"Louis, would you like to go home with your mother?"
I was thrilled to hear this, but I didn't want him to know it He had tried his best to make me happy while I was living with him, Gertrude and the two boys. I was ever so grateful for that and their kindness.
"O.K. Pa. I love both you and Mayann, and I will come to see you often."
"He's a fine kid," he said to Mayann, smiling and patting me on the shoulder.
"He sure is," she said. Then we went out the door for Liberty and Perdido Streets, my old stomping grounds.
The next morning I waked up bright and early and went out to look for my old gang, my schoolmates, or anyone I used to know.
The first person I ran into was Cocaine Buddy Martin, whose sister Bella I used to sweetheart. He had grown a good deal and was wearing long pants. He had a job with Joe Segretta, who ran a combination grocery, saloon and honky-tonk.
I slipped up behind him when he was sweeping out the joint from the night's gappings and happenings, and put my hands over his eyes.
"Guess who?"
He couldn't guess. When I took my hands away he gave a big glad yelclass="underline"
"Dipper! Man, you've been gone a long, long time."
He did not know that I had been out of the Waifs' Home for a long time and that I had been staying at my father's house and cooking for my little stepbrothers.
"Well, that's good," Cocaine Buddy said. "It didn't look like they was ever going to turn you loose from the Waifs' Home."
We laughed it off and then I asked Buddy what's what.
"Oh, I almost forgot. You play the cornet don't you? Isn't that what they call the thing you blow?"
"Yes, I play the cornet, Buddy. But I don't know if I am good enough to play in a regular band."
"I think you are good enough to hold down this job I'm talking about."
I asked him where.
"Right over there," he said pointing across the street to a honky-tonk. "The boss man's name is Henry Ponce. He is one of the biggest operators in the red-light district, and he ain't scared of nobody. He wants a good cornet player. If you think you can handle it I'll speak a good word for you. All you have to do is to put on your long pants and play the blues for the whores that hustle all night. They come in with a big stack of money in their stockings for their pimps. When you play the blues they will call you sweet names and buy you drinks and give you tips."
Thinking of Mayann and Mama Lucy who badly needed help I said: 'Try your luck, Buddy. See if you can get that job for me."
It was a curious thing, but Buddy did not tell me Henry Ponce and Joe Segretta were deadly enemies. Segretta was Italian; Ponce, French; and both of them handled a lot of money and a lot of business. They were tough characters and one would try to outdo the other in every respect.
Buddy got the job for me, and after I had been working there for about six months the relationship between the two white men got exceedingly tense. I never knew exactly just what the cause of their quarrel was.
Saturday the tonk stayed open all night, and on Sunday I did not leave before ten or eleven in the morning. The drunks would spend a lot of money and the tips were good as tips went in those days. I saved money all around. Mayann would fix me a big bucket lunch to take to the tonk and eat in the early hours. This saved me the expense of eating at a lunch counter or lunch wagon. Mayann said that the meals in those places were not worth the money they cost, and I agreed with her.
I was young and strong and had all the ambition in the world and I wanted to do whole lots to help Mayann and Mama Lucy. After I got set at Henry Ponce's place, I got another job driving a coal cart during the day. After I had finished work at four in the morning I would run back home and grab a couple of hours' sleep. Then I would go to the C. A. Andrews Coal Company at Ferret and Perdido Streets two blocks away from the honky-tonk. From seven in the morning to five in the evening I would haul hard coal at fifteen cents per load. And I loved it. I was fifteen years old, and I felt like a real man when I shoveled a ton of coal into my wagon. Being as young and small as I was I could not make over five loads a day. But I was not doing so bad. The seventy-five cents I made in the day plus the dollar and a quarter plus tips I made in the tonk added up. Then the owners of other honky-tonks commenced bidding for my services. Gee, I really thought I was somebody then. However, I would not give up my mule and my coal wagon.
One reason I liked to drive the coal wagon was my stepdaddy, Mr. Gabe. He was an old hand at the Andrews Coal Company and he also got me my job there; he was the stepdaddy I liked best. He drove a wagon with two mules and he got paid thirty cents a load, three times as much as I got. He knew all the tricks of the trade and he could deliver nine, ten and sometimes more loads a day. He taught me the knack of loading up a cart so I would not hurt my back so much. In those days it was a good thing to have a steady job because there was always the chance that the cops might close the tonk down any minute. In case that happened I would still have money coming in.
As a matter of fact it was not long before the tonk where I worked was closed down. That was when I really found out what Joe Segretta and Henry Ponce were feuding about. It was Sunday morning and everybody had left except that good-looking Frenchman and me. Ponce had walked to the door with me talking about some blues our band had played that night. This surprised me because I had no idea he was paying any attention at all.
When I reached the sidewalk I turned around to continue beating my chops with Ponce, who was standing in the doorway. After about ten minutes I casually noticed several colored guys, who hung around Joe Segretta's, standing before Gasper's grocery store on the corner opposite Segretta's and Ponce's tonks – all of them tough guys and all of them working for Joe Segretta. They were out to get Ponce. But Ponce, who was pretty tough himself, wasn't aware of this. Nor was I. All of a sudden I saw one of them pull out his gun and point it at us. He shot twice and tore off toward Howard and Perdido Streets just a block away. Then before we could dig what was going on, these tough guys started shooting.
"Well, I'll be goddamned," Ponce said as they emptied their guns and started to run, "those black bastards are shooting at me."
Ponce whipped a revolver out of his bosom and started after them. When he reached Howard and Perdido Streets I heard six shots fired one right after the other. While the shots were being fired at Ponce I had not moved and the flock of bystanders who saw me riveted to the sidewalk rushed up to me.
"Were you hit?" they asked. "Are you hurt?"
When they asked me what they did, I fainted. It suddenly made me conscious of the danger I had been in. I thought the first shot had hit me.
When I came to I could still hear the shots coming from Howard and Perdido and the cries of the colored boys. They were no match for Ponce; he was shooting well and he wounded each of them. When he stopped shooting he walked back to his saloon raging mad and swearing to himself.
The three colored boys were taken off to the Charity Hospital for treatment, and I was carried back to Mayann. It was days before I got over the shock.
After that little scrimmage that gang never did bother Henry Ponce again; they were all convinced he was a real tough customer. I continued to work in his honky-tonk, but I was always on the alert, thinking something would jump off any minute. However nothing happened, and finally during one of the election campaigns all of the honky-tonks were closed down. Henry Ponce, like the rest of the honky-tonk owners, had every intention of opening up again when things blew over, but the law kept us closed so long that he got discouraged and went into business downtown.