by Pearl Cleage
Out of options, he turned up his collar, pulled that ugly GI hat down as far as he could, jammed his hands into his pockets, and headed toward Union Station. It was going to be a long, cold walk, but the train station was open all night, and if the uniform had any chance of generating a hot meal or a cold beer, that would be the place. All he had to do now was keep putting one frozen foot in front of the other.
He hadn’t gone six blocks when a chocolate-brown BMW pulled up beside him and the driver, a well-dressed black man in his late forties, opened the passenger-side window and leaned over to make eye contact. Baby Brother knew that look.
“Need a ride, young brother?” the man said smoothly.
Soft jazz was playing on the car stereo and the blast of warm air from the heater warmed Baby Brother’s cheeks as he stepped to the curb and leaned down to check the man out. He was expensively dressed and the interior and exterior of the car were spotless. The man was about his size and had closely cropped, salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache.
“What I need is to get my black ass in out of the cold before I freeze my dick off.”
The man laughed, leaned over, and popped the lock on the door. “Well, we can’t have that, now can we? Get in…”
16
This is exactly what Juanita said would happen, General thought, sitting in the car outside Blue and Regina’s house, waiting for sunrise. She had promised him a sign, one she said he probably wouldn’t believe at first, and she had sure done that. He just wished he could be certain before he made a move. Was this little stripper with the heart-shaped birthmark and the supernatural behind really the medium Juanita was going to use to send him a message from out there? And if she was, just how close was he supposed to get to the messenger?
He smiled to himself, imagining Juanita looking down at him trying to figure this shit out. They used to laugh at how what they were doing would look from the outside. Juanita would tease him that he was barely legal and he’d call her his old lady. Mostly they would go to New Orleans or Atlantic City, rent a suite, and spend three days at a time making love, eating room service, and gambling.
Blue didn’t like to gamble, but Juanita did, so General traveled with her as escort and bodyguard. They’d check into their separate rooms and then later she’d knock on his door, giggling like a schoolgirl at their elaborate subterfuge, but enjoying every minute. He did, too. They hadn’t planned any of this adventure, but how could they? How do you plan for your best buddy’s mother being the true love of your life?
At eighteen, what he knew about Juanita was mostly that Old Man Hamilton had been a cruel and domineering man, notorious for the frequency and brutality of his beatings. He’d attack his wife when Blue was at school or somewhere working, and then disappear for a week or two until she could talk Blue out of killing him. That’s how it started for Juanita and General. Blue was at choir rehearsal. Mr. Hamilton was drunk. When his wife tried to leave the house to go to work, he accused her of having an affair, beat her, tore her clothes off, pushed her out into the street half-naked, and told her to run for her life.
General was coming home from football practice and had on his varsity jacket. It was just starting to get dark as Juanita stumbled off the porch and ran down the street in his direction. He remembered being too surprised to look away from her bare breasts and shredded panties, but he ripped off his jacket as she approached him, not sure if she would stop or keep running. Mr. Hamilton had gone back inside the house, but Juanita hadn’t looked over her shoulder to see where he was. She was still running. General held out the jacket as she ran by so that if she wanted to, she could just grab it and keep moving.
When Juanita saw her son’s friend dangling the jacket in front of her like a caution flag, she slowed to a trot then stopped in front of him, panting and trembling. That was when she looked over her shoulder to be sure her husband wasn’t following her, then turned her terrified eyes back to General. He couldn’t tell if she recognized him or not. Her teeth were chattering and her nipples were puckered up from the cold.
He hated himself for looking, but Mrs. Hamilton was fine. He had never realized it before. “It’s me, Miz Hamilton, General Richardson from down the street. Take my jacket, okay?”
General draped it around her shoulders, careful not to touch her body. She clutched the jacket around her, opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She took a few steps forward like she had to be on her way, but then her knees wobbled, and if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her arm, she would have fallen to the pavement. She slumped against him like a sack of flour, and even if he was eighteen, already six foot two, and in the best shape of his young life, he stumbled trying to hold up the sudden deadweight of her body.
A frantic glance around for assistance showed him only his own empty block. His parents were both working late shifts and Blue was nowhere in sight. He couldn’t just leave her outside, the shape she was in, so he half carried, half dragged her to his house, dropped her on his mother’s living-room couch, and stood there wondering what to do next. Juanita huddled on the sofa, weeping softly. His jacket only partially covered her bare breasts in the badly ripped bra and he was horrified to realize he was getting an erection looking at Blue Hamilton’s mother’s breasts!
He took the stairs two at a time and grabbed the top sheet off his bed and took it down to where she was still trying to cover herself with his jacket. She had clasped it around her chest, but her panties were barely covering her behind, much less her long, slender thighs. Damn, she was fine, General thought. Mr. H. must be a damn fool! He wondered how old she was as he handed her the sheet, which she wrapped around her body gratefully. A lump on her forehead was getting redder and angrier-looking by the minute. He always kept an ice bag in the refrigerator for after football practice and he went to get it now.
