The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

web, had exactly the same philosophy.) Today she'd had a heap of problems dumped on her, none of them directly hers, and she had been pondering them all morning without much luck in coming up with a way to manipulate the information to solve them.
    Then the call came from Theo, and it all clicked: Theo was right, they could use themonster's instincts to get them out of the cave, but if she played the mix right she could solve a couple of other problems as well.
    She put down the phone and Catfish said, "Who that?"
    "It was Theo."
    "That ol' dragon ain'tet him yet? Boy must be livin a charmed life."
    Mavis leaned over the bar, close to Catfish, took his hand in hers, and began squeezing. "Sweetie, put on your friendly persuasion hat. I need you to run down to the pharmacy and pick up something for me."
    "Yes, ma'am," Catfish said, wincing as the bones in his fingers compressed under her grip.
    When the Bluesman was gone, Mavis made a quick phone call, then went to the back room and dug through boxes and filing cabinets until she came up with what she was looking for: a small black box attached to a long cord with a cigarette lighter plug on the end. "Don't worry, Theo," she said to herself.
    "I put my life in the hands of machinery a long time ago, and I'm doing just fine." She giggled and it came out sounding like the starter cranking on a fuel dry Ford.
    Catfish A Bluesman hates to be told what to do. Authorityrankles him, inspires his rebellion, and plays to his need to self-destruct. A Bluesman doesn't take to having a boss unless he's on a chain gang (for the chain gang boss ranks below only a mean old woman and a sweet young thing in the hierarchy of the Blues Muse, followed closely by bad liquor, a dead dog, and the Man). Catfish had a boss who was a mean old woman: a distinct and disconcerting turn of the Blues screw that might have driven a lesser Bluesman to shoot hisself, get shot, get hold of some bad liquor, or bust up his guitar and take a job down to the mill. But Catfish hadn't taken nigh unto eighty trips around that cruel, cruel sun without gaining some perspective, so he would go to the pharmacy as he was told. He would talk to the fish-fucking white boy with the combed-over hair that waved in the air like the sprung lid on a bean can. And when he was done, he would pick up his pay from the mean old woman who was holding it hostage and he would get his wrinkly Black ass out of this town and go nurse his heartbreak on the moving trap that was, is, and always shall be the road.
    So Catfishstrolled a rolling Delta moonwalk of a stroll (redolent of sassafras and jive) into Pine Cove Drug and Gift and the four blue-haired chicken women behind the counter nearly tumbled over each other trying to get to the back room. Imagine it: a person of the Dark persuasion in their midst. What if he should ask for a vial of Afro-Sheen or some other ethnically oriented product with which they were totally unfamiliar? Why, the smoke alarms would melt, screaminglike dying witches, when their collective minds steamed to a stop. Do we look like thrill-seekers? Wasn't it enough that we had to put up that sign reading NO HABLA ESPANOL and acknowledge the existence of thirty percent of the population, even in the negative? No, we shall err on the side of safety, thank you… and in lieu of sand in which to bury our heads, we shall head into the back room.
    Winston Krauss, who was counting fake Zolofts behind his glass wall, looked up and saw Catfish coming down the aisle toward the counter and immediately regretted that he hadn't installed bulletproof glass. Still, Winston was a man of the world, and you don't indulge the fantasy of molesting dolphins without becoming familiar with the ways of people of color, for that is who dolphins prefer to hang out with, when they aren't hanging out with the Cousteaus, or so it appeared on the Discovery Channel. He stepped out of his booth and met Catfish as he reached the counter.
    "Good day, me brother-mon, ye," Winston said in his best island dialect. "What can I be gettin forye ?" And there was that welcoming smile, only a dreadlock anda white sand beach short of a travel poster.
    Catfish squinted, removed his fedora, ran a hand over his shining scalp, stepped back, turned his head to the side and studied the pharmacist for a moment then said, "I will slap the shit out of you. You know that?"
    "Sorry," Winston said, coughing somewhat as if trying to dislodge the errant Jamaican from