by Omar Tyree
As they crossed the street and headed back to Jurrell’s car, Shareef asked him, “Have you built up any strong credit since you’ve been out?”
“Yeah, I got credit. I got phone bills, credit cards, electricity bills, utilities, rent…How much credit do they need?”
Shareef looked at the Lexus and asked him, “What about car payments?”
Jurrell looked at his car and shook his head. “Nah, I paid for this with cash. This is a used car. I only paid ten Gs for it.”
Shareef thought about it. He said, “You probably gonna have to have bigger payments than phone and utility bills. The rent is good if you’ve been in one place for a while. But how much are your credit card balances? I mean, I don’t mean to get too personal…”
Jurrell blew it off and said, “Oh, it’s cool. You’ve been through this before. But my credit cards are only for like, two, three thousand dollars each. You know, they start you off low and you have to build your way up.”
Shareef nodded, still thinking about Jurrell’s predicament as they climbed into the car.
He said, “The main thing they’re going to wonder about is the gap in all the years where you had no credit history. You have to come up with a reason for that other than your being in prison. I mean, you’re not fresh out of college or anything.”
Jurrell paused behind the wheel of the car. He said, “I’ll just tell them that I recently woke up to how important a credit record is and that I used to work from paycheck to paycheck doing odd jobs, you know.
“I mean, that’s what most guys are doing in the ’hood,” he explained. “We not all bestselling authors, either.”
Shareef told him, “They’re still gonna ask you what odd jobs you’ve held and want a record of it. But you did work for a phone company before you broke off and started selling your own phones, right?”
Shareef was assuming as much. How else would Jurrell know so much about the phones?
He said, “Yeah, I worked for Verizon for like, eight, nine months. But you gotta put references down on the application, too, right? How much does that count? That’s how I got my job at Verizon.”
Shareef figured all along that it would come down to his references, and maybe even fronting ownership to get Jurrell what he wanted. Polo and Spoonie were probably right all along. Jurrell needed a legitimate connection with real money to help clean up his own money. But if his money wasn’t really clean, and Shareef vouched for him, he could put his entire reputation, family, and career in jeopardy. So he found himself on dangerous ground again, just when he was beginning to feel a real level of comfort with Jurrell.
Jurrell started up his engine and said, “I know what you’re thinking, man. You’re thinking, ‘Why should I get involved with this nigga like that? We ain’t never really been friends. I don’t know what he really up to.’ But I’ll tell you like this, man. Just walking up in there in that condo today and seeing how you worked it taught me a hell of a lot. I mean, I had the suit and the tie to play it, but you had the real experience and recognition. I mean, that lady was ready to jump out of the penthouse window to get a bestselling author in the building.”
He laughed and said, “She showed us one of the most expensive condos in the whole fuckin’ building just because you was there. She wouldn’t have done that shit for me, I don’t care what kind of suit I’m wearing. This ain’t Armani.”
He said, “So if you do nothing else for me, man, I just want you to know that I thank you for going up in these condos with me. ’Cause this is where Harlem is leading to now. So let’s head to the next one. We running late.”
Whose Side Is Safe?
AS THE SUN BEGAN TO GO DOWN, Baby G sat outside the black Mercedes CLK parked by Marcus Garvey Park, one of his favorite hangouts, with his bodyguard/driver, interrogating the young soldier he began to call T, short for Truth.
“So, detectives were questioning your sister at the dry cleaners today about what went down at the storefront?”
“Yeah,” T answered him. “Then she told me about it. But she said she didn’t want to know nothing. So, she didn’t even ask me.”
Baby G nodded and said, “Smart girl. I see the apple don’t fall too far from the tree. Because the less she knows, the less she got to lie and feel nervous about. That’s how they get you on them lie detector tests. The more you know, the more your emotions tell on you.”
“We don’t have nothing to tell,” T commented with conviction.
Baby G nodded again. He said, “See, that’s why I like you, man. You know just what time it is.”
Over his right shoulder, at least fifteen of his followers watched or played a game of basketball until they could hardly see in the dark, while others hustled their pharmaceuticals on the side.
The bodyguard/driver shook his head. “Them niggas gon’ run ball until they’re blind.”
Baby G paid it no mind. Then his cell phone rang with a restricted number again. He answered it as he walked away.
“Yo, what’s up, young blood? What’s the weather look like today?” He listened and said, “Is that right? The writer dude? It’s serious like that?…Yeah, I heard about that. But he wasn’t gettin’ out no time soon, right? So what he have to talk about that was so important?”
He continued to listen and build his understanding of the new situation.
“That’s what you want us to do?…Aw’ight. Say no more.”
Baby G hung up the phone and spoke to his driver. He said, “We gotta get that other car again. Something came up.”
His beefy driver nodded to him. “Let’s go get it.”
“Aw’ight, gather them up,” he told his driver.
His driver turned and whistled loud through his fingers.
Wheeett! Whheeeett!
The soldiers heard the call and all came running. They quickly gathered around their leader for their orders.
Baby G looked them all in the eyes and said, “Yo, we got something we gon’ need to do that I’m gon’ tell my snipers to handle in a minute, once I find out what the details are. Aw’ight?”
