by Thomas Cobb
“Read?”
“Read.”
“Well, old buddy,” he says, trying to regain his composure, “what’s your name?” He shakes Jean’s shoulder, trying to wake her.
“Buddy.”
“That’s right. What’s your name?”
“Buddy.”
“O.K., little buddy, you want to watch TV or something?”
“Read?”
“I’m not too good at reading. You sure you don’t want to watch TV?”
“What’s your name?”
“Bad. What’s yours?”
“No. Buddy.”
“Right. Buddies.” He looks over to Jean, then back to Buddy, holding his finger to his lips. She doesn’t wake.
Buddy turns and walks out of the room. He stops at the door. “Read?”
By the time he finds his glasses and clothes, Jean has stirred awake. “What time is it?”
“Early,” he says. “Stay in bed. I’ll take care of myself.”
In the living room, he stops at the sofa to pull on his socks and boots. Buddy watches from around the corner of the breakfast bar. Bad pats the sofa cushion next to him. Buddy walks slowly over, sits down next to him and hands him the book. Bernie and the Firetruck.
When Jean comes into the room in her robe, Buddy is on Bad’s lap, explaining the story of Bernie and the Firetruck to him. Bad looks up at Jean. “Sorry, I guess we kind of overslept. You care for some breakfast?”
Her expression is one he can’t quite read. “Buddy,” she says, “this is Bad. Bad, this is Buddy.”
“No,” Buddy says. “Buddies.”
“Let’s go make your mom breakfast.”
While she is in the bathroom, he finds most of the ingredients he needs. Buddy hands him spoons and packages. He is almost done, when he realizes he is missing one ingredient. He walks to the bathroom door. “Where do you keep the cream of tartar?”
“I don’t have any. What the hell do you want cream of tartar for?”
“Biscuits. Don’t you use cream of tartar in your biscuits?”
“I don’t make biscuits.”
“And here I thought you were such a good woman.”
They eat biscuits and eggs while Buddy plays on the living room floor. “That’s a real nice boy you got.”
“I know. He likes you, that’s for sure. He’s not around men all that much. I’m kind of surprised.”
“Doesn’t he spend time with your ex?”
She shakes her head and takes another biscuit. “Buddy’s not his. I had him two years after the divorce.” She waits for a response, gets none, and goes on. “You get older, you get wiser, but you still make mistakes. Only sometimes mistakes don’t turn out that way.”
“Mine usually do. But I know what you mean. He’s a good boy. Good mom.”
“Good biscuits.”
It is five hours due south on I-25 to Las Cruces. Past Albuquerque, the heat builds steadily. He sweats and drives, his heart beating evenly and slowly. He has tonight in Las Cruces and then it is on to Arizona, and Phoenix.
Between sets, he stands at the bar and pumps hands. Yes, yes, he says, that’s just wonderful. Tommy’s like my own son, he says to a couple who want to know what Tommy is like.
“How about ‘Let’s Get Drunk and Screw’?” This from a young woman who has appeared in front of him. She is in her early twenties, thin and blond, in tight jeans and a cotton chemise top that shows her nipples. She wears a tooled belt with a large silver buckle. He knows the belt is carved in back, “Debbie” or “Robin.” Debbie, he decides. She has a longneck in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She is also chewing gum.
“Pardon?”
“‘Let’s Get Drunk and Screw,’ you do it?”
“The song or the mistake?”
“The song. Mostly.”
“I know it. I’ve done it. I don’t do it anymore.”
“The song or the mistake?” She cocks her head and takes a drag on the cigarette, closing one eye. Bad watches the shirt tighten across her breasts.
She smiles and tilts her head in the other direction, her eye still closed, though the smoke is more in his face than hers now. “It ain’t always a mistake, you know.”
“I sure as hell used to believe that. Every once in a while I can still convince myself of it. Mostly it’s a mistake, though.”
“Have it your way,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “‘The Wrangler of Love,’ huh?”
“I made a whole bunch of mistakes in my life, darlin’. That’s why I know so much about them.”
She shakes her head and turns away. The back of her belt reads “Jackie.”
He’s made enough mistakes in his life, he thinks, to know about all there is to know about them. He’s also made enough to know that he hasn’t made one for a long time now.
