Yarn Cats, Inc.

It really didn’t start as a hustle.

There was a time in my life when I had a real job. It required me to fly on a lot of airplanes and feel like I was important. I blew the money I made. That’s another story.

Well, this job was with an English company. The office closed when management flew home to the UK for two weeks at the end of every year. Associates had two weeks off throughout the rest of the year. Time did not roll over. That summer, my vacation requests got cancelled after some folk were fired and I was assigned their workload. At first I griped, but the closer we got to Thanksgiving, the happier I got. My time would not roll over. The company wasn’t going to cut me a check. I had two weeks of vacation I was owed and another two weeks mandated. I had all of the requests and their denials in writing. Just before the November holiday, I sat my boss down and explained my dilemma. He got angry, mainly with himself. It’s not like he picked up any slack for the folk he’d let go. He put it all on me. Sometimes it’s like that, man.

Anyway, I had a month of vacation and nothing to do. I decided to learn racquetball. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

None of the fellas played racquetball, but that was easily remedied. Everything else aside, I have always been blessed with open minded friends. Luckily, at that time, we all had memberships at a local health club whose commercials promised trimming workouts but whose restrictive contracts only guaranteed to fatten its parent company’s wallet. We were all bored. I think we were all single. Racquetball Saturday mornings was not a hard sell, just tough logistically. The only branch in our area that boasted racquetball courts was in the River City complex in the West Loop. We all agreed to meet there my first Saturday morning off. We all bought racquets during the week. None of us knew how to play. I made sure the courts were reserved.

For all of his technical talents, Mark should have been a teacher. He has a natural affinity for it. As we sat outside of our reserved courts Saturday morning, he patiently explained the game to us. He’d found instructions on the Internet, and had watched some people play the night before, peppering them with questions.
Our crew had reserved both courts. Early Saturday morning. Eventually, the four of us: me, Mark, Flat and Irwin, worked up a collective sweat as we learned the basics of the game. Saturday morning became Tuesday nights for us all and weekday mornings as well for me and Flatbush, since we had the most daytime availability. Racquetball took over our lives, and by week three, everyone had made some adjustment. Mark had found a pro quality racquet at a used equipment shop for little of nothing. I spent three weeks working my deltoids and forearms really hard to improve the strength of my swing. Flat would practice with a 1970s area super small racquet, and switch up for the games to a standard size. His technique in hitting the ball from the standard racquet’s sweet spot was unbelievable. Irwin had put his karate lessons (and his ganja smoking) on hold in order to focus on his game and improve his wind, respectively.

Four guys learning a new sport. Dedicating themselves to perfecting their skill.

It really didn’t start as a hustle.

One Tuesday night, Flat innocently asked if we could improve our games further by playing for stakes.

Everybody gave Flatbush the leery eye.

“Like what?” I asked aloud. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mark shake his head.

Irwin said, “What? Just play different people until w get better?”

Flat did not even acknowledge Irwin. “Put money in a pot every Saturday, winner of a day’s tournament takes it home.”
That was adding too much complexity to the agreement. I agreed playing for something would increase the intensity of our game, but having to make sure I had cash every Saturday morning, plus always wondering if I was going to win some money, was too much. Also, we all knew that whenever Flat and money were together, he had an angle.

“Tell you what,” I suggested. “Let’s do this. We play until total elimination. Loser buys breakfast. Winner chooses where we eat. The other two guys come along for the ride. I’ll referee to make sure some of us,” we all eyed Flat intently, “doesn’t go overboard with expensive restaurant choices.”

The fellas agreed readily. Flatbush gave me the evil eye for a second, which I returned, but then he reached into his bag for his racquet, and we all began to warm up. Mark watched this whole exchange quietly. Irwin complained he was out of cigarettes.

“Man,” I asked, “didn’t you give up weed?”

“Yeah,” Irwin shrugged, “but cigarettes are filtered.”

It really didn’t start as a hustle.

