Tha Khronicles: Hood Square Series - Book One

By Knowledge B

"Streetwise and Booksmart." This is the motto that represents fifteen-year-old Kamal Bukhari, nicknamed Knerdie B. He proclaims himself to be the most talented high school basketball player to come out of South Phoenix. Kamal is the only child of immigrant parents has managed to survive the Valley of the Gun. His parents came to America to escape the conflicts back in their beloved homeland to experience the land of endless opportunities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667856599

Knowledge B

Knowledge B, also known as Abdul-Hakim Works and CEO Hood Square, is a charismatic man who loves to write, paint, and read. He is currently incarcerated at the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation and Reentry. He has been incarcerated since he was sixteen years old. Nonetheless, he has never been a man to let limitations define or confine him. Therefore, even from behind the walls, he has promised himself that succeeding in life is what he is meant to do in'sha Allah (God willing). He has received his GED, multiple certificates of completion from Central Arizona College, an Associate in Applied Science – General Business with Highest Distinction from Rio Salado College, and he is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from Ashland University. Now he has added published author to his list of accolades and is in pursuit of launching his very own brand called Hood Square. Find all his social media through: https://superlink.io/ceohoodsquare

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This book is work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by Abdul-Hakim Works All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, contact: Hood Square Univ

[e-mail]

facebook.com/ceohoodsquare12

instagram.com/ceohoodsquare

tiktok.com/ceohoodsquare

Visit our Web site at tharealhoodsquare.com

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition: 2022 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Works, Abdul-Hakim Tha Khronicles / Knowledge B—1st ed.

ISBN: 978-1-66785-658-2 (Print),

ISBN: 978-1-66785-659-9 (eBook)

1. African American—Fiction. 2. Robbery—Fiction. 3. Drug dealers—Fiction 4. Arizona—Fiction. 5. Washington, DC—Fiction. I. Title.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Khronicle One: From Boyz to Men

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Khronicle Two:Dangerous Path

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Khronicle Three:Redemption

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Epilogue

Author’s Bio

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to say al hamdu Allah (all praise be to God) for blessing me with the talent to turn my thoughts into written words. I now have a newfound respect and admiration for every page I have ever read from my favorite authors because putting a book worth reading and enjoying together from scratch is something you don’t understand until you tried your hand and mind at it.

I want to take a moment to give a heartwarming shout out to my beautiful grandmother Ms. Etta Mae Doss. Rest In Peace Grandma. I love you with all of me. I’m saddened that we lost you this year. I always hoped for you to get to see your grandson’s dreams come true, but I find comfort in knowing that you got to see me actively pursuing them. Your memory lives on in my heart and mind! I give a wholeheartedly loving shout out to my precious parents: Billy and Twilla Works. Dad, you have always been my main role model of what it really means to be a man especially a black one in America. Mom, you have always supported me and loved me with a love that embraces my entire being. Thank you both for always caring for me and loving me with that real No Matter What Love!

This goes out to my little brother DeAndre Works aka Outlaw. What’s brackin’ bro. Stay Twenty Gang. I know you ain’t shocked to see that your big bro really made it happen and got himself published. It don’t stop. In’sha Allah (God willing), one day we gone be on the other side of these prison gates reunited. Until then, we will continue to walk the mainline well respected!

To both of my beautiful big sisters Latoya Gentry and Trina Marquez. I love both of y’all so much. I love y’all kids like they’re my own and I hope I can inspire all my nieces and nephews to follow y’all dreams no matter what life throws in your way!

To my extended family. My two beautiful cousins Tahnisa Edwards aka Big Tee and Tyaneisha Moody aka Ty or my personal Nee Nee. I love y’all for real. Can’t forget my big relative Dewayne Johnson aka Frankie J. What’s brackin’ big relly? Stay Twenty Gang. Just like with my nieces and nephews, I love y’all kids like they’re my own and hope to inspire all my baby cousins to never be scared to be all y’all can be in life!

To my homies David Patterson aka KD, Darius Agboghidi aka Dee Ru, and Brandon Barge aka B. What’s brackin’ with my bros. Stay Twenty Gang! To my homie Arlonzo Coleman aka Ticko Loon. What’s poppin’ with my best Gangsta homie. Way Way my G! To my O’ G homies Ahmad Qadir aka O’ G Black and Jeffrey Gonsalves aka O’ G Spanky. Al hamdu lillah (all praise be to God), that both of y’all are succeeding in life after walking off over twenty-five years of incarceration. I get inspired by y’all stories, especially you O’ G Spanky for becoming a published author. Therefore, go get From Main St To Wall St by Jeffrey Gonsalves! To my homie Vincent Parker aka Vince P. What up Sida? It was a blessing to see you go home in early 2020 after walking off sixteen solid years with me in the trenches where we truly saw each other go From Boyz to Men. Prominent Music forever!

