The Last Street Novel (21 page)

Shareef paused and looked at his friends. They were as stunned as he was.

As Jurrell began to move toward his reserved table with his date, the flashy, unapproachable men in the card game responded to him.

“Ay, it’s Mr. Cell Phone. What’s up, Rell?”

“Yeah, it’s ya’ world now. It’s your world,” he responded to them. He sat at his table with his lady friend and faced Shareef and everyone else inside the room.

“Ay, Rell, what I need to do to get a new one from you if the phone breaks?” one of the guys at the card game asked him.

Jurrell told him, “Just call me up on it.”

Then he looked back at Shareef and motioned for him to join them. They had two extra chairs at the table.

Shareef looked back at Spoonie and Polo for comments, but they both seemed frozen.

Polo finally uttered, “Yo, man…” and never finished his sentence. He acted as if he was afraid to speak his mind.

And Spoonie didn’t say anything. So Shareef was forced to make his own decision.

He said, “I’ma go over here and talk to him and see what’s up.”

When he walked toward Jurrell’s table at the front of the room, Shareef could feel every set of eyes that cut to him.

So, he’s been selling these guys cell phones, hunh?
he mused as he approached.
I wonder what other kinds of business they’re doing.

Shareef still didn’t trust the man, but he sat at the table to the left of Meesha anyway. As soon he sat down, Jurrell brought up their history to his date.

He said, “Do you believe that me and this guy were enemies from kindergarten to eighth grade? I was terrible back then, and this guy was the only one brave enough to keep standing up to me. We had like, what, five different fights, Shareef? And you won the last two, right?”

Meesha shook her head and commented, “I have no idea why guys must fight so much. I just don’t get it. Is violence that much a part of manhood?”

She sounded educated, like a college grad asking philosophical questions about life.

Jurrell answered, “Obviously, it must be. But I guess we’ll all calm down when we get to be old men. I’ve already calmed down. I can’t take this stuff that’s going on out here now.”

Shareef said, “Actually, I didn’t even know we were keeping score.” He was still thinking about the five fistfights they had as boys, and how Jurrell still recalled who had won each of them.

He said, “I mean, with everything…and all these years, I’m still wondering how you remember them fights with me.”

He didn’t want to bring up too much of Jurrell’s crazy past without knowing how much his lady friend already knew about it.

Jurrell understood it from his pause and nodded, recognizing Shareef’s show of respect for the lady between them.

He said, “Nah, no matter what, I still remember you, Shareef. You know why?”

All of a sudden, there was no one in the room but Shareef Crawford and Jurrell Garland.

Shareef said, “Nah. Why?”

Jurrell answered, “You kept it movin’, man. A man gotta respect that. You finished high school. You went away to college and finished that. You became a popular writer. People know you for that. And I asked myself each time, ‘What am I doing?’ You know what I mean? ‘What am I doing?’”

He said, “See now, a lot of guys would hate in the situation. And at the high school level, I did. Because I wasn’t really around you anymore and I stopped going to high school anyway. But every once in a while, I would miss being behind you, right. And I would ask myself, ‘Yo, where Shareef at?’”

Shareef failed to follow him. He frowned and said, “You missed being behind me?”

Jurrell cleared that up quickly. “Crawford, Davis, Evans, Garland, Harper, Kelly…”

Shareef caught on and laughed. “Oh, you’re talking about roll call.”

Jurrell said, “Man, after all them damn years of hearing my name called behind yours, I went to detention centers and even jail, thinking, ‘Where Crawford at?’ Ain’t that some shit?”

He said, “But you wasn’t there anymore. You were out there taking care of your business. And I gotta respect that. So I remember. I damn sure remember you.”

At that moment, it appeared to Shareef that Jurrell had always passed into the next grade to stay behind him. He was no under-achiever until high school, when they were no longer together.

Shareef even joked about it. He smiled and said, “Maybe if you had gone to Manhattan Center like I did, you would have graduated from high school behind me, too.”

Jurrell laughed and said, “I thought about that shit myself. When you on lockdown every day you think about a lot of different shit. But I doubt if we would have been in the same classes in high school. That would have been a little too crazy. And Martin Luther King was where all the action was, the action that got my ass right into trouble.”

The waitress finally made her way over to their table to take their orders.

“Oh, are you sitting here with them?”

It was the same waitress who had given Shareef her number.

“Nah, I was just about to leave,” he told her.

