The Last Street Novel (25 page)

Charles spoke up and said, “I don’t believe that’s the reason he’s doing it though. I believe he’s trying to keep Shareef’s romance audience while at the same time gaining him a new audience.”

“Well, that didn’t work when Stephen King tried it,” she argued. “It just confused people. So if you want to separate the work you’ve been doing from this new book, then all you have to say is ‘Shareef Crawford Presents, Harlem Nightmares’ or whatever, and then explain that it’s a different kind of book. That way you don’t do all this work only to confuse an audience and fail at what you’re trying to do.”

She said, “I still believe that honesty is the best policy. So if you want to do something different, then you tell the people, and you make sure you explain why.”

Shareef nodded and liked the idea; “Shareef Crawford Presents…” It held the illusion of a more dramatic creation, which was exactly what he wanted from the book.

He said, “Thanks, Grandmom. I might use that. Shareef Crawford Presents…”

Wilma grinned from ear to ear. She told him, “And you make sure you tell people where that idea came from, and that’ll help you to sell more books to the older crowd.”

She even stopped walking and asked him, “You need me to go with you on your book tour for this one? ’Cause I’ll let ’em all know. ‘You
read
my grandson’s new book. It’s good spiritual medicine for you.
All
of you.’”

Charles heard that and shook his head. “Aw, you dun’ did it now, Shareef. You’ve created a book-pushing monster.”

As a wide smile stretched across his lips, all Shareef could think about was the show of support his grandparents were giving him to be brave enough to finish what he planned to start, a cutting-edge book about the underworld of Harlem.

B
Y THE TIME
Shareef made it back to his hotel room, it was three o’clock in the afternoon and he had four messages on his cell phone to return. Two messages were from Cynthia, one was from Polo, and the last was from Jacqueline back home in Florida.

Shareef called Jacqueline first.

“Are you still having fun in Harlem?” she asked him.

Her tone sounded antagonistic. Shareef pushed her buttons on purpose to see if he was reading her attitude correctly.

“Oh, yeah, I’m having big fun up here. It couldn’t be better.”

“I know how it could be better,” she commented.

“Oh yeah, how’s that?”

She said, “If I was up there with you.”

Shareef decided to go for broke with her, especially since he no longer trusted Cynthia.

He said, “Well, come on up here then.”

Jacqueline paused. “So, you can buy me a plane ticket for tomorrow?” she asked him.

Shareef answered, “Nah, you get the plane ticket yourself and I’ll reimburse you for it when you get up here.”

She said, “You not gon’ buy the plane ticket for me?”

“If I was there with you, I would. And when I’m ready to bring you up here with me, I will. But if you insist on coming up here before I’m ready to bring you, then you gotta get your own plane ticket and fly yourself up. And I’ll reimburse you like I said.”

Jacqueline was silent for a minute. Then she said, “You told me you would take care of me if I take care of you, Poppi. Then you told me you would take me to Harlem with you. But now you’re telling me to take care of myself.”

He said, “I’m not telling you that. I’m just saying, if you wanna come up to Harlem so bad right now while I’m still doing research, then you gon’ have to get yourself up here, because I got other things on my mind to worry about right now.”

“You can’t make one phone call to the travel agency and get me a ticket to fly to New York tomorrow?”

She was persistent.

“What about your job?” he asked her.

“I’ll take a sick day. Then I can stay up there in Harlem with you for Friday and Saturday, and we come back together on Sunday. Come on, I miss you, Poppi,” she whined to him.

Shareef felt like hurling his cell phone out of the hotel window.

Why did I even call her the fuck back?
he asked himself.
These women are all fuckin’ crazy. Why do I even deal with them?

He finally said, “Look, Jacqueline. I’m up here doing work right now. Okay? This is not fun and games time. I’m on the clock right now with new book business.”

Jacqueline said, “Well, why would you tell me to come if you really didn’t want me to?”

“I was just being sarcastic when I said that. Okay? So I apologize for that. And I’ll make it up to you when I get back home,” he added.

She said, “You’re always making something up to me, Shareef. I don’t like that anymore. I thought you were gonna treat me right.”

She was wearing his ass out. Shareef took a deep breath and ran his left hand over his face in frustration.

If it ain’t one thing, it’s another,
he mused.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked her in surrender.

She said, “I’ll think about it and call you back. I’m just really upset with you right now. I’m horny, and you don’t want me to come see you.”

