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In Houston, Phillips says, “I adopted the name Skinny Minnie, a rather outré persona to accompany it partly in tribute to an inimitable woman I met while doing voter registration in Raleigh, who called herself “Miss Skinny Minnie.” It was the perfect nom de funk, or ‘pigmeat name,’ as Lightnin’ termed colorful, evocative African American names in a recitative in one of his boogies, when he asks an imaginary woman: ‘What’s your name? Suzanne? Oh, I don’t like no Suzanne. Give me Lyra or Vera. Give me a pigmeat name.’ Acting under the rubric of ‘When in Rome …’ plain Jane wouldn’t do. I needed a pigmeat name.

Lightnin’ later changed it to ‘Jicky Minnie,’ and in 1964, he recorded a song ‘Leave Jike Mary Alone’ [on the LP titled Live at the Bird Lounge] and changed ‘Minnie’ to ‘Mary’ in a rather lame attempt to conceal the subject of the song from Antoinette.”11

In the song Lightnin’ made it clear that Antoinette knew he had another woman, but tried in vain to explain that his relationship wasn’t serious while at the same time admitting feelings for Jike Mary.

My wife told me, ‘Babe, I believe you’re going crazy’ (x2)

I know you got a little woman, they call her Jike Mary

Hush your mouth, baby, take your time (x2)

I say I ain’t bought Jike Mary nothin’ but one fifth of wine

Goin’ to be trouble if Jike Mary don’t come home (x2)

Everything I ever did is telling me, leave Jike Mary alone12

Phillips was touched and amused by the song, but said she never drank wine with Lightnin’. She shared his beverage of choice, Gordon’s Gin. “It’s true that he consumed liquor on a daily basis (again part of a larger Texas ethos). Yet I never saw anybody drunk or not in control of their faculties.”13

How often Phillips got together with Lightnin’ varied: “I would see him a lot at Shorty Calloway’s garage. Sometimes I spent time at Mama’s on Hadley Street when Lightnin’ was elsewhere. Mama owned the rooming house and her kitchen was a lively gathering place, but for the most part, I went to Shorty’s. Lightnin’s cronies congregated there, and though it was a male environment, Shorty welcomed my presence, and I had a lot of fun hanging with these older men. Though Lightnin’ lived within easy walking distance to Shorty’s, he frequently drove his car over. At that time, he had a black-and-white Dodge.”14

Shorty’s had several chairs at the front of the garage, where people would sit around and drink: “They’d shuck and jive, tell lies and stories, while Shorty worked on a car. There was an alcove in the back where people would shoot craps on a fuzzy blanket with peewee dice. Lightnin’ was often found kneeling at the edge of the blanket, completely absorbed in the ritual and litanies of spinning the dice. And when Lightnin’ didn’t want Antoinette to know he was at Shorty’s, he’d walk over. She checked on him frequently. People told me that she’d drive around town looking for his car to ascertain his whereabouts. He was forever trying to move his car so she wouldn’t know where he was. However, sometimes he wanted her to think he was at Shorty’s, so he’d park his car in front of the garage and leave with someone in another car.”15

Once, Antoinette discovered Lightnin’s car parked outside another woman’s house at night, and had someone steal it: “So, Lightnin’ comes out and there’s no car. And he’s going crazy, running around telling everyone that his beloved, black and white Dodge had been stolen, but not revealing his specific whereabouts when the supposed theft occurred. However, Antoinette had already told Mama what she’d done and why, and Mama told everybody else who hung out at Hadley Street. Word spread to Shorty’s, so all of us knew what had happened. When he came into Mama’s kitchen with his lament, our mock expressions of shock and outrage for Po’ Lightnin’ turned to hoots of laughter as soon as he left the room. At times, he was made the butt of jokes because at times, he did silly things which deserved to make him the butt of jokes, but the joking was done with good humor, and he