Read Online Power & Beauty by David Ritz, Tip "t.i." Harris - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Ritz, Tip "t.i." Harris
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money, don’t you?”
“I can watch money,” I said.
“Like a hawk—that’s how you watch money. You don’t need a college education to watch money. My brother, Louis. The great Louis Samuel Wasserman. My parents gave him a middle name—that’s how sure they were he’d make good. Me, I got no middle name. By the time Louis was born, fifteen years after me, they’d given up on me. I was in the streets and out of school. But Louis Samuel Wasserman, he was going to school. He was going to college. Then he was going to law school. He was setting the world on fire. Not any college, but Yale University. Not any law school, but Harvard Law School. You ever hear of Louis Samuel Wasserman, kid?”
“Afraid not.”
“If you go back a few years and read the papers you’ll read all about him. You see, after law school he didn’t want to be no lawyer. He wanted to be bigger than that. He wanted to make big money. And naturally he wanted nothing to do with me so he moves to New York City and gets in with some famous financiers, the so-called legit moneymen who buy and sell bonds and commodities and raid corporations for cheap and then sell ’em for high. He wants to play in the major leagues, and he thinks I’m bush-league. That’s what Louis Samuel Wasserman thinks.
“That’s your uncle, Judy. The uncle you never even met ’cause he never wanted nothing to do with me or my family. That’s your uncle who went to jail and died there. His famous financiers were crooked as an old bitch’s back. His famous financiers were frauds. And Louis Samuel Wasserman, with all his education and all his degrees, couldn’t see it coming. He didn’t know chicken salad from chicken shit. He got taken for the ride of his life. When he said he didn’t know about the behind-the-scenes schemes I half believed him because he was too stupid to see it.
“And you know what this did to Judy’s grandfather and grandmother? It killed them. A week after the story broke, my father—may he rest in peace—died of a heart attack. A month later his wife of fifty-five years, Muriel Wasserman, had a terrible stroke. Six months later, we buried my mother. Two funerals in six months, and do you think my brother looked me in the eye? Do you think the great Louis Samuel Wasserman said a single word to his only living sibling in the whole world? Not a word, not a single fuckin’ word. Then his first month in the pen he runs into some crazy man who cuts his throat with a butcher knife.”
“Don’t get yourself excited, Daddy,” said Judy. “You’re in the hospital.”
“That’s the best place to get excited. If I have a heart attack here, I press a button and they come running.”
“You’re not having a heart attack,” Judy told him.
“I will if that goddamn beauty shop of yours tanks and costs me a fortune.”
“So I can do it?” asked Judy, bouncing off the chair, going over to her dad, and kissing him on the cheek. When she bent over to kiss him, I saw that her booty was screaming as loud as her titties. Her body was incredible.
“Now you take this kid outta here,” Irv told his daughter. “What’s your name—Peter? Paul? But they call you something else, don’t they?”
“My real name is Paul, but they call me Power.”
“Where does the Power come from?”
I told them how I liked the Power Rangers when I was a little boy.
“Cute story. Okay, Judy, take the Power Ranger over to that old building we own by the lake, the one we turned into lofts. All the young people, they like living in lofts. Don’t ask me why. There’s a little loft over there that’s empty. Show him where it is. You can drive him over there. I’m taking a nap. This leg is killing me. Where’s that goddamn nurse when I need her?”
Hair Is Where It’s At
J udy Wasserman knew what she wanted and how to get it. The “how” was her daddy. She wanted the okay to skip college, and her daddy gave her that. She wanted her own beauty shop,
“I can watch money,” I said.
“Like a hawk—that’s how you watch money. You don’t need a college education to watch money. My brother, Louis. The great Louis Samuel Wasserman. My parents gave him a middle name—that’s how sure they were he’d make good. Me, I got no middle name. By the time Louis was born, fifteen years after me, they’d given up on me. I was in the streets and out of school. But Louis Samuel Wasserman, he was going to school. He was going to college. Then he was going to law school. He was setting the world on fire. Not any college, but Yale University. Not any law school, but Harvard Law School. You ever hear of Louis Samuel Wasserman, kid?”
“Afraid not.”
“If you go back a few years and read the papers you’ll read all about him. You see, after law school he didn’t want to be no lawyer. He wanted to be bigger than that. He wanted to make big money. And naturally he wanted nothing to do with me so he moves to New York City and gets in with some famous financiers, the so-called legit moneymen who buy and sell bonds and commodities and raid corporations for cheap and then sell ’em for high. He wants to play in the major leagues, and he thinks I’m bush-league. That’s what Louis Samuel Wasserman thinks.
“That’s your uncle, Judy. The uncle you never even met ’cause he never wanted nothing to do with me or my family. That’s your uncle who went to jail and died there. His famous financiers were crooked as an old bitch’s back. His famous financiers were frauds. And Louis Samuel Wasserman, with all his education and all his degrees, couldn’t see it coming. He didn’t know chicken salad from chicken shit. He got taken for the ride of his life. When he said he didn’t know about the behind-the-scenes schemes I half believed him because he was too stupid to see it.
“And you know what this did to Judy’s grandfather and grandmother? It killed them. A week after the story broke, my father—may he rest in peace—died of a heart attack. A month later his wife of fifty-five years, Muriel Wasserman, had a terrible stroke. Six months later, we buried my mother. Two funerals in six months, and do you think my brother looked me in the eye? Do you think the great Louis Samuel Wasserman said a single word to his only living sibling in the whole world? Not a word, not a single fuckin’ word. Then his first month in the pen he runs into some crazy man who cuts his throat with a butcher knife.”
“Don’t get yourself excited, Daddy,” said Judy. “You’re in the hospital.”
“That’s the best place to get excited. If I have a heart attack here, I press a button and they come running.”
“You’re not having a heart attack,” Judy told him.
“I will if that goddamn beauty shop of yours tanks and costs me a fortune.”
“So I can do it?” asked Judy, bouncing off the chair, going over to her dad, and kissing him on the cheek. When she bent over to kiss him, I saw that her booty was screaming as loud as her titties. Her body was incredible.
“Now you take this kid outta here,” Irv told his daughter. “What’s your name—Peter? Paul? But they call you something else, don’t they?”
“My real name is Paul, but they call me Power.”
“Where does the Power come from?”
I told them how I liked the Power Rangers when I was a little boy.
“Cute story. Okay, Judy, take the Power Ranger over to that old building we own by the lake, the one we turned into lofts. All the young people, they like living in lofts. Don’t ask me why. There’s a little loft over there that’s empty. Show him where it is. You can drive him over there. I’m taking a nap. This leg is killing me. Where’s that goddamn nurse when I need her?”
Hair Is Where It’s At
J udy Wasserman knew what she wanted and how to get it. The “how” was her daddy. She wanted the okay to skip college, and her daddy gave her that. She wanted her own beauty shop,
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