Baby Brother's Blues

by Pearl Cleage

  Lee figured she owed him that much. He had raised her without complaint after her drug-addicted parents disappeared into Atlanta when she was eight years old. For a while, they would call, promising to return soon and wheedling money from Poppy. When he stopped sending cash, they stopped calling. For a few years, her mother sent birthday cards that arrived weeks late, but Lee never saw either one of them again. If it hadn’t been for Poppy, she didn’t know what she would have done.

  When she graduated from high school with straight A’s and a full scholarship to Georgia Tech, his proud face in the crowd at the ceremony was all the family she needed. He put her on the bus to Atlanta, told her to be careful and not forget the things he had taught her. She promised to visit as often as she could, kissed his cheek, and set off to make her own way.

  At first she came home once a month, rain or shine. College was harder and lonelier than she’d thought it would be and she needed her grandfather’s calm reassurances that she was more than up to the task. As she got more comfortable in her new environment and explored the city, her visits to Macon became less and less frequent. She tried not to miss Christmas and Poppy’s birthday, but it was harder and harder to leave her new life to check in with her old one.

  After graduation, she spent a year buried in the bureaucracy of the city of Atlanta’s planning department and then, on a whim, responded to a police recruitment poster and found her true calling. Lee loved everything about being a cop. She was already in great physical shape, and never having been abused, she had no fear of men. Skeptical at first because at a slender five-foot-five, she looked sexy, not scary in her uniform, her fellow officers soon came to respect her courage and quick thinking under pressure.

  Lee was savvy, street-smart, and tireless. Her goal was to be the chief of police before she turned forty and she knew how to do her job and let other people do theirs. When she began her rapid rise through the ranks of the department, no one was surprised. They knew she was a star on the horizon and it wouldn’t hurt to be able to say they knew her when.

  When she joined the force, Lee hadn’t been looking to get involved in the cocaine business. Her rookie assignment was to a precinct notorious for the Wild West atmosphere created by the constantly warring gangs and their endless struggles to control the lucrative drug trade. Shoot-outs and beat-downs occurred in broad daylight and people were increasingly afraid of being caught in the cross fire. Her first week on the job, a seventeen-year-old dealer had used a fifteen-month-old baby as a human shield and the child was shot and killed. Lee’s beleaguered sergeant wanted action, and he told Lee it was her job to make it happen.

  Lee wanted action, too. Her long-term ambition required the cleanup of this precinct to be a success story, not an embarrassment. So she sat down with T. G. Thomas, the smartest of the gang leaders, and explained to him that he had a new partner. As his partner, Lee promised to create a space for him to move around in where business could be done with a minimum of disruption to community life. Distribution points would be controlled and dealers would stay away from schools, residential areas, and main thoroughfares.

  There would be no more shoot-outs, she explained. It wouldn’t be necessary. The leadership of the other gangs, as well as their soldiers, were being warned to clear out or face her wrath. Lee wasn’t naïve enough to think she could eradicate the drug trade, but she intended to stop the casual violence that surrounded it. T.G., who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, agreed to her proposal and they shook hands. She declined his offer of a share of the proceeds, reminding him that she was still a cop and that if he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, she’d put his ass under the jail.

  Lee knew Poppy would have called it a deal with the devil, but she was realistic. She didn’t need to fix things permanently. She just needed to keep her precinct quiet until she could make her bones and move on. After that, the community was on its own again. Somebody else would have to figure out how to keep the peace.

  Her strategy worked like a charm. Within days, Lee had arrested five dealers and intimidated the rest. Things started to quiet down. People returned to their porches and playgrounds, avoiding the designated spots the dealers now claimed and keeping one eye out for the ever present pit bulls. Lee nipped any renegade activity in the bud. In a month, things were going so smoothly her sergeant commended her and Bob Watson called to invite her to lunch.

