The Last Street Novel

  “Shareef!”

  On instincts, Shareef looked up, just like Trap knew he would.

  Trap yelled, “You should have went the fuck home, man!” and took aim.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!…

  Shareef dove to the grass again and avoided more bullets as Trap continued to fire.

  BACK ON ST. NICHOLAS TERRACE above the park, Baby G pulled up in a plain, white sedan, his bodyguard driving. Truth sat in the passengar seat up front, and another soldier was in the back next to Baby G. A second car of four soldiers followed right behind them.

  A lone driver from Trap’s crew was left to ward them all off. But one man with a gun was no match for eight.

  Baa! Baa! Bop!…

  Pop! Pop! Pop!…

  Trap’s driver was hit several times in the chest, and his life quickly came to an end. When Baby G made it into the park with the rest of his soldiers, Trap’s crew was easily outnumbered. So he stopped shooting at Shareef and took aim at Baby G’s guys.

  Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Bop!…

  The beefy bodyguard was the first to take a bullet.

  “Ah, shit!” he hollered, falling backward.

  Baby G immediately dropped to his knees to aid him.

  “Get down, man! Get down!” he yelled. Bullets were flying everywhere.

  “Where you hit?” he asked his bodyguard. They were both dressed in all black for the war, including black leather gloves. Shareef had called them that morning to arrange the whole set up. Baby G agreed to it on the strength of becoming famous through his own book deal. That was on Shareef’s word.

  “He got me in the stomach,” the beefy bodyguard whimpered.

  Baby G looked down at his bodyguard’s stomach, and the damage looked bad. Major organs had been hit, and blood was pouring out of him like a water fountain.

  The bodyguard grimaced and mumbled, “Get that ma-fucker for me, man. Get his ass.”

  Baby G looked into his pained face and nodded. “I got him. He ain’t gettin’ out of here alive. I promise you that.”

  The bodyguard nodded back to him and took the pain like a man. Baby G remained with him until he took his final breath. And once he realized that his main protector was gone, he yelled, “Roll up on them!” to the rest of his soldiers. They looked hesitant to continue. Trap’s crew were beginning to show their age and experience with better aim and sharper shooting.

  T told his leader, “Yo, sir, we takin’ too many losses and the cops is coming.”

  Baby G looked at him with two pistols in his hands. He screamed, “You think I give a fuck? We gon’ end this shit right here!”

  He hopped to his feet with both guns raised and started charging toward Trap and his men below.

  “Aahhhhh!”

  Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Baa! Bop!…

  Like a madman, Baby G shot down two of Trap’s men by himself. But his soldiers moving behind him took bullets and went down themselves, all but T, who remained untouched.

  Trap saw several of his men fall to their deaths before he took cover and jumped down the hill. However, he landed on uneven ground and twisted his ankle, falling forward in agony.

  “Fuck!” he cursed himself. He climbed back to his feet, ignoring the pain, and limped ahead while he eyed a tree to hide behind. He took a bullet to his left side just as he had made it.

  “Aahhh!”

  Baby G found his way down the hill and stayed right after him.

  ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PARK, hearing all the gunshots in the short distance, kids and parents started scrambling to escape the playground.

  “What in the hell is going on?” a grandfather asked as he gathered up his grandkids.

  The first of Trap’s soldiers, who Shareef and Spoonie had passed at the front of the park earlier, remained calm with his gun still concealed inside the back of his pants. That’s what he was told to do, remain a lookout. But when he spotted Shareef making his way out of the park alive, he drew his pistol and aimed at him.

  Shareef spotted him dead-on and froze. His instincts told him that ducking was not going to work this time. The guy was poised and stable at point-blank range, and Shareef was already injured and too exhausted to move quickly enough to get away.

  Shit! he told himself. This is it, man. This is the end of my life. But where the fuck are the cops at? he pondered. And he awaited the bullets to hit him.

