The Boots My Mother Gave Me (13 page)

“Your grandmother is eighty-five, and look how well she gets around. She wants to make it to one hundred.”

“Well, yeah,” Kat began, “Gram has to make it. What would we do without Gram? She can’t go anywhere.”

“Speaking of, if I don’t get on the road, I’m not going anywhere.” I embraced Mom and Kat again.

“I see you’re wearing your boots,” Mom called after me, as I stepped into Charlene’s driver’s seat.

“Makes me feel like you’re coming along for the ride.”

She touched her hand to her heart. “You call along the way and when you get there, wherever you’re going,” her voice broke.

“Go get ‘em, Harley!” Kat yelled as I closed myself inside Charlene.

Dad stepped out of the house, onto the front porch. I caught him in my periphery. He waved. I waved back. In my rearview mirror, I could see Mom and Kat standing in the driveway, tears rolling down their faces, hands waving in the air as I pulled out onto the road. My stomach hurt instantly. I felt like I had abandoned them, as my own tears surfaced and began to fall. Mom and Kat grew smaller and smaller in my rearview, until I couldn’t see them anymore.

I passed by Jeremiah’s house, his Jeep gone. He left my apartment that morning, headed to the Marine recruiter’s office. My mind quickly recalled the significance of last night.
Would I ever see him again? Would I ever see anyone again?

I passed by midtown where we used to gather to play ball, camp out, and cavort, all the things kids do. Reflective thoughts and memories busily plagued me. It hurt, the familiar faces flickering before me. Caught between my past and my future, my real ugly cry emerged, the one where my face distorts and veins pop out on my forehead, my
almond
unable to rally. Ooh, it was bad. I wasn’t even gone and I missed everybody. I looked forward to this moment my whole life. Why was I so sad?

This whole moving on thing proved bittersweet, providing the perfect fuel for a song:

You and me, our friends,

Midtown, playing ball.

Children of the Eighties,

Our world seemed so small

The Boss played on the radio,

We all sang along.

Stood by one another,

Right or wrong.

Camping out in the backyard,

Looking up at the stars.

Talking about big dreams,

The world, it was ours.

Too soon it was over,

Summer was gone.

Gotta keep going,

Moving on.

Moving on my friend,

This life goes by so fast.

Don’t they say youth is wasted on the young?

Get it while you got it,

Take it while you can.

Don’t waste one minute,

Moving on.

A
fter driving and surviving over seven hundred miles, I decided to make camp in Nashville, Tennessee. I had never driven on an actual interstate before, two-lane roads the norm in Georgia. Once I hit I-80 in Pennsylvania, I rode the interstate the rest of the way. I figured I would watch and learn, which I did, with a few close calls. The whole merging thing and speed limits gave me the hardest time. Charlene the Chevelle with her 454-engine, every time I looked at the speedometer it exceeded the limit. After seven hundred miles and many irate drivers, the hayseed graduated from the
school of hard knocks
driver education program to city driver. I never saw so many
birds
in my life. I just smiled and waved. Okay, so I may have returned the gesture, a few times.

Nashville had a reputation for music, songwriting specifically. Maybe I could sell a song or two, I thought, so I stayed a while to see what all the fuss was about. I found a less than stellar, weekly rate hotel on the east side of town within my budget, and I set out the next day to find a job. The lady at the front desk told me everyone who comes to Nashville visits Music Row and Opryland, so I started there. Tired of mechanic work, I wanted to try something that might lend itself to the local flare.

Most everyone I talked to had a southern accent. I found it soft and inviting. The general pace of everyday living was laid back, everything except for the driving. The world seemed to rotate at a slower pace in the South, different from anything I had experienced. I stuck out like a sore thumb with my Yankee accent and quick pace, always in a hurry to do everything, even in my leisure. I moved swiftly, with rapid intent and purpose.

