Growing up in the nation's capital you get a chance to see what all of these congressman and senator's kids are doing. A lot of them are breaking the law just like any 19 year old from Red Hook or Bogota. The wealth can lead to serious laziness. The city's demographics provide for excellent opportunities to buy and sell drugs, especially marijuana. They want to sit at their country club, collecting as much as possible, for doing little as possible. The law provides for great opportunities, and Canada is only so far away.
He had made the decision to move to Brooklyn. One day, he literally walked down the street and rented this U Haul, and asked my friend Bigguns if he would help him for 30 bucks. So he packed up his life. The only thing he could find was this big two-bedroom apartment, but he figured, with his luck, he would easily find a roommate. It was a big change for him, but he was excited to go to work every day, and not have to worry about getting caught. His parents had raised him well, he had a college degree, and selling drugs had always been a marriage of convenience for him.
The new apartment was a shit hole. Crown Heights is a dump; very similar to something you'd see in some gangster movie, New Jack City. The hallways stunk of Goya Beans and Jerk Chicken. With 30 thousand saved up, he could definitely afford better. But why risk it? He had to lay low. He had lived in some ridiculously nice places before, so it was to say the least, a step in a different direction.
His block was a multicultural parade. People were constantly walking back and forth through the spray-painted doors. The ten steps that led up to his apartment were always cluttered with Hispanic guys who were either selling bikes, or in the case of this crack head Eddie, proclaiming at the top of their lungs, "I'm a walking fucking pharmacy!" This was a great place for him. He was the least conspicuous resident on the street, and it made him feel comfortable.
So he moved in all of his furniture; the thousand dollar suede couches, the flat screen plasma, the thousands of DVDs, the artwork, the custom framed bed, and the rest of his valuables into an apartment filled with people who would love to take it all. "Fuck it," he thought to himself. "The people around here have better things to do than to mess with me." So one morning, while all the thieves and crack heads on his block were sleeping, he and Tom moved in his life savings and possessions.
After living in the place for a week, he realized that the people in front of the building minded their own business. He told anyone who asked that he was an artist, stressing the broke and struggling factor. The only question was if he should get a roommate. He asked around a bit, finally calling me. So I asked my friend who works at this modeling agency. She represents all these beautiful women newly arrived from different countries waiting to find out if they will be the next Giselle.
Alessandra was her name; a model right off the plane from Tahiti. She was like ten feet tall, black hair as long as her back. Her body was ridiculous. I mean, when you think of "model," you think of skinny, but she had some serious curves. She spoke broken English. At the time, I thought she would make a fortune. She was one of the most amazingly gorgeous women I had ever seen.
I thanked my friend for the introduction. In Wilhelmina Modeling Agency's front hallway I stammered to get the words to tell her that my friend had a room to stay in. If I had enough money, I would have built a house for her.
After explaining that it was in this shitty neighborhood in Brooklyn she smiled this sexy grin that said, "I'm here to smile like this, and have people go think about it for the rest of their day." "It's okay, dare es no defrence," she told me in this deep French accent, embarrassed of her vocabulary. She was so friendly, happy with her life, in awe of anything or anyone who called this big city home.
She was from Tahiti. But her parents were from France and Algeria. All she had seen her whole life was this beauty, so excluded from the world that I could only imagine how few rotten things she had seen in her life, if any at all. She was the best looking Gauguin painting, a master piece you would travel across the world for.
I called and told him, "Yeah dude, this sexy model chick is real cool and laid back. I don't know her all that well, but she's real nice, and she's looking for a place to live." So I gave him her digits, and he called her. They talked for a half an hour, and she told him how some stewardess/talent agent for Wilhelmina had spotted her in the Paris airport while visiting relatives, and how it was hard for her to leave her boyfriend back home. They had been together since they were 12.
A couple of days went by, and Alessandra came over to scope Shane's place out. I guess she had an impact on him in the half hour that they had talked. Three hours later she had a taxicab full of her belongings out front. It was pretty sad thinking that this girl was so far away from home that she could put her life in a cab. Nonetheless, he gave the 5 11" beauty a hug and let her into the apartment as they lugged in her bags from the car. He noticed her one crooked tooth. It was a perfect imperfection.
