The Other Brother (4 page)

What the hell had he seen?

He grasped the lip of the sink. Groaning, he pulled himself to his feet, checked in the mirror again.

He saw only his damp face. No one else.

It was his imagination, he reasoned. Post-traumatic stress disorder. He'd been through what could have been a fatal accident, and was badly shaken. It should come as no surprise that his brain was a little loopy.

He reached for a towel. Then he stopped. He felt the cool tingling on his fingers again.

This time the sensation faded after a few seconds.

He mopped his face dry.

Something was happening to him, and he was beginning to wonder whether the theory that he was experiencing normal aftereffects from the accident was adequate.

It seemed stranger than that. Much stranger.

Chapter 4

ight. Although the day's rains had passed, tatters of silvery clouds littered the sky, pieces scudding across the fat, pale moon.

The smoke-gray, 1970 Chevy Chevelle SS with Illinois plates devoured 1-75 South, roaring out of Tennessee and across the Georgia state line. The custom-built V8 engine growled like a wild thing; the chrome, twenty-inch Letani wheels spun like circular saws. The Chevelle tore through the night at ninety-five miles an hour, far above the posted speed limit of seventy.

Isaiah Battle didn't care about speed limits. Especially today.

Today, June 6, was his birthday. He'd turned thirty.

The Alpine stereo blasted a song called "Gangsta Gangsta," recorded by the seminal West Coast rap group, N.W.A. Ice Cube, a member of the act in his pre-Hollywood days, spat out savage, profanity-laden lyrics. The speakers, strategically positioned throughout the car, enveloped Isaiah in a cocoon of bone-rattling beats.

Isaiah rapped along with Cube. He didn't consider him self a gangsta or a thug or a street soldier-though he had once fit the description of such a man. He'd grown up in the Robert Taylor Homes, which had used to be one of the roughest projects in Chicago. He'd lived his life in and out of the penal system. He'd committed heinous crimes-armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, even murder.

But that was in another life.

He was a different person, if not on the surface, then at least in spirit.

Still, he had an abiding love for hip-hop and urban culture. Some things hadn't changed.

His appearance hadn't changed, either, and that was a good thing. He was a lean, muscular six feet. Bald head. Cleanshaven. Handsome, sculpted, matinee idol features; women often said that he favored the actor Morris Chestnut. And he had those eyes. They were gray, and gleamed like shards of worn steel.

His stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten since he'd left Chicago that morning. He saw an exit for Dalton nearing, and he took it.

He parked in front of a Waffle House. A few dusty pickup trucks and old cars sat in the parking lot. A couple of the trucks had Confederate flags plastered proudly to the rear bumpers.

Welcome to the Deep South. Rednecks in effect.

There was a bite in the evening air, so he shrugged into his leather jacket and then went inside.

The aroma of meat and potatoes sizzling in grease greeted him. A few leathery faced men turned from the counter and looked at him hard, as if he had interrupted a Ku Klux Klan powwow.

"Evening, folks," he said in his best Southern drawl.

None of them answered him.

Isaiah sat in a booth in the corner. A pretty, redheaded waitress, smacking bubble gum, came to the table to take his order. Her name tag read SUE ANN. Figured.

He ordered four soft scrambled eggs, a double order of hash browns "scattered, smothered, and covered," a side of waffles, and sides of bacon and sausage. He requested coffee and orange juice, too.

It was enough food for two people, but he was ravenous. Besides, no matter how much he ate, he didn't gain an ounce of fat. He'd always had one of those supercharged metabolisms, like a jungle predator.

He loved breakfast food, too, especially late at night. It reminded him, pleasantly, of his childhood, and how he'd sneak into the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning to get a bowl of Cheerios. He'd sometimes eaten those same Cheerios for dinner, too, if Mama was strapped for cash.

"Hungry tonight, ain't you?" Sue Ann asked. Her green eyes sparkling, she swayed closer to the table. "I like me a man with a big appetite."

He arched his eyebrows. This white girl was flirting with him.

It didn't surprise him. Women loved him. Based on his appearance, they thought he was a bad boy, and women loved men like him, even though logic dictated that they shouldn't. People were rarely logical, especially when sex was involved.

