by Jessi Colter
“That’s a heavy statement, Waylon.”
“I have a heavy heart. Without Daddy, I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe again.”
I didn’t know what to say so I stayed silent. Outside the black sky was sprinkled with stars. Waylon was focused on the highway ahead. I could sense that he was still thinking about his father. His eyes grew moist. Tears fell. I took his hand and held it.
Chapter 11
RHYTHMS
EVERY RELATIONSHIP HAS A RHYTHM. SOME DEVELOP TENTATIVELY, speed up, and then slow down to a drag. Others start off at a frantic pace before quickly running out of steam. There are relationships that maintain an even rhythm for decades. And then there are those that are always losing the beat and falling out of sync.
The rhythm of the relationship I began to forge with Waylon seemed to contain a power all its own. I felt swept up, and I know Waylon felt the same. We were propelled by a force that neither of us had ever experienced before. That force, of course, was love. I loved sitting next to him as we drove through Arizona from gig to gig. I loved watching him sing. Loved watching him play. Loved how he led his band. How he interacted with his fans. How he smiled. How he frowned. How he laughed. How he cried. How he spoke. How he stayed silent. I loved how sincerity directed his every thought, his every move, his every moment.
I loved this man and everything—
I was about to write “and everything about him,” but I’ve stopped myself in time. In the aftermath of meeting Waylon, I might well have said those words. I was blissed out, starry-eyed in love. I realized that this would not be a conventional relationship because he was not a conventional man. I knew I was in for a wild ride. There could be no doubt that Waylon was a wild man.
I also knew—and this is the part that prevents me from writing “I loved everything about him”—that he had a habit. As he himself readily confessed, he was addicted to amphetamines. Sometimes he called them diet pills or pep pills or any number of colorful nicknames like Speckled Birds, Little Bitty Desoxyns, Desbuton Pancakes, or more personal handles like Waylon’s Phoenix Flashes. He called LA Turnarounds the most effective because, as he said, “you could take one and drive to Los Angeles, turn around, and come straight back.”
He carefully avoided detailing his drug habit to me. “I never liked downers,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I was hyper and taking uppers on top of that. I never hit the ground for decades to come. I had incredible stamina; I prided myself on the fact that I could take more pills, stay up longer, sing more songs, and love on more women than most anybody you ever met in your life. I didn’t know when to stop, or see any need to.”1
He also wrote about being caught up in a culture—the music business culture—where washing down a handful of pills was as normal as drinking a beer. Not that he gave excuses. Waylon wasn’t one to rationalize. He did what he did because he wanted to do it. My presumption then—and now—is that his main motivation for pill-popping was to simply stay up. That may sound simplistic, but I believe it with all my heart. Life excited him to such an extent that he didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t want to miss a thing. And the part of life that excited him most was creativity. He wanted to compose music, play music, arrange music, and record music every minute of every day. If pills helped prolong his energy and kept him going long into the night and well into the morning, then he wasn’t about to resist.
I couldn’t resist Waylon if I tried. And, believe me, I did try. I tried to tell myself that his lifestyle was too bizarre, too risky, too uncertain. I certainly saw that he had a serious relationship with pills, yet I didn’t see—at least not at first—how that relationship would negatively impact me. Yes, he was high, but his high seemed no different than my high, which is a natural high. It was a high with a positive slant, a high that said I’m doing all I can to live life to the fullest.
Beneath the high—this ongoing explosion of inexhaustible energy—was a soul I saw as sensitive, sweet, and fundamentally good. Waylon dealt with the world—and everyone in it—squarely and fairly. His word was his bond. Not for a second did I ever doubt his fundamental integrity.
Our love was deeply spiritual, but also powerfully physical. For the first time in my life, I understood the meaning of the old standard song that talked about loving a man body and soul. Sexual satisfaction, combined with romantic intoxication, made for a heady brew. I didn’t want to be separated from this man—not for a minute.
Yet, the rhythm of our romance got disrupted early on. The first instance was a recording date Waylon had in Nashville. I stayed behind in Phoenix with Jennifer at my sister Sharon’s house. Waylon said he’d be back in a few days.
A few days became many days. Many days became many weeks. And still no Waylon. He flat-out disappeared. No letters, no calls. I had no idea where he was.
“I’ll find him,” said Sharon, seeing how upset I was.
“How are you going to do that?”
“Leave it to me. I’ll chase him down.”
It didn’t take Sharon long. She was a woman with an enormous network of people. Critical contacts were her specialty. After a few hours on the phone, she’d located him.
“He’s going to call you,” said Sharon.
“When?” I asked.
“Soon.”
Soon involved another two days of waiting. By the time he did call, I was infuriated.
“Got in a jam,” he said. “And it took a while to work things out. But I’ll be home soon and I just want you to know that nothing has changed. I still love you, baby. I love you more than ever.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said, “but what am I supposed to make of this disappearing act?”
“Doesn’t amount to a thing. See you in a few days.”
