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Breezy cotton dresses and a fragrance of cinnamon, a lazy dog
at the door with one eye closed. Angel, late as usual, blows in the room
like a weeping willow in a thunderstorm, all movement and no form as she
shimmies across the room with a sweet song of hellos. The other Ladies
respond lazily from their settees and Chesterfields and wave a dainty
zephyr in Angel's direction then go back to talking about tomorrow.
Out on the boulevard, the boys in brown, stripes
or slick sleeves, shuffle along restlessly, watching the sun go down for
the last time on their piece of paradise pie. They don't come inside yet.
That's for later. For now they want to enjoy the night air and all the
bobbling faces on the walk.
Inside Celia's Veranda, Boonie plinks a
barrelhouse Joplin tune on the upright and surveys the empty parlor with
an eye on the clock. A big round dial with brass arrows turns slowly,
marking off eternity in measured clicks. The hands of the clock semaphore
six-twenty and tell him Celia's place has less than six hours to kick, but
the night's just about to start. He wonders if he has the energy to diddle
the keys until midnight this time. What's the point? Ain't no tomorrow.
Hell of a way to go out, he thinks.
Next to him the Shark Tooth plops a big black fat
arm up on the bar and bumps against the hurricane glasses stacked in ready
rows. One falls towards the floor and an early retirement but the gin
pusher has quick hands and the glass will live another night. The 'Tooth
drops his chin down on his wrist with a sigh and wishes now he hadn't
opened that bottle of Turtle Juice cause it likely won't get drunk up
tonight and tomorrow he won't even be able to give it away. Personally, he
hates the stuff and it's expensive and none of the Ladies will drink it
either, even when he drowns it in soda. Too potato-ey, they say. Only the
boys from Back East go for it and you don't see too many of them down
here. Well, not before the war, anyway.
Over by the door, Woodrow's lounging on his
stool, perched up there like a big raccoon, peeping down at the hound dogs
passing by, waiting for the night hunt to begin. Celia always thinks he
looks goofy in that long-tail coat and oversize stove pipe hat, like some
kind of coal pile butler, but Woodrow knows it brings the boys over, makes
'em laugh, and poke fun at his choice in haberdashery, but once he gets 'em
laughing, he's got 'em looking, and when he's got 'em looking, soon enough
they're smacking lips at cotton dresses and hints of cinnamon.
And tonight for sure, hat or no hat,
they'll come in. It's the last night in playland. Wouldn't nobody miss
this night for all the glory they might find over there in France.
Celia comes down the spiral from her second floor
boudoir in pink taffeta and stands on the landing, though when she does,
she wraps her dress around her legs and stands dainty like a maiden.
Herself, she don't show nothing, but building that winding rise of steps
up to the second-story heaven was pure genius, 'cause now all the boys
that come inside dash straight up to the altar and elbow one another to
stand close by so when a Lady transcends, they can see what's up under
those layers of silk, and once they see it, they want to follow it. The
Ladies ain't paid to be coy. It's all there for the asking.
Celia's a looker, but raw like turbinado,
unrefined and molasses sweet all at the same time. When she comes down the
spiral, everybody knows it's time for business. She claps her hands
together and calls out to the room, "Alright Ladies, let's get this
place a-hoppin'." It's the opening bell, the starter's flag, the
pop-pop-pop to get things moving just like she's done every night for near
five years, but this time they all know she's dropping that flag for the
very last lap and though nobody sees it, she drops a little tear out of
the corner of one eye, too. It's not just a Gentleman's Parlor she's
closing, it's the doors of the times. The Epoch of Love, a customer once
called it, and now it's been ended by royal decree from the city's
righteous, and though the Ladies will go on, will pour other wine, all the
New Orleans grapes have been picked.
