Somebody Everybody Listens To Page 8

  Late in the day, Sam Hill’s was always filled with testosterone—sunburned construction guys, beer-belly truckers, and other rugged types like Daddy, all of them just getting off work and dying for that quart of Budweiser. For the ride home, they’d buy bags of salted peanuts and beef jerky and cartons of Marlboros, too. None of them seemed to notice how long I took in the bathroom or the fact that my hair was soaking wet when I came out.

  When Ricky was finally gone for the night, I parked in the very back row of his lot. Goggy’s car fit right in with all the other old, broken-down rattletraps, so I didn’t worry too much about anybody noticing me. Luckily, there was a flashlight in the glove box. The batteries were already getting low—the yellow light was so dim I could hardly see—but it was enough to read by. I was still hoping to return the books I’d borrowed from Emerson, but right now I couldn’t afford to waste the gas. Besides that, I was grateful to have them. Both were filled with interesting facts and helpful hints. And right now, I needed all the help I could get. I was especially obsessed with one point in Making It or Breaking It: The Road to Success in Music City. It was on page 27, and I’d read the line over and over, copied it down in big, bold letters on the cover of my songwriting journal: It is your own true voice that will carry you.

  Once my eyes got tired, I’d scoot the seat back and strum my guitar and sing for a while, not too loud for fear someone might hear me and call the police, the last thing I needed. Singing helped take my mind off all the serial-killer worries lurking in my brain. A lot of bad stuff could happen to a girl with no money who lived alone in a big city—in her car—and I imagined every terrifying possibility in nitty-gritty detail. If my music career didn’t work out, maybe I’d go to Hollywood and write slasher movie scripts.

  On that rainy Sunday morning (turns out tow truck drivers work seven days a week), I woke up determined to realign the stars over my head, but by lunchtime (or no-lunchtime since Ricky was out on a call), I felt defeated again. Just trying to eat and wash and not look like I was living in my car took up all my energy, and even though I was right smack in Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Mockingbird Cafe had never seemed so far away.

  That same evening I was sitting on a side street, half asleep in my car and waiting for Ricky to head home when some woman appeared out of nowhere and banged on the hood. “Are you a drug dealer or a cop?” she asked, scaring me so bad I jumped and hit my head on the roof.

  “Neither,” I replied, and rubbed the lump that was forming.

  “Well, you been sitting here three days, and I been saying to myself, ‘That girl’s up to no good.’ You get on out of here. This is a private street. If you’re a drug dealer, you don’t belong. If you’re an undercover cop, you’re not undercover no more.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “And if you’re homeless, you can find someplace else,” she said, like this was the worst evil of the three.

  I didn’t bother replying. I started Goggy’s car and gunned it down the street. When I was far enough away, I flung her a bird out the window, and I could see in the rearview mirror she flipped two right back at me.

  I drove for a long while with the windows rolled all the way down. Secretly, I was hoping my bad luck would fly right out, find its way back to those juvenile delinquents who’d stolen my money. Maybe they’d get hit by a car! Or a bus! The wind tangled my hair, made my eyes burn, but I didn’t care. Ready to confess every hardship, I dialed Mama and Daddy’s number, but there was no answer. Prepared to ask Brenda for a loan, I tried her, too, but she didn’t pick up. The gas gauge hovered just below a quarter of a tank, but I kept on going. FRANKLIN CITY LIMITS the sign read. Strip malls and gas stations and restaurants lined the double-wide highway. “Help me!” I shouted at the sky. “Come on! Give me a sign or something!” All at once I saw it, a run-down hotel with an enormous marquee out front—SINGER WANTED. I slammed on the brakes. It was a sign, after all.

  I looked tired and pale, especially for summer, and my dark roots were beginning to show, an unfortunate thing since there was no money in the budget for Miss Clairol no. 9 golden blonde. Right before graduation, Brenda talked me into letting her color my hair, said it would give me a hint of Kellie Pickler sexy, but it was a decision I now regretted since there was no way I could maintain the look. I rummaged through my bag for a clean T-shirt then crouched down in the seat and changed quickly.

