She said, “Now, I understand you wanted to give me a quick answer at the book signing when I asked you about writing something else, but now that we’re one-on-one and more intimate, I still want to know why you haven’t tried it. I mean, your way of seeing things is far deeper than just one genre. Why cheat yourself like that? Why waste your gifts on chick lit, because that’s all it is?”
She was asking the right question at the right time for the right answer.
Shareef stared up at the ceiling. He said, “Mos Def on his first solo album, he made the comment that the state of hip-hop depends on the state of the people. He said if the people are doing good, then the hip-hop will reflect it. But if the people are doing bad, then so is the hip-hop. And it’s the same thing with books. You can’t push something on the people that they don’t want and they don’t feel. They’re not gon’ buy it.”
She said, “Did you know they would buy Fifty Cent when he came out a few years ago?”
She sure knew a lot about hip-hop. She didn’t seem like the hip-hop type to him, or at least she didn’t dress the part. And Shareef wanted to ask her about that later. In the meantime, he went ahead and answered her question.
He said, “Eminem knew it. Dr. Dre knew it. Interscope Records knew it. It was all about the story. This guy got shot nine times and lived, and kept rhyming. And he was good at the shit, too. So they rolled the dice on him. And the shit came up seven, eleven.
“But if you notice, we’re talking more about hip-hop than literature,” he stated. “Music has always been the drug that crosses over to the masses. All they gotta do is listen. But books…” He stopped and shook his head. “That’s too much work for ’em. And if they do read, they only want to read shit they can swallow. Soul food. The same old collard greens, candied yams, fried chicken, and slices of watermelon on the side and shit. So that’s what I give ’em.”
Cynthia started chuckling and couldn’t help herself.
Shareef continued: “When I went to Morehouse, we used to be up all night long talking shit about everything. But every time I mentioned a book, niggas couldn’t follow me. And I’m talking about college niggas. But we could talk about music till the fuckin’ cows come home. So it became obvious to me that the literature of our music had taken over. Only problem is, with an album, you can skip all the songs that actually mean anything. So instead of a girl listening to revolutionary shit, this bitch would rather skip to the club song. And excuse me for calling her a bitch, but that’s what she ends up being if she only pays attention to the ignorant club shit. So instead of spending so much time with that booty-shaking, Ying Yang shit, she should listen to songs and albums that mean something. Or read a book…that means something. But you know why they don’t. Because this shit is all entertainment to them. And if they’re not being entertained, then they don’t want to fuck with it.”
Cynthia had finally caught him on something.
She said, “Well, that’s contradictory, because you’re doing the same thing that the rappers are doing. You’re not giving them anything revolutionary to read. You’re giving them entertaining books. Booty-shaking books. It’s all the same thing. Look how you had them hootin’ and hollerin’ when you were reading your book tonight.”
Shareef laughed out loud. He said, “It’s all contradictory. But yo, I wrote a poem a few years after college, when I first started writing novels. And it just seemed like the only people willing to listen to that revolutionary shit was broke niggas or people still in college.”
She said, “Well, let me hear your poem and I’ll tell you want I think about it.”
“Aw’ight, it’s about the only one I still remember,” he told her. He said, “‘I was born into this world / with the mind and spirit / of a revolutionary / unfortunately / in the time of my short existence / there was no longer / a revolution / so I walked the earth / for forty days / and forty nights / angry / apparently / at nothing.’ ‘Wasted,’ by Shareef Crawford.”
She sat silent for a minute to remember it all in her mind, and to sum it up. Then she nodded to him, convinced of her assessment.
“So, you already know your potential,” she responded. “You know all the arguments. And you know what you’re supposed to do. But you’ve given up.”
He nodded back to her and said, “Yup. Now I’m doing what all the revolutionaries do when they give up. I’m chasing skirts. Go do the research.”
She smiled again, shaking her head one last time.
She said, “I got a story for you that they’ll read.”
Shareef heard her and grinned. He said, “Come on, girl, we in New York. It’s eight million stories in this city. And that was twenty years ago. How many stories we got in New York now?”
She ignored him and asked, “You ever hear of Michael Springfield?”
He looked at her and raised his brow. “Michael Springfield? The Harlem drug dealer?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
He said, “Everybody’s heard about him if you lived in Harlem during the eighties. He serving life without parole now, ain’t he?”
“And he wants you to write his story,” she told him.
Shareef studied her face and asked her, “How you know?”
She said, “I know him.”
He paused for a minute. Did she run with drug dealers, or was she related to him?
He said, “You know him? How?”
“Writing letters. Visiting. I just know him.”
Shareef started to feel uneasy about it. He had to ask her the questions that popped into his head. All of a sudden the conversation became dead serious.
“So…did he tell you to ask me that? What does he know about me? Is he just trying to find any writer to write his book, or did you bring me up to him, or what?”
He was asking her questions as if he was conducting his own interview.