Her gaze never leaving his face, Sue Ann blew a bubble, sucked it in expertly, and smiled at him.

He gave her a deliberate once-over. She was probably in her early twenties, part of that generation of white kids that thought black hip-hop stars and athletes were the coolest creatures to walk the earth. She had a slender build, long legs, firm titties. One eyebrow was pierced, and he glimpsed a tattoo of a red rose on her chest, underneath a spatter of freckles.

He started to reply, and then hesitated. The diner had fallen silent. He felt the hot gazes of the rednecks on him, watching their exchange, wondering why Sue Ann was talking to this black guy for so long. He better not be trying to flirt with her, goddamnit, or else we'll show him, just like those good old boys in Mississippi showed Emmett Till.

Isaiah sensed their rising anger, their envy, their hatred. It rose off their auras like sour sweat, promising danger if he dared to tread further.

But none of these people knew what kind of man he was.

He gave Sue Ann a bright smile. "My appetite isn't the only big thing I've got"

"That so?" She didn't blush. She met his gaze, a sure sign that she'd been around. "I saw that nice car of yours. You from Illinois?"

"Chi-Town," he said.

"That so? You headed to 'Lanta?"

He nodded. "I'm going to a ... I guess you could call it a family reunion."

"That's nice; wish my family did stuff like that...:. She blinked. "Hey, I better put your order in, huh? You so hungry, you liable to eat me up"

"And you'd love it," he said.

She giggled. "Be right back" She sashayed away. Damn, she had a booty like a sista. He noticed more and more white chicks sporting sista-girl asses these days. Maybe they were getting implants down there or something.

The rednecks hunched over the counter watched him and Sue Ann, displeasure evident on their faces. After Sue Ann put in the order with the cook, she went to refresh the guys' coffee. One of them, a tanned, Mt. Everest of a man, grabbed her arm and whispered choice words in her ear. The giant redneck kept his gaze on him as he spoke to the waitress, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm talking to her 'bout you. What you gonna do about it?"

Isaiah calmly sipped his coffee. Sue Ann finally slipped out of the guy's grasp, massaging her arm. Although she'd promised to be right back, she avoided him until she brought his food.

"So," he said as she spread the plates in front of him, your boyfriend scare you away from me?"

"Bo ain't my boyfriend, but he wanna be," she said. "He don't like black people too much, neither, no offense"

So the guy was named Bo. How typical. Had his parents picked it out of the Book of Redneck Baby Names?

"No offense taken," he said. "I figured as much."

"I wanna talk to you some more, but we can't do it here. You want my number?"

"Sure"

Smiling secretly, she wrote her number on a napkin and slid it to him. The big guy, Bo, leaned back on his stool, watching them.

"Bo's breaking his neck peeping us," he said.

"Butthole" She rolled her eyes. "Call me, 'kay?"

"Promise." He tucked the napkin away in his pocket. He had no intention of calling her-he would be too busy in Atlanta but why tell her that? Better to let her fantasize about what might have been. If nothing else, it would drive her redneck friends crazy.

Isaiah shoveled down his food with single-minded attention. The meal contained enough fat to clog the arteries of a gray whale, but it was delicious. He cleaned his plate. When you grew up in a household where you might not know when the next meal was coming, you learned to fill your belly at every opportunity.

He left a generous tip, got up, and walked to the cash register. Bo and two of his buddies got up, too, trailing behind him.

He felt the familiar tightening in his stomach, the precursor to violence. How far would this go?

He paid the bill and pushed through the exit, emerging into the chilly night. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and began to walk to his car.

He heard Bo and his homies following. He didn't glance over his shoulder. Let them assume he was afraid to look behind him.

But he clenched his hands into fists.

I wish they would try something. I wish they would.

"Hey, boy!" one of them called.

Near his car, Isaiah stopped, his spine rigid. These guys were a trip. They were like a parody of that old white supremacist flick, The Birth of a Nation. Had he been unwittingly placed in a time machine and transported into the nineteenth century?

He turned around. Bo stood in the middle of the parking lot. His buddies flanked him, like pet dogs. Bo crossed his thick arms over his broad chest. His eyes were blue ice.