He said, “It ain’t like that at all, girl. Now you know, if I was home, I’d be all over you. But how do you think I get to afford the things that I have? I have to work for it. I’m not out here picking dollars off trees.”

“Are you being sarcastic again?” she asked him. “Because I don’t like that, either.”

Well, what the hell do you like?
he screamed to himself. But he kept his cool like his grandfather instead of voicing it.

He said, “Well, all I know is that I like you a lot. And I miss you. But if I don’t get things right while I’m up here, then bye-bye condo, bye-bye Mercedes, and bye-bye dinner at all those fancy restaurants.”

She said, “Well, those things are all fun, but that’s not why I like you, Poppi.”

Shareef took that to heart. He slowed down a second and said, “Okay, why do you like me then?”

“Because you get so excited,” she told him. “I mean…you’re just so real. And I’ve been around guys with money before. That’s not a big thing to me. I can pick up a guy with money any day of the week. All you have to do is go where they go and look good. And I look good naturally.”

Shareef chuckled and said, “Yeah, you damn sure do. You wake up looking good.”

“Then why am I sitting here alone without you?”

Shareef stopped in his tracks and thought,
Damn!…I’m gonna lose this girl. And I’m gonna miss her like crazy when I do.

He realized that he could never match her intensity for him. He just wanted a good-looking woman he could keep and chill with. But now he understood that it would never be an equal match between them. And as many men as there were out there who would give everything for one night with Jacqueline, Shareef wasn’t willing to give her one night away from his job.

All he could tell her was, “I’ll be home Sunday afternoon. And I’m gon’ eat you on the kitchen table like Thanksgiving dinner. So keep that turkey cold in the refrigerator and fresh for Poppi for when I get back home.”

“Hmmph,” Jacqueline grunted. “You lucky I like you so much. So I guess I’ll read another one of your books tonight. And tomorrow. And Saturday.”

She stretched it out on purpose, to let Shareef know how long it would it be.

But he had already put out the fire. So he was satisfied with that.

He said, “Yeah, you do that. Read
I Want More,
and then you get ready for me on Sunday.”

When he finally ended the call, Shareef took another deep breath and told himself, “I dodged another one.” But how many of Jacqueline’s emotional bullets could he hope to escape from before she would land fatal shots of frustration to his heart and kill him? It was only a matter of time before that happened. However, for a goal-oriented man, it didn’t matter. Because he still had shit to do.

Shareef realized as much and mumbled to himself, “That’s probably how I lost my damn wife, too.”

S
HAREEF GATHERED HIMSELF TOGETHER
and pumped his heart up enough to venture down to Martin Luther King Jr. Housing Towers at 115th and Lenox for the summer league basketball games with no crew, no friends, and no protection. If the hard rocks of the Harlem streets were desperate enough to make an attempt on his life over a book he wanted to write, then so be it. But they would have to kill him out in the open, because he definitely wasn’t going into hiding to avoid any of them.

As he hit 115th Street from where he walked on St. Nicholas Avenue, he could already see the crowds of basketball addicts who double parked all over the streets and inside the housing parking lots, as they made their way into the playground area to watch the games.

Fuck that! I’m from Harlem,
Shareef continued to tell himself as he approached what was referred to as The Kingdome Tournament. The Kingdome Tournament was the people’s response to what they viewed as the overcommercialization of the Rucker League in North Harlem, which had been turned into a corporate-sponsored athletic event that the Harlem public could no longer enter comfortably. The tournament at the MLK Housing Towers, however, represented purity, getting back to the essence of basketball itself.

Yet basketball purity did not mean the Kingdome Tournament was without its own sponsored hype machine. Where the corporate powers of Reebok, And 1, Pepsi, and the like were absent, there were the urban dignitaries of the music industry and professional basketball association, the likes of Sean Combs, Damon Dash, Cam’ron, Stephon Marbury, Rafer Alston, Sebastian Telfair, among others, who gave their financial as well as physical support, while parking their Rolls-Royce Phantoms, Maybachs, Ferrari Spiders, and custom security vans all around the court as was their due as urban royalty.

Shareef saw all of that, where the general public of Harlem—from the youngest ice-cream-eating kids to the oldest denture-wearing grandparents—were all invited out to watch the games on a first-come, first-serve basis. And from the tall, cement bleachers that enclosed the basketball court, Shareef let go of his concerns about security and was happy just to be there. Spectators were sitting in trees, on car rooftops, leaning out of apartment windows, and generally enjoying the games from whatever angle they had available to them.