“Put this on your head,” General said, handing her the cold pack.
She looked startled. “What?”
“You’ve got a knot there,” he said, pointing. “The cold will keep down the swelling.”
She reached for the ice bag and the sheet gapped enough for him to see the curve of her left breast against his jacket. He wondered if it would smell like her when he got it back.
“Thanks,” she said, wincing slightly as she held it against her head obediently.
He didn’t know what else to do, so he just stood there, looking at her, wondering if he should try to find Blue and tell him Juanita was hiding out in his living room. Before he could decide, Mrs. H. put the ice bag down and looked at him.
“What time is it?” she said.
He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes to four.”
“Shit!” she said, jumping up immediately. “I gotta get to work! If I’m late again that bitch will fire me for sure.” She was still holding the sheet around her as she headed for the door.
“Wait, Miz H.,” General said quickly. “You can’t go… like that.”
She stopped and looked down at his jacket and the sheet as if she had forgotten they were her only attire, and then back at him helplessly.
“What am I gonna do?” she wailed. “He won’t let me back in the house to get my clothes. He wants me to get fired. He’s crazy! He’s crazy and he’s mean. One day he’s gonna kill me and then what am I gonna do?”
He resisted pointing out that her options would be pretty much over at that point since she was right. Mr. H. was a mean drunk and nobody knew it better than she did. That’s when she dropped the tangled sheet to the floor and started to cry like the world was coming to an end and she had to cry for all the losses and all the tears and all the pain there ever was anywhere. He had never seen anyone cry like that. It was a misery so deep the sound of it threatened to destroy them both.
He reached out and grabbed her before he knew he was going to, pulled her close, and just stood there with his big, young arms around her while she clung to him like he was the only thing standing between her and the end of the wo
rld. General’s erection, oblivious to the details of the moment, rose to the challenge and urgently pressed itself against Juanita’s body. If she felt it, she gave no sign. Even better, she made no move to step away. Gradually her sobbing stopped, but she continued to hold him tightly around the waist as if they were slow dancing to an old-school tune and she wasn’t going anywhere until the song ended.
That was fine with General. When she began to rub her pelvis gently against his now-unavoidable erection, he responded in kind, but let her set the pace. He was not a virgin, but his sexual experiences had been limited to hurried moments with girls his own age, worried about getting pregnant or tarnishing their reputations. This kind of sex, if that’s what it was they were getting ready to do, was something new. Something mysterious and desperate and wild. He reached down and ran his hand over Juanita’s half-naked behind and the smoothness of her skin almost made him come right there in his favorite blue jeans. She moaned softly.
He knew Blue would kill him if he ever found out, but he’d never tell and he was pretty sure Miz H. wouldn’t either. Especially when she reached down, unzipped his pants and reached in with her small, cool hand. General hoped he wouldn’t do or say the wrong thing, because whatever they were doing was driving him crazy.
He leaned his head down until his lips were touching her ear. Her hand was still in his jeans. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered urgently. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Make love to me, General,” she whispered. “Will you make love to me?”
The fact that she called him by his name only heightened his desire. “Oh, Miz Hamilton,” he moaned. “I will.”
He carried her upstairs to the bedroom where he had masturbated more times than he could count since crashing into puberty, laid her down gently on his twin bed under the poster of Pam Grier, and grabbed a condom from under the mattress, where he always kept one, just in case. There in the midst of his football trophies and shoulder pads and back issues of Sports Illustrated, he let her guide him into her body and made love to her with all the inexperienced, hopeful, fumbling sexual energy of his eighteen years. He tried unsuccessfully to keep up with the thrusting of her hips until she finally pulled him in so deep that all he could do was close his eyes and let her take whatever she wanted from him, even though he wasn’t sure what it was.
When he rolled away from her, speechless and spent, a few minutes later, she sat up and smiled at him slowly.
“Now, General Richardson, do you think your mother has a dress I could borrow so I can get my ass to work?”
They used to laugh about that first time. Each confessed that they felt a strong connection even in the midst of all the drama, but figured this was a onetime moment. What else could it be? Juanita was married to a madman and her only son was General’s best friend. They made no mention to Blue of what had happened, and when they passed each other in the street or at the neighborhood drugstore, they mumbled a greeting and hurried on, unable to meet each other’s eyes. That went on for a month and a half.
Then Blue did a sold-out showcase that established him as a star on the rise at just shy of seventeen. He netted a minitour to ten clubs in Georgia and two just across the Alabama line. The producer asked him if he could start the next night in Macon, and Blue told him he could. Flush with success and their plans to go on the road for the first time, General and Blue burst into Juanita’s kitchen to share the good news. They found her sitting next to the body of her husband, who was slumped over at the kitchen table with a butcher knife through his heart.
They didn’t have to ask what had happened. That was the first time Blue and General disposed of a body together. The next day, with General at the wheel of Mr. Hamilton’s prized Buick, the three of them hit the road. Blue sat beside General in the front seat, Juanita sat alone in the back, watching the highway whizzing by, breathing easy for the first time in a long time.