  Just as I was about to get out of the car, I thought of Mama. Even with no money, she always manages to look nice—fresh lipstick, a hint of blush, hair perfectly fixed. She’s the prettiest woman in Starling, Tennessee, no doubt about it.

  I grabbed my makeup bag off the backseat. It was the first time I’d unzipped it in I don’t know how long (unlike Brenda and Mama, I hardly ever wear anything other than ChapStick). Right on top was a small white box with my name on it. Inside was pair of earrings. They were made of clear white stones, and they sparkled, like real diamonds almost. No note. No card. Just the earrings. And no telling where Mama got the money for them either, but I appreciated the gesture all the same. There was also a new tube of lipstick—Vertigo, it was called. I twisted up the wedge of color and decided if I worked at Maybelline in the lipstick-naming department, I’d have called it Ryman Red instead.

  Maybe it was ridiculous to wear dangly earrings and bright red lipstick with faded jeans and a T-shirt, but I hoped it would come off as stylish somehow, like Emerson. I glanced at my feet. The flip-flops had to go. Down on Broadway, I’d seen a pair of sky blue boots in a shop window. No telling how much they cost, but I’d get a pair first thing (when I had the money). In Nashville, the way you look is nearly as important as the way you sound.

  The shabby lobby was dark and stuffy, and it smelled like mold and stale beer. Clearly there was no air-conditioning. Just a box fan that roared as if it were about to blast off into outer space. “Can I help you?” an overweight boy behind the counter shouted over the racket. He was red-faced from the sticky heat, and his dark hair clung to his forehead.

  “I came to see about the singing job? The one on the sign out front. Is it still available?”

  He swiped at a roll of perspiration running down his cheek. “Uh, yeah, it’s still available,” he said, and snickered, like I was making a joke.

  “When are the auditions? You haven’t already had them, have you?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, although he wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “No. I’m not kidding. Why would I be kidding?”

  “Hold on a minute,” he said, and held up a stubby finger at me. “Mama!” he bellowed. “Ma-ma! There’s a girl interested in the singing job!”

  Several awkward minutes later a woman the size of a school bus came lumbering out. I could smell her onion-and-gum-disease breath from a few feet away, and it made me swear I’d floss regularly from now on. She had dark eyes and crazy eyebrows that pointed out in every direction. Her hair was shoe-polish black but with a wide stripe of gray right down the middle (mind you, I was in no position to judge roots). “So sing,” she said all hateful, and wiped the corners of her mouth with her sleeve.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Naw. Next week,” she replied. The boy laughed again, uncomfortably.

  I glanced around, but the lobby was empty. An old Reba tune called “You’re Gonna Be” popped into my head, a song I hadn’t even thought of in ages. You’re gonna fly with every dream you chase . . . I began, a cappella, of course, since my guitar was in Goggy’s car.

  “You’re hired,” the woman blurted before the second verse.

  “I am?” I asked.

  “Yep,” she replied. “You can start tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. Pay’s twenty-five dollars, plus whatever tips you get.”

  “Thank you,” I said, still not sure. Something wasn’t right. In downtown Nashville, there were probably twenty singers vying for every four-hour slot, but here there was nobody, just me. I thought about Ricky’s warning that night he towed my
car. I thought about the muggers and the police officer’s crime statistics. Maybe this woman and her son planned to take advantage of me, too, in ways I was too naive to predict.

  But then I took the job anyway because beggars can’t be choosers, and I’d been given a sign.

  patricia ramey

  a.k.a. Patty Loveless

  BORN: January 4, 1957; Pikeville, Kentucky

  JOB: When she was just sixteen, Loveless had a singing/ songwriting stint with the Wilburn Brothers and spent time backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, where she met the likes of Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner.