Some of the older folks would ask, “You’re a Yankee, aren’t you?” To which I must answer, “Yes ma’am or yes sir,” in the spirit of the South, making me a skosh nervous. Up north, you call someone ma’am or sir, they better have several generations on you. Even then, you may get scolded for insinuating they’re old.
A Yankee? I thought the Civil War was
over?
I loved it!

The only fault I could attribute to my newfound surroundings, the iced tea. The first time I ordered iced tea with my meal, my taste buds got thrown for a confusing loop. I politely called the waitress to my table, convinced of a mistake; my iced tea had sugar in it. She asked with a smile, her hands propped knowingly on her hips, “Where you from, darling?”

“Pennsylvania,” I said. Before the word made it entirely out of my mouth, I discerned my origin was ultimately the problem once again.

“You’re in the South now, honey. Once you cross that Mason-Dixon line, your iced tea will have sugar in it. You have to ask for unsweetened tea, baby. We put sugar in everything,” she clarified.

Another thing I liked about the South, people talked to total strangers as if they knew them—honey, baby, sugar, darling—I found it endearing. One thing I did not find endearing, my job at Opryland theme park. I remember a local television ad that used to play for Darien Lake, the closest theme park in proximity to my hometown. An overly enthusiastic teenager stood in front of a roller-coaster, a crowd of screaming riders behind him, targeting others in the same age range.

“If you’re looking for some on-the-job fun this summer, apply at Darien Lake today!”

What a load of crap. What part of arriving for work one hour early to park in the back forty, walk a half-mile to the shuttle station, then shuttling off to the main entrance where you walk another half-mile to your assigned station, to make cotton candy all day, imparts “on-the-job fun?” The second day I came back to my apartment with pink cotton candy particles stuck in my hair, my eyebrows, and eyelashes, I knew Opryland would have to do without me. I looked like a pink Chia Pet.

So I took a job at a western wear store on Music Row making six dollars and fifty cents an hour. At eighteen that didn’t sound too bad, however, after I figured the math for my monthly living expenses, it sure didn’t sound too good either.
A western wear store?
That didn’t make any sense to me.
Who needs western wear in Nashville? All the cowboys live out west,
so I thought. Turns out, taking the job must have been fate.

My second week there, I found my way into an even better deal. In the same building, resided the Music Row Tour Office. I walked by the office one day in all my job-required western garb, cowboy hat and boots to match, when I heard a woman inside calling to me. A beautiful woman, jet-black hair, strong facial features, well dressed and tall, convinced me she was some kind of model.
What did she want with me?

She was in fact a model, and a scout, who thought I was a sure fit.
What!
She hooked me up with an interview, and I booked my first job the following week. Sayonara western wear, hello couture.

Well it wasn’t exactly couture, but women’s fashions nonetheless, an amateur clothing company with abundant local success branching out into cities throughout the North and Southeast. My responsibilities, to model, dress other models, and sell clothes. None of that really even registered with me, the opportunity to travel provided the only incentive I required. I couldn’t wait to tell Kat. She would jump up and down, simply beside herself, and maybe it would provide some inspiration for her to stay focused. Maybe she could get a job with them after finishing school.

My life was a juggling act and I loved it. The chaos made perfect sense to me. Much like a ping-pong ball, I never knew if I were coming or going, living full speed ahead. I picked up as many fashion shows as I could, making as much money as I could, with intentions of starting college in the spring of 1998. This job was just that, a job, a stop along the way. I wanted an education, a Bachelor’s degree at least.

The best part about my involvement in the fashion world, was certainly not the modeling or the clothes, it just wasn’t my thing. I liked the lifestyle, the traveling, enjoying different cities and their culture, the dining and nightlife. We hit most of the major towns up and down the East Coast from New York to Miami. On the road for weeks at a time before the schedule allowed for rest suited me fine. I had a lot to make up for. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, I always felt stagnant, somehow behind in the world, just now experiencing and seeing things some people have already grown tired of.

