Honky Tonk Angel (31 page)

Louise never expected to hear from Patsy. But less than three weeks after her visit, Louise received the first in a series of intensely personal letters from Patsy.

The best marriages are born of compromise. Enhancing one aspect often means sacrificing another. Neither Patsy nor Charlie would compromise, and only Patsy made the sacrifices.

Those who knew the Dicks well pinpoint this period as the time the problems became insurmountable. Though proud of her accomplishments, Charlie found Patsy’s stardom was a blow to his pride.

“No matter how their day started,” Ralph Emery, then a WSM disc jockey and Opry announcer, said, “it seemed it would end in some argument in which they’d accuse each other of all kinds of things—usually because of Patsy’s insecurities and Charlie’s drunken jealousy.”

“What really bothered Charlie,” Faron Young asserted, “especially if he was drinking, was when someone called him ‘Mr. Cline’ or introduced him as ‘Patsy Cline’s husband.’ That’s a natural ego thing to piss you off. Whether you’re the husband or wife, when you have somebody in the business, you have to accept being relegated to the background.”

Young described the two sides of Charlie. “Sober, I love him. He tried to do a lot for Patsy. He loved her and them kids. He had a job at the newspaper printing plant but worked like the dickens for Patsy. He’d go around to the record companies and call and write the deejays.

“But, hot damn, if he’s drunk and I see him coming, I’ll cross the street to get away from him. He gets so damn belligerent. Charlie would beat Patsy around and chew her out something terrible. He was just a Jekyll and a damn Hyde!”

Young related an incident that occurred at the Dicks’. “Charlie borrowed a car from one of my guitar players and went after some whiskey. Would you believe he hit a bridge and demolished the car? Didn’t hurt him! The car wasn’t worth more than eight or nine hundred dollars, but it was all that guitar player owned. He had no insurance and Charlie never paid him a nickel. I don’t know if Patsy took care of it in the end. I only remember the car being towed to the junkyard.

“With Patsy’s stardom, her lot improved. She’d gotten to where I was paying her three hundred dollars a day. I couldn’t keep her much longer—couldn’t afford to pay her. All I needed was a one- to two-hundred-dollar-a-day girl singer. After ‘I Fall to Pieces,’ Patsy was ready to go on her own. The tide had turned.”

Patsy Cline was the reigning Queen of Country Music and crossing over to strong pop airplay. Randy had countless offers. On Patsy’s return from Texas, she stunned him with the news that she was taking time off. She flew home with the children to be honored with Patsy Cline Day and to attend her sister’s graduation. Not finishing high school was something Patsy regretted, and she was proud of Sylvia Mae, or Sis, as she preferred to call her, who’d always been a favorite.

Randy wasn’t quite so taken aback when he learned Patsy’d be working, too. As it turned out, it was for one night only and little money.

Melody Boy John Anderson observed, “Patsy gave Winchester hell through the years for not honoring its home town girl’s accomplishments. She’d told me about wanting to be in the Apple Blossom Festival Parade, but that officials hadn’t asked her again. She had a chip on her shoulder about Winchester’s attitude toward her growing up on the other side of the tracks, South Kent Street. Now Patsy was a star and she was enjoying every moment of it.”

At the Winchester Country Club, the mayor presided over a dinner in Patsy’s honor. Various speakers sang her praises. One of these was said to have been WINC Radio station manager Philip Whitney, who in years past irritated Patsy when he said that little Virginia Hensley who came to Joltin’ Jim McCoy’s show wasn’t quite ready for stardom but later worked hard to achieve it.

The story of that occasion has circulated and become exaggerated with age. One attendee said, “That night everyone went on about how proud Winchester was to have Patsy Cline as a native. When it came time for Patsy to respond, there was a loud round of applause. No one was prepared for what followed. Patsy, who was all dolled up, surveyed the audience and after a long pause exclaimed, ‘I’ll tell you sons of bitches this dinner ain’t enough! It’s all very nice for you to recognize me now that I’ve made it, but where were you when my family needed your help? Where were you when I needed your recognition ? Nowhere to be found. In fact, you laughed at me behind my back. Well, you can all go to hell!’ And Patsy, not forgetting her key to the city, stormed out.”

Claude B. Smalts, Jr., mayor at the time, and Whitney, had no recollection even of such an event. Smalts, a local florist and a long-time family friend, couldn’t remember ever giving Patsy the key to the city.

“She certainly deserved it,” he said, “and, as far as I was concerned, she always had it. Now, about her response at that dinner, Patsy surely might have been thinking such thoughts, and with good reason, but she’d never have acted in such a fashion—especially if her mother was present. I am sure she couldn’t have been more gracious.”

Whitney concurred. “Patsy could be as feisty as she wanted to be, but she knew the time and place.”

On June 9 “Winchester’s Only Patsy Cline” appeared live at the Winchester Drive-In Theatre on Route 11. It was a bumper-to-bumper crowd with an admission of seventy-five cents. After the double feature, Patsy was introduced by Joltin’ Jim McCoy. She sang, accompanied by McCoy and his Melody Playboys; the highlight was her smash hit. A huge ovation was marred by a loud chorus of boos. “The mildew of envy permeated everywhere,” McCoy recollected. “As in every town, you’ll
find jealousy. Winchester was no different. There were a lot of folks, sorry to say, who couldn’t accept a home town girl making it big. It was sad. Patsy never forgot her roots. Even when times were tough, she never asked for more than her expenses just so she could come home and visit her family.”

“The booing was from a bunch of ridiculous women,” insisted Fay Crutchley. “Pat had been the center of a lot of things that had happened in the area. It had gotten around about her. There’d been quite a few men in her life, and there were more than a few local gals who didn’t care one bit for Pat. It was jealousy.”

Less than two weeks after receiving Patsy’s letter, Louise was driving to work. It was a humid Texas morning. She had her windows open and the radio tuned to KIKK, listening for Hal Harris to play “I Fall to Pieces.” Instead, a news bulletin came on. Louise heard the words but in the wind and traffic noise couldn’t comprehend what they were. She pulled off the road. She’d heard correctly. Patsy Cline had been critically injured and was near death.

After a week at home, Patsy brought everyone to Nashville to see their new house on Hillhurst Drive. As a graduation present, Patsy planned on taking her sister and family to the Opry. Patsy, the babies, Sylvia Mae, her brother Sam, and Mrs. Hensley left Winchester early Tuesday, June 13, 1961, in Mrs. Hensley’s Cadillac. They arrived late in the evening.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sam drove himself and Patsy to Madison Square Shopping Center in Madison, where Patsy bought her mother material to make her some dresses. At about 4:30, Patsy saw a rainstorm brewing, and they headed home, driving along Hills Lane, a section of Old Hickory Boulevard. Five blocks from where Patsy pointed out to Sam her former house, tragedy struck. According to Patsy’s watch, it was exactly 4:43 P.M. In her June 23 letter to Louise, Patsy wrote:

She did a sketch of her face and the area from her head, just above the hairline, across her forehead to her left and right eyebrows and nose where she was badly lacerated.

Dottie West was at home listening to the radio. “I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The accident occurred at Hills Lane and Gibson Road in front of Madison High School, which wasn’t far from where Bill and I were living. I was a mess. My hair was in curlers and I didn’t have on any makeup. But I dropped everything and jumped in the car and drove like crazy to the site.

“What I saw showed me a lot—not that I needed any proof—about the real Patsy. I pushed through to where Patsy was. As soon as she saw me, she made a joke about my curlers.