Baby Brother's Blues (18 page)

31

B
y the time Baby Brother pulled into the parking lot beside the Morehouse Medical School, his sister’s car was running on fumes. He’d driven the ten hours from D.C. straight through and arrived in Atlanta broke, exhausted, and annoyed at the insanity of the rush-hour traffic, as if the city had arranged it just to slow down his progress. He pulled off the freeway near the state capital and drove around for ten minutes, wasting gas and looking for a pay phone. He found two quarters in the loose change his sister, a nonsmoker, always kept in her ashtray, and called the number Zora had given him.

“Veterans Support Project,” a male voice answered on the second ring. “Dr. Epps speaking.”

“Can I speak to Zora?”

“She’s not here,” Dr. Epps said. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, well, Zora said if I got to Atlanta to call you and you’d know how to find her.”

There was a slight pause. “Are you a veteran?”

Technically, yes,
Baby Brother thought. “Yeah, I’m a veteran.”

“Are you driving?”

The questions were routine, but they annoyed Baby Brother. “Yeah, so?”

“Why don’t you come by the office? I’ll call Zora and tell her you’ve arrived. She’ll probably want to meet you here. Do you need directions?”

That was the stupidest question yet. “Yeah.”

Fifteen minutes later, Baby Brother was sitting in the project office, wondering where Zora was and being gently but firmly grilled by Samson Epps.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” Dr. Epps said, after asking Baby Brother his current status with the army. He had seemed surprised that Baby Brother wasn’t in uniform until he explained he was home on personal leave for a funeral. “How much leave did they give you?”

Baby Brother stood up, frowning. “Hey, look, man, I didn’t come here for no counseling and shit. I’m just waiting for Zora,
aw-iiight
?”

As if on cue, before Samson could respond, Zora walked through the door, spotted Baby Brother, smiled, and stuck out her hand. Both men stood when she entered the room, either from politeness or simply because, as Baby Brother immediately recognized,
she was looking very, very good.
Her hair was pulled back from her face and her smile was as dazzling as he remembered. Her low-slung jeans were sexy without being obvious and he could glimpse the curve of her breast under her gauzy brown peasant blouse.

“Hey, Wes,” she said, extending her hand to him. “You made it.”

“Yeah, well…” He didn’t know quite what to say. “Here I am.”

“You met Dr. Epps?”

Samson nodded. “We’ve been getting to know each other.”

Zora picked up the disapproval in Samson’s tone and ignored it. “Good. Do you want to grab some breakfast before I have to go to class?”

“That’s cool,” he said, glad they were leaving this place. He was tired of answering questions.

“See you tomorrow, Dr. Epps,” Zora said, leading the way out.

Baby Brother followed her happily, enjoying the view from behind. She wasn’t driving, so she rode with him the few blocks to her apartment. He was glad he had enough gas to make it without asking her for money. She directed him to a parking space behind her building and he followed her through what looked like a great big garden and around to the bright blue front door. She reached into her pocket for her key and then turned to look at him with an expression he couldn’t read.

He smiled what he hoped was a neutral smile. Who knew what the day would hold if he played his cards right and didn’t act a fool.

She smiled back. “I don’t know you very well, so I want to be really clear about things, okay?”

“What things?”

“I’m glad you came. I want to get to know you better. But this morning, all we’re going to do is have breakfast and talk.”

He grinned at her. “Damn, baby you slam the door in a brother’s face before he even gets his foot in it.”

“Call me Zora, okay?”

“Okay,
Zora.
This is just two friends talkin’ over some bacon and eggs. Period.”

“I’m a vegetarian,” she said, but her smile widened.

“Okay,
bean sprouts
and eggs.”

She actually giggled at that one and Baby Brother thought that even just breakfast would be a treat with a woman as fine as this one.

“I’ll try and do better than that,” she said, opening the blue door and leading him upstairs to her second-floor apartment. The inside door was unlocked and there were no burglar bars. She had a big old couch with a slouchy slipcover, a desk by the window, and a couple of well-used pillows stacked in the corner that were meant to substitute for chairs.