Jurrell said, “Well, look, call me up, man. I mean that. We grown men now.”

Shareef stood up and looked him in the eyes. They were grown men. They were both in their thirties now. Why not let bygones be bygones?

So he nodded and said, “Aw’ight, I’ll call you.”

Jurrell said, “Now don’t tell me that if you don’t mean it, man.”

The waitress looked at Shareef and grinned. It was the same thing she had told him. Don’t lie about it.

Shareef nodded, thinking about them both. He said, “If I say I’ma call, then that’s what I gotta do, right?”

“That’s a man of his word,” Jurrell told him.

Shareef stuck out his hand to shake on it.

“It’s a done deal then.”

By then, some of the card players were anxious to know who the hell he was. Shareef was generating a whole lot of attention in there.

“Ay, Rell, who ’dat, man?” one of the flashy card players asked him.

Jurrell said, “Shareef Crawford, a
New York Times
bestselling author. He’s working on a book on Harlem now. So I’ma have to line y’all all up to talk to him.”

They all started to pay attention after that. The name rang a bell.

“Shareef Crawford? My girl reads your books. That’s good money, man.”

“Yeah, my sister read your books.”

One of them said, “Shit, everybody’s girl reads his books. Moms, sisters, aunts, little cousins. So, what are you writing about Harlem?”

Shareef faced all of them at the same time and backed down.

He said, “I’m still working on it.”

Another one of the card players said, “Well, yo, if you need some updated movie shit, we’ll talk to you. Now, we can’t tell you everything, but we’ll tell you enough. You know, we still got rats running around.”

“And the rats end up in the alleyways,” they warned him.

Jurrell said, “Yo, when he call me, I’ll set it up. I’ll let y’all know what it is then.”

“Aw’ight, Shareef, keep writing them books, son. I might have you write my life story one day,” another one of the card players boasted. They were all with Harlem swagger, but you couldn’t talk to them unless the right person spoke for you.

Obviously, Jurrell Garland was the right person.

A
S SOON AS
S
HAREEF
walked out of the Harlem Grill with Spoonie and Polo, Polo said, “I don’t know about that nigga right there, man. I mean, I know we know him from back in the day and everything, but he ain’t never been friends with us.”

Shareef admitted it. He said, “I know. He was my main enemy.”

Spoonie said, “Yeah, and the only reason he talkin’ to you now is because you’re Shareef Crawford. You see he didn’t invite us to his table. And how he know you writing a book about Harlem?”

“I bumped into him earlier at the Starbucks on Lenox,” Shareef answered. “And he don’t know y’all like he know me.”

Spoonie shook his head and said, “Man, when guys like him pay attention to something, it’s usually for the wrong reasons, B. Believe that.”

Shareef heard them out, and he understood their caution. But at the same time, didn’t Jurrell deserve a fresh start like any other man? He didn’t appear to be breaking any more laws, jaws, or into stores and cars. Couldn’t he have grown up to sell cell phones, and have a girlfriend, a wife, and a family outside of the street life? And sure, he still knew guys out in the streets, but that didn’t mean he had to be involved with the things they were involved in anymore. So Shareef decided to speak up for him.

“I mean, who’s to say he’s all bad like that still. All he’s asking me to do is call him. I mean, what’s wrong with that? It ain’t gon’ hurt me to call him.”

Polo said, “Aw’ight, so, what if the police have him on surveillance? If he say anything under code to you, that automatically makes you a suspect, especially since you got money.”

He said, “That’s the new game around here, son. You got a lot of old hustlers and vics, lookin’ for somebody like you to leech on to to help them go legit. They ain’t lettin’ hustlers buy up shit around Harlem like they used to. I’m tellin’ you, B, that’s the new fuckin’ game. I mean, you gon’ make your own decisions anyway, but just watch that nigga, man. The streets is never sleepin’.”

Shareef didn’t want to hear any more of it. He started walking toward the Bronco jeep and said, “Aw’ight, so where we headed to next?”

Polo turned around and looked down the street.

He said, “Zip Code is right there, so ain’t no sense in me wasting another pint of gas trying to find a new parking spot, right, Spoonie?”

Spoonie was back on his BlackBerry again, and was not paying attention.

He looked up and grunted, “Hunh?”

Polo frowned and said, “Yo, man, what the hell is up with you and that BlackBerry tonight? For real?”

