A Southern Place (27 page)

When the band took a break, there was no announcement, they simply stopped. He came to my table, grabbed a chair, and began to yell at me.

“What are doing back so soon?” he asked. “I thought you were going shopping or something. Jesus, you know we’ve got another set, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Danny,” I said. “I just haven’t heard you in a while. Ya’ll sound pretty good, ya know. The way you talk, I was expecting a lot worse.”

“We sound like shit,” he said through his teeth. “If you think any different, you’re obviously fucking tone deaf. This is embarrassing. I can’t believe you’re gonna be here for a whole set more.”

“That’s silly. I’ve heard you for years, and I love to hear you no matter who you’re with. And this band—they’re not Devil’s Whiskey, but if they’re just out of high school, it’s probably a great experience for them, playing with you.”

“They don’t know jack shit,” Danny spat, “and they’re the most arrogant little mother fuckers ever. They don’t deserve to play anywhere, even here.” He slammed his fist on the table, spilling what was left in his beer mug and the glass of club soda I was drinking. I jumped up and ran to the bar for a handful of napkins.

I ran back and began wiping up the spill.

“Damn, Mojo,” he cried. “You go all the way to the bar and don’t bring me back a beer?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up to go back to the bar. He pushed me roughly back down into my chair.

“Never fucking mind,” he said. “I’ll get it myself after I go piss.” He was halfway to the restroom as he finished the sentence.

Their last set consisted of five songs all stretched into ten minutes or more. I was pretty surprised to hear such over-played tunes—”Can’t You See” and “That Smell” were bad enough, but “Free Bird”? Danny had always refused to play that one; no wonder he was in such a horrible mood.

The ride home was awful. No matter how I changed the subject to try to take him to a happier place, Danny remained in his deep blue funk. I drove while he punched at the radio dial, finding nothing there to please him. Two a.m., and the rough Georgia highway back to Nolan was flat, straight, and uneventful, a light still on in two or three farmhouses at best on the thirty mile drive. Japanese beetles and lightening bugs bounced off the windshield while the scenery stayed the same. I rolled down his window and breathed in the night air, smelling freshly burned-off fields mixed with the heavy scent of pine tar.

“Goddam redneck AM shit,” Danny mumbled, finding only static-y versions of pop-country, whiny country, three chord tunes considered rock in the fifties, and the Good Time Gospel Hour. “I’ll be in the fucking graveyard before a decent FM station comes round here.” He settled for the only FM station audible in Dumas County, still country but at least a decent signal.
All my exes live in Texas,
some guy sang.

“How shitty can you get?” Danny said, then turned up the volume and actually listened
to the end. “Damn,” he said. “Decent sounding country fuckers! Not my style, but clean. With fiddle, and pedal steel, and two, no,
three
guitars, all trading licks with no one stepping on toes. Nice and clean.”

He listened to a bit of the next song, looking out at the little scenery offered. The mood didn’t last long. “Goddamned rednecks,” he said through clenched teeth. He was looking at the most lit up structure on the highway so far: a single-wide trailer on concrete blocks, sporting two late-model sports cars and a variety of toddler toys in the yard.

“What a fucking fiasco in priorities,” he said. He shook his head. “Looks okay to you, don’t it, sweet thang?” he said. I didn’t know what he meant, so I just watched the road and said nothing.

“My quiet, caring, hard-working, dumb-as-dirt little Mojo,” he said. “You got a soft spot for any rednecks down on their luck that can still aim for that hillbilly American dream, don’t ya, gal? You got some whiny excuse for all of ’em, bless your heart.”

He smiled at me like I was retarded or something. I bit my lip, determined not to cry. I knew he was drunk, probably high as well, and in an awful mood because of the band, but still, it hurt. It felt like I was a dirty, stray dog he enjoyed kicking for the hell of it. I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I knew once I let go of the first tear I wouldn’t be able to stop, and then we’d fight for the rest of the night.

I won’t cry,
I thought.
Hell, no, I will not cry.

He fiddled some more with the radio. Oldies station—Dr. Hook was singing about being on the cover of
Rolling Stone
.

“God, when did this song come out?” Danny asked. “Oh yeah, we played it in my first or second band, back in high school.”

“Really?” I asked, hoping I could get him into a happier conversation.

“Yeah. Back when we played school dances, then Moose and Elks Club jobs for a hundred bucks a night. Happy as hell to be playing at all, for real money, but dreaming of better clubs, with bigger paychecks and a younger clientele. We had big dreams.”

“Yeah, but you actually lived those dreams, later on,” I said.
Please God, let this be the right thing to say. Let him think about something happy.

“Yeah. We couldn’t wait for week-long jobs with free bar tabs, free women, and a new place to go every week. Publicity photos in newspapers, ads that announced your arrival, your name in lights on the marquis.”

“Cool,” I said, nervous but hoping for the best.

“And then the big dreams,” he said. “The ones you didn’t dare voice out loud, but you couldn’t stop thinking, all the time. Dreams of being a
real
band—on the radio.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

Danny began to hum along with the song, sounding happy. He slipped his arm around my shoulder, then moved it to caress my hair, my breast. I watched the road, but suddenly wanted to hurry the hell home. He always had that effect on me.

