The Last Street Novel (5 page)

Yeah, and then be ignored for it,
he pondered the idea. It was a catch22. Write serious content and receive awards from the literary elite while never being understood by the popular culture. Or write popular fiction that crosses over and opens up new bank accounts, while never being respected by the literary elite.

Maybe I should write new books under a pseudonym, but that shit never seems to work.

“Would you like anything else?” the waitress in a light blue apron asked. She broke Shareef out of his daydream.

“Oh, nah, I’ll just, ah, take the bill.” And he gathered himself to leave.

S
HAREEF ARRIVED
at the Virgin Megastore in the heart of Times Square near West 45th Street. He met with the store managers and staff and was treated like royalty. The line of book readers flooded into the store even before noon, packed with mostly black women and Latinas—young, old, short, tall, light, dark, skinny, plump, domestic, and international. Then there were men, who mostly wanted to write and publish poetry or novels themselves, or were simply buying books for the women in their lives, along with gay men, who dreamed of rendezvous with the author like some of the women did. But there were only a few crossovers in line, supporters from other races and cultures who were curious enough to enjoy the love and literature of black America. And Shareef sold them all, signed them all, worked them all, and smiled to them all, even though he still felt a sense of emptiness. He always felt as if there was more to do, and more ideas to explore in the creation of new literature.

A
T
3:47
PM
a young male reporter from the historic
Amsterdam News
interviewed Shareef inside the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel concerning his seventh novel and successful writing career.

“So, how does it feel to be able to sell millions of books to a growing fan base each year?” the reporter asked him. He was an eager young man out of New York’s Hunter College who dreamed of a career writing Hollywood screenplays. In the meantime, he chose to keep up with his bills and pay off his student loans by reporting and writing for the
Amsterdam News
. Dressed in a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt, a noncoordinating tie, blue jeans, and brown leather shoes, the young man would win a fashion award from no one. In contrast, Shareef’s sharp style of dress, poise, and status was something the reporter could look forward to in the years to come. But at least the young reporter had a sharp haircut. During the interview, however, Shareef was distracted with boredom. He continued to watch guests coming and going from the hotel and imagining what their lives were like. Watching people was one of the many skills he utilized as a writer.

“I mean…having a fan base is one thing, but being able to move people in a certain direction is another,” he answered.

They were sitting comfortably in lounge chairs with the reporter’s tape recorder running between them. And the young man was growing a little confused by his subject’s increasingly complicated answers.

The reporter raised his brow and asked, “How exactly do you plan to move people?”

Romance was romance. Did the author actually expect people to learn more about loving one another through his books?

Instead of answering the interviewer’s question, Shareef looked into the young reporter’s eyes and asked a question of his own.

“What do you read?”

“What do I read?”

“Yeah, what do you read?”

“Ah, I mostly read historical books, nonfiction, or books on screenplay writing.”

“And you want to be a screenplay writer yourself, right?”

The reporter had discussed his future ambitions with Shareef before they began the interview.

He nodded and answered, “Yeah, I do.”

“But you don’t read any fiction?”

Shareef waited for the young man’s answer.

“Not really, no.”

He could imagine that the author was setting him up for something. But what could he do about it? Shareef was in authority. He had more years of writing and reporting experience and he wrote at a much higher level.

“Well, let me ask you a question. What do you think the best screenplays are? Nonfiction? Historical documentaries?”

Shareef waited for his answer again.

Understanding that he was trapped by a superior intellect, the young reporter began to smile.

“Okay, you’re probably right,” he admitted.

“I’m probably right? Probably right about what?”

The reporter nodded. “Most of it is…probably fiction.”

“But you don’t read fiction,” Shareef stated again for the record.

The young reporter tried to defend himself.

“Well, a lot of good screenplays are based on the truth, though.”

“And so is good fiction. You think we’re making up shit that never happened before? Have you ever even read any of my books?”

