Baby Brother's Blues: A Novel by Pearl Cleage

Author:Pearl Cleage [Cleage, Pearl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Atlanta (Ga.), Conduct of Life, Social Science, Action & Adventure, Abused Women, African American Studies, General, Family & Relationships, Abuse, Ethnic Studies, Rhythm and Blues Musicians, African American Men, Fiction, African Americans
Publisher: One World
Published: 2006-03-27T23:00:00+00:00

32

Blue 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,

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