“I miss the old band,” he said. “I miss playing for the thrill of playing.”

His fingers found a nipple, teasing me while he talked and I drove.

“A good night with a good crowd that’s really into what you do. Maybe a joint on break; mellows my senses, really helps me work on my tone.” He slipped his hand under my blouse, then under my bra, feeling me get pointy and hard.

“Mellows me,” he said. “I can focus on a single note, bend it, shape it, listen to all the overtones hanging in midair . . .” His hand left that breast and moved to the other, making the other nipple burn and ache the same way. He gently pinched it, then moved back to the first.

“You can almost see the tiny particles of sound as they drift . . . Drifting . . . and falling . . . blending.” His words slowed. “Blending and melt—” He grew silent.

His hand went limp and fell to the side, still inside my top.

I looked over at the man I loved.

He was sound asleep.

Maybe he’d feel better tomorrow . . .

•

As time went on, he told me more about life on the road. His cocaine days—by the time he stopped, he was in pretty deep. Danny said after that first line, he was sure this was the only drug he’d ever want again. There was an excited, deep-breath feeling, like the anticipation of Christmas morning, or waiting for a big surprise, or getting ready to perform something you knew you’d do really, really well. There was none of the slurring or stumbling or awkwardness that could slip up with alcohol, and none of the silly giggles, the drifting off or crazed munchies that could come from pot. He felt clear-headed, and alive, and happy to be alive. He could’ve talked to Beethoven, or Hitler, or a bum off the street, or Einstein, and enjoyed every minute of it. He could have washed windows, peeled potatoes, or watched paint dry and learned from it. Reading the phonebook would be inspirational. With a supply of this drug, Danny was convinced he could go back to Algebra II and not only pass, but find it pleasurable. The possibilities were endless.

“In road bands,” he told me, “there’s always an endless supply of so-called friends, people to pass the time with tonight and not remember next week.” I could see where Danny would get tired of such, he wasn’t that much of a social animal, and when he didn’t have his self-required number of hours to practice, he could turn into a real jerk.

“The rest of the band got off on it,” he said, “but it was the one thing I hated about road life. I didn’t want to hang out, I wanted to work on my music. But you can’t do that with a bunch of guys, or with couples, or groups or whatever. You’re stuck with them. You had to hang out at their houses, or sit up all night drinking with them, or watch their stupid movies or listen to stories about their kids or their dogs or worse than that, have to tell them stories about
you
, knowing you’d never see those damned people again, so why the fuck should they care?” Danny would tense up just thinking about it, so I could imagine how crazy it would make him on the road.

“Yeah,” he said, “and nobody understood. The guys in the band would get mad about it, say I was a prick and a bastard and I only cared about myself, that I didn’t care about the band. How the hell could they say that? Because, to me,
they
were the ones that didn’t care about the band.”

He’d known them, well, most of them, damn near his whole life, but once they had the road band, they were different. It was like they had a real band, with an agent who booked them like they had a steady job, so now they didn’t have to get any better. Like it was over—all they had to do was learn a few new songs now and then, and they were set for life.

“The band was different,” he said, “it was like we had nothing in common anymore. They were just happier than pigs in shit—they could play those same damned thirty-five songs every night, go have a few beers with whatever local yokel asshole was kissing up to them that night, then eat at the Waffle House, go to bed, get up and do it again the next day. And it sucked.”

It was the times when he talked like this, when he really talked about how he felt, that I knew we belonged together. Even if he drank ’til we fought and he passed out, I knew things would work out for us. He trusted me, he confided in me. Together we could make it work, I
knew
we could.

“Before the road, back when we only dreamed about being a band full-time, we worked at getting better,” he told me. “We practiced—alone—not just learning new songs. Worked on speed and technique. Listened to music—all kinds of music, not just songs we wanted or thought we needed to play. We talked to each other about all kinds of stuff we’d never play, but to me, the talking seemed to make us understand one another better, and make us better musicians, too.” He smiled that sweet, little boy smile that melted my heart.

Danny’d changed since going on the road, but it was nothing I didn’t think we couldn’t fix. He was pretty much drying out from drugs the hard way, I suspected, since cocaine was expensive and not easily found in south Georgia. I’d of loved to see him drink less, but I guessed it was better to wean him off one vice at a time. I made sure he had plenty to eat, and he had plenty of time to practice his music now, which always made him happier. There were days he seemed so restless I thought he’d go crazy, but at least it wasn’t every day. After a while, he started making contacts with old buddies, and he pulled together a second band, one I figured he’d enjoy more, so he could quit the eighteen-year-olds as soon as the new band acquired some bookings. It was touch and go for us personally, but I tried to take it in stride—it was up to me to get Danny back to his old self.

He’d come home to me. I’d make it all better. I knew I could.

Chapter 20: 1989

Phil

Phil returned to the farm with a weakened body but a happier soul. Knowing his days were limited, he looked at the world with kinder, gentler eyes, appreciating the simple life and leaving the pain and anger behind.