To the hardworking employees at BookBaby who pushed to make my dream of becoming a published author a reality. I’m forever grateful to my dream team! I dedicated this book to all my real Hood Squares out there in the world. Please know that growing up in them rough and rugged streets didn’t break you. They only made you so much stronger and gave you the edge of being both Streetwise and Booksmart! Hood Square, it’s not a moment, it’s a Movement!

Yours Truly, Knowledge B aka CEO Hood Square!

Hood Square (hood skwar) n. - A person originally from a tough urban environment who refused to let the limitations of the streets define them, but instead decided to exceed expectations to become both Streetwise and Booksmart.

Prologue

2007

It was an unusually cool July night in Phoenix, Arizona. However, Ali Bukhari still counted his blessings and praised Allah as he always did. He took a moment to reflect on all that he had accomplished since migrating to the United States from the West African country of Mali thirteen years ago with his wife Salma who was pregnant at the time. At first, it had been very difficult to make the decision to leave his homeland, tribe, and beloved ummah, but his country had been on the brink of civil war, and famine had ravaged the land. He was a very religious man, so it had been heartbreaking to see some of his fellow countrymen committing atrocities in the name of Allah. These extremists in his country and those around the world fighting in the supposed jihad were the ones fueling the many misconceptions and fears about his faith. However, it didn’t take long for him to realize that the biased Western media seemed more inclined to broadcast these acts of violence than the millions upon millions of everyday Muslims trying to live in harmony like everybody else. He never understood how these so-called religious men who claimed to be very knowledgeable could be so misguided about the straight way. Nonetheless, he was a man of peace and peace is what he would continue to strive to live in even though these thoughts still troubled him.

After fleeing the country, they had been fortunate enough to end up in a United Nation’s operated refugee camp that led to the opportunity of a lifetime. They were granted asylum in America, the land of endless opportunities to live and raise a family. Now he was a senior foreman on the night shift at a local factory owned by a company that gave its workforce equal opportunity and offered multiple ways for employees to move up the corporate ladder. All that was required was hard work, dedication, and a genuine passion for learning. He felt proud to be able to show his son, who was about to become a teenager, that they could be men of piety and still succeed in a world that seemed to be so cutthroat. At only forty-six years old he was truly blessed and still had a lot of life yet lived. As he made his rounds on foot around the warehouse, he felt an ache in his chest that stopped him dead in his tracks. He had been a little too stubborn lately with ignoring these chest pains because he was afraid, they would force him to take time off from work, so he made a mental note to address this issue within the next few weeks. However, as he finished his rounds another sharp pain hit him, but this time it felt like a load being dropped on him by a poorly operated forklift and then there was nothing...

Khronicle One:

From Boyz to Men

Chapter One

2010

It had been a rough few years since the sudden death of his father, but fifteen year old Kamal Bukhari was a survivor and he would continue to be one. He had to stay strong and be there for his mom. Now in the second month of his sophomore year at South Mountain High School, he was looking forward to the upcoming basketball season because this year Coach Blackwell had rewarded him for his stellar performance last year on the junior varsity team by making him the starting varsity point guard. He planned to prove that his freshman year wasn’t a fluke. Between his growth spurt which made him now five foot ten and the fact he had been one of the best ballers in the We Got Next, which was an elite Arizona summer league that developed talent, gave him all the motivation he needed to accomplish his mission. He heard his mom calling him to come eat breakfast, so he quickly finished his morning ritual of two hundred brush strokes to keep his fresh fade so wavy that not even a tsunami could compete.

As Salamu Alaikum, Kamal greeted his mom kissing her on the forehead.

Wa Alaikum as Salam. Now son, please eat before your food gets cold, Salma replied watching her son sit down and make quick work of his favorite which was a fried egg on buttery toast with strawberry jam and turkey bacon since pork was forbidden for them to eat as Muslims.