  BIG BREAK: Loveless signed with the Wilburns’ publishing firm, Sure-Fire Music. Eventually, her brother (and former manager), Roger Ramey, helped her get a singles deal with MCA Records. She recorded her first album in 1987.

  LIFE EVENTS: Just like Loretta Lynn, Loveless was a coal miner’s daughter. Due to illness, her father retired from coal mining at the age of forty-two; he died of black lung disease in 1979.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  if teardrops were pennies

  EVERY SINGER HAS PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING IN MIND: get a gig somewhere, do a kick-ass job singing and performing, win the serious attention of some A&R guy (that stands for artist and repertoire) at a major label, and land a record deal. As good as that sounds, you’re not even close to making it big yet. You still have to cut that debut album, have at least one song hit the charts and rocket its way to the top. In other words, you need a hit record right off the bat. And if you plan on spending your life in the country music business, you have to keep doing this over and over and over again because these days every singer, no matter how good, is disposable.

  The Jackson Hotel didn’t look like much of a launching pad for a music career, but you never can tell where a person might get “discovered,” as they say. You could talk to five hundred different singers and musicians and songwriters about their big breaks, and every one of them would have a different story, each with a background as unlikely and hard-luck and pitiful as the next. I was always hiding out in the Starling High School library and reading up on the singers who’d come before me: all that history made me see that my chance of making it was just as good as anybody else’s. This is what I told myself back then anyway. Now that I was actually here, things seemed much more complicated and vague.

  I left Ricky’s shop a little early and stopped off at Sam Hill’s Market to wash my hair. I think the checkout guy is onto me, although he didn’t say anything. He just shook his head grimly as I walked out the door (without buying a thing, of course). All the way to Franklin, I stuck my head out the car window so my hair would air-dry, and by the time I pulled into the hotel parking lot, it was a rat’s nest of tangles. Rather than waste too much time brushing it out, I swooped it up into a messy ponytail so my pretty earrings would show. I carefully applied my Ryman Red lipstick. All in all, the whole plain T-shirt, faded jeans, sparkly earrings, red lipstick thing wasn’t a bad look, except for the flip-flops, obviously, and the gray stains under the arms, but there was nothing I could do about that.

  Since it was a little too early to go inside, I decided to call and check on Daddy.

  “Hello,” Mama said flatly. Mama is not one to hide her feelings when answering the phone. Everybody in town can gauge her mood with one hello.

  “Hey, Mama.”

  “Hi, Retta.” Her voice brightened somewhat. “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’m just calling to check on Daddy. How is he?”

  “Better.” Her voice flattened out again.

  “I got a singing job,” I said, trying to change the subject. “It’s at a hotel in Franklin, which is just outside Nashville. I’m doing my first performance tonight.”

  “Well, that’s good. I don’t know about the hotel part, though. It’s not the trashy sort, is it?”

  “Is that you, Retta?” Daddy had picked up the other phone.

  “Hey, Daddy!”

  “Hi, Ree Ree! How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Daddy. How’s your back?”

  “Oh, I’ll be good as new and lifting sofas over my head in no time.”

  “It’s the sofas that probably knocked your back out in the first place,” I reminded him.

  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. So how’s my girl? Any luck yet?” The line clicked; Mama had hung up.

  “I got a singing job. It’s at a hotel in Franklin. Not too far from Nashville. It’s twenty-five dollars a night, plus tips. I can’t talk but a minute. I just wanted to let you and Mama know I’m okay.”

  “Well, I’m glad, Ree Ree. We sure miss you, though.”

  “I miss y’all, too,” I said. “Can I talk to Mama again? I wanna thank her for something.”

  “Oh, she’s pulling down the driveway right this minute. That woman can’t sit still five seconds. Every time I turn around, she’s off on another errand. I swear, they ought to charge her rent over there at the Dollar King.”

  “Well, nice of her to say bye. She basically just hung up on me.”

  “She’s been in a sour mood ever since you left.”

  “Daddy, she’s been in a sour mood since I was born.”

  “Nope. Just since you grew up.”