“Shit,” Shareef mumbled out loud while grinning. “This is Harlem.”

And what would that Harlem be like without the sounds of new music, pumping from every car sound system? There were food vendors selling hot dogs, chips, candy, water, Gatorade, and soda. Sampler mix tapes were spread throughout the crowd, featuring up-and-coming rap artists as well as old stars with new hits. The Spear was out there hustling his books again. Brand-new clothing lines were being rocked for the first time out in public, along with brand-new jewelry designs, car rims, sunshades, and signature basketball shoes. There was enough urban ritz and glitz to die from an overdose of commercialized culture. And with so much to openly strive for, no wonder the less fortunate could stand it, and not stand being without it.

The overdose of Harlem was the American way. It represented the near delusional hopes and dreams of the red, white, and blue better than any other neighborhood in the country. Where else in America but in Harlem would millionaires be so regularly involved and approachable to the common people who could barely find a daily job? And where else but in Harlem would the common people feel so connected to those millionaires, to love them for their success, or to hate them for it?

Shareef took it all in while he looked for an open seat on the cement bleachers in front of the basketball games.

“Yo, Shareef!” someone called him.

Shareef turned to find the voice and spotted Spoonie, who was walking toward him. Spoonie was as glam as the other players, spectators and hustlers in the crowds. He wore a pair of dark blue designer sunshades in the bright sunlight.

“You decided to stay up here anyway, hunh?” he asked Shareef while grinning.

“Like I said, man, I’m from here. I’m not running. What that look like?”

Spoonie answered, “That look like a smart man to me, but…whatever, son. To each his own out here.

“
Damn!
” he shouted suddenly. Spoonie was reacting, along with the crowd, to a monstrous dunk that Shareef had missed. He turned too late to catch it, and at a playground tournament with no view screens available, there were no replays.

“Aw, you making me miss the game already, man,” Shareef joked.

“Shit, this game over wit’ already. You late. They up by like thirty.”

“Yo, son, your name Shareef? Shareef Crawford?” someone else asked.

Shareef looked and didn’t recognize the young man. Was the game of intimidation about to begin? If it was, they would have to send someone a lot more intimidating than this guy. He looked like a straight-laced honor-roll student to Shareef, with bright, trusting eyes. But maybe that was the trap, to send the message through an errand boy who wasn’t intimidating.

Shareef looked him in the eyes and said, “Yeah, who wanna know?”

The young man smiled and pulled out a pen and piece of paper. “My friend wanted you to sign an autograph for her. She was scared to ask you.”

Spoonie started chuckling. From the look on Shareef’s face and the question that he asked, Spoonie knew Shareef had been thinking the worst.

Shareef smiled back at the young man and took the pen and paper to sign it.

“What’s her name?”

“Talisha.”

Shareef signed his name on the paper first and said, “Spell that for me.”

“T-a-l-i-s-h-a. And thanks, man.”

He held out his palm for a handshake.

Shareef shook his hand and felt good about it. And as soon as the young man began to walk away from him and back into the crowd, a young woman asked, “Who is that?”

“Shareef Crawford, the writer.”

“Oh, hey, I read your books. Can I get an autograph, too?”

And then it began. Shareef’s name got tossed around in the crowd like an errant Ping-Pong ball. It wasn’t as if they could readily place his face with his name like they could with athletes and rap stars, who received plenty of media coverage and camera time. Shareef was only covered for minutes at a time on local news channels, and usually only during the three to four weeks of a book tour. So his name was twenty times more popular than his face. Such was the case with most authors. Just because a person wrote a great book didn’t make him or her a recognizable celebrity.

Nevertheless, Shareef started signing autograph after autograph and bringing more attention to himself in the crowd before Spoonie pointed something out to him.

“Ay, Shareef,” he said, and nodded his head forward.

Shareef looked across the basketball court and spotted twenty-five to thirty Harlem street soldiers all gathering in black T-shirts, with one lone orange tee.

“That’s how Baby rolls,” Spoonie commented.

Shareef nodded back. Everyone in the crowd could clearly see the young general’s grandstanding, even the national rap and basketball stars who were present. Baby G was marking his territory in bright orange, while surrounded by a small army of black.

Shareef said, “I thought y’all told me Harlem don’t have any more big cats like that.”

Spoonie frowned at the notion of Baby G being considered a big deal.

He said, “Man, that’s just pure charisma. All those guys he’s with are young. They’re mostly teenagers just looking up to him.”