Facing Bo, any other man would have been quaking in his shoes. But Isaiah only said, softly, "My name isn't Boy."

"He say his name ain't Boy," Bo said. He laughed and his pals joined in. Bo's laughter died and his face hardened. "Then maybe your name is Nigger."

All he'd wanted was to grab a hot meal at the tail end of his drive. But trouble followed him, like exhaust fumes.

"We don't like niggers talking to our women," Bo said. He glanced at the Chevelle, saw the Illinois plate. " 'Specially Yankee niggers."

Isaiah had heard enough. Time to set it off.

"I'll talk to any woman I want, you stupid redneck," he said to Bo. "It's not my fault your woman prefers big dicks and dark meat"

Bo's lips parted in disbelief. Hesitation passed over his face. This boy's a little too cocky, he knew Bo was thinking. Maybe he's got a gun in that jacket of his.

Isaiah slid his hands out of his pockets to show that he carried no weapons.

"You gonna let that Yankee nigger talk to you like that, Bo?" one of the buddies said. "I think you need to teach him a lesson."

Bo wiped his mouth, looked around. Confidence returned to his face as he saw that his boys had his back and realized that this black guy was defenseless. He flexed his big muscles and thundered forward.

"I'll show you how we handle niggers in Georgia," Bo said.

Bo swung his fist at him, a wild haymaker.

Isaiah didn't try to evade the blow. He spread his arms and took the hit. Bo's fist slammed into his marble-hard slab of abdominal muscles. Isaiah stumbled backward and fell to the asphalt on his butt.

That was nothing, he thought.

He drew in a breath. His heart beat at a tranquil lub-dub- dub.

But a thick vein began to pulse in the center of his forehead. Energy stirred at the base of his spine, grew hotter, stronger, like lava in a volcano set to erupt.

This feeling, this power, was part of his new life, but it felt as comfortable to him as something he'd been doing since he was a child, like riding a bicycle.

Focus.

Isaiah looked up.

Bo charged forward.

The energy rushed up his spine and exploded into his brain. He trembled in anticipation.

Command.

Bo had started to draw back his leg, probably to kick him in the ribs with one of his muddy construction boots.

"Freeze," he said to Bo in the strident tone of a master commanding a dog.

Bo's eyes widened.

The redneck stood stock still, as if he had been flash frozen like a side of beef.

Although he had issued the command to Bo, his friends paused, too, confusion on their faces.

Isaiah moved fast.

He propelled himself to his feet in one fluid motion, bringing his fist upward. He smashed the heel of his hand into Bo's nose, breaking it, driving shattered cartilage into the man's brain.

Bo shrieked like a girl. He flopped to the pavement. His limbs twitched. Blood oozed from his nostrils.

Bo's buddies looked at their fallen leader, looked at him.

Isaiah stepped toward them. "Want to try me?"

They turned and fled.

He gazed down at the redneck. The guy looked comatose. In fact, he might die.

Isaiah spat on him.

"My name isn't Boy, or Nigger," he said. "My name is Isaiah Battle."

Isaiah turned on his heel, climbed into his car, and drove away into the night.

Chapter 5

n Tuesday morning, Gabriel was discharged from the hospital. He shuffled out of the lobby wearing jeans, a button-down shirt, and sneakers, clothes Dana had brought for him the previous night. His head, wrapped in a fresh bandage, ached intermittently, and his ribs were still sore. He planned to pop painkillers all day, to keep his discomfort at bay.

He hadn't experienced another episode of tingling handsor glimpsed another dark figure in a mirror. Barring another occurrence, he'd decided to store both strange incidents in the Do Not Open room in his mind, and forget about them.

But if something unexplainable happened again ... well, he would try to avoid thinking about it.

June weather had returned to Atlanta. The sun shone brightly, the temperature was in the low eighties, and the cloying humidity made stepping outdoors like going into a steam room. He loved it.

His mother had arrived to pick him up. She waited in front of the hospital in the late-model, silver Jaguar coupe Pops had bought her for their thirtieth wedding anniversary

Gabriel opened the door and tossed his bag on the backseat.

