Nontraditional in everything he did, Eddie used his mentor Benny Boon’s juke joint on Friday nights to throw reefer parties, cutting Boon in on the profits. This arrangement was so lucrative that Boon built an addition with private stalls onto the rear of the juke joint. As word about the parties began to spread outside Studewood, white students from Rice and the University of Houston started showing up looking for reefer, good music, and fun. Knowing that they were onto something big, Eddie began to invite his women to have fun at the parties.
Almost overnight, things changed for Eddie, and at twenty-one he was known throughout Houston. He had two homes, one in the Fifth Ward for his stable, which he would visit weekly. For himself, he kept a home on East Thirty-Second Street a few