“They may be young, but they got numbers,” Shareef argued.

Spoonie said, “You can find that in every neighborhood in America. But it’s still just small-time shit. He ain’t really running nothing. He’s just gettin’ attention.”

Shareef thought about it while he continued to sign autographs.

“And Harlem lets him get that attention with no beefs?”

Spoonie thought about that himself.

He said, “He knows who he can get away with shit with. Plus, a lot of the old-timers like him. They figure he can keep a lot of bullshit off the streets with all the younger bloods who follow him.”

Shareef stopped signing autographs and said, “He sounds more interesting by the minute.”

He stared out across the court and watched the young general in his orange T-shirt interacting with everyone around him.

Spoonie said, “I know you not planning on trying to interview him.”

He was jumping two steps ahead already.

Shareef smiled and confirmed his thoughts.

Spoonie shook his head and said, “B, you up here just
asking
for trouble.”

“You already told me he likes attention. What you think a book gon’ give him?”

“It’s gon’ give him a meaning to worry about your ass misquoting some shit from him. And the older guys he know wouldn’t like him talking no shit in no book, either.”

“Yo, you Shareef Crawford?” an older, more intimidating man stepped up from the crowd and asked him.

Shareef looked him over with more courage than earlier and answered, “Yeah.”

“You writing a book about Michael Springfield?”

Shareef hesitated. “Who told you that?”

“It’s on the wire, son. Is it true?”

Shareef didn’t know what to say. It was the moment of truth, and he was choking on it.

Spoonie butted in and said, “That shit’s just a rumor, man.”

“But you writing some shit about Harlem, right?”

When Shareef looked past the man, he could see two or three more pairs of eyes cutting in his direction.

Spoonie said, “He from Harlem.”

The man looked into Spoonie’s grill and said, “Yo, man, I already know that. But won’t you let him answer his own questions.”

Shareef finally spoke up and asked, “Would you read a book about Michael Springfield?”

The man didn’t hesitate. “It depends on what he got to say,” he answered. “But if ain’t got nothing good to say, then I wouldn’t write it.”

Spoonie couldn’t help himself. He said, “He not.”

The man looked him in his grill again and kept his silence. Then he looked back at Shareef.

“Aw’ight, be safe out here, man,” he warned him before he walked away.

That wasn’t that bad,
Shareef told himself. In the meantime, his heart was pounding like thunder. Then he looked across the court again and spotted Trap slipping through the crowd on the other side. Or he thought it was Trap. But he didn’t get a close enough or long enough look to confirm it. So he decided to ask Spoonie about it.

“You seen Trap today, man?”

“Nah, but he around somewhere.”

“In the crowd?”

“Nah, I’on know. Why, you lookin’ for him?”

Shareef shook his head and continued to look forward.

“Nah, I was just asking.”

“Hey, Shareef, you’re writing a book on Harlem?” a young female fan asked from the crowd behind him. She had overheard some of the conversation, and Shareef still hadn’t found an open seat to sit down and relax.

He answered, “Not yet. I’m still trying to decide on it.” Either way, it was obvious that the word on the streets about a new book from him about Harlem would travel at lightning speed.

When the next game was ready for tip off, Shareef’s cell phone went off. He looked down and read Cynthia’s number. He had ignored her calls long enough, so he went ahead and answered. He had to figure out what he wanted to do about the Michael Springfield situation anyway.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all day,” she told him.

“I’ve been running all day,” he answered.

“Well, you still going back ‘up north’ with me tomorrow, right? We can start putting this book together for real now.”

Shareef looked right into Spoonie’s face as the next game started. Spoonie was close enough to overhear parts of his phone call.

“Yeah, we’ll need to talk about that. Can you meet up wit’ me tonight?”

She said, “You not gettin’ cold feet on me now, are you?”

“Nah, I just need to see you, face-to-face.”

“When?”

“Anytime tonight.”

“Where are you? It sounds like you’re in the middle of a crowd.”

The Harlemites were getting excited about the next game.

Shareef said, “I am. I’m at the Kingdome Tournament.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been there before.”

Shareef was ready to ask her with who, but he figured he would save all of his questions for later.

He said, “We can meet back where we said good-bye yesterday at like ten o’clock.”

“On One Twenty-fifth and Lenox?”

“Yeah.”

“In front of Starbucks?”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

“Aw’ight, don’t have me waiting there.”

“Why would I do that?”

“
Oooohhh!
” the crowd moaned after a crossover and three-point shot fell through the net.