Baby Brother's Blues

by Pearl Cleage

  Janice and Michelle had joined two brothers at another table, but excused themselves when their friends returned and hurried over to signify.

  “You didn’t tell me you were auditioning for Soul Train,” Mickey said.

  “Go to hell.” Zora laughed. “I haven’t danced that much since high school.”

  “Me neither,” Baby Brother said as a waitress brought him another beer and another shot without being asked. He took a long swallow of the beer and grinned at Zora. He had had two more drinks while they were downstairs and he was pleasantly high and feeling expansive. “We should come back here tomorrow.”

  Mickey giggled. “You don’t want to do that, sweetheart. Tomorrow’s DL night.”

  “What the hell is DL night?” He had been away only a few months, but the latest slang had already passed him.

  “It’s the one night of the week when all the down-low brothers come out to play. They spend all Sunday morning in church and all Sunday night at the club,” Mickey was happy to explain, watching for his reaction.

  “This club?” Baby Brother was surprised. He’d never heard of a straight club and a gay one sharing space. Most dudes on the DL were so paranoid about being outted they wouldn’t go anywhere near a straight club with a man they were interested in sexually.

  Jan giggled. “It’s crazy, right? They don’t even open the front door. All entry through the rear.”

  Zora wrinkled her perfect nose. “How corny is that?”

  It didn’t sound corny to Baby Brother. It sounded like opportunity. He knew he could always pick up a few dollars where men were looking for other men. That didn’t make him a professional hustler. It was just a question of economics. Given a choice, he’d always rather have a woman, but he needed some cash fast, and hauling tomatoes at two hundred dollars a week wasn’t taking him anywhere he wanted to go. Davy’s right-wing radio fixation was already driving him crazy. Besides, he thought, draining the green bottle of the last of his beer, it wasn’t like he’d never done it before.

  “Too corny for me,” he said, reaching for his beer. How many did this one make? Four? Or was it five? He couldn’t remember. What difference did it make anyway? He wasn’t paying or driving, and unless he was mistaken, Zora had something for him.

  The DJ put on the latest hip-shaking anthem from Beyoncé and her girls. Zora stood up and held out her hand with a smile. “You want to give it one more try?”

  He grinned at her, drained the last of the shot that came with the beer, and stood up to put his arm around her waist. His head was buzzing with the liquor and the music and the possibilities that lay ahead. “You ain’t tryin’ to hurt a nigga, are you?”

  “Not me,” Zora said, laughing. “I’m trying to heal one.”

  That dance turned into two or three more until Mickey finally said she was leaving, and if they wanted to stay, they could catch a cab home. It was time to call it a night and not a moment too soon. By the time Mickey dropped them off at Zora’s apartment, Baby Brother realized he was way higher than he had intended to be. He hoped he wasn’t too drunk to make love to Zora. Sometimes cognac put his penis to sleep and there was nothing he could do to wake it up until the liquor was out of his system. If that happened, he’d have to try oral sex, but even though he had been told he was good at it, that definitely wasn’t his first choice.

  He stumbled a little when he got out of the car and followed Zora up to the blue front door, weaving slightly as she searched for her key. She was one lucky girl to have hooked up with him, Baby Brother thought. She was in for the best sex of her life, as soon as she got the damn door open. He leaned forward suddenly, grabbed Zora’s behind, and squeezed hard. When she whirled around, he stumbled against her, grinning and glassy-eyed.

  “Are you drunk?” Zora said, a frown wrinkling her beautiful forehead.

  “A little,” he said, giving her a lopsided smile. “Are you?”

  “I don’t get drunk.”

  He noticed that she held her key in her hand, but was making no move to open the door. The urgent need to urinate suddenly overwhelmed him. “Can we go upstairs now, baby? I gotta pee bad.”

  Zora was incredulous. She couldn’t believe he had gotten this drunk the first time they ever went out. He could hardly stand up. Any thought she might have had about inviting him upstairs vanished.

  “Go home and pee.”

  “Can’t make it that far, baby,” he said, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Try,” she said, sarcastic as hell.

  Baby Brother didn’t appreciate her tone, but he couldn’t really worry about that now. What she didn’t seem to realize was that in about two seconds, he was going to pee all over her pretty little feet.

  “Aw, baby,” he whined. “Don’t be that way.”

  “Go home,” she said again, then opened and closed the door in one smooth motion, leaving him alone outside, too surprised and drunk to follow.

  “What the fuck?” He really had to pee now. He looked around for assistance, but it was very late. The street was deserted and he knew nobody was going to let a drunk stranger in to use the bathroom. He had no choice but to knock on Zora’s door, knowing she could hear it, even if she had already gone inside. “Zora! What the fuck?”

  She didn’t come back out, so he knocked again and called a little louder.

  “Zora!”

  The urge to pee was becoming imperative. Shit! She wasn’t coming out again. That much was clear. He felt like he was about to explode. What the hell was he supposed to do? The large magnolia tree in front of the house seemed like the best option and Baby Brother stumbled back down the walk toward it, unzipping his jeans as he went. He didn’t even notice the black Lincoln easing down the quiet street until it pulled over and stopped at the curb right beside him.

