For about three Saturday nights straight I kept noticing one of the gals looking at me with the stuff in her eyes. I kept on playing, but I started giving her that righteous look in return. That chick was Daisy Parker.
Of course, it was strictly business with her. And to me it was just another mash – that's what we called flirting in those days. We would use the expression, "The lady has a mash on you," and then we would poke our chests 'way out as if we were pretty important.
Anyhow I did not find that out on my first meeting with Daisy, until I was in one of the rooms upstairs in the Brick House. She stated her price, which wasn't much in those days, so I told her I would see her after I finished work. She agreed and away I went, thinking: "Hmmm, but that's a good-looking Creole gal." I didn't know what I was in for.
Sure enough, after work I made a beelme upstairs, and Daisy excused herself from her party and met me there. Since she was through work and I was too, we stayed in that room from five in the morning till 'way into the afternoon.
The first thing I noticed about Daisy that night – but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to believe my eyes – was that when she undressed she pulled off a pair of "sides," artificial hips she wore to give herself a good figure. I thought to myself: "Hmm, as much as I've been admiring this chick and her shape, here she comes bringing me a pair of waterwings." But before I could think another thing, she came out with the explanation. She said she was too skinny and only weighed less than a hundred pounds, The way she was built caused her to wear them. And they did give her a pretty fair shape. She was right, too, because along with her good looks, she was still "reet" with me. So I got used to it; in fact I even got used to seeing her put them on, and loved it.
We had several meetings after that, and Daisy and I commenced to fall deeply in love with each other.
Daisy was twenty-one years of age, and I was eighteen. I was so gone over her we never mentioned that she had an "Old Man" – the name we used to have for a common law husband – though that was the first thing I usually asked a chick. Later on I found the reason for Daisy not telling me about the drummer who played in another honky-tonk in Gretna while she worked in the Brick House; the customers who visited the Brick House paid more money.
She and this drummer lived in Freetown, a little village between Gretna and Algiers. Since she kept on asking me to come over to her house and visit her some afternoon, I had just taken it for granted that she was living by herself, the same as a lot of other working girls I had played around with. Their pimps would come around and collect, do what comes naturally, and cut out either to their bachelor's quarters or home to their wives and kids.
Since Kid Ory had signed a contract to play at the rich folks' New Orleans Country Club every Saturday night, I put the Brick House down quicker'n I'd left Lady on Armistice Day. So for a whole month I didn't see Daisy, just talked to her on the telephone every now and then. She didn't know how to get over to the New Orleans side of the river because she'd spent all her life in Gretna and other little towns in Louisiana.
I wanted to see Daisy so bad – as bad as she wanted to see me – that I decided one afternoon to put on my sharpest vine. I didn't have but one, and I treasured it by keeping it cleaned and pressed all the time. It was about two in the afternoon when I was ready to leave. Mayann, with whom I was still living at that time, asked me: "Where are you goin 1 , son? Looking so good and dressed up…"
I said: "Aw, nowheres in particular, mama. Just feel like putting on my Sunday-go-to-meeting suit."
She gave a good hearty chuckle and went into the kitchen to stir that fine pot of red beans and rice, which sure did smell good. I almost changed my mind when I got a whiff of them.
It must have been around three-thirty when I reached Freetown. The bus I'd taken from Gretna stopped about three-quarters of a mile from where Daisy lived. I asked someone how to get to her house, which was easy to find as it was in the country, and everyone knows everyone else in the country.
It was a four-room house, with the rooms one be hind the other. You could stand at the front door and look all the way back to the kitchen. It was an old house, with poorly lighted rooms and a beat-up porch.
The minute I knocked at the door, Daisy appeared, all smiles. She led me into the parlor, and the minute she closed the door we kissed – a long one. Then she took my hat and laid it on the old-fashioned sewing machine she had. Then she sat on my lap and we were really swinging with the kisses when, all of a sudden, a rap came on the door.
"Who is it?" Daisy said, all excited.
That knocker happened to be her old man, who, to my surprise, had been hearing about me and Daisy canoeing from the first night we'd got together. He pushed in the door real hard and came in. Daisy jumped off my knee and ran into the next room, with him right behind her.
For a moment I thought of a million things. The first was the incident with Irene and Cheeky Black.
Just then I heard something hit the floor. Yep, it was Daisy. He had hit her a hard blow, and without saying a word, without even hollering, she went out like a light.
I commenced getting real busy getting out of there. As plainly as Daisy had put my hat on the sewing machine, and as easy as it was to get to, I just couldn't seem to find it and put it on my head fast enough. All the time I kept imagining what was coming for me next.
I finally did get out before he came in from the back room, but the whole time I was making it for that bus I never did get my hat on. In fact, I didn't even think of putting it on my head until I was safely on the ferry boat going back to New Orleans. I was, you see, still a kid when I found out it was better to run with your hat in your hand instead of on your head – you make better time.
When I hit that ferry boat I let out a big sigh. And I said to myself: "Ump! Once again, never again."
Then I thought of how I'd said the same words when Cheeky Black caught Irene and me in the room together, But this time I meant it.
When I got back home to Mayann I was all upset, But I did a pretty fair job in not letting her see any signs of trouble on my face. She worried a great deal about Mama Lucy and me, because we used to get into trouble on the spur of the moment. She fixed supper – beans and rice – and the minute I put the first mouthful into my chops I forgot all about the mess.
I didn't see Daisy for almost a month after that scrimmage. I decided to give her up as a bad job anyway. Then, too, Mayann didn't know about her. For one reason or another I just wouldn't tell about Daisy. And since I had decided to give her up, there just wasn't anything to tell.
Time went by, and then one day who should come around my neighborhood of Liberty and Perdido Streets looking for me, but Daisy! I was really surprised. Because the way she lied to me about her old man, I didn't think she really cared for me. I thought right away she was only using me for a playtoy or some thing.
I was speechless when she saw me standing on the corner with all the old-timers who'd just come from work in the coal yards, and ran up to me and kissed me with tears in her eyes, saying: "Darling, I've been so lonesome, blue, and unhappy, I just couldn't stand it any longer. I just had to see you."
All the guys were watching me and saying: "Go on, Dipper! You with a fine looking gal like that pouring out her heart to you! Man, you must have really laid it."
Then it dawned on me that it was kind of nice to be able to signify in front of them for a change, with a fine chick breaking down all over me.
Then I caught a-hold of myself and asked her: "Er–what–how did you get over on this side, honey?"
Then she told me her cousin showed her the way as he went to work at his job on Canal Street.