When she died Flora was living with my cousin Sarah Ann, her sister, a very jolly young lady with a big heart who did everything in her power to make people happy. She and my mother were running mates, and they would go places together, places where we kids did not dare poke our heads.
Flora had been in trouble ever since Clarence was born. The very day of his birth there was a terrible storm, one of the worst New Orleans had ever had. Houses were blown down, people and animals were killed, and thousands were homeless.
The storm broke with great suddenness when I was in the street on my way home. The wind blew so hard that slates were torn off the roof tops and thrown into the streets. I should have taken refuge, for the slates were falling all around me and I might have been killed as a number of other people were.
When I finally reached home I was soaking wet and exhausted. Mayann and Sara Ann were scared to death for fear I might have been killed in the storm. I had been real frantic while I was struggling to get home for fear the wind had blown my house and family off into some strange neighborhood. When I came in I threw my arms around mother and Sarah Ann, and while I was hugging them I looked at our only bed, in which mother, sister and I slept. There I saw the baby Clarence, and it took all the gloom out of me.
The next day the sun came out real pretty and bright, and everyone was smiling. All over the city, however, casualties were high, and there were lots of funerals that week. Joe Oliver, Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard and Henry Allen, all of whom played trumpets in brass bands, made a lot of money playing at funerals for lodge members who had been killed in the storm.
I am sure that the birth of Clarence and the shock of the storm had something to do with Flora's death. In the South, especially in those days, it was not easy to get a doctor, and it was a damn sight harder to get the money to pay for him. We could not afford a doctor at two dollars a visit; we needed that money to eat. Of course we did everything we could to help Flora, but we could not do enough. The Charity Hospital was filled to overflowing and patients had to be left in the yard.
Mama Lucy, who was still young, came back from Florida to help at Flora's funeral. She did everything she could to help us with food and other essentials, but she had not brought much money back with her. In Florida she was doing common labor and that does not pay much. Nobody in my family had a trade, and we all had to make a living as day laborers. As far back as I can see up our family tree there isn't a soul who knew anything that had to be learned at a school.
Mama Lucy and Sarah Ann both had a great sense of humor, and I loved them both. The three of us struggled together pretty near all our lives, but despite our hardships I would gladly live it all over again. With fifteen cents Mayann could make the finest dishes you would ever want to eat. When she sent me to the Poydras Market to get fifteen cents' worth of fish heads she made a big pot of "cubie yon" which she served with tomato sauce and fluffy white rice with every grain separate. We almost made ourselves sick eating this dish.
I thought her Creole gumbo was the finest in the world. Her cabbage and rice was marvelous. As for red beans and rice, well, I don't have to say anything about that. It is my birth mark.
Mayann taught us both how to cook her best dishes. Her jumbalaya was delicious. It is a concoction of diced Bologna sausage, shrimp, oysters, hard-shell crabs mixed with rice and flavored with tomato sauce. If you ever tasted Mayann's jumbalaya and did not lick your fingers my name is not Louis Satchmo Daniel Armstrong.
Speaking of food reminds me of the time I worked as a dish washer in Thompson's restaurant at Canal and Rampart Streets. I was permitted to eat all the cream puffs, doughnuts and ice cream I wanted. That was fine for two weeks, but after that I became so tired of those foods that the very sight of them nauseated me. So I quit and went back to my old job in Andrews Coal Yard. That was when I wrote Coal Cart Blues, which I recorded years later.
I was glad to get back to this job again, playing from time to time for dances, picnics, funerals and an occasional street parade on Sundays. My salary was pretty good. Real good I'd say for a youngster my age. I still got a thrill out of working in the coal yards with the old hustlers. At lunch time I would sit with them with my ten-cent mug of beer and my poor boy sandwich. Most of the time I would just listen, but when I threw in my two cents' worth the idea they would even listen to me just thrilled me all over.
Ever since I was a small kid I have always been a great observer. I had noticed that the boys I ran with had prostitutes working for them. They did not get much money from their gals, but they got a good deal of notoriety. I wanted to be in the swim so I cut in on a chick. She was not much to look at, but she made good money, or what in those days I thought was big money. I was a green inexperienced kid as far as women were concerned, particularly when one of them was walking the streets for me. She was short and nappy haired and she had buck teeth. Of course I am not trying to ridicule her; what counts is the woman herself, not her looks. I did not take her seriously, nor any other woman for that matter. I have always been wrapped up in my music and no woman in the world can change that. Right until this day my horn comes first.
She had the nerve to be jealous, but I did not pay any attention. One day she wanted me to go home and spend the night with her.
"I wouldn't think of staying away from Mayann and Mama Lucy," I said, "not even for one night. I have never done it before and I won't do it now. Mayann and Mama Lucy are not used to that."
"Aw, hell," she said. "You are a big boy now. Come on and stay."
"No."
Before I realized what she was doing she pulled her knife on me. It was not the kind of large knife Mary Jack the Bear or Deborah carried, it was a pocket knife. She stabbed me in the left shoulder and the blood ran down over the back of my shirt.
I was afraid to tell Mayann about it, but she found out about it at once when she saw the blood on my shirt. At the sight of the blood she got mad.
"Who did it? Who did it?" she asked, shaking me.
"Er… my chick did."
"Oh! She did it!"
"Yes."
"What right has she cutting on you?"
With fear in my eyes, I told her the whole story. Mayann would not stand for foolishness from me or anybody else. The minute I told what happened she pushed me aside and made a beeline to my chick's house.
The girl was just about ready to go to bed when Mayann banged on her door. The minute she opened the door Mayann grabbed her by the throat.
"What you stab my son for?"
Before she could say one word Mayann threw her on the floor and began choking her to death. Mayann was a big, strong woman and she would have killed her if it had not been for Black Benny and some of the boys who gambled and rushed the growler around Liberty and Perdido. Benny knew Mayann well, and he and I had played quite a few funerals together.
"Don't kill her, Mayann," Benny shouted when he rushed in. "She won't do it again."
Mayann kind of let up.
"Don't ever bother my boy again," she said. "You are too old for him. He did not want to hurt your feelings, but he don't want no more of you."
She was right. After I discovered my chick was just as tough as Mary Jack the Bear, I was afraid of her.
chapter 6
Arthur Brown was one of my playmates at school. He was a quiet good-looking youngster with nice manners and a way of treating the girls that made them go wild about him. I admired the way he played it cool. He was going with a girl who had a little brother who was very cute. Too cute, I would say, since he was always playing with a pistol or a knife. We did not pay much attention to the kid, but one day when he was cleaning his gun he pointed it at Arthur Brown saying "I am going to shoot." Sure enough, he pulled the trigger; the gun was loaded and Arthur Brown fell to the ground with a bullet in his head.