The Last Street Novel (14 page)

B
EFORE
S
HAREEF KNEW IT
, he had fallen asleep on the bed, and Polo was calling him on the cell phone from out in front of the hotel.

“Hello,” Shareef answered and cleared his throat.

“Yo, don’t tell me you up there sleeping, man, on your first night back in Harlem.”

“Yeah, I crashed for a minute. So what?”

“So, get on down here so we can get something to eat. We all out here in the truck.”

“Who’s
we
?”

“Me, Trap, and Spoonie. You remember Spoonie from middle school days and football?”

Who could ever forget a kid nicknamed Spoonie?

“With the teeth?” Shareef asked him subtly.

Polo laughed loud enough to cover up his answer. In their youth, Spoonie was tortured by a slight overbite.

Polo said, “Yeah. He wanted to sit down and shoot the breeze with you, too. I told him what you was working on.”

Shareef didn’t know if he liked that or not, but it was too late to pull it back. Polo had already made his move.

He said, “Aw’ight, I’m coming down now.”

He ended the call, rose up from the bed, checked his face, hair, and clothes in the mirror, and brushed his teeth.

When he strolled out of the building to join the group inside Polo’s Bronco, the front passenger door was left open for him.

Shareef looked into the back of the jeep and gave Trap and Spoonie a handshake.

“What’s up, fellas? What life look like now?”

“Not as good as yours,” Spoonie responded to him. “I see your face on the back of books everywhere now. And I stop people all the time and tell them, ‘I went to school and played football with that kid.’”

He was taller and thinner than all of them, wearing all dark blue.

Shareef asked him, “You tell ’em I used to lay your ass out in football, too?”

Trap chuckled and answered, “Nah, he didn’t tell them none of that. He just told them the good things.”

Trap was dressed in all black, and was usually a sly counterpuncher. No one ever had any idea of when he would speak. So his friends and foes were forced to expect the unexpected from him.

“So, where we off to first?” Shareef asked them as he got in and closed the door.

“Trap wanna take you over to the Native. It’s this place on one-eighteenth and Lenox,” Polo told him.

“What kind of food is it?” Shareef asked.

“Is like Caribbean, Indian, soul…I can’t explain it, man. You tell him, Trap,” Polo responded.

Trap said, “They got like a mix of everything. I just like the vibe in there.”

“Yeah, it’s low-key, like you like it, right?” Spoonie offered.

Shareef nodded and waited to see for himself.

They arrived at Native, a dark, red, cultural food corner at 118th and Lenox, and Shareef could see why Trap liked it so much. The place was out in the open yet hidden at the same time. In fact, a person could easily drive right past if they didn’t stop to look. There were no bright McDonald’s or Wendy’s signs out in front. The owners seemed to want it dark on purpose. Inside they used more candles than lights, and the dark, wooden tables and chairs were set close together for more intimacy.

Shareef grinned as the four black men took a seat at an empty table against the back wall of the restaurant near the bathroom and coat hooks.

He said, “This feels like a stake-out joint for undercover cops.”

Trap grinned at him from across the table and said nothing.

Shareef announced, “Aw’ight, so, am I the fat pig here, or is everybody paying for their own food?”

Spoonie looked at him while sitting beside Trap and hinted, “Damn, you did put on some weight over the years, son. What you been eatin’?”

They shared a laugh at the table at Shareef’s expense.

Trap said, “I got my own shit, man. They know me in here. They got my face on file.”

Shareef told him, “Nah, I can’t pay for two and leave you hanging. So I’ll just take the whole bill and eat it. But I ain’t doing this shit tomorrow.”

Polo looked offended. He said, “Who told you you was paying for my shit? I’m not homeless. I drove us over here.”

“Dig it, I’m a man up in here, too,” Spoonie added.

Shareef looked at them all and said, “Aw’ight, well, if everybody wanna pay for their own food, then that’s cool with me.”

Polo backstepped and said, “I mean, I’m not gon’ fight you over it, B, if you wanna go ahead and pay for it, then I’m good with that.”

Spoonie said, “That’s what I’m saying. We all grown, civil men in here. I know how to accept a gift.”

Shareef grinned and shook his head. He looked at Trap again and said, “What about you? You got yours?”

Trap answered, “Like you said, man, if you planned on paying for everything, then just go ahead and put it all on one bill. That keeps it simple.”

It was no big deal to Shareef. It wasn’t as if he was around those guys every day. So they started ordering drinks, appetizers, and main courses all on him.

Once they began to drink and dig into the sweet and spicy chicken, shrimp, and fish dishes, with vegetables and rice on the side, Trap asked Shareef, “So, what are you trying to do up here with your next book?”

That was what they were all there to talk about. They had celebrated a coming home party for Shareef before, but this was different. He was working on a book about the Harlem streets this time, the Harlem they all knew and that he had moved away from.

Shareef bit into his spicy shrimp with white rice and answered Trap’s question with a question of his own. “Who runs the block now?”

Spoonie looked at him and shook his head.

“This ain’t the eighties no more, man. Ain’t nobody gettin’ down like that. You got a million hustlers trying to do what they can, and most of them ain’t really gettin’ no money.”

“Yeah, hustlers got regular slave jobs like we got now,” Polo commented. “I mean, them niggas hustling for a flat-screen TV now. What’s the use in that?”

Trap said, “Some of these young bloods, they try to do a little something, but it just don’t last, man. It’s too much heat up here on the streets now. I mean, look around you, man, and see who you see moving in.”

Shareef had to look no further than the customers in the restaurant; white, black, Asian men, women, couples, and college students represented a Bohemian appeal. That wasn’t the Harlem he knew.