He is on I-10, fifty miles out of Tucson, watching a blue Pontiac that he has been following for four or five miles. It is a late sixties model, with Georgia plates and a broken left taillight. There are two people in the front seat, a man and a woman. For miles the woman has been moving closer to the man. Occasionally their heads merge and seem to become one. Then she will pull back, nuzzle, and begin the process again.
What interests Bad is that now her head has disappeared completely. This can mean only one thing, he thinks. Actually, it can mean any number of things, but only one is worth considering at the moment. It is hot and the road is threatening never to end. He pushes down the accelerator, pulling up closer to the Pontiac. He can see the man’s head clearly now. He has brown hair, but not a lot of it. This pleases Bad. He cannot see the woman. He signals and pulls into the right lane, where he can get a better look.
He remembers a night in Minnesota, 1959 or 1960. He let the rest of the band have the bus and he and the new backup singer rode alone in a rented De Soto, on ahead of the bus into blackness that turned into snow. He drove with one hand, trying to coax her head into his lap with the other. Both of them were giggling, lustful, too drunk to be afraid of snow and slick roads, too happy to quit drinking. When the bus finally caught up with them and pulled the De Soto from the snowbank where Bad had driven it, both he and Marge were so deep in sleep they had to be helped onto the bus.
When he pulls up even with the Pontiac, he can see the woman’s foot resting on the window frame and the bunch of her shoulder on the front seat. He pulls up a little to see if he can get a better angle on the couple, when the opening bars of “Slow Boat” come whining out of the radio speaker. He has never grown tired of hearing the song come at him from a car radio or, less often, from the jukebox of a honky-tonk. Being caught by surprise by the song is like letting memories come at him shotgun. The song has been part of his life—on the worst days, his whole life—for twenty-five years.
Because he has already been thinking of Marge, he gets a twinge, a memory of him and Marge in L.A. in 1960. Twelve bars into the song, he is driving his new Cadillac convertible around the twists of Mulholland Drive in the middle of a radiant afternoon, with his wife beside him. “Slow Boat” is on the radio, and he turns it up, letting the music ricochet off retaining walls that line the road, suddenly the most intensely beautiful sight he has ever seen. The air is clear and dry in the afternoon sun. Plants atop the retaining wall burn with color. “Slow Boat” has been to number one on Billboard’s country chart, has stayed there nine straight weeks and now is off but still getting decent airplay. He cannot write a bad song, and he has corrected, in this second marriage, the mistakes of his first. He doesn’t get tongue-tied anymore when he has to talk to men who wear suits and neckties. In short, he has stopped being a jerk.
He is now half a car length ahead of the Pontiac, angling the outside mirror so he can see into the car’s front seat, and singing along with himself on the radio. He has a better view now, but he still can’t decide whether he is watching sex or nausea. When he decides that he really doesn’t care anymore, and pulls up another car length ahead of the Pontiac, the DJ announces
that they have been listening to “Slow Boat” by “the late Mr. Bad Blake, one of the great ones.” He slows down, and he can feel the sweat soaking his shirt against the vinyl of the seat. In the rearview mirror, his face is fish-belly white. He begins to look for a place to stop and get a drink. The blue Pontiac moves past him on the left. The woman is sitting upright now, and as the car passes, the driver gives Bad the O.K. sign, finger to thumb. Bad reaches for a cigarette. Here he is, sweating his way through a state where they think he is dead, on his way to be an opening act for Tommy Sweet. Yeah, I know, buddy, he thinks, ain’t none of us ever stop being jerks.
His drink wavers in his hand, rattling the ice. He is in a tiny bar just outside Tucson, a square stucco building that stinks of piss and disinfectant. “Would you like to contribute to my next dance?” a woman in a transparent negligee asks. He shakes his head.
“You want to see, you want to pay,” she says.
“Darlin’, the only thing I want to see is the bottom of this glass, and the bottom of the next one, too.”
“Fuck you.”
“Better not, darlin’, I’m a dead man.”