They nodded and mumbled, “Aw’ight. We got you.”
He said, “Now, how many of y’all ever heard of the book writer Shareef Crawford?”
They all started to nod their recollections of the name.
“Yo, my sisters read his books.”
“Yeah, my girl read him.”
“My mom read his books.”
“Ay, I read a couple of his books myself. They aw’ight. They good to beat your shit to.”
Baby G frowned while a few of his soldiers responded to that.
“Nigga, you need to get a fuckin’ girlfriend. Fuck readin’ them books.”
“Yo, that was too much information, man,” the young general told him. “Anyway, have y’all seen him around here and know what he look like? Y’all know he from East Harlem, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him around. He was at the Kingdome yesterday signing autographs,” one of the soldiers stated.
“Aw’ight, well the rest of y’all need to find out what he look like and keep your eyes and ears open whenever you see him.”
“Why, what he do?” someone asked.
“I heard he was writing something about that kid Michael Springfield in jail.”
Baby G said, “Look, I’ll tell y’all all about it in a minute. Now don’t rise up on him, and don’t let nobody else rise up on him until I find out what the deal is. Y’all hear me?”
“Yes, sir!” they answered in unison.
He said, “Aw’ight, now let me find out somebody’s deaf out here and see what happen.”
“No, sir!”
He nodded to them and said, “Aw’ight, recess is over. It’s paper time now. Go get that.”
But before they began to disperse, he added, “Yo, and five of y’all who know what he look like, follow us in a second car. Matter fact, I need a couple of shooters, too.”
IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY for Shareef, and he was st
ill with Jurrell Garland at close to nine o’clock at night. They were riding around in the Lexus, reminiscing about the Harlem of ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. By then, Shareef had told Jurrell all about the trouble he had gotten himself into over Michael Springfield, and that he still had his luggage at a Harlem hotel that he no longer considered safe.
“So, you want me to drive you over there and get your luggage or what?” Jurrell asked him.
Shareef had still not made up his mind. As much as he talked about the nonsensical lure of urban street life, the danger of it all was compelling him to stick around and prove that something could happen. And if he left without anything going down, then he still wouldn’t believe. It was like taking a drug to prove it could produce a high. Shareef wanted to have it, while the logical side of his brain told him not to chance. Just leave the shit alone and go home. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself to. He was from Harlem.
He asked Jurrell, “What would you do in my situation?”
He wondered if Jurrell would think differently about it. They had been on the opposite sides of the law for most of their lives.
Jurrell smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He said, “You know me better than that, Shareef. If you know anything about me, you know I never ran from shit. I had motherfuckers running from me, twenty-four/seven. And I’m not the most dangerous-looking nigga in the world. I still look good,” he commented. “But when I say I’ma fuck you up…I’m not playing. I’m gon’ fuck you up for real, and real niggas know that about me.
“So what would I do in this situation?” he asked himself. He said, “I’d walk outside that hotel building, hold my gun out and say, ‘Who the fuck got a problem with me writin’ this book? We can settle this shit right now.’ And I’d get the beef over with.”
He said, “But that’s me. I mean, you got a wife and kids at home, Shareef. I don’t have no wife and kids. You a million-dollar nigga with no ball or microphone in his hand. I’m out here selling fuckin’ cell phones. And you turn women on through their minds without them even seeing you. I always had problems with women. Outside of my mother, half of these girls are still fuckin’ scared of me.”
He said, “You remember all them girls I had crying in grade school and getting their fathers and brothers and uncles and shit on me? And I still didn’t run. But you, man you got girls fantasizing and they don’t even know what you look like when you in the same room with them. I mean, that’s some special shit right there, man. These girls sweat you and never even get a chance to see you.”
Shareef didn’t want to hear all of that. He said real calmly, “But you know what I honestly feel like after you say all of that shit to me, man?”
“Nah, what you feel like?” Jurrell asked him.
Shareef said, “I feel like the guy playing jump rope with the girls, while all the guys are playing football and slap boxing. And then I walk over to y’all and say, ‘Yo, let me play.’ And y’all tell me, ‘Nah, nigga, go back over there with the girls. This a boy’s game.’”
Jurrell could see the image in the schoolyard. So he broke out laughing. Then he said, “Yo, Shareef, seriously…do you think Hugh Hefner cares about playing football and slap boxing? I mean, if the women love you, then use that shit, playboy. What’s wrong with you?”
Shareef frowned and blew it off. He said, “Man, that don’t really do it for me. I got a mistress waiting for me in Miami right now, a bad, half Dominican girl with the brown skin and long, jet black hair, but sometimes I don’t even want her. It’s like you can’t really talk to women, man. I feel like I’m talking at ’em half the time. It’s the same thing with my wife. She’s not gettin’ me, and I’m not gettin’ her. But with us guys…when we talk, I mean, the shit is real. So why can’t I talk to other guys about the shit I do as a writer, like an athlete would, or a rapper would, or a thug would? You feel me? That’s why this shit right here is so important to me, man. I’m just trying to make a connection to y’all.”
