Deacon King Kong

by James McBride

The wonderful, bursting, gorgeous, eye-opening panorama of light that love can bring into a lonely man’s life.

Well now, the bottom rail’s on top, sir,

The Italians don’t own the block. Nobody owns the block. Nobody was king of nothing in New York. It’s life. Survival.

I’m asking you to ask Jesus to send me some. Just a piece. I ain’t had it in years.”

“I’ll give ’im enough to last the rest of his life.”

Potts Mullen, the retired cop, and his former rookie partner, Jet Hardman,

Elefante, formerly known as the Elephant, resplendent in a gray suit, along with his mother and his new wife, a hefty, shy Irish woman said to be from the Bronx; and Deems Clemens himself, the former drug-dealing terror of the Cause—now

I don’t know what it is. But the older I get, the more I become what I really am.

“Bless me! The Elephant and Sportcoat shook hands?” Hot Sausage said.

So I said to her, ‘The Cousins is gonna take Pudgy Fingers. I can’t care for him.’

Cuffy Lambkin.