  “Jamerson!”

  Even drunk as he was, the sound of General’s voice stopped him. He groaned, fumbling to zip his pants back up before he turned around. Baby Brother didn’t know what was scarier. The fact that General had happened by or the fact that the man knew him by sight and by name.

  “Yes, sir?” he said, trying not slur his words and failing.

  “What the hell are you doing?” General’s voice from inside the car was outraged and enraged, a dangerous combination for one o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  “I just dropped off Zora,” Baby Brother said, stumbling over her name.

  “Did she tell you to pee in her front yard?”

  “No, sir, I just… I had to pee and she wouldn’t let me come inside.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Because…” His voice trailed off. Wasn’t it obvious? “Because I was… drinking.”

  “Because you’re drunk.”

  “Yes, sir, I am.” He would have confessed anything if General would just give him a chance to relieve himself.

  “Get in the car.”

  Baby Brother resisted the urge to groan, climbed in the front seat, and pulled the door behind him. General loomed large in the seat beside him.

  “If you pee in this car I will cut your head off,” he said, locking the doors with a dull thud as they pulled away from the curb.

  The two blocks to the apartment were excruciating. The car moved at a crawl and every small bump in the road was torture. When General pulled up in front of his apartment, Baby Brother wanted to fling open the door and run to the toilet, but General didn’t click the locks. He looked at Baby Brother coldly, ignored the squirming, and spoke in a voice full of contempt and barely controlled anger.

  “I recommended that Mr. Hamilton not make a place for you here, but he thinks you can grow the fuck up and be a man, so he’s allowing you to stay. But know this, youngblood. I got my eye on you.”

  Baby Brother did not want General to cut his head off, but in about ten seconds, it wouldn’t be up to him anymore. “Yes, sir.”

  General looked at him with undisguised contempt, then finally clicked the locks. “Get the fuck out.”

  Baby
Brother half leaped, half stumbled out of the car. General turned out of sight at the corner, but it was too late. Before he could get in the house, bad-ass Wes Jamerson stood right there on the corner of Oglethorpe and Peeples streets, peed on his new Sean John jeans, and cried like a baby.

  42

  Sunday was Regina’s favorite day of the week. Blue made breakfast and squeezed fresh juice while she put on a pot of coffee, set the table, and found some music that suited them. Sometimes Blue would sing a little if something caught his ear. Regina would stop where she was and listen. His voice was still amazing even though he never sang professionally anymore. He was still sexy as hell, too, even just making pancakes. Maybe especially while making pancakes.

  Sometimes they watched CBS Sunday Morning. Sometimes they went back to bed and made love. They always read the Sunday papers together. In addition to The Atlanta Journal/Constitution, they read The New York Times, The Atlanta Sentinel, and The Washington Post. Sometimes they would leaf through a paper printed in a language neither one could read or speak. Blue said it helped him remember how big the world was and that how smart you are depends on where you’re standing. He read voraciously and was probably the most knowledgeable person Regina knew when it came to international affairs. Not many people were aware of this because Blue tended to keep his opinions to himself, preferring not to engage in emotionally charged discussions with people not nearly as well informed as he was and usually twice as opinionated.

  Blue had never been a big talker. Regina sometimes teased him that he didn’t need to talk as much as other people because he was such an expert mind reader.

  “That should make me talk more.” He laughed. “Think of the stories I could tell.”

  Regina could remember a time when the possibility that the man she loved had the ability to read her mind would have driven her into a frenzy of trying to think only the purest, most intelligent, admirable, compassionate thoughts possible, knowing her brain was at that very moment alive with fear, guilt, secrets, lies, and fabrications of all kinds. It was exhausting.

  But she had no secrets from Blue. Even the idea of secrets was inconceivable. She wanted to get as close to him as she possibly could in every possible way. In order to do that, she had to be as light as a feather inside. She had to learn to just let people be, including her husband. Blue was not a work in progress. He was a fully formed human being and so was she. This had been a revelation, removing as it did the need to reform, refocus, nag, cajole, beg, wheedle, and weep. All she tried to do these days was stay in the moment and enjoy the life she was moving through right now. The one where she was sitting on the floor in her living room, surrounded by a disheveled pile of newspapers.

  Blue was sitting in a big leather chair an arm’s length away in a white sweater that made his skin look like dark chocolate, reading a story in The New York Times about the difficulty veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were having trying to adjust to life back in the United States. He was reading the article aloud, his mellifluous voice as neutral as a network newscaster. The reporter chronicled the disastrous reentries of several young soldiers with young children and wives ill equipped to handle the volatile mixture of emotions these men were carrying like a virus. In each case, there was little help available, although the possibility for violence was always present.

  He read the last sentence, a wistful quote from a young vet reacting to a friend’s recent suicide by questioning his own desire to live, and looked over at Regina, listening intently and absentmindedly rubbing her belly.

  “That’s terrible,” she said. “I can’t believe the army doesn’t routinely have counseling services in place for returning vets.”

  “They better do something fast.” Blue folded the paper with a little frown, his eyes cloudy and distant. “It’s already too late for some of these women.”

