Honeydripper, a film by John Sayles

Cool Breeze knows the score. The game is rigged, whether it’s politics or poker, and only suckers and fools play it straight. Cool Breeze grew up on the streets scuffling for pennies, doing errands for the right people and keeping his eyes open. He’s seen some big ones fall and some smaller ones- if they’re smart enough or hard enough or both- get big fast. It could happen for him, too, just got to wait for the right opening, the knowledge of what everybody else is holding, and then throw your cards down on the table. Lucky Hardaway makes his own luck, been a figure to deal with all the way back to Prohibition, and right now Cool Breeze is his number one ambassador. Out there explaining to the people what’s in their best interests, and if they too thick to see it, putting some muscle on them. He likes them smart or scared or both, cause when you’re dealing with Lucky it’s stupid not to be a little scared. The man has his moods. Which is why this piano player could be a problem- he’s not scared enough and he thinks he can beat the game, that he can go it alone when everybody knows without the right connections you can’t run any colored roadhouse. Make the white folks nervous and the black ones jealous. Man has been late on a few payments and that gets Lucky thinking, it’s no big money but why not put somebody else in there he can count on, move some product through the place, work some angles? What’s the percentage in just being a landlord? So Cool Breeze has got to drag his ass out to this sorry little cotton town, people got the lint still in their hair, clomping around in their dungarees and brogans, and straighten things out. How Lucky ever got hold of this place, out here at the end of the earth, is something Cool Breeze can’t figure. But if he gets any cowshit on his shoes somebody is going to pay.