When in Nashville, I wrote music as much as I could, attempting to peddle it to someone, anyone. Rejection became my newfound friend. I wasn’t quite this and I wasn’t quite that. I didn’t sound like this artist and I sounded too much like that artist. They didn’t know how to classify my music. “I can’t figure if you’re too country or not country enough. Are you country or pop?” they would say.

Unaware such a difference existed in 1997, I thought pop was pop and country was pop. I tried to hone and develop my craft while keeping it true to me, but it seemed as though nobody wanted what was true to me. Nobody wants you when you’re nobody. They’re all looking for the next somebody! I understood the tribulations of the industry and its tremendous odds against actual success, but I couldn’t help but wonder, would I ever be good enough, in music, in life, in anything?

Before I knew it, spring registration was well underway, and I found myself twenty-five hundred dollars short of tuition. How would I come up with twenty-five hundred dollars? Two-weeks later I got my answer, as I received a note from the college stating, “Tuition paid in full.” I drove to the university, my investigational skills warmed and ready. The lady at the registrar’s office handed me a receipt. With one look at the name, I lost my footing, sinking into the chair behind me.

“Mom,” I said, as she answered the phone.

“Harley! I was just thinking about you.”

“I have a receipt here from the college with Dad’s name on it.”

“Oh good, they got it.” I just stood there. “Harley? You there?”

“Um. Yeah, Ma, I’m here.”

“So, then, you’re all set for this semester?” she asked.

“That’s a lot of money. You guys might need that. Can you cancel the check or something?”

“It’s already cleared, Harley. Besides it was your dad’s idea. I had nothing to do with it. He’s working overtime. He said he had the money and he wanted to do this for you.”

“He’s working? That’s good.” They quit farming shortly after I left home. Dad had been out of work since.

“Oh, it’s great, Harley. It keeps him occupied. He’s much easier to live with when he doesn’t have idle time.”

“How did he even know about the tuition?” Dad didn’t call me. I rarely called him, only on his birthday and Father’s Day, appropriately. Even then, we small-talked.

“How do you think he knows? I told him.”

“I know, you tell him everything,” I said.

“The only reason it came up, I told him we couldn’t claim you on the taxes next year because it messes up your financial aid for school.”

“I don’t want you guys to do that. It’s real nice and I’m grateful for the gesture, but I can’t accept it.”

“Well, you’re going to have to accept it, because it’s done. And I told you it wasn’t
us guys.
It was your dad. Harley, he wants to do this for you. Let him do something nice for you.”

“He did. He gave me the guitar I write my music with. That’s more than enough. Please, just take it back, Mom. I don’t want it thrown in my face. I’m full up on guilt.”

“Your father has guilt, too, Harley. As he signed the check, he said, ‘It’s the least I can do, after all I put her through.’”

“What is it? A loan? Am I supposed to pay it back?”

“No, it’s not a loan. It’s a gift. Your father made that very clear. He wants to do this for you. To help you,” she said. “Besides you give back to him without even knowing it. He brags about you all the time, about how you’re going to make it in Nashville.”

“Well what happens when I don’t make it? I’m going to let him down. It’s inevitable. I always do. And then what? Back to the same old Harley,
the one who isn’t going to amount to shit?
Mom, I can’t do that anymore.”

“Harley, it’s done and that’s the end of it. Now, I have to go pick Katrina up from school. She has her driver’s test this afternoon.”

“The written or the practical?” I asked.

“The practical, which reminds me, I need to take one of her turtle-neck sweaters just in case,” Mom said.

“Turtleneck sweater?”

“She joked about how she could off-set a few of her less than par driving skills with a low-cut sweater. So I need to prepare with a turtleneck, just in case.”

I laughed. “That sounds like Kat.”

Mom laughed lightly. “It’s really not funny. She just might do it. I need to get a handle on that girl.”

“What do you mean? Is she getting into trouble?”

“Not yet, but with her the potential’s always there. She’s too outgoing, too spirited for a girl her age. Well, I better let you go.”

“Okay. I love you. Tell Kat I love her and good luck on her test. Tell her to behave and stay away from that Harper kid.”