It's a Long Story

by Willie Nelson

  It was a wonder that I didn’t break my ass—or my back, which was already messed up from the hay baling I’d been doing all my young life.

  I got up from the ground, hiding the pain shooting through my limbs and acting like I was okay.

  I wasn’t.

  My body was injured, my pride injured even more.

  I turned around and started walking.

  “Hey, Willie,” said Zeke. “Where you going, boy?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You ain’t quitting, are you?” asked Zeke.

  I still didn’t answer. I just kept walking. If my butt and my back hadn’t been screaming in pain, I would have walked all the way back to Abbott.

  I just knew one goddamn thing: no more tree trimming for this boy.

  5

  FALLING INTO THE 1950s

  SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE END OF the forties and the start of the fifties, the boy known as Willie Hugh Nelson became a man.

  Can’t tell you the exact time or date, but it did happen. Can’t tell you that, having reached adulthood, I put childish things behind me, because I didn’t.

  But I did grow up and grow out of that small Hill County corner that I loved so well. I did venture forth into a larger world. And I did enter the new decade with a genuine hope for the future.

  In 1951, I was an eighteen-year-old and classified 1-A for the draft. The Korean War was raging. Rather than wait to be called, I figured I best make a move of my own. So with the romantic notion of becoming a jet pilot, I signed up for the air force.

  “Report to Lackland in San Antone,” I was told.

  A week after enlisting, I was sitting in a barber’s chair on base, getting my red locks clipped. They had me looking like a shorn chicken.

  During my physical, the doctor noticed my bad lower back.

  “How’d it happen?” he asked.

  “Baling hay.”

  “All right, country boy. Let’s see if you can get through basic training.”

  I got through it fine.

  Because I’d been a high school athlete—a proud Fighting Panther—I could run with the best of ’em. I could deal with the obstacle courses. I could crawl under those barbed wires and, despite my trauma in Tyler, I could climb up a rope faster than anyone. I thought I was fit.

  So did the air force. They promoted me to first class and gave me a stripe. That lasted a day. One wiseass didn’t think I deserved the promotion and gave me lip. So I busted him in the mouth. There went my stripe. I really didn’t give a shit because by then I knew that the authoritarian ways of the U.S. Air Force were not to my liking.

  It also wasn’t to my liking to be sent to Sheppard base in Wichita Falls for more basic training and then to Scott base in Illinois, where I was in a holding pattern. They were trying to figure out my next “relocation.” The holding pattern principally had me holding cards. I spent most of my time playing poker.

  Then on to Biloxi, Mississippi, and radar school, where I tripped over the math and washed out. I landed in the shipping room loading heavy boxes. That wrenched my back even more and landed me in the hospital for two months.

  They said they needed to operate.

  I said, “Hell, no.”

  They said if they didn’t operate they’d have to send me home with a medical discharge.

  I said, “Hell, yes.”

  After nine months, I was out of the air force and back in Abbott.

  Now what?

  Time for a little soul-searching.

  Sure, I was a pretty good athlete. Sure, I was a pretty good farmer—a Future Farmer of America. Sure, I was learning to be a pretty good gambler.

  I loved working the land. I loved dealing with animals and crops. I loved playing poker and dominoes late into the night. These were passions that would serve me—and sometimes unnerve me—for the rest of my life. But would they sustain me?

  No. Only music could do that. Only music opened my heart and let the poetry flow from my soul. Without that flow, I was no good. I was always writing songs. Some were okay, some awful, but good or bad made no difference. I didn’t judge them. I just let ’em happen. I wrote early in the morning or late at night, in the middle of dinner or walking around town. I was always scribbling down ideas on the back of matchbooks or cereal boxes, little pieces of poetry that eventually became lyrics. Dozens of promising ideas got lost. Others were turned into tunes. And once the tunes were written, I had to play them.