After taking in all of her stuff from the cab, he helped her unpack, and showed her all of the toys she would be able to use, the benefits of living with him. She was mostly excited to have a nice television. She didn't have one growing up. He explained to her the ground rules, mostly not breaking his stuff, and staying clean. In retrospect, he should have been more specific.
Living with Allessandra made Shane happy. She was inspiring, and in the back of his head they were already dating. So they just smiled at each other. Shane thought he was just taking it slow. He was completely in love with her, and came home every day hoping to help her learn some more English or play her some music. Every couple of days she would go down to the corner to buy a phone card to call her boyfriend at home.
After a long day of work at his new job at Warner Brothers Music, Shane came home to find the usual crack heads and dysfunctional people blasting salsa music from their mini vans. The usual. People were selling their drugs, talking in their native dialects from whatever islands the guys on a corner had come. It was a truly multicultural street. If I had to guess, I would say some of them were from a ghetto hip-hop version of Sri Lanka, some West Indian Island.
He walked up to his second floor apartment surprised to hear music fast, pumping away. Something was different. Alessandra didn't listen to Sizzla. Usually he would come home to find her reading some Boris Vian book.
He took out his keys and shook it off, assuming that Alessandra was just trying out some of his cd's. He opened the front door and walked down the skinny hallway entrance to his living room with total intrigue, then intimidation, as he heard several male voices. "Was it the cops? What the fuck is going on in here?" he whispered, heart matching the music.
As he turned the corner into his living room, he was shocked to see three guys who would usually be posted on the corner. They were sitting on his 6,000$ set of suede couches. The one guy was dark skinned with a mustache, geared out in full throwback attire, flipping through his cds. The second guy was caramel skinned, long hair back in a ponytail, rolling a joint. The third guy was bobbing, high on something. They hardly noticed him entering the room as he stood for what seemed like half a minute, staring directly at them.
He was furious. "These guys are going to fucking rob me!" He wondered if they were high enough for him to defend himself. Their long girly hair underneath brand new baseball hats, stickers still on them, matching shoes and jerseys. Finally, the one guy looked up and smiled. "What's popping?"
Before he could say anything, Alessandra walked out of her room. She was smiling and carefree as if to say, "Here are my new friends....You think they're cool, right?"
Before she could finish her sentence, he pushed her into the kitchen. "What the fuck are these guys doing here?" Shane yelled. She responded euphorically with her cute accent, "Shane, Dey are nice persons. I met dem outside. We are just smoking something, and den dey go."
"Do you know these guys in the slightest?" he screamed at her. "These guys sell crack cocaine on the corner all day. They probably kill people. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a crap about me. And now they know what I have in the apartment. So fucking great! Now get them the fuck out of here before they invite the whole neighborhood over!"
Alessandra pulled her shoulders in, her face pushed together like some little girl. "Dey're from Trinidad. It's tiny island...... like Tahiti."
Shane wanted to slap the shit out of her for being so fucking dumb, but he was more concerned about getting the gangsters out of his apartment.
This girl was very naive. Tahiti must have been a pretty innocent place because she was clueless even after walking around day after day, about what was going down in the concrete jungle. In spite of his prompting her to tell them that she needed them to go, she went back into the living room and said he didn't want them to be there.
Luckily the guys left, stoned out of their minds as if , no problem. But these guys didn't like taking any shit. The guy who had been rolling a blunt smiled with his teeth on the way out. "We be seein' you around!"
After the guys left, Shane called me. "Jay, this girl you introduced me to, hot, yah she's a fucking moron! She knows nothing, about a city, America, nothing! She thinks everyone in the whole fucking world is `nice....' She brings these three guys in from the corner, and she's all buddy buddy with them, shit!... I come home, and she has `em rolling blunts, blasting my fucking...stereo!"
"Tell the girl she's in for getting raped or something...seriously! Is she like fascinated with the ghetto shit or what...Trinidadians?" I was trying to be helpful, at the
same time disappointed for my friend her turning out so far from the first impression.
