He pulled his grimy felt hat down over his anger and his jet-black hair and stepped onto the sidewalk. He walked past the statue of the Confederate soldier, reached the entrance of the courthouse, and paused. "One of these days," he muttered again, removed the hat, and stepped inside the massive, red-brick building. "Moanin', Massa Davis," he said to the chief deputy and forced his steps into a shuffle.

      Deputy Davis paid no attention, and Hosea went around the counter toward a door labeled SHERIFF ARLO C. JOHNSON. But it was the first day on the job for Patrolman Newton. He saw Hosea headed for the door. "Hey!" he yelled. "You can't go in there!"

      "Shut up, Newton," the deputy ordered.

      Without knocking, Hosea opened the door.

      The young patrolman asked, "Who was that? Damn, he stinks!"

      "Hosey Collins. He runs a blind tiger."

      "What's that?"

      "An unlicensed bar over in the quarters. Name's the Dewdrop Inn."

      Hosea entered Sheriff Johnson's private office and softly closed the door. A row of large, ornately framed portraits and pictures of former sheriffs lined one of the crumbling plaster walls. All the old men had varying amounts of facial hair but the same stern, righteous look on their faces. Attached to the opposite wall, without frames and in no order, post-mortem pictures of men executed on the courthouse's basement gallows stared across the room at the whiskered old men. All had the same ghastly look, and all the faces were black.

      The sheriff sat behind his desk, an American flag on a pole to his right, a Confederate flag on an identical pole to his left, and a portrait of Dwight Eisenhower frowning from the wall behind him. The wet stub of a black cigar moved from one side of the sheriff's mouth to the other, but his blood-shot eyes never left a stack of papers. Hosea shuffled toward him, reached the desk and said, "Moanin' Massa Johnson."

      The sheriff said nothing. Hosea reached into his pocket and pulled out seven grimy five-dollar bills. He had searched through his weekend proceeds for the filthiest bills, and he now laid them on the sheriff's desk.

      The cigar shifted sides. Soft pink fingers moved from clean white paper to soiled green paper, and the sheriff, handling the bills like excrement, counted them slowly. Satisfied, he opened a drawer and dropped the bills onto a stack of equally dirty money. He closed the drawer. His eyes met Hosea's, and his fingers began drumming the surface of his desk. Hosea dutifully bowed his head, watching the vibrating fingers. A long, noisy, yet somehow silent moment passed, the ragged figure of Hosea caught in a crossfire of stares from men both dead and alive. But the fingers finally stopped. The hands flattened on the desk, and the sheriff growled, "Last week we had two complaints about fightin' at yore place."

      "Yas'sa," Hosea answered and started backing toward the door.

      "An' you tell yore people," the sheriff ordered, "that I ain't havin' no Civil Rights demonstrations in my parish."

      "Yas'sa," Hosea lied. "I's sho' 'nuf gwine to tell them thet."

      Brown saliva dripped from the cigar, and the eyes returned to papers. But just as Hosea reached the door, the sheriff raised his head. "Hosey?"

      "Yas'sa," Hosea answered, his hand on the knob.

      "Brang me a bottle of good bourbon, next week."

      "Yas'sa," Hosea replied and closed the door of the white man's office.

      A few minutes later Hosea reached the Dewdrop Inn, a large, ramshackle room built across the front of his neat frame home. He entered a rear door and immediately removed the filthy clothing and took a bath. His wife rolled the stinking rags in a paper bag and placed it in the corner of a closet. It would remain there until the following Monday.

      When the stench was washed from his body, Hosea put on a white silk shirt and a pair of skin-tight black pants. He placed gold rings on several of his fingers, a gold chain around his neck, and sat on the edge of the bed and slipped his feet into a pair of alligator shoes. Then he walked through the kitchen of his home, opened the door that connected the house to the Dewdrop Inn, and started cleaning empty beer and wine bottles from the bar.

      The Sunday night crowd had left the Dewdrop Inn in shambles. The floor and tables were littered with over-turned ashtrays, cigarette butts, and empty and not-so-empty beer, wine, and whiskey bottles. A woman had danced with the wrong man, fists had flashed, then a razor, and, now, chairs were overturned, a splintered table lay on its side, and flies buzzed a pool of coagulated blood in the middle of the dance floor.

      Hosea's wife entered the room and began mopping the blood. Someone knocked on a small window behind the bar. "Yeah," Hosea said as he opened the window and peered into the face of a white man.

      "Six-pack o' Pearl an' a half-pint of Four Roses," the white man ordered.

      The parish was dry, so the Dewdrop Inn did a land-office white business through the window. Hosea handed the man a sack of beer and liquor and said, "Three dollars."

      The white man said nothing and handed Hosea his money. Hosea placed the bills into the cigar box he used for a cash register and closed the lid.