Celia wipes the tear away quick and leans over
the rail. "Boof it up there, Pearly," she calls out to her
Number Two. "Let's get some bounce at the door." Pearly jumps up
and says to Harlene, "Go brang 'em in, Honey. Let's do the last one
proud." Soon Harlene in her hoop skirt that makes her look like she's
crawling up out of a big bee hive and Candy Cane in a jungle damsel's
chamois siamoise are draped in the doorway, giving Woodrow's takers
something to smile at besides his hat. Reelfoot, the lazy dog by the door
closes his other eye and sighs.
Outside, Officer Buber strolls up to
the door. With a shiny badge on his breast and a gun on his hip, he's the
law of the Parish and everybody at Celia's knows him. Officer Buber is
compressed power, a diminutive dusty butt, shorter than most of the girls,
but they love his eyes and his cotton boll cheeks and they certainly all
appreciate his hidden strengths.
"Hello-o-o, Officer Goober-r-r-r,"
Woodrow sings out with a tip of the stove pipe in the policeman's
direction. Officer Buber hates the name, but he always lets Woodrow get
away with it. Something Officer Buber likes in that goofy grin under that
goofy hat that says the old boy don't mean nothing but fun by it. And
besides, it ain't worth a hassle on the last night.
"Evenin' 'Row," Officer Buber answers.
He looks at Harlene and Candy Cane for a minute and gives an little
appreciative salute. "Ladies," he says nicely, then asks them
all, "How's Miss Celia doin'?"
Woodrow sticks his lower lip out in that Celia
pout that everybody's seen once or twice when it's time to scoot down the
hall and out of her bad mood way. No mistaking what he means. "Aw,
she'll be alright," he says unconvincingly. "We all will."
"You comin' in to find out?" Harlene
asks. She means it friendly and twitches her bustle like a happy puppy to
show it. They all like Officer Buber and figure maybe they won't see him
any more after tonight, either.
"Ladies, you are the reason my sun comes up
ever' mornin'," Officer Buber says eloquently. "Of course I
shall be at your sides tonight." They beam and reach out to touch his
arm for thanks, not caring whether he means it or not.
"And Woodrow," he says to the stick
figure doorman, "Hope everthing turns out good for you too, my man.
Hope your chickens keep on layin'." Woodrow's stove pipe tips
respectfully once more as Officer Buber heads through the door.
Inside, Pearly spots Officer Buber coming in and
gives him a big smile. "Little Blue man," she calls in a
honeysuckle voice. "You come to see us off?" Pearly is the queen
of baubles and a big grand woman. She only attracts a certain line of
customers interested in her full-size charms, though Officer Buber, to her
dismay, has never been one of those.
"Wish it weren't so,
Pearl," he laments. "But it's a fact that I am."
Officer Buber doesn't want Celia's Veranda to
close any more than Celia's Ladies do, but then, judges don't issue orders
to cops just to make the newsprint. Well, this time maybe they did.
Celia glides over to Officer Buber likes she's on
wheels and puts a friendly hand on the top of his shoulder. "Glad to
see you here, Banana Man," she coos. "Wouldn't be the same if'n
you didn't come by. This time next week, you know, we'll all be in
Chicargo, livin' it up, and you'll be back to pinching soldier boys for
throwing up on sidewalks in the Quarter. Won't be the same without us,
will it? Why don't you just come along up North with us?" Her eyes
twinkle with the invitation, and Officer Buber wishes he could oblige.
It's true, next week the Ladies will all be sitting on tuffets in Illinois
parlors, waving at soldier boys, hoping none of them be throwing up on the
carpet. Some lucky bastard cop in Chicago is gonna be getting all the joy
soon, Officer Buber knows.
