Wilmer Wallace: Alias Charles Boyer

Emma Jean had figured she'd just look up Charles Boyer when she got to New Orleans. She looked for a long time, over a year, 'cause he warn't really named Charles Boyer. He were named Wilmer Wallace. And he warn't cripple neither. Or a soldier. He were just conning stuff off poor folks in the name of the boys overseas. And he didn't live right in New Orleans neither. He were across the river.
One thing I hadn't told about Emma Jean. That girl could sing. She were in the church choir, but nobody around Harper had figured out how good she were. I had some idea 'cause like I told y'all a while ago my daddy played opera music in our house and I got to like it. Emma Jean sung like them viking womens in Wagner's stuff. She were big like most of the ones I seen in pictures. What we didn't know were Emma Jean had another voice. She could sing like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. That's how she were able to stay around New Orleans and look for Charles Boyer for all that time. Over that year or more, even though peoples from Harper went down to the Crescent City, nobody recognized it were her singing in the lounge of the Roosevelt Hotel. She had lost so much weight, don't you know.