We are four relatively decent guys. Smart, too. A bit too smart for our own good.

Initially, our tournaments were intense sessions that involved a lot of cussing, trash talking and banging into walls as if they were made of feathers. Those first few “Loser Buys Breakfast” Saturdays, I noticed grimaces as guys tried to raise coffee cups to their mouths or chew with any rapidity.

Eventually, though, our tournaments became less about winning, and more about not losing.

In fact, Flatbush became Irwin’s bosom buddy. I noticed when Irwin was out of squares, Flat always had a pack of Newports in his bag for him. Although Flat had quit smoking ages ago, claiming it interfered with his sex life.

Many Saturday mornings, I also noticed Irwin walking into the club bleary eyed. The explanation? He and had had started making Friday their hangout night.

“Wanna come? Flatbush is usually real good for a few drinks. He usually gets my bar tab. Says business is good.” Irwin changed out of his clubbing clothes into his workout gear, trying to shake the hangover off.

I gave Irwin a hard look. “I’ll pass.”

Mark shook his head.

We each had different playing styles. Mark knew all the technicalities and would play by-the-book racquetball. I had a serve that was difficult to hit and was willing to take my lumps to get a point.

Flat was a smart player. Always competitive, he worried about the score. Sometimes, after a heated exchange, he would gently lob the ball off the back wall, making it impossible for a defender like me, at he back of the court and geared up for a blast, to return it within a bounce. Point, Flatbush.

Irwin played an OK game, but he was usually distracted.

Sharks know blood. Even when it is their own. While this didn’t start out as a hustle, the unwritten name of the game went from “Win at All Costs” to “Just Beat Irwin.” Once, I heard Flat mutter when I had him down several points, that all he had to do was outrank Irwin. A couple of times when one of us forgot our wallet on a Saturday morning, the sideways glances said it all. “As long as Irwin has his, we’ll eat well after the match.”

There were still battles. I guess we all wanted a shot at choosing the breakfast location, plus there was just a strong sense of competition. I wanted to shut Flat’s mouth. Flat wanted to prove he could return my serve.

One day, Flat and Mark had a match that for all its intensity would have made a Jedi master proud. Flat’s brains and hustle versus Mark’s technique. I sat, like a kid, with my nose pressed to the glass the whole time. There was something bigger than just racquetball and breakfast happening that morning, and while I don’t think there was any thaw in the ice between, each had a heightened level of respect for the other when they emerged from the court, panting. I went half on breakfast with Irwin. We clearly both lost. The show was worth going halves on the check with the real loser, Irwin.

Those were great Saturdays. A lot of exercise with your friends and a guaranteed free meal afterwards. Women may have played fair and thrown a game or two to help Irwin out. Wasn’t happening. Mark had too much integrity, Flat had too much to gain, and me? I was angry the man was letting himself be duped by Flat.

Being honest? There were times Irwin tried to put up a game, and I noticed the three of us got relentless then. You could see the look on each of our faces as we crushed Irwin like a pop can. “Dude, I FORGOT my WALLET!”

Irwin never complained. I am a fan of cheap breakfasts in out of the way places. Mark believes in fairness. I practiced, I came sound of mind and clean of body, I played hard, if I have a taste for something expensive, too bad. I played by the rules.

Flat just wanted to get over.

One Saturday, we were breakfasting at Army & Lou’s after a Flatbush win. Some folk go to places like Army & Lou’s for the history. Some because they like the food. People like Flat go because many years ago such places were jammed packed with Black luminaries who made soul food restaurants like Army & Lou’s and Izola’s their stomping grounds. Flat was 30 years late in everything. Flat would buy a deuce and a quarter not for its classic appeal but because that’s what “in” Black folk drove hen we were kids. Forget that we had moved on to BMWs. We weren’t at Bazzell’s French Quarter Bistro when Flat won. We were at Army & Lou’s; I guess hoping Cecil Partee and Harold Washington (both dead) would drop by.

