He answered, “I’ve been out of the country for three, four weeks. I come back to renovate, sell, or rent out the building. I opened the front door with my key, and I find this…this man sitting there in the chair, shot to death, just like that.”
Several officers studied the tortured body in the chair as they continued to ask the older man questions. The younger man kept his distance near the front door. He tried to catch the fresh air while he continued to cover his nose.
“Did anyone know you were leaving the country?”
“Yes, all of my employees who work at my dry cleaners down the street.”
“You have a list of those employees?”
He said, “Of course.”
Another officer inspected the kicked-in door at the back.
“Did you know that this back door was broken?”
“Well, I know it now, but it was not broken when I last left here.”
The older man was clearly agitated by it all. The incident could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in resale value.
“Is this the only property you own?”
The man became hesitant. He didn’t want to answer that question.
He said, “Well, I own a few…a few other properties, but not anymore in Harlem. Why?”
The officers became more interested by the minute.
“Are there employees at these other properties?”
“Well, of course,” he answered. He said, “I own a few Indian grocery stores, and a restaurant, but not in Harlem.”
“Well, where are these other properties?”
“Ah, near Midtown. But what does that have to do with this?”
“Do any of those, ah, employees, know that you have this property?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure? Of course, I’m sure. What are you trying to say, that one of my employees did this?”
He surely didn’t want to accuse anyone in particular with black, white, and Latino officers in the room. There were six officers there in all, and more were on their way, including a coroner and a crime scene unit.
“Well, they at least knew that you were out of the country, right? And who’s to say that none of them ever saw you walk in here with the keys? You said your dry-cleaning business is down the street, right?”
The case was elementary to the officers. Someone knew he was going out of the country, knew the property would be empty, and they knew no one would find a dead body inside until the owner returned. That line of information was more than just a coincidence.
One of the officers looked toward the younger Indian man and asked, “Is he one of your employees, too? Or he doesn’t count?”
“No, he does not work for me,” the older man answered. “He was interested in buying this property. I was showing it to him.”
“Is that right? Did he know how long you were gonna be out of the country, too?”
That question sounded incriminating.
The younger Indian man decided to speak up and defend himself immediately.
He said, “I had never even seen this place before.”
“Did he tell you where it was?”
“No. I just knew it was in Harlem,” he answered. “There are a million different storefronts in Harlem. What are you trying to say? This is bullshit!” he cursed the officers as more of them showed up on the scene. A few plainclothes detectives walked in.
“You do not think that we had anything to do with this, do you?” the older man asked them all. “I can not believe you believe that.” He wanted to give the officers the benefit of the doubt. He strongly believed in American justice.
The younger man, however, repeated, “This is bullshit! I don’t have to take this.” He was deeply offended. He said, “I am a legitimate businessman. And I will tell my lawyer everything.”
One of the detectives told him, “Look, calm down, sir, we’re all just doing our jobs in here. Now there are certain questions that we need to ask.”
“Well, you can ask the rest of them with my lawyer,” the younger man snapped again.
The detective shook his head and knew it was going to be a long night.
SHAREEF AND CYNTHIA walked out of the subway station at 125th and Lenox Avenue at close to six o’clock that evening, and into a human flood of summer foot traffic. Folks were everywhere in Harlem—short ones, tall ones, hairy ones, bald ones, men, women, children, foreigners. Shareef hadn’t witnessed the carnival-like atmosphere in his Harlem hometown in years. He smiled with his head bouncing left to right to left, as if following a tennis match.
Cynthia took in his glee and grinned at him.
“You haven’t been up in Harlem in a while, hunh?”
He said, “Nah, I’ve only been doing bookstore events up here for the last few years. Either that or taking my grandparents out to eat somewhere. So no, I haven’t seen this in a while.”
Cynthia looked across the street to Starbucks Coffee at the corner.
“You want some coffee? My treat.”
Shareef eyed the coffee shop sitting right in the center of things, but he still wasn’t a coffee drinker. He was hungry instead.
He shook his head and answered, “Nah, I want something to eat.”
“Sylvia’s Restaurant is right up the street,” she told him. “But I want to get some coffee right quick first.”
As they crossed the busy Harlem street in the direction of Starbuck’s, Shareef looked through the glass window and into an already crowded line.
“I don’t know how quick you plan to get it, but it looks like you’re about to be waiting for a while.”
“Yeah, it’s always crowded in here.”
“Get the real deal, the truth from the streets. The black man is in a crisis!” they both heard at the same time.
The Spear was out in his military garb, selling his books up and down the Harlem streets again.
Shareef caught his eye and nodded to him.
The Spear nodded back, then he looked at Cynthia.
“What are y’all, writing a book together now?” he asked sarcastically.
“Nah, we just hanging out?” Shareef answered.
The book-hustling man doubted that. They were doing more than hanging out. They looked too comfortable together.
Right before The Spear could respond, a group of girls in their late teens stopped right in front of them all.