  “I have to go,” I said, irritable now and wishing I hadn’t called.

  At eight P.M. on the nose, I climbed onto the stage. For such a run-down hotel, the lounge was kind of nice, in a dated sort of way—parquet floors, thick velvet curtains, a decent microphone, and old-fashioned stage lights, too, which the bartender adjusted while I tuned my guitar. “Thank you,” I said, but he didn’t answer. “Thank you,” I said again, this time into the mike. He looked at me and pressed his thin lips together then strode back toward the bar without a word.

  By nine, there were still no patrons, and I wondered whether or not I should start. I was getting paid to sing, after all. The bartender was hunched over a table, wiping it down as if somebody was about to have surgery on it. His hair was stick straight and silver—pretty silver, like Emmylou’s, and tied back in a ponytail. He must’ve felt me staring because he stood upright then and frowned at me. “Go ahead and sing,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  He tucked the bar towel into the waistband of his trousers and folded his arms across his starched white shirt. “Yes. I am sure,” he replied. For a second he just stood there, studying me.

  “I’m Retta,” I said, and smiled at him.

  “Chat,” the man replied.

  “Chat?” I repeated.

  “That’s what I said. Are you anemic?” he asked.

  “Anemic?”

  “Is there an echo in here? Yes, I said anemic. You know, low blood.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t have low blood,” I replied.

  “Well, you look pasty under these lights. You need some rouge,” he said, frowning. “And you’re all wrinkled, like you’ve been sleeping in your car or something.” I blinked at him, and he chuckled. “You’re not sleeping in your car, I presume.”

  Right then I wanted to jump off that stage and sling Chat around by his long silver ponytail, but I needed the twenty-five dollars, and I needed this singing job, and if it meant I’d have to put up with Chat, well then I would.

  I started with a few of my old favorites, “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Georgia On My Mind” and “Jolene” and “Tennessee Flat Top Box.” Every one of these songs made me think of Daddy. He loved Don Gibson and Ray Charles and Dolly and Johnny Cash. Chat was silent at the end of each number, and the room echoed with emptiness. The manager and her son hadn’t even bothered to show up.

  I did my best to forget Chat was in the room, but every time I looked up from my guitar, he was watching and scowling. Normally, when I sing, people tear up, like Shelton at graduation, or they tap their feet to the beat or they smile and nod and clap along like I’m the best singer they’ve ever heard. I wasn’t at all used to this kind of blah response, and it made me nervo
us.

  At midnight, my shift was over—not a single tip, not a single customer, but I packed up my guitar with a satisfied feeling, like maybe there was hope for me yet. True, there was no audience, but I was used to singing to myself. Down by the river, there was never any audience, just me and the grasshoppers. At least tonight I was actually performing in Nashville. And by the end of the night, I’d almost forgotten that Chat was there.

  “You think you’re real good, don’t you?” he said just as I was headed out the door. “You been singing for small town folks who don’t expect much—churches, talent shows, and the like. Getting away with using other people’s songs, the tone of their voices.” I frowned at him. “That’s right,” he went on. “I noticed Dolly and Loretta and Patsy. I’ve been listening to this music all my life. And every one of those women you’re impersonating, well, I’ve heard ’em live, in little places like this many long years ago.”

  “I idolize those singers,” I said defensively.

  “I bet you do, but you’ll be sleeping in your car permanently unless you scrape together some originality.”

  Just then, the hotel manager’s son burst into the room. “Here’s your twenty-five dollars,” he said, all out of breath. “Mama wants to know if you’re coming back or not.”

  Chat smirked at me. “Yes, I’m coming back,” I replied firmly. “Big jerk,” I mumbled under my breath, and banged out the door.

  On the way back to Ricky’s shop, I stopped off for five dollars’ worth of gas then headed into the twenty-four-hour Kroger for a few groceries—a banana, an apple, a small container of tuna fish, a can opener, some cinnamon-raisin bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, a Sundrop, and some fresh batteries for the flashlight.