A few weeks later, I shut up shop at PanStar around eight pm and went over to Oswald's barbershop for my regular shape-up, shave and manicure. The shop was quiet.
As I was getting my fingernails buffed, Osvald walked over and asked if I had any time to spare for him.
“Sure, man,” I replied. “Qué tienes?”
“I have a business thing, I want to talk to you about,” Osvald said. “I’m gonna lock up early after you’re done and maybe we could go get a drink.”
I figured this had to be a serious matter because although Osvald had steered a decent amount of business my way over the years, he’d never directly asked me for anything.
I told him to take his time. I wasn’t in a hurry that night.
Within half an hour, we were down the block at a small, dimly lit bar playing Nuyorican salsa. Before I knew it, I had a scotch on the rocks in front of me.
“Está bien, hermano,” I said, fairly flatly. “Dime qué está pasando.”
Osvald straightened his shoulders, leaned an elbow on the bar and turned towards me.
“My lease is up in six months, and I really don’t wanna renew,” he began.
“What’s wrong with what you have now?” I asked.
“I need a bigger space that I can renovate,” Osvald replied. “I gotta modernize, Hopeton! Pero soy un tipo común.” He crooned that last part along with the Tito Nieves song that happened to be playing at that moment.
Osvald possessed a great sense of comedic irony.
“So, you don’t have cash on hand to put down on an expansion?” I asked.
Osvald shook his head and raised his glass to me.
This was something I wasn't really interested in talking about. I’d been doing some heavy thinking and had come to the conclusion that it was time to rein in my scope of operations. And here was my good friend asking me to expand them.
“I need about a hundred k to get into a new lease and have money left over to go towards the reno,” he explained.
I lightly slapped my left palm against the bar and prepared to deny Osvald’s loan application.
“I can’t do it, hermano,” I began.
Osvald gave me a startled look of confusion, but remained silent.
“I hate to say it, but the New Hopeton Bank is going out of business,” I continued.
“Whaaaaat- you’re getting out of loans?” he asked. “But you were doing it right! Why you gonna throw that all away?”
Then a different type of look crossed Osvald’s face.
“Listen, if you don’t think I’m good for the money, you can just tell it to me straight,” he told me. “But I am good for it- I have it all worked out. If things go smoothly, I can get it all paid off in under three years.”
“No,” I interrupted, “that’s not it. It is true that I don’t want to involve money dealings with anyone I consider a real friend, but I’m shutting the bank down.”
I paused a moment and signaled to the bartender to bring us a next round. Then I turned back to Osvald and continued.
“Things are getting hectic over in Crown Heights and I just don’t have the time to be performing banker’s duties. I have to focus on PanStar, period.”
Osvald nodded. He understood what I was talking about.
“And even PanStar’s not a sure thing anymore,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get the white man to pivot, but he’s just not buying into it.”
“You’ve been trying to school that man for years now,” Osvald observed.
I nodded, shrugged my shoulders and took a sip of my fresh drink.
“You can lead a jackass to water…” Osvald said and clapped me on the shoulder. “And don’t worry about the loan,” he continued. “No hard feelings- I’ll figure it out.”
“Give me a few days,” I replied. “I may be able to come up with something that’ll work out for both of us.”
