huge that no amount of earthly achievement could ever pay off the
Devil’s bill.
The Devil don’t take no IOU’s,
mused Deaf Lemon. That
was the refrain that ended the song. He tossed a twenty-dollar bill
into a beggar’s detached artificial leg and waited to cross the street. A
group of teenagers whizzed by in a lowered pick-up and screamed an
obscenity at him. He ignored them and watched as they skidded
around the corner into a dead-end, nearly sending a homeless old
lady to her own personal dead-end in the process.
“Hey! Give me all your fucking money,” said the beggar, now
standing up next to him with a razor at his throat.
“Where’s your leg pal?”
“It’s not mine. I’m watching it for a friend. Gimme money.”
“Why should I?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll cut you.”
“With what? That’s a disposable shaver. Why don’t you get a job,
kid?”
“What do you know, nigger? The man been keeping me down.”
“The man,” said Lemon, shaking his head. “I keep hearing about
the man, but I never meet him.”
“It’s a conspiracy. That’s why you ain’t never met him. The man
wants to keep people like me low. He builds everything and makes
everything and buys everything. But it’s all only for him, man. I don’t
get nothin’.”
“Where’d he come from, this man?” asked Hopkins earnestly.
“I don’t know. But I one thing’s for sure, man. He’s a white guy.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s five brown guys and one blue guy,” replied
Hopkins.
“What? Nigger, you crazy,” said the would-be-mugger, and then,
noticing a thief was running away with his fake artificial leg, turned
to give chase. Deaf Lemon stood and watched as the leg-thief stopped
running, waited for the mugger to catch up to him, and then struck
him. Afterwards, the thief ran away, leaving the mugger sprawled on
the sidewalk in agony, having been kicked in the balls by his own
artificial leg.
Funny how things worked out sometimes.
Deaf Lemon stepped out into the street. Both literally and
figuratively, he had absolutely no idea where he was headed. In the
grand scheme of things, felt Lemon, it didn’t really matter where he
went, or if he went at all.
He was wrong about that. As he entered the middle of Hollywood
H O L Y S H I T !
102
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