from a friend...
This is my one and only experience with carbonegos.
I was about 13 years old and I, my younger sister Gloria and my younger
brother Alfonso (RIP) were walking home from matinee at Palace Theater one
Sunday evening.
We walked down King Street to Canal Side and then turned towards Prince
Street. For whatever reason but probably to amuse my younger sister and
brother, I was walking and pretending (play-play) like I was drunk. We were
in front of that green and white house (poor house) at the corner of Prince
Street and the Canal Street (what's that, West Canal?) when all of a sudden,
in my play-play drunkenness, I fell into the kinnel.
Mi lee bredda and sista bawl no rass and one of the men that lived in the
poor house came out and pulled me out of the kinnel. Now you have to
remember that back in those days, we were still dumping our sleck buckets in
the kinnel and we still had the wahtaside ****houses. There was crap all
over me. No **** guys! There was **** all over me.
My mom lived at the corner of Dean and West streets at that time and that's
where we were headed. I promised to give Gloria and Fonso 5 cents each if
they would lie to mama for me and tell her that that a little boy pushed me
into the kinnel.
Well, we got home and true to their word, Gloria and Fonso backed up my
story that a little boy had pushed me into the kinnel. Mama gave me a bath
with carbonegos to get rid of the ****ty smell. I don't know which smelled
worse ... the **** or the carbonegos, but anyway, after I was all tidied up
and without me knowing, mama started interrogating Gloria and Fonso about
this little boy that pushed me into the kinnel. Well, you know how moms
were back then. They had this way of getting the truth out of you and poor
Gloria and Fonso succumbed and told her the truth. So shortly after getting
my first and last carbonegos bath, I got my ass whipped so badly that I wish
I had just stayed in the bloody kinnel. Gloria and Fonso got it too. I
still don't recall if I ever paid them the 5 cents for lying for me. Oh
well!