  When I returned to Abbott from the air force, I realized I had to get back to my music. Along with my buddy Zeke, I was staying at a low-rent motel. I managed to put together a ragtag unit that played beer joints around Waco. The local station, WACO, had been the launching pad for local singer Hank Thompson, first called Hank the Hired Hand. In the early fifties Hank had a huge hit with “The Wild Side of Life,” a song with a line that became immortal: “I didn’t know God made honky-tonk angels.”

  If Hank could break out into bigger things from Waco, well, I figured maybe I could, too.

  “It isn’t a question of if you gonna break out, boy,” said Zeke. “It’s only a question of when.”

  I needed that encouragement ’cause I had a bad case of the empty-pocket blues. The little gigs didn’t cover my costs. I’d have to pawn my guitar during the week. If Zeke had a good week at poker, which was usually the case, he’d loan me—or flat-out give me—money to get my instrument out of hock. And although we were scrambling financially, that didn’t stop our pursuit of the fairer sex. Zeke and I were always on the hunt.

  Spring night in Waco. Big Texas sky lit up with stars.

  Me and Zeke, driving around in his old jalopy, were a little liquored up.

  “Hungry?” asked Zeke.

  “Starved,” I said.

  “How ’bout a cheeseburger?”

  “Great.”

  We pulled into a drive-in, the kind where carhops take your order. The carhops were teenage girls in halter tops and shorts.

  Our carhop wasn’t just cute. She was gorgeous—slim, tall, sexy. Beautiful black hair. Beautiful dark eyes. Beautiful olive complexion.

  She knew who I was.

  “You’re Willie Nelson,” she said. “I’ve seen you play at some of those dances.”

  “I know who you are,” I said. “I’ve seen you dancing at some of those dances.”

  “What can I get you boys to eat?” she asked.

  “A couple of double cheeseburgers with fries,” said Zeke.

  “Coming right up,” she said.

  “You can’t leave me now,” I said.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Don’t know your name.”

  “Martha. Martha Jewel Mathews.”

  Martha went off to put in the order. As she walked away, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

  “She’s Martha,” I told Zeke, “and she’s a jewel.”

  “A very young jewel,” said Zeke.

  When Martha returned with the food, I thanked her and said, “Zeke was saying you’re a pretty young jewel. I was wondering how young.”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sweet sixteen,” I said. “The perfect age. And this is the perfect night. I’m just hoping that when your night is over you can let us take you home.”

  “You boys been drinking, haven’t you?” she said.

  “These burgers and fries are sobering us up right quick. So what do you say? What time you get off?”

  “My mama is picking me up. But thanks again. Nice seeing you, Willie Nelson.”

  “I’ll be back, Martha Jewel.”

  As she smiled and walked away, my eyes stayed focused on her every move.

  Next night I was back in a borrowed car. Alone.

  “I am not drunk,” I said, “but I am persistent. You gotta let me take you home, Martha.”

  She let me. And then she let me some more. And the more she let me, the happier we both became.

  It was love—my first full-blast love, the kind of love where you lose your
mind and let your heart lead the way. Martha was a spectacular woman. She was a full-blooded Cherokee who possessed the striking features of an Indian princess. Like a princess, she was spoiled. But hell, so was I. Two intractable forces about to clash.

  Just like that, we were seeing each other every day. The sex was superhot, but even hotter was the deep love that swept over us. And then—you guessed it—we got married in a fever. Ran off to Cleburne, where a justice of the peace did the deed. Martha had a letter saying she was of legal age. In truth, she was still sixteen. I was nineteen.

  We were so hot to trot, we didn’t bother to ask anyone’s permission—not her folks, not mine. We had no money, we had no plans. Just each other.

  God bless Mama Nelson, who, although she wasn’t thrilled to see me married in this lickety-split manner, said we could move in with her.

  “But you’re gonna have to get a job, Willie, and help with the bills. Both of y’all are gonna have to work.”

  To supplement the few dollars I was getting in the beer joints, I found a day job in a saddle factory. Loved the smell of leather and loved the handiwork involved. Loved anything having to do with horses. But didn’t love sewing those stitches when the needle started cutting up my fingers. Next to his pecker, a picker’s fingers are his most precious body parts. To protect my future, I had to quit.