“Ay, aren’t you Shareef Crawford? I just got your book.”
“The new one or an old one?” Shareef asked the girl in the middle of her crew of four.
“Um, Chocolate Candy, or something like that.”
“Chocolate Lovers,” he corrected her. “That’s one of my old ones.”
“Well, I have two of your other books, too. I can’t remember all the names.”
One of her girlfriends spoke up to help her out.
“I Want More and Man to Woman,” the friend stated. She smiled and said, “We all read ’em. We take turns.”
Shareef nodded and said, “That’s good, as long as you read it.” He would have told them to buy their own books, but not in front of a rival author out there pushing his work on the street. It seemed disrespectful and unnecessary.
The Spear, however, already felt disrespected. He had heard enough. So he butted in and said, “Well, I have a new book right here, sisters. It’s about the black man in the real struggle. The Streets Keep Calling Me,” he told them.
The girls were barely willing to pay him any mind with Shareef standing there in front of them. One girl picked up one of the books only to look at the cover jacket, nod, and hand it back to him.
“Only ten dollars, sister.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Well, how much did y’all pay for his books?” The Spear asked them.
Now he was being disrespectful to Shareef.
Shareef told the girls, “Well, keep reading,” and prepared to walk off with Cynthia into Starbuck’s.
??
?Aren’t you from Harlem?” another one of the girls asked him.
Shareef nodded and moved on, “Yeah.”
“Well, bye, Shareef Crawford,” the girls told him as he walked off.
The Spear shook his head and let it ride. He was poised to move on to the next potential customers who were walking by. The hustle was the hustle.
“Get the real deal, the truth from the streets. The black man is in a crisis!”
As they entered the coffee shop, Cynthia smiled at Shareef and said, “He’s jealous of you.”
“Of course he is,” Shareef told her. “That’s just human nature. I’d be jealous of me if I was him, too. But I put in my dues. I’m not just some fly-by-night author. I got a degree in writing.”
As Cynthia stepped in line, an old grade school nemesis of Shareef’s was just getting his coffee at the front.
He turned with his coffee and cake in a brown bag, spotted Shareef, and addressed him immediately.
“Shareef Crawford, the big-time writer.”
The man moved his coffee and brown bag to his left hand to extend his right for a shake. He was so forward in his greeting that Shareef was forced to accept it despite their history of opposition and several fistfights, the last of which Shareef had won.
“Jurrell Garland,” he responded, the big-time hoodlum. Shareef kept this added thought to himself. The Jurrell Garland he knew from nearly fifteen years ago was more than just a thug and a hustler. The Jurrell Garland he knew robbed and assaulted thugs and hustlers.
Jurrell was pure hoodlum, as sinister a street terrorist as you could get. And Shareef was unfortunate enough to attend nine straight years of school with him, from kindergarten through eighth grade. Now Jurrell looked civilized. He was dressed like an average behind-the-counter retail manager, not too fancy, but more than casual. And he was drinking Starbuck’s coffee even.
As they shook hands, Shareef noticed that his nemesis had thickened up in the body since he saw him last on the Harlem streets. Jurrell had also done time in prison for just about everything: assault, manslaughter, narcotics, illegal weapons, bribery—the list went on.
He looked Shareef in the eyes and said, “I’m not involved in any of the stuff I used to be involved in, Shareef. I mean, you just get older and you grow up from all of that, you know.”
He said, “I served my time, and I changed my ways. I sell cell phones for a living now.”
It was as if he was reading Shareef’s mind. Nevertheless, Jurrell realized that everyone who knew him knew his history. His rap sheet was far too long to forget or to ignore. So he had to explain his new way of life often. His speech was even different. There was no more street swagger or slang on his tongue.
He addressed Cynthia with a nod.
“How are you?”
She smiled pleasantly. “I’m fine.”
“That’s good to hear, sister. You look fine, too.”
“Thank you.”
He said, “I’m only telling the truth. Shareef always had good taste in women.” Then he focused back on Shareef. “So, what are you doing back up in Harlem, man? You got a book event?”
Shareef was still in minor shock. He couldn’t believe Jurrell had changed that drastically.
He said, “Nah, I’m up here, ah, doing some research.”
“Research on what? You writing a book on Harlem now?”
Shareef was still hesitant to reveal too much. But the man was right in his face and asking him questions with all sincerity.
“Yeah, a little something, you know. I just haven’t been up here in a while.”
Jurrell nodded to him. He said, “A lot of things are changed in Harlem now. It ain’t about that street life no more. It’s about moving on up. And if you’re not moving on up, then you’re moving on out of Harlem. It’s a new ball game now. I’m just trying to stay in the game.
“Yeah, so you was down in Atlanta last, right, at Morehouse?” he asked him, changing the subject.
Shareef began to wonder how much they still knew about each other.
“Yeah,” he answered, keeping everything short. He needed to decide how much he wanted to trust Jurrell.
