Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale

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Book: Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale Read Free
Author: Andrew Kane
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weekends off. In any event, she didn’t want Loretta living in the house once the child was born.
    As for Alfred, he had a plan. His conscience wasn’t so far gone that he could just abandon Loretta, so he would set her up in a place of her own, and she could keep working for the family as long as she desired. He would pay her rent, and take care of whatever the child might need. Even if she refused his help—which, in fact, she did for the first nine years—he was confident he would eventually persuade her to accept it. Everything would be fine. The perfect life.

CHAPTER 3  
    Joshua was his Christian name. But on the streets of Bed-Stuy he was called “Peanut,” a title bestowed upon him by “Big Bob,” one of the neighborhood bosses. While “Peanut” was a reference to his having had light brown, peanut butter colored eyes, just being given any street name at all was considered an honor. It was an indication of Big Bob’s admiration for him and his ability to deliver packages quickly and discretely. He had been doing this since he was eight-years-old, and had never inquired about the contents of the bags Big Bob gave him, nor the envelopes he was supposed to bring back in return for them, or why Big Bob needed a young kid to do this sort of thing. Joshua never even peeked. He just did what Big Bob wanted, and gladly accepted his compensation.
    “Good job, Peanut, my man,” Big Bob would say whenever Joshua handed him an envelope. “Good job!” he would repeat, holding his free hand out for Joshua to slap him five. Always the same script.
    True to his name, Big Bob was big, at least three hundred pounds. His round head had no hair, and his face was mean: wide bloodshot brown eyes, deep pocked skin, and a sharply trimmed goatee. He wore several thick gold bracelets and necklaces, with flashy bright colored shirts and trousers, and a wide-brimmed white hat—straw in summer, felt in winter. Joshua emulated Big Bob, and was naive enough to believe that Big Bob cared about him. He even fantasized from time-to-time that Big Bob might actually be his father.
    “You think that fat ugly hoodlum on the street is your daddy,” Loretta reacted when Joshua mentioned the thought. “Your daddy’s bad, but he’s not that bad,” she exclaimed. That was all she ever said on the subject of his father. “And you stay away from that man, Joshua! I best not be hearing you got anything to do with him!”
    So Joshua worked for Big Bob just about every day, and hoped his mother wouldn’t find out. He began playing hooky from P.S. 44. A quick buck seemed a lot better than wasting his time with the three R’s.
    “Don’t you worry none about school, Peanut, you’ll learn all you need to know right here on the streets,” Big Bob had once said. “You see all the things I got for myself, my man? Well, I didn’t get them studying no science or history. No, I got what I got from the streets.”
    And “things” he did have. First, there was his fancy green Cadillac. Then, the jewelry. And of course, the women. Yes, Big Bob, as ugly as he was, had quite a harem. They hung around him day and night, constantly massaging him in one way or another. Joshua watched all this, and couldn’t wait till he grew up, till the time when he could be just like Big Bob.
     
    One day Loretta received a call from the school about Joshua’s truancy. It didn’t take long before she learned what he’d been up to. There was lots of gossip in the old neighborhood, and she had her share of informants.
    Joshua was walking along the avenue on his way from making a delivery, with one of Big Bob’s envelopes in his pocket when she came up behind him. “Joshua Eubanks! What in the Lord’s name have you been doing?” she yelled as she grabbed his jacket. She pulled him aside, and held him against the wall of a building.
    Perspiration dripped down her face. Saliva appeared in the creases of her mouth. “I hear what’s been going on with you, how

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