Shareef even joked about it. He smiled and said, “Maybe if you had gone to Manhattan Center like I did, you would have graduated from high school behind me, too.”
Jurrell laughed and said, “I thought about that shit myself. When you on lockdown every day you think about a lot of different shit. But I doubt if we would have been in the same classes in high school. That would have been a little too crazy. And Martin Luther King was where all the action was, the action that got my ass right into trouble.”
The waitress finally made her way over to their table to take their orders.
“Oh, are you sitting here with them?”
It was the same waitress who had given Shareef her number.
“Nah, I was just about to leave,” he told her.
Jurrell said, “Well, look, call me up, man. I mean that. We grown men now.”
Shareef stood up and looked him in the eyes. They were grown men. They were both in their thirties now. Why not let bygones be bygones?
So he nodded and said, “Aw’ight, I’ll call you.”
Jurrell said, “Now don’t tell me that if you don’t mean it, man.”
The waitress looked at Shareef and grinned. It was the same thing she had told him. Don’t lie about it.
Shareef nodded, thinking about them both. He said, “If I say I’ma call, then that’s what I gotta do, right?”
“That’s a man of his word,” Jurrell told him.
Shareef stuck out his hand to shake on it.
“It’s a done deal then.”
By then, some of the card players were anxious to know who the hell he was. Shareef was generating a whole lot of attention in there.
“Ay, Rell, who ’dat, man?” one of the flashy card players asked him.
Jurrell said, “Shareef Crawford, a New York Times bestselling author. He’s working on a book on Harlem now. So I’ma have to line y’all all up to talk to him.”
They all started to pay attention after that. The name rang a bell.
“Shareef Crawford? My girl reads your books. That’s good money, man.”
“Yeah, my sister read your books.”
One of them said, “Shit, everybody’s girl reads his books. Moms, sisters, aunts, little cousins. So, what are you writing about Harlem?”
Shareef faced all of them at the same time and backed down.
He said, “I’m still working on it.”
Another one of the card players said, “Well, yo, if you need some updated movie shit, we’ll talk to you. Now, we can’t tell you everything, but we’ll tell you enough. You know, we still got rats running around.”
“And the rats end up in the alleyways,” they warned him.
Jurrell said, “Yo, when he call me, I’ll set it up. I’ll let y’all know what it is then.”
“Aw’ight, Shareef, keep writing them books, son. I might have you write my life story one day,” another one of the card players boasted. They were all with Harlem swagger, but you couldn’t talk to them unless the right person spoke for you.
Obviously, Jurrell Garland was the right person.
Baby G
AS SOON AS SHAREEF walked out of the Harlem Grill with Spoonie and Polo, Polo said, “I don’t know about that nigga right there, man. I mean, I know we know him from back in the day and everything, but he ain’t never been friends with us.”
Shareef admitted it. He said, “I know. He was my main enemy.”
Spoonie said, “Yeah, and the only reason he talkin’ to you now is because you’re Shareef Crawford. You see he didn’t invite us to his table. And how he know you writing a book about Harlem?”
“I bumped into him earlier at the Starbucks on Lenox,” Shareef answered. “And he don’t know y’all like he know me.”
Spoonie shook his head and said, “Man, when guys like him pay attention to something, it’s usually for the wrong reasons, B. Believe that.”
Shareef heard them out, and he understood their caution. But at the same time, didn’t Jurrell deserve a fresh start like any other man? He didn’t appear to be breaking any more laws, jaws, or into stores and cars. Couldn’t he have grown up to sell cell phones, and have a girlfriend, a wife, and a family outside of the street life? And sure, he still knew guys out in the streets, but that didn’t mean he had to be involved with the things they were involved in anymore. So Shareef decided to speak up for him.
“I mean, who’s to say he’s all bad like that still. All he’s asking me to do is call him. I mean, what’s wrong with that? It ain’t gon’ hurt me to call him.”
Polo said, “Aw’ight, so, what if the police have him on surveillance? If he say anything under code to you, that automatically makes you a suspect, especially since you got money.”
He said, “That’s the new game around here, son. You got a lot of old hustlers and vics, lookin’ for somebody like you to leech on to to help them go legit. They ain’t lettin’ hustlers buy up shit around Harlem like they used to. I’m tellin’ you, B, that’s the new fuckin’ game. I mean, you gon’ make your own decisions anyway, but just watch that nigga, man. The streets is never sleepin’.”
Shareef didn’t want to hear any more of it. He started walking toward the Bronco jeep and said, “Aw’ight, so where we headed to next?”
Polo turned around and looked down the street.
He said, “Zip Code is right there, so ain’t no sense in me wasting another pint of gas trying to find a new parking spot, right, Spoonie?”
Spoonie was back on his BlackBerry again, and was not paying attention.
He looked up and grunted, “Hunh?”
Polo frowned and said, “Yo, man, what the hell is up with you and that BlackBerry tonight? For real?”
Spoonie ignored him. “Hold up a minute.”
Polo waved him off and started walking toward their next destination down the street. Shareef followed him.
“So, what kind of spot is Zip Code?” he asked.
