On that note, Shareef asked him, “So you still think I should face this situation I’m in head on? I mean, this running shit don’t feel right.”
Jurrell answered, “Look, man, you let somebody else handle that shit. What you ’sposed to do is keep writing them books. These niggas can’t write no books, but they can pull triggers all day long. So let somebody else do that. And you don’t know nothing about it. You hear me? You don’t know nothing.”
It was another moment of truth. Shareef knew exactly where the problem was coming from, but if he voiced it, he could never take it back, and he could never control what was coming next.
He said, “If any blood is spilled, I’d rather it be on my hands in self-defense then on somebody who didn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, at least I can tell myself that it was right that way. But if somebody else do it…it’ll just feel like I bitched.”
He was thinking more about squashing his personal beef with Trap on his own instead of making things more complicated with rival crews.
Jurrell heard him out and said, “Yeah, I see where you coming from, man. We both old-school that way. You wanna handle your shit like a man. But at the same time, you got too much shit to lose, Shareef. That’s like Puffy going to jail instead of Shine. Shine wasn’t running no multimillion-dollar company, Puffy was. So it made sense to give the young blood up for the time. You hear where I’m coming from?”
He said, “And whether you like it or not, there’s already been blood spilled that’s not on your hands. It had to be blood spilled for you to live last night. And the truth is, you don’t know who spilled that blood. So that’s what you tell the law.”
Shareef no longer had an argument. Jurrell made all the sense in the world. Nevertheless, the old-school writer was hesitant to cosign the next action. So he nodded his head with caution and said, “Yo…let me think about this and call you back.”
“Aw’ight, take your time, B, just don’t do nothing hasty,” Jurrell advised him. “I mean, ’cause, you an important nigga to me, man. Word.”
He said, “Books is long money, Shareef. All this other shit is temporary. But them book ideas stay on the shelves forever. And all it takes is one guy with money to read it and wanna do the movie. And then you making money all over again. So now I’m startin’ to see why everybody want a book deal. The shit just makes sense, man. It makes a lot of sense.”
When Shareef ended the call with Jurrell, he felt more pressure than he had before he had made the call. What was the right decision to make? He had rarely experienced writer’s block, but he had it now. So his pen no longer touched his pad.
He nodded his head and said, “Okay…what now?” Then he remembered there was one last call to make.
“Spoonie called me.”
With his cell phone battery running low, he made yet another call. And as the line rang before being answered, Shareef wondered whether Spoonie knew that Trap was behind his recent problems.
Spoonie answered, “Yo, I was trying to get at you last night, man. Hold on a minute.”
Shareef paused and said, “Aw’ight.”
AT ANOTHER HARLEM APARTMENT COMPLEX, Spoonie left an occupied room for more privacy out in the hallway. He wore only a wife-beater tank top and black jeans. He looked tired and worried as he leaned up against the wall. He then covered the phone with his hand and whispered, “Yo, I heard what happened to you last night, son. But you gon’ have to squash this beef shit before it gets out of hand. That’s for real.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Shareef told him. “I’m trying to figure it all out. I been thinking about it all morning.”
Spoonie listened to him and said, “Well, I know the people you need to talk to. So you need to meet me back up in Harlem.”
He listened again to see how Shareef would respond to him.
“Who you talking about?” Shareef asked.
Spoonie answered, “I found out who’s behind it all. And they wanna squash this shit as bad as you do. So I had to tell them what kind of nigga you are, man. I told them you from the ’hood, and you know how everybody get down. You wouldn’t snitch on nobody. But these kids was like, ‘Yo, we gotta see him face-to-face.’ So I told them you would do that. ’Cause I know you, Shareef, you ain’t no bitch nigga like that. You’ll tell a motherfucker to his face what time it is. So they said, ‘Look, that’s the only way it’s gon’ get done.’”
Spoonie stopped to see how Shareef would respond.
Shareef responded with a pause. “So they wanna meet up with me to squash it?”