As he headed out the door to school, Kamal took a brief moment to reflect. It wasn’t easy growing up in South Phoenix as a child of immigrant parents, but he had long since gained the respect of his homies from the hood. The Front Streets located on Twentieth Street and Southern Avenue was the section of the neighborhood collectively known as Southern controlled by the Bloods. Kamal who had been quoted on two years prior was a proud member. He felt it was a perfect fit because red had always been his color of choice and he naturally stood out anyways. Walking down his home block of Burgess Lane, he met up with his childhood homie Samuel Douglas who everybody in the hood called S Dogg. He was almost a year older than Kamal, but they were now the same height since Kamal had sprouted. Nonetheless, this was where their physical similarities ended because Kamal was dark skinned, a little on the skinny side, and kept his hair cut short while S Dogg was light skinned and muscular with long hair that he loved to keep in braids. S Dogg had recently gotten a 2006 white Cadillac Seville from his pops after successfully receiving his driver’s license. Therefore, he was now the ride to school, the mall, parties, and anywhere else the squad needed to go, as long as they threw in for the gas money.

Smiling as he always did, S Dogg said, What’s the brack Knerdie B?

Growing up Kamal had always been weirdly smart and was widely known as the neighborhood nerd because of it. He had been called many things, but Nerdie had stuck. Nevertheless, because his first name started with a K he had decided to add it in front to make its spelling more hip. A year ago, the B had been added by O’ G Tap to give it more of a street edge after he showed real heart by standing his ground against three rivals who were out of bounds at the hood park, Hermosa. S Dogg still jokingly called him Dummy B because of it, but he had been the first to pull up after word had spread Kamal got jumped and was mad when Kamal continued to go to the park alone afterwards to practice his craft on the basketball courts there.

What’s the brack Swan? Where are Outlaw and Brazy? Kamal replied.

S Dogg laughingly said, Man, Swan, you know them fools don’t know how to tell time even though they can see it clearly on their phones every day.

Right on cue, Outlaw and Brazy appeared walking from Nancy Lane where they lived. They were brothers born DeAndre Lewis and Brandon Lewis whose dad had made them ghetto twins by knocking up both of their mothers basically around the same time. The craziest part was that their mothers were biological sisters. For the last few years, they had been living with their maternal grandma Ms. Etta Mae Doss in the hood because both of their mothers had been sent to prison for bank robbery. They even looked like twins. Both were dark skinned around the same size and height which was about five foot seven, but Outlaw had a short flat top fade while Brazy rocked his hair in dreadlocks that had gotten some real length to them this year. Kamal, Outlaw, and Brazy were all sophomores with S Dogg being the only junior, which made him feel like the big homie of their squad called the Front Street Boyz aka FSB or the squad.

What’s the brack dog food? Outlaw teased.

Always quick on his feet, S Dogg replied, What’s the brack with yo law abiding deputy do good ass?

Blood, y’all both are burnt the fuck out, Brazy said laughing while he jumped into the driver’s seat as if he was really going to drive until S Dogg made him move over to the front passenger seat.

Chapter Two

When they finally made it to South which was the name all the students called South Mountain High School, Kamal felt the smile he never could hide forming because he truly loved school. Even though his homies still clowned and said he was a Gangsta Nerd or Hood Square, he knew deep down that they loved it too. He was just the only one not afraid to openly admit that he was a bookworm and schoolboy. His smile grew even more as he remembered how they had stepped up their grades last year so not to be outdone by him. This had made him so proud of them because all four of them were still active gang members who still had to watch their backs especially on school grounds where rivals lurked. Kamal’s personal motto was Streetwise and Booksmart because it represented both sides of him. A lot of his discipline came from his father Ali, who had been very loving but also strict to make sure that his only child had been raised in accordance with the Islamic way of life. Kamal, however, had turned more to the streets since his father’s death, but he still did his best to make most of his five daily obligatory prayers and continued to believe in the oneness of Allah. Now at school, FSB made sure everybody knew the squad had finally arrived. Personally, he was more laid back and didn’t usually make public showcases outside of the basketball court but hanging out with his Boyz always brought that Southern swag to its full frontal. After saying his goodbyes, Kamal headed to his locker to get ready for his first period with Ms. McKenzie who happened to be the youngest teacher at South, plus in his opinion its most attractive. She was short and thick in all the right places for a white girl, but it was her intelligence that he found most desirable. As he was grabbing his textbooks and closing his locker, he heard the sounds of footsteps skirting across the floor as if somebody was running up on him. He quickly spun around with an elevated pulse to meet the threat head on and was greeted by his homie Arlonzo Carter aka Ticko Loon from Broadway Gangstas, a homegrown South Phoenix gang that sported black as its official hood colors. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising to see Ticko Loon wearing all black looking like the goon he was. His best Gangsta homie stood about five foot nine and was dark skinned but not as dark as him. Ticko Loon liked to rock his hair in long braids with the sides shaved similar to Kamal’s faded haircuts.

