The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - By Christopher Moore Page 0,34
saluted Theo with the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.
Theo looked away and walked to the dark cabin, wishing that there was someone there waiting for him.
Chapter 11~12
Eleven
Catfish
Catfish awoke to find a paint-spattered woman padding about the house in nothing but a pair of wool socks, in which she had stuck several sable brushes that delivered ochre, olive, and titanium white strokes to her calves whenever she moved. Canvases were propped on easels, chairs, counters, and windowsills - seascapes every one. Estelle moved from canvas to canvas, palette in hand, furiously painting details in the waves and beaches.
"Y'all woke up inspired," Catfish said.
It was past dusk, they had slept away the daylight. Estelle painted by the light of fifty candles and the orange glow that washed from the open doors of the wood stove. Color correctness be damned, these paintings should be viewed by fire.
Estelle stopped painting and raised her brush arm to cover her breasts. "They weren't finished. I knew something was missing when I painted them, but I didn't know what until now."
Catfish cinched his pants around his waist and walked shirtless among the paintings. The waves writhed with tail and scale and teeth and talon. Predator eyes shone out of the canvases, brighter, it seemed, than the candles that lit them.
"You done painted that old girl in all of 'em?"
"It's not a girl. It's male."
"How you know that?"
"I know." Estelle turned and went back to her painting. "I feel it."
"How you know it look like that?"
"It does, doesn't it? It looks like this?"
Catfish scratched the stubble on his chin and pondered the paintings.
"Close. But it ain't a boy. That ol' monster the same one come after me an
Smiley for catchin its little one." Estelle stopped painting and turned to him. "You have to play tonight?"
"In a little while."
"Coffee?" He stepped up to her, took the brush and palette from her, and kissed her on the forehead. "That sho' would be sweet." She padded to the bedroom and came back wearing a tattered kimono.
"Tell me, Catfish. What happened?" He was sitting at the table. "I think we done broke a record. I'm sore." Estelle smiled in spite of herself, but pressed on. "What happened back then, in the bayou? Did you call that thing up out of the water somehow?"
"What you thinkin, woman? I can do that, you think I be playin clubs for drinks and part the door?"
"Tell me how you felt back then, when that thing came out of the swamp."
"Scared." "Besides that."
"Wasn't nothing besides that. You heard it. Scared is all there is."
"You weren't scared after we got back here last night."
"No."
"Neither was I. What did you feel back then? Before and after the thing came after you."
"Not like I'm feelin now."
"And how is that?"
"I'm feelin real good to be here talkin to you."
"No kidding. Me too. How about back then?"
"Stop doggin me, girl. I'll tell you. But I gots to go play in an hour and I don't know that I can."
"Why not?"
"The Blues ain't on me. You done chased 'em off."
"I can throw you out in the cold without a shirt if you think it will help."
Catfish squirmed in his chair. "Maybe some coffee."
Catfish's Story
After we gets some distance from whatever chasin us, we stop the Model T Ford and me and Smiley put that big ol' catfish thing in the backseat - his tail hangin out one side an' his head out't'other. Now this ain't at all what I expected, and Smiley ain't got the Blues on him, but I'm gettin me a grand case myself. Then I realizes we got us five hundred dollar coming, and them ol' Blues done melt right away.
I say, "Smiley, I believes we should have us some celebratin, startin with some liquor and endin up with some fine Delta pussy. What you say?"
Ol' Smiley, like usual, don't wanna piss on the parade, but bein who he is, he point out we aint got no money and Ida May don't approve of no pussy more'en a hundred yard from the house. But he feelin it too, I can tell, and before long we headed down a back road to find a bootlegger I know down there name of Elmore that sells to colored folk.
That ol' white boy ain't got but two teeth, but he grindin 'em when we pulls up, all mad and wavin his shotgun like we come to bust up his still. I say, "Hey, Elmore, how your lovely wife and sister?"