most if I fasted. More important, I knew that was the best and right and truest thing to do.
“Alhamdulillah!” she said, “And for this I believe Allah will make you successful in retrieving your wife, our Akemi.”
“Inshallah,” we both said at the very same time. Umma laughed some.
“Umma?” I said. “I know a girl. She is unmarried and fourteen years young.” Umma shifted her hips in her seat and was now facing me fully. She waited for me to continue. “She has a baby,” I said. Umma kissed her teeth, a sound of shame and uttered “Zina,” an Arabic term for sex between unmarried people, which is forbidden. “Her mother’s brother is the baby’s father,” I added. Umma took some time to understand what I had just told her. So I repeated it.
“He ruined her,” Umma said. We sat in silence for three minutes.
“Is she really ruined?” I asked Umma, already knowing her sentiments and our culture.
“He ruined her and ruined himself,” Umma answered. The weight of Umma’s words silenced us both. For minutes we rode up one extremely narrow lane as the second lane of the FDR was suddenly blocked, leaving all the drivers and riders alike only one way out.
“You’re sleepy,” I said, as I saw Umma’s eyes become heavy. We had finally crossed Dyckman, and the lanes opened and traffic was thinning out.
“I am,” she admitted. “But it’s okay. I will get to sleep late tomorrow morning. Oh! And don’t worry about Naja for tomorrow. I have something special planned for her.”
“Something special?” I pushed for details. I wasn’t used to Umma making plans on her own and then telling me about it after they were all set up.
“A mother-daughter day. I plan to take your sister out to lunch. We’ll sit down together while I explain to her the sudden changes in our lives. It’s a big thing to a little girl. Naja will have to adjust to getting back and forth to school from a new location, and we still haven’t told her that you are going away to Japan. So I will tell all while she eats her favorite things. Then we’ll go out shopping,” Umma said, now sounding more excited than sleepy.
“Shopping, where? Lunch, where?” I asked calmly.
“Oh, lunch is at a place that Temirah recommended. It’s called Serendipity’s. She says her daughters really enjoy it. It’s on—”
“I know where it is, on Sixtieth,” I said. “So you’ll shop in that same area?”
“Yes, and Temirah Aunty has arranged for Mr. Ghazzali to pick us up when we are all three finished. He will come anytime after Jumma prayer. All she has to do is give him a call.”
“Okay, I’ll speak to Mr. Ghazzali and make sure you and Naja have a cab from the Bronx apartment to Serendipity’s. That’s the only thing missing from the plan you made. No problem.”
* * *
In the downstairs Bronx apartment late that same night but in the early morning dark, Umma fell asleep on the couch instead of in her temporary new bedroom. Naja was upstairs sleeping in Sudana’s house. Slowly, I was pacing the floor. My mind felt like it weighed a ton. Not one to allow my thoughts to turn into quicksand, I began moving around the apartment quietly, searching for the telephone. After a drawn-out debate with myself about whether I should call Akemi’s friend and leave a message, I decided I would. But as I entered the last room of this apartment, I didn’t see a telephone. I had been more concerned about the windows and doors, security and changing the locks. I missed out on the fact that there was no telephone down here. Quickly I decided that I could buy a telephone tomorrow and run a wire and a splitter from upstairs down to here. I would definitely do that, but it wouldn’t help me for making the call right now, which would’ve been the perfect time because Japan is thirteen hours ahead of the United States in time, or at least ahead of New York. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon in Tokyo, I thought to myself. What is my wife doing right now?
Moments later, I began thinking about Ameer and Chris. Was I messed up for not straightening them out? Was I a hypocrite for having two friends so far away from my beliefs? I must have thought so, or I wouldn’t have been thinking about it. Yet I didn’t want to think about it. Those two were my only American friends. Still, a voice in my head kept telling me if I didn’t take responsibility for setting them right in their thoughts and actions, something would happen to cause me to have a break with them. I paced faster, questioning myself—or perhaps questioning Allah to ask if I was responsible for them. Can a young man ever be responsible for his friends’ thoughts, ways, and actions?
My mind switched again and Bangs popped up, but I shut that down. I didn’t want to think about anything that would lead me to a thought that might interrupt or delay my trip to my wife. I know the order of things for a man, and I know the order of things in my heart.
I looked over at Umma. Simple things, like her going out shopping with some women friends, concerned me. Every move she made concerned me as if I knew that she would forever be a foreigner here in America. She was a reminder to me and everyone else in the world who ever had the pleasure of encountering her beauty, her words, her voice, and her ways, that she was right and everything else was wrong. That made her the center of attention in my mind. Because either way, wherever she went—all covered in thobe or hijab and niqab—she still stood out. This made me want to shield her from the world and all the twisted people who didn’t deserve to see or know her. But how could I throw a blanket over the sun? And if I was troubled that she planned to shop without me there to protect her, how would I handle being thousands of miles away? Even though I planned the details out precisely to secure Umma in every way, my emotion concerning her was deep and strong, alive and active.
On the table next to the couch where Umma slept was her Quran. I needed to quiet my mind. I especially needed to rest. I had Vega and my team standing on my back along with everyone else. I had to figure how to unload all this and fall into a healing sleep.
