Bart Becker

This all started right around Easter with a song I couldn't get out of my head--``Casanova'' by LeVert. I was sitting on a green park bench singing it when he sat down next to me and struck up a conversation so familiar you would have thought we knew each other from kindergarden. It couldn't have been even five minutes before he turned and said, ``Hey, Sweet, knock me a kiss.'' After that we just kept on going. I can't help it if I'm lucky.

At Tiny's Fruit Stand, a disintegrating tin-and-plank juke joint, it is after hours, which means only that we stop drinking B&B or Blue Ribbon -- what we call "legal'' -- and start on the homemade white shine -- "corn'' or "jar.'' This is Tiny's idea of protocol; she won't serve the lightning during business hours. She is huge, beautiful, and counting cash at the bar with her stoic boyfriend Dimples; "cute'' is the word women use about him. A couple of half-drunks with bleached bouffant hairdos start singing pretty harmony on "Try A Little Tenderness,'' Tiny makes that delicate little movement with her mouth, and pulls Dimples in close.

"It was on a Sunday afternoon at the Pressure Drop. Band was playing 'Messin' With the Kid,' fight break out. Everybody was running, I ran, too. Guy shot at him, got me right there.''

"Jesus Christ!''

"Bust that big leg bone. Laid me up for about six months, then on crutches. I ain't doing too bad now. Leg give out now and then.''