  Martha, who always found waitressing work, was itching to get out of Hill County. Me, too. So we started thinking of possibilities.

  While we were thinking, we were also fighting. With Martha and me, fighting and loving went hand in hand. She was as feisty as me, as stubborn, as jealous, and as flirtatious. Jealousy raised its ugly head early and often in our relationship.

  “You been eyeing that girl all night,” she said after a gig at a club on the county line.

  “How would you know, Martha? You were too busy dancing with that cowboy from West.”

  Add a mess of beer and liquor to the mix and you have a heady brew of mistrust.

  Martha was an adventurer and a teaser, and so was I. We didn’t mind showing each other how popular we were with the opposite sex. At the same time, we were powerfully drawn to each other.

  “Look,” I said one day after a particularly nasty fight. “We need a change of scenery.”

  “I’ve been saying that for months,” said Martha.

  “Let’s go see my mother. She’s going to love you.”

  “Where’s she living these days?”

  “Eugene, Oregon. What do you say?”

  “I say let’s go.”

  I was ready to see my mom. It had been too long.

  Dad was close by in Fort Worth. That was a comfort to me. In fact, he’d often show up in Hill County and sit in when Bobbie and I were playing with Bud Fletcher. I loved hearing how he made his fiddle sing.

  But Mom hadn’t paid a visit to Abbott in years. I missed her wild spirit. Because Martha projected a wild spirit of her own, I knew they’d get along.

  But how do you get from Abbott to Eugene when your net worth is twenty-five bucks?

  You hustle up a driveaway car and head up to the great Northwest.

  The long trek wasn’t easy. We were fighting and fucking all the way. Maybe the fighting made the fucking even better. Martha was a pistol. In both fighting and fucking, she gave as good as she got. She was all passion, all the time.

  Alone with me in that car for two thousand interminable miles, she had time to vent her complaints. She was sure I was cheating. I wasn’t. Before long I would be, but in this early stage of our marriage I was still walking the straight and narrow.

  But that didn’t keep us from fighting. We knew how to push each other’s buttons.

  “I’ll tell you one goddamn thing, Willie Nelson,” said Martha. “You can’t play out in public without fixing your stare at the prettiest girl in the place.”

  “That would be you, Martha.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. I’ve seen you time and again. You start singing and lock eyes on some honey who follows you when you leave the bandstand.”

  “I’m a showman putting on a show. I gotta connect with the audience. That’s my job, Martha.”

  “That’s an excuse. You’re not fooling nobody.”

  Later, when Zeke asked why we fought so much, I said, “Martha’s a full-blooded Cherokee, and every night is Custer’s last stand.”

  When we finally arrived in Eugene, we were all fought out. Myrle was glad to see me and delighted to meet Martha. The two got along famously.

  Western swing happened to be big in Oregon. I got a little gig with a country band that played a show called The Hayloft Jamboree on KUGN. Loved being back on the air. Working in a radio station was always good for my soul. It was where I belonged—access to a thousand and one records and, more importantly, access to the fans.

  In truth, though, I hardly had any fans in Eugene. The gigs were few and short-lived. I had to find work as a plumber’s assistant. I don’t have to tell you that I was not made out to be a plumber’s assistant.

  Martha worked as a waitress. No matter where we were, restaurants and bars hired Martha in a hurry. With her long dark hair and exquisite features, she always drew customers. When she brought home good tips, I was convinced that they came as a result of her flirting. Or worse. More brawling ensued. And then, if I was lucky, more balling.

  This went on, but not many months after arriving in Eugene, I knew it was time for us to bail. When I said good-bye to Mom, she understood. She recognized her restlessness in me. It was in the blood.

  So me and Martha headed home to the Lone Star State, where surely my star would rise. We settled in Waco for a short while.

  In my only nod to higher education, I went to Baylor University for a few months, until I ran out of GI Bill money. Can’t remember a damn thing I was taught. That’s probably because, when all was said and done, I really majored in dominoes.