Shane sat Alessandra down and explained the severity of associating with her new friends. She nodded her head slowly, seemed to take it in, but she had a hard time understanding his fast paced rhetoric. She was lonely, and didn't understand why Shane could despise people for whom he had never met. She was perceptive to their kindness . Vince was still the only person she had gotten to know. She missed home, the waves.
Two weeks went by. It was August in Brooklyn. Shane was working hard at Warner Brothers, trying to turn his illegal savings real by starting a record label. He had a business partner and a couple of hip hop artists. He was a smart guy, and I was confident in his success. If he could play basketball for George Washington, and make as much money as he did, I was sure that he could do anything.
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon. Shane had gone to the bar the night before. A little hung over, he came out to the living room to see Alessandra curled up on the couch writing on an Empire State Building post card to her family. He wiped the crust out of his eyes and sat down on the opposite couch, turning on the television. Alessandra asked him if he would like some tea. She threw it into the microwave, and when it was ready, sat down next to him.
"Shane, I have to ask you dis ting." With her beautiful eyes focused on him, he sensed she had been across from him memorizing what she was going to say. She hesitated.
"It's ok. What did you want to tell me," he encouraged her. "These guys," she said. "These people my friends. I meet them for you. These same people ask me do something for dem. Dey asked me take a trip. No big deal....Forget it." "You can't do that to me," Shane replied. "You obviously want to talk about it. Look, I'm your friend, so say it." "No, true. I'm sorry. I don't know what happening. The guys. The guys tell me I fly to beautiful island, Trinidad, they pay vacation, hotel, money, everything. They give me $10,000 It is good...No?" She was leaving something out. "There is one thing. They want me give someone someting, someone come I arrive. They want me to give the guy money. But den I can go to the beach." She smiled, thinking about the water on her skin.
Anyone in his or her right mind wouldn't even think of doing something like this. So when Shane heard her say it, he flipped out. "Are you crazy? Of course you can't go through with that. Don't even think about it! Do you want to go to jail? Why do you even need the money? I mean for god sakes, you're so beautiful! Aren't you making money modeling?" Eyes down. She was quiet. Then, a whole new Alessandra.
" No, true. You right." She gave him a model smile, and then giggled away.
Shane was skeptical. He even worried he was going to have to find another roommate. She was caught up somehow. Getting on a plane with $10,000 in cash, that's no biggie. But she wasn't a citizen of the U.S. Her status would be jeopardized, not to mention what she would be doing while she was there, whoever these people were she'd be meeting. From his background he also wondered about the purpose. It had to be coke. However, was it that cheap that the cost of paying her to go down there was worth it?
He shook it off. He still hadn't slept with her, and it didn't look like he was going to. He was still infatuated with her though, and worried about her. "What a shame," I thought. "If she had lived with me, it would have been a completely different story."
Two more weeks went by, and Shane went to California. He hadn't brought up the proposition with Allessandra, and life between the two of them stayed the same. He was visiting his buddy Ira in Santa Barbara. Ira, a cool, laid-back surfer type was the cousin of a friend of ours from San Francisco, and went to UCSB.
They spent close to a week just chilling, partying on Del Playa Road. It was vacation time for Shane, and they planned on taking a trip to Vegas the following Saturday to see the Roy Jones fight. Life was good until he got that phone call.
In Ira's back yard they barbequed California style. Shane picked up his phone. It was the United States Customs. The agent greeted him on the phone. "Mr. Griffin, We have your roommate in custody. She was apprehended in Trinidad getting on a plane to New York. We searched her bag and found 2.5 kilos of cocaine in it. She gave us your info., and she says you are her one contact in the United States. Do you know why she might be here? Do you know anything about this? We'd like your help. And if you care for your girlfriend, you'll want to cooperate with us." Dealer tactics kicked in, low key. "I have no idea what you mean. I don't know anything about any drugs... I rent a room to the girl. What a terrible situation, I'm sorry, but, I don't have the slightest clue about what's going on with her. I really have to go. My friend's waiting for me." He hung up.