Sharon learned the story that Waylon would later confirm. While working in Nashville, he had slept with one of the female singers on his recording date. He saw it as a one-night affair. She saw it as much more. A few days later, she arrived at Waylon’s hotel with her four children in tow. She had left her husband for Waylon. Waylon didn’t want any part of it. But the woman wouldn’t be dissuaded. She wouldn’t budge. Meanwhile, her husband was incensed. He grabbed his gun and told anyone who’d listen that Waylon was as good as dead. When Waylon got wind of the man’s mission, he had to go into hiding until cooler heads prevailed. The drama played out over weeks.
Such information would be enough for a levelheaded woman to call the whole thing off. I considered that idea. But, when it came to loving Waylon, I was hardly levelheaded. I gave him a hard time when he finally showed up, but ultimately I capitulated. My relationship to Waylon and his sometimes wandering ways was complicated. Yes, I was tolerant. And yes, I gave him wide latitude. At the same time, I did my fair share of suffering and, as you will soon see, there were times when I bolted.
Paradoxically, though, I wouldn’t characterize our relationship as volatile. We never had knock-down-drag-out fights. We didn’t throw plates at each other. We never even slammed doors. There was never the slightest hint of violence. We had a wordless way of dancing around each other’s moods. The chemistry between us was as natural as it was inexplicable. Instinctively we knew how to navigate the tricky waters that sometimes separated us. Neither of us lived in the past or the future. We were planted in present tense. And because we were in the moment, we understood that any particular moment, particularly the uncomfortable ones, would soon pass.
When I did hit a rough patch, I had resources that helped me deal with negative emotions. My chief resource was music. I deeply believe that music was a key element to my surviving these early years with Waylon. Were I not a writer, I’m not sure I would have been able to process the mess of contradictory emotions invading my heart. In taking my tangle of feelings—anger, fear, confusion—and giving them a musical voice, I managed to work myself out of a state of rage. The rage remained in the songs.
An example is “It’s All Over Now,” written during this time when I was trying to cope
with this incorrigible creature. The story is not literal. None of my songs are exact slices of my life. I take poetic license in framing the scene. But the emotions are real. The emotions are mine.
When I was loving you, I gave all I had to give
You took that love I gave, you took my will to live
You didn’t want me then, babe, what
brings you back in now
I hear you talking, but just keep walking,
It’s all over now
How does it feel to be on the other side
Drop down to your knees, naked of your pride
Maybe next time you’ll know what you’re looking for
Maybe you can give her all she needs and more
You didn’t have the love I needed, I don’t need it now
The great irony is when I played “It’s All Over Now” for Waylon, he not only understood it, he loved it. He praised me to the sky. At first I thought his praise was just a way to get him off the hook. But it wasn’t. He was genuine.
“The way you put all those feelings in your song,” he said, “and the way you sing it—women all over the world will relate.”
No doubt, Waylon’s support of my music was a huge factor in repairing our relationship. He became my biggest booster. Convinced that I had been under-recorded or wrongly recorded, he was dead set on correcting that. He thought I needed to get out there onstage, front and center.
“You’ve been like a bird in a gilded cage,” he said. “We need to open the cage door and let the bird fly free.”
Such words were deeply reassuring, not because I longed to be a star but because my years as a semi-secluded Beverly Hills housewife had frustrated my inner artist. It wasn’t enough to have a few of my songs covered by other singers. I felt the need to sing them myself.
I sometimes wonder how I would have reacted had my parents discouraged me from staying with Waylon. After all, he was an untamed, hard-living rock-and-roll country star. He might have appeared to be just the kind of guy they wouldn’t want their beloved daughter to date. Yet the truth is that both Mother and Daddy adored Waylon. And he adored them.
An adventurer himself, Waylon recognized and respected that audacious spirit in my parents. Waylon saw that Arnold Johnson possessed the indomitable personality of a Wild West prospector. He admired my father’s dazzling scientific mind and knowledge of all things mechanical.
At first Waylon may have worried that Mother might proselytize and bring back bad memories of his childhood church. But Mother instinctively understood that sermonizing would only estrange him. Instead, she gave him wide berth. She had too much integrity to hide her religious convictions, but too much wisdom to flaunt them. In no uncertain terms, she let Waylon know that she loved him and soon came to see him as a son, a son who reminded her of Paul, who had died at such a young age. Sensing Waylon’s devotion to me, she never failed to support us even during our dark days.
One of the darkest days happened in the early seventies when Waylon was playing Panther Hall in Fort Worth. After the show a gaggle of girls, practically falling out of their clothes, came up to him, while I was standing right there. The tallest one got right in his face and said, “Hey, Waylon, do you wanna f_____?”
I was shocked. Waylon wasn’t. I had never heard young women speak this way. Waylon had. He just laughed and let them pass.
When we were back in my dressing room, I was rattled. Playing shows with Duane, I’d seen willing women, but nothing this brazen.
“Happens all the time,” said Waylon. “We even have a name for it.”
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
“Sure you do. They’re the Whore Core.”
“Except they’re not charging.”
“One way or another, you wind up paying a pretty price.”
“So this is just life on the road with Waylon Jennings.”
