taping Angel Pistal’s ears back before she goes to sleep. Her daddy lets me go into the lounge, have a Coca-Cola and see the acts.
The Blue Gardenia Lounge is dark blue with white flowers on the wall. There’s a live band and a microphone, a spotlight and everything. I saw Bean Curd Butler, a comedian who talks country, and Miss Mary Kay Hurt, a one-woman band, but the act that’s here now is a singer named Sheila Ray. She is famous. Her ad says she has appeared in night spots in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.
She is real skinny and has white hair and black eyebrows. I think she dyes one or the other. Her big number is “Tweedlee Dee.” She uses a lot of personality in that one. I like her all right, but as far as I’m concerned, nobody can touch Doris Day for singing and personality. I have a record of her singing “It’s Magic,” which in my opinion is one of the finest recordings ever made.
If truth be known, Sheila Ray is trying to copy Doris Day’sstyle and looks, but she can never compare to Doris Day. I understand Doris Day is a natural beauty.
Pretty soon, Pegleg Johnson is coming. He tap-dances with one leg missing. I can’t wait to see him.
I love the acts. The only bad part about going up there is that Claude Pistal, Angel’s uncle, is back from Detroit. And boy, is he mean and ugly. You should see him. He has bad skin and greasy hair and pop eyes, a real Peter Lorre type, only taller and skinnier.
He hates me. I was up there one night and I saw a group of men sitting in one of the back rooms playing poker. I went in and asked if I could play a hand or two. They said fine, so I sat down and ordered a Coke.
You may not know this, but I happen to be an expert poker player. Daddy taught me all his tricks. I was sitting there, minding my own business, working on an inside straight, when Claude Pistal came in and picked me up by the back of my shirt and threw me out the door and slammed it right in my face, just when I was winning, too. On top of that, when I got home, I smelled so bad of cigar smoke Momma found out where I had been and threatened to cut my heart out if I ever did it again. Too bad, I could win a fortune.
I told Angel what Claude had done and she said that Claude hates everybody in the world except her, including her daddy, and not only that, he carries a gun.
Claude bought her a real live miniature grand piano and all kinds of things from Detroit. She even has a dollhouse you can sit in. She said he would buy her a pony if she wanted it.
We are selling those shells in plaster of paris with the cross on them so fast we can hardly keep them in stock.
Everyone says Daddy has the best hamburgers on the beach if you don’t like onions. He sells a lot of beer and at night, when the malt shop closes, he drinks a lot of it, too.
He has made some new friends. One is a short bald man named Billy Bundy, who is a famous radio preacher. Billy got in a lot of trouble once in the Midwest, selling autographed pictures of the Last Supper. Imagine, him thinking you couldforge Jesus Christ’s signature. He promised to get me an autograph of Sue Sweetwater, who has a radio program at his station. Another friend of Daddy’s is Al the Drummer, who plays the drums at the Blue Gardenia Lounge. Momma said he looks like a weasel and that Daddy ought to put him in the freezer and stuff him in the fall!
Jimmy Snow brought Daddy a dead bobcat and do you know what Jimmy Snow told me? He said that the finest perfumes in the world were made out of bobcat pee, especially Blue Waltz perfume. No wonder it smells so bad.
My momma only uses Shalimar, which is very expensive. I think Shalimar is made out of some other kind of pee. Momma won’t fix any malts or ice cream cones because she said all those dead animals in the freezer make her sick.
Momma doesn’t like Billy Bundy, Al the Drummer and Jimmy Snow much. She said Daddy was being friendly with people he wouldn’t even talk to if it wasn’t for
The Blue Gardenia Lounge is dark blue with white flowers on the wall. There’s a live band and a microphone, a spotlight and everything. I saw Bean Curd Butler, a comedian who talks country, and Miss Mary Kay Hurt, a one-woman band, but the act that’s here now is a singer named Sheila Ray. She is famous. Her ad says she has appeared in night spots in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.
She is real skinny and has white hair and black eyebrows. I think she dyes one or the other. Her big number is “Tweedlee Dee.” She uses a lot of personality in that one. I like her all right, but as far as I’m concerned, nobody can touch Doris Day for singing and personality. I have a record of her singing “It’s Magic,” which in my opinion is one of the finest recordings ever made.
If truth be known, Sheila Ray is trying to copy Doris Day’sstyle and looks, but she can never compare to Doris Day. I understand Doris Day is a natural beauty.
Pretty soon, Pegleg Johnson is coming. He tap-dances with one leg missing. I can’t wait to see him.
I love the acts. The only bad part about going up there is that Claude Pistal, Angel’s uncle, is back from Detroit. And boy, is he mean and ugly. You should see him. He has bad skin and greasy hair and pop eyes, a real Peter Lorre type, only taller and skinnier.
He hates me. I was up there one night and I saw a group of men sitting in one of the back rooms playing poker. I went in and asked if I could play a hand or two. They said fine, so I sat down and ordered a Coke.
You may not know this, but I happen to be an expert poker player. Daddy taught me all his tricks. I was sitting there, minding my own business, working on an inside straight, when Claude Pistal came in and picked me up by the back of my shirt and threw me out the door and slammed it right in my face, just when I was winning, too. On top of that, when I got home, I smelled so bad of cigar smoke Momma found out where I had been and threatened to cut my heart out if I ever did it again. Too bad, I could win a fortune.
I told Angel what Claude had done and she said that Claude hates everybody in the world except her, including her daddy, and not only that, he carries a gun.
Claude bought her a real live miniature grand piano and all kinds of things from Detroit. She even has a dollhouse you can sit in. She said he would buy her a pony if she wanted it.
We are selling those shells in plaster of paris with the cross on them so fast we can hardly keep them in stock.
Everyone says Daddy has the best hamburgers on the beach if you don’t like onions. He sells a lot of beer and at night, when the malt shop closes, he drinks a lot of it, too.
He has made some new friends. One is a short bald man named Billy Bundy, who is a famous radio preacher. Billy got in a lot of trouble once in the Midwest, selling autographed pictures of the Last Supper. Imagine, him thinking you couldforge Jesus Christ’s signature. He promised to get me an autograph of Sue Sweetwater, who has a radio program at his station. Another friend of Daddy’s is Al the Drummer, who plays the drums at the Blue Gardenia Lounge. Momma said he looks like a weasel and that Daddy ought to put him in the freezer and stuff him in the fall!
Jimmy Snow brought Daddy a dead bobcat and do you know what Jimmy Snow told me? He said that the finest perfumes in the world were made out of bobcat pee, especially Blue Waltz perfume. No wonder it smells so bad.
My momma only uses Shalimar, which is very expensive. I think Shalimar is made out of some other kind of pee. Momma won’t fix any malts or ice cream cones because she said all those dead animals in the freezer make her sick.
Momma doesn’t like Billy Bundy, Al the Drummer and Jimmy Snow much. She said Daddy was being friendly with people he wouldn’t even talk to if it wasn’t for
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