CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
2007 – Shopping
On Tuesday, I deposited Mundo’s check and sent him a brief text:
THANKS, BRO
I’d found my BlackBerry in one of the boxes of stuff Hopeton had sent over from Mundo’s old apartment and figured I’d might as well activate it for a few months until the iPhone was released. Mundo kept talking about the iPhone the way Luchi used to talk about Nike sneaker drops back in the HQ days.
He wrote me back immediately:
All love, bro. What you gonna get?
I’ll send you a picture was my reply. I wanted to keep him in suspense.
Next on my list was Hopeton. I BBM’d him:
Yo! I need a roti and a new car. You free today?
He hit me back:
I can get you in 2 hours.
Man, that first goat roti in 5+ years hit right. Ali’s was still the spot. I had to be extra careful not to get any grease on Hopeton’s caramel leather interior, but it didn’t matter. I wanted that food in me.
We were heading into Manhattan to the Toyota dealership. I wanted to go look at the zo rekens- that’s what we called Land Cruisers in Port au Prince. Shark bones, because they were indestructible. And that’s the type of ride I needed as I rebuilt my life.
It took almost no time at all for me to find the zo reken of my dreams in Galactic Grey Mica. Dove grey leather interior, moon roof and a top-of-the-line stereo system. It would take 6 weeks for delivery. That was fine. I could wait. I told the salesman I wanted to put $50k cash down and finance the rest. He said stop by with a cashier’s check before end of week. We shook hands. In less than 25 minutes Hopeton and I were on our way back to Brooklyn.
“What are you getting into now?” I asked as we shot down Eleventh Avenue, heading towards Canal Street.
This had been my first time in Manhattan since before I got locked up, and I was surprised to find how much I’d missed it all- the buildings, the people, the crazy traffic. The view from the Manhattan Bridge on our way in almost had me tearing up, it was all so beautiful. I still felt disoriented after so many years of stillness.
“Heading to PanStar after I drop you,” Hopeton replied. “Wanna come with me to PanStar?”
“Yeah, why not?” I replied. “You still got a bottle of rum squirreled away in that monstrosity of a desk?”
“Always,” Hopeton said, then turned up the volume on a Beres Hammond tune.