Chapter Seven
In Phoenix, the traffic begins to slow and stop. There is a rhythm to traffic that he loves. On the open road, it unfolds and plays slowly, gracefully. In the city, the tempo quickens, but it begins a series of variations, off the beat, an irregular pattern but still a pattern that can be followed. He has lost his itinerary and instructions. He exits the freeway and stops at a Shell station for directions, gets back on the freeway and heads north.
He exits on McDowell, heads east to Nineteenth. There is the sign. “Veterans Memorial Coliseum. August 29. Tommy Sweet. / Special Guest, Bad Blake.” Jack, you cocksucker, thank you.
It takes him twice around the perimeter before he finds the one gate that is open. He pulls the van in, up to where two tractor trailers sit next to the coliseum. “Tommy Sweet” is written in script on the sides of both trailers. Beyond the trailers in the lot is a Silver Eagle bus. “Tommy Sweet” is also across the side of the bus. Below that, “Lovin’ You.”
At the rear door of the coliseum, a security cop lounges in a lawn chair. “Howdy,” Bad says. “Bad Blake.” The cop looks up, mirroring Bad in his glasses, two Bad Blakes grinning down.
“You got a stage pass?” the cop asks.
“Hell no. I just got here. I’m Bad Blake.”
“I can’t let you beyond this point without a pass.”
“Get me a pass. I’m on the show.”
“I just check passes. You’re supposed to have one.”
“Get Tommy, then.”
“No sir. I can’t do that.”
“The hell.” He starts to move past the guard and into the coliseum.
“I’m sorry, sir.” The guard puts his hand on his gun. “You don’t move past this point without a pass.”
Bad goes back to the van, looks for his notes in the glove compartment, until a vague memory stirs. He goes back to the cop. “You know Ralphie?”
“Yessir.”
“You go find Ralphie. You tell him Bad Blake is here. Then you tell him Bad Blake is waiting five more minutes, then he is out of here. Then you better go buy yourself a newspaper and start reading the want ads, because, buddy, your job is over here.”
The cop scowls, gets up and walks inside the coliseum. Bad follows. “You wait here,” the cop says. Inside it is dark and cool. He hears the cop’s footsteps echo off the concrete. In the distance he can see stage lights and spots being turned off and on. The cop comes back. “Ralphie will be right here.”
Bad takes a cigarette from his pocket. The cop offers him a light.
“This is my job,” the cop says. “You understand that. No one gets in without a pass. No one ever gets hassled when I work a show.”
“Yeah, we all got jobs.”
“They should have sent you a pass. That’s their job. I just make sure no one gets in without one.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I work all kinds of shows here. I like these country shows. You guys are all right. Willie Nelson, he slipped me a fifty-dollar tip two years ago. I hate those damn rock-and-roll shows. All a bunch of stuck-up little shits, you know? Treat you like dirt. And then all those little girls around here. Hell, I don’t let them in. I got a girl of my own. How’s some guy going to feel, his daughter running around in the middle of the night, trying to put out for some faggot in pink pants and mascara? God, it makes me sick.”
“Yeah. Hell of a thing. Any of those girls come around looking for me, let ’em in. I don’t wear mascara.”
“And the Ice Capades. I bet every one of them is queer. And some of those girls in the show. Jesus Christ. And it’s all wasted on a bunch of queers in tight pants. Oh, I get them all, believe you me.”
“Bad Blake. Good to meet you.” A little man in jeans and red satin jacket shakes Bad’s hand. He is wearing a wireless headset with earphones and a pencil-thin mike. “Ralph Martin. I’m with Tommy. Call me Ralphie. We expected you two hours ago. You have trouble?”
“Long trip. I left Las Cruces at five this morning. Played last night. Car trouble in Tucson.”
“Shit. You’re tired, then. Listen, Jack Greene’s got you set up at the Holiday Inn right down the road here. Soon as we’re done, I’ll have someone take you over. We’re in sound check right now, so things won’t be too long. Come on up, take a look around.”
“I got a band here?”
“Yeah, yeah. They showed up about eleven. We’re running a little late, you know. All the union guys trying to run into the double bubble here. Your guys are downstairs, I’ll take you down in just a minute. I think they’re having lunch. You hungry?”
“Well, now that you mention it.”