Spoonie ignored him. “Hold up a minute.”

Polo waved him off and started walking toward their next destination down the street. Shareef followed him.

“So, what kind of spot is Zip Code?” he asked.

Polo said, “It’s like a combination club. Some nights they’ll have a regular party, other nights they’ll have comedy and music showcases. Then sometimes different people’ll throw their events there.”

“Is it big?”

Shareef had gotten used to the bigger, fancier clubs of Atlanta and Miami. What did Harlem have to match that?

Polo said, “It’s big enough. They got upstairs, downstairs, a third-floor area.”

“A third floor?”

“Don’t get excited, man, it’s just a small area to catch some breathing room when it’s packed in there, that’s all.”

“What age group?”

“Oh, you’ll get some young bucks in here. That’s like the only place for them to party in Harlem. I mean, you know downtown ain’t having it, unless they’re ready to spend forty dollars. And ain’t nobody try’na party that hard.”

“How much does this place cost?”

“You can get in for ten, twenty. It ain’t bad.”

When they approached the basic-white-and-black nightclub called Zip Code, a line of younger Harlemites in their early twenties were trying to get in.

“Come on, man, why y’all always make us wait out here?” a young man in all dark brown complained to a doorman dressed in all black.

The doorman answered, “You’ll get in when we let you in.”

“But y’all ain’t moving the line, man. We been standing here ten minutes. What we waiting for?”

There was a solid line of young men and women held up at the door behind him. He had made it to the front and was getting anxious.

As soon as Polo and Shareef made it to the vicinity of the club and stood out on the sidewalk to watch the interactions and energy of the younger Harlemites, a gang of seven marched up to a second door of the club to the far right near a parking area.

“Yo, it’s Baby, man, I’m paying for my whole squad.”

“Awi’ght, hold up,” another doorman in black addressed them.

The young man in brown began to fidget in the main line, while he looked back and forth at the front door versus the side door.

A minute later, the crew of seven marched inside through the second door.

Polo said, “Come on, man, let’s go with them.”

The doorman stopped them, along with a bunch of other anxious Harlemites, who scrambled along the sidewalk to get in.

“What are you doin’?” the doorman asked Polo.

“This my man, Shareef Crawford, a bestselling author. He just wanna check the place out, man. He writing a new book on Harlem.”

The thick doorman looked Shareef over and didn’t budge.

He said, “That’s nice, but what that got to do with me? The line is over there.”

Polo said, “You gon’ make him stand in a long line like that, B. That’s disrespectful. You can show us more love than that. He from Harlem.”

“I don’t care if he from Africa, he not on the list.”

A few of the younger guys around them began to laugh.

“Aw, he said he don’t care if he from Africa.”

Shareef asked him, “What’s the charge, man?” He just wanted to get the hell in the place. He had more than a hundred dollars still left in his pocket from hitting the ATM machine earlier.

“Gimme forty dollars,” the doorman told him.

Shareef said, “Each?”

Polo said, “Hell naw, he mean for both of us.”

“Nah, it’s all good, it’s all good. They my people,” Spoonie announced from behind. He said, “This Shareef Crawford right here. You know who he is?”

The doorman answered, “A bestselling author.”

Spoonie looked at him and said, “Damn, everybody know.”

“Your man just told me.”

“Aw’ight, well, they wit’ me,” Spoonie told him.

The doorman nodded and let them in without another word. That only caused more people to hustle up to the second door behind them.

“Aw, man, see, that’s what I’m talking about,” the young man in all brown complained again at the front door. “That ain’t even fair.”

S
HAREEF WALKED
into the dimly lit club of tall ceilings, white walls, and white furniture behind Spoonie and Polo.

Spoonie said, “I do know people up in here. I can even get us a couple of free drinks.”

Shareef smiled and said, “If you can get drinks for you and Polo that would do me just fine. How many free drinks they gon’ give us?”

“I can get what I want in here. These my people.”

Shareef nodded and looked around the bottom floor of the nightclub, where they had tall, white, circular lounge chairs, with white curtains hanging from the ceiling. He studied all the young faces and bodies that populated the place.

He nodded to Polo and said, “Yeah, this is a much younger crowd in here. I feel like I’m back in school in Atlanta.”

“I told you,” Polo commented.

Spoonie had already disappeared to the bar area to the left.

As they continued to walk through, Shareef took a second, third, and fourth look at the young women. Which one would catch his eye?

