14/01/2021

nailed or boarded shut. In one office, Near East Exquisitries on a green brass plaque, the Mugwump is catching termites with his long black tongue. The door of the County Clerk’s office is open. The County Clerk sits inside gumming snuff, surrounded by six assistants. Lee stands in the doorway. The County Clerk goes on talking without looking up.
“I run into Ted Spigot the other day . . . a good old boy, too. Not a finer man in the Zone than Ted Spigot.. . . Now it was a Friday I happen to remember because the Old Lady was down with the menstral cramps and I went to Doc Parker’s drugstore on Dalton Street, just
opposite Ma Green’s Ethical Massage Parlor, where Jed’s old livery stable used to be. . . . Now, Jed, I’ll remember his second name directly, had a cast in the left eye and his wife came from some place out East, Algiers I believe it was, and after Jed died she married
up again, and she married one of the Hoot boys, Clem Hoot if my memory serves, a good old boy too, now Hoot was around fifty-four fifty-five year old at the time. . . . So I says to Doc Parker: ‘My old lady is down bad with the menstral cramps. Sell me two ounces of
paregoric.’
“So Doc says, ‘Well, Arch, you gotta sign the book. Name, address and date of purchase. It’s the law.*
“So I asked Doc what the day was, and he said, ‘Friday the 13th.’
“So I said, ‘ I guess I already had mine.’
“ ‘Well,’ Doc says, ‘there was a feller in here this morning. City feller. Dressed kinda flashy. So he’s got him a RX for a mason jar of morphine. . . . Kinda funny looking prescription write out on toilet paper. . . . And I