the book of denzed

He has lived a big life. Tough streets, close calls, a wife of forty-one years, four kids, fifty movies, two Oscars, three Equalizers...all by the grace of God. For the first time on the occasion of Gladiator II, one of the biggest films of his epic career, and his approaching seventieth birthday the man himself breaks it all down, in his own words, to the moments that mattered and the experiences that made him. He has lived a big life, but Denzel Washington ain't done yet.

- Denzel Washington

I was with my friend Frank the night his brother murdered a guy.

It was Mount Vernon, New York, where I grew up. We were maybe eleven, twelve. My parents were getting divorced, and me and Frank were out late, just walking around, and we’d stay wherever we ended up for the night. (I’m changing the names; this was a long time ago.)

We ran into his brother Robert. Now, everybody knew Robert was a guy who—bless him—everybody said was crazy after he came back from Vietnam. They said he’s crazy and he’s a killer and be careful. I think he was Green Beret, those guys that would cut throats behind enemy lines. But he didn’t bother me none. We’d smoke weed together and he’d say, “You know, D, everybody’s scared of me, man. But you’re not scared of me.”

And I said, “Well, man, you’re just Frank’s big brother.”

I met Frank because when I was eleven I started working in a barbershop up on Fourth Avenue. To get there, you had to cut—or I would cut—through the projects where the basketball courts were, so I started meeting a whole new group of friends in there.

Everybody was gone for Frank and Robert—mother, father, nobody around for them. Frank lived with our other friend Mitch. Miss Mitchell took him in. We had a little band, four of us. Mitch was our lead guitar player, Frank played bass, our friend Jake played the drums, and I played keyboards. My mother owned her own business, a beauty salon, so we had a little bit more money and she could buy me an organ, a Farfisa. We used to rehearse over Jake’s mother’s house, maybe ten minutes away from my house, down by Memorial Field, because they had an attic three or four floors up where nobody could hear us.