3

During his earliest years, when Sailor was in prison in Huntsville, doing ten years for his part in an attempted armed robbery of a feed store in Big Tuna, Texas, that resulted in the maiming of an employee and the death of Sailor’s accomplice, Bobby Peru, Pace was raised exclusively by his mother, with occasional assistance from his grandmama Marietta. Lula never visited Sailor while he was incarcerated but regularly corresponded with him, providing details of Pace’s development. She remained faithful to Sailor, rarely even entertaining the thought of being with another man. Lula explained to Pace that his daddy had made a bad mistake by allowing himself to be coerced into committing a serious crime. Lula was pregnant with Pace at the time, and she and Sailor were out of money, stranded in West Texas. Sailor’s foolish act was born out of desperation, and he was fortunate not to have been cut down along with the black angel Bobby Peru. He promised Lula that he never again would betray her trust in him, and in all of their years together following his release, he had not.

Pace did not really miss his daddy while Sailor was in the penitentiary due to the circumstance of his never having known him. Lula worked during those years at odd jobs, mostly waitressing, in New Orleans, and accepted supplementary financial help from Marietta, who doted on her only grandchild and refused to allow him to suffer for want of proper clothes or food or decent housing because of poor decisions made by her daughter and Pace’s lunkhead daddy. Lula was an attentive mother and always put her son’s needs above her own. She retained her spirit of independence and feisty character, however, which frequently sparked conflicts between Marietta and herself, but her mother recognized and acknowledged Lula’s devotion to Pace, and so maintained civil relations with her, but from a distance. Marietta’s fervent desire that Lula end her relations with Sailor Ripley did not, of course, come to pass, a situation that Marietta eventually came to terms with, albeit reluctantly. True love was a condition Marietta Fortune had not experienced, therefore it was difficult, if not impossible, for her to fully appreciate the concept. Prior to her death, however, having witnessed Sailor’s turnaround and well-intentioned parenting of Pace, she told Lula that Sailor had gained her respect, an unexpected gesture that satisfied her daughter and enabled Lula to think more generously about Marietta in the years following her mother’s passing.

Lula’s fidelity to Sailor faced a severe test only once, when Pace was seven and a half years old. Lula was not working at the time she met a trumpet player named Duke Davis one night when she and a dancer friend of hers named Baby Doll DuQuoin were having a nightcap in Renaldo’s Martini, a club on Iberville Street. Baby Doll—she swore that was her real Christian name—had danced in a show in Miami that Duke’s band had played in a year or so before they met up at Renaldo’s Martini. Duke was thirty-five years old, from Chicago, where he lived with his wife and three children, as Baby Doll was quick to inform Lula. Davis was not very tall but dark and handsome, with impeccable manners, and Lula could not help but be attracted to him. As she later admitted to Beany Thorn, he reminded her of Sailor, the way he moved and gestured with his hands, even his voice. Duke was in N.O. working a weeklong gig at the DeSalvo Hotel. He had a drink with the two women and exchanged small talk with Baby Doll, who gave him her phone number and told him to call if he had time. After ten minutes, Duke excused himself—the band had a final set to play at one a.m.—and left, but not before paying for their drinks.

“Seems like a nice guy,” Lula said.

“I would have gone to bed with him in Miami,” said Baby Doll, “but one of the other girls, Lorna Dune, who’s a porn actress now, got him away from me. I couldn’t compete with her 36-double D’s. She sat on his lap, let her top drop, and put one tit in each of his hands. Skinny little me was toast.”

At noon the next day, Duke Davis called Lula.

“How did you get my number?” she asked him.

“From Baby Doll. I’m free until nine tonight. Would you like to have lunch with me? How about Galatoire’s, at three?”

Without hesitating, Lula said yes. Duke said, “Great!” and hung up. She was more than a little surprised at herself for capitulating so quickly, and considered calling Duke back, but she didn’t have his number or know where he was staying. She decided to stand him up, but after she picked up Pace from school at three-fifteen, she drove down to the Quarter, parked her car, and entered Galatoire’s at a quarter to four with Pace in tow.

Duke Davis was sitting at a table against the far wall, drinking a Bloody Mary. As soon as he spotted Lula, he stood up and waved, smiling broadly. Then he noticed Pace, lost his smile a bit, but put it back before they reached his table.

“I thought perhaps you’d found something better to do,” Duke said.

“Had to fetch my son from school. Pace, this is Duke. Duke, this is Pace.”

Duke took the boy’s small hand in his own big one and said, “Glad to know you, son.”

“What’s wrong with your lip?” Pace asked. “You get punched?”

Duke grinned and Lula said, “Mr. Davis is a trumpet player, Pace. If you play it for a long time, the mouthpiece leaves an impression.”

“It’s called an embouchure, son. That’s the way a musician applies his lips and tongue to a wind instrument.”

“I’m Sailor Ripley’s son, mister, not yours. He’s in prison in Texas. You gonna have that embutcher forever? It’s ugly.”

“Why don’t we all sit down?” said Duke.

Pace never forgot having lunch that day at Galatoire’s. Duke Davis kept trying to hold his mother’s hands and she kept pulling them away. Afterwards, when they were standing on Bourbon Street in front of the restaurant, Duke Davis asked Pace if he’d like to take a ride in a carriage pulled by a mule, and Pace said, “You take it, we got a car.”

Lula met Duke by herself in the bar of the DeSalvo between sets the evening before he and his band left for Chicago. He had phoned her several times after their luncheon date, wanting her to meet him following his gig, but she told him that was too late, that she had to be up early to take Pace to school. When she said she had to go, Duke walked Lula outside and around the corner into Père Ferdinand Alley, where he gently but firmly pushed her up against a wall, kissed her and put his right hand under her skirt between her legs. Lula let him keep it there while they kissed, then pushed him away.

“You’re wet,” said Duke.

“Your wife’s pussy probably is, too,” she said. “Have a good trip to Chicago.”

The next day, Baby Doll called Lula and asked how her date with Duke had gone.

“It wasn’t a date, Baby Doll. We just had a drink before his band went on again.”

“You didn’t stay?”

“No, I went home.”

“Shoot, Lula, I wanted to know what his dick is like.”

“You should have asked Lorna Dune.”

Pace did not know that his mother had seen Duke Davis again following their lunch at Galatoire’s. One day three years later, after Sailor and Lula were reunited, while the three of them were watching Louis Armstrong play cornet and sing on a television show, Sailor said, “I wonder how it feels for a woman to kiss a man with a split lip like Satchmo’s.”

“It’s called an embutcher,” said Pace.