The Last Street Novel (9 page)

Shareef was shocked into silence. He stared at the door after the woman had left him and asked himself, “Do you believe this shit?”

Then he fell back to the pillows and laughed.

“Get the fuck out of here!” he told himself. “This is crazy!”

A
T
8:12
THAT MORNING
, the hotel phone in his room rang and knocked Shareef out of his sleep. Since he was up half the night thinking crazy thoughts, he didn’t actually fall out until nearly five.

After the second ring, he scrambled over the bed to stop the loud noise before it killed him.

“Hello.”

“The kids were up all last night expecting your call.”

It was his wife. She was the last person in the world he wanted to hear from. Their entire relationship had turned into antagonism.

“My bad. I had the phone on mute from the book signing.”

“How come you didn’t call us right after the book signing?”

He answered, “I was too busy having fun.”

“Whatever. The kids want to speak to you.”

She went ahead and put his son on the phone.

“Hey, Dad, we’re signing up for football today.”

“Oh yeah? Are you scared?”

“No. For what? I know how to play.”

“That’s my boy. You show ’em what I teach you out there, and I’ll be home for good in a couple of weeks.”

“Until the next book tour,” his son stated.

Shareef said, “Daddy gotta pay them big house bills, right?”

“Yeah, but I wish I could go with you sometimes.”

“What, and sit around a whole bunch of women reading books? I’d rather be at summer camp if I were you.”

“Yeah, it gets boring sometimes, Dad. I miss you.”

Shareef paused and could imagine his son’s sad face, along with his bright smile during the good times.

He said, “I miss you, too, J. Now put your sister on the phone.” There was no sense in prolonging the sadness that morning. He still had sixteen cities to tour.

“Okay,” his son grumbled. “Here,” Shareef overheard him handing the phone to his sister.

“Hey, Daddy, we miss you,” she piped into his ear.

Shareef was ready to ask her if her brother had given her the phone with an attitude, but decided to let it slide.

“Hey, baby girl. Daddy’ll be back home soon.”

“To stay?”

Shit!
he thought.
It’s too early in the morning for this.

“If your mommy lets me,” he answered.

“Mommy, will you let Daddy stay when he comes back home?”

Fuck! What the hell I do that for?

He knew he would get an earful after that. His wife got back on the phone and said, “We’re on our way to camp, I’ll call you later. Tell your daughter good-bye.”

Shareef did as she told him and hung up. He knew he would get that earful later, she just didn’t want to do it in front of the kids.

A
T
9:43
AM,
Shareef was sitting across the table from his grandparents at a booth inside a midtown Manhattan breakfast and bagels cafe.

“Shareef, it’s important to keep your family together,” his grandmother was telling to him. “Because once all of this fame and good fortune fades away, your family will be the ones who still love you.”

Shareef took a sip of his orange juice. He was dressed sharply in another button-down shirt and sports jacket for the second day of his book tour. He took a deep breath before he responded to his loved ones.

“It seems impossible for me to explain how hard it is to have your insides pulled apart while you struggle to keep it together, Grandma. I mean, with all due respect, you guys have always allowed me to express myself. So to be in a relationship now where my expressions are always limited…I just haven’t been able to handle that. I mean, I’ve been trying, but…”

He stopped and shook his head.

His grandfather looked into his eyes, grunted, and looked away.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he mumbled in the opposite direction.

“Charles, if you have something to say, then say it. Don’t talk underneath your breath,” Wilma fussed at her husband. “I hate it when you do that.”

Charles turned to face them at the table. “That’s it right there,” he said, alluding to her bossiness. “That’s what he’s talking about. Shareef’s now figuring out that no married man is free. Now, we allowed him certain amounts of freedom while we raised him, and as long as he respected us and our house, we gave him the best of love, and let him do everything he wanted to do.”

Wilma cut her husband off and said, “His wife lets him do what he needs to do. Jennifer has never gotten in his way. She’s done nothing but help him, and she holds down those kids and that gorgeous house while he’s away. And I like that girl. Now I admit, I thought she was a little too cute in the beginning, but once I got to know her, she’s really grown on me.”

Shareef said, “Yeah, well, she’s growing on me in the wrong way.”

“Well, what exactly is the problem?” his grandmother asked him.

Shareef looked at his grandfather. They both knew, but how could you tell a woman you respected so much?

Shareef nodded and figured out a way. He said, “It’s one thing to love a woman because she’s a good person, a good mother, and a good wife, but it just seems like another thing to
make
love to a person. And it just don’t seem like all of those things are coming together, Grandma.”