After a few more minutes of looking around, he finally shook his head and said, “Damn, Polo, these girls look as hard as the guys in here.”

Polo laughed at it. He said, “That’s how these girls like to get down nowadays, Shareef. They not fly and feminine like our girls used to be back in the day. These new school girls wanna be thugs like their boyfriends. That’s why I deal with nothing but older women. These young girls ain’t got no style to me.”

Shareef had to agree with him on that. He wasn’t used to bullish, young women either. He nodded his head and mumbled, “Dig it.”

Spoonie called them over toward the bar area.

“Yo, come get these drinks!”

“I guess he was serious, hunh?” Polo commented.

Shareef smiled and followed him over.

When they arrived at the bar and collected their drinks among the young hustlers, playboys, and thugs, draped in jewelry and designer clothes, Shareef studied them all and then stopped at a gold mine.

“Got’ damn,” he mumbled to himself.

Polo caught it and said, “What?”

Shareef told him, “Look straight ahead and then to the left.”

Polo followed his lead and landed at the same spot.

He nodded with his drink to his lips. “She the flyest girl in here,” he commented.

Shareef said, “You know what’s crazy about it? She reminds me of my wife when she still loved me.”

Polo looked at his boy seriously. He said, “Cut that shit out, B, your wife still love you. How she not gon’ love you? You doin’ everything a nigga supposed to do. Shit, I’d marry you my damn self.”

Shareef laughed it off and said, “Nah, man, she…she love the
idea
of a man now. ’Cause she damn sure ain’t treatin’ me like flesh and bone no more. I can barely touch the girl now.”

Polo nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s how women get once they got you.” He took a sip of his drink and added, “That’s why I always gotta keep two or three backups.”

Shareef laughed again and coughed on his own drink.

He said, “I’m ’bout to make this girl my backup plan right now. I’m still alive, ain’t I?”

Polo said, “You don’t look like a zombie to me. So go get her, tiger.”

Shareef walked straight through the crowd like a man on a mission. When he arrived at his destination, he leaned into the woman’s ear and said, “You’re about the finest young thing in here, hands down. What’s your name?”

She wasn’t dressed like eighty percent of the other young women—hard-core jeans, masculine tops, and mad grills. She wore a netted gold top with a white half jacket and matching white pants. She wore gold, Asian-design earrings and her hair straight down with a bang. She carried a gold, sequin purse, and her skin and eyes were light brown and golden like the rest of her. And she looked approachable and pleasant.

“Tiffany,” she answered him.

He reached out his hand to hers and said, “Shareef. You’re not from here, are you?”

She didn’t have the Harlem edge, look, or swagger. She had the mellow demeanor of a sophisticate who was dressed to get attention, and she was getting it. Shareef would have guessed that she was from the West Coast.

She said, “I’m from California,” and confirmed it.

He smiled. “Oakland?” She didn’t have the Los Angeles swagger, either.

She smiled back at him. “San Francisco.”

He nodded. “That’s what I figured. So what brings you all the way to Harlem?”

She answered with no hesitation, “It was something different. I just wanted to get away.” She sounded as if she had practiced her answer for a frequently asked question.

He said, “I can dig it. Harlem is like a tourist city for a lot of people. So how long have you been here?”

Before she could answer, an energized girlfriend grabbed her hand from out of the crowd.

“Come on, girl, I want you to meet somebody.”

Shareef said, “Whoa, hold up that horse for a minute. I’m talking to her.”

The girlfriend looked at Shareef as if to say,
So
. But she didn’t need to. Her hard eyes said everything for her. And of course, she wasn’t half as good-looking or as stylish.

“She’ll be back,” the girlfriend told him.

Shareef didn’t want to chance it.

He said, “Yeah, well let me get her number before she leave then.”

Tiffany declined. “I’ll give it to you when I come back.”

He was too old and experienced for that shit. Just hearing the corniness of it all made him wonder why he was even in the club. But it was all needed research to understand the new Harlem. So he had to deal with the scene regardless. They had even turned him into a young, spurned, and bitter man for a spell.

Aw, fuck her then,
he told himself as the girlfriend dragged her away toward the stairs.

Shareef returned to his friend dejectedly.

Polo was already laughing. He said, “What happened, B?”

“Now I know why you called me tiger,” Shareef answered. “Them young girls make you wanna pounce on ’em.”