I rinsed my mouth, washed my hands, face, feet, and then washed my hands again. I opened the Quran to a random page, something that I did often after the first time I read it word for word from the beginning to the end. I told myself whatever page I opened to first would contain a message for me, something to guide me on my way. I landed on the sura, 1 called Al-Baqarah. My thumb held the page right at the forty-second ayat2:
“And don’t mix up truth with falsehood, nor hide the truth while you know.”
Immediately, I closed the Quran. For me, the Holy Quran is like this. Every word in every line is clear and easy to understand. Yet it is the meaning of the words that is so heavy. When I read from the Quran, my spirit is aroused and my soul shakes. My responsibilities are reinforced and I become mindful.
So is this the answer to my question that I asked Allah concerning my friends, I asked myself. I could not be certain but I felt it was. Of course I needed to do a better job at helping my friends to become more steady and true. I needed to separate the truth from the falsehood and set a better example through myself and not hide my way of life. I needed to convey the meaning of Islam through my living. How else would my friends learn it? I sat still for a while before opening Umma’s Quran once again.
This time the book opened to the sura called Al-Nisa, which translated into English means “The Women.” My thumb sat right at the 135th ayat. It read,
“All believers be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness for Allah, even though it be against your own selves or your parents or near relatives, whether he be rich or poor. Allah has a better right over them both. So follow not your low desires, lest you deviate. And if you distort or turn away from truth, surely Allah is ever aware of what you do.”
These words reechoed in my mind in the original Arabic language in which they were written. I stood still while these words spoke meaningfully, passionately to my soul.
It was gro
wing late and my eyes were beginning to weigh more than my heart. My thoughts were running their last lap. I then promised myself to open the Holy Quran only once more before resting. I landed on the sura called Al-Ma’idah. It was the thirty-second ayat. My thumb covered the first sentence or two, but the words which followed after my finger were:
“… whoever kills a soul—unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as if he had killed the whole of mankind. And whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved the lives of all men.”
I knew exactly what that meant. Or, should I say, what I believed it meant.
In the past I had read the Holy Quran many times, from the beginning to the end, every single word on every single page in search of the meaning of life.
I lay on the floor fully clothed next to the couch where my Umma slept and I rested finally.
Friday, May 9th, 1986
By three thirty on Friday afternoon, I had my American passport in my hand. My heavy heart felt some relief. I did not love the eagle, but my passport was crisp and new and valid, and exactly what I now needed to become international and legitimate in the eyes of the law, as a world-class traveler, like my father.
I walked up eight blocks, from Rockefeller Center where the passport office was located, and over three blocks, to the area where Umma said she would be shopping. It took me twenty minutes to locate her.
She didn’t see me. She was there with Mrs. Ghazzali, who brought along her youngest daughter and Naja, who was smiling away and seeming completely content. Like a young, young boy, I wanted to run inside and show Umma my passport. Yet I didn’t. I wouldn’t disturb her. I was just checking to see that she was okay and was where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do, safely.
A Harlem haircut, a short trip to Dr. Jay’s, where I bought new shorts and sweats and kicks all black, because I was on the black team. By game time, I would be on point. Yet I needed a place to rest. The five hours of sleep that I had the night before wasn’t carrying me.
I rang the bell at Chris’s house. The heavy front door of his brownstone opened slowly.
“What’s up, man! Come in.” He was surprised. “I just got back from school. C’mon in the kitchen. You want something to eat?” He offered.
“Nah, I need a favor.”
“What?”
“Let me lay down in your room. Wake me up at seven thirty for game time. It’s a straight shot from here to the court. You think you could do that?” I asked him.
“That’s easy. That’s nothing,” Chris said. “Me and my man Phil wasn’t about to do nothing but crack these books open and study for a test we got on Monday morning. Phil, this is my man Midnight,” Chris introduced us. I gave the schoolboy a pound. Afterward, I followed Chris to his room and put my shopping bags down. He closed the door, saying, “Seven thirty, no doubt.” I felt cool at his spot, no worries just a warm family-type thing.
Facing a wall with a small poster titled the ten commandments, I began reading from the bottom up. It was something about a man not desiring his neighbor’s house or woman or possessions. I agreed with that 100 percent, then fell into an instant, mindless sleep.
* * *
“Do you think this is a hotel?” Reverend Christian Broadman asked me as he pushed the door open at 7:30 p.m. “You owe twenty-five dollars to the Broadman Corporation.”
“You got it, Reverend,” I answered, pulling into consciousness.
“Do I look like one of your buddies?” he asked.
I corrected myself. “Yes sir, I’ll pay you twenty-five dollars right now, Mr. Broadman.” He laughed two controlled ha ha’s, accepted my twenty-five dollars, and said, “Good luck on your game. Stay out of trouble.”
Chapter 22
RICKY SANTIAGA
It was like the whole Bed-Stuy territory cleared out and surrounded the outdoor court where we were scheduled to ball. It felt good to roll up to such excitement, yet it seemed like much more than a junior league game deserved. And I want to win, plan to win, but I definitely do not want to be famous. I pushed my way through the crowd and joined my team five minutes before game time. Out of habit I surveyed row by row in each direction.