“We got the food downstairs. Just a minute. Come on up on the stage. And here. Put this on.” He takes a cloth patch and sticks it to the leg of Bad’s jeans—“Tommy Sweet, Lovin’ You.”
They climb up ten wooden stairs, onto the stage. Roadies in undershirts are busy taping wires to the stage. At both ends of the stage, amps are stacked—Altecs, Fenders and Marshalls. At the back of the stage is a Rogers drum kit with double bass and two synthesized drums. At the far end is a Baldwin grand piano. Around the stage are stacked blue Anvil crates on casters. Stenciled on the sides is “Tommy Sweet.” From above, beyond the basketball scoreboard in the middle of the arena, baby spots sweep across the floor. “Bear,” Ralphie says into his microphone, “stage, please.” Then, to Bad, “Bear handles our sound, he’ll help you set up.”
Bad looks out across the arena. There are two tiers of seats, which run in a horseshoe from the stage to about a hundred yards back. On the floor, plywood covering the basketball court, chairs are set up in two sections all the way back to the first tier of permanents. “How are tickets?”
“Not bad. No sellout, but we were at ninety-three at noon. Maybe ninety-six or ninety-seven by showtime. It’s not great, but it’s O.K. We’re running radio spots until seven tonight.”
Sweet Jesus. Last night in Las Cruces, they estimated the house at one-fifty. He looks back out at the seats. Ninety-six or ninety-seven hundred people here tonight. “Where’s Tommy?”
“Back at the hotel. He’ll come in for final check about five-thirty and then he’ll head back to the hotel until showtime. He said he’s anxious to see you. Maybe he’ll be by early.”
A huge, fat man in a sleeveless cowboy shirt moves across the stage toward them. “What’s up, man?”
“Bear, this is Bad Blake. You’ll need to get him set up. How’s this going?”
“Fucked up the butt, man. We got buzz on channel eight we can’t get out and monitor three’s dead. The usual. Fucked right up the butt. How you doin’, man? What’s your equipment like?”
“Roland Cube.”
“That’s it? A Roland Cube? Well, that ain’t going to bounce off the back wall. No sweat. We’ll run you through one of these. You got a preference—Marsha
ll, Fender? Like it don’t matter. Those boys with you got a god-awful mix of stuff—Mesas, Peaveys, heavy rock-and-roll shit. Suit yourself.”
“I like my Roland.”
“Well, that’s no sweat, either. I’ll mike it through the PA. What else you need?”
“Just time to rehearse.”
“Give me thirty minutes to get this stuff untangled, and come on up. Where’s your stuff?”
“Parking lot. Black Dodge van.”
“Give me the keys. I’ll take care of it. Go on downstairs and chow down. I’ll call you when we’re clear up here.”
On their way down the stairs, Ralphie runs through the program. “You go on at eight-fifteen. You got forty-five minutes. Stay on that. I’ll be stage left and I’ll give you your time remaining. You can’t run over more than three minutes. Tommy goes on at nine-thirty. Tommy’s off at eleven-thirty. We’re torn down and out of here by one-thirty. May be some party at the hotel around two or so. You’re welcome.” They are on a winding corridor that leads past the locker room. “This is your dressing room. Tommy’s is the next one down.”
When he opens the door, Bad walks into a room that looks like a bus station john, white tile floor and wall, mirrors and sinks along the length of one wall. Beyond the sinks, five men sit on folding chairs, eating and drinking. “Maverick,” Ralphie says, “your backup.” Bad walks over and introduces himself. Beyond the band, on the shelf in front of the mirror, are four plates of cold cuts, cheese, bread and relishes, cans of beer, bottles of wine, soft drinks, glasses, ice, and a case of Jack Daniel’s with a note. “Save some for me. Tommy.”
While they eat, Bad goes over the play list with Maverick. He has cut three sets down to one, keeping to big stuff, keeping it simple. He has a drummer, bass player, two guitars and pedal steel. He would like to keep the stuff he tried in Santa Fe, but they have two hours onstage before they play before ninety-seven hundred people. The band knows most of the songs by sight, and have “Slow Boat,” “Faded Love,” “I Love You (A Thousand Ways),” “Love Came and Got Me” in their repertoire. What they don’t know, they are intelligent enough to ask about.