Jurrell drove silently for a minute. Shareef didn’t know if he felt him or not.
Then Jurrell nodded to him. He said, “Yo, that’s some deep shit right there, man. We all try’na make a connection, Shareef. You try’na do it with books and intelligence, I was trying to do it with fear and intimidation. I just figured that…if another man was scared of me, then I must have connected to him by reaching down and snatching his fuckin’ heart out of his chest.”
Shareef grinned at Jurrell’s honesty.
He said, “But then, like…at the end of the day, if another kid had a toy or something, and I wanted to play with him, the motherfucker was still scared of me. And I felt like telling him, ‘Look, nigga, don’t be scared. Play with me.’ But they never wanted to because I was never their friend. And I didn’t know how to be no damn friend. So I’d punch the kid in his fuckin’ mouth, take his toy, and then play with the shit by myself, but it never satisfied me, because that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I mean, I wanted to have friends, man, I just didn’t know how to.”
He looked Shareef in his eyes and said, “But then when it came to you, you was like the one guy who would always fight me. And I secretly admired you for that. I mean, I didn’t like you for that shit, but I admired you.”
He said, “Now here we are, twenty years later, still in Harlem, riding around telling each other how we want to connect as men.”
Jurrell shook his head and repeated, “That’s just some deep shit right there, man. Now I’m gon’ have to get high and sleep on it tonight.”
Shareef chuckled and said, “You got some on you now?”
Jurrell looked at him. “Nah, not on me. I can’t get caught with shit out here, man. It ain’t safe for me. But if you wanna smoke one with me back at the crib…”
Right as he spoke, Shareef noticed that they were crossing Frederick Douglass Boulevard.
“Yo, my hotel is right on Frederick,” Shareef told him.
“So, you goin’ back?” Jurrell asked.
Shareef decided that he would. Out of the blue, his entire body felt heavy. That happened to him sometimes after going several nights without a solid rest. And he had only slept for three hours at a time since he had been back in Harlem. A man had to rest sometime, no matter how energetic he was.
He answered, “Yeah, man, I’m tired as hell now. Just drop me off right in front of the door.”
Jurrell asked him, “You sure?”
It wasn’t quite ten o’clock at night yet and Shareef still had a squad of unknown goons after him.
Nevertheless, he answered, “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m just a li’l tired now. Ain’t nothing gon’ happen to me. I’m getting in here and going to bed.”
So Jurrell turned down Frederick Douglass toward the small hotel where Shareef had been staying.
THE SAME DARK SEDAN, with the three men from the night before, was waiting on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, right down the block from the hotel. They had been waiting hours for Shareef to arrive.
The ringleader sat in the front passenger seat and patiently smoked a cigarette. He watched everything that moved on the sidewalk up ahead to his right.
“What if he checked out already, man. We’re spending all night fucking with this nigga,” the young triggerman huffed from the back.
He said, “I knew I should have jumped out and stepped to him when we saw him earlier. Now he ain’t coming back here.”
“No you shouldn’t have, either. You did exactly what you was supposed to do, call me,” the ringleader told him.
“Well, look, man, are we gonna kill this nigga or what? I still don’t even know what we after ’em for,” the triggerman responded.
The ringleader chuckled and said, “Exactly. You don’t even know what the hell is going on, but you already set to kill somebody. Just let me ask him a few questions first.”
He was told to be tactful and efficient, and that’s what he was going to stick to.
“About what?” the triggerman asked him.
The driver wanted to know more about it himself.
“What he do, man?” he questioned.
The ringleader figured they were not there to ask any questions. That’s why he picked them to tag along. They were both obedient. Still, he didn’t want them bothering him all night with questions, so he answered, “He ain’t do nothing yet. It’s what he might do.”
The driver listened and said, “Is he a rat? A snitch?”
“Exactly,” the ringleader answered, “that’s what I’m trying to find out. And don’t ask me what the fuck he know, either. ’Cause I don’t know yet.”
They were all silent in the car for a minute. Then the triggerman let out a long sigh from boredom.
“Wake me up when you see something,” he commented. “We might even get questioned by the cops or something waitin’ out here this long. This ain’t no stakeout.”
“Yes it is, too,” the ringleader corrected him.
“Well, we ain’t got badges for this shit.”
The ringleader pulled his cigarette from his lips and snapped, “Look, man, shut the fuck up. Aw’ight? Just shut the fuck up a minute. Got’ damn!”
The car went silent again as the driver shook his head and grinned.
WHEN SHAREEF and Jurrell approached the hotel from the opposite side of the street, Jurrell stopped the car and waited for traffic to clear to make a U-turn.
“That’s it right there, right?” he asked Shareef.
Shareef nodded to him. “Yeah, that’s it.”
BACK INSIDE THE DARK SEDAN, the driver watched a Lexus stop in the middle of the street out in front of the hotel and wondered.
“Yo, you see that Lexus? Look like he ’bout to drop somebody off.”
The ringleader moved his cigarette out of the way and looked forward. The triggerman looked forward as well. And they all watched in silence as the Lexus made its U-turn.
