The Last Street Novel (33 page)

Shareef couldn’t help but smile at it. He said, “I didn’t know you young guys even cared about books like that.”

Baby G looked at him and said, “Come on, man, books make you famous. That damn Malcolm X book is the most famous book in the ’hood. But everybody ain’t gon’ read everybody book. You gotta be one of them special niggas for people to read you. And I’m one of them special niggas, not Michael Springfield. You need to make me famous, not him.”

Shareef nodded and said, “You know he got killed in jail today, don’t you?”

He still wanted to test how many people knew or didn’t know.

“I heard about it,” Baby G answered.

“Who from?”

“The same place you heard it. On the streets.”

Shareef responded, “I didn’t hear it on the streets.”

“Well, what fuckin’ difference does it make, man? If he dead he dead, right?”

“Yeah, but who did it and why is the question,” Shareef stated.

Baby G looked at him and said, “Actually, I had him killed in jail so you can write my book instead. It was all mapped out.”

Shareef looked at him and froze. Was he bullshitting or what? Shareef even looked up front to see how the driver would respond to it. And the man didn’t budge at all from the wheel.

Baby G read the horror on Shareef’s face and started laughing. He said, “Yo, I’m just fucking with you, man…unless you really wanna believe that shit.”

On cue, his driver laughed with him.

“Yo, that shit ain’t funny, man,” Shareef warned him. He could get himself in major trouble with the streets taking credit for things he didn’t do. Shareef knew that much for a fact. Real killers took their work seriously, and he doubted Baby G was a real killer. He had too much charisma to kill.

The young general blew his warning off. He said, “That’s the best jokes, man, the ones where you don’t know if you should laugh or not. It’s like…sadistic humor.”

He waited for Shareef to respond to it. When he didn’t, Baby G continued.

He said, “I bet you ain’t think I had a vocabulary like that, did you? But like you said already, I’m an unusual guy, player. And people gon’ like me when they read my book…well, the real niggas will,” he corrected himself.

Shareef told him, “The only problem wit’ that is, the real niggas don’t read too many books. What was the last book you read?”

“
Mary Had a Li’l Lamb.
I read that one yesterday,” he stated with a straight face.

His driver couldn’t wait for that laugh. He broke out immediately.

Shareef grinned himself and said, “That’s not even a book. That’s only a nursery rhyme.”

Baby G asked him, “For real? Damn, man, all these years, and I didn’t even know that. Well,
Snow White
wasn’t no nursery rhyme, was it?”

His driver continued to break up laughing as they made it to the 49th Street exit.

“Yo, get off right here, man, and head to Times Square,” Baby G told him.

Shareef decided to cut the bullshit. He looked into the young general’s eyes and asked him, “Yo, seriously, have you ever killed somebody before? I mean, like, you actually pulled the trigger?”

Shareef still doubted it. He believed that Baby G gave the orders and looked away. But all the laughing and joking stopped after that question. The tension was all in the air. And the driver turned into a statue again.

Baby G stared at the writer and thought about it. He still held the black pistol in his hand. He spoke with it and said, “You know what I love about being called ‘Baby’? A lot of dumb niggas never take me seriously. They hear that Baby shit, and they think I’m fuckin’ jokin’.”

He paused and said, “I love that shit. So if I point this gun at your face and you think I’m fuckin’ playin’, then I got a psychological advantage, ’cause I know I’m
not
playing. And when that shit go off, you shocked then a motherfucker. But it’s too late by then. For you. But for the motherfuckers who know me…they
know
.”

He said, “But am I gonna sit here and tell you some shit like that? For what?”

“Because the readers would want to know,” Shareef told him.

Baby G said, “Well, you tell them then. You know how to write it without writing it, right?”

Shareef said, “I know how to do it, but our people don’t respond to the hints. They want to see the blood.”

Baby G studied his face and said, “Well, give them blood then. That’s what they want, right? I figured that, too, about our people. You gotta be willing to die for ’em. And if you ain’t ready to die, they don’t choose you.”

He nodded his head and smiled again. He said, “Like you, you ready to die, player. That’s why you jumped into the car. And if you would have stayed on the sidewalk like a bitch, then I wouldn’t have respected you.”

He said, “Fuck it, I would have shot you myself. But I knew you wasn’t no bitch. I could see it in your eyes. That’s why I was so patient with you. You wasn’t scared of me, you was just being smart. Somebody was just try’na kill you out here.”

When they got close to Times Square, Baby G put the gun away by hiding it under the seat.

He said, “We gon’ hang out a minute down here, man. I’ma show you that I’m universal. I got range. I can fit in when I need to.”