So while enjoying soul food at 9am (I think I was having catfish and scrambled eggs), Flat began announcing how life was like racquetball. Through hard work, cunning and hustle, I am at the top. Today’s game proves it. For all of you guys’ education, playing by the rules and just generally doing what you think you should to be successful, I choose where we eat most Saturdays because I, Flatbush, am the real example of Black male success.

A lot of this rant seemed aimed more at Irwin than the rest of us. Mark’s origins were humbler, and truth be told, he was harder than Flat could be in a dream. Flat made a point of keeping me around because it made him look like he was an OK guy. When he’d meet women while hustling on trains or the streets, the ones that would agree to go out with him would meet me. “See, I have educated normal friends,” the gesture seemed to say, “I just choose to be a street hustler. You know how classist Black folk can be…if I was that bad; would this dude be hanging with me?”

I had my flaws, too, however.
Flat really seemed to be giving Irwin a hard time. Irwin, too had played by the rules, and done well for himself. He came from a very tight and supportive family. Of the three of us, Irwin appeared the softest. He wasn’t internally hard like Mark and he wasn’t a devil may care ass like me. Flat was more bark than bite but the very way he made his living meant he was not weak.

This all got kind of old. First, I never though fish should be paired with eggs. Second, Flat had bested me in a match that went into extended points and he eked out a two point win. Third, I was always curious. Why is it these Black folk who love to talk about how rough they had it and how real they are die to spend their time with the very boogie Negroes over whom they claim superiority? You send your kids to a private school, you are wrecking the system. Your kids are spoiled. They do it, their kids are fortunate. They spend more time criticizing the way you live and were reared and trying to provide their own kids with some bootleg version of the same, usually so they can look down on someone else.

“Dude,” I started. Mark cleared his throat. His eyes were bright. Irwin kept looking at his plate.

“The hell you talking about Flat?”

“Bill Gates…no education…Sean Combs…no education…Leonardo DiCaprio…no education…Michael Dell…no education…Richard Branson…no education…you educated Negroes think you run something, but you don’t have the drive to run yourselves. Regardless of how much family you got or schoolin’ you need, people like ME make the world go around. Ya’ll got the same bad habits as anyone else. You don’t get as many women as I do. I’m even better at your sports that you are.”

Mark had a look on his face that could only be described as the cat having eaten the canary. He looked intently at me. Irwin was looking at his plate.

I pushed aside my fish and laughed. Then I started, calmly.

“Man, don’t think for a minute just because you didn’t go to school, that puts you in with a group of folk who missed graduation but made something else happen.

“Bill Gates…operating system to the world…Sean Combs…questionable but ultimately profitable music…Dicaprio…Oscar, anyone? Dell…yeah, cheap computing makes him the Henry Ford of the millennium…Branson? The only Virgin most guys are willing to embrace…

“What do you DO, Flat? What do you produce? If you kicked the bucket today, what could the world say you offered it with your presence? Oh, you liked chasing big booty hood rats that had 5 kids by 6 dudes before they were twenty…”

“I make money…”

“Doing what? Dude, you sell bootleg products. The Chinese won’t even put you on they payroll, so you ain’t a serious bootlegger. Wow. You the dude that show up in the beauty salon dressed like a clown and selling something that has the societal and consumer value of, what? A damn yarn cat.”

Some things are funnier in concept than sound. Mark almost spit milk through his nose. Irwin was shaking with mirth. Flat glared at me.

“A what?”

“A yarn cat, fool. You on the bottom side of industry. Do you sell toiletries? No. Groceries? No. Books? Hell no, you just read the ones where everything is a damned conspiracy. Shoes? No. You sell bootleg consumer products. A clear indicator that even your clientele, the so called “real uneducated Black folk” are in worse shape than you. They would rather pay you for a knockoff of a product so they can associate themselves with what they think defines having money than just buy something functional and live their lives.”

