Green Dragon Jitterbug

Sometime around 1920, J’Papa and several other rural real estate hopefuls, pooled what money they had to buy Louisiana rice farmland. J’Mama came to their marriage with means, so J’Papa used her money to make the deal with his cronies. It’s hard for me to imagine the barb-wire thin, rough hewn 6’4” man I knew as my grandfather having friends under any circumstances. The gaze I remember from the 1950s was so stern, he couldn’t even summons a softened smile for his energetic grandchildren. But, by the time I met him, he had lost all of J’Mama’s money in the plantation investment due to weather conditions that could not support his dream of rice crops. By now, he and J’Mama were living as sharecroppers in an unpainted wooden three-room house with no electricity, water, or indoor plumbing. Occasionally, it was fascinating to visit the house in Richard that lay near the winding gravel roads far off the crudest highways of Southwest Louisiana. We’d roll out of the car that Daddy had parked under the shade of a grand bank of twisted oaks, draped in low-hanging moss cast carelessly about by moist breezes. Beyond these trees that seemed to congregate like a gossipy gathering of wise old women, lay a contradiction of raw landscape. Hard sandy dirt clods supported a squeaky, rusty, iron fence absent of elaboration. Sometimes, after a hard rain, it was just a mud pit. The two-holer outhouse was off to the left. A few equally uninviting pigs forced their snouts through the wire fence at the right and snorted for attention. We usually dealt with my mother’s discomfort during these visits by kicking away approaching chickens and fighting with each other over who could be first to pump water from the well and get a cool drink. Dust was still flying on the wind as we ran from the pump to take our places on an uncooperative wooden porch swing. We were never successful with our first approach to it. It usually dumped one of us off the back or front.

Once we were on the porch, J’Mama rumbled over to dispense giggly squeezes all around and then disappeared into the kitchen to fire up the iron wood-burning stove. We soon caught coffee smells bursting through her open windows and ran inside to see what else she might be making. Sometimes she let me turn the shiny black beans in the grinder and help her drizzle quarter-cupsful of water over the fragrant brown powder until it wept into an inky brew. J’Mama’s warm embraces erased all the fear we shared about the few snaggly teeth that remained in her generous smile. Once the coffee had been dripped, she pulled out freshly baked yeast rolls and a bowl of cane syrup. Her banquet helped us ignore oily-smelling kerosene lanterns that cast sooty black shadows onto the walls and ceiling.

As we dipped the warm rolls in the gooey syrup, I mined the shack for remnants of my mother’s childhood. I never could find the young barefooted Clarisse sitting alone for hours shaping dolls out of discarded paper. Nor could I see the young girl trailing J’Papa through his shared fields to collect vegetables for dinner. Much later, Mother told me that only occasionally would J’Papa turn around to see if she was still following him. He never smiled or took her hand to reassure her that she was welcome to accompany him. What none of us knew was that J’Papa couldn’t provide the basics, like meat, for his family. Most of the neighboring farmers could pool their money to participate in the boucherie of cow. Cajun families often slaughtered an animal together, cooking and canning as much of the meat as they could harvest, then divided it equally. Mother’s family got the leftover suet and lard to flavor their vegetables. Any money there might have been for meat usually bought staples. When mother was old enough to be trusted, she walked barefooted along the winding gravel road to the grocer to negotiate a trade of one of their chickens for flour, cornmeal, or milk. With the limp neck of the animal hanging form her hand, she made her way from the store, often sprayed by dirt flying off a laughter-filled car filled with neighboring children. Over the years, this humiliation and shame moved into the crumpled cottage with her.

J'Papa didn’t live much past the age of 50, but managed to save enough money to buy the unpainted three-room farmhouse and land beneath it. After he died, J’Mama used money from the sale of the property to move to Eunice to a tiny white frame house with naked light bulbs hanging from wires and indoor plumbing. She started to frequent the Green Dragon nightclub to dance with the men who hung out there. She cut her hair and wore rouge for the first time. Some of her friends and relatives thought she'd become a harlot. On one of my visits to her new old house, the recent object of her desire was propped against the kitchen wall in a cowhide stick chair. I knew it wasn’t polite to stare, but I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t that Ernest didn’t have any teeth; J’Mama only had a few. And it wasn’t that he was wearing a tight white sleeveless undershirt with baggy khakis. It was that he was so young—about thirty years younger than J’Mama. When he didn’t smile, he was almost handsome. His jet black hair, wet dark eyes, and tan skin, were seductive in their own way. Sadly, he was dimmer than J’Mama’s kitchen light bulbs. He had but a few laughs in response to our efforts to tease a dialogue out of him.

Still, I understood her attraction to him. I imagined J’Mama showering behind the rag curtain in the corner of her bedroom from which a raw piece of plumbing dispensed water. I could hear her sweet humming of Cajun tunes as she dusted her ample body in “Evening in Paris” powder bought from the dime store. I imagined her broad smile as she slipped into her best handmade cotton dress and readied her dancing legs for a night at the Green Dragon. Ernest, for all of his shortcomings, could make dance. He could scoop J’Mama into his arms and jump like lightning with Cajun accordions and fiddles. Just a few nights of Cajun two-step could erase years of stinky pigs, outdoor toilets, and whatever else hurts in your heart. These two souls found each other and became one. J’Mama married Ernest Prejean.