Cynthia shook her head and said, “No, he brought you up to me. I didn’t know he even read your books. But he said Chocolate Lovers touched him. And he started thinking about his first girlfriend before he got into hustling. You made him think about the innocence of young black people in love. Then he read the rest of your books. And once the word spread that you had a new one coming out, and that you always did book signings in Harlem, he told me to ask you if you would consider it.”
Shareef said, “But why me? It’s plenty of people writing them street books now. I don’t even write that shit.”
“But you’re from Harlem, and he likes you,” she answered. “He said the same thing that I said about you. Your books are deeper than theirs. So he respects you more. He said you can tell when people are writing books just for the hell of it. But you don’t. Even though it’s romance, you actually care about what you’re writing.”
“But you just told me a minute ago that I was contradictory.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to be. I mean, some people can’t help what they do. But you know better. And you know you can write other stuff. You know it,” she insisted.
He said, “Yeah, and I know better than to write a book about a drug dealer, too. That ain’t no damn novel. That sounds like bodyguards and security again.”
She snapped, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you just chased pussy, I didn’t know you were a pussy.”
When she said that, it became obvious where her loyalties were. So she got up and started getting dressed.
Shareef told her, “Yo, I ain’t no fucking pussy! But I do feel kind of stupid right now to think that you went through all this just to get me to write some motherfucker’s book from jail.
“Was that all this shit was about?” he asked her as he sat up in bed.
Cynthia ignored him and finished getting dressed.
He said, “Oh, so now I get the fuckin’ silent treatment. Is that it?”
She pulled all of her clothes on and grabbed her bags before she responded to him.
“I’ll tell him that you said you’ll think about it.”
Shareef
sat up in bed and stared at her. This chick was crazy like a fox, as cool as a cucumber, and she had played him that night like a piano. She was all the age-old clichés wrapped up into one.
Then she added, “By the way, if I didn’t want to fuck you, I wouldn’t have taken the job. So you have nothing to be ashamed about. You worked it. So give me a call about that, all right? You got the number.” And she walked out of his room.
Shareef was shocked into silence. He stared at the door after the woman had left him and asked himself, “Do you believe this shit?”
Then he fell back to the pillows and laughed.
“Get the fuck out of here!” he told himself. “This is crazy!”
AT 8:12 THAT MORNING, the hotel phone in his room rang and knocked Shareef out of his sleep. Since he was up half the night thinking crazy thoughts, he didn’t actually fall out until nearly five.
After the second ring, he scrambled over the bed to stop the loud noise before it killed him.
“Hello.”
“The kids were up all last night expecting your call.”
It was his wife. She was the last person in the world he wanted to hear from. Their entire relationship had turned into antagonism.
“My bad. I had the phone on mute from the book signing.”
“How come you didn’t call us right after the book signing?”
He answered, “I was too busy having fun.”
“Whatever. The kids want to speak to you.”
She went ahead and put his son on the phone.
“Hey, Dad, we’re signing up for football today.”
“Oh yeah? Are you scared?”
“No. For what? I know how to play.”
“That’s my boy. You show ’em what I teach you out there, and I’ll be home for good in a couple of weeks.”
“Until the next book tour,” his son stated.
Shareef said, “Daddy gotta pay them big house bills, right?”
“Yeah, but I wish I could go with you sometimes.”
“What, and sit around a whole bunch of women reading books? I’d rather be at summer camp if I were you.”
“Yeah, it gets boring sometimes, Dad. I miss you.”
Shareef paused and could imagine his son’s sad face, along with his bright smile during the good times.
He said, “I miss you, too, J. Now put your sister on the phone.” There was no sense in prolonging the sadness that morning. He still had sixteen cities to tour.
“Okay,” his son grumbled. “Here,” Shareef overheard him handing the phone to his sister.
“Hey, Daddy, we miss you,” she piped into his ear.
Shareef was ready to ask her if her brother had given her the phone with an attitude, but decided to let it slide.
“Hey, baby girl. Daddy’ll be back home soon.”
“To stay?”
Shit! he thought. It’s too early in the morning for this.
“If your mommy lets me,” he answered.
“Mommy, will you let Daddy stay when he comes back home?”
Fuck! What the hell I do that for?
He knew he would get an earful after that. His wife got back on the phone and said, “We’re on our way to camp, I’ll call you later. Tell your daughter good-bye.”
Shareef did as she told him and hung up. He knew he would get that earful later, she just didn’t want to do it in front of the kids.
AT 9:43 AM, Shareef was sitting across the table from his grandparents at a booth inside a midtown Manhattan breakfast and bagels cafe.
“Shareef, it’s important to keep your family together,” his grandmother was telling to him. “Because once all of this fame and good fortune fades away, your family will be the ones who still love you.”
Shareef took a sip of his orange juice. He was dressed sharply in another button-down shirt and sports jacket for the second day of his book tour. He took a deep breath before he responded to his loved ones.
“It seems impossible for me to explain how hard it is to have your insides pulled apart while you struggle to keep it together, Grandma. I mean, with all due respect, you guys have always allowed me to express myself. So to be in a relationship now where my expressions are always limited…I just haven’t been able to handle that. I mean, I’ve been trying, but…”
He stopped and shook his head.