Polo said, “It’s like a combination club. Some nights they’ll have a regular party, other nights they’ll have comedy and music showcases. Then sometimes different people’ll throw their events there.”
“Is it big?”
Shareef had gotten used to the bigger, fancier clubs of Atlanta and Miami. What did Harlem have to match that?
Polo said, “It’s big enough. They got upstairs, downstairs, a third-floor area.”
“A third floor?”
“Don’t get excited, man, it’s just a small area to catch some breathing room when it’s packed in there, that’s all.”
“What age group?”
“Oh, you’ll get some young bucks in here. That’s like the only place for them to party in Harlem. I mean, you know downtown ain’t having it, unless they’re ready to spend forty dollars. And ain’t nobody try’na party that hard.”
“How much does this place cost?”
“You can get in for ten, twenty. It ain’t bad.”
When they approached the basic-white-and-black nightclub called Zip Code, a line of younger Harlemites in their early twenties were trying to get in.
“Come on, man, why y’all always make us wait out here?” a young man in all dark brown complained to a doorman dressed in all black.
The doorman answered, “You’ll get in when we let you in.”
“But y’all ain’t moving the line, man. We been standing here ten minutes. What we waiting for?”
There was a solid line of young men and women held up at the door behind him. He had made it to the front and was getting anxious.
As soon as Polo and Shareef made it to the vicinity of the club and stood out on the sidewalk to watch the interactions and energy of the younger Harlemites, a gang of seven marched up to a second door of the club to the far right near a parking area.
“Yo, it’s Baby, man, I’m paying for my whole squad.”
“Awi’ght, hold up,” another doorman in black addressed them.
The young man in brown began to fidget in the main l
ine, while he looked back and forth at the front door versus the side door.
A minute later, the crew of seven marched inside through the second door.
Polo said, “Come on, man, let’s go with them.”
The doorman stopped them, along with a bunch of other anxious Harlemites, who scrambled along the sidewalk to get in.
“What are you doin’?” the doorman asked Polo.
“This my man, Shareef Crawford, a bestselling author. He just wanna check the place out, man. He writing a new book on Harlem.”
The thick doorman looked Shareef over and didn’t budge.
He said, “That’s nice, but what that got to do with me? The line is over there.”
Polo said, “You gon’ make him stand in a long line like that, B. That’s disrespectful. You can show us more love than that. He from Harlem.”
“I don’t care if he from Africa, he not on the list.”
A few of the younger guys around them began to laugh.
“Aw, he said he don’t care if he from Africa.”
Shareef asked him, “What’s the charge, man?” He just wanted to get the hell in the place. He had more than a hundred dollars still left in his pocket from hitting the ATM machine earlier.
“Gimme forty dollars,” the doorman told him.
Shareef said, “Each?”
Polo said, “Hell naw, he mean for both of us.”
“Nah, it’s all good, it’s all good. They my people,” Spoonie announced from behind. He said, “This Shareef Crawford right here. You know who he is?”
The doorman answered, “A bestselling author.”
Spoonie looked at him and said, “Damn, everybody know.”
“Your man just told me.”
“Aw’ight, well, they wit’ me,” Spoonie told him.
The doorman nodded and let them in without another word. That only caused more people to hustle up to the second door behind them.
“Aw, man, see, that’s what I’m talking about,” the young man in all brown complained again at the front door. “That ain’t even fair.”
SHAREEF WALKED into the dimly lit club of tall ceilings, white walls, and white furniture behind Spoonie and Polo.
Spoonie said, “I do know people up in here. I can even get us a couple of free drinks.”
Shareef smiled and said, “If you can get drinks for you and Polo that would do me just fine. How many free drinks they gon’ give us?”
“I can get what I want in here. These my people.”
Shareef nodded and looked around the bottom floor of the nightclub, where they had tall, white, circular lounge chairs, with white curtains hanging from the ceiling. He studied all the young faces and bodies that populated the place.
He nodded to Polo and said, “Yeah, this is a much younger crowd in here. I feel like I’m back in school in Atlanta.”
“I told you,” Polo commented.
Spoonie had already disappeared to the bar area to the left.
As they continued to walk through, Shareef took a second, third, and fourth look at the young women. Which one would catch his eye?
After a few more minutes of looking around, he finally shook his head and said, “Damn, Polo, these girls look as hard as the guys in here.”
Polo laughed at it. He said, “That’s how these girls like to get down nowadays, Shareef. They not fly and feminine like our girls used to be back in the day. These new school girls wanna be thugs like their boyfriends. That’s why I deal with nothing but older women. These young girls ain’t got no style to me.”
Shareef had to agree with him on that. He wasn’t used to bullish, young women either. He nodded his head and mumbled, “Dig it.”
Spoonie called them over toward the bar area.
“Yo, come get these drinks!”
“I guess he was serious, hunh?” Polo commented.
Shareef smiled and followed him over.
When they arrived at the bar and collected their drinks among the young hustlers, playboys, and thugs, draped in jewelry and designer clothes, Shareef studied them all and then stopped at a gold mine.
“Got’ damn,” he mumbled to himself.
Polo caught it and said, “What?”
