The Kids Dig It, but the Kids Are Sick

epub or mobi, with thanks to the original sharer

According to its license, the Macomba was to close at four a.m., but if things were cooking, Leonard said, “Fuck it,” or, as they say on the West Side, “Fuck that shit,” pulled the shutters, closed the blinds and roared on, through the dawn, into the morning, the sun beating like a strobe across the lake. The lounge became a crossroads of drug traffic, the connection sitting at the bar like an exposed wire. Exchanges in the bathroom, in the alley, right up front, a packet of cocaine taped under a stool. After closing, Leonard and Phil would check every chair, flushing what they found. There were threats, fights, holdups. One night, a man came at Leonard with a knife. Big Gene, who worked for Leonard as a kind of bodyguard, stepped in front of the blade. It took seventy stitches to close the wound. Another night, when Leonard brought Marshall to work—he was five years old—gunfire broke out. Marshall remembers his father tossing him over the bar and lying on top of him—an incident that probably convinced Leonard there was not much future in the nightclub business.