She dropped her book bag on the couch. “Come on in the kitchen,” she said, clicking a CD to life on the small boom box on the desk. He recognized the voice of Alicia Keys lamenting the fact that some oblivious brother didn’t even know her name.

“Sit down,” Zora said, nodding at a tiny table and two chairs. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“I didn’t know vegetarians could drink coffee.”

“Where’d you hear that? The rule is don’t eat anything with a face on it. That makes coffee beans fair game.”

She moved around her kitchen easily, putting on the coffee, setting out cups, a small pitcher of cream, and an oversize sugar bowl. He remembered how much she had sweetened her coffee in D.C. and smiled to himself. She caught the look and smiled back at him.

“Sugar doesn’t have a face either.”

He laughed and she realized how different he looked when he smiled. Younger, cuter,
sweeter.
She reminded herself of the limitations she had imposed on their time together.

“How about an omelet?”

“Sounds good,” he said, the words alone eliciting an audible growl of anticipation from his very empty stomach. “I’m starving.”

“This won’t take long,” she said, cracking eggs in a bowl.

His eyes watched the gentle movement of her body inside her blouse. “You know something Zora?”

“What’s that?”

“You even look good cookin’.”

“You’re just hungry.” She laughed, reaching for the whisk.

“I ain’t too hungry to recognize a fine woman when I see one.”

“Thanks,” she said, putting two slices of bread in the toaster. “Now why don’t you tell me about your plan?”

Baby Brother was confused. “What plan?”

“Well, you came here, right?”

“Right.”

She was putting out two plates, a couple of forks. She poured two glasses of juice. He immediately drank his.

“So what are you going to do now?”

She refilled his glass. The question hung in the air between them. Zora sliced some tomatoes that had been ripening in her kitchen window. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was going to do. He had thought she would help him. Beyond that, there was no plan.

“Can’t that program you work for help me?”

“I thought they could, but Dr. Epps won’t help anybody who doesn’t get an honorable discharge. He thinks it will jeopardize his grant money.” She shook her head and slid a perfect omelet out of the pan. “He’s being a real asshole about it.”

The plate she set down in front of him held the best-looking meal he’d seen in months. Baby Brother decided that the fact the guy she worked for wasn’t going to be of assistance hardly mattered. He was having breakfast with a beautiful woman, in her apartment, and he hadn’t been in town three hours. So far, he seemed to be doing fine without much of a plan. He took a big bite of his eggs and beamed at Zora across the table.

“Eat your breakfast,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

That
we
was worth the price of admission all by itself. When they finished eating, she stacked the dishes in the sink and poured them both some coffee. After adding enough sugar and cream to suit her, she suggested they move back to the living room. He sat down on the couch. She tossed down one of the pillows and sat cross-legged at his feet, her back as straight as a dancer’s.

“Do you know anybody else in Atlanta?”

“Just you. That’s why I came here, remember?”

“I know and I feel bad.”

“Don’t feel bad. Something will work out.” He had no idea what that something might be.

“Things never just work out. The first thing we have to do is see what your options are.”

He smiled and sipped his coffee. “Maybe I can just hang out for a while here with you until I get my bearings.”

Zora raised her eyebrows slightly. “Well, you’re homeless, jobless, and wanted for questioning by your favorite uncle, Sam. Seems to me like all you’re offering is
a mouthful of gimmee and a handful of if you please.
”

He groaned. “Now you sound like my sister.”

“Maybe you should have listened to her.”

He didn’t like the change in the conversational tone. “You’re the one who told me to come here, remember? You said that guy Epps could do something for me. So now I’m here and all of a sudden he ain’t down? What do you expect me to do? Live on the street? Start robbin’ people?”

“Are those the only two options you can think of?”

Baby Brother put down his cup and stood up. “Hey, you know what? I don’t need this shit. I don’t know what game you’re playin’, but I don’t have time for it, okay?”

Zora looked at him calmly, unfazed by his bluster. “Sit down and drink your coffee. All I’m saying is what about trying to get a job? What you do?”