  That was almost five years ago. The partnership she had forged with Bob had served them both well. Of all her mentors, Bob had been the most useful, as well as the one she considered most nearly her equal in intelligence, emotional complexity, and sexual stamina. Only the sex had been a surprise. His other qualities were part of why she had been curious about him long before their involvement in the city’s active cocaine trade brought them together.

  She knew who he was, of course. He was well respected, professionally and personally, and had been on a first-name basis with every Atlanta mayor since Maynard Jackson took office as the first African American to hold the seat in 1973. His special interest was the ongoing gentrification of some of the city’s most run-down neighborhoods, including Lee’s precinct. Bob expressed his desire to talk with her about the vital role public safety played in his revitalization efforts. They chatted easily throughout the meal. Over coffee, Bob casually complimented her on forging the deal with T. G. Thomas that had returned peace to the precinct. Until that moment, she was unaware that Bob and T.G. even knew each other.

  “How do you know Mr. Thomas?” Lee said.

  “We’ve been in business together for ten years. He was fifteen when I made an investment in him. He was ready to go off on his own and he needed capital.”

  Bob made it sound like T.G. was going to open a shoe store and had needed a small business loan.

  “I don’t know what Mr. Thomas told you, but all I’m interested in is making it safe for innocent people to walk down the street.”

  Bob nodded slowly. “I understand completely and I share that goal.”

  “Good.”

  “Now, shall we talk about money? I’m prepared to make you a very handsome offer for your continued cooperation.”

  Lee put down her coffee. “What makes you think I won’t arrest you?”

  Bob smiled. “Because you’re ambitious. You want to move ahead in the big city and you know there’s a place here for somebody like you.”

  Flattered, but wary, Lee didn’t return the smile. “You don’t know me.”

  “Oh, yes I do,” Bob said, sounding strangely seductive. “You’re smart. You’re talented and you’re very photogenic. You can go all the way in this town, but you’re missing one thing that is critical to your success.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A mentor. A person who can show you the ropes, begin to introduce you around, give you the road map.”

  She knew he was telling the truth. Having Bob in her corner would be invaluable. With her hard work and discipline and his contacts, she might make chief before she was thirty-five. Plus, he was very attractive, even if he was old enough to be her father.

  “What’s in it for you?” she said.

  “A way to nurture the kind of young talent that Atlanta needs and a way to show my appreciation for your assistance in my business ventures with Mr. Thomas.” He smiled at her again. “If you won’t take money, you’ll have to take me.”

  This time, she smiled back, realizing her life was about to change. “All right,” she said. “I will.”

  “Good,” he said. “Before we move on, let me say this once more and I’ll let it go. If you ever want to take me up on my original offer of a cut of the proceeds, all you have to do is pick up the phone and I’ll handle it personally.”

  “I think I’ve made the best deal,” she said. “Now, when do I get a look at that road map?”

  Bob was as good as his word and their preservation/public-safety partnership gave them a reason to be seen together without generating the gossip on which Atlanta
thrives. Lee was promoted to sergeant, T.G. continued to obey the rules, and things seemed to be falling into place on all fronts. Then her cousin called to tell Lee that Poppy had had a stroke. She hung up the phone, jumped in her car, and headed for Macon.

  Her first stop was the hospital where her grandfather lay unconscious, looking so frail his appearance frightened her. The doctor told her that in addition to the stroke, which seemed to have occurred more than two days before, although he had been admitted only last night, Poppy was suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. Lee was shocked, then angry. She had been sending money regularly to a young cousin who had moved in when Poppy became too frail to live alone. Where was that money going if not to care for her grandfather?

  It didn’t take long to find out. Her first look at the house told her all she needed to know. Even without the gray pallor or the constant shifting of his bugged-out eyes, she would have known he was a crackhead. The house was a wreck. He had moved his girlfriend in, a young white woman whose disfiguring facial scars were a result of the meth-lab fire that had killed her two-year-old when her last boyfriend’s trailer blew up. Her four-year-old had been with his daddy, so he survived and was now living in Poppy’s house, too.