They found a parking spot and climbed out of the car for a walk. Baby G talked with his driver pacing in front of them.

He said, “I can understand where you coming from, man, when you tell me not to waste my life in this shit. I mean, that happens to a lot of people in everything. How many writers out here never get shit published? How many so-called rappers never get no record deal? How many ballers never play in the NBA? You got actors who never act. Singers who never sing. And a million local thugs who never get a rep. But I already got a rep. Niggas in the ’hood know me. So does everybody else who come up to Harlem. If you in Harlem, you in my territory.”

He said, “I even made Bill Clinton stare at me. He was at the Rucker Tournament one time when I came through with seven of my best riders all G’d up with jewels and shut shit down for a couple of minutes. And I saw him asking folks about me. But that’s how I get down, player. I’ma make a fuckin’ scene when I’m alive
and
when I’m dead. But your average thug nigga can’t say that shit. That’s just how life is, man. Everybody can’t be Shareef Crawford, and everybody can’t be Greggory Taylor. So you make your mark where you can make it. And this where I’m making my mark. But for all them other niggas who follow…what else you expect them to do?”

He stopped walking on 42nd Street and looked straight up at a giant-size billboard of American icon Sean “Diddy” Combs raising a power fist in his award-winning designer clothes.

Baby G stated, “Either you special or you not, man. And that nigga up there is special. But a lot of people wanna act like they hate P now. You know why?”

Shareef grinned and correctly answered the question. “Because they can’t be like him.”

Baby G shrugged his shoulders. He said, “But I figure, fuck it, he can’t be like me. Now I can walk down here every weekend with one man, and have people looking at me curiously, and never touch me. Then I can come back down with fifty Harlem strong and have the whole Times Square walking around us, while the police try and break us up. And I’ll have motherfuckers stop, go, turn around, drop, and do push-ups out this bitch. But Diddy, he couldn’t even make ma-fuckers on his reality show go and get him cheesecake at night after he fuckin’ put them up in that house.”

He looked at Shareef and grimaced.

He said, “Man, shit, niggas know me better than that. I’ll make a motherfucker run to
Canada,
buy me some ice cream, ’cause I didn’t eat cheesecake, and I’d tell them to keep that ice cream cold on the way back. You feel me? Now that gangsta shit. But Diddy gotta pay for it, and they
still
won’t do it.
And
I look better than him,” he added.

Shareef couldn’t help himself. He was smiling from ear to ear. You talk about a vainglorious ego. Baby G was making Muhammad Ali sound shy.

Shareef joked and said, “I hope we got a big enough book cover that can fit your picture.”

The driver overheard him and started giggling nervously in front.

Baby G caught on and grinned. He said, “You see that? I like that. You got a sense of humor. You a real nigga. That’s why I’ma let that ride. But if I ain’t like you…”

He paused real long for effect. He said, “I’d have to kill you for that shit. And you’d be standing there surprised that I shot you.”

S
HAREEF AWOKE
at the Hudson Hotel off 8th Avenue and wondered if he had only dreamt the events of the previous night. But he couldn’t have been dreaming if he was waking up at the Hudson near Times Square instead of at his hotel room in Harlem. The room at the Hudson was not all that much bigger or nicer, but how did he get there?

He rolled over and eyed the digital alarm clock on the nightstand. The time read 7:49
AM
.

“Damn. What a night,” he mumbled. Then he remembered, “Shit, I still got my luggage up in Harlem.”

He flipped open his cell phone for missed calls and text messages. Once Baby G began to run his mouth nonstop in Times Square, Shareef had clicked his phone on silent to give the young man his undivided attention. And when he looked at his cell phone that morning, he saw that he had missed six late-night phone calls. His wife, Jacqueline, Polo, Jurrell, Cynthia, and Spoonie had all called him late-night in that order.

“Damn. When was the last time I answered this shit?” he pondered. “Cynthia.”

He dialed her number to let her know that he was still alive and well.

“Hello? Shareef?” she answered, still sounding alarmed.

Damn, did she even sleep last night?
he asked himself.

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m alive. Okay. I’m alive,” he told her.

She took a deep breath and asked him, “How come you didn’t call me back last night.”

“It’s a long story, and I’m not gon’ try to explain it right now. I’m basically just calling you back to let you know I’m all right. But I still need to get some rest.”

“You don’t need any rest, you’re always up,” she teased him.

He smiled and mumbled, “Yeah…I know. But let me try and get some rest anyway.”