Within a few years, he and the ancient field hand Will restored the former Oakland Plantation to a smaller but profit-bearing farm. Renting out the cotton and peanut allotments, they maintained fifty beef cattle, pasture for grazing, and summer corn to be stored for winter’s feed. Phillip lived in the hunting lodge, and he moved Will into the largest tenant house, where he kept two old barn cats and a few chickens. When Will died in his sleep on the first day of spring, the animals became Phil’s.

Phil was at Treadway’s Market buying cat food when he first saw the cardboard sign taped to the front door. “Housecleaning—Inquire Inside.” He had thought about getting a housekeeper, the once-a-week kind, he guessed, if such a person existed in rural Dumas County.

Phil grabbed a Coke from the cooler near the counter and set the cat food down. “Hot enough for you?” he asked the girl at the cash register. Mojo, people called her, though he didn’t know why.

“Sure,” she told him. He watched her slender fingers move over the numbers. He wondered if she were the housekeeper, or if someone else had just come in and posted the sign. “Three fifty-five,” she said. He handed over a ten.

“S’posed to rain overnight,” he said. “Cool things down.” The girl took his money and nodded as if she was afraid to speak. She was Calvin’s niece, Calvin Mullinax, the friend who used to work for his Dad, back in Oakland’s heyday. Pretty little thing, though she didn’t look to weigh a hundred pounds. She gave him his change without looking at him. Petite, soft-spoken, with those sad, beautiful eyes like her mother before her. A perfect target for a wife-beater: The kind that wouldn’t fight back.

“Thank you kindly,” Philip said, raising the cold Coke and grabbing the cat food bag.

“Come back now,” she said. But she still didn’t look at him. She pressed her hair over one side of her face like Phil had seen her do many times. Long sleeves in the summer, hair arranged to cover the latest “accident.” As usual.

“Is that you hiring out for housecleaning?” He pointed to the sign with his Coke. She looked over at it with those dreamy, half-haunted eyes.

“Yes sir,” she said. He looked at the sign one last time, and then he walked out, trying to memorize the numbers in his head. He didn’t know what made him not ask her right there and then.

Sitting in his truck, drinking the Coke, he could see her through the glass, sitting on a stool, flipping through a magazine. She was married to Danny, local big shot musician, walking around like he was God’s gift. Phil had heard Danny’s band at the Plantation Club, the few times he’d ventured out on weekends. Danny had left town for a year or two, supposed to be playing big concerts, signing a recording contract, gonna be the next Elvis Presley the way people carried on. Then all of a sudden he was back home and those two were married.

She works so hard
, Phil thought.
Keeping Danny in fine amps and guitars and a van to haul his gear in, while she’s still driving that old Pinto that’s more Bondo than car.
She was managing Treadway’s and working the Plantation Club on weekends, still it was no secret as to what had been going on when she wore her hair down, covering up one side of her face or the other. Danny was playing one-nighters for fifty dollars and his bar tab. And now the girl was cleaning houses, too, along with her other jobs.

A week or two later, Phil ran into her at the dollar store, looking gloriously happy and grinning from ear-to-ear.

She was alone, walking through the section with all the things for little babies and small kids. She picked up a fuzzy blanket and held it to her face. Then she took a little dress, tiny and covered in ruffles, and fluffed it out in a full circle. The miniature Nike shoes were more than she could stand: She put two fingers of each hand in a shoe, then made them run over the rack of tiny clothes.

Phil turned away, pretending to examine cans of motor oil, but angling himself to keep watching. She moved on to the most mundane of baby things—bottles, cups, bibs, disposable diapers, big jars of Vaseline—seeming equally excited with each new item.

Little Mojo must be having a baby,
Phillip thought.
Sure hope the child fairs better than its mother does.

About that time she saw him, waved, and walked forward.

“Hi, Mr. Foster, how are you today?” She smiled.

Phillip was surprised she knew his name. She’d never called him by it before.

“I’m fine,” he said. “And don’t you look happy?”

“Oh, just happy to be here,” she said. “Beautiful day, ain’t it?”

“Indeed,” Phil said as she walked past him. “Uh—Mojo?”

She turned back. “Yes, Mr. Foster?”

“Do you know anybody that does housecleaning? Like once a week or so?” Phil grimaced, knowing she’d already answered the question.

“Yes, Mr. Foster, I do housecleaning. Is that why you asked?”

“Well,” Phil stammered, “. . . yes.”

“Do you need someone to clean your house?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You live at that lodge place, over at Oakland?”

“Yes.”

“You be there Saturday morning? I could come by, see what you want done, and figure out a good time for me to come each week.”

“You’d do that for me?” Phil asked, smiling.

“Yes sir, sounds good. I’m gonna be needin’ some more work, got some bills comin’ in.”

She smiled a million dollar smile never associated with bills.

“Okay then, I guess I’ll see you on Saturday,” Phil said.

“Sure thing, see you then.” She turned and walked out—gliding on air.