Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“Are you two for real?” he asked.

“Pardon?” said Lemon.

“You two. You look like you walked out of a seventies blaxploitation film. You know, when you reinforce the stereotype like that, you make it harder on all the younger brothers coming up, right? Difficult enough for a young man to make his way without every old white lady in town terrified she just spotted Superfly down on Market Street. Forget about a black woman trying to be taken seriously.”

He laid down his cash and took his change and the record. “I have a hard enough time getting my son not to talk like a thug as it is, and having you two dinosaurs riding in on the Soul Train from the Cretaceous is not helpful. You are grown-ass men. Act like it. Do you feel me?”

Lemon and Minty both nodded slowly, remembering doing that same contrite, synchronized nod when they were boys. The doctor shot his lapels, tucked his record under his arm, and strode out of the store.

Lemon glared at the door, then turned back to Minty. “Harsh.”

“Seventies? Motherfucker, I had these shoes made last year,” said Minty, his voice two indignant octaves higher, looking down at his Italian patent-leather loafers in mint green, as smooth and shiny as pillow mints.

“Excuse me for perpetuating your stereotype,” said Lemon, “but we got some archetypical shit to do up in here and we need to dress the part.”

“You don’t never be lyin’,” said Minty, using the phrase for the first time in twenty-five years. “You don’t never be lyin’.”

“But he do have a point,” said Lemon.

“Yeah, you do be a bit ostentatious,” said Minty.

“Me?” said Lemon, pointing to himself, touching his diamond tie tack in the process as if pushing an irony button. “Me? You ever look at yourself, niggah? Nine-feet-tall motherfucker weigh thirty-two pounds—shit, you be ostentatious standing in the weeds wearin’ camouflage.”

“Style can’t be denied, Lemon. That’s the difference between you and me: you a slave to fashion and I’m a sultan of style.”

Lemon laughed, started to talk, then laughed some more, pointing at Minty to hold the moment until he got his breath. When he did, he shrugged grandly, raised his arms as if appealing to the holy spirit, and said, “Since when was this fashionable?”

“ ’Bout the time that piece of trash Buick was new,” said Minty, grinning.

“Know what? Fuck that niggah, he don’t know us when we didn’t have but a single pair of raggedy-ass trousers each, am I right?”

“You know you are?” Minty in the groove now of how they talked to each other.

“How your mama?”

“Still dead.”

“So sad, that woman a saint, what she put up with. I learned some shit over the years. Counseling. Your daddy was emotionally unavailable, you know that?”

“That’s right.”

“And my daddy treated women like they was throwaway things—you know that fucked up my shit.”

“You a broke-dick dog, Lemon Fresh.”

“You know I ain’t at all what I used to be.”

“I was picking up on that. New hat, right?”

Lemon laughed again, wheezing a little bit. “You funny. Hey, you still got that book I sent you?”

“No, I passed it on, like you do.”

“You did all right, though.”

Minty looked around the shop, at his handmade Italian shoes, back at Lemon. “I coulda used some coaching.”

“You know how it is, we was young and stupid.”

“We?”

“But we ain’t now.”

“No, we ain’t.”

“In fact, I’m not even who I am no more, you know, ’cept for my good looks and charm and whatnot.”

“That right?”

“My shit is informed by a thousand-year-old super-enlightened being from the Underworld up in here.” Lemon thumped his lapel with an open hand.

“Super-enlightened, huh?” Minty looking baffled.

“What you sayin’?”

“Super-enlightened and he still let you drive that ugly-ass, dog-bit old Buick.”

“You saw that, did you? I was gonna get that shit pounded out.”

“Look like something happen when you was running. You always was afraid of dogs. Walk a quarter mile not to go by that white dog Miss McCutcheon had fenced up in her yard. Was you running from them doggies, Lemon?”

“That white dog come over that fence once, you wasn’t there. I spent best of an afternoon top a Oldsmobile before Miss McCutcheon come get him. I hated that dog.”

“You was running.” Minty smiled. “S’alls I need to know.”

“You think you smart. I know you, Minty Fresh. I watch yo mama whip yo ass for having pee pants when you was five. But you don’t know me. This ain’t gonna be like it was before. I ain’t like Orcus.”

“Who?” Minty tsking like, What you wasting my time with now?

“Orcus. Big, black motherfucker with wings, tore shit out of this town. Kill him a bunch of y’all motherfuckers. You know who I mean.”

“Oh.” Minty searched his memory. “Oh, yeah, what ever happened to him?” He knew what happened to Orcus. He’d been torn apart by the Morrigan.

“Not the point,” said Lemon. “I ain’t like him, all bustin’ shit up, biting people’s heads off and shit. I’m moving in smooth, in the daylight.” He held out his arms, just letting sunlight through the front windows get all over him. “Shit about to get real up in here, Minty.”

“It feel like it is.”

“But nobody don’t get between me and what I want got a worry in the world.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Not even that pale white girl of yours.”

“Mmmp,” Minty said. A percussive sound, like disappointment hitting home. He shook his head slowly, looking at the counter, just wishing, regretting, truly unhappy that Lemon had gone there, and when he looked up, when his head snapped up, his eyes were like golden fire. “You ain’t bad, Lemon.”

Lemon’s eyes went wide for a second, then he tightened down, tried to show some swagger. “You don’t know me . You ain’t just talkin’ to me anymore, cuz.”

“You ain’t shit, Lemon.”

“You don’t know what I am now, Minty. I been fifty years in a cave, I have outwaited mountains, I have slain multitudes, I have brought dark death down on whole cities. Do not fuck with me.”

“Uh-huh.” said Minty, unimpressed. “Of all of us, all of us that collect souls, pass them on, do the business of Death, you all of sudden chosen by this badass lord of darkness to lead his conquest over light? You, Lemon Fresh? You? Why you? What make you special? Your blood? Is it your golden eyes?”

Minty leaned on the counter, leaned forward, eyes wide, so Lemon could get his point. “Is that it, motherfucker? You the only one in the whole world picked to start a new order, the only upstart from the Underworld to rise in my motherfucking city? You? Bitch-ass Lemon motherfucking-broke-ass-Buick Fresh? Niggah, please.”

“You need to chillax, cuz.” Lemon was suddenly interested in the rack of CDs near him. “You got any Xanax, or gin or something back there you can self-medicate with, ’cause that anger is not healthy. Our peoples got high blood pressure. They a vein standing out on your head, right here.” He took off his hat and pointed to a spot on his own head. “Right here, like throbbin’ and shit. You probably havin’ a stroke.”

Minty said: “You touch any of my people, what happened to Orcus will look like a spa day compared to what happen to you. Now get the fuck out my store.”

Lemon looked up from the CDs. “Don’t push me, niggah. I will end you right here.”

Minty now held his arms out to his sides, angry Jesus style, suffer all the bitch-ass motherfuckers need an ass-whoopin’ unto me, for I shall rain wrath down upon them— that look.