Legends

Lincoln raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of warm beer. “What you got against Wall Street, Leroy? Did you lose money on the stock market?”

Leroy sniffed at the air in the Kit Kat Klub, which reeked of beer and marijuana and perspiration. “I hate the Federal gov’ment,” he confided, “and that there Wall Street is a branch of the Federal gov’ment. Wall Street is where them Jews hang out, running the country from behind their polished mahogany desks, plotting to take over the whole entire world. Whether you admit it or not, you know I’m right or you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. You’re a foot soldier like me in the war of liberation. Hell, we may have to destroy America to liberate her, but one way or another we are gonna go and set the clock back to where right thinking folks can get on with their lives without being dictated to by some pompous asshole in Washington. It’s the Civil War all over again, Lincoln. The Federal gov’ment’s trying to tell us what we can do and what we can’t do. Things keep up the way they been going, hell, they’re gonna throw away the Constitution and decide you need to get yourself a license before you can own a handgun.” Leroy kept his voice pitched low but he was starting to rant now. “A license to buy a handgun! Over my dead body! Listen up, Lincoln, you got yourself book learning so you know the country is going to the dogs. Give the kikes an’ niggers an inch, they’ll come right back at you for a country mile. If we don’t draw the limit line in the dirt, if we don’t make our stand now, why, one day soon they’re gonna bus the niggers to every goddamn school in the country until there won’t be such a thing as a white man’s school left between the Pacific and the Atlantic.”

Leroy seemed to run out of steam just as the mulatto girl working the bar turned up with his beer. She deftly flicked off the cap with a church key hanging between her breasts at the end of a long gold necklace. “Ready for a refill?” she asked Lincoln.

The bottle of beer on the table in front of him was still half full. “I’m okay,” he said.

“He is definitely okay,” Leroy agreed impatiently.

The waitress told Leroy, “My girlfriend Paura, she’s the dark haired one in toreador pants dancing all by herself over there, has taken a shine to your friend here.”

“You don’t say,” Leroy said. He smirked across the table at Lincoln. “Why don’t you invite Paura over for a beer, Lincoln. If’n you don’t fancy her I’ll take her on.”

“I told you—” Lincoln started to say, but Leroy had already grabbed the waitress’s wrist. “Go and tell this Paura chic to get her ass over here.”

The waitress could be seen laughing and saying something to her friend as she headed back to the bar. Paura, holding an enormous joint between two fingers of her left hand, slowly turned her head and sized up the two men in the booth, then went on with her dancing though each shuffling step brought her closer to the rear of the bar. She kept dancing even after the record stopped and wound up swaying like a leaf in a faint breeze next to the booth as “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” started in again. She took a drag on her joint and swallowed the smoke and said, “I bet she told you my name’s Paura.”

“She did,” Leroy affirmed.

“She never gets it right.” The girl spoke English with what Lincoln took to be an Italian accent. “I’m Paura some days. On others I’m Lucia. Today is a Lucia day.”

Lincoln, an aficionado of legends as well as firearms, asked, “Are these different names for the same person or two distinct people?”

Lucia scrutinized Lincoln to see if he was mocking her. When she saw he was serious, she answered his question seriously. “They’re as distinct as night and day. Lucia is day. Her name in Italian means light. Sunshine and daylight fill her heart, she is grateful to be alive and lives from day to day, she doesn’t see past tomorrow. She goes down on anyone who pays without haggling, she considers it a matter of principle to give a client his money’s worth. She passes on half of what she earns to her pimp and does not hold back his share if a client should happen to leave a tip.”

“And Paura? What’s she like?”

“Paura is night. Her name means fear in Italian. Everything about her can be traced to fear—she is afraid of her shadow during the day, afraid of the darkness when the last light has been drained from the day, afraid of the customers who remove their belts before they take off their trousers. She’s afraid of swimming pools. She is afraid life on earth will end before dawn tomorrow, afraid it will go on forever.” She regarded Lincoln with her frightened eyes. “Would you like me to read your palm? I can tell you on what day of the week your life will come to an end.”

Lincoln politely declined. “I have no visible lifeline,” he said.

The girl tried another tack. “What sign were you born under?”

Lincoln shook his head. “I’m a Zodiac atheist. Don’t know my sign, don’t want to know.”