“Yeah, that’s what’s up. That’s what time it is. They know what position you in as a writer. And ain’t nobody trying to stop your hustle, B. They just gotta have your word, face-to-face, that you not trying to put them out there like that. I mean, you not, right?”
Again, Spoonie waited for the response.
Shareef answered, “Nah, man, you know me better than that.”
“That’s what I told them,” Spoonie said. “And it took a lot of fuckin’ talking for me to make this shit happen, man. So you need to meet up with me, and we’ll go over there together in broad daylight.”
He said, “And you can bring Polo with you if you want. I told them you probably would. And they said it’s cool. So just let me know what time you wanna meet up to squash all this shit.”
Spoonie continued to hang on to Shareef’s every answer.
Shareef told him, “Aw’ight. Where you wanna meet?
Spoonie took a deep breath as if a heavy load had been released from his shoulders. His lean body drooped against the wall and looked ready to slide down to the floor.
He explained, “Aw’ight, this is what’s up…”
WHEN SPOONIE RETURNED to the occupied apartment, Trap was sitting on an old beige sofa with a pistol in hand. He was fully dressed and flanked by three heavily armed men, all brandishing menacing assault weapons. They all looked red-eyed, angry, and hungry, as if they had no sleep or any food in a while. Cigarette ashes were all over the floor. And across from where Trap sat on the sofa, was a nervous young woman sitting in a matching lounge chair. She was an exotic, local stripper dressed in only her black panties and bra. While she exhaled with heavy breaths, she couldn’t help staring at the menacing-looking guns that the men carried. She figured maybe she should have gone with her gut feeling and left Spoonie alone when he had asked her to stay over the night before. Then she wouldn’t have ended up in the middle of this mess.
Trap looked up from where he sat on the sofa and asked Spoonie, “What he say?”
Spoonie took another deep breath and nodded. “He said he’ll do it.”
The other angry men looked surprised. But Trap didn’t. All he did was nod.
He told Spoonie, “You did the right thing, man. You did the right thing.” Then he looked to one of his soldiers. “Ay, Pee, call everybody else.”
His soldier pulled out a cell phone, stepped aside, and made a phone call.
“Yo, it’s on. Meet us at the spot.”
Trap started to grin and spoke to his crew while waving the black pistol in his hand. “This nigga must really think he untouchable. I guess he ’bout to find out now. Ain’t he, Spoonie?”
The young woman looked into Spoonie’s worried face as he answered. He breathed deeply again and forced out a slight smile. He said, “He should have just left the streets alone, man, like you told him. But some people just don’t know when to walk away.”
Showdown!
SHAREEF STARED AT HIS CELL PHONE and exhaled inside the tiny Manhattan hotel room. He finally had his solution.
“This is it,” he told himself and made another phone call. When the answering service clicked on at his lawyer’s office in Atlanta, he left a clear message. “Hey Preston, this Shareef. It’s Saturday morning, August fifth, two thousand six, and I’m leaving a very important change to my will. I want you to include ‘Polo,’ aka Shelton Matthews, and his family to my will with a ten percent s
take. So if anything happens to him, his girlfriend and two kids get it. I’ll talk to you about it all with the details on Monday. All right? So make sure you write this all down.”
That was it. End of message. But when Shareef hung up the phone after leaving it, he chuckled to himself and mumbled, “I hope I’ll tell you all about it on Monday.” Then he wrote down his final notes under his “Solutions” column:
Spoonie / Trap / Harlem / St. Nicholas Park…
And he left the notepad open and out on the small desk as evidence.
AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER of 127th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, across from the foot of St. Nicholas Park, T, who was now recognized as one of Baby G’s most alert young soldiers, bobbed his head to the latest southern hip-hop music with earphones on. He wore a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers, while he watched all of the Saturday afternoon activity on the streets. It was nearly one o’clock, and the streets of Harlem were buzzing as usual.
