Empire on Blood - Bonus Episode | Calvin Buari: Family Guy

Published Oct 2, 2024, 7:00 AM

When we last heard from Calvin Buari his murder conviction had just been overturned. But he didn't have a place to live. A lot has changed in Cal's life since then --  for one thing, you won't believe where he lives now. And Cal has brand new priorities. He says he wants to be a "family guy." So Cal is looking for love after lock-up. Or maybe it's not exactly love he's looking for? Listen now and let Cal explain.

Empire on Blood is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Co. No1

Previously on Empire on Blood. You'll always loved yourself some Calvin.

But now I let Calvin go.

You are not your free men.

Now, okay, see where are we going, you.

Know to drop you?

I'm here.

We all we got us. You know. You and I did a little interview at my house.

You and she came down and you.

Did a little talk upstairs. It's nice, you know, go back and listen to that old tape. It's it's just kind of amazing to you know, be in that time though, like right after.

You were just you can send that to me. Conversation with men.

Yeah, it had been a while years in fact, since i'd seen Cal and Chi and Cal and I were catching up talking.

I was you and me, he was talking.

Then we had another one out here in the back.

Yeah.

I would love to listen to those things.

Really, Yeah, I like that.

Why just to reflect, take me to that space, whether it shows me how far.

Came, how far they both came, Cal and She. It's been seven years since Cal was released from prison. We haven't heard from him or from she since then. There's a lot to reflect on. A lot has changed Cal's financial situation. For one thing, we'll get to that and his personal situation.

I think when she came into my life, I mean, she was just an angel sent from heaven to me. You know, She's always supported me, she always believed in me. She always been a genuine friend.

She whose real name is Sheryl Washington, had come into Cal's life about a decade before his convey was overturned. She'd believed in his innocence, visited him in prison just about every week. Rallied for the free Calvin cause.

I love Chi. I mean, it's nothing that you could just bottle into a title. I mean, it's something that's beyond words or measure. You understand this, I don't. I can't explain it. She's somebody that I would literally put my life on the line for.

We walked together.

It made me think of what she had said about Cow. That was my dog, so call and she she and Cow. I like to think it had the makings of a fairytale romance. Prisoner Calvin Buarre had counted on she in every way, and then finally, after his release, they were together in the same place in the free world. I hoped it would work out.

It would be a beautiful thing for that to Happen.

From Orbit Media. This is pyn Blood the director's cut, a story of murder, betrayal and a man who fought the law for two decades, and about that same man looking for love after a life in prison. When we last heard from Cal, he just entered the free world. Within months of his release, Cal had launched a business, and within a year, incredibly, he was celebrated in Ink magazine. Cal's venture rider's van surface transported family and friends to see loved ones in prison. He liked to refer to it as the Uber of prison transport, though, as the Ink reporter noted, cal knew more about prison than about Uber. Cal and Chie were in the business together, cawmore the businessman and deal maker. She the cli and friendly side of the business, which kept her in the van and at all hours of the day.

I'm getting up two three in the morning, getting them up there, going to gainst some acupunctioner and get him right back to the route. I'm going to get these girls and bring him back.

Cal told inc that rids revenue was about one hundred thousand dollars a year. He negotiated to least three vans, hire a couple more drivers Cal had dreams of taking the business national. Of course he did. Cal being Cal, he told me he was determined to become a legit millionaire. She believed in him.

When he says this is what I'm going to do, that is when I get done.

So I never do that.

Ever.

In the meantime, the van offered another valuable service.

You know, it may be a little uncomfortable to sleep in the van, but I do have somewhere to sleep.

Business might have been declared a success in a national magazine, but at the same time kl was sleeping in one of his business's vans. He parked it in cheese driveway. I'd been stunned and saddened when I learned that he was homeless, but Cal didn't see it that way.

It's a beautiful van, it's a workhoorse, it's trustworthy, and it's my house on wheels right now. You know, do it all in one van for me right now. So right now, I'm very much in love with my van. You know.

She tried to coax him into the house. King refused.

After they've done years in jail, he really knows that person.

Cool.

Yeah, they become acclimated to hearing you know, people get stabbed all types of stuff, and then when they come out, we want them to be with us, And no I don't. I just think they need time.