"I'm here official, Miss Celia,"
Officer Buber says out of that kind round face-always has been too kind
for a cop's face-and though he's known Celia near four years, known her
almost two, he still calls her 'Miss Celia'. Something in the way her
chubby cheeks scrunch up when she smiles makes her look innocent, like a
farm gal tending goats, and he likes to hold on to that little illusion
with his own illusion of respect. "We got to make sure all the
parlors are closed at midnight, Miss Celia, and I get to close yore'n
down. Ain't I the lucky one?" Celia smiles at him and pats his
shoulder affectionately, but Officer Buber is disappointed that her hand
stays up on the flat of his shoulder instead of sliding down to the meat
of his arm where she usually gives him a good squeeze when she's in the
mood. Instead, Celia takes his arm and strolls him across the room.
"Let's go set a minute," she says.
Here and there the Ladies are boofing themselves
up, curly-cuing their hair or pushing up cross-tie blouse fronts to make
things look bigger, or tinkling on the last drips of flower water,
anything to make the boys perk up and notice. Officer Buber sure notices;
he always does. He smiles and says 'hello' to all of them. They smile
back. He knows a couple of them, too.
They pass the bar where Shark Tooth
grants a silent nod at the jack-boot man in blue. Officer Buber nods back.
Long time ago, Officer Buber tossed old 'Tooth in the New Orleans can one
night for beating up five white boys, and the 'Tooth ain't forgot about
that time. When Officer Buber strolled by that night, what he'd seen had
been a pretty fair fight as far as he was concerned, there being only five
white boys jumping on the 'Tooth instead of the ten or twelve Officer
Buber figured it would take to put him down, and the black boy with the
neck like a bull dog was doing a passable job of chipping every white
tooth out of every white faced that popped up in front of him. But the
white boys swore through mince-meat lips and bloody gums that looked like
corn cobs with no kernals left on them that the black boy had jumped all
five of them for no good reason. Why, yust for no weason a'tall,
one burbled painfully, while we wah wahking down the stweet
peathable-wike on our way to the Youf Hall, and with that kind of
story, crap that it might be, the good po-liceman had no choice but to
take the boy in. Well it is Louisiana, the people on the street
said, and the 'Tooth is a nigger, everybody agreed. Can't deny
that. And the fact that some of the bystanders was talking about
introducing the nigger to a rope made Officer Buber do his duty, and it
also made him a hero in Shark Tooth's eyes that night, cause it sure saved
his hide.
All that was way before Celia's, way back when
Officer Buber was in new blue pants and buzz-saw hair, a little-boy
policeman, but to this day, Shark Tooth still jumps over the bar if any
fool tanked-up customer tries to put Officer Buber's head through a wall,
and it don't take but one swat or two of them big black arms for Shark
Tooth to help Officer Buber do his duty. The 'Tooth never forgets what he
owes.
Celia and Officer Buber come to a Beidermeier,
plump and soft and hidden away under the stairs where they can talk a
minute. "Sit down," Celia says in that curious way Southern
charmers can run two words together, yet make two-syllables out of words
of one. "Siddayun" she says.
"Is this really the last
night?" she asks mournfully. "You gon' lock the doors come
midnight? Put us all out on the street?" She puts her hand on his
shoulder again, but this time it slides down the heft just a ways, though
not quite into signal territory.
"You know I got to," Officer Buber
replies, pumping up his chest for authority. "It's the law, Miss
Celia. The end of the story. You got to close up and move away so you
won't be no bad influence on them boys out yonder." Or, 'outchander',
as he says it.
Celia's hand goes back up on top of the shoulder.
"Bad influence," she sniffs. "Any worse than sending them
off to fight the Kaiser and go dead kicking in the mud? I'd say spending
what ought to be the good years o' their lives in a coffin is a much
worser influence that a little peek under a skirt now and then."
Officer Buber shakes his head sadly and agrees.
"Yes'm, Miss Celia, yore probably right. But I'll still be here to
see things locked up at midnight just the same. All the things.
Come tomorrow morn, the sun won't shine on nothing 'round here but
memories. It's my duty."