“’Fraid so.”
With Waylon, things just happened. Things just flowed. To go with the flow was easy. To resist it was hard. And yet, as I surrendered to the rhythm of our romance, anxiety cropped up. Nagging doubts came late at night or first thing in the morning. Why was I charging ahead? Why was I throwing caution to the wind? What was I getting myself into? I’d already seen how this man’s behavior was anything but predictable. Didn’t I need to slow down? Didn’t I need to take a deep breath and reconsider the situation? Didn’t I need to get out before it was too late?
After all was said and done, knowing what I knew and seeing what I saw, did I really truly want to spend the rest of my life with this man?
The answer was yes.
Chapter 12
“YOU WANNA GET MARRIED, DON’T YOU?”
WAYLON POPPED THE QUESTION AFTER DATING ME FOR LESS than a year.
For several long seconds, I stayed silent.
“Just like that?” I finally asked.
“Just like that.”
“You sure?” I asked again.
“I’m sure I love you. And I’m sure that’s enough. You have doubts?”
“You know I do,” I said.
“Well, that’s only reason to love you more. You’re honest about your doubts. But if I know you—and I think I do—you won’t let those doubts stop you. So just say yes and let’s get on with it.”
I said yes and we got on with it.
To be truthful, his proposal didn’t come as a surprise. I saw it coming months before. In fact, ever since I’d gone out on the road with Waylon, I’d been packing a wedding dress—nothing fancy, mind you, but a suitable outfit.
Yet the fact that I was prepared sartorially doesn’t mean that I was prepared emotionally. I was still scared of what permanent residence in the world of Waylon would look like—so scared that I spent most of our wedding day—October 26, 1969—nervously laughing.
I laughed when we got to the Las Vegas City Hall. I laughed when Waylon’s best man turned out to be his bass player who hit the same wrong notes every night and whose chief job was to carry the money briefcase. I laughed when the justice of the peace, whose deadly monotone that gave the impression that this was his hundredth wedding of the day, called me Mary instead of Mirriam. I laughed when I saw Waylon taking the ceremony super seriously. I laughed when I looked around and saw I had no bridesmaid in attendance, no parents, no family at all. I even laughed when I was supposed to say, “I do.” I laughed because I was nervous and scared and convinced that this was either the best day of my life or the worst. I laughed because I saw myself going on a ride with no turning back. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do.
We could have waited. We could have planned. We could have arranged a big wedding with his mom and my mom and everyone who meant the most to us. But Waylon didn’t want to wait and, in the end, neither did I. It felt more like an elopement than a thought-out marriage.
After the ceremony, we wound up at the Golden Nugget for a champagne dinner. The champagne only made me laugh harder.
“This ain’t no laughing matter,” said Waylon, who was all laughed out.
“If I don’t laugh,” I said, “I’ll cry.”
“Cries of regret or cries of joy?” he asked.
“Both.”
“For crying out loud, girl, just admit it. There ain’t no one in this whole dang world you’d rather marry than me.”
“I admit it, but I’m still laughing about it.”
We moved to Nashville for obvious reasons. Nashville was Music Center, headquarters for RCA’s country music division. Nashville was home to Chet Atkins, Waylon’s producer and a great supporter of my music. Nashville was centrally located, a logical point of departure for our nonstop road treks.
Waylon had history in Nashville. A few years before we met, he’d gone there to record for RCA under Chet Atkins’s supervision. That was a wild period when Waylon shared an apartment with Johnny Cash. Waylon told hilarious stories of Johnny’s inept but valiant attempts to bake biscuits, his face covered with white flour. They had more in common bes
ides a love of music. They both loved popping pills. While they knew that the other one was indulging, Waylon said that they never shared their stash. They never even mentioned their mutual habit.
They were the Odd Couple, running around town like teenage boys, going for days without sleep. It was in Nashville that they forged a friendship that lasted a lifetime. That friendship, however, was somewhat remote when I came on the scene. Johnny’s wife June was apprehensive about her husband’s bond with Waylon, whom she considered a bad influence. June kept Johnny on a short leash and wasn’t at all eager for the two men to socialize. It took a number of years for June to relax and allow the two men to renew their friendship.
Waylon decided to head for Nashville and set up shop. I was amenable. We found a nice condo on West End, the first of our many rental abodes. Seems like we were moving every eight or nine months.
The period following our marriage was hectic, exciting, creative, and disturbing. So much was happening at once. Waylon proved to be a wonderfully caring father to Jennifer. And when, given the serious problems he was having with his former wife Maxine, he asked whether I’d object to our taking in their three children—Buddy, ten; Julie, eleven; and Terry, thirteen—I readily agreed. I wanted to do all I could to make Waylon’s life manageable.
Blending the two families was not easy. I made the mistake of trying to be a friend to Waylon’s kids when, in fact, they required a disciplinarian. Knowing they had been neglected, I tried to heal their hurt with kindness. My approach, no matter how well-meaning, didn’t work. Strict boundaries would have given them a sense of security, but I lacked that insight. In that regard, I’m afraid I failed them.