She know, she sleeps in the van with me sometimes, you know, so you know, there you go. That sucks at all, you know, when you're sleeping in the van and then you have somebody that's willing to say, you know, I'll sleep in there with you.

You know.

She have her little role and I have my little row, you know, and we just turn on the heat till the van get hot, and we listen to our little music, turn off the van and go to sleep.

As she remembers that she always slept in the van.

We were together, seeing we were together, what good we was together? It was no child would just be by himself? Whatever cow was? She fack if he was sleeping in the job. You think I'm gonna be and like thinking about to see I supported you through the darkest day. Do you think I'm about But you sleep outside in dressay by yourself.

No, I don't even think I.

Really knew what love was.

You understand, I didn't see men and women in a loving relationship before. I never seen it. I've never really seen a healthy, loving relationship. So it wasn't nothing that I could be able to draw from or pull from to be able to say that's what I wanted in life.

I thought Cal might experience a loving relationship with Gi, whether inside or outside. Cal never stopped dreaming about success, even when sleeping in a van. Cal had a vision of a gilded future.

Five years.

I'm looking to be on a beach somewhere, a cow. Money I ain't made yet, you know, signing off checks. I'm thinking about five years, I'm really having my brand. I'm really thinking about having a brand, and really, you know, you know, traveling the world. I know things would be so much more better for him.

Cal's dreams were always about the fruits of success to find, pretty much the same way he'd defined them as a drug dealer stacking money. He kept me up to date on his progress via text. First he texted pictures of a Mercedes he'd least for himself shortly after getting out of prison, so many loving photos of leather interiors. Then he sent pics of his businesses Mercedes he'd got at least three pristine white sprinters, And he sent the screenshots of his credit scores. The latest was seven hundred and forty nine, better than mine. Cow was fetishistic about his credit score, and then one day photos of a house popped up on my phone, enough photos to fill in an album. Cow called me that day, shouting.

Geeve, I'm a homeolder.

The single family home set Cow back one hundred and ten thousand dollars. It was an hour north of the Bronx in Newburgh, New York, the kind of place often called up and coming. The house was modest, but it was just a few blocks from the Hudson River and more than enough room for cal and she not bad for somebody just three years out of prison. I was thrilled for Cow and fORCH a new life, a new house. Everything seemed to be working. Calvin front door, I g.

Cooking and cleaning.

So come in, good to see you. So where do we take our shoes off of.

L Col conducts the tour. A huge sectional couch seems to nearly fill the living room. It faces a giant TV which is near a poster of Empire on Blood, and there's an ad for Riders van service which advertises the uber of prison transport. The house is cozy, comfortable, and Cal is so proud and happy. His mood is light, so different from the cow I knew in prison. It made me feel light too.

Can I tell you my going life? See you without a hat on?

Oh my god.

Cow was fastidious about wearing hats everywhere. She told me she had hadn't seen him without a hat, not on purpose. The afternoon of our visit, Cow was wearing a black cat with the word icon stitched in white letters. Suddenly he snatched it off his head.

There it is looks beautiful. I just don't like it.

I lost my hair a sign of our friendship.

Maybe how lost isom you're Oh my god.

It was frustrating the cow when he couldn't control something like aging. The cow seems eternally youthful to me. He still did one hundred push ups every morning. In the day of our visit. He was filled with a youthful optimism. Cal mentioned another feature of the house. Is it true that you sit in the jacuzzi and watched You want.

To go see the jacozy Let's take a.

Look at He told me he likes to watch YouTube university on how to flip properties from his jacuzzie.

So I'm recording the homecoming.

That the big place.

I showa she wants.

To geyser is the dog call. And I go through the kitchen where she has some food, going and onto the deck and down the stairs in the backyard to a tent next to the garage.

It's pouring rain.

Oh my god, come on under here. Oh my god, Calvin burned a jacuzzi tent, seems what's going on?

Is that a rubber duck in a small little rubber ducky there?

This must remind you you're not in prison. Huh.