Shareef hung up with her and took a deep breath himself. What was there left to do in New York? If Cynthia’s information was correct, then there was no more Michael Springfield story to be written, at least not told from the man himself. And was Shareef prepared to start from scratch with a braggadocios life story from Baby G, aka Greggory Taylor? What would be the purpose of that? There was no cautionary
I Surrender
tale to be written about a young, celebratory gangsta in his prime on the streets. Covering Baby G’s life now was the wrong story to write. Or maybe it was the right story. The streets loved to celebrate their own. A couple million gangsta rap songs from New York to LA proved it.

Shareef thought about it and shook it off. “That would be just like everybody else’s book,” he told himself. But how could he write something different about the streets and expect it to be successful? The streets wanted what they wanted, blood and glory. Stick to the script.

For the moment, he didn’t have the answers. He stretched out across the bed, buffered by four, comfy white pillows and continued to contemplate. What was the purpose of his writings in the first place? What was the use in the research and the meticulous thoughts that went into it; and the long hours, days, weeks, months, and years developing meaningful characters, plots, motivations, and conclusions? Who really cared about the shit? And what exactly were readers supposed to do with it all?

Shareef answered his own thoughts and said, “Learn something from it.” But then his conscience argued from the other side.
Nobody wants to learn shit. Baby G told you that last night. And you agreed with it. They want blood. They want violence. They want death.

The counterargument paralyzed the rest of Shareef’s thoughts. And if it was valid, then what use was attempting to write to teach? He had it right all along; you write to be successful. And if success meant readership, and women were the ones who read, and they preferred to read romance over crime, then writing about crime meant no readership, and ultimately…failure. So why was he up in Harlem to fail by writing a true-crime book that no one would read? He had even put his life on the line for it? And for what?

Shareef nodded to himself and mumbled, “Dig it. I got a pot full of money and a whole life waiting for me back down in Florida, and I’m up here fucking with this shit. For what?”

He picked his cell phone up to call his wife and kids in Fort Lauderdale.

J
ENNIFER
C
RAWFORD
stood inside the large, open-area kitchen of her luxurious “mini-mansion,” dressed in long, light-blue cotton pajamas and slippers. She cooked scrambled eggs and turkey bacon at the stove with a white silk scarf wrapped around her head. She listened to sentimental soul music that played from the stereo system in the nearby family room. Her daughter, Kimberly, in pink pajamas, played with two oversize Bratz dolls at the kitchen table. Jennifer’s husband Shareef Sr., and son Shareef Jr., were nowhere in sight. Nevertheless, the music soothed her and made their absence bearable.

“Kimberly, go tell your brother to get down here. Breakfast is almost ready.”

The daughter set her dolls down on the table and ran for the staircase. Before she could make it halfway up, Shareef Jr. scrambled down the stairs in full football gear and nearly trampled her.

“Watch it, boy,” she complained.

“Well, get out of my way then.”

“Mommy told me to get you for breakfast.”

“All right, I’m down here already.”

Jennifer overheard the commotion on the staircase and shook her head. She’d wait to see her son’s face before she commented.

As soon as he walked out to the kitchen table she asked her son, “What is your problem, Shareef?”

“I just want to get to practice on time,” he told her.

Jennifer stared at him. “Shareef, it’s eight o’clock. We have plenty of time to make your practice. It’s not until ten.”

He took off his helmet at the table and said, “Yeah, but once you start getting dressed, we always end up late.”

“Excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking to?” she snapped at him. “You say something else like that and you won’t go to practice today at all.”

Shareef Jr. looked shocked and crippled by it. His faced opened up wide. He asked her, “But why?”

“Why? Because you don’t talk to me like that. I keep telling you about that, Shareef. You need to check your attitude.”

He responded to her with tears in his eyes, “But it’s true, we always end up late.”

“Yes, after I cook, clean, wash, bathe, help you and your sister with your clothes, and then hustle to get my
own
clothes on…”

Shareef Jr. cut her off and said, “But Mom, you don’t have to be all fancy, just drop me off.” Then he mumbled under his breath, “Or let somebody else take me to practice.”

Jennifer overheard him just as she popped out wheat toast from the toaster. She buttered the toast and made their plates with orange juice in small glasses. And when she marched her son’s plate of food and orange juice over to him at the table, she told him, “You know what, you can take everything back off after you eat, because you’re not going to practice.”

Shareef Jr. pushed himself away from the table in his chair and cried, “Why?”

Jennifer stood in his face with her finger extended to make her point.

“Boy, I will smack you upside your head. You know why? You keep running your damn
mouth,
and I just
told you
about that. So now you’re not going to practice.”