  When she opened the refrigerator, all that was inside were two bottles of cheap beer, a jug of Coca-Cola, and an open package of bologna. Neither her cousin nor his girlfriend seemed to understand why she was so angry.

  “Where you get off actin’ like you lovin’ the old man so much?” the girl snarled. “I been livin’ here six months, and this is the first I seen of you.”

  Lee wanted to slap the woman across her smart mouth, but it was true. She hadn’t been there for Poppy when he needed her. Awash in sudden guilt, she walked out the front door without another word, stopped at the hospital long enough to tell them she’d be back as soon her grandfather could be released, and headed back to Atlanta to make the necessary arrangements.

  Every place she called was expensive. The ones that were in her price range were overcrowded, smelly, and depressing. At the last place on her list, she seemed to be the only one bothered by the roaches that were everywhere. She cut the tour short and called Bob on her cellphone. He arrived at her apartment less than an hour later with twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. She told him it was a loan and she told herself it was a loan, but week after week, she accepted the envelopes he offered, and after a while, they didn’t discuss it anymore. Not even when Poppy died two years later and Lee no longer had to pay almost thirty thousand dollars a month for his care. She had rationalized it by telling herself that there had been no cocaine-related murders in her precinct for almost five years, but she knew that was no excuse for what she was doing. Not anymore. She also knew she had enjoyed a long streak of good luck in a very risky business and every gambler knows the odds are always with the house.

  It was clear that Bob didn’t want the hassle of breaking in a new cop to run street interference for him, but Lee knew it wouldn’t be difficult. Somebody always had bills to pay, or a kid on the way to college, or a taste for the high life. She hoped Bob wouldn’t get ugly about her decision, but ultimately, his displeasure wouldn’t matter. Bob wasn’t the first mentor to have outlived his usefulness. The challenge was to find a way to dissolve their partnership with the least amount of acrimony so everybody could move on without leaving any bad feelings behind.

  Lee smiled and sipped her wine. The bad feeling had now been replaced with a new sense of calm and clarity. She already had an appointment with Precious Hargrove that she’d been trying to schedule for a month. Lee knew that meeting was going to be the first step into the next phase of her life. Senator Hargrove was the future. Bob Watson was the past. Too bad he didn’t know it yet, she thought, closing the drapes and picking up the remote control. She sank down into the cushions of her cream-colored couch and clicked the television into life. How could he know it? He had no frame of reference. Women didn’t leave men like Bob. He left them. Finding himself standing all alone with his dick in his hand would be a new experience, she thought, smiling at the image.

  She had to admit she’d miss the sex, but not enough to miss the boat. Bob was good, but not that good.

  11

  Kwame Hargrove was pissed. It wasn’t his daughter’s fault that her mother was acting like a spoiled brat again, but it was taking all Daddy’s patience not to be short with Joyce Ann, age two and a half going on twenty, who was chattering away about what adventures she’d had today in the preschool world. Normally, he loved sharing this end-of-the-day time with his daughter, but tonight Joyce Ann was supposed to be her mother’s responsibility, not her daddy’s. Except it was now the appointed hour, and Mommy was missing in action.

  Taking a deep breath, he tried to focus on what his daughter was saying. Joyce Ann was his heart, a sweet-natured little angel who seemed unaffected by the increasing tension between her parents. Kwame had been present at her birth and cut the surprisingly spongy umbilical cord in one swift move that made his daughter an independent human being. It had been a profound moment. He had felt like he should apologize for separating her from her mother. He knew it was a mean old world, and once you’re out in it, you’re on your own.

