The Whole Crew

Terence’s eyes slowly adjusted to the daylight filtering through his half-drawn curtains. Daylight? He sat up in bed, realizing he'd slept in. Oral argument in the Graco case was today and he also had a motion for a separate case he needed to do research on. He began to swing his legs out of bed, frantically calculating how many minutes he could save by not taking a shower on the way to the office. Then it hit him. He was off today. And the next day. And the day after that. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up when the sun was out. His days usually began and ended in darkness. This was his first vacation since he started working for Lockerby and James.

He was so grateful to be in the sun that he drank his coffee and watched SportsCenter outside. He never did that. When he was working, he would already have spent two hours in his windowless office by this point in the morning, reaping all the benefits white, halogen tube lighting provides. Not only was he off work but he was going to see Omar today!

He eventually made it to the airport and boarded his flight. Terence settled into his seat and sipped on the Jack and coke chilling in front of him. The whiskey did the rest of the work. He nodded off and woke up as the plane touched down. He navigated the scorching summer heat and finally made it to his hotel room. He changed clothes and sat down at the hotel bar. As he was about to order a drink, a familiar voice greeted him.

“Is that Terence? Broooooo, what’s up!”

***

Terence and Omar lived together in the same dorm their freshman year of college. They attended the University of Pittsburgh, or Pitt. In the crucible of freshman year and floor six of Litchfield Tower B, their friendship was forged. Terence and Omar were roommates assigned to live together. The close quarters and living conditions took some getting used to. Their beds were 6 feet apart and across the hall from the communal bathrooms. But they adjusted. Terence and Omar shared a love of video games and bonded over late night Madden tournaments among their floor six brethren.

As it turned out, their friendship was built on things deeper than video games and beer-chugging contests at frat parties. Terence was a black kid from Brooklyn and Omar was an Indian from Edison, New Jersey. One night, a few guys from Tower B were walking to a house party. In the opposite direction a separate group of guys passed. One of them stopped after seeing Omar and started shouting.

“Go back to your country, Osama!” “We don’t want your kind here!”

Terence shut down what could’ve been a heated situation before things got physical. He stuck up for Omar and made things clear to the racist: you’d have to go through me to get to Omar.

No other guy stood up for Omar like Terence did. In the subsequent months and years of college, their bond strengthened. Before any holiday trip back to New Jersey, Omar always offered Terence a ride to Brooklyn. They would wile away the drive listening to hip hop and talking about college and their futures.

After college, Terence went to law school and then began working in DC. Omar bounced around jobs after graduation. Now he was doing promotion for a club in Miami. Work, geography, and life happenings drove Terence and Omar out of touch after college. But they began to text again a few months ago. Through these texts, a guy’s weekend was born.

Terence remembered those first texts from Omar after a year of no contact.

Omar: Hey bro, check it out! I just found this article.

Terence: Hey, what’s up man? It’s been too long!!! What’s this article about and why are you sending it to me??

Omar: We’re looking to expand the club and thinking about opening a Las Vegas location. I started going through Vegas newspapers to see what articles I could find relating to clubs and if there were any trends we needed to be aware of. That’s when I found this article… Check out the author.

Terence: Isn’t that Mo?

***

In college, Terence and Omar absorbed Maurice into their group six months into their freshman year at Pitt. Mo as he came to be known as was on a different floor of their dorm but found his way to Terence and Omar’s room, drawn by the Madden games he’d heard about. Soon, Mo was coming to their room even when Madden wasn’t on the menu. They began to do everything together. Then went to parties together. They studied together and talked about girls and sports.

They decided to make the trifecta official by living together their sophomore year. Their off-campus digs were spacious compared to the first-year dorms. Living in a house also gave them the space to throw parties.

Mo was a gregarious mixed-race kid from Henderson, Nevada. His mom was Haitian and his dad was white. Mo was often fielding questions relating to his ethnic background.

“So, where are you from? Not where you were born but like, where are you from?” “So, what are you?”

Although he never got upset at strangers that asked him questions about his race, Mo confided to Terence and Omar that he was tired of the inquiries.