After another twenty minutes or so, he eyed Shareef Crawford, now identified as “The Book Writer,” heading toward the park with a tall and rangy friend. That’s what T was waiting for. So he paid attention to report everything he saw.
AS SHAREEF FOLLOWED Spoonie north toward St. Nicholas Park, Spoonie asked him, “So, Polo had some runs to make today, hunh?”
They were both dressed in bright, summertime clothes. Neither one of them wanted to look suspicious. Shareef had even bought a new outfit to wear before catching the subway north.
He told Spoonie, “Shit, we all grown men now. We all gotta do what we gotta do. This ain’t Polo’s problem. This is my problem.”
Spoonie nodded. “Dig it. I understand.” And he forced out another smile. But he wasn’t as talkative as he usually was. He was more interested in watching the streets for any curious eyes that might notice them as they walked.
Out of the blue, three young women spotted Shareef as they strolled up the sidewalk.
“Shareef Crawford?” one of them addressed him. “Oh my God, I love your books so much. When is the next one coming out?”
The other two girls awaited his answer. They all looked in their late teens.
Shareef asked them, “Have you read my latest book, The Full Moon?”
“Yeah, we shared that one already,” the second girl answered with a chuckle.
Spoonie looked irritated. He wanted to move on and get things over with. He continued to eye everyone up and down the street.
“Can we like, have an autograph or something? We didn’t expect to see you just walking around up here,” the third girl commented.
Shareef looked hesitant. “I mean…”
Spoonie cut him off in haste and answered, “Look, we got a meetin’ to make right now. Won’t y’all catch up to him at his next book signing or something. You know he’s from Harlem, right?”
“Yeah, but he’s right here, right now. I mean, all it’s gon’ take is a second,” the first girl argued. They were already pulling out pens and pieces of paper from their pocketbooks and purses.
Shareef smiled and said, “Look, maybe not right now, ladies. I mean, my man is right. We late for a meeting already.”
The second girl crossed her eyes at Spoonie and sucked her teeth. If his ass wasn’t in the way, they all would have gotten their autographs.
But the first girl persisted. “Come on, Shareef, it’s only gonna take you a second. We take weeks to read your books, and you can’t even give us a second to sign an autograph. I mean, that’s just wrong if you ask me.”
Spoonie was ready to snap on her, but Shareef remained diplomatic. He continued to smile. He said, “Maybe next time,” before he walked forward with Spoonie.
“Aw, man, that’s fucked up,” the second girl commented.
Shareef shook his head and ignored it.
Spoonie responded, “That’s life,” and kept walking.
When they made it across the street to the park area, Spoonie spotted the first familiar face to their left, and he gave the man a nod. “It’s all good, man,” he commented.
The man nodded back to him and said nothing. He didn’t appear to be armed from the front, but who knows what he held behind him. He stood stiff and forward and he barely moved.
Spoonie and Shareef walked past the playground area full of kids, and then past the basketball courts where brothers ran ball before they made their way up the hills of St. Nicholas Park.
Shareef seemed deadly calm, but Spoonie was more apprehensive.
Finally, he told Shareef, “You a brave-ass nigga, man. I gotta give it to you.” St. Nicholas Park wasn’t exactly the safest place in Harlem to set up a meeting.
Shareef shook it off and said, “I’m not as brave as you think I am. Sometimes it’s braver to admit that you’re scared. But I be so focused sometimes, man, that it’s like I’m inhuman.”
He chuckled and said, “That’s probably why my wife won’t fuck me no more. I’m too damned focused to give her the attention that she needs.”
That comment threw Spoonie for a loop. He looked at Shareef and said, “What? Your wife won’t fuck you? Nigga is you crazy? Does she know how many girls out here are wide open for you?”
Shareef said, “She don’t care. If they’re willing to sleep with a married man, then she considers all of them whores.”
Spoonie laughed and said, “Yo, that sounds just like a woman. Instead of them giving you what you need without bitching, they’d rather cuss out every other woman that gives you some.”
