Keeping the Beat on the Street by Mick Burns

Author:Mick Burns
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2006-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

One of the gangs was made up of all the whores and pimps from Perdido Street; their parade was called Gangster Molls and Baby Dolls. Everyone in this group dressed as outlandishly as possible. The women wore eye-popping dresses; the ones who looked highest priced wore ultra-sharp women’s suits, but with see-through bras underneath. Others wore slit miniskirts showing lace panties, stiletto heels, and flowing low-cut blouses….

They were ridiculous and funny all at the same time. They’d come busting out of their dives during Mardi Gras, their dresses and suits lined with satin and glitter, real sharp-looking and hilarious. They’d march down the greens, that broad strip of grass that separates one side of the street from the other, cutting up, shakin’ the bacon and carrying on, and everyone would back off to let them start high-steppin.’ And you had best back off, too, because they took their kicks seriously.29

Jerry Brock believes he saw the last parade of the Baby Dolls:

I remember 1981, when I went out with the Kazoo Band and Baby Dolls. That was the last year they paraded. They invited me along. We met at Felicia’s house. She was one of the Baby Dolls—she lived on Orleans Street. We had a big breakfast—eggs, pork chops, gumbo, biscuits. There were about twenty-five to thirty of us.

Everybody was prepared—making sure their costumes were right, making sure their instruments were as out of tune as possible. Then everybody got on their knees and said a prayer that God would keep them safe on Mardi Gras Day.

Then we hit the door. It was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever witnessed. It was like a Fellini experience. We sang all those bawdy songs, with a crowd of fifty or so joining in. Songs like “The Pecker Song,” about a man that played with his pecker so much that his pecker wouldn’t peck no more. I was just flabbergasted. We’d turn a corner, pull up in front of somebody’s house, and there’d be a barren card table with a single bottle of whiskey on it. Everybody knew that it was for them, and a friend was honoring them on Mardi Gras. There might be a few finger sandwiches too.

So they’d hang around for a little bit, play a song or two, and then on to the next stop. We were supposed to stop masking by six o’clock, but we went on until around four in the morning. We went back to Felicia’s house, had a good meal, and hit the street again.

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