He could have listed the skills he’d learned on the street—selling dope, stealing cars, shooting dice—but he didn’t think those were the kinds of jobs she was talking about. “I been in the army, okay? But none of what they showed me how to do translates back in the real world. Ain’t no tanks to fix around here. Ain’t no bombs in the street that need to be checked out.”

“You’re right,” she said, her face and her tone suddenly softer. “I apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Baby Brother said, relieved.

“Look, I know a guy who can get you a job,” she said. “It’ll be off-the-books so the army can’t come looking for you and he might even be able to hook you up with an apartment until you get yourself together.”

“Another friend of yours like Epps?”

“Dr. Epps is an asshole about some stuff,” she said, “but he does a lot of good stuff, too.”

“So how do I know this other guy isn’t going to act funny once you tell him I’m a deserter?”

“He won’t care about that.”

Baby Brother raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Why is that?”

“He’s against the war. He doesn’t think anybody should fight in it.”

“Well, that’s a brother after my own heart. When can I talk to him?”

“Hold on, hold on. That’s not how it works.” Zora smiled at his sudden enthusiasm.

He frowned. “How what works?”

“You don’t just go see Mr. Hamilton. You make an appointment.”

“Okay, then make me an appointment.”

“I will, but you need to understand that Mr. Hamilton is not a person who has any tolerance for bullshit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Zora smiled at him again. “It means you got a lot going for you, but you also got a lot of bullshit.”

She sounded so sweet when she said it, he couldn’t even get mad.

“Yeah, so what?”

“So don’t try it with Mr. Hamilton. Just tell him the truth.”

“Okay. I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Zora said, picked up the phone, and dialed the West End News.

32

B
lue had been at Tybee for almost a week. He and General had a lot of catching up to do. It was ten o’clock at night, but that was not unusual. After dinner until closing at midnight was always the slowest part of the day at the West End News. Morning was usually hectic with people trying to get their papers on the way to work and students coming off all-night study sessions looking for a hot cup of real espresso to kick-start their day. At noon, people came in with carryout meals from the area’s many restaurants, looking for the latest celebrity tabloids to peruse as they sat in the park enjoying the sunshine and imagined living somebody else’s life.

By three thirty, lunch was over and everybody was where they were going to be until five o’clock. Jimmy, the man behind the counter, would make fresh coffee, clean the cappuccino machine, and do a quick visual check to see what was running low so he could restock the shelves before their late-day customers started coming in for the evening paper and any neighborhood news they might have missed. Once this last wave cleared out, there were only a few regulars who came by to talk to Jimmy while he got things ready for the following morning. This was also the time when Blue and General tended to have their informal daily briefings. They often went their separate ways for big chunks of time, but once a day, they sat face-to-face and talked. Their routine since their days on the road had served them so well for so long, neither saw any reason to change it.

Blue’s office was at the back of the newsstand, situated at the end of a short hallway crammed with back issues of a dizzying array of national and international publications and secured by a steel security door. In the technical sense, it wasn’t an office. There were no telephones, computers, or office machines. Blue did all his real business by talking to people. Real estate transactions, royalty agreements, and tax preparations he left to trusted professionals, but all other business was conducted one-on-one. That cut way down on the possibility of any misunderstandings.

When people came to see Blue at the West End News, they found themselves in what had once been an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor. The large room with its traditional black-and-white-tiled floor had several small tables and a slightly larger one where Blue always sat, drinking one of the many espressos he consumed over the course of a day, listening to people ask for his advice, his help, his protection. General often sat in the room at a corner table, but he rarely ate or drank anything. He was too busy watching. Part of General’s job was to sense fear or danger before it became a problem and he was good at it.

This morning, listening to the woman who had come to Blue asking for emergency housing because her husband had threatened her life, broken her wrist, and blackened her eye, General had felt himself wondering how long it would be before this same woman found herself sneaking off to see the same fool who had frightened her so badly she finally fled, fearing for her life. It had been happening more and more. They were having a serious problem with women sneaking these guys into the safe apartments Blue made available as emergency shelters. That put General in the impossible position of trying to patrol these women’s houses like they were teenage girls suspected of violating curfew. He needed clarification about how to address the problem.