No one who knew Blue’s father reported him missing and no one was sorry when he stopped showing up at his usual haunts. There seemed to be a sigh of relief that he had gone somewhere—anywhere—else. No inquiries were made and no detectives came to call. Caught up in the whirlwind of their first tour, the three travelers let the memory of his evil ways fade from their minds like yesterday’s news. Somewhere in the middle of that tour, General stepped into Juanita’s life like Muhammad Ali stepping into the ring with George Foreman and she welcomed him with open arms.
Of course, General had been with other women since she died, but nothing serious. He was still in love with Juanita. His heart didn’t really have room for anybody else. As far as General was concerned, the jury was still out on all that past-lives stuff, but he hoped it was true. He needed three or four lifetimes to love that woman the way she deserved to be loved. He needed at least one more just so they could come out of the shadows and proclaim their happiness to the world.
Just thinking about Juanita made his heart hurt. He took a deep breath.
“Is this the sign, baby?” he whispered. “Is she the sign?”
The night around him was so quiet he could hear the wind rustling through the leaves of the huge magnolia tree in Blue’s front yard. As he watched, the breeze loosened one of the tree’s big blossoms. In the darkness, the petals were an almost ghostly white as they fluttered to the ground. General felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck as that same wind blew the smell of honeysuckle into the car, replacing the smell of men and black leather with a sensual sweetness that was all female.
“All right, baby,” he said softly, ignoring the tears that were prickling at the corners of his eyes. “I hear you.”
At sunrise, he pulled the Lincoln slowly away from the curb and headed for Montre’s.
17
General recognized Brandi immediately when the back door of Montre’s opened and two women walked out, laughing and talking like city government workers on their way to the cafeteria for a sausage biscuit and coffee at the start of another busy day. He was relieved to see that she was actually fine. He hadn’t been sure last night. It had been too dark in Montre’s to tell. A lot of women look their best in low light, General thought, but this girl was made for sunshine. She had pulled her extensions back into a lazy ponytail, and when she turned in his direction, she looked like a kid. Without all the makeup, her skin glowed golden. He pushed the button and let the window down on his side of the car.
Both women noticed the car as they headed to a battered blue Chevrolet that had seen better days. Brandi recognized General at the wheel and touched her girlfriend’s arm.
“This is the dude I was telling you about,” she hissed. “Can you wait on me for a minute?”
“Sure, girl,” her friend whispered back, casting an appraising eye at the car. “Handle your business.”
Brandi wished she hadn’t taken off her makeup. She wanted to make a good impression. At least she had on her favorite skintight jeans and some heels. She took a deep breath and pushed her breasts forward like a shield.
“You up awful early,” she said, leaning down to grin at him through the open window.
“You working awful late.”
The closer she got, the finer she looked. This girl was way too high-class for Montre’s.
“Private party,” she said. “We don’t open until noon.”
“I’m General Richardson.”
She leaned a little farther into the window, resting her breasts on her crossed arms.
“Everybody knows who you are,” she cooed. “I’m Brandi.”
“Well, Brandi, would you like to have breakfast with me?”
“Breakfast?” Her voice was as incredulous as if he’d invited her to the rodeo.
“Paschal’s all right?”
Brandi looked at General. “This ain’t no freaky shit about my birthmark, is it?”
He shook his head and hoped his smile was reassuring. “You remind me of someone I used to know. A friend.”
“How close a friend?”
/> “Close as you can get.”
“Well, I’m a working woman,” she said, running her tongue over her lips. “Is this a social call or a business arrangement?”
“I’ll be happy to pay for your time. As you already know, I am a very generous man.”
Brandi felt her stomach growl softly. She didn’t give a damn if she reminded him of his dead grandmother if he was going to feed her. She waved to her friend across the parking lot, who waved back with a grin.
“Ah-iight, girl! Don’t hurt nobody!”
Paschal’s was a five-minute ride from Montre’s. The restaurant offered only coffee and pastries in the morning, saving their culinary genius for the lunch and dinner crowd, but they made an exception for General and opened up the dining room. They had the whole place to themselves. He could tell Brandi was impressed as she slid into the booth and took off her denim jacket. Her breasts were bubbling out of her tight green halter top, but the waiter didn’t break as he took their order. He knew who General was, too.
She ordered home fries, two eggs over easy, sausage, bacon, and a large orange juice. General looked on in amazement then asked for black coffee.
“I thought you wanted to have breakfast,” she said.
“I wanted you to have breakfast,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I have to eat, too, does it?”
“Hell no, baby.” She grinned. “I can eat enough for both of us. It’s the dancing. It takes all the weight off of me if I’m not careful.”
The waiter came back with a large, frosted glass filled to the brim with Florida’s finest. Brandi gulped it greedily.
“How long you been dancing?”
She wiped the foam from her top lip, trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth. For Brandi, that was always the question. To lie or not to lie. She looked at him and thought, What the hell? Let’s try the truth and see if the big man can handle it.