That was it for the boy. Tears ran out of his eyes, down his face, and he immediately lost his appetite. Kimberly watched the whole scene and studied it without saying a word. She was learning from it. The best way to get to a boy was to take something away from him that he wanted. It worked with her brother every time. But he deserved it for being mean.

In the heat of the action, the kitchen phone rang, a cordless that sat in its charger on the countertop. Jennifer composed herself before she answered it, especially once she saw who it was on the Caller ID. She figured she had another heated argument coming.

“Hello.”

“Y’all getting ready for football practice this morning?”

She heard his words and took a deep breath. Like father, like son. The man didn’t even say hi to her.

Jennifer brought that up and said, “Hi to you, too, Shareef.”

Her son and daughter both looked toward her on the phone.

“Hi,” her husband responded to her.

“Mmm, hmm,” she grumbled. “Well, you need to talk to your son about practice,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Here he is.” Jennifer handed the phone to her son without another word to his father.

Shareef Jr. took the phone and mumbled, “She won’t let me go.” He listened to the obvious question and answered, “Because I had an attitude. But Dad, I just don’t want to be late all the time.”

Jennifer jumped in and said, “Boy, you’ve only had a
week
of practice. You’re not gonna be late all the time. Don’t even try that.”

“Let me talk to your mother,” Shareef told his son.

“Okay. Mom?”

Shareef Jr. extended the cordless phone back to his mother.

“Hey, Daddy,” Kimberly hollered into the phone as her mother reclaimed it.

“He’ll talk to you in a minute, honey,” Jennifer told her daughter. She expected an extended conversation with her estranged husband about football practice, running late, and aggravating their son. She expected to counter with an argument to respect her as a mother, respect her as a wife, respect her as a woman, and respect all of the damn work she continued to perform around the house and outside of the house to keep their family together and to protect their name regardless of his transgressions. But Shareef changed the whole subject on her.

He said, “You used to be a lot more fun than this, Jennifer. I didn’t call you the Golden Girl for nothing. You used to have a shine. I miss that. In fact, I wouldn’t have married you without it. But you lost it, man. And you need to get it back.”

He said, “You need to get that excitement back in your life and learn how to have fun with your family again.”

Jennifer couldn’t believe her ears. How could she concentrate on “having fun” with bitches disrespecting her marriage, her kids, her family, her home, her womanhood, and her ability to think straight after
he
had allowed them to through his cheating? How dare he say some shit to her like that? And if the kids were not around her, she would curse his ass out for it. But since they were, she simply refuted it.

“I do know how to have fun. But the problem is, you never want to participate in anything I like to do. It’s always about what
you
want,” she told him.

Shareef paused over the line. It was the same old argument; his way or her way, his thing or her thing, his idea or her idea.

He finally said, “Look, I wish I could be the man you need me to be for you, but I am who I am, and you knew that when you married me. I haven’t lied to you in any way.”

Jennifer was ready to jump out of her skin. He hadn’t
lied
to her in any way? Who the hell was he talking to? He was a bold-faced
liar
! He had been lying about his commitment to their marriage
for years
! Had he lost his fucking
mind
! But instead of cursing him out in front of the children, Jennifer smiled at the ridiculousness of his charge and walked away from the kitchen with the phone in hand. She was walking toward the front door where she could step outside, shut the door behind her, and speak frankly.

“Hold on,” she told her husband as she made it to the front door. She couldn’t wait. And as soon as she reached her destination outside the house, she repeated, “You said you haven’t
lied
to me in any way? Is that what you said? So, you didn’t
lie
to me whenever I asked you where you were and who you were with whenever you went out of town on your little
book
events.”

Shareef paused again. He said, “Every single time, I went and handled my business, just like I’m doing right now.”

“Yeah, and then you went and handled some little
freak
, too. And then you wonder why I don’t want you to touch me. Probably had some little ho in New York with you. Didn’t you?”

Shareef was at a moral crossroad. What came first, the chicken or the egg? If Jennifer had simply taken care of her business as his woman like she used to, he would have had less need to chase and capture. He would still look and wonder. Every man looks and wonders. But the chase and capture game was all about the frustration of unused energy at home.

Shareef wasn’t a liar. He was too transparent to lie. He wore his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see. That’s why people respected him. He told them what the truth was every time, even when he was a young Harlem snot nose. But he had energies to deal with; energies that Jennifer knew about firsthand. Energies that had attracted her to him. Energies that had given her a beautiful life, home, family, children, and lovely vacations. But his energies meant nothing to her without his loyalty. A man’s loyalty to his woman was pivotal, but what about her loyalty to him as his wife? What did that loyalty mean? And how did loyal people act to one another?