  Baa! Baa! Bop!…

  Shareef shook in his stance and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the bullets. He curled his arms in front of his chest and ducked his head inside of his hands, falling to the ground in complete darkness. And after a minute on the ground, he wondered where he had been hit. He couldn’t feel anything, but he could hear everything.

  People were still screaming and running from the park. Finally, Shareef heard police sirens approaching in the background. Yet before he could open his tightly closed eyes to find out where he had been hit, someone grabbed his arm and barked orders at him.

  “Shareef, get the fuck up, man! Let’s go!”

  He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Jurrell Garland in dark blue sweat clothes, black leather gloves, and a pistol in his right hand.

  Shareef was still confused and hesitant. He hadn’t even called Jurrell back that morning.

  Jurrell told him, “Look, you not shot, nigga. Let’s go!”

  Shareef rose back to his feet, found himself still in one piece, and started to run toward another section of the park behind Jurrell.

  “This way, man,” Jurrell directed him.

  They both ran in the opposite direction of the police sirens until Jurrell heard more gunshots nearby and stopped.

  He paused and listened. “Hold up,” he told Shareef.

  Shareef looked at him and wondered why.

  He asked, “For what?” He figured they didn’t have much time left to get away. And since he was injured, he could no longer run at full speed.

  Jurrell ignored him and ran toward the gunshots anyway.

  Shareef shook his head and paused a minute before he followed him.

  “Shit!”

  NOT FAR AWAY in the open grass below the hills, Baby G laid face up with his chest littered from bullet holes. Blood poured out from under his tattered black shirt while he wheezed for his last breaths. He could no longer hold his two guns in his hands. He was more concerned with trying to breathe.

  Trap limped out from behind a tree with his gun and kicked Baby G in the leg as he stood overtop of him.

  “Now what, nigga? You wanted to be ghetto fabulous, hunh? Well, you should have minded your fuckin’ business then.” And he kicked him again.

  Baby G coughed up blood and responded defiantly. “Fuck you!”

  Trap had a bullet wound on his left side, and a swollen and twisted ankle. He didn’t appear to be concerned about the cops who were now surrounding the park. He laughed in the face of the handsome Baby Gangsta, who was wounded and dying on his back, and he raised his gun to his head.

  “Well, take one to the face then, nigga.”

  Bop!

  Instead of being shot in the face by Trap’s gun, Trap was struck in the back and fell across Baby G’s chest, making it even harder for him to breathe.

  “Unh,” Baby G grunted under the weight.

  Trap laid across his chest, shaking and wondering who had shot him in the back.

  Jurrell Garland reached over and pulled him up.

  “Is this what you wanted to do?” he asked Trap while he stared into his terrified eyes.

  Baa! Bop!

  He shot Trap twice in his face and ended his life.

  When it was over, Baby G smiled at Jurrell and muttered, “Old-timer…make him write that book.”

  When Shareef stood behind Jurrell, he saw that Baby G was beginning to choke on his own blood. All he could do was stare up at them helplessly.

  Jurrell tried to lift him up, but that only made the bleeding and choking worse.

  “Shit!” Jurrell cursed up to the c
louds. He obviously had a lot of feelings for the boy. He said, “Don’t worry, man. He gon’ write it. I’m gon’ make sure.”

  By that time, T had made it down to them with tears in his eyes. He was still untouched.

  Baby G could only blink at them, Jurrell, Shareef, and T, as they all stared down at him. Then he started to shake violently before dying.

  Jurrell hollered, “Aaahhhhh!”

  Shareef pulled at him and said, “Let’s go, man. We out of time now.” There was no sense in them all being arrested out there. Baby G was dead, and standing around him was not going to bring him back.

  So Jurrell dropped his gun and jumped back up to start running.

  He told T as he ran, “Hold them off for us, Shorty. Get them guns out.”

  Shareef ran behind him, still ignoring the pain as best he could.

  When they were gone, T grabbed two of the remaining guns and started firing in the opposite direction to divert the cops away from them. He shot both guns in the air with tears running out of his eyes until a half dozen police officers approached him.

  “Put the guns down, son. We’re only asking you once.”

