[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/IWdgju7.png[/img][/center] Harlem. There's nowhere like it in the world. A bunch of Dutch settlers founded it as a village way back in 1658, named if after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Back in the day everyone from Alexander Hamilton to Harry Houdini called Harlem home. It's where Jim Reese Europe invented Jazz music. It's where Norman Rockwell, that guy who painted all those pictures of happy white people, was raised. In the early 20th century black people began flocking here in en masse to escape the Jim Crow south. Sometime during that migration, a boy from South Carolina name of Joe Lucas made his way up to Harlem. He'd be my great grandfather. He was here during the Renaissance, when Louis Armstrong blew his horn and Langston Hughes talked about a dream deferred. But there was plenty of bad with the good. For a Marcus Garvey or Lena Horne you had gangsters like Queenie St. Clair, the Madam of Harlem herself, and Bumpy Johnson who ran numbers and pushed Horse for the mob. The sixties brought Frank Lucas, no relation, the man who ran the East Coast heroin trade and forced the mob to bend the knee. Civil Rights and rent strikes existed concurrent to Lucas' drug empire, and his cheap and strong heroin gutted the neighborhood. Junkies and unemployment ran rampant over the years, anybody with any kind of money got while the getting was good. Upper and middle class flight meant that only the poorest and most desperate will still around in the eighties. That was when I entered the scene. Crack was king when I was growing up, plenty of people I went to school with and knew around the neighborhood chased the rock until there wasn't anything left of them but skin and bones, so empty you could hear their insides echo when they walked. Those of us that didn't smoke it sold it. I was sixteen years old when I left school for good to work on a corner. Only took four years on the streets before I got pinched and sent up the river. The funny thing was that, for all the shit I did as a corner boy, I actually went to jail for something I didn't do. Ten years away and I came back to a different Harlem. It was still tough and dangerous, but it was on the comeback. Good people were tired of how it was around here and wanted to change it. They're trying to turn things around without reverting to the soul destroying process of gentrification, but it isn't easy. There's a lot of money to be had in that game. The temptation to gut that old rowhouse and turn it into a yuppie condo is fierce. But if there's one thing I've learned about Harlem over the years is that the people are tough. Black don't crack, and it certainly don't run. Through good times and bad times, Harlem still survives. --- [b]Pop’s Barbershop[/b] “I’m glad Mello’s gone!” That statement from Mo sent the four other men in the barbershop into general pandemonium. Pop’s took time from the plate of food in his hands to call Mo a bum, while the Boykins brothers just booed. Me? I just shook my head and gave him a thumbs down. “Overrated!” Mo said definitely. “He can score, but he can’t win. Give me five guys like Porzingis over one Mello any day.” The mention of the lanky European center sent the Boykins brothers into a frenzy. Barry Boykins. “You’re talking out your as—“ Barry stopped short when he saw Pop staring at him over his barbecue, the swear jar right beside his chair and filled to the brim with money. “--You’re crazy,” Barry finished with a grin. “ “He’s got a point,” I said with a shrug. “Mello never played hard on D, never passed, never did anything but shoot. You can’t build a team around that.” “What about Jordan?” Bobby Boykins asked. “Are you comparing Mello to Jordan?” Mo shook his head. “Get out of here with that sh—stuff. Mello ain’t a franchise guy. He’s a ballhog, which is why the Knicks were losing even though he was dropping points.” “Yeah,” said Pops. “And it’s also why we lose to Sherm’s every year. Mo thinks he’s Mello.” “But his game is more like Jello,” Bobby Boykins said with a giggle. That sent the group of men into another round of bickering and arguing. I opted out, looking out the window with a grin on my face and enjoying an evening off. Pops was one of the very few places I could just hang and be one of the guys. In here, nobody thought of me as Harlem’s hero. There was a pretty steady rain outside that night. That's usually good news for everyone. Rain means the gangbangers are too scared to go out, lest they get their sneakers dirty, and the cops aren't up to getting out of their cruisers unless they really need to. They avoid banging people up on the small fry stuff that really pisses off communities. My previous observation was contradicted almost at once. Two NYPD patrol cars with rooftop lights flashing sped by the barbershop, basking the small room in an eerie glow before they disappeared further down the street. Like I said, the rain is usually good news but not always. Suddenly, all eyes fell on me and the din from a few moments ago was now a silence that seemed to be just as loud as their yelling. I stood up, held out a fist that Pops tapped with his own, and looked back at Mo and the Boykins twins with a grin. “Joakim Noah is gonna be the next great Knick.” That sent the four of them into a new round of debate as I walked out into the rain and pulled my yellow hoodie up over my head. There weren't many people on the street, but the few that were all headed in the same direction: down the street and around the corner. The corner blocked the sight, but I could see the blue and red flash of police lights reflecting off the buildings. A few minutes later and I stood in front of police tape. My hood kept my head dry against the slow pitter patter of rain. The crime scene was at the playground just around the corner from Pop’s. Two uniformed cops kept the small crowd gathering back from the scene, but everyone could see through them to the white tarp covering a dead body sprawled out in a sandbox. There were murmurs and talk rippling through the crowd. I didn't take part, but I listened and got the gist. The body under the tarp was Bobbito Garcia, seventeen years old and a nearby resident. Someone said he had his girlfriend with him when he got shot, someone said they heard the shots and turned around to see Bobbito falling to the ground and an unknown shooter running from the scene. A detective in a cheap suit walked through the crowd, flashing a badge. I started to fade back into the crowd to avoid being seen. The less police attention I attracted, the better. From my vantage point I could see the crime scene and the few places the officers had protected from the rain. Bobbito's body was covered, as was a small space I assumed covered up the murder weapon. A plastic baggie lay on the ground with a small card inside. I couldn't make out the words scribbled on the card, but I saw the logo in the middle of the card as clear as day. A bright red crown, dripping blood. Who murders a seventeen year old kid execution style and leaves a calling card? I didn't know, but I was going to find out.