His grandfather was impressed. Shareef put together a great choice of words.

But his grandmother responded, “Is this all about the bedroom?” right as one of the waitresses walked by.

That’s why Shareef didn’t like talking about it. It was an embarrassing conversation that needed to be dealt with in private.

His grandmother added, “Your marriage and kids are far too important for that selfishness, Shareef. A wife is much more than just a sex slave. You can get any girl for that. But you married and had kids with this woman. You have a family with this woman. You can’t treat her like that. How dare you?”

It was a no-win situation explaining himself to another woman, even if she was his blood. So his grandfather cracked a smile and shook his head. He would have to talk to Shareef one day about a married man’s tolerance. But it wouldn’t do any good. Shareef had more passionate blood than his grandfather. They both knew it. And the same passionate blood that made him an overachiever as a boy, a student, an athlete, and now as a successful writer was the same passionate blood that got in the way of him being able to control his sexual appetite, while bowing down to the restrictions of a woman. But how could he explain that to his grandmother without her feelings getting hurt? It only made him sound greedy.

His grandmother continued to pour on her woman’s wisdom.

She said, “You have a chance with your family to set the example for the next generation of Crawfords, Shareef. Do you understand that? We don’t have that many good examples anymore, and people are looking up to you now.”

Shareef understood it. He understood it all. That’s why he was still married. He also understood what his grandmother was alluding to. His own parents were an embarrassment to her. They didn’t talk about them. Shareef never brought them up. They had never been in his life. And his grandparents would never allow their reckless lifestyles to influence him. So it was they who had raised him. It was they who had taken him to the Schomburg Center to feed his appetite for reading. It was they who had bought his sports equipment and had taken him to the practices. And it was they who had sent him to college, helped him through it, and had been there to celebrate at his graduation. So now he owed them a proper family as a representation of their love and of their teachings to him.

Shareef took another deep breath and said, “I know, Grandma. I know.”

His grandfather looked at the agony and defeat in his face and knew better. Shareef had a major problem to overcome, and the stress that it presented was not healthy for him.

T
HREE WEEKS LATER,
at the conclusion of Shareef’s book tour, he pulled up to the front entrance of his immaculate six-bedroom home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, behind the wheel of his black Mercedes SL 600 to take his son to football practice. His son liked to call the car the Batmobile and was proud that his daddy drove it. But when his wife, Jennifer, saw the car pull up from where she waited with their son and daughter on the front steps, she viewed it as another headache that Shareef seemed to induce in her on purpose.

“It’s the Batmobile,” Little J yelled as soon as he spotted his father’s car. He was dressed in his football practice uniform of orange, blue, and white. Shareef liked to call him Little J, short for Junior.

“All right. It’s Daddy,” the daughter, Kimberly Crawford, cheered. She was dressed in a colorful skirt, top, and tennis shoes.

Their mother wore casual blue denim shorts, a white top, and gold accessories to match her natural golden brown hair, body, and skin.

Shareef hopped out from behind the wheel of the Mercedes dressed in dark blue Rocawear sweat suit pants with a light blue T-shirt and dark sunshades. He strolled over and met his kids at the walkway, picking them both up for hugs and kisses while his wife watched.

“Who’s the best dad in the world?” he asked his kids.

“You are,” his son and daughter answered in unison. They were a regal family of big shoes and big dreams; the problem was, in the execution of making it all happen, they had somehow gotten off track.

As soon as Jennifer approached them on the walkway, she asked her estranged husband, “Why would you drive that car, knowing you have to take him to practice?” and shot down his celebration of father-hood.

“Aw, Mom, come on,” Little J protested immediately.

It was no sweat to Shareef. He understood how his wife felt about driving the kids around in his sportscar. Sportscars were not built for kids. So he said, “I’ll just take him in your Land Rover.”

“Can I go, too? I wanna go,” Kimberly begged her father, while tugging at his arm.

Jennifer huffed and said, “I have some errands to run.”

“So take the Avalon,” Shareef said, regarding her second vehicle.

“You take the Avalon,” she snapped.

“Say no more, just let me have the keys.”

Jennifer used the Land Rover for more upscale affairs, and the Toyota Avalon as her family get-around car. Shareef used the Mercedes SL for his play, and a Ford Explorer for his get-around. However, on that bright and sunny Florida day, he’d missed his Mercedes and wanted to be behind the wheel again. He had also moved out of the house at the beginning of the year and into a condominium on the twenty-seventh floor of a brand-new high-rise near Miami. His family had never been there. The condo was his private place, somewhere to be himself, and to entertain whomever he wanted.

