Dirty South

73

The word came down two weeks later that Ninth Ward Records was no more. You thought you was headed right back to Calliope, slidin’ right back in with your grandmamma and workin’ block parties to feed yourself. But right when you think you broke, you find yourself in New York City. You and Cash got a mack deal with a record company that been around for a hundred years. You see pictures of all them folks that come before you down this long white hall at these tight offices. Jazz women and blues daddies like the old man and Nick listen to. And that’s all cool, ’cause you know someday you just gonna be down that same line.

That new joint you’re workin’ in New York keepin’ you away from the Dirty South. You like seein’ your face off buses and bein’ thug-lipped over Times Square and it’s cool and all meetin’ Diddy and LL at some party in the middle of a big park made out of green grass. But somehow you feel like you losin’ you. Your rhymes not comin’ out the way you feel. The beats you hear sound like someone openin’ up a tin can.

You make a call. You on a plane.

You ride onto Canal, cruise uptown, pick up that little honey you’d met at this club with Malcolm Paris back when, and roll down to the Quarter in a white Escalade limo. See how Old School makin’ out. You don’t need to know. You just wonderin’.

You pay some big man in a straw hat five dollars at the door and see Loretta howlin’ a big mess onstage. Man, you ain’t never known that woman could sing like that. She got a storm inside her that always seem quiet to you.

Nick behind the bar with some bald black man. JoJo hangin’ in the back, leanin’ against the wall by the door. He smilin’, watchin’ his wife and Nick. Kind of takin’ it all in. You smile at that, shrug off your mink coat, and order a bottle of Cristal from some little honey waitress. Little Miss you with punch you in the ribs and you laugh till they ask you for ID and say champagne ain’t on the menu. And that shit ain’t cool.

Loretta keep singin’, all wrapped up in some fine-ass green satin. Face all painted up, silk hankie in her hand. “Don’t ask me no questions, and I won’t tell you no lies.”

The music is old. You don’t like it. But you can’t help but move your feet. ’Cause you been to where it come from and some way you knowin’ more about yourself.

Nick come by and say hello to you and your girl in between sets, but a few seconds later, he get called back to the bar to give a mess of folks some more beer. He seems to like poppin’ the tops of those Dixies and you thinkin’ about grabbin’ some while he ain’t lookin’.

Your date not hangin’ with the scene and disappears back into the bathroom. You tell her to hang. But she want to move on now. She got some girlfriends down at some club that you used to know. Everything in New Orleans change. But still the same.

The old man and you talk about New York and he ask you about some clubs in Harlem that you know ain’t even real. He make fun of your mink and them boots you paid a thousand bucks for and you laugh at that. ’Cause that teasin’ ain’t no disrespect. That ole man like you.

Nick still won’t pour you no alcohol and you knock hard on the bathroom tryin’ to find the girl. You hear her laughin’ inside and you push open the door, findin’ her snortin’ up off the top of a towel rack with some little white dude.

She don’t see you. But you leave her there and walk the Quarter. You got $2,000 in your pocket, a room at the Monteleone, and a record in the gate just jumpin’ for number one.

You sit down at Jackson Square, where you used to make money shinin’ shoes, and down past the mall, where you was thrown out for hustlin’. Your mind race over these months. Teddy’s ride. Malcolm and you hangin’ at the clubs. All the champagne and the way Malcolm treated you. He tellin’ you it’s family. But he just treatin’ you like he treat himself.

Time on your Cartier say you left the bar two hours ago. You thinkin’ about the girl, you guess. Ain’t no way you thinkin’ about Nick and the old man. But they all there. Them doors on Conti closed, houselights on in the bar, and JoJo and him just clearin’ up beer bottles into a trash can.

JoJo singin’ along to the jukebox.

You knock on the glass.

And Loretta lets you in.

Everyone stops for a while. No money bein’ counted. No beer bein’ drunk.

Just all y’all sittin’ at this little table. Loretta and JoJo. You and Old School. And you laughin’ about things that been and some things that JoJo think gonna happen.

That jukebox slows after the last song. Neon and chrome real bright.

Another record slips onto the turntable and finds its groove.

That beat, man. It’s old but strong.

You’re home.