I was lying in the middle of the king-size hotel bed. Akemi was on my left, Chiasa was on my right. We were each fully clothed. I was opening the letter addressed to me from my man Black Sea, a Korean dude who is part of a break dance crew in Busan, Korea. We linked in Asia and formed a friendship that felt like it had been in place for a long time, even though it was only a few weeks. He calls me his “chin-goo,” which is a hefty word in Korea for friendship. Korean friendship meant more to them than friendship seemed to mean in the USA. I must’ve felt close to him also, because I gave him my address, which I never do. I’m sure the fact that he lived overseas made it an easier choice for me, but I also know it was a little more than that. He seemed like a friend I would keep for a lifetime. That’s how it felt.
Now, I was opening his letter. It was written in Korean except for his beginning introduction where he wrote “Mr. Manager.” That’s what he calls me, his “manager,” even though he is a college student, a physics major, and I am younger than him. He continues in English, saying, “Please ask your Korean wife to read this letter to you.” I handed the letter to Akemi. She read it to herself first. She then translated it into Japanese one line at a time and spoke it to Chiasa. Chiasa then translated it into English and spoke it out loud to me.
It went like this. Akemi said in Korean, “Sarang hanin.” Then she said to Chiasa in Japanese, “Sai ai.” Then Chiasa said to me in English, “My Dear Love.” Then, Chiasa laughed. Then I laughed. Then Akemi laughed. Now we were all laughing. I said to Chiasa, “C’mon now, you know he didn’t call me his dear love.” Chiasa laughed and said, “He did so!” Akemi laughed. I put my hand on my head, ran it over my Caesar cut, and laughed at myself, and at my global situation.
That letter was the beginning of my fashion export business from New York to Busan, Korea, through one of Black Sea’s uncle’s friends, who lived out here in New York and who needed me to be a supplier. He would then send the clothes I chose and purchased and sold to him to Black Sea’s uncle, who was opening a New York/Tokyo fashion boutique in Seoul, Korea. Black Sea admired my style and fashion so much when I was in Korea that he believed I could make his uncle, who had the connects and would handle the shipping, a rich guy. He said his uncle could not get rich on his own, ’cause he had no style and no eye for fashion, and no way to communicate properly in English to do business with English-speaking fashion wholesalers or retailers even though he was opening a high-fashion Western-style shop on a hunch. Black Sea said his uncle believed that he could get middle-income Koreans, whose fashion tastes were just becoming awakened, and who wanted highly fashionable high-priced clothing and accessories for discounted prices, to become his best customers. I was in.
12. COACH VEGA • A Reflection
A blacked-out, hand-built Maserati Royale, crazy—of course it caught my attention; most exotic things do. Made in Italy, and so pretty it couldn’t be called “a car.” Car is too bland of a word. This V-8 engine vehicle goes from standing still at zero to one hundred miles per hour in four seconds. At top speed, it’s hitting almost two hundred miles per hour. I dig the selection because it’s unique, and not the obvious choice. The designers only made about fifty-five models. Custom designed to limited order, not just anyone could cop it—mainly only kings, presidents, premiers, prime ministers, and princes, and for us in America, probably only big-money athletes, ballers and hustlers, or elite entertainers in the top-top level, top echelon. Yet it was parked curbside in Brooklyn in the exact spot where I agreed to meet up with Coach Vega. I was a hundred percent certain that he wasn’t behind the wheel of that machine. And, if he was, I’d expect a SWAT team to drop down from the rooftops to surround, swallow, and arrest the community coach for impersonating a millionaire.
I was standing directly across the street and staring at it. Clutching my basketball in my right palm, I was paused at the red light. When it flashed green, I didn’t move with the everyday walkers. So many beautiful things, I thought to myself. Try not to lust them.
A small mixed crowd was accumulating on the side of the car like they were waiting for autographs. Pedestrians passing by would jerk to a stop like they were suddenly shocked. And, in Brooklyn, “the borough of cool,” where all knew not to look too hard at anyone or anything lest you get roughed up, razored, or robbed, everyone stood still staring. They weren’t dazed enough to touch the vehicle, though, I know that’s right.