"Hey, Mom" He kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks for picking me up"

"Let me look at you" Scrutinizing the bandage on his head, she turned his face from one side to the other. Marge Reid had a degree in elementary education and no formal medical training, but she examined him with the keen gaze of a physician-Dr. Mom. "They sure booted you out of there fast. Are you positive you feel okay?"

"I'm all right. My head throbs a little, and I'm kinda sore, but the doctor said that'll go away soon"

"Hmph?" She looked skeptical. "What does Dana think?"

"She's fine with it. Really, Mom, I'm okay. I came out of that accident unscathed. It was a miracle."

At the mention of miracles, the doubt finally left her face. She nodded. "Yes, indeed, it was a blessing from the Lord" She pulled the car away from the hospital.

Gabriel had to smile at his mother's concern for him. He was the elder of his mother's two children, and her only son, which naturally made him a prime candidate to be a mama's boy. When he was growing up, she'd baby him as much as Pops would allow-which wasn't much. "Don't do that, Marge, you're gonna spoil the boy," had been his father's constant refrain. Mom had often nurtured Gabriel in secret, away from his father's stern eye. She'd let him sleep late when school wasn't in session; Pops believed in rising at dawn every day, even on the weekends. During the summer, she'd let him and his best friend spend all day at Six Flags Over Georgia, an amusement park-at times when she would tell Pops that she planned to keep Gabriel at home to help her with housework. She'd give him a ride to school whenever he missed the bus, and never tell his father. Pops despised tardiness and would have been incensed that Gabriel had missed his ride.

Pops had spoiled him, too, but in a way he thought was appropriate for a boy: Pops would pay him for working, but the compensation was sometimes out of proportion to the labor Gabriel had actually performed. Ten dollars for taking out the trash. Fifty bucks for cutting the lawn. A hundred for raking the autumn leaves. It was as if the mundane tasks Gabriel performed were an excuse for his father to slip some money into his pocket.

Pops was similarly generous with Gabriel's sister, and with Mom, especially. "A man is only as successful as his wife looks" was one of Pops's axioms, and he'd made sure that Mom had the best of everything. This morning Mom wore a navy-blue Gucci business suit that complemented her reddishbrown complexion and slender frame, and Ferragamo pumps. Her long, dark hair, streaked with regal strands of gray, was impeccably styled, and her nails were manicured. She wore understated, but very expensive, gold jewelry, and her diamond wedding ring, which Pops had recently upgraded, was a flawless, three-karat rock in a platinum setting.

The irony was that Mom was the least materialistic person Gabriel knew. She allowed Pops to shower her with fine things because it made him feel good, as if he was doing his duty as a husband, but the reality was that Mom was more concerned with spiritual matters. She was a highly active member of their local Baptist church, teaching a Bible class for teenage girls, singing in the women's choir, and serving in shelters for the homeless. You never caught her without her Bible close at hand, and she quoted scripture so fluently that Gabriel sometimes couldn't be sure which of her spoken words were hers and which ones she'd culled from the Good Book.

As they drove through downtown, strains of Mahalia Jackson filtered from the stereo. Mom sang along softly. She had a good voice; her singing reminded Gabriel of when he was a child, a time when she would often coax him to sleep with a lullaby.

They approached the entrance ramp for 1-85/1-75, the downtown connector. Although it was almost ten o'clock in the morning, after rush hour, traffic crawled like a wounded animal.

"I wonder where this congestion is coming from," Mom said. "After I drop you off, I'm meeting some of the Link sisters for brunch. I don't want to be late."

His mother was a longtime member of the Links, an international organization of black women that aimed to advance civic, educational, and cultural agendas for their respective communities. Mom had been a grade school teacher when she and Pops had married, but the success of Pops's business had enabled her to leave the classroom so she could focus on raising their children and pursuing outside activities. Her Links chapter was one of her many interests.

As they inched forward through traffic, Gabriel saw flashing blue and red lights ahead, the telltale signs of a wreck.

Like ice water, dread spilled over him.

The victims of the accident were strangers to him, but the sight resurrected the memory of his own glimpse of Death's face.

