Baby Brother's Blues Read Online Free PDF

as Juanita did. She fought so long and so hard, he had started to believe it when she said she might still beat the cancer. But she didn’t.
    General and Blue had no need to try to articulate their loss to each other. They simply said their private good-byes and scattered her ashes at sea on a day as beautiful as she was. As they headed the boat back in, General sat alone in the bow, already watching for any sign of her return. That was ten years ago.
    For the first few years after her death, General had driven himself crazy. Juanita’s death left a hole in his life so big he was afraid he might fall in and die of loneliness. He searched for any clue that their love lived on. He dreamed about her, and even in his dreams, he begged her to come back. But during all those terrible years, there was nothing he could really claim as a sign. He never stopped looking, but deep down, he began to believe that while he had done his dying beloved a great kindness by concocting the plan for after-life contact, no communication was forthcoming.
    Then tonight, in the most unlikely place imaginable,
there it was.
It was all he could do to walk away, but his commitment to Blue was absolute. How could he say,
I’m late picking you up because I saw the sign I been waiting for on a stripper’s ass and I had to check it out
?
    It had been a fluke that General was even in Montre’s. He didn’t usually do business at strip joints, but the owner had been ducking him and an unexpected drop-by was always effective in bringing people to the table. Johnny had greeted General at the door with a shit-eating grin on his face and a bunch of bad explanations for equally bad behavior. General let him squirm long enough to make the point, then accepted the offer of a bottle of
real
champagne, instead of the
rotgut
they routinely offered their customers, to put the cherry on top of Johnny’s profuse apology.
    As the relieved man had scurried off to fetch the bottle from his private stash, General settled himself at the owner’s table. He had about twenty minutes to kill before he was expected at Blue’s. He wouldn’t disrespect Johnny by declining a glass of Moët, but that was all. One glass, and he was out the door. He didn’t give a damn about champagne anyway. Juanita had been crazy about champagne cocktails. She had said she liked it because it was a ladies’ drink.
    He didn’t want to think about Juanita sitting in a crummy joint like Montre’s. Her memory deserved better. He looked around for his reluctant host. If Johnny didn’t hurry up, he was going to have to leave without a toast to seal their deal. Just before he got up to go, a naked young woman stopped in front of his chair, smiling. She was more attractive than the girls they usually got in a place like this and something about her looked vaguely familiar. She had just come off the stage and was sweating a little.
    “Lap dance?”
    Her body was perfectly proportioned and her skin was smooth and unmarked. Her teeth were white and her eyes showed none of the artificial brightness of too many drugs. In a profession whose low end is full of desperate women with stretch marks, scars, and plenty of attitude, this girl was clearly different. She was fine as hell. Wishing he had more time, he glanced at his watch.
    She smiled and licked her lips, showing a small pink tongue. “It ain’t got to take long if you in a hurry, baby. Best ten dollars you gonna spend tonight.”
    He happened to know that a lap dance at Montre’s was only five dollars, but he admired her hustle. This girl was worth more than five bucks and she clearly knew it. He reached into his pocket and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill. Her big brown eyes widened like a child’s.
    “I’m in a hurry tonight,” he said, handing her the money. “Maybe next time I come in, you can dance for me.”
    “For a hundred bucks, we can dance all night,” she said, rewarding him with a big smile. “Thanks, baby.”
    “You’re