I was looking around for Vega. He was late. I didn’t see no floral shirts or smell no loud men’s cologne, so I knew he wasn’t in the area. The driver’s-side window lowered a quarter of the way. A hand waved me over. I recognized the Rolex, a mean-ass alligator band on a Louis XIII joint. I signaled him to pull out and ride straight. His engine switched on, humming. I crossed, then walked past the vehicle. It was caught at the red light. Two blocks down, he pulled over to the corner where I stood. His passenger window eased down. He dipped his head. “Get in,” he said.
“I got a meeting with Coach Vega,” I said, my five fingers gripping my basketball.
“Is that why you left?” he asked me calmly. I didn’t say nothing. Truth is I was mesmerized by the burnt-orange thick leather interior, the woodwork, the curves and figure, and the overall plushness of his ride. Now he was making a call. Never knew anyone who had a phone in their car, not even my father. He pushed a cobalt-blue Rolls-Royce, or I should say he owned one. His southern Sudanese homeboy driver chauffeured him around.
“Here.” Ricky Santiaga handed me his phone. I was still standing outside.
“Young Money!” I heard Vega’s voice say. “Congratulations, you got a face-to-face with the owner. I’m just the manager. Make me look good!” He hung up.
“Get in. It’s business. Time is money, you know,” Santiaga said.
“Basketball business?” I asked.
“That’s the only kind of business you and me have right now,” he said. I reached to open the door, didn’t want to dirty up the detailing or even put my hand or fingerprints on it. I got in.
“Good choice,” he said as he pulled off.
Speeding up the FDR Drive, the ride was immaculate. Only the hum of the powerful engine pierced the silence. Santiaga exited on the east end of 42nd Street, hugging the ramp at a high speed. Racing up 1st Avenue in the direction of the United Nations, I thought to myself, Money-making Manhattan territory. Of course I knew those streets and shops and fashions well. I reached ’em by train on the regular. I’ve walked down every block. From First Avenue all the way to the West Side Highway, the jewelers and boutiques low to the high end, I had been through them all.
It was clear that the car had a system, but he didn’t play no radio, or no cuts from his personal music library. If he was waiting for me to say something, that wasn’t going to happen. He must have had his reason for bumping Coach from our meet-up and placing himself in the driver seat instead.
“You don’t talk much,” he said. I didn’t reply. Didn’t think his observation needed a confirmation. He smiled, then made a sharp turn onto 47th Street, “the money block,” and into a narrow driveway, which led down to a garage. He parked in a corner pocket spot marked reserved.
“Let’s go,” he said. We walked up to a private elevator that he used a key to control. Inside he pushed L for lobby. The door opened into a marbled-out, clean, chandeliered area. More importantly, it had two armed security guards, a reception desk, and a sign-in book on a marble podium. As he advanced, I stopped walking and stood to the side playing the wall. He looked back, smiled, and said, “I’ll be right back.” I nodded. He tapped the counter of the reception desk and the female attendant smiled at him. The guards acknowledged him and he pointed to me, then turned back to them and pointed to his chest, as though to say, “He’s with me,” then disappeared.
Twelve minutes later he came back through, walked right past me, and I followed. We were back in the Maserati moving up the FDR all over again. Soon as he exited down the Dyckman Street ramp, the sirens sounded and the lights started flas
hing. “Police, pull it over,” they announced. He raised his eyes to his rearview mirror but looked calm and unaffected. Meanwhile, my nine was pressing on my spine where I had it tucked.
“Stay still,” he said. A knock came to the driver’s-side window, as I watched a second cop creeping up on my side through my side-view mirror. His weapon drawn, I knew I was in a dangerous situation. Not prone to panic, I remained calm. Santiaga lowered his window. The cop lowered his head to peer in as he said, “License, registration, and insurance card.” Then the cop’s grimace broke and he retreated. He stood up straight, saying to his partner whose finger was wiggling on the trigger, “Damn, it’s Ricky.”
His partner’s tensed-up muscles relaxed and he broke out in admiration for the car.
“How’s the family?” Santiaga asked the cop on his side.
“Better than ever,” the cop said.
