by Omar Tyree
Once they made it to the FDR Drive and headed south for downtown Manhattan, Shareef began to relax, just as Baby G had figured.
Then the cell phones began to ring. Shareef answered a call right after Baby G had answered his.
Baby G dealt with his call first.
“Yeah, I got it. We headed downtown right now. I’ll call you back later and tell you how it went.”
Shareef couldn’t trust everything he heard, but he didn’t have much of a choice at that point. He was already inside the car with no intentions of jumping out, or at least not yet.
Then he dealt with his own phone call. It was Cynthia again.
“Hello,” he answered.
She exhaled and said, “Thank God. You’re not out there with them anymore are you?”
“Nah, I’m safe,” he told her. Then he looked at Baby G to make sure. He said, “Or I think I’m safe.”
Baby G nodded his head with a smirk. He said, “You are safe, player. Just relax like you got a pen in your hand.”
On the line, Cynthia was confused. She said, “You think you’re safe. What are you talking about? Where are you?”
Shareef didn’t want her getting hysterical on him again. He wanted to get down to business with Baby G anyway. What were they there to talk about?
“Look, I’ma call you back. Just relax your nerves right now, I’m safe,” he repeated to her.
He closed his cell phone and smiled. It was personality time.
He said, “Women…when they love you they don’t know how to act. And when they hate you they don’t know how to act.”
Baby G and his driver both started laughing. The subject of gender psychology would always be a hit with men. The need to feed with sex was a constant hunger of masculinity.
Baby G added, “Yeah, they only know how to act when they don’t give a fuck about you. They be all strict with their rules and shit. And that’s generally when you care the most about them, right? That’s why I never let no girl know how much I like her,” he commented. “And if she even start off like she don’t care about me, I drop her immediately with no phone calls or nothing.”
He cracked a smile and said, “That’s when they come the fuck back.”
Shareef nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah. That’s the game right there. And it don’t change with these girls. That’s why they gotta learn how to be women, and take care of their man no matter what. Just like a real man gotta take care of them.”
Shareef silenced the air with that comment. He was the only married man with children inside the car.
Baby G looked for his ring finger and nodded. He said, “What does that feel like, man…to be married? I see you not wearing your ring no more.”
Shareef looked down at his left hand and asked him, “How you figure that?”
“I can see how skinny your ring finger is. And you old enough to be married, ain’t you? Writers always got women, them pretty smart girls who read.”
He said, “I had a couple of them. They good and nasty, too. They get all creative on a nigga.”
Shareef grinned and told him, “Don’t assume everything in this life, man. Just when you think something would never happen…it will. And when you think you know everything you need to know, life’ll throw your ass for another loop.”
Baby G grinned and started laughing. He said, “That’s what I heard about you, player. My peoples told me you a old-school nigga. You speak from what it is. A man gotta respect that.”
Shareef asked him, “But what about you? I mean, it’s obvious to me that you know more than the average ’hood. You a old soul, right? You got the charisma. You got the gift of gab. You got the looks. Fuck you wanna waste your life in this shit for?”
Baby G had not been around a strong straight shooter outside of the street life since his high school days. There were a couple of male teachers who always told him the same thing. But once the next class had moved up and his grade had moved on, the influence was lost.
He thought about it and had a story to tell. He said, “I remember this one time, man, when my mom bought me this new bike for getting good grades in school. And I didn’t have that bike for one week before somebody stole the shit from in front of the house. And I went around asking people with tears in my eyes if they had seen anybody with it or knew anything about it, right. And nobody knew shit. So then when I got pissed off and rounded up the thug niggas, we started roughing people up like the cops, and sure enough, man, my bike popped back up in two hours. Motherfuckers were apologizing and all kinds of shit. I even got some new wheels out the deal. And after that, I just knew it, man. Niggas don’t care about no smart shit.”
He stopped his conversation and said to his driver, “Yo, give me that up there, man. Pass it back.”
His driver passed him back a black pistol. Shareef watched the transaction and his heart rate increased again.
Baby G looked and told him, “Don’t worry about it, man, it’s on safety. But this is what niggas respect in the ’hood, B, raw power. This shit right here. It’s just like how Tupac kicked it; ‘Once I got that Thug Life across my chest…’ That was it, man, niggas respected it. Now maybe if I grew up in the suburbs or some shit it would be different. But you know how it is in Harlem, man. The strong eat the weak. That’s in every ’hood. And that’s why you still standing right now, Shareef. I gotta bigger squad than them niggas who after you.”
He said, “So, you try’na show them the right way. You try’na record history. You try’na do something positive. But when you deal with the wrong niggas, what do you get for it? They out here trying to kill you, that’s what. So you gotta take care of them first, then you can do what you need to do.”
Shareef couldn’t argue with that. How could he? He was still in the middle of the storm and had the young general to thank for bailing him out.
Another cell phone call hit Baby G on his hip before Shareef could get out another word.
“Yeah, y’all all safe?…Anybody get caught?…Any losses?…What about on they side?” He nodded and said, “Good. Spread the word though. Get out the street for the night. Sleep tight. And I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
When he hung up the phone again, he said, “First problem solved, Shareef. We got them niggas for you. But the bigger problem is finding out who sent them and gettin’ to that nigga. But that’s homework time. We’ll work on that for you tomorrow.”
Imagine that? Shareef was blown away by it. But at the same time, he wondered what Baby G’s price tag was. He wasn’t protecting him for nothing.
Shareef said, “So…what’s up with this, man. Why you doing this for me? I mean, you don’t know me to look out for me like that.”
“Because I’m interested in what you doing,” he answered. “But why you writing a book about Michael Springfield? You think he the most interesting nigga in Harlem? I mean, come, man. He been over the hill a long time ago. Like my man Biggie said, ‘Things done changed…’ That’s classic. You gotta get with the new school now. So I want a book on me. Fuck them old-timers.”
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.”
The Morning After
SHAREEF 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 ge
t 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.
