“I tell you why I come here, why I drag my frostbitten feet up those unreliable stairs, why I leap upon this bar the same way we all must leap across the valley of death and into the arms of our savior. I do it for love. I love you drunks, the way you slur like the devil’s caught your tongue, the way you stumble like he’s hobbled your feet, the way your skin blisters and cracks and turns as red as hellfire, as bloody as the gin in your glass. I love you all, no matter how you try to blot out the light God lit inside you, no matter how greedily you suck the intoxicating sweat that runs off the devil’s backside. I love you as Christ loves you, and in his name I will sweep you clean.”

She snapped her old broom down on the bar, sending a hail of cigarette butts and stained linen to join the snow on the floor. She ran the length, giggling as she swept empty bottles and dirty glasses crashing to their death.

“By god, boys, she’s insane!” cackled one of the slummers, drawing Judy’s eye for the first time. With three quick steps, she bounded onto their table. They stopped laughing. The man in the cashmere coat spun around and glared at Berk, who watched the whole scene from a stool at the edge of the room, her face like stone.

“So help me,” he said, “if you let this Negro clown spill a drop of my liquor—”

He never completed his threat. With a practiced flick of her wrist, Judy flung their glasses into space—all save that of the leader, whose cup she tipped into his lap, staining his cashmere beyond repair.

He grabbed her by the ankle. She pointed her broom handle at his forehead, a matador preparing to deliver the final blow. He snickered, the way you do when your father has money and you understand the whole world has been set up for your benefit. No one else laughed.

“You’ll pay for that liquor,” he said. “The coat, too.”

“You’re the one who’ll pay,” Judy answered, as readily as a comic taking the straight man’s line. “The cost is far more than the dime Miss Berk charges—it’s ten million years in a pit of fire, with snakes pricking your pecker until it bursts, over and over again.”

“Cut out that noise and buy us another round or I’ll throw you into the street.”

“God wouldn’t let me die.”

The man tightened his grip on Judy’s leg. I saw no sign that God was preparing to intervene, and so I stepped in. I placed my hand on his soft black glove.

“Let her go,” I said.

“What’d I tell you boys,” he said to the friends who could no longer meet his eye. “Westside women are hellcats.”