Spoonie said, “I can introduce you to a few guys to tell you how it is now. But they not gon’ talk just for the hell of it. I mean, they’re out here hustling for a reason.”

Shareef wasn’t interested in too many small-time players, especially if he had to pull arms and legs and eventually pay them for it. He could see how that would go before he started. He wanted to get a feel for the new heavyweights in his old neighborhood first. He needed to understand the big fish of the book before he could focus on the chapters of everyone else. He didn’t plan on telling his friends about his meeting with Michael Springfield in prison the next morning, either. He didn’t want any of their opinions to bias his visit. There was a method to his madness, and he planned to stick to it.

“So, you’re telling me there’s no new Nino Brown in the ’hood? Or somebody trying to aspire to be?”

There was always someone going after the vacated number one spot. It was only natural.

Polo mumbled through his stewed chicken, “You hear about any new John Gottis walking around? Any new Al Capones? I mean, when they’re here they’re here, but when they’re gone they’re gone. And them niggas is gone. Ain’t nobody gettin’ big like that no more.”

Trap nodded and picked a piece of steak from his teeth with his fingernails. He said, “I still know a few guys. But they’re not try’na let it be known. I mean, you plan on putting any names in this book?”

Shareef said, “I don’t know what I wanna do with it yet. I just wanna hear what people got to say at this point. I’ll decide what I want to do with the book later.”

Spoonie frowned at him. He said, “Well, if you don’t know what you wanna do with it, then why should a motherfucka talk to you? That don’t make no sense.” He looked at Polo and commented, “I thought you told me he wanted to write some top-notch shit.”

Polo said, “He is, once he get started. But he don’t wanna talk to no regular-ass niggas on the block. He wanna talk to who runnin’ the motherfucka.”

Shareef relaxed and figured that he would have to do his own thing. His guys were never closely connected to the real street thugs anyway. Only Trap had done any time in the pen. So Shareef asked him about it.

“What about guys you know from jail, Trap? None of them came out and ran with a new plan?”

Trap shook his head. He said, “The old-timers come out and go legit, and young bloods, who are too hot headed, come out and get blasted, or go right back in. That’s how it is, man, and ain’t nothing sexy about it. I mean, this is real life out here. You don’t get ten chances to live like no cartoon.”

A twenty-something black woman with braided hair stopped on her way to the bathroom and stared at Shareef for a moment.

“How are you doing?” he asked her.

“I’m fine. Umm…are you Shareef Crawford?” she asked him back.

“Yeah.”

She said, “I told my girl that was you. You’re from Harlem, right?”

“What, you been reading my bio?”

“She been reading your bio all right,” Polo joked. He could see the element of surprise in the woman’s face.

She said, “No, I just had a couple friends pass around a few of your books and talk about it, that’s all.”

“Oh, okay, well tell them to keep reading them.”

When she left, Spoonie said, “Man, if I had girls on me like that for writing love stories, I wouldn’t be thinking ’bout writing no street shit.”

Trap said, “You crazy. The street niggas get the baddest hoes.”

Shareef sat there and thought about Cynthia Washington. She was obviously into street-caliber men herself, and it was getting close to midnight. Most of the customers were beginning to leave the restaurant, and he wasn’t getting too much useful information from being around them.

“So I guess we can hit a couple other spots tomorrow night,” Shareef told them while he picked up the bill that sat at the edge of their table.

Polo said, “Tomorrow night? Man, I already told my girl not to expect me back home tonight. I’m ready to hit five more spots
tonight.”

Shareef was still thinking about Cynthia coming to see him and visiting Michael Springfield in the morning. He was leaning toward passing on more time wasted with Polo, Trap, and Spoonie. They weren’t the only folks he knew in Harlem.

He said, “Nah, we’ll get a fresh start tomorrow night. So after I make a few runs in the morning, I’ll see what y’all ready to do by, like, seven or eight. And line up some folks for me to talk to tomorrow. But tonight I’m still a little drained from travel,” he told them.

He actually was travel weary, but that had never stopped him before from doing what he wanted to do. He just wanted to retire from his friends and trade them off for a woman.

Polo looked him over and smiled, knowing better. He said, “What, you dun’ called up one of your shorties already to meet you back at the hotel? You got a little midnight action set up, B? I mean, I know you, man. You ain’t never tired. That must mean you bored with us,” Polo assumed correctly.

He said, “But that’s aw’ight. We gon’ have you set up for tomorrow then. And we can introduce you to some fly street honeys, too. That’s word to my whole family. We gon’ help you make this book right, son.”

Shareef smiled, shook his head, and said nothing. Then he paid the bill.

W
HEN HIS FRIENDS
dropped him back off at the hotel, Shareef was happy to be alone again. He had spent so much time alone in his thoughts that it became his natural element. Nevertheless, the company of a willing woman was just as pleasing and as peaceful. So he wasted no time before he jumped on his cell phone to call Cynthia.

“Boy, when you say you’re gonna make a call, you make a call. I was expecting you to hit me back by one or so,” she told him. It was five after midnight.

Shareef asked her, “Does that mean you’re gonna be late with your visit?”

She paused. “No.”

“Good. Because we both gotta be up early tomorrow, right?”

“Yup.”

“So you might as well bring your clothes over.”

She paused again. “Do you have your way with your wife?” she asked him frankly. Cynthia had never even asked about his wife before.

Shareef kept his cool about it.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you seem spoiled. Does every woman do what you want, when and how you want it?”

“I wish,” he told her. “I wish I could write every character. But I can’t. Not in real life. And ultimately, each person does what they wanna do. So I just try to control as much as I’m allowed.”

“Hmmph,” she grunted. “Interesting answer.”