“Are you sure it’s the same men?” Blue said after General explained what was going on.

“I’m sure,” General said. “We’ve got pictures of all these guys so we can keep an eye out for them. When I got the call last night, I went around there myself just to be sure. It was him all right.”

“Had he been warned?”

“He said she invited him, so he figured it was okay.” General said.

“What did she say?”

“She said she didn’t need anybody all up in her business and I could go to hell.”

Blue slowly shook his head. His eyes had gone from robin’s-egg blue to midnight in the space of a few short minutes.

“I told her she had until Sunday night to make other living arrangements, and that if I saw him around again, he wouldn’t get off with a warning.”

“How old is this one?”

“She’s twenty-two. He was in Iraq for eighteen months. Turned twenty-five during the first bombing of Fallujah.”

Blue nodded slowly. “I remember her. He was beating her so badly she lost a baby.”

“She lost
two.
”

Draining his espresso, Blue pushed the cup away. These women were exposing everyone to a danger they knew better than anyone else. He couldn’t imagine what drove them back to the arms of these cruel men, but he didn’t have to understand it. He just had to be sure it didn’t undo what he was trying to do for them and their children.

“We’ve already warned these guys,” General said. “The last official word they had from me was to steer clear of West End.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I think we’d be within our rights to take care of it.”

Blue knew what General meant and he shook his head. “This isn’t that kind of problem.”

“This is what you say it is.”

What General didn’t understand was that Blue’s help had to be both
invited
and
freely given.
Tipping the balance based on who had
the right
to take it to the next level was counterproductive and ultimately self-destructive.

“You did the right thing, telling her she had to go and warning him again,” Blue said, affirming General’s good judgment, but clearly vetoing his suggested solution. “Make sure one of your guys offers her a ride if she needs it.”

General nodded. He never argued with Blue, even when he disagreed. That wasn’t the nature of the relationship and neither one ever forgot it.

“And keep me posted if it continues to be a problem,” Blue said.

“It’s going to continue to be a problem. You can count on that.”

Blue knew his friend was right and suddenly he was weary of trying to save the race,
one crazy Negro at a time.
He decided to share some good news for a change.

“Are we through with this for now?”

“I got it covered,” General said.

“Good. Then I’ve got one more thing to tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Gina’s pregnant,” Blue said with a proud smile. “I’m going to be a father.”

General’s joy couldn’t have been more complete. He literally whooped, leaped from the chair, and hugged Blue, clapping him on the back and practically dancing him around in celebration. Somewhere, he knew Juanita was dancing, too.

“Oh, damn, man!
Damn!
Congratulations! I can’t believe your black ass is going to be somebody’s daddy!”

Blue laughed, his eyes twinkling happily. “You better believe it. I want you to be the godfather.”

General’s smile froze on his face. “You want
me
to be the godfather?”

“I think that’s the way Juanita would have wanted it, don’t you?”

“Yeah, man,” General said, feeling the tears prickling behind his eyes. “I think that’s exactly what she would have wanted. It’s an honor, brother. A real honor.”

“Good,” Blue said. “I’ll tell Regina.”

General was watching Blue closely as if he wanted to say something but hadn’t quite found the words.

“What?” Blue said.

“You ever think about letting this godfather shit go?” General said quietly. “Now that you’re having a kid and all.”

“When I accepted this responsibility, there wasn’t any time limit on it,” Blue said quietly.

General ran his hand over his close-cropped hair. “You think we’ll be doing this when we’re two old Negroes with bad feet and no driving skills?”

“Nothing changes but the changes.”

They looked at each other, and if General was hoping for more clarification in Blue’s eyes, he didn’t find it.

“Then let’s drink a toast to the next generation of you blue-eyed, past-life motherfuckers,” General said, grinning as he headed for the bottle of cognac Blue always kept behind the ice-cream counter. “We need as many of y’all as we can get!”