Somebody Everybody Listens To (9 page)

“Oh, I'm serious as a heart attack. And I ought to know about heart attacks. Had one a few years back, right over there,” he said, and pointed to a grease spot on the dirty cement floor. “Liked to died, too. Ever since, I turned over a new leaf, as they say. I ain't the same Ricky Dean I once was.” I wondered what he meant, but decided it was probably rude to ask. Besides that, the phone interrupted us.

“Ricky Dean's Auto Den,” I answered.

“Well, good morning,” the woman replied. I was relieved to hear a friendly voice instead of a yeller.

“What can I do for you today, ma'am?”

Ricky gave me a thumbs-up, then slid under a Ford Focus.

 

Just before noon, Ricky left to go out on a towing call. The phones had been crazy most of the morning, but they'd gone quiet suddenly, probably because most people were eating lunch right about now. As if on cue, my stomach growled. I tugged open the bottom drawer of Shanay's desk, hoping to find something to snack on, but other than a few salt packets, there was nothing even remotely edible.

I stood up and stretched then paced around the dingy room and thought about all the things I
should
be doing today—pounding the sidewalks down on Music Row or trying to line up a gig somewhere or looking for a real job—one that would keep me in Nashville for good. But, my stupid little mishap had landed me here. I glanced at the cinder-block wall, and for a brief second considered pounding my head against it. Instead, I grabbed my songwriting journal and sat down at Shanay's desk again.

By the time Ricky got back, I had the first verse and chorus for a new song, no tune yet, but that would come later. “You must be starving,” Ricky said, and rubbed his sweaty face with a rag.

“I am,” I confessed. It was nearly two o'clock, and I hadn't eaten a bite since the doughnut.

“Half a mile up the road is a right good barbecue place.” He took out his wallet. “Take this twenty and go get us some lunch. Hog Heaven is the name of it. You can't miss it 'cause there's a giant pink pig right out front.” He handed me a crisp twenty, and I wondered if it was just for Ricky's lunch or if I should pay for my meal with it, too. Ricky must've known what I was thinking because he added, “My treat.”

Just then the door swung open, and I heard Ricky's breath catch.

“Why, Shanay! Hey there. I didn't expect to see you today. I thought you's supposed to stay off your feet,” he said, sounding guilty as sin.

Shanay didn't even respond to Ricky's hello. Instead, she glared. First at Ricky, then at me.
“Who are you?”
she demanded, and hobbled inside. Obviously, Ricky hadn't told her he'd found a replacement for the week.

“I'm Retta,” I replied. “I'm just helping out. So you can recover,” I added quickly.

Shanay narrowed her eyes at Ricky. “You went and hired somebody behind my back? I thought I told—”

“You said the doctor told you to stay off your feet.” Ricky glanced at me and nodded toward the door. Shanay didn't seem like the stable type, physically or mentally, so I grabbed my purse and hurried outside.

The sun was beating down so hard I was beginning to feel like a hell hag, and the trash cans smelled putrid. Flies buzzed all around them. I kicked gravel around and tried not to breathe through my nose. The door opened, but it was only Ricky. His cheeks were red as fire, and he was sweating.

“Are you all right?” I asked, wondering if I should go back inside for my guitar.

“I'm fine.” He wore the exasperated look Daddy sometimes did when Mama was on him about something.

“Maybe I should just pay you the money I owe,” I offered. “I don't want to cause trouble.”

“I made a deal with you, and I aim to keep it, hear? Shanay ain't in any shape to work. She's supposed to keep that foot elevated. I acted like she had to stay, though. Told her she could take her pain medicine and go lay down in the back, and that way if you had any questions, she'd be right there to help out. You might want to act like you don't know something ever now and then. You know, just so she don't feel threatened.” Ricky took out a five and handed it to me. “Get something for Shanay, too.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and climbed inside Goggy's sweltering car, drove up the road to Hog Heaven. Since it was midafternoon, the restaurant wasn't busy. In no time, I was back with three pulled-pork specials, three large Cokes, and three peach turnovers. Ricky was clanging around under the Ford Focus again, and Shanay was, according to my best guess, one and a half sheets to the wind. Her purse was wide open on the desktop, a pint of vodka in plain view.

I glanced at the bottle then back at Shanay.

She pressed a finger to her lips and whispered, “I can't take codeine.” Clearly, she didn't want Ricky to hear. “It upsets my stomach. Vodka's cheaper and it works just as well. Normally, I'm not much of a drinker,” she added.

While I ate my lunch Shanay polished off the vodka and read (slurred) the Auto Den's price list to me. She didn't touch the sandwich I'd brought, and Ricky was too busy to eat. He had to finish up the Focus then replace the front brake pads on a pickup, all before five o'clock. Every time the phone rang, Shanay and I both reached for it, which was awkward, not to mention annoying. I was relieved when she finally wobbled back to the tattered old sofa in Ricky's office to take a nap.

“Shanay finally leave you to yourself?” Ricky asked when he slid out from under the Ford.

“Yes,” I replied.
Finally
.

He groaned to his feet and came over to stand beside me. I had taken everything off Shanay's desk, including a disgusting ashtray piled a mile high with lipstick-ringed cigarette butts (which I emptied, of course) and stacked it all up neatly on the dented file cabinet.

“No tellin' when that was cleaned last,” he said.

“It's definitely been a while.” The surface was covered with grease and dust and crumbs and ashes and Lord only knew what else. Liberally, I sprayed a thick coat of Windex then wiped it down with some stiff paper towels I'd swiped from the bathroom.

