The girls were pretty and the younger the better. Because the money was good, and the opportunities for women in small towns were scarce, they headed to the Coast and a faster life. The stories were legion of farm girls who worked the clubs hard for a few years, saved their money, and returned home where no one knew what they’d been up to. They married their old boyfriends from high school and raised kids.
Felix was with Debbie, a real veteran who could spot a mark, though it didn’t take much in the way of intuition. Felix said to Jesse, “We’re gonna dance. Watch our drinks.”
They disappeared into the mob. Sherry Ann moved closer to Jesse, who smiled and said, “Look, I’m not in the game. I’m happily married with four kids at home. Sorry.”
She sighed, smiled, understood, and said, “Thanks for the drink.” Within seconds she was working the other end of the bar. After a few minutes of bump-and-grind, Felix and Debbie breezed by and grabbed their drinks. He whispered, loudly, “Say, we’re going upstairs. Give me thirty minutes, okay?”
“Sure.”
Suddenly lonely at the bar and wishing to avoid another pickup attempt, Jesse went to the casino and walked through it. He had heard rumors about the Truck Stop’s growing popularity, but he was startled at the number of tables. Slot machines lined the walls. Roulette and craps tables were on one side, poker and blackjack on the other. Dozens of gamblers, almost all men and many in uniform, were gambling as they smoked, drank, and yelled. Cocktail waitresses scurried about, trying to keep up with demand. And it was only a Tuesday night.
Jesse knew to avoid roulette and craps because the games were rigged. It was well known that the only consistently honest game in town was blackjack. He found an empty stool at a crowded 25-cent table and pulled out two dollars, his limit. An hour later he was up $2.50 and Felix was nowhere in sight.
At eleven, he called his brother and harangued him for a ride home.
* * *
The following year, 1955, Jesse enrolled in night classes at the Loyola Law School in New Orleans. Since the dinner with Felix, he had become infatuated with the idea of becoming a lawyer, and talked, at least to Agnes, of little else. She finally grew weary of the same conversations and set aside her reluctance. With four small children a nursing job, even part-time, was out of the question, but she would support him and together they could make it work. Both despised the idea of debt, but when his father offered a $2,000 loan, they had no choice but to take it.
On Tuesdays, after class, Jesse hurried to New Orleans, a two-hour drive, and usually arrived about fifteen minutes late for the 6:00 p.m. class. The professors understood their students and the demands on their time as full-time employees elsewhere. They were in law school, at night, going about their studies the hard way, and most rules were flexible. Over four hours, covering two courses, Jesse took copious notes, engaged in discussions, and, when possible, read upcoming materials. He absorbed the law and was thrilled by its challenges. Late in the night, as the second course came to a close, he was often the only student still wide awake and eager to engage with the professor. At 9:50 sharp, he hustled from the classroom and to his car for the drive home. At midnight, Agnes was always waiting with a warmed-over dinner and questions about his classes.
He seldom slept more than five hours a night and woke before dawn to prepare his own history lectures, or to grade papers.
On Thursday nights, he was off again to Loyola for two more classes. He never missed one, nor did he miss a day of work or Mass or a family dinner. As his children grew, he always had time to play in the backyard or take them to the beach. Agnes often found him at midnight on the sofa, dead from exhaustion, with a thick casebook opened and resting on his chest. When he survived the first year with stellar grades, they opened a bottle of cheap champagne late one night and celebrated. Then they passed out. One benefit of the fatigue was the lack of energy for sex. Four kids were enough.
As his studies progressed, and as it became more apparent to his family and friends that he was not chasing a crazy dream, a degree of pride crept into his world. He would be the first lawyer from the Point, the first of all those children and grandchildren of immigrants who had worked and sacrificed in the new country. There were rumors that he would leave and rumors that he would stay. Would he go to work in a nice firm in Biloxi, or would he open his own shop on the Point and help his people? Was it true he wanted to work for a big firm in New Orleans?