“My products are…”

“Useless as a damn yarn cat. A cat made outta a ball of yarn. Looks like a damn cat but if you put it over in the corner by some mice, eventually they have beat its ass, ripped it to shreds and used its innards to make their holes more comfortable. Sad thing about yarn cats? They are not even useful. They are not even a justifiable impulse buy. They just some dumb shit one fool thought up to sell to another fool so the fool’s economy can keep both of them feeling productive.

“What kinda work you do baby?
“I sell yarn cats. They useless, but they look good. Kinda like me. I pretend to be useful, but I got the utility of a damn cat made out of a spool of calico. What I can do is dog women, hustle my friends and convince myself that I am better than the very people I strive to emulate on a daily basis.”

My voice had never risen above an ever conversational tone. We could have been discussing the weather, except one would wonder why climate change would evoke the responses coming from Mark and Irwin.

“If you so damned on top of things, what you playing racquetball for anyway? Shouldn’t you be out on the courts somewhere? Damn. What? You a reverse wannabe? Some people wanna be thugs? You wanna be boogie?”

Flat was steaming, but he stayed quiet. For the next hour, as we stuck around, whenever the conversation got slow, Irwin would mutter “Yarn carts” and Mark would mutter in turn, “’Bout as useful as a stove made outta gasoline cured wood.”

The Best Dinner There Never Was

It was Sunday.

I was crashing with Flat in his studio apartment in Hyde Park. Mark was there too. I did not live in the residence hall that semester, waiting on funds to come through for a small apartment downtown, close to the campus and my last internship, a job in the research department for a British communications firm. The floor was hard at Flatbush’s place, but it was easier than the much longer daily commute from my parent’s place way out south.

Mark was off work for a minute, and had stayed with Flat and I that week, hanging while I was at work and school, and regaling me with stories of their day. Flat always had a bunch of girls around, especially during the day, and some of the stories I stopped mid way so I could have some deniability.

On this Sunday, however, Mark confided he was ready to go back to his own home, much further west, in a much different neighborhood. His vacation twenty five minutes east was over, and he was grateful.

“What?” I started. “You haven’t had fun? Man. I’ve envied ya’ll. That strip poker thing with those coeds ya’ll had Thursday was enough to make me consider dropping out and living a little.”

Mark shook his head.

“It isn’t worth it,” he started, heavily.

“What? The women? The partying? My regret is you all manage to get all of this done while the sun is shining. When I get back, ya’ll are all done just when I’m ready to hang out.”

Mark shook his head. “You ever stop to ask just what kind of women are available at noon to drink some beer and play strip poker?”

I hadn’t. “The kind that likes to get naked after a couple brews, I guess.”

Mark glared at me.

“I’m gone tonight, man. I can only take Flatbush in small doses.”

“Why? Ya’ll appear to be having fun. You go with him when he hustles. Ya’ll come back here. You drink; you party with women who obviously aren’t bashful.”

Mark chose his words carefully. “Flat…can be…grating.”

“Huh?”

“He doesn’t…this is not a life you want, man. This cat makes a lot of weird choices.”
I learned something then. There are instances when you have different friends, and it is wise not to mix them. Their being close to you does not mean they will establish the same rapport with someone else that has the same relationship with you. What they have in common in you. They aren’t obligated to dig each other.

“This lifestyle,” Mark said again, slowly, “can be toxic. And I’m not talking about the booze and cigarettes.”

That said, we went upstairs, where Flatbush was having a conversation with Emo, his daughter’s mother.

Emo and Flat were on again, off again. Knowing how Flatbush had serious issues with infidelity, that was obvious. He appeared a good dad, but a lousy boyfriend. Flat once admitted to Mark and I the reason they split this last time was because Emo came home from work early one day.

“So?” I asked. An early work day is a good thing.

“I had company.”

“So?”

“My company was in bed with me.”

Oh. In the house ya’ll shared? Yeah, the old Eddie Murphy defense, ‘Wasn’t me!”
probably didn’t fly that day. The fur did, though, with Emo putting him out and Mr. Jones taking the studio apartment he used as his current address.

