19

Chapter 1

Kings, Baby Dolls, Zulus, and Queens

EVERY NIGHT IS LIKE SATURDAY NIGHT IN PERdido Street, wild and fast and hot with sin. But the night before Mardi Gras blazed to a new height.
The darkness outside the bars was broken only by yellow rectangles of light, spreading over the banquette, then quickly vanishing, each time saloon doors opened and closed. Music boxes blased from every lighted doorway. Black men swaggered or staggered past, hats and caps pulled low over their eyes, which meant they were tough, or set rakishly over one ear, which meant they were sports. There were the smells: stale wine and beer, whiskey, urine, perfume, sweating armpits.
In one dimly lighted place couples milled about the floor, hugging each other tightly, goig through sensuous motions to the music. Drug addicts, prostitutes, beggars and workingmen, they were having themselves a time. A fat girl danced alone, snapping her fingers.
Young black women tried to itnerest men, ,who sagged over the bars, their eyelids heavy from liquor and 'reefers.' One woman screamed above the din: 'I'll do it for twenty cents, Hot Papa. I can't dance with no dry throat. I want twenty cents