  Regina’s hand now rested gently on her stomach. Blue’s neutral voice had disappeared and his eyes became suddenly dark and cold.

  “What do you mean? Too late for which women?”

  She slid over closer and rested her hand against his knee. He stroked her hand slowly, lingering over each one of her long, slender fingers. Blue always chose his words carefully and she had learned to be patient. It was always worth the wait.

  “You remember that woman they found cut up in her husband’s apartment a couple of weeks ago?”

  The extreme violence had been irresistible to the news media, which updated the story around the clock, including widespread speculation that the victim’s missing husband was the killer. Regina remembered photographs of the woman’s children at the funeral, huddling in a weeping little knot around their exhausted grandmother, their mother dead and their father nowhere to be found.

  “I remember her.”

  “Her husband was in Iraq for a year.”

  Something in Blue’s voice made Regina realize that this man, whom the police had been unable to find, had not been able to elude her husband’s all-seeing eyes. A slight chill ran down her spine, but she shrugged it off and reached for The Sentinel.

  “Did you see the piece B.J. did about the new veterans program at the Morehouse Medical School?” Regina asked.

  Blue shook his head.

  “It’s aimed at easing the transition you’re talking about. The guy in charge said it’s a public-health crisis. Domestic violence, mental illness, post-traumatic stress. He says it’s one big mess.”

  “He got that right,” Blue said. “Is this guy a vet?”

  “The director? I don’t know.” Her eyes scanned the article that ran alongside a photograph of a terrified-looking woman with an equally frightened-looking child in her arms, standing beside the man of the house, a huge Marine with a bodybuilder’s physique and a recurring nightmare during which he beat his wife severely without ever waking up. “Does it matter?”

  “Hard to relate to vets if you’ve never been to war.”

  Regina’s eye found what she was looking for. “He was in the Gulf War. He didn’t get any counseling when he got out either. That’s why he started the program.”

  She handed Blue the paper. “It sounds like a good idea. Maybe you could help them.”

  He leaned back in the chair and smiled at her, his eyes clear again like a summer sky after the rain. “Help them?”

  “Well, they’re trying to raise money,” she said. “And you agree it’s a real problem. You’ve seen it yourself, right?”

  “I have indeed.”

  “Well, this would be a way to address the problem without…” She felt herself beginning to flounder. “Without having to… do anything directly.”

  “Not many things more direct than money.”

  “I just thought maybe… I mean, I know you can’t stop doing what you do, but maybe you could step back just a little… from the day-to-day stuff… you know.” She was in too deep to stop, but she hated herself for bringing it all up again. She took a deep breath and tried to take the edge off her voice. “Maybe try some other approaches.”

  He slid from the chair to the floor beside her and put his arm around Regina’s shoulders. She turned to face him and he leaned over and kissed her, his lips warm against her own.

  “Are you still trying to make an honest man out of me?” he said as she moved into the circle of his arms and cuddled against his chest. He kissed the top of her head.

  “You’re the most honest man I know.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” He raised her palm to his lips, his mustache a soft tickle.

  “No problem.” She sighed. “I think I might volunteer for that program over at Morehouse.”

  “That’s good,” he said, kissing her fingertips. “You’re not starting today, are you?”

  She laughed and slipped her other hand under his sweater. His skin was as warm as his mouth. “No, baby. Not today.”

  43

  Monday was always slow at Montre’s. By late afternoon, Brandi had been at work almost two hours and had made exa
ctly three dollars in tips. She was as bored as the two guys at the bar who were nursing their lukewarm beers. All the weekend money had been spent and payday was still four days away. Brandi slithered around the pole without enthusiasm. Those guys didn’t deserve a full show, she thought. They weren’t going to tip anyway.

  General had said he was coming by later, but that usually meant after midnight. That way if he wanted her to leave with him, she could get off a little early without hearing a lot of grumbling from Johnny. Not that Johnny ever said anything to General. His place was over the West End boundary, true enough, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be on the wrong side of Blue Hamilton. These days, if the big man wanted her for a private dance at his place, Brandi kicked back something to the other girls who’d have to cover for her on the pole and kept steppin’.

  To Brandi, General was the best thing that had happened to her in ages. He liked pretty straightforward sex and he was in great shape, so she didn’t have to do all the work. She hated rolling around with the fat guys, or even the ones who weren’t fat, just soft. They wanted those gymnastics they saw in the porno movies, where a woman could take on two guys at the same time while standing on one foot and giving a third man a blow job. General wasn’t looking for all that. He liked to get in the bed, turn out the lights, and take his time. That was fine with Brandi. The bed was always the easiest place to drive a man crazy and she was trying to do just that so General wouldn’t forget his promise to take her to Vegas. She couldn’t get away from Montre’s fast enough, and with him as her sponsor, there was no telling what might open up.

  She looked around the almost empty room and sighed. It was time for her to try to get some lap dances, but the two sad-eyed men at the bar were busy staring into their half-empty beer bottles. She knew approaching them would be a waste of time, so she decided to do one more set and, if nobody came in, take a break. Ain’t no point in killin’ myself up here, she thought. I ain’t gonna be here that much longer no way.