Emo relented, though, and got an apartment in the building next door to Flat’s. That didn’t stop him from entertaining his female guests at all hours of the day, but he assured us theirs was a relationship based on the mutual parenting of their beautiful daughter.

Flat could be a real bastard, though. One of the things I have learned is if you are not serious about a woman, limit certain interactions with her. Some guys limit that to intimate relationships. I have learned to take that a step or two further. Don’t borrow her car. Don’t assume responsibility for her. Refuse to take money from her, especially large sums. Don’t give her any reason to assume there is more to your relationship than there is.

If you share a child, you can amend these rules slightly, but be easy about it. Don’t slip into the role of doting significant other AND daddy. Be straight. If you need to borrow her car because yours is on a flat and you have to take the baby to the doctor that day, that’s OK. If she offers to go half on daycare and gives you the money, that’s OK. It is expected you will sit together at family and school functions and beam with pride and laugh as your child is lauded for some accomplishment. You may have to get together over coffee, even a light lunch, to discuss why Junior thinks he is running game by trying to pit you two against each other.

Avoid romantic dinners just because she offers to pay. Don’t borrow her car to hang out for the day and promise you’ll take her for drinks later and tell her about your day. Resist the urge to grab her hand at family events and lament over what could have been if the two of you worked it out.

This was all foreign to Flatbush. If he needed Emo’s car to pick up some tail on the other side of town and his was low on gas, he’d borrow hers. If there was some new get rich quick scheme he needed start-up cash for and he was low on funds, he’d hit up Emo, saying it was for “the family.” In short, he basically did everything short of sleeping with Emo to make it clear to her he still had an interest in her, as long as there was a personal benefit for him. It was wrong, and I told him about it, but he shrugged it off. Poor Emo. She was a bright woman who really tried to make something work, but the guy she chose had one interest: himself. I used to tell Flat he could never get with the women I wanted because they had lines they weren’t going to cross. I was glad of that.

Emo stopped by that sunny fall afternoon while Flatbush, Mark and I were playing Monopoly. Flat was gloating about how he would one day rule the city the way he was ruling the board, and every time he opened his mouth, I saw Mark grimace. We were drinking beer and passing the time.

Emo watched us for a while, smiling.

“Hey Emo,” I said.

“Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. You know, I was just thinking it is nice to see three Black men enjoying their selves, enjoying a drink, no cursing, no loud talking, and no violence. I think this is really cool. I’d like to make you guys dinner if you don’t mind.”
At the time my main meal was lunch, at work, Monday through Friday. Sundays like this one were a god time to order Harold’s chicken and prep for the upcoming week.
“I think I can fry some chicken, make some cornbread, rice, and greens. I can have it whipped up in a couple hours, you guys can come next door to my place, we can eat, watch TV…”

Mark and I happily chorused we were in. Flat muttered something noncommittal. Emo bustled off to start the meal.

I got to thinking about that food and couldn’t concentrate on much else. I had to do something to kill that time, which now was creeping along as if I were Atlas holding up the world, looking up every five minutes for Hercules to come give me a break.
“That’s it,” I said, standing. “I’m losing the game anyway. Look, I got some laundry to do for this week. I’ma go knock that out instead of sitting here listening to my stomach growl.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Mark volunteered.

“Uh, OK. Flat?”

“I’ma wash later. But ya’ll take ya’ll time,” he reached for his burnout cel phone and dialed a number.

“Yeah, who this? Hey. Naw, this Flat. What you doin’ this afternoon?”

I looked at Mark. He shook his head slightly.

“Yeah. Knock three times. Yeah. Naw, I got somebody watching me. It’s cool, though.”

I looked. “Flat? What the hell?”

“I’m having some company is all.”

“Dog, we got a couple hours until dinner?”

Mark was still shaking his head.

“Flat,” I was boiling, “I want this dinner, man…please don’t do anything incredibly… stupid.”

