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With Lucullus… disabled, Cinci
Covington’s colored quarter had always had a lot of saloons. People there had always had a lot of trouble that needed dissolving. Saloons were the one kind of business in the colored part of town that was doing better now than before the wire went up. Even more sorrows than usual needed drowning. And the Confederate authorities no doubt learned all sorts of things from saloon talk. Some of what they learned might even have been true.
Cinci
“Comin’ up.” The bartender took one out of the cooler, popped the cap with a church key, and handed Cinci
Resting his can against one knee, Cinci
“I believe it.” Sweat beaded the barkeep’s forehead the way condensation beaded the bottle. In his boiled shirt and black bow tie, he had to be hotter and more uncomfortable than Cinci
Motion up near the ceiling caught Cinci
Two stools down from Cinci
The drunk stared down into the glass as if the amber fluid inside held the meaning of life. Maybe, for him, it did. He gulped it down. When the glass was empty, the drunk set it on the bar and looked around. Whatever he saw, Cinci
“What is we go
The barkeep ignored him, polishing the battered bar top with a none too clean rag. God ignored the drunk, too-but then, God had been ignoring Negroes in the CSA far longer than the Confederacy had been an independent country. If the man was talking to himself, would he have asked the same question twice? That left Cinci
“Oh, Lordy!” Resignation and a
The drunk, lost in his own fog of alcohol and pain, might not have heard the barkeep. But Cinci
He might have been pickled in sour mash. That didn’t mean the question didn’t matter. No, it didn’t mean anything of the sort. Cinci
“Damfino,” the drunk said. “Yeah, damfino. But we gots to do somethin’, on account of they wants to kill us all. Kill us all, you hear me?”
His voice rose to a frightened, angry shout. Cinci
Hesiod muttered and mumbled to himself. “Gots to be somethin’ somebody kin do,” he said. “Gots to be. If’n they ain’t, we is all dead.”
Before the barbed wire went up, Cinci
Hesiod slapped four bits on the bar. “Gimme ’nother double,” he said, and then, as if still ordering the drink, “Gots to kill them ofays. Kill ’em, you hear me?”
“Here you is.” The bartender set the drink in front of him. “Now you get outside o’ this. When you ain’t drinkin’, shut your damn mouth. You go
There was another home truth, even if the Brass Monkey was a long way from home. Somebody in the dive-maybe even the barkeep himself-was bound to be spying for the white man, spying for the government. Some blacks thought they could make deals with the devil, grab safety for themselves at the expense of their fellows, their friends, their families.
Cinci
“Them ofays come in here, we gots to shoot ’em! Shoot ’em, hear me?” Hesiod said.
The only trouble with that was, the white men would shoot back. And they were the ones with the heavy weapons. Lucullus Wood had seen as much, and Lucullus knew more than anybody else about the guns the Negroes in Covington had. Lucullus, no doubt, had brought a lot of those guns into the colored part of town.
Expecting a drunk to know what Lucullus knew was bound to be blind optimism. Cinci
“Everybody real sorry already,” Hesiod said, breathing more bourbon into Cinci
Before Cinci
And he did not impress Hesiod. “What they go
“Matter of fact, yes.” This time, Cinci
“But they’s already doin’ it. Already,” Hesiod said triumphantly. “They ship your ass to one o’ them camps, you don’t come out no more. They shoots you there, else they kills you some other kind o’ way. Might as well shoot back at them ofay motherfuckers. They come after us, we gots nothin’ to lose.”
A considerable silence followed. Both Cinci
Cinci