South Street by David Bradley Page B

gots to let me shoot ma shot.”
    “Why?” said Willie T. “You ain’t gonna make it anyway.”
    “Sho’ am,” Cotton said. “I’ma cut a combination on the six ball an’ just slide that fifteen in down there, an’ then I’ll be all set up for the eight ball in the side, an’ that’ll be your ass.”
    “Damn,” said Willie T., “don’t you know nothin’ ’bout geometry? You ain’t gonna do nothin’ ’cept maybe knock ma six in for me, then I’ll be set up for the eight ball.”
    “I’ma eight ball your ass if you don’t let me shoot the damn thing,” said Cotton.
    “You stop fuckin’ on Cotton now, Willie,” said Leroy. He puffed on his cigar, filled the air with gray clouds.
    Willie T. smiled slyly. “Gone now, Cotton, an’ shoot you shot. Course, if I was you, I’d just shoot safety.”
    “Don’t tell Cotton how to play his game,” said Leroy.
    “That’s right,” said Cotton, making a face at Willie T.
    “All right,” said Willie T., raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was just tryin’ to be helpful, maybe speed things up. This nigger’s attemptin’ to take all night losin’ one damn game.”
    “Let him be,” said Leroy. “I been thinkin’ an’ we gots more important things to worry about.”
    “Like what?” said Willie T.
    “Like Gino movin’ in on me.”
    “Shit,” said Willie T. “Ain’t no Gino gonna be movin’ in on us . Gino don’t want nothin’ to do with no niggers. He don’t like nobody that ain’t Italian.”
    “Willie T., we’re talkin’ about money. Gino likes money moren he don’t like anything.”
    “Gino ain’t interested in takin’ over our street—” Willie T. began.
    “Whose street?” Leroy interrupted.
    “Your street,” said Willie T. “There’s no way he can do it. We’d know the minute one a his muthafuckin’ fools come around.”
    “All right,” said Leroy, “ how we gonna know? We gonna smell the spaghetti on his breath?”
    “What you want me to say?” said Willie T.
    “He’s gonna be white ,” said Cotton.
    “So what we got to worry about then?” said Willie T. “Maybe we oughta get rid a black shoe polish so we don’t get faked.”
    “Sposin’ they ain’t white,” said Cotton.
    “You mean a black man?” said Willie T. incredulously. “A nigger ? Workin’ for Gino? Ain’t nobody on this street crazy enough to work for Gino. An’ he wouldn’t have ’em anyways.”
    “There’s niggers that don’t live on the street,” Leroy said. “Maybe he’d have one a them.”
    “That’s what the paper said,” said Cotton.
    “What?” demanded Willie T. “You gonna shoot that shot or ain’t you?”
    “In a minute. The paper said all the big time wops is into hirin’ niggers now. They all turnin’ into Equal Opportunity Employers. Got the brothers sellin’ dope, runnin’ numbers, hustlin’ broads, even turnin’ ’em on to real heavy shit, contracts an’ stuff. Got brothers comin’ back from Vietnam that kills baddern any damn wop in the world . It was in the Philadelphia Inquirer .”
    “More likely the National Inquirer ,” said Willie T.
    “Gone, Cotton,” said Leroy, “everybody knows you can’t read.”
    “I can hear,” said Cotton in wounded tones. “Fella stands on the corner peddlin’ his papers, shouts everythin’ in ’em. I ain’t got to read. I just stands there, pretty soon I done heard it all.”
    “Dog,” said Leroy.
    “Dog, shit,” said Willie T. “I don’t care what the paper says. I don’t trust no damn Inquirer anyways.”
    “Willie T.’s a college boy,” said Cotton. “He don’t believe the sky’s blue ’less he reads it in the Temple Free Press .”
    “Shit,” said Willie T. “That ain’t nothin’ but a load a shit.”
    “I run into one the other night,” Leroy said.
    “What?”
    “In Lightnin’ Ed’s. Muthafucka said he worked for Gino. I damn near choked on the spot.”
    “Heard about that,” said Willie