The Evil B.B. Chow & Other Stories by Steve Almond Page B

not.”
    â€œHave you no cause to savor your drink?”
    â€œOf cause I have no end, Douglass. Time—that is the matter.”
    â€œGrant makes time.”
    â€œHe is a soldier. That is his brand.”
    â€œAnd us?”
    â€œWe are lovers, Douglass.”
    D OUGLASS FINDS L INCOLN in his study. The lines along his mouth are sunk deep as runnels. “The speech didn’t scour. It was a flat failure. The people are disappointed.”
    â€œI thought it a fine speech.”
    â€œEverett, Seward, and Lamon all thought it bad. I have blundered, Douglass, and made an enemy of brevity.”
    â€œIt was succinct.”
    â€œNo, no, Douglass. You are too kind to me. It was a failure. A perfect failure.”
    â€œD O YOU , IN those moments alone, look into the eyes of your wife?”
    â€œThat much depends, Lincoln, on whether I am in a position to do so.”
    Lincoln offers a throaty laugh. His long earlobes, mossed with fine hairs, jiggle. “I see.” He plucks at Douglass’s silk cravat. “And from whom does this finery derive?”
    Douglass displays a band of teeth, fingers the cloth. “This? Hmmmm. Let me see.” He tips the flask. “The good widow Winchester, I believe.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIf memory serves.”
    â€œYou have had the good fortune of good widows.”
    â€œIndeed.”
    â€œYou have provided them a great comfort, I suppose.”
    â€œSo I am given to understand.”
    â€œI HAVE JUST had the oddest dream,” Lincoln says. “Do you remember the flatboat, Mary? Did you know me then? I was there, on the river. The air was like jelly, thick and full of fruit. And do you know what was with me? You will never guess.”
    Mary does not answer. She is occupied at the task of scratching flowers off the bedside wallpaper with a butter knife.
    â€œI WAS MADE happiest, by jing, at my election as captain of the volunteers in the Blackhawk War.”
    â€œYou look something like an Indian,” Douglass says. “Your cheeks appear chopped at.” They are past the Mason-Dixon, floating from St. Louis into Trapville.
    â€œAnd then my days rail-splitting.” Lincoln sips at the flask, wipes his mouth with his wrist, and shambles to his feet. With great ceremony, he spits into one palm, then the other, lifts an invisible hammer over his head, and brings it down onto an equally invisible spike. His height is accentuated by a certain unconsummated grace. “I worked with a fellow named Cooper. His arms were like bolts ofpig iron. He celebrated every tie with a song. ‘The Sword of Bunker Hill.’ ‘The Lament of the Irish Immigrant.’ Do you know that one, Douglass?”
    â€œNo.”
    Lincoln, still hammering, begins to sing in a reedy baritone:
    I’m very lonely now, Mary
For the poor make few new friends
    â€œWill you join me, Douglass?”
    â€œNot just yet, Mr. President.”
    â€œWe laid track from New Salem to Bedford. In the evenings, Ann would rub my shoulders.”
    â€œAnn?”
    â€œWith liniment.”
    â€œAnn whom?”
    Lincoln has sweat through his undershirt. His face is lit with a sudden exhaustion. “Perhaps that is what I meant to remember,” he says softly. Lincoln gazes at Douglass for a long while. “They shall set us against one another, friend, we men of honest labor, with our women between us. You do understand that, don’t you?”
    L INCOLN ’ S FIRST VISION occurs in 1860, following his election as president. He is reclining in his chambers at the Springfield courthouse, facing a looking glass. In this glass he sees two faces at once, both his own. The first is full of a healthful glow. The second reveals a ghostly paleness. He repeats this experiment no fewer than six times. On each occasion, the illusion reappears.
    T HE FLASK IS DONE at dusk. Both men have stripped down to skivvies. “Honest Abe,” Douglass