“This crowd is crazy,” my team member Panama pointed out with a nod of his head. I acknowledged the same way.
“You think it’s us, Black, but it’s not,” Machete, another teammate, said. We were all leaning forward on the players’ bench.
“Of course it’s us, we’re undefeated,” Jaguar said aggressively.
“Look over there to the left. That’s Ricky Santiaga, our team owner,” Machete exposed.
“Who said?” Braz asked.
“He’s from around my way, a big-time businessman, if ya know what I’m saying. I been peeping it. He been making a lot of smart moves lately.” Machete put us up on it.
“You saying people coming out here just to see him? Can’t be, he’s just a local player. There’s mad hustlers representing out here,” Braz said.
“Catch up and pay attention,” Machete said as though he was the underboss. “Look who Santiaga is standing next to, Mike Tyson, the up-and-coming heavyweight champion of the world. I heard this kid is an official Brooklyn ‘killer.’ His body is as wide as a building, and his fist broader than your head. And check the rapper standing next to him.” All team heads shifted to search.
“Oh shit,” Panama said, and then stood right up. “And check the other side, the whole uptown crew, and Calvin and Rich and them.
“Take your seats, it’s about to go down.” Vega screamed ’cause he could hardly hear himself talk. “Machete, Midnight, Panama, Jaguar, and Big Mike, let’s go,” he shouted. He motioned so hard with his hand for us to move that his cologne almost knocked me out.
We were in the middle of the court now. The air horn went off, the whistle blew, and Big Mike snatched the jump ball and sent it sailing right over to Panama. We all was running now.
* * *
Three seconds before time ran out in the fourth quarter, Machete passed the ball to me and it seemed like the whole crowd went silent and all inhaled at the same time. I was standing at the top of the key, where I have stood a thousand times. I pulled up, ignoring my sore shoulder that had been pulling on me all night. I didn’t have even two points in this game. I’d just kept feeding Panama, a reversal of our normal strategy. He lapped it up and proved himself handily. He had twenty-eight points on the board for self. That’s why the man who was supposed to be checking me was double-checking and double-teaming Panama and I was free and clear.
Inside of a second, although I never knew there was an inside to only one second’s worth of time, I said to myself, If I make this shot, what I been thinking has to be done, has to be done. If I miss it, it’s not for me to do. I closed my eyes. I had the feeling and the dimensions of this court embossed in my memory. My fingers pushed and then flicked the ball, and when I opened my eyes, me, the crowd, and my team were all midair cheering, swoosh. It was my only three points, but it was the most important and pivotal shot in the game and in my life for the moment. The players rushed me, crushed my left shoulder some more, and the crowd went haywire.
I pushed all the rushing girlies toward my teammates, wanting to ease out of there. Purposely, I had played low-key throughout the game but now I had brought too much attention onto myself.
“That was a mean-ass shot,” Vega yelled as he pulled me out from the growing, clawing crowd. “Step to the side with me for a minute.” He pushed me forward with one hand and the crowd back with the other. I followed him and he used his authority as a coach to keep the crowd off my trail. Panama and the fellas were still entertaining the crowd, holding up the number one, their arms raised up high, index finger toward the sky. Girls gathered around them and began cheering.
“Let me ask you something, man?” Vega said. “Right before you took the winning shot, did I see you close your eyes?” He was leaning in toward me like I was about to reveal some unknown magic potion.
“Listen, tell me what you were thinking in that split second, please?” He looked serious and too curious. So I lightened him up.
“I was thinking that I had to make Coach Vega look good,” I told him. He smiled and hugged me up like one of my excited teammates.
“Listen, this weekend is the International Auto Show. I got tickets for you and the other four starters. I want to introduce you to somebody influential. Matter of fact, I could take the credit, but he actually asked me to introduce you to him,” Vega said, speaking rapidly and emphasizing the importance of the meet-up. “Before you say no, just let me tell you we got a white Mercedes 300E Hammer being unveiled. It’s the—”
“World’s fastest passenger sedan, V-8 engine made by AMG, 375 horsepower, seven airbags, and it goes from one to sixty miles per hour in four seconds flat. I know, it’s a beautiful machine.” I finished Vega’s sentences. I always kept up with the car magazines.
“Okay, the New York Coliseum, right across from Central Park. We meet up at about seven tomorrow night,” he stated like it was a confirmed fact.
“Wish I could, Coach. But I won’t be seeing you until game time for the next game. Remember I told you in advance I had something to take care of?” I reminded him. He gave me a stare, conveying his disappointment, then must’ve decided he still needed me.
“Aight, my man, I got you, my bad. You did tell me that. Hold up, let me grab the other four then, and we can do this right now.” He dashed into the crowd and pulled Panama, Machete, Jaguar, Big Mike, same as he did me. That broke up the furor, and the crowd began to slowly move out and off the court. Some girls sucked their teeth. Others waited impatiently. Some of the players’ peoples chilled outside the fence for them.