He shook his head and said, “That don’t make no damn sense. These bitches is crazy, man. I mean, I’m not calling your wife a bitch, but you know what I mean.”
Shareef smiled it off. “Nah, I don’t sweat that.” He wanted to keep their conversation light and friendly. But the next thing he knew, they were surrounded by four mean-faced men that Shareef had never seen before. And not one of them was Trap.
Shareef didn’t like the look of that. He immediately became alert and nervous.
“Yo, let’s head up the hill to the car,” one of them stated.
Shareef didn’t know if Trap was up in the car or not, but as soon as he spotted the first assault weapon in plain view, he wasn’t willing to allow anyone to line up behind him. That was part of his game plan.
“Aw’ight, we’ll follow behind y’all,” he told them. He made sure he stayed close by Spoonie.
“Nah, we’ll follow behind you,” the ringleader told him. Two of the men attempted to line up behind Shareef and Spoonie with their guns anyway. And when Shareef looked around the park, it became obvious that they had cleared the area of any pedestrian traffic.
Yeah, these niggas are trying to get me in broad daylight now, Shareef told himself. And I don’t know if we’re gonna make it to this car or not.
He used his peripheral vision to search for the edge of the small hill they stood on without turning his head and giving himself away. Before he realized it, he heard Baby G’s words repeating in his head from the night before:
“You gotta be willing to die out here, player. And if you ain’t ready to die, then they don’t take you seriously. But you ready to die, player. That’s why I respect you.”
In a flash, Shareef took that “ready to die” stance of the streets to heart, and he made his bold move. He had loosened Spoonie up enough with his conversation and remained close enough to him to grab him by his shirt and pants and spin him around like a shield.
“Yo, what are you doing, man?” Spoonie hollered, struggling against Shareef in vain. It was too late. Shareef already had him. It was another part of his plan.
The ringleader saw what was happening and had no patience for it. They were gonna kill Spoonie anyway. So he shouted, “Fuck it! Shoot ’em both!”
Shareef waited for them to aim and shoot before he shoved Spoonie right into their line of fire.
Baa! Baa! Bop!…
Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu!…
Spoonie’s tall, lean body was ripped with bu
llets before he even had a chance to scream. Shareef then hit the ground and rolled liked a man on fire toward the edge of the hill. The first bullets missed him high.
Baa! Baa! Baa! Bop!…
The next line of bullets missed him as he rolled.
Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu!…
They were shooting at the spots where Shareef was rolling from instead of shooting where he was rolling to. By the time they corrected their aim, he had rolled over the edge of the hill and took a fifteen-foot fall into the rocks and grass below.
“Shit! Get that motherfucker!” the ringleader shouted.
It was too late again. As soon as the first bullets had been fired, the squad of armed young bloods from the basketball courts quickly made it up the hill with guns they had pulled out from under their tennis shirts and backpacks at the bleachers.
A reckless shoot-out was ready to go down in the middle of St. Nick’s Park in Harlem, all over a dispute with a writer.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!…
Baa! Baa! Bop!…
Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu! Juu!…
Pop! Pop! Pop!…
Guys were drooping on both sides as bullets ripped into shirts, shorts, pants, and brown skin of all shades.
Pop! Pop!…
Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Bop!…
FROM UP ABOVE THE HILL in two parked sedans on St. Nicholas Terrace, Trap hopped out of the first car with his loaded gun in hand.
“What the fuck?” He started to make his way down the hill to see what was going on. Several more armed soldiers followed behind him.
FROM THE GRASS BELOW the hill, Shareef climbed to his feet with shoulder, rib, hip, and thigh injuries from his long fall. But that damn sure wouldn’t stop him from running for his life. So he ran through the pain
“Shit!” he cursed himself while he hustled his way through the park with a limp.
TRAP SPOTTED SHAREEF running away from the grass area below. He yelled out his name to stop him just long enough to shoot at him.