That evening in Newburgh, we all sat on Cow's deck overlooking the jacuzzie. The rain had stopped and the air seemed fresh. As the day was ending, we drank champagne and ate lobster, Me and my wife, Cal and his partner Gi. Cal was forty eight and she approaching fifty. They seemed on the verge of a new life. I believe it was on that visit that I learned she and Cal were trying to have a baby. And remember that shocked me, But it turned out that having a baby was something Cal thought about all the time. Later Cal told me he wanted to be a family guy.

We actually got them to come to our number. What kid, Dolly.

This is a reenactment for a reality series Life After lock Up. It's cheesy, but I recommend it. In this scene, Oscar Mitchellan that's Cal's lawyer, is on the phone. He's been negotiating a settlement for Col compensation for having been wrongfully imprisoned for two decades.

Two wow, So I could spend this now you can? Okay, you can absolutely. You know my birthday coming on Thursday, so, oh my god, I'm about to celebrate some bottles.

This was great news for Col and maybe for Chi too. Cal eventually received two checks, one from the city, the other from the state. Much later, I asked she about the windfall.

I didn't even know how much he you know, he got. I didn't want to know. Oh no, why it didn't have anything.

You know what I mean, like didn't have anything to do with me.

I didn't want to know.

Do you know now? I think it's like five point four millions.

You know, he did the time, So he did the time.

Cow's not sentimental. Life is taught him that people are undependable, relationships fundamentally unstable. There's only one person to depend on himself.

Well, It's not that I don't like people. This is just that I don't trust people even g Do she loved me? Yes, I believe yes, she do love me. But at the same time, if she want to pick up and boogie with the next man, wall, that's gonna leave Calvin if he's almost sixty years old, now.

Does she.

Probably trusts she a little bit more than she trust a bus driver. She trusts for me to have a child.

She had first crossed paths with Calvin Buari when he was a mink wearing drug dealer and a player lots of women, none of whom he recognized as his woman, not cheese style. She's had a family as a mother of two. Lately, she was busy driving riders van Roots. As she drove, she talked with her passengers, who she called my girls. She knew firsthand how hard it is to visit someone in prison over and over, someone who may never come home. The girls discussed their heartaches. She dispensed advice and encouragement.

So this band service for me.

When they talk to me, they talked.

To me from their jail point right, I talked to them from my reality. Had the jail go on Bolward don't burn out.

I have to tell you, Steve cow.

Meanwhile, I was starting to feel anxiety.

When I first came home in twenty seventeen. Even though I was physically free, I didn't feel mentally free.

Maybe it was the money which gave Caw lots of new options to consider, but he suddenly seemed to feel stuck.

While I'm trying to find myself and I want to really find out what do Calvin really like? What do Calvin really want to do? And if I feel like if I'm with somebody else in a relationship, I kind of blocked myself off.

New York in general didn't seem a great fit for cal He was always on guard. Who was he going to run into? What would they want? He had the Newburgh House, a big accomplishment, but he wasn't sure that Newburgh was the right place for him, so he tried Atlanta. Eventually he bought a property there and eventually flipped it. He didn't like the Atlanta energy.

And when I went to Houston, I started to notice, like my guards getting dropped down. People didn't really know me. People wasn't, you know, looking at me for the case or trying to judge me. It's so clean out there. You could literally eat off the floor in some places in Houston, you know what I'm saying. So, and it's the whole. We're not on top of each other. And then when I walk around it, there's such a different type of energy. I just see kids driving their golf carts. You know what I'm saying that the kids, they don't have no work. I just wish that when I was younger, I could have grew up like that.

One day, Cal showed me photos of his new house in Houston. It's a mansion, six thousand square feet.

Oh my god, tell me what I'm looking at here.

You're looking at me on the float in my pole, by the grillo.

My god, by the grotto.

That's the grotto with the slide. We got the little man cave inside. You know it got the waterfall. I fall down on top of it.

No, Oh my god.

Yes, I like hearing water draft. For some reason, me around water and me here in waterfall puts me at peace. It's like tranquil for me. Yeah.

Wow, who's taking that photo? By life?

But my mom's took that photo. Yeah, my mother took that photo that time.

And you got a TV outside. Yes, and it's a little sitting.

It's my dog. He got his own little couch.

