After the song ended, a manic, almost psychotic rush of adrenalin filled the room. Women were screaming and begging for more as if they were only half satisfied sexually and needed to finish what they'd started. Jerry Lee took it all in and ignored it at the same time. He was altogether in a different place. In that brief hiatus a lanky janitor came out with a push broom and swept the stage clear of the keys and panties. The guitar player took the opportunity to pick several pair of panties out of the open piano. He egged on the crowd and seemed to delight in the operation, exaggeratedly sniffing a light blue pair and stuffing them into his pocket, then dropping the others 'just so' on the floor for the broom. Doing his bit for progress; helping facilitate the journey that warm panties take after they are no longer attached to intoxicated and aroused young women. 

Jerry Lee announced in a booming voice, "It sure is nice to be here!" and then launched into his next song, Chantilly Lace. He started out the song speaking like he's on the telephone... 

"Oh, you sweet thing! Do I WHAT? Will I WHAT? Oh, Baby, You KNOW what I like!"

Then he hammered the piano up-tempo and sang.

"Chantilly Lace and a pretty face and a pony tail hangin' down, wiggle in her walk and a giggle in her talk, makes the world go 'round..."

Just after the refrain and before the finish of the song he did this thing of tickling the ivories with his left hand while holding up his right index finger all the while instructing the audience how, "You can really get it right by putting your finger on just one small spot...holding it there, right there; and then moving it around and around...Now don't move it too fast, ya'll...There ya go, that's when you know you got it right!"  

All the while he was beating the piano to death and the crowd loved it. He finished with a flourish, "Oh baby, that's a-what I like!" The band was tight enough for the moment and ended the song perfectly. Now practically swooning, the audience had plenty of ammo left. Many of the women, now knickerless, resorted to what they had left and this time bras rained on the stage along with keys. There would be plenty of half-dressed women that night struggling to get back into their hotel rooms without keys. And we were only into the second song. 

There was a sudden crashing noise to my left. A large gentleman, the same guy who had taken a drunken swing at me earlier, smashed a beer bottle into the head of his tableside friend. Glass splattered with beer and blood and the guy went down right at my feet. I had a startled look and adrenalin fired through me like a shot of steroids. The drunk roared, "What the hell are you looking at?" grabbed a chair and tried to hit me. He missed and I instinctively took my own chair and cracked it over his head. He fell in a heap and the bouncers swarmed all over me. Jerry Lee was off the stage in a flash to my rescue. A scuffle ensued with people shoving and punching; a jumble of arms, legs and torsos flying. Men and women were trampled and bloodied and in the midst of battle I found myself having the time of my life. 

From out of nowhere the same scrawny lap-danced cowboy with the straw hat clocked me with a bottle. Why, I have no idea. Stars flew but as I hit the floor, I glanced up and saw Jerry Lee latch on to the guy's left ear with his pearly whites. I was down and people were stepping on me but I clearly saw a flash of fang and a goodly portion of ear come off in Jerry Lee's mouth. And then petuwi! Jerry Lee spit it out. Blood dripped down his grinning chin; his eyes beady red, his pale wolf-like face flushed with the glint of canis hubris.  

The earless guy ran out the door screaming with a friend following right behind as bouncers moved in and regained control. Covered in blood, beer, and mucous-fouled sweat I picked myself up from the floor. Surprisingly nobody called the cops.  

The place quieted suddenly; Jerry Lee held his right hand up, pushed his hair back with his left and said,"Can we please keep the violence to a minimum until I get out of here?"  

The crowd quieted even more as he walked to the stage and launched into a gospel tune. The situation called for something unique and he came through. It sounded like 'How Great Thou Art,' but instead he changed the lyrics to 'How Great I Art'. Thunderous applause erupted; the loudest coming from the Pentecostals who were out in force, committed to Jerry-Lee-style penance the night before the holy Sabbath.  

His first set was awesome and it was clear to all why they called him the Killer. He took a short break to replenish essential bodily fluids and again I saw the flask with the red liquid vitamins. The gleam in his eye was back and his face full of color. He was feeling no pain. 

He started the second set hot and fast with 'Mystery Train', a great upbeat song and worked the crowd back into frenzy; then kept them there for a good forty-five minutes.  

He slowed it down at one point and chided the audience by saying, "If ya'll don't have religion now, you will before you leave this place!"  

The Killer was going to Mount Olive. Then he eased his piano gently into 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'. This time there was no barrage of underwear or hotel keys. The room was silent. People were crying---actually sobbing loudly and there was an understood feeling they had arrived at the Church of Jerry Lee. He seized on the sentiment, and launched into a Memphis version of 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry'. Their service had begun; all that was left was the communion and the passing of the plate. 

Finishing the Hank Williams tune, he stopped and stood up, put his right hand in the air and pushed back that flowing blonde mane. With his right leg he kicked the stool like a spooked mule and knocked it off stage; then launched again into 'Great Balls of Fire' as a finale. Up to that point he had been toying with the crowd like a cat with a mouse. Now that his true intentions were known, the shelling began in earnest. The rain of remaining hotel keys came with a mixture of bras and panties and covered the stage like newly fallen snow. On-stage performers and conventioneers randomly began to strip. And given the rate at which women were defrocking themselves there were fewer and fewer wearing any clothes at all. The atmosphere slid into a Sodom and Gomorrah spectacle of strippers, people with no hotel keys, topless women with no underwear and boyfriends jealous of Jerry Lee---all fueled by pharmaceuticals only a Saturday night on Wilkerson Boulevard can provide.