Western Swing (28 page)

Connie was on the edge already. I hoped she might outgrow the resentment someday, but leaving her daddy would pretty much seal off that idea. What would Cassie think? I never knew what Cassie was going to think about anything.

Choosie's girlfriend flopped back into her chair.

“How's she doing?” someone asked.

“She'll be fine.”

The band broke into a fast four-beat rhythm as Choosie stepped up to his microphone. “I'd like to welcome you-all here to the Bowie Knife Saloon and thank you for coming out. I know we're all gonna have an ass-kicking, gut-ripping good time tonight.”

A couple of construction-worker cowboys whooped. I saw Lacy moving through the crowd. Her hair had been brushed and her makeup fixed. She appeared to be bouncing off the balls of her feet.

Choosie continued as the music wound behind him. “Right now, I'd like you all to put your hands together and give a big Houston welcome to Nashville recording artist Lacy Rasher!”

Lacy hopped onstage, grabbed the microphone with her right hand, and pulled it off the mike stand. “
Let's party.
”

More cowboys, real and drugstore, hollered back as Lacy kicked into “Setting the Woods on Fire.”

She was beautiful. Energetic, alive, her eyes gleamed with excitement. She grinned at Mickey, clowned with Choosie on his breaks, directed the drummer by dancing. Leaning out from the stage, she winked at a star-struck kid at the next table over from us.

Lacy was a true professional. I played at being a singer—dreamed, pretended. I knew just how I would handle the adoration, how I would keep my down-home simple roots and not lose touch with the little people, what I would say when I accepted the Female Country Singer of the Year Award. But Lacy knew the job.

The fat girl nudged me with the mouth of a Lone Star. “Let's see you do that, cunt.”

I drained my Beam and left.

• • •

The drive home found me enmeshed in one of those soul-searching self-examinations that I hate so much. Poets, artists, and Loren types love to hang around and wonder at themselves. Once a week Loren and I drive to town for breakfast and he'll order something like French toast. Then the rest of the morning while I'm buying groceries and returning library books, he clams up inside himself and explores the motivation behind choosing French toast instead of eggs.

“Mom always served eggs for breakfast. Could this be a reaction against her influence?”

I'll answer, “Zip your fly and decide what you want for dinner tomorrow,” which brings on a whole new round of choice appraisals. The weeks before Loren staggered into the mountains in search of his pal, God, I could hardly get him dressed in the morning.

“Do you think people will realize my white socks symbolize a purity of spirit, or should I wear black? The black ones are clean.”

“Jesus Christ, Loren, nobody cares.”

The night I drove across Houston after leaving Mickey at the Bowie Knife, I found myself facing all kinds of disgusting truths, such as—was I capable of sacrificing my own potential for the good of my family? Or was this entire personal growth crisis nothing but an excuse for getting hold of Mickey's dick again?

The future loomed as a fork in the freeway with terrible as the exit and boring as the straightaway. I could do something remarkably stupid and immature—run away to the honky-tonks—or I could resign myself to a predictable existence—stay home. Both choices turned my stomach.

What was this predictable existence anyway? Four or five years of fighting with the girls, then the heartbreak of losing them. God knows how many years of being Ron's support system—unappreciated, unfulfilled, the whole feminist group therapy rap. Maybe I'd numb myself eventually. I could ease into more frequent drunks, go off on more sugar binges. The pain fucks might increase to semiannual, then seasonal. Maybe someday I'd get so bored I'd have an affair with a young hell-raiser. I could follow in Roxanne's footsteps.

Tawdry…trite…depressing…a fucking mess of a future. How had I got myself into a neglected housewife syndrome? Why hadn't I faced it before?

This story isn't even close to original. I think Grandma Moses wrote the first autobiographical novel of a woman screaming for her identity in an unhearing family. Finally she breaks loose, “
I must find myself
,”
and shocks the shit out of Hubby and the thoughtless children. The kids moan in terror, “
If only we'd given her room to grow.
”
The husband cries, “
I should have bought her that kiln
,”
and the wife goes off to a series of bad love affairs with raunchy yet vibrant men and finally finds happiness with a rock who cares.

