Chapter 6 #2
I might not listen to anybody in the fuckin world, but bitch, I listen to my nigga!
I follow the rules. Just the other day, I happened to be playing the voicemail that my anger management instructor left on my phone, not knowing that Dolo had walked into the room behind me.
When I say he got on me so bad, telling me that my ass better not miss another class!
I haven’t canceled a session since. That man told me to learn how to cook, and you should see me around the house, looking at cookbooks, and recipes online, trying to learn how to cook some of his favorite meals.
All that hardheaded shit went out the window when it came to him.
Uzi and I talked about a little bit of everything during the drive. We ended up at one of her laundry mat locations. It was in downtown Miami.
It was nearing eight in the morning, so the spot was pretty empty.
I watched Uzi as she whipped the car into a parking spot like a pro, shut the car off, and before she stepped out, she reached for her gun that was in the middle compartment, so that she could stuff it in the back of the jeans that she had on.
I was packing as well, with my gun on my waist, too.
All I stepped out with was my phone in my hands, but once I closed the door behind me, I placed the phone in my back pocket.
The laundry mat was in a plaza. There were other stores out here, but it wasn’t too crowded in the parking lot yet, since it was still so early.
The door was opened for the laundry mat, so we were able to walk right in.
Wasn’t really a lot of customers inside.
Probably just around five of them. Some were sitting at the chairs, waiting for their clothes to finish washing, while there were others that were at the folding stand, folding their clothes.
A few of the workers were here too. All Cuban women, that smiled at Uzi when she walked in.
Uzi spoke to them in Spanish, and she was very fluent with it, too.
I’ve heard Uzi speak Spanish on a few occasions.
A few of the girls in her class were Cuban, that didn’t have the best English, so she would often speak to them in Spanish.
The workers that were inside were all doing their own thing.
One was standing in the back, where there was another folding station, and she was folding up clothes for a customer.
When we walked in, I read the sign on the door, so I knew that this location offered services of washing, drying, and folding your clothes for you, so I’m sure that’s what the worker was doing.
There was another side on the right of us that held more washing machines, and dryers, so one of the workers were mopping the floor over there.
It was squeaky clean in here. I only remember going to the wash house a couple of times with my mom as a kid, and that was only those times when we would have something wrong with our washing machine, or dryer back home.
I don’t remember the wash house being this neat, and this fancy.
I don’t remember top of the line appliances being in there, either.
There was LG washing machines and dryers in here.
I just knew that probably half a million was invested into this.
“Damn. You got LG washing machines all through here. This had to have cost you about a stack for just one of them,” I noted, walking over to one of the washing machines, and I pulled the door open, so that I could examine it, and look inside.
“A little over a stack,” Uzi said from behind me.
I stopped looking at the washing machine, so that I could turn around, and look at her. I then scanned the entire room, trying to take note of the washing machines and dryers that I saw. I was trying to calculate.
“It’s damn near fifty washing machines in here, and fifty dryers. That’s a lot of money invested” I perked, closing the door back to the machine.
“Whenever you go into a business, and you invest your money in it, don’t worry about what the cost is.
If you worry about the cost, you going to get in your head, and nine times out of ten, you’ll let the number scare you off.
You gotta look at what the business will make you.
Think about where I have this location. We’re in downtown Miami.
A lot of the areas over here is old money.
Old housing. A lot of the units don’t have washing machines and dryers.
People going to need to clean their clothes,” she started, going ahead and schooling me, and like class was in session, I stood across from her, eyes glued to her hazel ones, following where she was going with this.
“My daddy started this business. You know how it goes. When you’re in the streets, you need a way to clean up the dirty money, so he invested in laundry mats.
It didn’t always look like this in here though.
I have a photo album in the back, where my office is, and I’ll show it to you.
You’ll see what it looked like before. It was old ass machines in here.
I remember my daddy used to have someone in here every week working on one of the machines.
At the time, luxury wasn’t at the top of his list. He was too worried about cleaning up the money and surviving.
A little after he died, my sisters and I wanted to make changes within the laundry mats, so we remodeled all of them.
We have three other locations, and each of them were upgraded like this location.
Keep in mind, these laundry mats are old.
These buildings were paid off years ago.
We haven’t had a mortgage on these buildings in years,” she continued to go on, and I was right here, following her… learning.
“All the money that these laundry mats are bringing in is profit. Because this is a business that I run with my sisters, after we handle shit like payroll, utilities, and maintenance, we bust whatever is left down the middle. My sisters and I have high- yield accounts, and trust funds for the kids, and that’s where all our portion of the money goes.
That’s been set up years ago, when all our kids were babies.
By the time their seniors in high school, all they gotta do is pick the college, and the money is right here,” she informed me, and I loved that.
I respected it too, so I nodded my head.
“You see how you making college an option for your kids, right? Your daddy hustled, and you followed in his footsteps. Was that something that he made you follow him in, or you chose that route? I’m only asking because I can tell that your smart, so I guess I just want to know how come you didn’t go to college? ” I quizzed.
My question made her laugh, and then she started walking, leading the way. I went on the side of her, so that I could walk next to her.
“Riot, I knew exactly what I wanted to be at a very young age. Shit, I wanted to be a hustler like my daddy. He knew he couldn’t beat that mentality out of me.
He let me, and Benelli hustle like him. Our little sister Nyne didn’t want to do it.
She’s the one that went off to college,” she shared, and I nodded.
“What about you, Riot? I know you have street smarts, but I also know when I’m around someone that’s book smart too.
It’s the kind of questions that you ask that lets me know how smart you are.
You pay attention to everything. You question everything.
Why didn’t you go to college?” she asked the same question that I’d asked her. I’m always asked this question.
I remember back in high school, my guidance counselor would get so mad at me because my test scores would be through the roof, but then I’ll get in trouble the following week for fighting.
I had so many teachers in my ear, telling me about the big universities that I could get accepted into because of my grades, and test scores, but college was just never something that I wanted for myself.
Just like Uzi, I knew who I wanted to be at a young age.
“I just think that I’m a product of my environment, you know?
I spent many years following behind my brother, and his friends.
A lot of the friends that my brother had were much older than him, so early on, I saw the kind of life that hustling could afford you.
That’s what I was chasing after. I think it’s genetic too.
My daddy hustled, so his kids ended up doing the same.
I don’t know if this makes me sound weird for having this mindset, but chasing the hustle, chasing behind what my daddy used to do, makes me feel closer to him in a sense,” I told her, getting deep with her.
“I feel that. My daddy was my hero, so I really wanted to do everything that he was doing. Right now, you may feel like hustling is the only option for you. I won’t try to beat that mindset out of you because I once felt like that too.
Just know that it doesn’t have to remain the only option for you.
Hustling should be something that’s just temporary.
Stack your money, but it’s going to come a day when you’re ready to walk away from that shit,” she said.
I didn’t think that that day was going to come any time soon. Shit, I felt like I was still getting my feet wet, so I was nowhere near ready to let it go now.