Boozoo signed them at Tramps about five years ago and gave me kiss. His wife, Leona, smiled her honey smile and said, "Don't you worry, sugar, I ain't jealous!"

Boozoo Chavis died last Saturday, and I am very sad. He collapsed after performing a show in Texas. Clifton Chenier has his fans, but Boozoo was the real King of Zydeco. I loved him. I feel guilty. I could have killed him.

I first saw Boozoo almost 10 years ago on my birthday. My friends Amy and Dave took me along with them to see him at the Lone Star Roadhouse in Midtown. Dave found one of Boozoo's old records and made me a tape; Dave had been in a country band, and he had a thing for semiobscure artists. Plus he just liked his name.

I fell in love with Boozoo and zydeco music while drinking iced tea mixed with some Smirnoff that we smuggled into the club. I loved his raw accordion, his cowboy hat, how he put on a clear plastic apron to protect the beautiful instrument with its mother of pearl inlay. I loved his bluesy, gravelly voice and sweet riffs. I didn't know how to two-step or waltz, but I danced. I felt a kinship to him -- the music was sad and happy at the same time. And he played crazy songs, some in a Creole French I had never heard before. They were raunchy. And funny. He said, "Yeah, you right" all the time. The way he played that accordion, Boozoo was sexy in some weird way, even if he was 60.

When the band took a break, Dave snuck up to Boozoo's son Charles and told him it was my birthday, and they surprised me by starting their second set with a zydeco "Happy Birthday":

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Hope you get some tonight
Oh yeah, hope you get some tonight

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I didn't get any that night, but I did get some new undies. Leona was there selling panties and aprons (Boozoo's trademark souvenirs!) and we went downstairs and shyly asked Boozoo to sign them with a marker. He wasn't shy about asking me to spell "Happy Birthday, Christen" for him. He asked Dave how to spell "Amy"; we thought that was funny. They were light blue with a red silkscreen on them.

My lucky underwear. Whenever I had Boozoo on my ass I felt good. Lucky underwear is for traveling or when I feel blue and need a little extra help to get through the day. I never threw that pair out, even after the elastic broke and the letters faded. They are still hiding in the back of my underwear drawer.

I got a few more pairs and an apron over the years, at Tramps and some club on Varick Street that he played once. The apron is signed too, and it hangs next to my kitchen sink.

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