Let me know you ain’t slipping G, Ticko Loon chuckled when he saw the alarm in Kamal’s eyes.

Nigga, I almost got on your flat top, Kamal said genuinely pleased to see his best Gangsta homie even though Ticko Loon had a dark sense of humor.

Sizing him up, Ticko Loon laughingly said, Knerdie B, you better stick to them books and being a D League baller.

At least I can do more than bounce a ball and look at pictures on pages wondering what’s the book about, Kamal said as he threw a jab at his homie which led to a quick slap box session before he said, Okay Blood we gone be late. B’s and G’s. Ticko Loon replied, Okay my G, I’ll get with you later. G’s and B’s.

When first lunch came, Kamal met up with Outlaw, Brazy, and Ticko Loon. S Dogg had second lunch with the rest of the juniors and seniors, so he wasn’t with them. The spectacle his homies were putting on by the outside patio they usually chilled at, had him laughing uncontrollably that he found it difficult to breath. He knew they couldn’t help themselves from being the life of the party. It had its perks though because the ladies usually showed them mad love wherever they went, from school, the mall, to the hottest house parties that tended to get shut down prematurely. Nevertheless, there was some drawbacks too because with all this female attention niggas tended to hate. This, however, never stopped the squad from having a good time because they operated just like showbiz, so the show went on no matter what.

Clowning with his Boyz, Kamal heard a sensual voice that always made him shiver say, The one and only Knerdie B.

Sasha Garcia aka Lady Fierce was a five-foot four thick honey brown complexed Dominican hot girl with long wavy jet-black hair she loved to keep in a ponytail. Her family originated from the Bronx, New York, but she had grown up mostly with the Opps from Park South Nahborhood Crip. The royal blue attire she had on spoke volumes about her allegiance to her hood.

What’s brackin’ Blood? Kamal heard over his shoulder.

Crazy, why you always tripping cuz? Sasha replied looking at Brazy.

Come here Beautiful, Kamal said trying to hold in the laugh that threatened to burst out while motioning for Sasha to follow him, so they could have a private conversation, but not before his Boyz got in a few more last remarks.

Stay Twenty Gang.

Real G’s wear a king’s black, not a peasant’s flue.

Brazy be the name, so you better go ask yo homies why!

Pouting her pretty lips, Sasha complained, Baby, why yo homies always tripping?

Come on Sasha, please don’t act like you don’t play a part in why they feel that way. And I told you about that Baby word, Kamal responded a little more forceful than expected which immediately caused hurt to show in her pretty eyes, so he quickly put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and continued, You know how I feel about relationships Sasha. Plus, right now with our hoods still beefing hella tough over all that summer drama, it wouldn’t be a good look for either of us.

Nicca, you weren’t saying that last week or any of the other times before that when I put this pussy on you! Sasha challenged him allowing Lady Fierce to rear her pretty head.

Last time I checked, I wasn’t saying anything, it was you doing all the hollering making sure the neighbors knew my name, Kamal said with his million-dollar smile that always made the ladies break weak.

I will call you later, Kamal said after getting her to calm down then he gave her a tight hug with a playful pat on the ass, and just like that he was able to avoid another female trying to make him commit to her before he returned to his Boyz.

Looking at him like he had the plague, Brazy snarled, Swan, I just don’t know why you fuck with her!

Shit my nigga you know why, Kamal replied with a wink in Sasha’s direction that made everybody including Brazy watch her walk off.

Okay I’ll get with y’all after school, Kamal said once that perfect apple bottom disappeared from view.

Chapter Three

As he got through another week of school, Kamal found himself looking forward to what the weekend had in stored. He had made plans on Saturday to head to Arizona Mills Mall aka AZ Mills in Tempe to spend the day shopping and hanging out with Jade. They had met through her little brother Jonny who had been his teammate over the summer when they were playing for the Hot Shots in the We Got Next. Jonny was the star varsity shooting guard at McClintock High School in Tempe and had kept in touch with Kamal by hitting him

Reviews for Tha Khronicles

[neeka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a mute read! I so enjoyed reading how he developed his story. This book is filled with real life scenarios and a love story as well. I can’t wait to see more from this author!