“You get involved in that music game at all down there in Atlanta? They’re blowing up now, ain’t they? T.I., Young Jeezy, Lil John. You didn’t try to write any songs for any of those singers down there, little girls like Ciara?”
Shareef said, “I actually did try to write a few songs. But the whole political game just killed my interest in it.”
“What, with certain people wanting to write?”
Shareef wondered how many questions Jurrell was planning on asking him as the line moved up.
He said, “Yeah, you got managers in the way, labels that want brand names, singers who want to write their own shit. It was just too much of a hassle, man. So I let it go.”
Jurrell nodded to him again. He said, “Well, I don’t want to hold you up, man. It’s just good seeing you again. Seeing you and knowing how big you’ve made it, just gives me inspiration. I mean, we were in the same classrooms together for years.”
He smiled and stuck out his hand again. Shareef shook it a second time. And before Jurrell left, he offered him his business card.
“Look, if you need any help on your research, or on anything, just call me up while you’re here. Because you know I know everything,” he added with a grin. “But some of these young bloods I talk to nowadays don’t want to believe it. They all wanna find out the hard way. So call me up, man. Let’s talk.
“And oh, nice meeting you,” he addressed Cynthia.
“Same here.”
As soon as he was gone, Cynthia asked Shareef, “You know him?” She seemed surprised by it.
He grinned at her. He said, “I’m still trying to figure that out myself. But like he said, we went to school together. Why? What do you know about him?”
She had already ordered her coffee. They were waiting for it at the end of the counter.
She answered, “I don’t know that much about him, but whenever I see him, he seems to get a lot of respect around here.”
Cynthia had told Shareef that she was originally from White Plains, and that she had only lived in Harlem for a few years. So she was still figuring out who was who and what was what.
Shareef nodded to her.
He said, “Yeah, well, if you did the kinds of things he did, people are gonna either respect you or want to kill you. So, if they’re not trying to kill him, then they’re damn sure gonna respect him. And that’s all I need to say about it.”
Cynthia tested her cappuccino and asked him the next question.
“Was he as popular on the streets as Michael Springfield?”
Shareef shook his head in the negative. “Nah, popular is not the word I would use for him. I would call him more infamous. Because you didn’t even want to say his name.”
She tasted her coffee again as they walked out and said, “But he looks so, you know, normal. I would even say he looks handsome.”
Shareef had to chuckle at that. He said, “That’s what got me so confused. I mean, Jurrell was never really an ugly person in the face, he was just ugly in the mind. Because his mom looked good coming up to the school offices. I still remember that. It’s just that he never tried to look good on his own. He was too busy being a fuckin’ villain.
“So now that I see him all cleaned up and civil-looking, the shit is just weird, man,” he told her. “It’s just weird.”
Cynthia said, “Well, I hate to run while you get something to eat, but I have some things to catch up on. I like changed my entire schedule to make today happen for you.”
He said, “Cool, go do what you gotta do. I’m tired of seeing your face for this long anyway,” he joked to her.
She stopped him and said, “Watch it now. That’s exactly how a guy pisses a woman off, and then he wonders why she doesn’t want to give him none later on.”
Shareef froze and thought about it. Immediately, she had
him thinking about his wife again.
He asked, “Is that right? So, I need to be nice at all costs, hunh?”
“If you know what’s good for you.”
“Well, what if a woman still won’t give it to you even when you’re nice to her?”
She took another sip of her coffee and answered, “Either she doesn’t like you like that, or she doesn’t trust you enough yet to be intimate.”
Shareef nodded and sucked up the woman’s knowledge.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she told him. “Now run along and get yourself some soul food from Sylvia’s, and I’ll call you later tonight so we can plan to go back up north on Friday.”
“Aw’ight, I’ll talk to you later then.”
SHAREEF TOOK A SEAT ALONE in Sylvia’s Restaurant at 127th and Lenox, where he ordered fish, greens, yams, and rice with gravy. For his drink, he ordered lemonade. While waiting for his order to arrive at his small, two-person table set by the left wall, he went ahead and called his wife and children in Florida.
“Hello,” Jennifer answered.
“How was your day today?” he asked her. Civility was the best model of repair.
She said, “We’re running late for football practice.”
Shareef paused. It figures, he told himself. He shook his head at the table with his cell phone in hand and didn’t say a word about it. Even without a job, and with all day to prepare for it, she still manages to run late for everything. I just can’t understand this woman.
Anyway, “Outside of that, how did the rest of your day go? He’ll get to practice.”
“Do you really…” Jennifer started and stopped herself. The kids were still in the car with her. She said, “Shareef, Kimberly, your father’s on the phone.”
Yeah, leave it alone, Shareef told himself. Their marriage seemed like a lost cause.
“Hey, Dad. We got our first scrimmage next week against the Raiders. Will you be there?”
“What day?”
“Thursday.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” he told his son.
“And I might be the starting running back now, Dad. But the coach won’t say yet.”
Shareef raised his brow. “Running back? I thought you were playing wide receiver?”