Ruby's Bucket of Blood

It's 1961 in Chacahoula, Louisiana, and Ruby Delacroix runs a waterfront honkytonk for her black customers. Ruby wants more from life, but right now she's played out. She has all she can handle with keeping up her juke joint, raising her impulsive young daughter, Emerald, and enduring her brooding husband, Earl, an oil rigger looking for an excuse to hit the road. Then, a local white man with talent, Billy Dupre, appears, looking for a quick gig as a singer. Billy's got a jealous wife, a troubled past, and elusive dreams of his own for something more. No white man has ever played Ruby's -- and before Billy, no man has shown Ruby how many choices she still has left. But their growing attraction to each other is as strong as it is forbidden. It also becomes an inevitable catalyst for changing the lives of everyone it touches, and in ways that no one could have anticipated.

Eventually, the neglectful Earl walks out on his wife and leaves town. When Betty Dupre, Billy's wife, slips into the bar to hear her husband sing, she is unwelcome, a hindrance to Dupre and a trespasser as far as Ruby is concerned. Betty's presence is enough to stir jealousy in Ruby and she throws her out of the club. With her husband Earl gone, there's nothing to hold Ruby back. Her attraction to Dupre grows stronger each time they meet. She knows she could be killed for being with a white man. Still, she invites him into her bedroom. Setting out to find her husband with gun in hand, Betty pounds on Ruby's door to confront the lovers. She shoots Billy fatally. Knowing that she will be found guilty for her involvement with a white man, while his wife is forgiven for her crime of passion, Ruby drives out of town with her daughter Emerald, leaving the only home she's ever known.