Not long after this visit to Eunice, I started college and immersed myself in the drill team, modern dance classes, books, and finding a boyfriend. I never visited J’Mama again, until I saw her in the funeral home. My mother said she died of a heart attack, complicated by the diabetes she fought so long. She looked so strange lying there, all frothed up in a pink nightgown, far away from the house with Ernest and forays to the Green Dragon. Her immense chiseled face with its cafe au lait American Indian features and her tight gray braids were still tucked neatly around her head, but all the bubble and wiggle of that squat fluffy body were gone. Yet, as hard as death tried to steal it, the hint of her welcoming smile lay there with her, faintly concealed under the waxy application of burial makeup. There was nothing wrong with her heart, I thought. She just used most of it on loving and dancing. The fiddler and accordian players may have taken a break, but the music would always be with her.

Uncle Snaky

No one ever knew what to do with Uncle Snaky when he came to visit our home in Louisiana. He stormed down the gravel driveway in his always immaculately polished Chevy, bolted from the car with Aunt Hilda dutifully following, struggling to keep up with him. Then, he stood inside the hurriedly slammed door, ready to go home as he entered our house. He shifted from foot to foot, cleared his throat, mumbled to no one in particular, and glared at Hilda. It was the signal to spend the next 17, not 18 minutes, getting the most she could from a visit with my mom, her sister. As Hilda began to settle in, Snaky, still standing, would turn his fedora in his hands, his eyes darting from side to side as though the ‘big deal’ might be breaking somewhere in his world and he was missing it.

Snaky was tall and lean, physically unattractive, if all you did was glance at him for a moment. But, he had an indescribable appeal and perhaps an untold story or two. He was a dapper dresser, crisp white shirts with risky ties, summer weight wool suits and spectator shoes, polished so well you could feel the shine before he entered the room. He often carried a boater or fedora from which he focused an unblinking stare and often wore snuggled down on his forehead allowing a quick getaway without eye contact. Eraste Doucet had one of those gaunt craggy faces with dark shifty eyes that make children stiffen in fear. He loved to tell graphically dirty jokes, his only meaningful contribution to a conversation with my family. Snaky was a Pied Piper of bad little boys. My brothers adored him, and well, so did I.

There was something intoxicating about riding with him in his car as he made his stops along the rural backwater routes of Southwest Louisiana, collecting liquor orders from the barkeeps of his territory. Snaky was a sales rep for Mr. Nathan, Nathan Levy’s, the largest liquor wholesaler in Church Point. He had every novelty item that Black and White Scotch ever produced and kept them enshrined on a sideboard in his kitchen. Big and little, black and white, plastic ‘Scotty’ dogs perched in various sassy diorama-type settings as though the purchase of scotch makes the drinker as tough as the breed.

Aunt Hilda, my mother’s shy funny older sister, shamelessly indulged Snaky by manicuring his house and clothes and cooking his favorites: chicken gumbo and rice, watermelon pickles, and grits and grillades. All of Aunt Hilda’s family, Mother included, scratched their heads and gossiped about what Hilda saw in this slippery, odd dude. We knew. Snaky had cool. He was people reduced like a rich Bordeaux sauce down to a basic, thick glace′. He didn’t have time for bullshit, polite exchanges, or a public veneer of niceness. Even though he spent the majority of his time on his wheels and wardrobe, Snaky was the real deal. He was disreputable and disagreeable and he knew it. He was James Dean, Stanley Kowalski, and Snidely Whiplash all buttoned up in a coarse elegance. Snaky often disappeared from home, several weeks at times, never explaining his absence to Hilda. When I got older, I asked Hilda where he went. “I don’t know, chere,” she whispered. “It’s just something Snaky has to do.”

On one memorable visit to our home, Snaky came limping rather than blasting through the door. One of my intrepid brothers nervily asked, “Hey, Uncle Snaky, what happened to you?” Snaky blurted out, “those damn doctors cut on my balls.” “You ever had your balls cut on, huh?” None of us stuck around for the details.

Snaky and Hilda never had children. So, whenever he could stand for us to visit, Hilda invited us to stay and sleep on the bed and pallets she made on the floor of their extra bedroom. We jumped at the chance to explore the drawers and cabinets of this mystery man. Aunt Hilda let us keep the gum and change we excavated. We had the feeling it made Snaky edgy, but Hilda never stopped our exploring every crevice of their neat little home. The first nude pictures I ever saw hung on the back door of Snaky’s bathroom. There she was, Marilyn Monroe, shamelessly spread on a red satin sheet. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. A vague thrill sneaked into my imagination as I envisioned being her.

I was similarly delirious riding in Snaky’s car. Each one of us, my brother’s and I, would take turns sitting in Snaky’s lap while he fired up the Chevy. As he pumped the accelerator to 55, we forced the suicide knob on the steering wheel as far to the right as it would go. Then, releasing our hands quickly, let is spin freely as we hurled around the corners of the streets in Church Point. The irresponsibility of it all collided with the deepest values my parents held and made us giddy.

Many years later, when Snaky was 80 years old, I sat in Aunt Hilda’s kitchen and watched tears pool in her eyes as she told me that Snaky’s driver’s license had been taken away by the police. It seems his driving had become hazardous to the general public of Church Point. I never got to see Snaky sitting at home, in his starched white shirt, polished brown spectators and fedora pulled just above his furrowed brow, with no place to roam. I could only imagine what it must have been like, his free spirit harnessed by age. But if he were still here today, he would smile that signature serpentine leer if he knew that his crazy heart had taken up a new residence. Like a hermit crab which moves to new digs when his home becomes too small, I welcome the hint of the spirit of that rogue that now resides in me.