Realizing he would not be riding in his father’s Batmobile to football practice, Little J pouted, “She
always
wants to get in our way.”

Shareef wasn’t sure if his son was referring to his sister or to his mother, but he didn’t like it either way.

“Ay, watch your mouth,” he snapped sternly to his son.

Little J dropped his eyes to the ground and held his tongue, but his emotions and intent were still legible. A spitting image of his father with lighter brown skin, it was obvious that he would be as driven, as bullish, and as determined to have things his way as his old man was. It was another dilemma that the author, father, husband, and man would be forced to deal with.

As they drove to the Jaguars’ football practice for ages ten and under, Shareef felt it important to have a talk with his son about his attitude.

“Shareef,” the father addressed the son in the passenger seat.

His son frowned and said “I’m Li’l J, Dad, you’re Shareef,” with youthful swagger.

The father took a breath and said, “Look, man, you have a very good life. You understand that? There are plenty of kids out here your age who would love to have all the opportunities that you have. Even on your team. But you’re walking around here with an attitude like somebody owes you something. Is that how you want to treat us? You don’t appreciate what we do for you?”

The son picked up on his father’s serious tone and dropped his eyes again with no answer.

“Shareef, you look at me when I’m talking to you.”

He waited for his son to make eye contact.

He said, “You don’t drop your eyes when someone is talking to you, you hear me? You sit there and you take it. That’s what a man does. We don’t look away. We don’t look into the clouds. We don’t count army ants on the ground. We take it eye to eye like men. So if you wanna be a little man, then you take it like a little man.

“Now answer my question. Do you appreciate what your mother and I do for you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, act like it then. Stop pouting all the time, stomping around the house, screaming at your sister…”

“Yeah,” Kimberly interjected from the backseat.

Little J cut his eyes at her.

“Don’t do it, you look right back at me,” Shareef told him.

His son started to pout again, “But Dad, she…”

“I don’t care what she does, I’ll handle her. You stay focused on what I’m saying to you. And don’t drop your eyes again.”

Then he focused on his daughter, strapped in the car’s backseat.

He asked her, “Did anyone say anything to you, Kimberly?”

She looked him in the eyes and answered, “No.”

“Well, you learn to stop instigating then. You hear me?”

She nodded and answered, “Yes, Daddy.” She was a perfect mix between her mother and father, and a slightly lighter brown shade than her brother.

Hearing the word “Daddy” from his daughter softened Shareef a bit. He didn’t want to come back home and be the heavy knowing that he would be leaving them again. So he immediately changed his tone while paying attention to the road.

He said, “I love both of you guys. And I love your mother, too. We’re all just gonna have to get along with each other. We got a good life.”

W
HEN THEY ARRIVED
at the practice field, Little J hopped out of the car to join his teammates. They ran laps, exercised, and began practicing their team plays.

As practice continued, a few of the fathers and coaches had on-and-off conversations about the game of football.

“You think Miami got a chance this year without Ricky Williams?” one of the parents asked an assistant coach.

There were four coaches and seven fathers out on the practice field with twenty-four kids. Five mothers were there at practice as well.

“Yeah, they got a chance. They got Daunte Culpepper now,” an assistant coach answered.

“You think he’s gonna make that much of an impact?”

“He should. They haven’t had a real quarterback since Marino.”

“All of the Florida teams should look good this year,” Shareef spoke up. Football was his game. Being from New York, he still rooted for the Giants and the Jets, but he didn’t mind watching the Dolphins, the Bucs, or the Jaguars in Florida. Nor did he mind watching Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons in his old college town.

One of the fathers looked him over and said, “You write those books, don’t you? Romance novels.”

The man had kept that knowledge to himself until Shareef had decided to speak up among them.

“That’s what I do,” he answered. “Why, you read a few of them?”

He knew better than that, he just wanted to back the father up on his heels.

“Nah, I don’t read ’em, my wife does. I didn’t think you would watch football, though,” the father committed.

“Yeah, football and writing don’t go together, hunh?” Shareef quipped.

The father said, “I don’t know, I figured you’d watch the soap operas or something. The Lifetime channel. Don’t you gotta do research for what you write?”

A couple of the other fathers chuckled and grinned.

Shareef said, “Yeah, but I don’t get it from watching television. My research comes straight from us.”