  Joyce Ann’s birth was the culmination of what could only be described as a whirlwind year, filled with courtship, marriage, pregnancy, and birth, not necessarily in that order. Only two short years before, he had planned to take his newly minted Howard University architectural degree and accept a job at a firm in Washington, D.C. His mother had, of course, hoped he’d come back to Atlanta after he finished school, but as he tried to explain, there was no way to escape her shadow if he stayed in his hometown forever. In D.C., he could carve out his own place to be his own man. Kwame didn’t want being Precious Hargrove’s son to be his only claim to fame. She said she understood. To further mollify her, he agreed to spend the summer helping her get ready for the governor’s race. In the fall, he’d planned to return to D.C. permanently.

  Then he started dating Aretha, and everything changed. He couldn’t get enough of her. She was a working artist whose passionate paintings and dramatic, oversize photographs were already drawing national attention. Kwame had met her once or twice before, but she had been five years younger than he was. At seventeen, that had made a difference. At twenty-six, it didn’t. She fascinated him and he pursued her like a love-struck teenager.

  At first he thought it was just a lucky coincidence that brought this beautiful young woman into his orbit so often he began to dress a little more carefully when he went out in anticipation of seeing her. West End is a small, fairly self-contained community, and Aretha walked or rode her bike everywhere, but after he bumped into her three times in one week, he began to realize their meetings were more than mere happenstance.

  The idea flattered him immensely and he began to imagine making love to her. She was undeniably beautiful and naturally sexy. She was tall and strong without looking too hard or sinewy. She had flawless skin and her big brown eyes looked even bigger because of her close-cropped natural hair. Her breasts were always bouncing because of her long-legged stride and her hips were gracefully curvaceous.

  What if she had shown up three times because she was looking for him? Did that mean she wanted him, too? He looked at himself in the mirror and liked what he saw. More than that, he liked whatever it was she saw. Maybe this beautiful, sensual creature was a gift from the gods to reward him for being a dutiful son. If that was the case, denying their generosity would almost certainly piss them off, which is never a good thing.

  One afternoon when they ran into each other again at the West End Newsstand, she invited him to come by her studio and see some of the new photographs she had been taking around the neighborhood. He immediately said yes and ordered them two cappuccinos to go, along with his copy of The Washington Post. As they strolled back to her place, Kwame was watching the way her earrings sparkled against the smooth skin of her long neck. He wanted to kiss her t
hroat at the point right above her collarbone, before her neck flowed into the gentle slope of her shoulders.

  She lived and worked in an apartment owned by Blue Hamilton, her godfather, whom Kwame had known all his life. Blue had allowed Aretha to paint the door of the building where she lived turquoise to ward off what she called “the evil eye.” She assured him this was an accepted form of household protection in many North African countries. Blue said he didn’t believe in the evil eye, but if she wanted to paint it, fine. So she did. Kwame didn’t know much about the evil eye either, but by the time they walked the short distance to her apartment and passed through that blue door, they had stopped talking, allowing the sexual sparks between them to crackle and pop on their own like the last log on the campfire. They never got to the cappuccinos, though neither one seemed to mind.

  Afterward, Aretha would tell Kwame she remembered music on that walk from the West End News. He would tell her he didn’t remember music, only that the whole neighborhood smelled like roses. It was the sexiest safe sex he’d ever had, and from then on, she didn’t have to just happen to be passing by. They spent every waking moment together, and a lot of sleeping ones, too, curled up in each other’s arms as new lovers often do in the rush of those first few perfect days and endless nights. Then they got pregnant and the world turned upside down.

  He’d hoped things would get better once Joyce Ann was in preschool, but they got worse. Aretha spent every possible minute at her studio while everything else in their lives, in his opinion, was going straight to hell. He had bent over backward to accommodate her for months, but not tonight! Tonight he had a dinner engagement and he wasn’t going to miss it while Aretha continued to play the tormented artiste. He had picked up Joyce Ann at day care, as agreed, and arrived home with plenty of time to shower and change before seven o’clock. The only problem was, Aretha wasn’t there. The house was dark and empty. He flipped on the kitchen light switch. Beside him, his daughter struggled to unzip her jacket.