Celia understands. It isn't Officer Buber's
fault. "The good people of New Awlins has spoken, I guess," she
sighs, "but you can bet they ain't seen the last cotton candy in this
town. They might throw us in the river, but what we're doin' won't never
go away."
Out front, it's six-thirty and opening time, so
Woodrow pulls himself up tall on his stool, standing bean pole straight.
He's built like a carrot and when he primps his stove pipe up high on his
noggin it makes him look eight feet tall. He's a long black tower of a man
with a face like a boar, and when he starts to call 'em up it's like
bringing the hogs to the trough. "Oodley-ooh, boys," Woodrow
sings out, "Come and see it while you can, come-a take
it like a man. Go to church tomorrow, but tonight you're here to
sin." Sing song, sing song, sing song, sing, over and over he chants
till the boys up and down the boulevard all hear and come a-moseyin'. With
Harlene and Candy Cane puffed and boofed at the door, the boys start to
sniff like doggies on a rabbit's tail and soon Celia's Veranda's fills
with goodbye soldiers, dollars in their pockets and hunger in their pants.
"Gonna be a night,"
Officer Buber says, looking at the jubilation in the parlor. "Ain't
no doubt about it. Gonna get wild."
But Celia suddenly has her pout. It ain't what
she wants. "Not in my place, 'Nanner," she says right firm with
that lip puckered up like the persimmon wasn't ripe. "I want Celia's
Veranda to go out smooth and peacable. This may be a house of assignation,
but we got style. We got dignity and we got respect, and we're going to
the hills with our heads up high." She has decided. She jumps up from
the Biedermier and drags Officer Buber by the arm right out to Boonie's
ivory box and raps on Boonie's noggin with her knuckles. Boonie sees the
pout and pulls down his tune. He knows when Momma wants the floor.
Celia nudges Boonie over and then she stands
right up on his bench next to him. "Hey, ya'll sammies," she
shouts out. "Tune your ear pieces over here a minute."
Like somebody's just hollered "Free
Money", the soldier boys all turn and look and there's Miss Celia,
standing on the bench with one foot up on Boonie's shoulder. Pink taffeta
shimmers under the electric arcs and the boys look at her eagerly. There's
young faces and old ones, and farmer boys and factory chubs and cotton
pickers and bankers, and soldiers of every size and shape-though soldiers
of only one color-and with eyes occluded by alcohol, they lean on the
Ladies and wait for Celia to speak like she was the Reverend Jones on
Sunday.
"My warriors," she says to them.
"It's been a hell of a ride, but the train pulls out tonight."
Officer Buber smiles at her mixture, but he knows her heart is in her
words. There was always a lot of things Miss Celia's done better than
speeching.
"Ya'll been good to all of us for the
longest," she continues, then a shout from one of the boys answers
back,
"But not as good as ya'll been to us!"
The room breaks open in laughter, and even Miss Celia smiles.
"The good people of New Awlins believes we
are a bad influence on you," she says, and they all "oh"
and "damn" and swear it ain't so. "And you know what?"
she swears right back, "It seems to me that there's do-righters
everywhere who always thinks they knows what's best for everybody else,
an' them kind of people just don't ever seem to think we can figure out
for ourselves what's right or what's wrong, or what's good to drink or
what's fit to eat. They believe God give them eyes so they can see where we
ought to be headin', and fingers to point us on our way. But don't you
forget," she adds, wagging a finger at them all, "it's the
righteous people of the world that's pointin' you boys off to France to go
fight the Huns so Mister Rockefeller can make another million." The
boys jeer and whistle and around the room heads nod in drunken agreement.
"Why, you boys are going out to fight for the very people that's
tellin' you a little lovin' ain't good for you, and they're the ones
who'll be writin' sad letters home to your grievin' Mommas, too. And ain't
that the shame?"
