Free Just Wanna Testify by Pearl Cleage Page B

else in the history of Carnival, including the collaboration that rocked the island several years earlier when Blue came briefly out of retirement to lend his unique vocals to the project and render the song an instant classic.
    Noel was begging Blue to come back and do it one more time, but so far there were no real plans to make it happen. Blue and Regina had spent almost a year in Trinidad when Sweetie was just learning to walk. Going back was a dream they often whispered about, lying in each other’s arms, remembering how sweet it had been to make love listening to the sound of the ocean outside their window.
    “Soon come,” Blue always said, in the island patois that meant twenty minutes or twenty years, depending on whom you asked. “Soon come.”
    He couldn’t deny that there had been something very appealing about stepping back from all of his West End responsibilities. His financial holdings were easily managed electronically, with minimal face-to-face contact required, but his actual presence in and around this neighborhood was an absolute necessity. Blue’s ability to hold things together was based in part on his well-known willingness to do whatever needed to be done to maintain the overall peace, but it was also the result of his undeniable personal charisma. As a singer, the power of that charisma had made grown women weak in the knees. In his current role, it sometimes did the same to grown men.
    Blue had thought once that the neighborhoods that bordered West End on every side would be transformed by their proximity to the twenty or so square blocks where he was in charge. He had hoped, and he had worked and he had waited, but not only had there been no positive change, many of the neighborhoods were actually getting worse. Unemployment was rampant. Drug addiction was epidemic. And maybe most surprising to Blue was that the election of a young black president who wanted to change the world and needed all the help he could get seemed to make little lasting impact among the young brown men he saw every day who wore their pantsbelow their butts and had no larger vision than controlling the sale of crack cocaine in a half-block radius. It also made no difference at all to the young brown women whose children’s lives were already set in motion before their first birthdays to repeat every negative pattern. After years of sustained effort, Blue was beginning to suspect that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it beyond this tiny community where he had drawn a line that didn’t move.
    Through the smoked glass, Blue saw Henry coming down the hall. He stopped and spoke a few words to Jake and then tapped on Blue’s door twice like he did every night at precisely seven fifteen.
    “Come ahead,” Blue said.
    Henry stepped into the room, graceful for a man his size, and closed the door behind him.
    The two men sat together for a few minutes every evening to review the events of the day and get ready for the next one. To describe Henry as Blue’s right-hand man was to not recognize the multifaceted nature of his role. Each man trusted the other with his life, and constant, truthful communication was a necessity.
    Blue nodded slightly. “Want a drink?”
    “Absolutely,” Henry said.
    Neither man loosened a tie or removed a jacket.
    “Why don’t you do the honors?”
    Henry poured them each a generous splash of cognac and carefully replaced the cork. He walked back to his seat and handed Blue a snifter before taking his usual seat across from Blue.
    “Anything happening I need to know about?” Blue said.
    “Everything is everything,” Henry said, sounding like an old-school jazz musician. “I took care of that thing we talked about this afternoon and the team we sent over to Morehouse said they’re done for the day. Five of the models went back to their hotel and the one who was here earlier went over to Brandi’s with Aretha Hargrove. They’re having drinks right now. Your wife picked