This was a decade before Captain Jack Sparrow made this statement part of the lexicon. Mark shook his head.

We were still stuffing clothes into my laundry bag when there were three raps at the door.

Flat hustled over to the door and escorted in a woman six inches taller than he. She walked in with a sneer and tossed her weave over her shoulder.

She was solidly built, devoid of any anatomical extremes that make men say, “Did you see her…”

She sneered at us. “Who they?”

“They leaving.” Flat held the door for us. I grabbed my laundry bag, Mark took the detergent and we walked out. She slammed the door behind us.

We didn’t speak til we reached the laundry room.

“What the hell?” I started.

Mark shook his head.

“Kinda what I’ve been saying about this whole week.”

I started washing, and we amused ourselves making up stories. One of us would stop the story, drop it, and wait for the other to pick it up. Juvenile? Yeah. We had to kill time, though. I was hungry.

“I was gonna wait until tonight, but I think I’ll head home in a little while.” Mark announced.

“What? You’re gonna miss a great dinner. That Emo is a helluva cook.”

Mark shook his head. “Not going to be any dinner, man. You may want to call Harolds, or order a pizza.”

“What is it with you, man?”

“This guy’s personality is…grating. He works on impulse. It’s all about immediate gratification, about some kind of sensory pleasure. He doesn’t really have a sense of loyalty to anyone but himself, and his sense of decency is pretty shallow.”

“Man, you weren’t complaining when his female buddies were getting indecent with you this week.”

“True. I never said that I was perfect. We can all be hedonists sometimes, but this dude…it’s his speed. It is who he is all the time. The only thing of which you can be sure is that he is going to always do whatever brings him some pleasure, so matter how fleeting, and he will choose that over anyone and anything.”

Mark talked funny sometimes.

“I mean, what’s his problem? Did you see her?”

I didn’t answer because Flatbush stumbled in. His face was ashen.

“How could she get in?” he muttered.

It took the entire dry cycle for the story to end.

“Me and old girl were getting into it, right? We must have been going for a good fifteen, twenty minutes when I heard bamming on the door.

“Flat! Flatbush! I know you in there! Open up!”

“Emo?” I ask dumb questions. Mark shook his head. Flat nodded, some color returning to his face.

“So I ignore her. I keep doing my thing with ol’ girl, she says, Who is that? I say, My baby momma. Forget it. I guess Emo went away.

“We keep going. The bamming starts again. Flat! Flatbush! Flatbush Jones! I know you up in some girl in thee! I know you all up in her! You think I’m stupid! I ain’t stupid! How could you do this to me? I’m over here cookin’ for your ass and you do me like this?

“So I tell ol’ girl, Look, this wreckin’ my stroke. Let’s go in the bathroom.

“We in the bathroom, she’s over the sink, havin’ a good ol’ time when the bamming starts again.

“Flatbush! Be a man! You got one minute to come open this door or I’m coming in! I gotta key!

“I’m thinking, Man, this woman ain’t got no key. I never let my keys outta my sight because I know how she is. I keep strokin’ and the bathroom door flies open.”

I shook my head. Mark actually smiled. Then he grinned. Wide.

“Emo?”

“Yeah.”

Mark’s grin turned thermonuclear.

“Where was, ah, your company?”

“Still bent over the sink.”

“Where were you?”

“Still inside her.”

“Oh.”

Mark began giggling.

“So then, Emo starts hollering at me and slapping me around…I am still in the…”

“I get it, move on.”

“So when I’m finally, um, out, ol’ girl, buck naked, starts talking to Emo about what a dog I am. She starts getting dressed, all the while telling Emo how I’m only good for one thing, and how she should stay away from me. They walk out together, and as they’re leaving, ol’ girl tells Emo, What you expect from someone with no spirituality?”

Mark headed for the door.

“Been real, gentlemen. JD, I be in touch.”

I heard Mark’s laughter until the outside door closed behind him.

“What’s so damn funny?” Flat fumed.

“You got the number to Harold’s?” I asked.