When white people discover what I do, it shocks most of them. They usually say, "Man, you got to be kidding me. You're not afraid when you go inside a juke joint?"

I always truthfully answer, "No." Sometimes I add, "In fact, I've never known fear in a juke joint."

That's a small lie. I have known fear in a juke joint. Once, just once. It happened one night in a crowded juke joint when, as my Cane River Creole friend, Mike Dupree, would say, I was the only person there of the Caucasian persuasion. I was sitting at the owner's table with his son and his son's wife. The elderly owner sat to my right. His son sat to my left. He was a big, ugly, mean-looking forty-something guy. The son's wife sat directly across the table from me. She was a fine-looking forty-something woman. I found her extremely attractive. That fact made me nervous. But I kept my cool—at least I think I did—and tried to make talk.

I suddenly felt something touch my foot. Then the something touched my shin. Then the something moved upwards and started gently rubbing my leg. At about the same instant I realized that the something was the woman's toes working their way toward my crotch, I noticed that her full red lips were grinning at me. And my heart stopped and a chill went up and down my spine.

Anyone who says they wouldn't have felt fear in that situation is a damned liar.