Midnight Read Online Free Page B

“Wow! I’d like to get my hands on something exotic like that.” They laughed. The other officer said, “Funny, I wasn’t thinking about my fucking hands, man!”
    I thought to myself,
First thing I’m getting is a gun.

4
DEQUAN
    There was nothing wrong with the building, the block, or the sky above. It was the motherfuckers living in there who had to be closely watched.
    When we moved in, the first thing on me that got attacked was my clothes. An older guy named DeQuan, who seemed to be in charge of the bench outside of the building door, called me over to his office. I had to walk by the bench to get off the block anyway. I was seven. This cat was about sixteen.
    Instead of gold fronts, DeQuan had two sterling silver teeth. I saw him rocking his clothes with the price tags still hanging on ’em, dangling from his fitted hat or hanging from his kicks or plastered across his pants pockets. Most of his shit was labeled Polo, Ralph Lauren, or Nike. His kicks kept changing up daily.
    “You can’t come outside like that no more. You fucking up the whole look of the building,” he told me with a screw face. I just stood there looking back at him for some seconds. I was just learning how to translate the Black version of English and their slang.
    “What is it that you are talking about?” I asked him. Immediately he started laughing at my accent, my way of talking.
    “All this shit got to go,” he said, using his dutch to point out everything I was wearing, from the kufi on my head down to my shoes.
    “Around here we wear fitted. Put a brim on your hat, my man. And throw them joints in the trash right now, you’re insulting me,” he said, looking down at my feet. He got off his bench and pulled the metal trash can, which was chained to the bottom of his bench, closer to me. I didn’t move.
    He tried to grab my shoes right off my feet. I jumped back and pulled out my knife. He laughed and said, “What the fuck you gonna do with that?” I walked away, past him and the bench and off the block to do what I was doing.
    The next day he was on the bench with two other boys when I came walking by.
    “Lil’ Man, let me build with you for a minute,” he said.
    I had no choice but to pass by him.
    “I’m a big man so I won’t fight you. I’ll give you one last warning about this fucked-up shit you keep wearing. Get rid of it. If you need work, I’ll put you on. But if you come outside one more time with this fucked-up fashion, I’mma put my young brother DeSean on your ass. No knives. Just a fair one, fist to fist, every day until you get it right.”
    His brother DeSean had on Levi’s jeans, no shirt, and the matching jean jacket with some new kicks. He grimaced at me, something I guess his brother taught him to do. I looked straight back at him.
    “I got five brothers. DeSean here is nine. DeRon is ten. You can take your pick. I’ll bring ’em all downstairs and line them up for you. But every day you gonna have to fight one of ’em either way.”
    I could tell he couldn’t tell, or maybe he didn’t care, that I was only seven.
    “We can fight,” I answered him with no emotion. He tried to stay straight-faced but I could tell he was surprised.
    I fought one of his brothers every day for two weeks.Whoever was on the block at the time took it as entertainment. But DeQuan could see that I took it seriously. Slowly, he learned to show me a little respect. Everybody noticed how I never tried to duck out the side or the back of the building. I showed up ready, with no fear.
    I fought the nine-year-old for the first few days. Everybody could see I had more skill. He would start out strong in the beginning but couldn’t make it through to the finish. But DeQuan would have him right out there the next day to try again.
    Next I took on DeRon, the ten-year-old, who had more weight than me, but my father once taught me a way to fight someone who is bigger and stronger. While we was battling, their big brother