“Well then that’s all that matters. I’mma let you check it out. I know you want to,” Santiaga said to the cop and eased out of the vehicle. I looked to my right. The cop on my side had taken a step back. I got out also. We were four men. If three are standing, I’m not sitting. The cops were moving around the Maserati just sweatin’ it as Santiaga reached in and popped the trunk. There was nothing in there but a jack and spare tire and a folded Maserati-branded car cover. It was obvious the vehicle was brand-new. Seemed like he drove it off the lot right before meeting up with me. Then, they were all three talking shit like old friends as they were looking beneath the hood of the car in awe. I wasn’t up front and checking beneath the hood and chatting. I stayed standing on the passenger side. The cop who had crept up my way then had one eye under the hood and the other watching me.
“How’s your man?” I heard him ask Santiaga, then he nodded his head in my direction. “Need me to run his license, fingerprints, check his record or his credit?” he said with a half smile. Santiaga’s friendly tone and face switched to solemn.
“Don’t talk like a rookie, Stubbs. If he’s my man, he’s good. You know the drill.” The other cop laughed to break the tension and his partner forced out a chuckle. “He’s a ball player. Put him up against one of any of your guys anytime. You want to make a wager?” he asked. “My team versus the PAL’s best squad?”
“No, Ricky, the word is out. You win all the wagers!” The cop laughed and put his hand on the car. “This is the evidence,” the cop said.
Back in the whip, Santiaga pulled off. As he did, he pressed a button and a compartment opened revealing his Smith & Wesson. “You wanna lay something in here?” he asked me.
“Nah,” was all I said. He closed it.
On Dyckman he double-parked, got out, and entered a building. I got out when he did and just played the street corner, waiting. Four Spanish-looking dudes walked up, two from out of the building Santiaga entered and two who exited a building from across the street. Each of them posted up, seemingly securing all four corners of the Maserati. They were serious-faced, solid-looking older men. More than that, I didn’t see any of them exchange any words with Santiaga, just automatically got on post.
I entered the corner store to buy a bottle of water. I was looking in the cold case. They had everything except water. A bunch of small cloudy plastic bottles filled with blue water, green water, yellow water, crazy cans of unfamiliar brands of sodas and flavors and drinks, but no real water. I closed the case. As I was walking up the aisle towards the register, the phone rang loud like a house phone.
“Take it,” the man at the register said, extending the receiver to me. I walked out. Spinning the ball on my fingers, I was killing time, thinking whether or not I should jump on the train and head back to Brooklyn. Maybe this cat Ricky thought his time was money and mine ain’t. Now the store man was out from behind his cash register and standing outside on the street beside me.
“Santiaga,” he said to me like it was some kind of password. I didn’t respond. Then, “Phone,” he said, and pointed his thumb at the store, letting me know to come back inside to pick up a call.
“Don’t leave. Give me seven more minutes,” Santiaga’s voice said over the phone. I handed it back to the store man, who had returned to his place behind the register. I wondered how Santiaga knew I would leave.
I checked he had manners. Good for him. I take men who make other men wait selfishly or needlessly and without word or apology as disrespectful. I didn’t like standing still in an unfamiliar territory. But I was clear that whatever the case, this was Santiaga’s territory. I couldn’t figure how a Brooklyn cat could have the reach of controlling some uptown Manhattan blocks, a couple of cops, some store owners, and even the dudes that stay hugging the block. I was thinking, it’s interesting how a bunch of older dudes, like the ones guarding his car, who had plenty of time to come up and establish themselves, can have nothing. Instead, they were watching a cat like Santiaga, who was in his mid to late twenties, having everything. I’m at least ten years younger than Santiaga, I know. At the same time, in ten years I planned to have ten times more than what Santiaga had, not out of greed, but out of the fact that if I plan right, and work hard and live right, then the finest things in life should be what I have earned and secured and provided for my family.
He wasn’t carrying anything visible when he got out of the car and entered the building. He wasn’t carrying anything visible when he returned, either. We already got pulled over once. If it happened again, it might not go in his favor. So, I paid attention. I already knew we were riding dirty, got guns, his and mine. I could handle that. I wasn’t game for drugs, though. Didn’t want to be in a car with someone transporting. I didn’t get that feeling from him at the start. And since he popped the trunk and it was empty, and nothing was in the car but him and me and my basketball and our burners, I’m straight.
