Read Online Babylon Sisters by Pearl Cleage - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Pearl Cleage
Ads: Link
supremacy and bad food it had always been. Black folks on one side, trying to get in. White folks on the other side, trying to keep us out. It’s such a simplistic, counterproductive way of looking at things, especially when all the people in charge around here are black. We’re still bitching like the last twenty years never happened at all. It’s exhausting.
Sometimes Louis accuses me of being an elitist, but I’m not. I just wish we had a bigger worldview, that’s all. The fact that
Brother Ruben,
as she kept calling him, garnered a big record contract, earned the love of legions of fans, appeared on countless magazine covers and TV shows, and received a Grammy nomination meant nothing to the woman who was calling. In her mind, he was black, and therefore a victim in need of the protection that only racial solidarity can afford.
“What do you think about what she said?” I asked the young woman in the booth.
She glanced up at me quickly to see if she could be candid and then shrugged her shoulders. “If you askin’ me, it seems like she’s makin’ it into a sympathy thing. You know, buy the brother’s CD to help him out. But he don’t need that. He can really sing. You know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
The host apparently did, too. “Y’all ain’t gotta do Brother Ruben no favors, though,” he said. “Check him out.”
The voice belonging to the brother in question was one of those full, rich, chocolate voices that only come out of the mouths of black men. Jerry Butler has one. Isaac Hayes has one. The Temptations had five between them, and Barry White had at least two all by himself. Ruben Studdard wasn’t in their league yet, but he was working on it, and the boy definitely had promise.
Sort of like Atlanta, I thought as my car pulled up to the curb and the young valet hopped out, accepted my tip, and closed the door behind me. Big and corny and full of passionate potential that it never quite fulfills. But just when you think you know everything there is to know about the place, it turns the note you expected to hear in a direction you had never considered and you find yourself heading home with all the windows rolled down, singing your ass off, and being eternally grateful for even the possibility of perfection.
10
The problem when your two best friends become a couple is that they’re never around when you’re up for a spontaneous celebration. They’re always at lunch or on their way to the movies or strolling in the park or simply not answering their phones because they’ve got better things to do. Although I was dying to share my good news, Amelia and Louis were nowhere to be found. When I got home and called her office Amelia’s secretary said she’d left early, and the answering machine was on at the newspaper even though it wasn’t even four o’clock.
This was serious. Louis always wrote his weekly columns on Monday, since the paper was in production on Tuesday to hit the stands on Wednesday. But today he had not only left early, but closed the office. Amelia and Louis had been friends since I introduced them, but four months ago she took him to a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert at Spelman, and ever since then they’d been thick as thieves. They were still being cool around me, but I could feel a new energy between them.
I used to try to tease Louis that he had printer’s ink for blood, but he took it as a compliment. The
Sentinel
was his life. He was the owner, editor, and publisher. It was the only job he ever had, starting as a delivery boy when he was just a kid. His father, Louis Adams Sr., had founded the
Sentinel
in 1964 and raised his son to believe their mission, “to tell the truth to the people,” was worth the sacrifices they had to make as a family to get it into the hands of its readers. In the early days, the paper was often under attack by the Ku Klux Klan for encouraging black voter registration. The office was firebombed twice, and
Sometimes Louis accuses me of being an elitist, but I’m not. I just wish we had a bigger worldview, that’s all. The fact that
Brother Ruben,
as she kept calling him, garnered a big record contract, earned the love of legions of fans, appeared on countless magazine covers and TV shows, and received a Grammy nomination meant nothing to the woman who was calling. In her mind, he was black, and therefore a victim in need of the protection that only racial solidarity can afford.
“What do you think about what she said?” I asked the young woman in the booth.
She glanced up at me quickly to see if she could be candid and then shrugged her shoulders. “If you askin’ me, it seems like she’s makin’ it into a sympathy thing. You know, buy the brother’s CD to help him out. But he don’t need that. He can really sing. You know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
The host apparently did, too. “Y’all ain’t gotta do Brother Ruben no favors, though,” he said. “Check him out.”
The voice belonging to the brother in question was one of those full, rich, chocolate voices that only come out of the mouths of black men. Jerry Butler has one. Isaac Hayes has one. The Temptations had five between them, and Barry White had at least two all by himself. Ruben Studdard wasn’t in their league yet, but he was working on it, and the boy definitely had promise.
Sort of like Atlanta, I thought as my car pulled up to the curb and the young valet hopped out, accepted my tip, and closed the door behind me. Big and corny and full of passionate potential that it never quite fulfills. But just when you think you know everything there is to know about the place, it turns the note you expected to hear in a direction you had never considered and you find yourself heading home with all the windows rolled down, singing your ass off, and being eternally grateful for even the possibility of perfection.
10
The problem when your two best friends become a couple is that they’re never around when you’re up for a spontaneous celebration. They’re always at lunch or on their way to the movies or strolling in the park or simply not answering their phones because they’ve got better things to do. Although I was dying to share my good news, Amelia and Louis were nowhere to be found. When I got home and called her office Amelia’s secretary said she’d left early, and the answering machine was on at the newspaper even though it wasn’t even four o’clock.
This was serious. Louis always wrote his weekly columns on Monday, since the paper was in production on Tuesday to hit the stands on Wednesday. But today he had not only left early, but closed the office. Amelia and Louis had been friends since I introduced them, but four months ago she took him to a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert at Spelman, and ever since then they’d been thick as thieves. They were still being cool around me, but I could feel a new energy between them.
I used to try to tease Louis that he had printer’s ink for blood, but he took it as a compliment. The
Sentinel
was his life. He was the owner, editor, and publisher. It was the only job he ever had, starting as a delivery boy when he was just a kid. His father, Louis Adams Sr., had founded the
Sentinel
in 1964 and raised his son to believe their mission, “to tell the truth to the people,” was worth the sacrifices they had to make as a family to get it into the hands of its readers. In the early days, the paper was often under attack by the Ku Klux Klan for encouraging black voter registration. The office was firebombed twice, and
Similar Books
