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I would like to suggest that there there's no difference between Bub in "Cathedral" and the brother in "Sonnys Blues." The narrater is unrealiable and can't be trusted. It is he that assumes that his brother is guilty, suggest that his students are probally on drugs, cant see why anyone would befriend a child, can hate you then, not hate you and be about to cry like a baby in a single conversation with a stranger, name call " He looks partly like a dog, partly like like a cunning child," etc. "Daddy was big and rough and loud, just the opposite of Sonny. Yet the both had that same privacy. Sonny served in the military,was a suscessful musician and had lots of friends. How can one trust this narrater who says in the first paragraph that he and the people around are in the dark. Baldwin tricks the reader by following the title "Sonnys Blues" with Sonny going to jail. This story is about the brother, and at the end of the story one comes out of the dark and sees that the blues is the type of music that Sonny play on the piano. This story covered years. Sonny plays well because of years of practice not pain. Sonny played the blues so well that his music could reach a person hurting on the inside and set them free. He set his brother free from the pain of all his losses. Remember the brother said that the music moved him to it, then past it. All this because he took the time one day to listen to "Sonny's Blues"   

Come out the dark. Listen. See.