Or doesn't find happiness. The plot changed about 1979.

• • •

Somewhere in here I ran a red light on Buzz Aldrin Drive and almost died when a black Cadillac with pimp windows barreled through and missed my front end. Scared the pee out of myself. A crash would have solved the immediate quandary, but I enjoyed being alive. Either one of my bad choices beat catatonic or dead.

Time to pay attention, I thought, turning on the radio and rolling down the windows. The night air was cool and smelled like bad milk. Running away might at least get me to a place where mold didn't grow on the bedroom walls.

That sounded nice for a second until I remembered there were no bedrooms where Mickey traveled. Only motel rooms and Howard Johnson food. I wondered if Ron and the girls would let me come home between gigs. Maybe there was no such thing as between gigs. Maybe the band never left the road. Did Mickey travel with everything he owned, or was there an apartment somewhere? Maybe even a house? Maybe even a wife?

I was contemplating leaving my family for this man and I didn't even know whether or not he was married. Sorry damn state of affairs if you asked me.

• • •

Ron's car sat parked in the driveway when I pulled up to the house. That wasn't a good sign. He might ask questions. Roxanne could have called while I was supposedly with her and blown my cover, although, at the moment, I didn't particularly care if my cover was blown. Many years of accounting for my whereabouts was beginning to chafe my so-called free spirit.

To hell with him. If Ron gave me any sass, I decided to turn snitty. No man—not even Daddy—has ever out self-righteoused Lana Sue Potts.

All three were in the den when I came through from the kitchen. At the sight of me, Connie turned off the TV and flounced from the room. I pretended not to notice.

“So, do we own a Biscuitville?”

Ron stood at his portable Sears Roebuck bar, mixing himself a vodka and cranberry juice. His big jaw jutted in that stubborn look that came over him whenever the team he bet on lost a ball game. “Maybe. Where have you been?”

“Out.” I moved over and kissed Cassie on the cheek. She glanced up from her book and smiled, then looked back down.

Ron held his drink under the automatic ice dispenser until a couple of cubes plopped out and splashed cranberry on his hand. “Hope you didn't go anywhere public dressed like that.”

I looked down at my Neiman-Marcus cowgirl shirt and designer blue jeans. At the Bowie Knife, I'd felt overdressed, and now I was being called slobby. “What's the matter with the way I'm dressed?”

“You look like a shitkicker.”

Stomach muscles tightened, my scalp itched. Something was on the edge of happening and I was powerless to slow it down—even if I wanted to. “Maybe I am a shitkicker. Want to try me?”

Cassie's head came back up, her eyes studying my face. She knew Ron and I were courting disaster. I knew it also. Only Ron seemed lost in left field, oblivious to the possibilities.

“I didn't mean anything negative,” he said. “I just wouldn't want you running into any of your friends dressed in your cowgirl costume.”

It would be easy here to claim that I walked through the door and Ron came on nasty with no instigation. I could, with some success, blame his timing for our outcome, but that would be the easy way out. I know earlier I said leaving a man is ninety percent timing. However, in the case of Ron, timing doesn't answer all the riddles. What I think is, subconsciously, unconsciously, whatever the shrinks call it these days, I made my choice back on Buzz Aldrin Drive in one of those value-system-crystallization-in-the-face-of-death numbers. The Cadillac missed me, I cheated death, saw the way of the future, and went home looking for an excuse to do what I wanted.

Who knows if I would have pulled things off without Ron's help? I have no idea what the outcome would have been if he hadn't insulted me, but would-have-beens don't mean shit because he did.

“You get my sweater?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I forgot. Mind if I fix a drink?” Ron stared at me while I poured an inch of Jim Beam into a brandy snifter.

“You forgot my golf sweater?”

“Guess you'll have to wear another one.”

“How could you forget it?”

I looked him in the eye. “It wasn't important to me.”

Ron watched while I slugged down my Beam. Then he spit out the only real insult he'd leveled at me since junior high. “You aren't worth much these days, are you?”