After explaining to Ira what happened, the San Francisco surfer lay back in his naturally relaxed pose hands folded under hair bleached over the seasons, and pondered. He was blazed out of his mind. The whole concept of what had just occurred flew right over him. To make things worse, the same "Restricted Number" kept popping up on his phone.
After three calls, Shane answered the phone angrily. "I don't fucking know what you're talking about!" he yelled angrily into the receiver. But this time, it was a sobbing girl on the other line.
"Alessandra? Is that you?" Shane took the phone. "Shane, sorry, sorry get you for dis problem..." She said she had been crying for hours. "Nobody for call. I am for lot of trouble, forget me, not your problem. I have not much time speak with you I don't know what I have done...but one big thing. Go for the apartment...this not everything!"
"It's not everything!" Shane screamed into the receiver. "What are you talking about? I'm in California!" It was too late. Alessandra had hung up the phone.
What to do? He was in California, and his roommate was in jail. He worried about what was in the apartment. To a certain extent he was really pissed at her for being so stupid. She obviously had not taken his advice. But why did she have coke on the way back to New York? Did the guys make her? Or was it her decision? And guess what the fuck was in the apartment?
Go back to New York, get there before the cops and the guys from the block, or wait and hear on the news about his apartment getting raided. For once he was in trouble, and hadn't even been involved.
They hopped in Ira's beat up Volkswagen station wagon and drove to LAX, arriving just in time for him to hop the red-eye.
Shane was out of his mind. All this time. Not a scratch. A new life, piss neighborhood, nobody knew him. Everything so perfect. And this gorgeous woman. No plan. Shit! He downed bloody Mary after Bloody Mary, unsteady hands pouring the mix, wondering who was waiting for him at his apartment. Worse, he started thinking about the Trinidadians. "They'll want to know what's happened to their money. And they'll want to know about what's in my apartment," he thought to himself. "All those years of Amtrak trains right through dog sniffing. Greyhound buses up the East Coast. Pound after pound of marijuana to people I had never met. Now that I'm fucking clean..!" He would have cried right then if he hadn't passed out first.
Once off the plane, he called me. "Jay, that stupid bitch you sent me got busted off a plane from Trinidad with two and a half kilos of coke! I'm dyin' man, did you ever check her out? Know she was like some stupid addict? I'm in California, and I get this call from the fucking police! I haven't even talked to her! Now this shit. Some guys are waiting for me I know it. Those scumbag from the corner, or the fucking cops. After all, the moron called me to say that "it wasn't it." She was in some Trinidad jail! Where the hell is Trinidad?" Shane screamed through the phone, as the cab driver tried to figure out where he was going. "Shane, calm down, you didn't have anything to do with it. Don't sweat it!" I was trying to help without knowing what to say. "Call me when you get home. You know I'll be there." Damn, I was really busy though, working on this project. It bothered me, and I hoped that it would resolve itself on its own.
About an hour later, Shane called me from his apartment. Nobody had been waiting for him, or so it looked. "Jay! You mother fucker! There's a 45' caliber pistol underneath her bed, and about a quarter pound of coke!" "Get rid of it, now!" I shouted. "Fuck you! This is your fault anyway! You knew she was a druggie! What the hell is going on? If my ass is nailed, so is yours!" Shane had lost it or was it really my fault? I thought for a moment...No way! "Shane. I met the girl once. I told you!" "You met her one time? Not buyin' it! She was fucking those dirtballs! Tag teaming her in my apartment every time I was gone! Those fucking dirty island sonofabitches!" It felt like Shane's screaming must have carried through the building. "I'm real sorry bud, but I told you I hardly...." His phone smashed to the floor. "Shane!... Shane!" Casual voices in the background. I was yelling his name when the phone cut out.
"What now? Better run to Shane's. Call the police? Maybe it was the police at his apartment," I thought to myself. I mean, if I went there, maybe I would somehow be an accessory, cohort of some kind. Should I be involved? But if he got killed...I don't know, I mean, I was never that close with him anyway. Besides, I told him that I hardly even knew her.
