Read The Other Brother for Free Online Page B

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