And you see a fireplace out there? Did I see a fire Playeh?

I got a fireplace out there too.

Spend a lot of time designing the inside of the entire house like within any inch of its life. Every door knob, every light fixture, every piece of furniture.

You don't how to live.

I don't deny myself anything.

You're not wild parties?

Oh no, I'm to say I'm not that type of guy. No more. As long as I have everything that I need within my home, it's no really reason for me to go outside of my home. I got a movie there, I got the pool, ditcha COOZI the basketball court, you know what I'm saying, the outdoor fireplace to sign out of the gym, you know what I'm saying. I got my two officers, you know, I got my mother's quarters, you know, and I got everything I need right there. And I really feel like it's a good thing to be alone because I'm cool in my own space now, Steve. I don't have a problem with being alone because you know, I was alone a long time, so I'm not a co dependent type of person.

I mansion with a single occupant. To me, it seemed lonely. He didn't have many visitors. I don't think they'd be welcome unless the visitor was his mother. What did she say when she saw the wing in the house that she was gonna?

Oh?

Man, that was yo. Listen.

It brought me to tears. Man, we were just.

Sitting down, just laughing, And I've just loved to see how at peace she was.

During the show Love After lockdown, call has asked the question.

She is she gonna move down? I mean, she's really reluctant. She really don't, you know, like Houston, because she ain't really been out in Houston. And when she came in my life, she never turned the back on me when I needed on the most. So you know, once once I get to a certain place, I don't see her not coming.

She was reluctant. I asked her about Houston in cam True, but Tree agreed to visit. In his house, Cal has a tank of piranhas, just as he did when he was a drug dealer.

She walks by.

Them, Well put your finger in there if you'd like it.

They sit in Cal's favorite room, the entertainment room. Cal had texted me a video of it. No narration, just one long panning shot along the wall. There are three TVs lined up side by side. He kept sports on one, movies on another, and YouTube University on a third. Which one did he watch.

All of them at once?

Yeah?

You know, a multi dimensional like that.

The TVs were off when she and Cal settled into a long leather couch. They drank champagne. That wasn't clear to me exactly what they were celebrating.

Oh, I have to ban Houston in order to establish myself. You know what I'm saying. This is the house that I really love.

That means more time in Houston and less time for Chi.

I mean, you know, we have to make sacrifices in order, you know, to get to our success.

Can we come off the business for one second?

I mean I'm always on the business.

Okay, Well, put she in the business.

I want to ask Cal if he could have made it out of prison without Chi. He didn't hesitate, I would have had no choice.

You know, Steve, you know me, like you really know me. You seen me go through the ups and downs.

I know Cal is peter naturally determined nothing gets in his way, not for long. And I feel for Cal. I always have from that first collect prison call a dozen years ago, when Cal sped through the points of his case and I found myself thinking of the awful loneliness of running a campaign for your freedom from a prison payphone. But I realized too, I had wanted she and Cal to be happy together. She was soulful and strong, She had good energy on TV. She's visit to Houston was supposed to play as a homecoming, she embracing a new life, a new lifestyle. But she was realistic.

She went to Houston, she was moving on.

I was here. I wasn't holding on to hope.

She went home to the Newburgh House, though her time there was limited. Cal owned that house and he had decided to flip it pocket six figures. Cal gave her noticed that she'd have to leave.

His path has made him a certain m type of way, right, and some people may say ruthless.

And so he only knows one way to deal with his trauma.

And it doesn't.

Matter what what what, This is how he functions, This is all he knows. If it offends you, it offends you.

But this is what gotta be done.

Cal is getting the Newburg house in order to sell. I drive up to visit. We sit on his front porch. No one is living in the house. Cal doesn't seem to know where she is these days. He has other things to talk about. Another achievement to share with me.

And I always told you I wanted this, and now I got it.

This is like drum roll.

Cal hands me his phone shows me a screenshot.

Say what that is?

That is an exceptional crew Go, oh my god, I have to say, I didn't know you could get that high.

Yes, say what your number is?

Main and thirty five?

Okay, man, Well look what your boy did in such a short time.

Man, unbelievable.