      Out on the dance floor, his wife had finished mopping. He walked past her, unlocked the front door, and opened it. She wrung her mop into a bucket, dumped the red liquid in the tall grass beside the rotting front steps, and closed the door. The morning sun beamed through cracks and cast pencil shafts of light from bullet holes to the dingy floor. The Dewdrop Inn was now officially open for business.

      The first black customer of the day soon sat at the bar, sipping white port wine from a pint bottle. Hosea's wife started sweeping under the tables. Hosea walked to the juke-box, plugged it into the electrical outlet, and the cavernous room came to life in a sudden display of neon brilliance. The juke-box still had nickels in it, and as Hosea walked back to the bar, it began playing "Big Blue Diamonds" by Little Willie John.

      The customer, an elderly wino, pushed a quarter across the bar, and Hosea handed him a fresh pint of wine. As the juke-box played, Hosea looked around the room and said, "The white man calls this place a blind tiger. Wonder why?"

      His wife shrugged her shoulders and said, "Who cares?"

      The old wino's toothless mouth emitted words of wisdom: "This place ain't no blind tiger." Then he stretched his arm across the bar, pointed a quivering, bony brown finger at Hosea, and said, "You a blind tiger."

      The bony finger turned to Hosea's wife. "An' she's a blind tiger."

      The old man then declared, "An' I'm a blind tiger!"

      "What do you mean?" Hosea asked with a frown.

      "All the black folks in this parish are blind tigers," the old man explained. "They a blind tiger the white man got by the tail and can't let go."

      His bleary eyes looked at Hosea, and the old man said, "They's more black folk in this parish than white folk. The days comin' when the black folk are gonna git to vote. When that day comes, the black man's gonna run this parish!"

      Hosea and his wife nodded their heads in total agreement. Hosea exclaimed, "That's right! It's comin'! It's comin'!"

      The old man's voice rose, and he roared, "THE BLIND BLACK TIGER'S GONNA SPEAK!"

      Hosea's wife stopped sweeping. "WE GONNA SPEAK!" she echoed and shook her broom like a weapon. "WE GONNA SPEAK!"

      "THAT'S RIGHT!" Hosea shouted.

      Then the old man pointed his finger around the room and declared, "We gonna elect an honest sheriff! This blind tiger bar ain't gonna be here no more!"

      Hosea's mouth dropped open in shock. His dark eyes glared, and his lips clinched. "Git yo' black ass outta my bar!"

      The wino picked up his bottle and weaved a path toward the door. Hosea's brown fingers started nervously drumming the surface of the bar, and his brow wrinkled as he watched the old man stagger away. The fingers stopped, and the hands flattened on the surface of the bar. Hosea's eyes stared down at his rings, glimmering in the light from the juke-box. The song finished playing.

      As he had done on Monday mornings for many years, Hosea Collins came out of an alley and crossed the wide street in front of the courthouse. He carefully stepped over the curb, walked slowly past the Confederate soldier, and paused when he reached the entrance of the gray, concrete building. "One of these days," he muttered. "One of these days."

      He forced a smile to his wrinkled brown face and stepped inside. The chief deputy paid no attention as Hosea walked behind the counter, and Hosea said, "Good morning, Newton."

      "Morning, Hosey," the deputy replied, and Hosea headed toward a door labeled SHERIFF WILLARD T. SAMPSON.

      Hosea opened the door and entered the office. Illuminated by tiny, brass-plated lamps, framed portraits and pictures of former sheriffs lined the dark, paneled walls on both sides of the door. Their piercing eyes stared across the room at each other but seemed to follow Hosea as he walked across the plush carpet toward a mahogany desk. To the right of the desk stood an American flag, to the left, a Louisiana flag, and behind the desk, a portrait of Jimmy Carter smiled from the wall.

      The sheriff, a cigarette white in his lips, paid no attention as Hosea reached the desk and pulled five filthy twenty-dollar bills from his pocket. Not a word was spoken by either man. Hosea lay the grimy bills on the paper littered, mahogany surface. Then the sheriff placed the cigarette in an ashtray, raked the dirty money into a drawer full of equally dirty money, and said, "Burn those rags, Hosey. You've got better clothes than that."

      "Yes sir," Hosea said, turned, and walked toward the door.

      A thin trail of smoke drifted from the cigarette, and the sheriff watched Hosea through the haze. As Hosea put his hand on the knob, the sheriff spoke. "Hosey?"

      "Yes sir?"

      "Bring me a fifth of good Scotch, next week."

      "Yes sir," Hosea said and closed the door of the black man's office.

      The sheriff happily drummed his brown fingers on the surface of his desk. They stopped, and he flattened his hands, admiring the sparkle of gemstones on three of his fingers. He closed the drawer, propped his feet on his desk, and leaned back in his chair. The hands and rings locked into the jet-black hair at the back of his head, and he began singing a song he had heard as a child: "Bigggg diamonds, big blue diamonds, how they sparkle. . . ."