Although he didn't want to, he thought of his tingling palms-and of the figure in the mirror. The thoughts flew like bats through his mind, hooked their teeth deep into him. Forgetting about that stuff was impossible. He was deluding himself if he thought he could.

"Oh, Lord, it's an accident," Mom said. "I hope no one's hurt"

"Me, too"

Mom must have picked up on his tension. She touched his arm, worry stamped on her face. "You okay, Gabriel?"

"I'm okay," he said. But he went on. "Remember that time you had a concussion? When you and Pops were driving to visit Uncle Bobby and got in an accident?"

"Yes-goodness, that was years ago" She shook her head. "What about it?"

"How'd you feel afterward? Did anything ... strange happen?"

"Strange?"

"Any bad headaches, anything like that?"

"I do remember having an awful headache for a day or two. But that's not strange for someone who's had a concussion. What's wrong, Gabriel?"

He never should have asked the question. Mom was ready to drive back to Grady and demand that the doctors reevaluate him. He'd been hoping that she would admit to weird side effects. A pins-and-needles sensation in her hands. Maybe seeing visions in mirrors. No such luck. It was time to change the subject, or else she would worry further.

"I'm fine, Mom," he said. "I guess seeing that accident up ahead kinda shook me up"

"Brought back bad memories?"

"Guess so ""

"Bless your heart" Mom patted his arm. "After your father and I had that accident, I was nervous riding in a car for about a month. But if you're feeling ill-"

"Mom, I'm okay. Seriously."

"You know I love to mother you, baby. I miss that sometimes, what with you living in your own house and about to get married."

"I'll always be your son. I'd better be, 'cause I don't wanna give up your peach cobbler."

"Can Dana make cobbler?"

"Dana's cobbler is good, but it's not the same as yours. Don't tell her I said that, by the way"

"It'll be our little secret" Mom smiled and then redirected her attention to the traffic.

They drove past the accident. An Oldsmobile and a Mustang had collided, both of the vehicles looking as if they had been smashed in a giant trash compactor. Paramedics rushed a gurney toward an ambulance, the gurney's white sheet concealing a victim's prone body. Or corpse.

That could've been me yesterday.

Shuddering, Gabriel looked away.

Mom pulled into the driveway of Gabriel's house. A dark blue Corvette convertible was parked in front of the two-car garage. It was his dad's weekend, cruising ride.

"Is Pops here?" Gabriel asked.

"He left the 'Vette for you to drive since your car was totaled." Mom dug a set of keys out of her purse and dropped them in his hand. "Keep it until you get the insurance and whatnot with yours squared away."

"He didn't have to do this, Mom. I was going to rent a car."

"You know your father. He's always looking out for his boy."

Gabriel formed a fist around the keys. Once again his father had reviewed his situation, diagnosed a problem, and provided a solution. Gabriel loved and appreciated his father's concern, but sometimes he overstepped his bounds. Couldn't Pops allow him to handle anything on his own?

"Your father only wants to help," Mom said, as perceptive of his moods as ever. "It would hurt his feelings if you don't take the car."

"I'm a grown man. I don't need him to do everything for me"'

"Fine. Give me back the keys. I'll tell him you don't appreciate his help."

"I didn't mean it like that"

"You should be grateful that you have a father like him," Mom said. "Do you know how many young men don't have their fathers in their lives? Do you know what they would give to be blessed with a father who loves you as much as yours does?"

Gabriel wished he had kept his mouth shut. Mom was his dad's biggest champion, always had been. She was from the old school, believing that it was a wife's duty to submit to her husband's leadership and support his position on important family matters. She wasn't going to side with Gabriel over his father. He should have known better.

"I'll keep the car," he said.

"And you should call your father and thank him for providing it. Honor your parents"

The only way to settle this was to agree with her.

"You're right. Thanks for the ride, Mom. I'll see you at the party this weekend"

He was having a birthday bash at the 755 Club, a ritzy establishment located inside Turner Field. Pops big surprise-was funding the celebration, while Dana, Mom, and his sister were organizing it.

"Stop by to see me before then," Mom said. She winked. "Maybe I'll have some of that peach cobbler, just for you"

"I'll be there"