  T did as they said and raised his hands up high with no struggle. And when they forced him down and put the handcuffs on him, he continued to cry while staring at the demise of his charismatic leader, Baby G, aka Greggory Taylor, who rested in peace on the grass.

  THERE WERE ENOUGH INJURED and dying soldiers on both sides, all desperately trying to escape from every direction of the park for Jurrell and Shareef to make it out to a waiting SUV just before the police converged on them.

  They both slipped inside the back of the black Ford Explorer where the seats had been adjusted forward to make room for them to lie across the bottom of the back.

  “Ah, shit,” Shareef whined from his injuries as he made it inside.

  Jurrell ignored him and squeezed down as low as he could in the back. Meesha, his lady friend from the night Shareef had met up with him at the Harlem Grill, was behind the wheel.

  Jurrell told her, “Just drive real easy, baby, like nothing’s going on. Just remain calm at the wheel.” He started to slip off his black leather gloves.

  Meesha nodded and told him, “I got it.”

  She drove past the sirens of the police cruisers on 129th Street right before the NYPD began to block off traffic to and from the park. And when they were several blocks away, Jurrell looked into Shareef’s pained face and said, “We got a lot of talking to do, man. This shit right here was a fuckin’ mess.”

  Explanations

  MEESHA DROVE Shareef and Jurrell to a single-family home on the northwest side of Harlem between Riverside Drive and the Sugar Hill area. It was a two-story, stone-built home with a private driveway. They drove up and parked in the driveway before making it to the front door where Meesha used her key to let them all in.

  Shareef looked around and was impressed with the place. The home wasn’t fully furnished yet, but it was still nice to look at.

  He nodded and said, “This is a nice place. I’ve never been to this area before.”

  Jurrell ignored him and headed straight toward the kitchen in a huff. Once inside the kitchen, he reached to the top of a tall cabinet and pulled down another automatic pistol.

  “Yo, come on in here, Shareef.”

  As soon as Shareef took another step, it seemed that his injuries were getting worse by the second. He grabbed his left side and moaned as he struggled forward.

  “You need some ice?” Meesha asked him on cue. It wasn’t hard to tell that the man’s body was fucked up. His nice new clothes looked as if he had been run over by a truck.

  Shareef grimaced and said, “Yeah, I need a whole bucket of it.”

  She smiled at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Nah, don’t do that shit. He need to feel the pain for when the cops get to him,” Jurrell barked at her.

  Meesha looked at him and stood silently. Jurrell was the boss, so there was no sense in even asking him about it. And by the time Shareef had made it into the kitchen, Jurrell had his pistol pointed at him.

  “Sit down at the table.”

  Shareef did as he was told and sat at a circular, wooden dinette set for four. It was positioned in the middle of the kitchen dining area. There were dark-colored shades covering all the windows to stop anyone from peeking in.

  Jurrell sat on the opposite side of the table with the pistol out. He then sat the barrel of the gun on the table and aimed it directly at Shareef’s heart.

  “So, how come you ain’t call me back this morning, man?” was his first question.

  Shareef stared down at the barrel of the pistol and realized his troubles were not over with yet. Jurrell Garland was still dangerous.

  Shareef answered, “I…I didn’t want to get you involved like that, man. I thought it looked like you were trying to lean away from this life.”

  He looked into Jurrell’s hard eyes and asked him, “Was I wrong? I thought you were getting into the cell phone and gadget business.”

  Jurrell continued to eye him scornfully as he spoke.

  He said, “Man, this cell phone shit ain’t no real money for me. That’s a front business. And everything I tell you in the house right now is off the fuckin’ record too. You hear me? Matter of fact, take that fuckin’ shirt off so I can make sure you’re not wearing a wire. That shirt is all fucked up now anyway.”

  Shareef looked into Jurrell’s eyes and began to peel off the light blue and orange tennis shirt that had been stained from the dried up blood of his injuries.

  As Shareef winced at the sting of his bruises, Jurrell looked into his naked brown chest and was satisfied with what he already knew. Shareef was no snitch. Jurrell just wanted his old nemesis to know how serious he was at the moment.

