The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Hollerin and screamin comin out the woods sounding like music now, them Klansmen gettin all eat up.
    Then itget quiet just the sound of our breath and Smiley crankin the Model T. I'm yellin for him to hurry, I can hear that thing crashin though the woods. And finally, the Model T yanks over, but I can hardly hear it, 'cause that old dragon thing done broken out the woods andlets go a roar. Itells Smiley to get in, but he run back to the back of the car.
    "What you doing?" I say.
    "Five hundred dollar," hesay.
    And I seehe throwing the catfish in the backseat. That stinky thing ain't nothin but a head now, so Smileythrow it in by hisself. Then he makes to jump on the running board and Ilooks over and he just snatched out the air.Gone. Andthem jaws coming down for the second time when I pull that ol' Model T in gear and take off.
    Smiley gone.Gone.
    Next day I find that white man say he pay five hundred dollar for the catfish, and he look at that big fish head and jus laugh at me. I say I lose the best friend I ever had, he better give me my goddamn money. But helaugh and tell me go away. So I hit him.
    Took that old fish head to court with me, but it don't makeno difference.That judge give me six months in jail – hittin a white man and all. Hetell the bailiff, "Take Catfish away."
    They call me Catfish since. I don't tell the storyno more, but the name still there. Had the Blues on me ever since, but they ain't no makin amends. By the time I get out, Ida May die of grief, and I ain't got a friend alive.Been on the road since.
    That thing on the beach, make that sound, she lookin for me.
    Catfish "It's a male," Estelle said. She didn't know what else to say.
    "How you know?"
    "I know." She took his hand. "I'm sorry about your friend."
    "I just wanted him to get the Blues on him so we can make us a record."
    They sat there at the table for a while, holding hands. Catfish let his coffee go cold in the cup. Estelle ran the story around in her head, both relieved and fearful that the shadows in her paintings now had a shape. Somehow, as fantastic as it was, Catfish's story seemed familiar.
    She said, "Catfish,did you ever read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway?"
    "He that boywrite about bullfights and fishing? I met him once, downFlorida way. Why?"
    "You met him?"
    "Yeah, that sumbitch didn't believe that story neither.Said helike to fish, but he don't believe me. Why you ask?"
    "Never mind," Estelle said. "If this thing eats people, don't you think we should report it?"
    "I been tellin folks about that monster for some fifty years, ain't no one believed me yet. Said I was the biggest liar ever come outta the Delta. I'd have me a big house and a stack of records if not for that. You call the law and tell them 'bout this, they gonna call you the crazy woman of Pine Cove."
    "We already have one of those."
    "Well, ain't no one gonna get eat but me, and if I lose this gig 'cause they thinkin I'm crazy, I have to be movin on then. You understand?"
    Estelle took Catfish's cup from the table and placed it in the sink. "You'd better get ready to go play." twelve Molly To distract herself from the dragon next door, Molly had put on her sweats and started to clean her trailer. She got as far as filling three black trash bags with junk food jetsam and was getting ready to vacuum up the collection of sow bug corpses that dotted her carpet when she made the mistake of Windexing the television. Outland Steel, Kendra's Revenge was playing on the VCR and when the droplets of Windex hit the screen, they magnified the phosphorescent dots, making the picture look like an impressionist painting: Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on theIslandofLe Grande Warrior Babe perhaps.
    Molly froze the frame on the gratuitous shower scene. (There was always a shower scene in the first five minutes of her films, despite the fact that Kendra lived on a planet almost completely devoid of water. To address this problem, one young director had gotten the bright idea of using "anti-radioactive foam" in the shower scene and Molly had spent five hours with whipped Ivory Snow suds being blown on to her by an offscreen Shop-Vac. She ended up playing the rest of the film in a Bedouin burnoose to cover the rash that developed all over her body.) "Art film," Molly said, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, dowsing it with Windex for the fiftieth time. "I could have been a model inParis in those days."
    "Not a chance," said the narrator. He was still