Free The Last Street Novel by Omar Tyree Page A

a man. Without pussy, I don’t know what else we would live for.”
    Cynthia shook her head, her cheekbones sore from her continuous grinning. The man was just too much for her conscience.
    She said, “Um, how many other women know how…I mean…” she couldn’t seem to get her words right.
    Shareef cut her off and said, “Look, I am what I am. So if you’re asking me how many women can handle my candor, I’ll have to say just the ones who feel me like that. If they can’t handle it they move on.”
    She continued to shake her head. She said, “I’m just thinking about your average fan.”
    He caught her gist and said, “You have to keep those two worlds separate. And your key word is ‘average.’ You can’t invite the average fan into your world, only those who can take it. You feel me? Otherwise, you’ll fuck around and get yourself in trouble.”
    She understood that much. A woman who read the wrong game could holler foul play and blow an embarrassing bullhorn on a man’s personal life. So a player had to choose correctly.
    She looked into his serious mug and said, “You’re a lot more complicated then what I expected.”
    He looked back at her. “What did you expect?”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you would be more of a tight ass. I mean…I just didn’t expect to have this much fun with you.”
    He smiled and looked away. “Yeah, everybody expects me to be like that. And sometimes I am. It all depends on how you rub me. But if I’m just being me…” He looked into her face again and added, “Then it’s all good.”
    Hearing that, Cynthia leaned up on her elbows and gave him her undivided attention. It was time to get back to business.
    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.