“Well, I mean, I tried to, but—”

Shareef cut him off, “You tried to? Well, have you read any novels at all?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve read Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Donald Goines, you know, the classic stuff,” the reporter answered.

Shareef had read books by those authors himself, along with books from more than a hundred other writers.

He asked, “Do you plan to write screenplays about their kind of books? You know, the old slave days, the forties, the fifties, and the sixties?”

The young man could sense that he was falling into another trap, but he was still useless in defending himself against it.

“Well, I can see where you’re going with that—”

Shareef cut him off again and said, “Answer the question.”

All of a sudden, he was no longer distracted by the curious human traffic that flooded through the lobby of the hotel. He was giving the young man his undivided attention with the intent of turning him into a pupil.

“Ahhh…no, I wouldn’t say I plan to write screenplays about what they were writing.”

“What are your screenplays about?”

Who was being interviewed now? And there was no easy way for the younger man to regain the upper hand.

He said, “I want to write screenplays about, you know, the things that are happening now?”

“What kind of things?”

“Well, I wrote this one screenplay about these four college friends who graduate from school and then they all go in different directions.”

Shareef nodded. “It sounds like a period piece. How many years does it cover?”

“Yeah, it covers about ten years, from college to, you know, their late twenties, early thirties.”

“Have you finished it yet? I’d love to read it.”

The young man hesitated. “Well, I’m still kind of hashing it out, you know.”

“So, you haven’t finished it?”

“Yeah, I’m finished, but, you know, I’m not really ready to show it around yet.”

Shareef had him sweating bullets. It was getting hotter in that hotel lobby by the second.

The young reporter moved to shut his tape recorder off since he was no longer interviewing. He considered their conversation wasted tape, but Shareef stopped him.

“Don’t do that. You gon’ need this information,” he told him. He said, “Now let me tell you something. From what I understand about black Hollywood, we don’t have that many good screenplay writers. And you know why?”

He paused again for his pupil to answer him.

“Why?”

“Because we don’t fuckin’ read enough,” he told him. “So most of our screenplays end up being corny, simple-minded, uneven, copycat shit. Why? Because we don’t know how to tell a good story. And why don’t we know how to tell a good story? Because we don’t take the time to
read
good stories, or to understand what makes a story good. So without reading good
fiction,
brother, we end up writing weak character development, weak dialogue, weak plot points, with a weak buildup, weak chronology, uneven climaxes, and a weak resolution. And now you got all of that on your tape to study. But since you don’t read my books, you can’t really converse with me about my career, because you have no idea of my skill level. Therefore, without reading any of my shit, if you write anything positive about me, then you’re being patronizing. And if you write any negative shit about me, especially since I might be hurting your feelings right now, then you’ll end up showing your ignorance, because you didn’t read any of my shit to judge me from in the first place.”

And with all of that said, Shareef stood up to make his exit.

He said, “So I want to thank you for making your way down here to interview me, but we can’t possibly continue this interview until you’ve finished your homework. I mean, that would be like throwing a rookie into the playoffs without him even having a scrimmage or a basic practice. You feel me?

“And I’m not hating on you, young blood, I’m just showing you tough love right now to get you ready for the real world,” Shareef explained to him. “Because when you actually start reading more and studying your craft for real, then you’ll begin to set your own mark of excellence to the point where no white man or anyone else can tell you that you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. And when you get to that point in your career, you’ll be able to pick up your rifle and go to war with me. But right now, you’re empty-handed, brother, and we can’t go to war like that. You’ll fuck around and get both of us killed.”

Shareef then forced a departing handshake before he walked away toward the elevators, leaving the reporter dazed, overwhelmed, and speechless. And once he realized that his interview was officially over, the young man looked at the still running tape recorder and shook his head in disbelief.

“Damn! What did I say?”

A
T
5:49
PM,
Shareef took a deep breath inside the bathroom of his hotel suite and sprayed on a second layer of cologne. His driver would be ready to take him back up to his birthplace of Harlem at six o’clock for a seven o’clock reading, Q&A, and signing at Hue-Man Bookstore. The store was located at the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 124th Street, right under the Magic Johnson/Sony Theaters.