She stops a second, looks around the
room, and puts one hand on Boonie's head next to her knee, which is next
to Boonie's ear, which is as steady as Thomas at Chickamauga while Celia
uses him for a footstool. She rests her hand there like it was a pulpit,
tapping her fingers on his skull. "I tell you this boys, they may
think a little lovin' ain't good for your soul, but there ain't no amount
of dying that's much good for it, neither," and the boys start to
shout and clap and she's got 'em looking now. "But fellas. . .,"
she sighs, looking down at Officer Buber standing close by in uniform and
badge and a going-out-of-business order in his pocket, "when good
people get to beatin' the drums, I guess we all got to march, and boys,
you all know it's time for us to be steppin' on."
She looks at Officer Buber with expectation, and
he feels like he ought to have something to say. The soldier boys are
looking at Officer Buber too, like maybe he's the very toady that signed
the orders, so he decides he'd better clarify the situation. "Sorry,
boys," Officer Buber tells them. "It's them Washington homers
that's closin' the gate. Somebody up there wants to keep all the funnin'
for himself. I just do what I'm told, and I got my duty to do, just like
you.
The boys are sad, and the "oooh's"
spread around the room like smoke, but they understand too. Glasses are
raised and toasts are offered. Shark Tooth suddenly has a dozen glasses
thrust in his face for refill.
"You boys mean a lot to me," Celia
sniffs. She dabs a tear away from an eye, but as she does, she lifts the
hem of her dress to do it, and from where it dangles over her ankle
propped next to Boonie's ear, taffeta begets silk for just an instant and
the boys in front fly elbows to get a quick look.
"I want you boys to know that wherever me or
any of my Ladies may be, if ya'll find us, ya'll are always welcome to
come in my place anytime." The boys cheer some more, then suddenly
it's like Celia has a fly in her throat that makes her choke. "And I
want you to know too, if any one of us here in the Veranda could jump on a
ship and go fight, we'd be right there with you boys," and it looks
for a minute like Miss Celia's really gonna cry. All around the room it's
quiet, too quiet, and Miss Celia sniffles, "Ya'lls are going off to
fight the Great War they say, the war to end all wars, and it's likely we
won't never see some of you again," and that's when it looks like
maybe one or two of the boys are about to tune up, too. Miss Celia opens
her lips just a bit but no words come out, and all the boys in the room
wait to see what sadness she's gonna say next, but before she does, a big
drunk voice lobs up out of the crowd, "Well, hell, boys, it looks to
me like we done lost the war to end all whores," and this time the
laughter lets loose big time and the drinks go pouring. Miss Celia takes
her foot off Boonie's shoulder and smiles big and there's no more crying
to be done.
"Let her go, Boonie," she
says and Boonie starts pedaling to Mississippi and the party goes back to
rolling and for a little longer, the boys ain't thinking about dying.
After that, the night gets going good and the
'Veranda gets loud. Along about nine, after Boonie's had a deuceway, the
ivory begins to sizzle and somewhere a sax man jumps and caterwauls notes
alongside Boonie. Then somebody comes up with a trumpet and a clarinet and
by ten o'clock, they're punching out notes like a steam hammer drives
rivets, and the music's so hot it's melting the windows and blowing off
the doors and spreading down the street in a fog on the ground. The boys
are dancing and the boys are hollering and the boys are watching skirts go
up and down the spiral, and most of all, the boys are going up the spiral
themselves getting one last hoot, and then coming back down to celebrate.
Officer Buber is cool. When two soldier boys
slide down the rail of the spiral in their skivvies and the hollers of all
the boys below are louder than Boonie's band is playing, Officer Buber
lets them go, let's them parade around the room showing everybody the
lipstick smudges where a soldier don't normally find lipstick. Officer
Buber laughs along with the rest.
When boys start passing out, cold and rag-limp on
the floor, he lets them stay where they fall instead of hauling them in
like he usually does, for Officer Buber figures they deserve to be able to
splatter this one time undisturbed. Some day not too far away in a
Frenchman's alfalfa, some of these boys will fall down splattered and
never get up again.