Right as he spoke, Little J caught a pass, made a couple of dandy moves, and outran his teammates down the sideline for a touchdown.

One of the coaches looked over to Shareef and stated, “Your boy’s gonna be one of our best players.”

Shareef said, “I know it.”

“J practices with my dad all the time,” Kimberly spoke of her brother and father.

The other father looked back at Shareef and asked him, “You played some football?”

“Not really, just fifteen, twenty years of my life,” Shareef joked with his answer. “Then I started writing romance books after college and somehow lost every one of my football skills.”

“No you didn’t, Daddy. You can still play football. J gets mad all the time when he can’t catch you,” Kimberly added. “And he can’t throw as far as you either.”

“Aw, he’s nine years old, he’s not supposed to outrun or outthrow me yet,” Shareef continued lightheartedly. He said, “But he’ll probably run and throw me down once he gets about sixteen. It’s already in the genes.”

The other fathers stopped their shucking and jiving after hearing that. They already knew what Little J could do. He had been taking the other kids to school. And if father was like son, then this man definitely had football skills, romance writer or not.

“So, who you like to win the Superbowl this year?” the humbled father asked Shareef.

Shareef said, “It’s all up for grabs this year. You got Denver, Seattle, Carolina, Pittsburgh, and the Patriots as always. Then you got Cincinnati, Chicago, the Eagles, the Jags, Indianapolis, and the Bucs, Redskins, and Giants all making a comeback. Then you got San Diego, Atlanta, and Dallas still sitting in the mix, especially with Dallas signing T.O. from the Eagles. So take your pick.”

The one father nodded and was speechless for a minute. The other fathers looked around at each other and started laughing.

One of them said, “Well, shit, if you didn’t play no football, then you damn sure must be reading a whole lot of newspapers or something. You damn near sound like an announcer to me, right off the Sports Network. What’s your picks in college football?”

The fathers and coaches all shared a laugh and went back to respecting each other as football fanatics, and they rightfully recognized Shareef Crawford Sr. as one of the group.

O
N THE OTHER SIDE
of town from the football practice field, Jennifer Crawford attended her annual fund-raiser meeting at Broward County’s African-American Library.

“Do you think your husband would be willing to offer an hour or two of his time to conduct a fiction writing workshop?” one of the senior library coordinators asked her at their roundtable in the second-floor office. They sat around a large, oval-shaped table, five women and two men. Jennifer was second to the youngest at age thirty-two.

She took a breath and answered, “One of the things I try not to do is to ask Shareef to participate in too many of our events. I mean, let’s be honest about it; if I were not married to him, would we even be so open to ask?”

“I know, I know, but we had to ask you,” another member commented. It was only natural for them to ask about the participation of a nationally recognized, bestselling author who was married to one of their supporting members. But every year they asked, and every year Jennifer gave them her time, ideas, resources, and economic support. Shareef had even participated in several of their past events, so how much more could Jennifer offer them?

“We have a budget that is ten thousand dollars more than last year, so we should be able to invite some of the premiere authors and get a great return on our investment,” one of the two men in the room stated. He was in charge of the accounting.

“What other authors are we thinking about inviting?” the youngest woman of the group asked. Outside of Jennifer, she considered herself the most knowledgeable on new and up-and-coming authors in the African-American community.

“Well, we like Michael Eric Dyson because his work seems to cross over to a large section of our supporters. But Tavis Smiley also has a new book out this year, we just don’t know how much he would ask for,” one of the planners explained.

Jennifer had to sit and listen as price tags were thrown around in regards to other writers, knowing that they rarely offered Shareef much of anything. And although she understood that her family could afford to give and not take, the principle of at least offering a person their worth had always irritated her. No one knew how hard her husband had worked over the years to make himself into a brand name more than she had. Nevertheless, she felt it was her duty to help the fund-raising process in any way she could.

Jennifer found pride and usefulness in being able to assist those in need. The middle child of three sisters and two brothers, she had been the most responsible person in her family. That was what attracted Shareef to her, and she to Shareef, when they attended college in Atlanta at Morehouse and Spelman, respectively. They were each able to find their way around obstacles, but they kept running into problems negotiating each other as a couple. Shareef would pull as hard as he could to the right, and she would resist, only for her to pull as hard as she could to the left, and find his resistance. He would rationalize his perspective with his logic, and she would rationalize her perspective with hers. And at the end of a their long nights of battle, they would both be exhausted, with him refusing to submit to her, and her refusing to submit to him.