I said, “
Crack.
”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Means I'm driving to Lubbock.”

• • •

Three and a half, going on four, years later I was living in Nashville when Ron called. It must have been early fall because I remember leaves in our backyard. Sycamore, oak, and a few elms ran down the hill to a little ditch creek with a fence and a cemetery on the other side. I remember standing on the back screened porch, chain smoking and watching the leaves most of the afternoon. They were pretty. I liked the way the flatness of the reds and yellows gave the yard a balanced, artsy look.

After a couple of scotches, the scene struck me as beautifully ironic in an American dream sort of way—that all these thousands of slick scammers and cynical pragmatists had chosen such a beautiful setting to work their cash flow magic.

Ace and I had been married over two years. He'd called earlier that afternoon to say he would be working late at the studio. I didn't believe him, but what depressed me was that I didn't care whether I believed him or not. At some point since our marriage, I'd adopted the Nashville attitude that the sex organs are nothing but business tools like the telephone and the Visa card, and I could hardly expect Ace to penalize his career for my security.

After I left Mickey in Utah things turned out about the way he predicted—which pisses me off. I can't stand Mickey thinking he knows everything about everything. Loren's the same way. I always seem to wind up with smartasses.

Ace wooed me away from Mickey and took me off to Nashville, where we fooled around a few months and came out with an album. The album zoomed to number sixty-four on the Billboard Country 100 and stayed there for two weeks, stuck between George Jones on the backside and Jerry Reed on the front. I did a couple guest shots on
Pop! Goes the Country
and the
Hank Thompson Ranch Show
, then my album sank into the Kmart cut-rate bin and no one called anymore.

Somewhere in there, for stability or legitimacy or something—hell, I'll never figure out why I pulled this one—I married Ace Roe. This was after he'd started that epileptic-fit-when-I-didn't-feel-like-sucking-him-off-business. Maybe Daddy's disease got me, or Grandma's blood. Maybe I just screwed up. Anyway, I was right back where I started—married, ignored, and frustrated.

I increased my scotch drinking and took four hot baths a day. I gained fifteen pounds hanging around the Kroger's bakery. Worst of all, I initiated a number of pain fucks with studio steel players. Nothing to compare with Ace's scorecard, but plenty enough to trash out my self-regard.

Along about the time Ron called, the idea was dawning that I'd messed up my life. The experiment of living the future for myself had lost its charm.

• • •

I answered on the second ring.

“Fucking yourself and me up is one thing, but you've gone too far this time.”

“Hi, Ron, how's my babies?”

“Your voice sounds different, have you been drinking?”

“Of course I've been drinking. Did you call for a reason or simply to tell me I've fucked up our lives?”

I listened to his breathing a moment, then Ron said, “Your friend kidnapped Cassie.”

Pictures of baby rapers and white slave traders flashed through my mind. “What do you mean, kidnapped?”

“Lana Sue, you are poison, you know that? And your lover Mickey is poison also. I can't believe what the two of you do to people.”

“Back up. Mickey kidnapped my daughter? Is that what you're saying?”

“You know damn well that's what I'm saying. I'd bet everything I own you were in on it.” He was crying.

I thought a minute. I hadn't talked to Cassie since her birthday in August. Back then she'd sounded fine. She was excited about enrolling at SMU. She told me she'd learned some new songs on her guitar.

“Ron, did Mickey really kidnap her or did Cassie run away?”

“What's the difference? My insides crawl when I think about that slime with my baby girl. And she dropped out of school. Your daddy's going to have your hide for this one, Lana Sue.”

I shouted at the phone. “I didn't do anything!”

“You left.”

I reached for the scotch bottle, but changed my mind. “Details, Ron. How long's she been gone?”

Audibly, Ron pulled himself together. “I got a letter today postmarked Denver, Colorado. Says she dropped out of school last week and joined the band. She says the school will refund part of her tuition and dorm fees back to me.” Ron's voice was bitter. “She says she has to find herself.”