Fear of the Dark by WALTER MOSLEY

Author:WALTER MOSLEY [MOSLEY, WALTER]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759568228
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

24

WHENEVER FEARLESS CAME to the beach he wanted fish and chips at Briny’s down in Venice. Briny was an older white gentleman who had lost his left leg below the knee and his right eye during his years at sea. The one eye he had left was gray; so was his hair and the pallor under his tanned white skin.

The first time we ate at the dive, Briny was being harassed by an angry white guy. The guy, his name was Lux, had a torso that was as big as half a keg of beer. He looked as strong as any man I ever met. Lux had decided, for some unknown reason, to make Briny the object of all his hatred.

When we got to the restaurant that first time, Briny had seated us and served us without any strange looks or hesitance. Negroes at that time appreciated fair service of that type in white establishments. But his acceptance went further than that. When he’d been whole he was a merchant marine and had spent some time down in New Orleans. We swapped stories about that city, even knew a name or two in common.

Fearless and Briny were getting pretty friendly when Lux came in.

“Hey you, Riley,” the big white man shouted. “Come over here and make me some whitefish and eggs. I’m hungry and I’m horny as a toad. I got some pussy waitin’ down the street. It’s old pussy, so I need eggs t’get it up and fish to cut the smell.”

No one could read Fearless like I could. His face darkened almost imperceptibly. His eyes shifted a thousandth of an inch. Fearless didn’t abide rudeness, and there was no room in his heart for a man bad-mouthing a woman, whether she was there or not. Add that to the fact that he’d become fond of Briny in the hour we’d been in the dingy restaurant and you had a recipe for trouble.

Neither one of us liked it when Briny cowered and scuttled over to Lux saying, “Yes, sir, Mr. Lux.”

But still, Fearless would have probably let it ride. Then Lux had to go and throw his plate on the floor when he didn’t like his eggs. He slapped our host and unleashed a string of curses and threats that one usually only heard in prison.

Lux was in the middle of a complex description of Briny’s mother when Fearless tapped the big man’s shoulder.

There were seven other customers in Briny’s that late afternoon. They were all witnesses to the spectacle.

Lux turned his head slowly to regard my friend. Fearless is tall, but Lux was too. The white demon had at least twenty more pounds of muscle than did my friend. And Lux was fifty pounds heavier. All of those other customers must have thought that the foolish Negro was about to get his head torn off.

“What, boy?” Lux asked.

“Let’s step outside,” Fearless said, gesturing at a window that showed a small backyard Briny used as a kind of dump for large appliances gone bad.

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