“One more event for the night,” Shareef told himself while looking in the mirror. “But this is the big one.”

He brushed his teeth, gargled mouthwash, and before he grabbed his briefcase to head down to the limo, he remembered to call his grandparents.

“Hey, it’s me, Grandma.”

Wilma got excited over the phone. “Hey, Shareef, how’s your busy tour day gon’ so far?”

He answered, “You know, same-o same-o. If something happens differently, I’ll tell you all about it. But are you sure you guys don’t want to come out tonight?”

“No, we don’t want to be around you with all them crazy people tonight,” his grandmother responded. “We’d rather do breakfast with you in the morning, where we can enjoy our famous grandson alone.

“What time do you need to leave for New Jersey tomorrow?” she asked him.

“My first event is in Newark at noon. So I need to leave by eleven to get there on time.”

His grandmother said, “That’s perfect. We can do breakfast with you tomorrow morning at nine. And it shouldn’t take us two hours to eat.”

“Okay, so we’ll do that then,” he agreed. “Where’s Grandpop?”

“Over here stinking up the bathroom,” his grandmother answered loud enough for her husband to overhear her.

“Mine don’t smell no worse than yours,” Charles yelled out with a muffled echo from behind the closed bathroom door.

Shareef shook his head against the phone and chuckled. Real life was stranger than fiction, but it didn’t read as well.

His grandmother asked him, “You didn’t hear that, did you?”

“Nah, I didn’t hear nothing,” he lied.

“Good. So we’ll see you tomorrow morning for breakfast then. And you be safe out there tonight, Shareef. You know we love you.”

“I love y’all, too,” he told her.

“Have you spoken to Jennifer and your babies today?”

He paused. “Grandma, they’re not babies anymore. Little J turned nine this summer, and Kimberly turned seven in March. You remember? You were at the birthday party.”

“Yeah, I remember. I know how old they are. I’m not senile. But at sixty-seven years old, they’re still babies to me. Now have you made up with your wife and moved back into your house?”

That was a much longer conversation, and it was too close to six o’clock to have it. Shareef didn’t want to talk about his relationship with his estranged wife anyway.

“I’ll be calling them shortly,” he answered.
Just probably not tonight,
he told himself. He said, “Well look, Grandma, I gotta get going. My driver’s downstairs waiting for me.”

“Okay, well, like I said, you be safe out there tonight, Shareef. And you make sure you call your family.”

W
HEN
S
HAREEF CLIMBED
back into the limo, parked curbside at the Sheraton, all he could think about were his two kids. His grandmother had shot an arrow of guilt into his heart. But he still didn’t want to call them yet. Tour season was his time to be a man again, and even though he cherished the role of father, there were times where he needed to turn his paternal emotions off and focus on his business with grown-ups.

Yeah, I’ll call them, right after the book signing, before they go to bed,
he decided.

W
HILE
S
HAREEF
was on his way to the Hue-Man Bookstore for his signing in Harlem, a rival author aggressively worked the street corner in front of the Magic Johnson/Sony Theaters with his own new book,
The Streets Keep Calling Me.
He was dressed military style with black boots, black pants, a green camouflage T-shirt, and a matching camouflage bucket hat with a draw string. He looked in his late thirties. He had a box of books on the ground, and four loose books in his hands. He worked every man, woman, and child who happened to walk by him.

“Get the real deal, the truth from the streets, baby, the black man is in a crisis. It’s my new book right here,
The Streets Keep Calling Me,
get it now,” he announced repetitively.

A couple of young women stopped to take a look on their way into the bookstore. They were both in their late teens, and not quite grown yet.

“Hey, young sisters, they call me The Spear. This is my new book right here,” he told them. He handed them each a copy. “Have you heard about it on the streets yet?”