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By Root 149 0

all day to talk to the doctor and Willy just getting over his stroke, heaven, they told him Buddy touches things, there are about twenty things he will touch and he goes from one to the next, that’s all. Won’t talk, do you know they even have a band but he has nothing to do with it, was cutting hair but that stopped a while back. Now this touching thing. Willy nursing his soft hand goes all the way to the hospital and stays in places like Vachery overnight to get there and Buddy don’t say a thing to him. And he and Willy were just like that. Don’t even pretend to know who he is. The doctor says that most of the patients don’t know who their visitors are but they pretend they do so they have company but Buddy won’t. Willy walked round with him while he went about, like doing a tour or inspection of the place, the taps on the bath, the door frame, benches, things like that.

She talked on and on repeating herself and her descriptions, going back to things she’d mentioned and retelling them in greater detail for Webb. Who could not talk just strained his body and head against the wall behind him as if he were trying to escape the smell of her words as if the air from her talking came into his mouth and filled it puffed it up with poison so the brain was put to sleep and he could do nothing with it only react in his flesh. She talked on not knowing he had brought Buddy home, instead, seeing the effect of her words, she whispered on bending nearer to him like a lover surrounded by the loud moving of the party against them telling him again and again he touches things, like taps first the hot water one and then the cold, which was not true for there were only cold water taps at the East Louisiana State Hospital, but she continued to describe—as fascinated by that strange act as if it was the luxurious itch under a scab. While he arched away his body stiff and hard trying to break through the wall every nerve on the outside as if Bella’s mouth was crawling over him, and his unknown flesh had taken over, and crashed fast down the stairs stepping on hands and glasses almost running over the bodies on the crowded stairs smiling and excusing himself out loud I gotta throw up ’scuse me ’scuse me, but knowing there was nothing to come up at all.

Bella watched the flapping body on its way down the stairs and noticing now the damp mark on her right where his sweat had in those few minutes gone through his skin his shirt his java jacket and driven itself onto the wall.

Frank Amacker Interviews. Transcript Digest. Tulane Library. Also present William Russell, Allan and Sandra Jaffe, Richard B. Allen.

Reel 1. June 21, 1965

Plays (almost immediately) old rag with wide arm spread. He cannot remember the name of the rag. He discusses his prowess in playing with hands far apart. He’d like to bet that nobody can beat him at that. He now says that he made up the last song.

He then talks about this wide arm spread being the natural way of playing the piano. He then talks about the public acceptance of pianists who can’t play as well as he. Asked how old he is, he replies that he was seventy-five years old on March 22, 1965. AJ asks for ‘My Josephine’, FA plays ‘Moonlight on the Ganges’. He says he and Jelly Roll Morton hung around the BIG 25 together. He was playing there on the night of the Billy Phillips killing at the 101 Ranch. Gyp the Blood killed Billy Phillips right in front of his own bar at 4.20 am on Easter Monday and then went across the street and killed Harry Parker. The salary was $1.00 to $1.50 a night, plus tips. Money was worth a lot more then. He explains the meaning of ‘Lagniappe’. He explains the term ‘can rusher’.

END OF REEL ONE

Reel 2

There follows a discussion of waltzes. He says he can play ‘The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi’ and ‘Schubert’s Serenade’, WR asks for the latter, and FA plays ‘Drigo’s Serenade’. He became quite wealthy he says, but lost all of it. At one time he owned five places. At one time he had a bar and a restaurant. The welfare department has all the records of his former wealth.

END OF REEL