Shareef told him, “Look straight ahead and then to the left.”
Polo followed his lead and landed at the same spot.
He nodded with his drink to his lips. “She the flyest girl in here,” he commented.
Shareef said, “You know what’s crazy about it? She reminds me of my wife when she still loved me.”
Polo looked at his boy seriously. He said, “Cut that shit out, B, your wife still love you. How she not gon’ love you? You doin’ everything a nigga supposed to do. Shit, I’d marry you my damn self.”
Shareef laughed it off and said, “Nah, man, she…she love the idea of a man now. ’Cause she damn sure ain’t treatin’ me like flesh and bone no more. I can barely touch the girl now.”
Polo nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s how women get once they got you.” He took a sip of his drink and added, “That’s why I always gotta keep two or three backups.”
Shareef laughed again and coughed on his own drink.
He said, “I’m ’bout to make this girl my backup plan right now. I’m still alive, ain’t I?”
Polo said, “You don’t look like a zombie to me. So go get her, tiger.”
Shareef walked straight through the crowd like a man on a mission. When he arrived at his destination, he leaned into the woman’s ear and said, “You’re about the finest young thing in here, hands down. What’s your name?”
She wasn’t dressed like eighty percent of the other young women—hard-core jeans, masculine tops, and mad grills. She wore a netted gold top with a white half jacket and matching white pants. She wore gold, Asian-design earrings and her hair straight down with a bang. She carried a gold, sequin purse, and her skin and eyes were light brown and golden like the rest of her. And she looked approachable and pleasant.
“Tiffany,” she answered him.
He reached out his hand to hers and said, “Shareef. You’re not from here, are you?”
She didn’t have the Harlem edge, look, or swagger. She had the mellow demeanor of a sophisticate who was dressed to get attention, and she was getting it. Shareef would have guessed that she was from the West Coast.
She said, “I’m from California,” and confirmed it.
He smiled. “Oakland?” She didn’t have the Los Angeles swagger, either.
She smiled back at him. “San Francisco.”
He nodded. “That’s what I figured. So what brings you all the way to Harlem?”
She answered with no hesitation, “It was something different. I just wanted to get away.” She sounded as if she had practiced her answer for a frequently asked question.
He said, “I can dig it. Harlem is like a tourist city for a lot of people. So how long have you been here?”
Before she could answer, an energized girlfriend grabbed her hand from out of the crowd.
“Come on, girl, I want you to meet somebody.”
Shareef said, “Whoa, hold up that horse for a minute. I’m talking to her.”
The girlfriend looked at Shareef as if to say, So. But she didn’t need to. Her hard eyes said everything for her. And of course, she wasn’t half as good-looking or as stylish.
“She’ll be back,” the girlfriend told him.
Shareef didn’t want to chance it.
He said, “Yeah, well let me get her number before she leave then.”
Tiffany declined. “I’ll give it to you when I come back.”
He was too old and experienced for that shit. Just hearing the corniness of it all made him wonder why he was even in the club. But it was all needed research to understand the new Harlem. So he had to deal with the scene regardless. They had even turned him into a young, spurned, and bitter man for a spell.
Aw, fuck her then, he told himself as the girlfriend dragged her away toward the stai
rs.
Shareef returned to his friend dejectedly.
Polo was already laughing. He said, “What happened, B?”
“Now I know why you called me tiger,” Shareef answered. “Them young girls make you wanna pounce on ’em.”
Polo said, “That’s why I don’t fuck with them young girls, man. If they not already up on your shit before you talk to ’em, you ain’t gettin’ ’em. Not the fine ones like that.”
He said, “Them fine young girls are like bumble bees in the springtime, man, buzzin’ around to every nigga that’s got a fistful of money in his hand. I can’t keep up with that shit, nor do I want to. So, what you should have done is sent me or Spoonie over there to prep her for you first. We would have told her who you are, and had that girl fantasizin’ before you ever said a word to her. That’s how you get ’em.”
Shareef asked him, “Well, how come you didn’t say that then?”
Polo grinned and said, “To be honest with you, man, I just wanted to see if my theory was right,” and he started laughing harder.
BABY G SAT UPSTAIRS in the main ballroom in a plush lounge chair like a young prince, with twenty soldiers surrounding him. He had the audacity to wear a huge, platinum crown medallion on his link chain, too, with a matching platinum belt buckle. And he smoked a well-rolled blunt in plain view as thunderous, Harlem rap music blasted through the giant speakers, forcing the bodacious, young crowd to move to it.
“I was born and raised in Harlem / had my birthdays in Harlem / walked with a sway in Harlem / got my first lay in Harlem / the place where I stay is Harlem…
“I was born and raised in Harlem / learned how they play in Harlem / stacked major pay in Harlem / smoked my first jay in Harlem / what can I say, man, it’s Harlem…”
The rest of the world didn’t exist to the people in that room. It was all about Harlem, and the crowd was losing their young minds.
“Ay, Baby, them girls wanna see you, man,” one of his soldiers told him.
The young general didn’t want to hear it, not while he was nodding to his favorite song.
He said, “Yo, make ’em wait till this song over wit’.”