  He said, “You just fucked up my money, man. You know that shit, right?”

  Shareef sat there and thought about it. Two plus two equals four.

  He said, “So, um…Baby G was working for you?” It all began to make sense to him. No wonder Baby G and his boys had shown up to protect him outside of his hotel. Jurrell had set it all up. But he was so incensed about how things had turned out that he had to stand up from the table to express it all.

  Jurrell stood up with the pistol in hand and said, “Not only was he working for me, but I liked the motherfucker, man. The nigga had that gift, Shareef. You met him. He a once in a lifetime nigga. He was making me good money. But I kept telling his ass, ‘You don’t need a hundred motherfuckers from Harlem following you. That shit ain’t good.’ I told him, ‘You just keep your small squad of soldiers, make this money on the low, and keep shit moving.’ But this young ma-fucker kept talkin’ ’bout the eighties, and how shit used to be when we were shorties, Shareef. And I kept telling his ass, you can’t be shinin’ in the streets like that no more. Nobody let you live like that on the streets unless you a rapper or an athlete now. And them niggas ain’t really in the streets like that. That shit ain’t nothing but urban marketing.”

  As he continued to talk, Jurrell began to round the table with the pistol. Shareef sat still and listened to him. It was all key information.

  Jurrell said, “But these young bloods out here don’t wanna listen, man. So no matter how much I tried to keep him away from doing dumb shit, he would walk right into it. Like, before you even got up here this summer, Shareef, this nigga executes a ma-fucka in an empty storefront. And I’m like, ‘For what? I know his ass was talkin’ shit. But you let me handle that.’ But nah, this ma-fucka wanna show off for his li’l crew to prove that he gangsta, right? Stupid shit!

  “But I couldn’t really stop his ass ’cause niggas liked him too much, and he was smart enough to get away with it. So then he had more of these niggas following him,” Jurrell explained. “Then people started asking who he was. Even you asked me. And you ain’t even been up in Harlem a week.

  “So since G was so much into that starlight shit, I tried to set
him up with some producers and studio people I know to see if he could rhyme.”

  Jurrell smiled and shook his head. He chuckled and said, “Man, this motherfucker couldn’t rhyme if he had a nursery book sittin’ out in front of him. I mean, certain people have certain gifts and certain people don’t. It’s a whole lot of rappers who wished they could command the streets like he do. But they can’t. So he started meeting all these rap niggas and athletes whenever they came up to Harlem, like with that basketball tournament shit. I mean, man, this nigga had his mind hooked on being famous. Everybody wanna be the American Idol now. That’s why he ended up meeting your ass.”

  He said, “He wasn’t supposed to give you no ride and start talkin’ ’bout no book shit. All I told him to do was to make sure they protected you.”

  Jurrell stopped circling Shareef with the gun for a minute and said, “But obviously, you must have made an impression on him, because the next thing I knew, he start talkin’ ’bout writing a fuckin’ book on his life. And I’m thinkin’, Is this nigga crazy? You don’t write no fuckin’ book while you still involved with the shit. I’m feeling like them other niggas about that. We still living this shit, man. But at the same time, I was curious.”

  He said, “This book business has done well for you, so why can’t it work for us?”

  Shareef just stared at him. “Street books don’t work like rap music and drug money, man,” he said. “I mean, you know how hard it is for a female in rap or sports to make her money? Well, that’s how hard it is for a guy to make his money in the book business unless he’s writing about what women want. So most of the people making money from street books are women; Sister Souljah, Teri Woods, Vickie Stringer, Nikki Turner. That’s just how it is, man. They get to write that street shit from a woman’s perspective, because that’s who’s reading it all. Young women. And then they pass it on to their men.”

  Jurrell studied Shareef’s face for a minute and said, “Well, you gon’ have to figure out how to make that shit work then, nigga, ’cause you just fucked up my money and got my young blood killed. So I don’t wanna hear that shit.”