His grandfather looked into his eyes, grunted, and looked away.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he mumbled in the opposite direction.
“Charles, if you have something to say, then say it. Don’t talk underneath your breath,” Wilma fussed at her husband. “I hate it when you do that.”
Charles turned to face them at the table. “That’s it right there,” he said, alluding to her bossiness. “That’s what he’s talking about. Shareef’s now figuring out that no married man is free. Now, we allowed him certain amounts of freedom while we raised him, and as long as he respected us and our house, we gave him the best of love, and let him do everything he wanted to do.”
Wilma cut her husband off and said, “His wife lets him do what he needs to do. Jennifer has never gotten in his way. She’s done nothing but help him, and she holds down those kids and that gorgeous house while he’s away. And I like that girl. Now I admit, I thought she was a little too cute in the beginning, but once I got to know her, she’s really grown on me.”
Shareef said, “Yeah, well, she’s growing on me in the wrong way.”
“Well, what exactly is the problem?” his grandmother asked him.
Shareef looked at his grandfather. They both knew, but how could you tell a woman you respected so much?
Shareef nodded and figured out a way. He said, “It’s one thing to love a woman because she’s a good person, a good mother, and a good wife, but it just seems like another thing to make love to a person. And it just don’t seem like all of those things are coming together, Grandma.”
His grandfather was impressed. Shareef put together a great choice of words.
But his grandmother responded, “Is this all about the bedroom?” right as one of the waitresses walked by.
That’s why Shareef didn’t like talking about it. It was an embarrassing conversation that needed to be dealt with in private.
His grandmother added, “Your marriage and kids are far too important for that selfishness, Shareef. A wife is much more than just a sex slave. You can get any girl for that. But you married and had kids with this woman. You have a family with this woman. You can’t treat her like that. How dare you?”
It was a no-win situation explaining himself to another woman, even if she was his blood. So his grandfather cracked a smile and shook his head. He would have to talk to Shareef one day about a married man’s tolerance. But it wouldn’t do any good. Shareef had more passionate blood than his grandfather. They both knew it. And the same passionate blood that made him an overachiever as a boy, a student, an athlete, and now as a successful writer was the same passionate blood that got in the way of him being able to control his sexual appetite, while bowing down to the restrictions of a woman. But how could he explain that to his grandmother without her feelings getting hurt? It only made him sound greedy.
His grandmother continued to pour on her woman’s wisdom.
She said, “You have a chance with your family to set the example for the next generation of Crawfords, Shareef. Do you understand that? We don’t have that many good examples anymore, and people are looking up to you now.”
Shareef understood it. He understood it all. That’s why he was still married. He also understood what his grandmother was alluding to. His own parents were an embarrassment to her. They didn’t talk about them. Shareef never brought them up. They had never been in his life. And his grandparents would never allow their reckless lifestyles to influence him. So it was they who had raised him. It was they who had taken him to the Schomburg Center to feed his appetite for reading. It was they who had bought his sports equipment and had taken him to the practices. An
d it was they who had sent him to college, helped him through it, and had been there to celebrate at his graduation. So now he owed them a proper family as a representation of their love and of their teachings to him.
Shareef took another deep breath and said, “I know, Grandma. I know.”
His grandfather looked at the agony and defeat in his face and knew better. Shareef had a major problem to overcome, and the stress that it presented was not healthy for him.
Florida
THREE WEEKS LATER, at the conclusion of Shareef’s book tour, he pulled up to the front entrance of his immaculate six-bedroom home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, behind the wheel of his black Mercedes SL 600 to take his son to football practice. His son liked to call the car the Batmobile and was proud that his daddy drove it. But when his wife, Jennifer, saw the car pull up from where she waited with their son and daughter on the front steps, she viewed it as another headache that Shareef seemed to induce in her on purpose.
“It’s the Batmobile,” Little J yelled as soon as he spotted his father’s car. He was dressed in his football practice uniform of orange, blue, and white. Shareef liked to call him Little J, short for Junior.
“All right. It’s Daddy,” the daughter, Kimberly Crawford, cheered. She was dressed in a colorful skirt, top, and tennis shoes.
Their mother wore casual blue denim shorts, a white top, and gold accessories to match her natural golden brown hair, body, and skin.
Shareef hopped out from behind the wheel of the Mercedes dressed in dark blue Rocawear sweat suit pants with a light blue T-shirt and dark sunshades. He strolled over and met his kids at the walkway, picking them both up for hugs and kisses while his wife watched.
“Who’s the best dad in the world?” he asked his kids.
“You are,” his son and daughter answered in unison. They were a regal family of big shoes and big dreams; the problem was, in the execution of making it all happen, they had somehow gotten off track.
As soon as Jennifer approached them on the walkway, she asked her estranged husband, “Why would you drive that car, knowing you have to take him to practice?” and shot down his celebration of father-hood.