American Gangster

27. Joint

On a bright sunshiny day in 1990, a graying Frank Lucas stepped out of a federal prison, free-at-last-Great-God-Almighty-free-at-last, but also broke as hell — owning nothing more, in fact, than the small cardboard box of odds and ends he’d filled in his cell not long ago.

Frank blinked at the sun — God, it seemed blinding out here. But he was not complaining. His gaze stretched across the parking lot, looking to see if his ride was here.

Richie Roberts, standing by a couple-year-old Pontiac, raised his hand like a kid wanting a teacher to recognize him. Long-haired as ever, Richie was in a black sportcoat over a black T-shirt and black slacks, while Frank wore the gray suit he’d worn into the prison fifteen years before, but no tie.

“You know,” Frank said, ambling up with his cardboard box, “a lawyer billing a guy for driving him around could run into dough.”

“You don’t have any dough.”

“Keep that in mind.”

Frank set the box on the car’s trunk and the two men shook hands, then embraced.

“Where to?” Richie asked.

“Where else? Gotta see it — 116th Street.”

Pretty soon the two men — who by now had been friends much longer than they’d been adversaries — stood on the sidewalk near Richie’s parked car. The street sign Frank was looking up at said: 116TH STREET AND FREDERICK DOUGLASS BOULEVARD.

“Frederick Douglass Boulevard?” Frank asked, dumbfounded. “What was wrong with just plain Eighth Avenue?”

Richie chuckled. “You don’t have a sense of history, Frank.”

“Bull shit. I got too much sense of history, is my problem. Look at this street. Everything Bumpy predicted, a hundred years ago, has come true — corner groceries are gone now. Chain stores everywhere.”

“It’s a franchise world,” Richie said.

But without Blue Magic, Frank thought.

Frank shook his head and grinned. “I used to sit here in my old beater car, with Eva? She hated it, but I liked it ’cause I could be invisible, and watch my street, watch everything goin’ down. But it’s not my street anymore. And I don’t even have a car.”

Or Eva.

Right across the street was where Frank had shot Tango Black, a lifetime or two ago. This memory he didn’t share with his attorney. The fruit stand he’d shot Tango in front of, it was gone. And his favorite diner.

In the sign of a store labeled nike was a huge painting of basketball star Michael Jordan, and a big sign saying JUST DO IT.

“Just do what?” Frank asked.

“What?”

“What the fuck is that? Just do what?”

Richie smiled. “Sneakers. Expensive ones. People get killed over them.”

“Over shoes? Who the fuck would buy those ugly things, much less shoot somebody over ’em?”

“You need a better lawyer than me to come up with an argument for that.”

A car booming with subwoofer bass came rumbling by, bleeding rap. Frank stared at the vehicle with a pained look, and suddenly he remembered Bumpy staring at that electronics-emporium window, the day the great man dropped dead on the street.

Casually, maybe too casually, Richie asked, “Your brothers know you’re out?”

“Haven’t talked to them in years. Better that way — for them. I don’t know where they are. Went back home to Greensboro, I guess, when they got out. Hope they’re leading straight lives.”

Richie nodded.

Frank was taking in the strange storefronts. “What the hell am I gonna do now? Be a janitor or some shit? What do I know how to do on this strange fuckin’ planet? How am I gonna live?”

“I told you,” Richie said, “I wouldn’t let you starve. I got legwork needs doing.”

“Yeah, you told me, but you can barely take care of yourself, ’cause of all your, what-you-call-it, pro boner shit.” Frank nodded toward a pay phone down on the corner. “One little phone call, Richie, I could be back in business.”

“You’d need a different lawyer.”

“I won’t. I’m just saying I could.”

“And I could go to the cops and help put your evil ass back in jail.”

“Uh-oh — look out.”

Richie swivelled to see what Frank was looking at: a trio of young hoods swaggering up the sidewalk like they owned it and everything around it, baggy pants, bandanas tied around their heads, dripping with what they were calling bling bling these days.

Frank was right in their way, but he didn’t move, which forced one kid to squeeze between him and a parking meter. The kid glared back, obviously about to say something or maybe even do something...

... but something about the expressionless expression on Frank’s old-school face made the kid think better.

One of his pals said, “What?”

But the kid who’d squeezed past Frank had the good sense to let it go. “Nothin’,” he mumbled.

And they bounced on.

Frank glanced at Richie. “Hell. Every idiot gets to be young once.”

“You think?”

The man who once owned 116th Street had no idea what lay ahead, but he knew one thing: he was alive today when he should have been dead and buried, a hundred times over. So he was ahead of the game.

“Let’s get out of here,” Frank said.

“Where to?”

“I don’t care. Just some other direction.”

As Richie was getting behind the wheel, Frank said, “Tell me the truth, Rich — when you were first investigating me, you couldn’t believe I’d pulled off that Southeast Asia connection, could you? An uneducated black man, come up with a slick smuggling operation like that? You just couldn’t buy it. I mean, man, in my own twisted way, I really did something. Admit it.”

“You really did,” Richie granted. “In your own twisted way.”

And the two friends drove out of Harlem.