“Let me keep these out.” He placed his license and registration and insurance card on the dash. “These boys pull me over just to get a close look at the ride,” he said. It sounded true.
“Last time I’m gonna ask you. Do you want to put your piece away before we hit the highway?” Behind the shade of the blackened windows, I pulled it out, wiped it down with a washcloth from my back pocket, hit the button I saw him hit the first time, and laid the nine in the compartment and shut it.
“Good choice,” was all he said.
The East Harlem River was below me now. We crossed the George Washington Bridge into the state of New Jersey. I had been to Jersey before. My first wife’s Japanese-American side of her family live there in Englewood Cliffs. I was studying the highway exit signs and mile markers along the way out of habit. When I travel in, I always need to know my way out. A man never knows which way a situation might flip. Yet a man should know his way out alone of anyplace he went into regardless of how many were with him at the start. Rely on no one else.
“ ’Bout to hit your exit,” Santiaga said over his car phone. “Hold on!” he said to me, and his spaceship shot to 180 miles per hour. Suddenly, from a left side entrance, a Lamborghini sped out in front of us and almost went into a tailspin. Santiaga pulled to the right lane and overtook him until the Lam driver caught control and accelerated so rapidly it was like he was preparing for flight. Both vehicles sped down a two-lane highway marked Palisades Interstate Parkway. Neck to neck for a few miles, both cars battled and then curved off to the right and onto a one-lane winding highway of hills, Route 9W. Still the Maserati and the Lamborghini fought to ride side by side in one lane on a two-way highway that had oncoming traffic, outdistancing one another by inches off and on. The high-speed race was interrupted by random slow drivers, who slowed down even further to get a quick rearview glance of the exotic cars, only to be swerved around, dodged, and left in a fog. Weaving around same-lane drivers and oncoming traffic, we slowed to about 80 miles per hour and skidded to our right into a long, steep, and hidden driveway, Santiaga in the first position and the Lamborghini in second. In the intensity of the speed and gravity that pushed me back into the contour of the custom
seats, all I had read clearly was a highway sign marked WELCOME TO NEW YORK. I was thrown off by how we went from Brooklyn to Manhattan to New Jersey, rode past Englewood Cliffs and Alpine, and now within minutes, were back in New York again without making a U-turn. But this ain’t one of the five boroughs of New York, I said to myself. It was a hidden place, a narrow route surrounded by beautiful trees and overlooking the water.
Santiaga jumped out. I hesitated. Should I push the button and grab my nine? Nah, it didn’t seem like a beef. Seemed like a race me and Ameer might have had if we had our driver’s licenses and could cop ourselves two exotic cars. I got out.
“How’s business?” Santiaga said to the other driver. But he was still gasping from the adrenaline rush.
“You tried to kill me,” the man said.
“Why would I do that?” Santiaga answered casually. “I can’t run the shop.” They laughed like friends.
“This is the man I told you about,” Santiaga said and nodded toward me. “His name is Midnight. Midnight, meet Allastair.”
“If I take you to the court right now, could you do it again?” Allastair asked me.
“Do what?” I asked. They laughed. I didn’t.
“A humble Brooklyn dude, huh? That don’t even go together,” Allastair commented. But he still didn’t tell me what he was talking about. If he wanted to get a game up, I was down for that. It seemed like they had money to burn. They definitely didn’t give a fuck if they banged up two cars at $250,000 each.
“Shoot long with your eyes closed and let me see the ball swish in the net, no rim,” Allastair said to me. Then, I remembered. That happened in the last game I had played for the Hustler’s League the night before I caught a flight and headed out to Tokyo.
I smiled. “That was all momentum. I was feeling the heat, and I had the black team rocking on my side to get in that type of rhythm.”
“You woke ’em up,” Santiaga said to Allastair. “This cat wouldn’t even get in my car until I said the magic word, ‘basketball.’ This cat didn’t say one word from Brooklyn to Manhattan to Jersey to New York. He didn’t even ask me where we are going. I hit 180 mph, this cat didn’t blink, grip the handle, vomit, or tell me to slow down.”
A Moment of Silence: Midnight III Page 15