Somewhere around eleven, a couple of the fellows
get a bright idea. "They can't close this place at midnight if'n
midnight never comes!" they conjecture, and down comes the big bull
clock which then goes rolling right out the door. Officer Buber starts to
grab the boys before the clock sails away, but from across the room he
sees Celia's eye, sees her shrug as if to say, "Don't worry 'bout it
anymore," and so Officer Buber steps back and lets the time fly.
After that, the paintings start coming off the walls and the lampshades go
on the heads and the place is getting to be a mess but Celia doesn't seem
to mind anymore. She wasn't going to need this stuff much tomorrow anyway.
In the final hour, Boonie's band
really lets it go. Now there's a trombone and another trumpet and here and
there some sweet harmony jigs in time to the rattling drummer, but mostly
the tunes are flat-out scorchers. Boonie and Catfish and Stultify and all
the black boys with lightning fingers split their notes so high and fast
that the laughing rolling soldier boys can't follow, can't hardly even
dance to the racket, but the racket is a sweet dirge for Celia's Veranda,
and it makes the boys run up and down the spiral in a frenzy, for clock or
no clock, they know the end is near and the race for the last hoot is on.
At eleven-forty-five Celia comes over to the
Shark, who's getting weary of trying to keep up with all the drink calls
and all the change and all the boys that forget to tip, and she pours a
tall bourbon in a hurricane and hands it to him. "This one's yores,"
she says to him, and unties the apron from his waist and puts a friendly
hand on his arm. "You go on, my big man, and join the fun. Let the
boys be." For the first time tonight, for the first time any Regulars
can remember, Shark Tooth grins, and it's only then that everybody
understands his name, for in the middle of his grin is one big black front
tooth, broken off at an angle and looking like he could open cans with it.
The bottom of his mouth is filled with yellowed incisors and bicuspids,
all mostly still where God put them, but that black blade is the only
tooth left on the top row and man, it looks mean. But the smile on
'Tooth's face is so broad and so clean that the boys around the bar forget
to be afraid of him and they slap him on the back and raise a toast and
that's when Celia says "Open bar boys, just come get what you
want." Glasses raise to Celia and the race to midnight gets faster.
Woodrow even comes in from outside and joins the fun, too, cause it sure
don't matter much about calling soldier boys in no more. While he's
pulling down one of Celia's farewell beers, a couple of soldier boys get
to playing volleyball with Woodrow's stove pipe and as it bounces around
the room it gets folded and bent till it starts to look like a tin can
that's been kicked down the road about four or five miles.
Just about midnight, when they all
know the end is near, the boys start drifting out to the street where the
party can keep going even after Celia's closes down. In the parlor, the
floor's still full of uniforms, but there's not a Lady in sight, for
they're all up the spiral saying grace for the last grand time. At five
minutes till, Shark Tooth goes up the climb and starts to bang on doors,
driving the last customers out, like Officer Buber says he has to do. One
big soldier with a thick jaw and anvil hands tries to bully Officer Buber
with an argument all his own.
"If'n I pay by midnight," he
supposes, "It seems to me I arghn't to be able to get my goods on my
own sweet time," and when he stands up in Officer Buber's face, he
towers mightily over the man in blue. "Are you gonna stop me little
man?" he says with ugly in his eyes.
But Officer Buber is not interested in rationale
or broader shoulders than his, and he quickly unplugs his revolver from
his side and politely holds it on the tip of the big soldier's nose.
"If I say you don't, you don't" he reasons with a smile, and the
big man cross-eyes the barrel on his nose and decides Officer Buber has
the better argument.
Then the last minute comes and the spiral fills
with khaki and Ladies, all herding down ahead of Shark Tooth, down to the
parlor, out to the door, tears and smiles, Ladies saying goodbye to
soldier boys with hugs and squeezes. Shark Tooth signals from the top of
the landing that the rooms are all clear, then midnight strikes, and the
hammer of virtue comes down. Reelfoot finally gets up, his first rise of
the night. He yawns, then trots outside. No fun in here anymore. Pearly
closes the door and all the Ladies start to bawl. The boys are all gone
and Celia's Veranda is, too.
