Devil in a Blue Dress

day you still found yourself on the bottom.

But being on the bottom didn't feel so bad if you could come to John's now and then and remember how it felt back home in Texas, dreaming about California. Sitting there and drinking John's scotch you could remember the dreams you once had and, for a while, it felt like you had them for real.

'Hey, Ease,' a thick voice crackled at me from behind the door.

It was Junior Fornay. He was a man that I knew from back home too. A big, burly field hand who could chop cotton all day long and then party until it was time to climb back out into the fields. We had had an argument once, when we were both much younger, and I couldn't help thinking that I'd've probably died if it wasn't for Mouse stepping in to save my bacon.

'Junior,' I hailed. 'What's goin' on?'

'Not too much, yet, but stick around.' He was leaning back on a stool, propping himself against the wall. He was five years older than I, maybe thirty-three, and his gut hung over his jeans, but Junior still looked to be every bit as powerful as when he put me on the floor all those years before.

Junior had a cigarette between his lips. He smoked the cheapest, foulest brand that they made in Mexico— Zapatas. I guess that he was finished smoking it because he let it fall to the floor. It just lay on the oak floor, smoldering and burning a black patch in the wood. The floor around Junior's chair had dozens of burns in it. He was a filthy man who didn't give a damn about anything.

'Ain't seen ya 'round much, Ease. Where ya been?'

'Workin', workin', day and night for Champion, and then they let me go.'

'Fired?' There was a hint of a smile on his lips.

'On my ass.'

'Shit. Sorry t'hear it. They got layoffs?'

'Naw, man. It's just that the boss ain't happy if you just do your job. He need a big smack on his butt too.'

'I hear ya.'

'Just this past Monday I finished a shift and I was so tired I couldn't even walk straight…'

'Uh-huh,' Junior chimed in to keep the story going.

'… and the boss come up and say that he need me for an extra hour. Well I told him that I was sorry but I had a date. And I did too, with my bed.'

Junior got a kick out of that.

'And he got the nerve to tell me that my people have to learn to give a little extra if we wanna advance.'

'He said that?'

'Yeah.' I felt the heat of my anger returning.

'And what is he?'

'Italian boy, I think his parents the ones come over.'

'Man! So what you say?'

'I told him that my people been givin' a little extra since before Italy was even a country. 'Cause you know Italy ain't even been around that long.'

'Yeah,' Junior said. But I could see that he didn't know what I was talking about. 'So what happened then?'

'He just told me to go on home and not to bother coming back. He said that he needed people who were willing to work. So I left.'

'Man!' Junior shook his head. 'They do it to ya every time.'

'That's right. You want a beer, Junior?'

'Yeah.' He frowned. 'But can you buy it with no job and all?'

'I can always buy a couple'a beers.'

'Well then, I can always drink'em.'

I went over to the bar and ordered two ales. It looked like half of Houston was there. Most tables had five or six people. People were shouting and talking, kissing and laughing. John's place felt good after a hard day's work. It wasn't quite legal but there was nothing wrong with it either. Big names in Negro music came there because they knew John in the old days when he gave them work and didn't skimp on the paycheck. There must've been over two hundred regulars that frequented John's and we all knew each other, so it made a good place for business as well as a good time.

Alphonso Jenkins was there in his black silk shirt and his foot-high pompadour hairdo. Jockamo Johanas was there too. He was wearing a wooly brown suit and bright blue shoes. Skinny Rita Cook was there with five men hanging around her table. I never did understand how an ugly, skinny woman like that attracted so many men. I once asked her how she did it and she said, in her high whiny voice, 'Well, ya know, Easy, it's only half the mens is int'rested in how a girl look. Most'a your colored mens is lookin' for a woman love'em so hard that they fo'gets how hard it is t'make it through the day.'

I noticed Frank Green at the bar. We called him Knifehand because he was so fast to pull a knife that it seemed he always had one in his hand. I stayed away from Frank because he was a gangster. He hijacked liquor trucks and cigarette shipments all over California, and Nevada too. He was serious about everything and just about ready to cut any man he met.