The Interwise Story - Chapter 6
It was end of December, and I was walking down seventh avenue towards times square in the freezing weather. I was wearing a heavy leather coat and a pair of brand new golden handcuffs. My head was racing.
I just sold my Company, Interwise to AT&T and had a few million reasons to stay there as an executive for the next couple of years. It did not take long aboard the "Mothership" to realize that two years can be an awfully long period of time. To stay or to go, to bailout or trot along, that was the question.
Times square brought no inspiration, so I turned to 44th street, searching for the light. Russell Crow surprised me with a stern gaze from the Lows theater colossal advertising screen facing the street. The next screening is at six pm. The time is three minutes to six; Russell and I go many movies back, I stepped in. The theater was packed; I had to walk all the way up and take a seat right there in the first row smack in the middle looking up the giant screen.
Russell Crow is a New York police officer chasing down a rising star drag dealer named Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington). The Vietnam war is raging, and Frank Lucas has a brilliant supply chain setup. He ships his powder in the body bags underneath the corpses. Every C130 landing with a crop of dead soldiers also meant a shipment had arrived. Frank takes over the drug market in New York and becomes the most powerful drug overlord in the states.
And then, like all other good things, this one too (in the movie), comes to an end. The war is over, no more dead soldiers and no more C130 planes. Frank Lucas refuses to let go and travels to the jungles of East Asia to meet his long time Chinese partner and supplier.
The old chines drug overlord was seated on an elevated chair deep in the green forest. He looked down to Frank Lucas seated at his feet and told him it’s over. Frank refused to let go. The old man bent forward, his face filling the screen above me, he stared right into my eyes and said “Frank, quitting while ahead is not quitting“. Cold sweat running down my back I looked up dazzled. The old man on the screen saw that he got my attention and leaned ever closer. “Frank” he half-whispered “quitting while ahead is not really quitting”
Shivers running down my spine I looked around. The theater was packed as before, with hundreds of people stuffing their faces with popcorn but the old Chinese was undoubtedly talking to me (And Frank Lucas). The rest of the movie did not register with me other than the fact that Frank Lucas did not quit. He went on and lost everything, money, family, and his health. He ends up in jail a broken man.
When the movie was over I stayed in my seat reading the roller, something I never do. To my surprise, I learned that this movie was based on a true story, that there is a real person called Frank Lucas, and that this was his life tail of events. It so happens that Frank Lucas is actually still alive and still in jail paying his sentence.
That night at the hotel I googled frank Lucas. I saw a picture of a broken man in his sixties sitting in a wheelchair on the day he was released from Jail Just a few weeks ago. I shut the computer and got into bed. I have this habit of finding solace in other peoples problems as the day draws to an end, so I opened the TV to watch the news. the screen lit up with an image of a broken man in a wheelchair in his sixties looking at me. He looked damn familiar. It took me a minute to figure out this was Frank Lucas (again) staring at me from the TV on the wall. Cold sweat covered for me the second time today.
It took me another minute to realize that this was a ducumentary film about Frank Lucas that they were running. it so happened that as I was opening the TV on a random channel I landed on this particular film in the very particular random moment that showed Frank Lucas coming out of jail. I shot my eyes hard to prevent Lucas from jumping at me from the ceiling above the bad and went to sleep.
in the morning I tried to figure out what was it all about and more particularly what the old Chinese guy meant. Should I quit now and leave my golden hand cuffs right there on the hotels bed or should I stand by the promise I gave when acquired and slug it out for two years? I was searching for my inner voice. The one that in the end of the day doesn’t really tell you what to do and has more to do with who you want to be.
“Quitting while ahead is not quitting“
Do with it whatever you see fit…
I stayed.
And after having served my sentence in two years' time...
Left.
Chapter 7 - You
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