  Then good news: Martha was pregnant. We both wanted kids. Even with my unconventional upbringing, I always felt connected to a strong and loving family. That sense of family was something I needed—then, now, and always. So the realization that I was starting a family of my own, even before I was twenty-one, brought me great joy. I loved the idea of being a dad, loved looking at a future with Martha and a brood of little ones.

  On May 11, 1953, though, my future was nearly upended. It was Monday and, true to form, I spent a few pleasant hours at the dominoes hall in downtown Waco, where I took on some of the town sharpies. In the afternoon I wandered off to Jim’s Tavern, located right along the Brazos River Bridge. I was enjoying a beer with a buddy when it started raining. When I poked my head outside, I saw that the sky was aglow in a strange light, followed by a sudden darkness and heavy hail. These were the telltale signs of a tornado. Then someone ran in and said a twister was heading our way from Middleton, a town just west of us. We decided it was time to go back to drinking. Drinking probably gave us the crazy idea that it might be fun to chase after the tornado. By then the storm felt mighty goddamn close. We wanted to see it.

  When we went outside, all sorts of shit was flying around. But, brave on booze, we were going to enter the fray. We were going to run across the Brazos River Bridge and see what the damage looked like. Except the bridge wasn’t there. The twister had eaten it up and spit it out. That’s how close the tornado came—no more than fifty yards—to demolishing Jim’s Tavern and killing everyone inside. This was my closest brush with death. I found it exhilarating.

  Exhilaration quickly turned to deep sadness. The twister had torn up downtown Waco. The five-story RT Dennis building, right across the street from the dominoes hall, had been flattened. Scores of people had died. Hundreds of homes lost. It was being called one of the deadliest tornadoes in Texas history.

  My struggles in Waco weren’t over. Because I couldn’t find enough gigs to cover our costs, I went to work selling encyclopedias. The commission was low but, as always, my hopes were high. I was a good salesman. I could put m
y foot in the door and say my piece with easy confidence. I could call upon my charm. I could bullshit with the best of them.

  And even though I glibly expounded on the wonders of these books of knowledge and enjoyed modest success, I didn’t enjoy the one time when a man, angry that I had disturbed his day, turned his rottweiler on me. I had to run for my life.

  But running was nothing new. It’s what I did.

  Run here, run there, run to wherever the possibilities seemed brightest.

  As fall turned to winter, possibilities appeared less and less bright in Waco. I figured I had to go farther afield to find a break. I needed a bigger arena with more action.

  San Antonio, a bigger city 180 miles away, seemed like a reasonable bet. And since I was a betting man, why not give it a try?

  6

  MISSION CITY AND OTHER STOPS ALONG THE WAY

  THE MOMENT I LAID EYES on my daughter De Lana, born November 11, 1953, the world turned more beautiful. I offered gratitude to God for the safe deliverance of his creation. She was exquisite, perfect in every way. My heart sang with joy. I took fatherhood seriously.

  Even though my time with Daddy Nelson was brief, he left an indelible impression. He was a strong and steady presence in the life of his children and grandchildren. Marveling at my firstborn, I wanted to exert the same strength and steadiness. I wanted to be there for her.

  I tried to be there, and in many ways I succeeded. In other ways I didn’t. Martha and I weren’t capable of forging a calm home life. After Lana’s birth, we went back to battling. And it was more than verbal. Martha could get physical. I’m glad to say that I never swung back, but how could I when, while I was asleep, she tied me up in ropes and beat me with a broom? She probably had good reason. I probably hadn’t been home in a day or two. The reason was obvious—at least to me. The nightlife was calling.

  Our move to Mission City charged me up. The city had a buzz. Five military bases gave the nightclubs a steady stream of customers. The sound of enticing Mexican music was everywhere. The huge Mexican population gave the place a special flavor. And there were also Indians. They wore the headbands of their native tribes and held ceremonies in the ballrooms of the downtown hotels. I loved the Mexicans, I loved the Indians, I loved the whole colorful ethnic mix.