Celia looks at Officer Buber, who nods that the
law is satisfied, and Officer Buber looks at Celia and Pearly and Harlene
and Candy Cane and all the rest, all of them snuffling now. Around the
room Celia's Veranda is hurricane damaged, for the sofas are overturned
and the drapes are sagging and the commodes and sideboards are covered
with used glasses and burn-out cigars and the place has the slatternly
appearance of an unkempt Used Bagnio Supply business.
"So much for dignity and
respect," Celia sighs. "But what the hell, it's done now."
The Ladies all sit down and start to remove their
wigs and makeup and lashes, and as they gradually peel the layers of
cotton and silk from their tired backs and legs, they metamorphose into
ordinary working women, relaxing at the end of a long shift.
Woodrow leans on the piano and he and Boonie and
Shark Tooth are having a slow whiskey with the boys in the band. They
offer one to Officer Buber. "It's not strictly legal," Officer
Buber answers. "But I reckon my duty's done." They pour their
glasses full of Celia's bourbon, and Woodrow and 'Tooth raise a glass to
Officer Buber. For a white cop, he ain't too bad a jackboot, they say.
"I tell you what," Harlene creaks out
from a smoky throat. "I done my part for the Yuu-Ess of A tonight.
That's gotta be one happy platoon."
"Amen," Candy Cane sighs, "but
what do we do now?"
The room is silent as all the Ladies, now just
girls in tired paint, wonder the same thing.
"We'll be alright," Celia declares.
"We all will." Maybe it's late and maybe she's tired, but her
voice contains too little enthusiasm to cheer them. "Tomorrow we
start again," she says.
Next morning, four Ladies are standing in the
rising sun, just four more tired women out of work. They're parked outside
Celia's Veranda where a board nailed across the pin oak doors says
"Closed Fer Good," courtesy of a do-righter who came by a little
after midnight to tack up the Good Citizen League's final goodbye. They
yawn and scratch themselves and hold floral print valises in each hand and
after looking at the sign for a moment, they start to shuffle slowly away.
"Let's go find a train," Celia says, herding them on down the
street. "Might as well see what's up the track a ways."
But before they get far, they hear from behind
them a dusky yodel warbling across the morning. "Oodely-ooh, oodely-ooh,
oodely-oodely-oodely-oooh," they hear, and turn to see Woodrow
standing once more on top of his stool, tall and lean like a whippet, arms
out wide. His stove pipe, recovered from the midnight mintonetters and
creased in the middle and bent like a ship's smokestack, is still perched
on his head. He sings out loudly to them, "Goodbye my shadow
beauties. The New Orleans spring will never be so lovely again without
you," then he bows deeply, bending so far over at the waist that his
stove pipe tumbles off his head and lands in a heap on the sidewalk,
crushed and still, stiff like a carcass. He stares blankly at the pile for
a few seconds, then climbs down off his perch and turns to walk away in
the morning sun without his trademark. His hands are in his pockets, and a
bright whistle's on his lips. He is gone to his next calling, wherever
that may be, and Celia's Veranda falls away from him like a vague
reminiscence. Old Reelfoot gets up and saunters along behind him. His head
and tail are high, too.
Celia watches her unemployed doorman
saunter away in high spirits and just looking at him strut makes her
cheery again. She sets her bag down. "Well, hell, ladybugs," she
says, with her hands on her hips. "Springtime in New Awlins may be
dreary but Chicago is gonna have one hell of a summer." The Ladies
perk up. Summer's coming and Chicago is a day away.
Celia slaps her hands together and the starter's
flag does down. "Let's go put some bounce at the door," she
says.
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