“People feel like they have the right to ask me anything, you know? Sometimes, I just wish no one would bother me or ask me any questions about this stuff. I can’t control what I look like!”

Terence and Omar knew what Mo was going through. People routinely guessed Omar’s ethnicity—he’d gotten Turkish, Hispanic, and Iranian so far. Terence faced questioning in neighborhoods that people didn’t think he “belonged” in. Terence and Omar gave Mo nods of acknowledgement and let him vent.

Living together brought the three of them closer in the ways that sharing groceries, throwing parties, and cleaning the house haphazardly before your parents’ surprise visit can do to college students. They bickered about normal roommate things like whose dirty dishes were in the sink. But the core of their friendship remained intact and grew over time.

The summer after their sophomore year, they left the shared house for different summer internships. Terence interned at a law firm in Pittsburgh doing administrative work. Omar spent his summer in New York working for a small financial advisory firm and Mo worked for an environmental non-profit in Las Vegas.

Mo’s parents ran a convenience store in his hometown, 20 minutes from Las Vegas. A month before Mo was to return to school for the fall semester, he received devastating news. His mom had an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. Within two weeks after her diagnosis, Mo noticed her clothes weren’t fitting like they normally did and she began to lose weight. Mo’s father knew how much college and Pitt, specifically, meant to his son. So, it broke his heart to ask Mo to stay home to look after the store so he could look after his wife.

After taking the fall semester off from Pitt, Mo enrolled at the University of Nevada. He continued his education in between working hours at the family store and helping his dad. Mo’s mother had been the light in the family. She was responsible for the bounce in her husband’s step and the smile on his face. Without her, Mo’s father teetered on the brink of everlasting sadness, all joy gone from his life. He never asked but Mo knew his dad needed him. So, he stayed home. And never went back to Pitt.

In the beginning, Terence and Omar texted and called Mo. They offered him their heartfelt condolences. Eventually the calls ceased and so did the periodic text messages. Years passed, careers changed, and life took its toll on the friendship.

***

Maurice Tyson was tired. He wanted to sleep for 2 days straight. This is a natural feeling when you fit 10 hour work days around a campaign for District Attorney. His case load wasn’t getting any lighter. People weren’t going to stop killing, trying to kill, or generally just being terrible towards each other because he was running for DA. But he was used to the work. What he didn’t like was asking people for campaign money. Asking people for help was draining and outside his comfort zone. But he knew a well-oiled machine was more likely to win. So, he played the game. He did interviews on local cable television and even wrote a short opinion piece in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He advocated for sentencing reform and an emphasis on rehabilitation versus stricter jail sentences for offenders.

Tonight was going to be different, Maurice thought. His manager noticed the wear and tear of the campaign on Maurice’s face. The bags under his eyes more prominent than normal and he was always stifling a yawn. Maurice had the night off. Finally. So far, his evening was going exactly to plan. He’d already finished a turkey and provolone sandwich from Capriotti’s. Although Capriotti’s was heaven on earth, it wasn’t as much about the food as it was how he ate it. On his own time. As slow as he wanted. Not in between court appearances or campaign stops. He loved owning his own time again, even for just one night.

Maurice sat on the couch and began to unfurl the recliner. He’d already poured himself a healthy glass of Glenlivet 12 year. His first sip put a smile on his face and he savored the moment. Maurice was deciding which movie to watch when his phone rang. He furrowed his brow. The only one who called him this late was Gary, his campaign manager, but he was the one who’d given Maurice the night off.

It wasn’t Gary. It was a number beginning in 202 from DC. Who did he know from DC? He let the call go to voicemail.

A minute later his curiosity got the better of him and he turned his phone over, seeing a voicemail. Maurice put the phone to his ear.

“Mo, is this still you’re number? This is Terence man…I’m sorry you’re hearing from me like this, out of the blue, but we’re I mean I’m in Vegas right now…and I need your help man. I can’t find Omar.”

Mo paused and sighed deeply. Then, he got up.