After we were through playing we went uptown to our hotels. On our way we could hear guys on every corner bragging about the way they had raised hell on the boat. "My goodness," I thought, "that may be their idea of having fun, but it certainly isn't my idea of a good time."
At the Grand Central Hotel in St. Louis I was a very popular boy. Being the youngest fellow in Fate Marable's band and single too, all the maids made a lot of fuss over me. I thought I was hot stuff when the gals argued over me, saying "I saw him first" and "He's my man" and a lot of blah like that. I was too inter ested in my music to pay any attention to that sort of jive. To most of it anyway.
chapter 13
When the season ended at Davenport, Iowa, Captain Joe Streckfus gave each one of us his bonus, which consisted of all the five dollars kept out of our pay each week during the whole season. That was a nice taste of money, especially to a guy like me who was not used to loot that came in big numbers. I was heavily loaded with dough when I returned to New Orleans. The Streckfus people had given us our fare back and money to eat with on the trip. They were real swell people, those Streckfus boys. Each year I worked for them I felt more and more like a member of the family.
When I reached New Orleans I went straight away to Liberty and Perdido, the corner where I used to hang out before I was lucky enough to find the job with Fate Marable. The first person I ran into was Black Benny standing at the bar in Joe Segretta's saloon with a few old-timers.
"Well I'll be damned," he said as I walked in, "if it ain't old Dipper."
He did not take his eyes off me as I walked up, and he kept on loudtalking me.
"Come heah you little sonofabitch. You been up North blowing dat horn o' your'n. I know you're sticking."
He meant he knew I had plenty of money. He asked me to stand him to a drink, and who was I to refuse the great Black Benny a drink? Nobody else ever did. When the drinks came I noticed that everybody had ordered. I threw down a twenty dollar bill to pay for the round which cost about six or seven bucks. When the bartender counted out my change Black Benny immediately reached for it saying, "I'll take it." I smiled all over my face. What else could I do? Benny wanted the money and that was that. Besides I was so fond of Benny it did not matter anyway. I do believe, however, if he had not strong armed that money out of me I would have given him lots more. I had been thinking about it on the train coming home from St, Louis. But since Benny did it the hard way I gave the idea up. I sort of felt he should have treated me like a man, and I did not like the way he cut under me. But I did not want to jump him up about it. That would have been just like putting my big head in the lion's mouth. So I disgustedly waited for an opening to leave, and did.
When I got home Daisy was waiting for me with a big pot of red beans and rice. She gave me a big kiss which sure did taste good. Then I had to sit down and tell her all about my trip – how nice it was, how nice everybody was to me and how everybody enjoyed my music immensely. She was so happy to hear it all that she swooned and carried on no end. All the time I was thinking to myself: "Hmmm. If Daisy would only always be as sweet to me as she is today. If only we would never have another fight and try to tear down the house we strived so hard to build, life would be oh so sweet."
We were so glad to see each other that we kissed and kissed and kissed some more. I had been away from her for six months, and it was the first time I had been so far away from home. Even when I was living with mother I would not go that far away, even though I received quite a few offers to go to different places to play my trumpet. Of course in those early days we did not know very much about trumpets. We all played cornets. Only the big orchestras in the theaters had trumpet players in their brass sections.
It is a funny thing, but at that time we all thought you had to be a music conservatory man or some kind of a big muckity-muck to play the trumpet. For years I would not even try to play the instrument.
After I had spent a few days at home with Daisy, Mayann naturally insisted that I come to dinner with her, my sister and Clarence. That dinner was a real problem. Since she had raised all three of us, she knew what big appetites we had. If she invited "the wrecking crew," as she called us, she would have to put on the big pot and the little one. She would have to go to Rampart Street and figure out what she could get the mostest of with the little money she had.
She went to Zatteran's grocery, and bought a pound of red beans, a pound of rice, a big slice of fat back and a big red onion. At Stahle's bakery she got two loaves of stale bread for a nickel. She boiled this jive down to a gravy, and 111 tell you that when we came we could smell her pot almost a block away. Mayann could really cook.
When Mama Lucy, Clarence and I sat down to the table we needed a lot of elbow room so as not to get in each other's way. After two encores I had to get up from the table for fear I would hurt myself. Clarence had one of the finest appetites I have ever seen in a kid. When I was young I was content with bread and butter or a slice of dry bread – it did not matter much so long as I was eating something. But Clarence was different, and I used to have a lot of fun with him when we sat down to table together.
"Well, son," I said that day at Mayann's, "I am going to eat more than you can."
"It's O.K. by me, Pops."
From then on it was perpetual motion, with Clarence far out ahead. Mama Lucy was not doing so bad, but in such fast company as Clarence and I she was nowhere. My mother just stood by and watched us with pride. She loved to see us eat a lot. That is why she worked so hard in the white folks' yards, washing, ironing and taking care of the white kids.
When I was not playing on the boat I used to take odd jobs. In 1921, the last year I was on the boat, I went to work at Tom Anderson's cabaret on Rampart between Canal and Iberville. That was a swell job if there ever was one. Only the richest race-horse men came to Anderson's. They spent a lot of money, and they gave us lots of tips to play tunes for them and their chicks. They would order big meals and just mince over them. Since I was a dear friend of all the colored waiters they gave me a break. When they would pass the bandstand on the way to the kitchen with the dead soldiers, or leftovers, they would look me in the eye and I would give them the well known wink. During intermission I would head straight for the kitchen and all the fine food that was waiting for me. What meals those were! The best steaks, chickens, chops, quail and many other high priced dishes. I felt real important eating all those fine meals, meals I could not have possibly paid for then, or even today.
The leader of our four piece combination at Anderson's was Paul Dominguez, a very fine Creole musician. I think he stood toe to toe with the best of them in those days. I will even go further and say that he was a little more modern than the others. And we had some very good musicians at the time. Among them were A. J. Piron, Peter Bocage, John Robechaux, and Emile Bigard, the uncle of Barney Bigard, our clarinet man. There was also Jimmy Paalow, who left New Orleans in 1915 when we were all in short pants with Keppard's Creole Jazz Band. That was the first band to leave New Orleans and make good. Of course there were lots of other good fiddlers, but for me Paul Dominguez was the best, and it was a pleasure to work for him. He was a sympathetic and understanding leader, and he was not a sore head like some of the leaders I have worked under at various times.
At Tom Anderson's we had a big kitty in front of the bandstand into which customers could drop "some thing" every time they requested a tune. We made more on tips than on our salary. Mr. Anderson was not seen around the place much, but his manager, George Delsa, was there every night. He reminded me of Costello of the team Abbott and Costello.