Don't you know that calvinber Warry could walk in any financial institution and get access to six digits and do the right thing? Would it? And turned that one hundred into two hundred like nothing? Yeah, I did it.

Steve cal was high on his credit score. Made me think of something she had told me. She said, Col used to tell her my credit score is higher than Steve Fishman's low bar cow, But I was mainly thinking about something else, the breakup with Chi, breakups her heart and if you.

And chin had a kid. That might have been different.

If you hit the nail in the hand right there, you got the possibility that she's out of point, but she can't conceive. And here it is. I could still love her to death and stay here, but I could be miserable as fuck. And I felt like she would try to keep me in a position because she loved me and wouldn't be open and honest with me and be like oo, cayl, I can't do it. I desire to be able to be a father because I've never had one, you know what I'm saying.

Turned out the count obsessed about having a son. He waxed on. I never heard cal so dreamy.

I could be like I have the whole sink, kitchen, everything thrown at me. But when I opened that door, like you see your little son's face, like all I had to get washed away. We gonna gona sit down at dinner. I'm aa smile, i'm'a hug my child. I'm gonna show my child love. I just feel like I could be a beautiful guy for my son so he could be the best that he could be for hisself. You know what I'm saying. And I desire that that's the only thing at this point, as I talked to you, that I feel like I'm missing out on. And it means a lot to me.

You know what I'm saying, not entirely. I mean, I understand the words, and I understand that the money chases, you know, that's largely over and of course I know that having a family offers a different kind of security. But the insistence in Cal's voice, the emotion, where was that coming from?

I mean, I.

Really did think Cal was all about the business. I asked she She knows Cal better than I do, maybe better than Cal knows himself.

I just think you one.

Kid that he can raise, that he you know, knows genuinely loved him, with no hidden agenda.

So finally, somebody you can really trust is that is right.

His blood, his you know, he'll have a chance to raise.

The child him him. He just wants somebody, but you know, a child that's gonna love him.

They won't have to second guess anything.

And so in Houston, Cown's been scouting for a mother for his future offspring. On the porch in Newburgh, he explains.

I'm looking for great character and a person, you know, a family person, you know, and just somebody that has Bob Marvels and princifusion.

Cown says he's found someone in Houston. He refers to her as his friend. They're working on a baby now.

We have an understanding, like I want to be a family guy, man, you know what I'm saying. So whoever have my baby, She's not just gonna be my baby mother, you know what I'm saying. I want to be a part of my family. I don't want to be disconnected from the you know, the mother of my child.

So you can see a life together. Her moving into the Houston mansion and everything.

Yeah, definitely she had my kid.

Yes, and she she's clear eyed. She's moving on too, in a different way. Not so money for one thing, and not so fast.

Gotta let go because holding on means that it's gonna turn you bitter. We came together for a time. The time is up.

She loves to drive. She just bought her own van.

This route gives me a chance to talk to heal, to understand who I am.

She's got her girls people to advise and maybe commiserate on the ride home after they've had their grueling visits with men they may never see on the outside. She buys them wings and champagne. Sometimes she takes them to dinner. She counsels them.

These women get on the vam. I talk no matter what happens. I'll always say, you're the prize. When they're going through things, I say to them, I don't care what it is, you're the prize. You're the prize just like me. It's not about how much money you have. It's not about all the assets. It's not about all the friends, the followers, or anything. I am the prize without any of that stuff. Okay, things happen, it didn't work out. Okay, am I going to be like, oh my god.

Let me go get old zimbik, let me lose weight, let.

Me go get longer hair. I'm gonna walk in anywhere, whether I have one Gucci or Payless, but my head held high. Hey, you're gonna.

Ask my girls.

I'll bring value. I'm the motherfucking price.

As for cal, she has well wishes. They're short and sweet.

I release you with love.

The director's cut of Empire on Blood is produced by Emil Klein. Austin Smith is our associate producer and production coordinator. Fact checking by Ryan Alderman and our theme song, The Lonely King is by mister Lynn. Special thanks to Andy Bowers, who champion the original production at Panicle. I'm Steve Fishman, your host, a king.

The Bilt of Blood leaves the King lonely. We had the burdens of

Your singings and that only, and we have the burn, Lie between friends, and fold the last words you did

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