“Aw naw,” Ricky said, and plucked the vodka bottle out of the trash can. “Did she drink all this?”

I shrugged and sprayed more Windex.

“Well, I hope she didn't drink it
and
take a pain pill, too.”

“No,” I confirmed. “She said codeine upsets her stomach.”

He sighed and shook his head, tossed the bottle into the trash again. “You probably wonderin' why I let somebody like that work for me.”

“A little,” I replied.

“Well, I wonder the same thang myself.” He pulled a pocketknife out of his coveralls, and dug under his nails with the blade. “I knew Shanay when she was young and pretty. Reckon I keep hopin' that same girl will show up again one day.”

“Has she always been like this?” I asked, knowing it was none of my business.

“See, that's the thang. She was real popular in high school. And she seemed to do okay for a few years after that. Everbody liked her, but then she fell in with the wrong crowd. Started dating some lowlife. Next thing we all knew, she was losing one job after another and in debt. She even got sent to jail once for stealing checks. My ex-wife won't have nothing to do with her. They're sisters,” he explained. “That whole family has pretty much disowned her. If it wasn't for me, Shanay wouldn't have nobody.”

Busting Goggy's oil pan was a terrible thing, but meeting Ricky felt like a blessing right then. “You're good to do that. Give her a chance, I mean.”

“I don't know. Sometimes I wonder. The thing is I'm in a heap a debt for second chances,” he said, and flipped the pocketknife shut.

 

For the rest of the afternoon, I couldn't stop thinking about Shanay and Ricky and Ricky's son and the ex-wife and her family. Their stories caught hold of me somehow, filled my mind with song ideas. Shanay's desk was sparkling clean now. I'd gone out to the ditch and picked some of those little yellow flowers Mama always said were just weeds and stuffed them in a jelly jar with fresh water. The paper clips were untangled, the nonworking ink pens had been thrown away, and the working ones were point side up in an old, chipped coffee mug. Shanay's thermos was washed out and left to dry on a paper towel, and her wrinkled magazine clipping of Hank Jr. was now proudly tucked in a plastic frame I'd found in the bottom drawer.

I glanced around the Auto Den. Certainly, there was a lot more cleaning I could do, but Shanay's desk felt like a big accomplishment for my first day. Besides that, I didn't want to overstep my boundaries too much. The phones were quiet again, and no one had stopped by to pick up their cars yet. “Hey, Ricky,” I called.

“Yeah,” he replied. He was now wedged under a pickup almost identical to Daddy's, except not so scratched up.

“You mind if I sing?” I asked.

“Lord, no. I was hopin' you would. Make sure the office door is shut tight so it don't wake up Shanay.”

I hurried to the back and eased the door closed then grabbed my guitar from the corner. Slowly, I strummed a few chords and adjusted the tune.

“I thought you's gonna sang,” Ricky called.

“Just a minute,” I said, and grabbed the stool. I cleared my throat, adjusted my position, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. All at once I wasn't in a dirty garage anymore; instead, I pretended I was on the humble stage of the Mockingbird Cafe. It was a famous Nashville landmark, and I'd read all about it in
Country Music
magazine. Unlike the Opry with its vast crowd and bright lights, the legendary Mockingbird was rustic and dim. In my mind, a ripple of excitement passed through the audience as they waited for me to begin.
Shhhh,
someone whispered, and instantly it was quiet.

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta da-a-a-ay . . .
I began, my voice soft and low. Someone clapped, and I paused, waiting for them to stop. The glasses clinked softly, and folks settled deeper into their seats.
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was bailin' ha-a-a-ay . . .
My imagination shifted into overdrive. All of a sudden it wasn't just the Mockingbird Cafe in my head, it was also the the dusty Delta where Bobbie and her brother toiled, and the supper table with her family sitting all around it, too. I stretched out notes where they hadn't been stretched before, stopped to say lines instead of singing them, threw my head back and belted out a few newly inserted
oooohhhhs
and
aaahhhs
. The acoustics in the shop were amazingly good, and my voice filled up the room—Retta Lee's spin on Bobbie G. this time instead of flat-out imitation.

By the time the song was over, sweat trickled down my back, and my heart pounded inside my chest. Ricky clapped and shouted “Bravo!” from underneath the truck. “That was damn good!
Damn
good!” Just then the office door squeaked open, and I looked up to see glassy-eyed Shanay clutching the door frame and swaying slightly. As Granny Larky used to say, her hair looked like cats had been sucking on it. “How'd you learn to sing like that?” she asked.

“In church, I guess, or just listening to the radio.”

“I been to church. I got a radio. I can't sing like that.” She narrowed her eyes and swayed so wide I thought for sure she'd fall right over. “Shine,” she said down low. “You
shine
just like a star,” she said, and slammed the door.

SINCE IT WOULDN'T BE DARK FOR A WHILE YET, I decided to head downtown, maybe catch some of the Music Festival sights. It would be crowded. It would be loud. And it would be great, I just knew it. All those famous Nashville landmarks—Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and the Ernest Tubb Record Shop and countless other honky-tonks with their neon lights. I'd been looking at these places in pictures my entire life, and I could hardly believe they were right down the road now, a short, simple (provided I didn't hit any more walls or get lost) drive away. My mood soared suddenly, and even though I'd spent my first full day cooped up in the Auto Den, my night was wide open—
free
.