at Moe’s on New York Avenue. A couple of years later Moe died, his kids took over the business, and they went belly-up too. Then Nathan’s put me on as assistant manager over in Arlington. It was rough for a while, but I hung with it and eventually they give me this store.” He finished his draught and put it loudly on the table. “So I come a long way from the Colored Only section of this town to where I’m at. I don’t just work here. I’m the manager of a store on Connecticut Avenue, understand what I’m sayin’? I own a house and every three years I buy a new ride. I got me a kid at Maryland, one at UDC.” He paused and stared me down. “You want to know what’s important.”
A small man with a heavily veined nose wearing a tuxedo that fit like an afterthought walked into the room. He sat at the piano and placed his highball glass filled with straight liquor on a coaster.
“Welcome,” he said into the mike, “to La Fortresse.”
“It’s La FurPiece,” McGinnes shouted, and Lee jabbed me in the ribs.
“My name is Buddy Floyd,” the man said, and began indelicately playing the piano intro to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon.” With each chorus he turned his head in our direction and nodded in encouragement for us to sing along.
Mercifully, others began filing into the room, older couples overdressed for this joint and out for their idea of a night on the town. Most of them were half-lit, and some of the women were elderly enough to be losing their hair, their pink scalps visible through their bouffants. For some reason I felt a tinge of sadness and kissed Lee on the cheek. Buddy Floyd was singing “They Call the Wind Maria.”
“I’m pretty buzzed,” Lee admitted, finishing her second vodka.
“So am I. You want to go?”
“Yes,” she said. “Can we stay together tonight?”
“Sure. But let’s go to my crib, okay?”
“Okay,” she laughed. “But aren’t you a little big for a crib?”
We settled up by leaving a twenty on the table. Lee kissed Louie good-bye. Malone, who was whispering something to our waitress, looked up long enough to give us a wink.
McGinnes was behind the piano, one arm around an older woman with raven black hair in the shape of a football helmet, his other hand clutching a precariously tilted tumbler of scotch. He and the others grouped around the piano were laughing and singing along loudly to the Fabulous Buddy Floyd’s interpretation of “Hello, Dolly.”
AT THE DISTRICT LINE I stopped for a bottle of red wine, then headed towards my apartment. We sat in the car in front of my place, talking and listening to some old Van Morrison. When that was over, we went inside.
A half bottle of wine later our clothes were thrown about the living room and Lee and I were writhing all over my couch. We ended it loudly and in a sweat, with Lee inclined in the corner, the tops of her calves locked beneath my ears, the soles of her feet pointing at the ceiling.
Afterwards, I slid a pillow under her ass to catch the wetness, and watched the sweat roll onto her chest and break apart as it reached her large, brown nipples.
My apartment resembled a bombed-out laundromat. The cat had Lee’s underwear on her head and was bumping into furniture. Lee pulled my face down and kissed me on the mouth for a long time.
“I had a good Saturday,” she said sweetly.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.” Then I pulled a white blanket up from the back of the couch and spread it over us, and we slept, holding each other until morning.
FIFTEEN
LEE ASKED, “Where are we going?”
After a slow morning of breakfast and the Sunday Post at my place, we were heading south on Thirteenth Street, passing large detached homes with expansive porches. Ahead stood three-story rowhouses crowned with incongruously grand turrets.
“We’re going to visit someone,” I said. “A friend of my grandfather’s.”
I turned right on Randolph and parked halfway down the block of boxy brick houses. There was little color in the trimwork or shutters here. Dogs barked angrily from alleys. Even on bright and sunny days, this street seemed to remain dark.
“This is my Uncle Costa’s place,” I said. “He worked for my grandfather when he was a young man. When he wanted to start his own business, my grandfather helped him out.”
“Let’s go in.”
“I just wanted to explain to you first,