by George Jones
When I awoke the next day, Nancy’s face was an enormous bruise. Someone had torn her clothes and undergarments off of her and beaten the hell out of her.
That someone, she tearfully said, had been me.
I insisted it couldn’t have been. I begged her to tell me who had done this to her so I could get even. God, I was sick.
Throughout the attack, she said, I kept calling her by the men’s names and telling them they could take this and take that for wrecking the lives of my family and me.
And then, Nancy said, I snapped to my partial senses and saw her bleeding and battered before me. She said I begged her forgiveness, and that of Adina, who had been pounding on the door that separated our rooms. Nancy said I got on my knees and pled.
I remembered nothing.
And still Nancy stayed with me.
There was other mistreatment. I’ve thrown Nancy off a bus during a cocaine-laden high, leaving her stranded at a truck stop without money. Bobby Birkhead, my road manager, threw a hundred-dollar bill out of the bus window on a couple of occasions as the bus pulled away from Nancy. Had I known he was helping her, I probably would have fired him. I was that insane.
Once an eighteen-wheeler rolled over the money. Its wake took the bill away, and Adina was left searching in the dark for the money that would have gotten her mother and her home.
I’ve stopped for refuelings at airports and, while Nancy was using the ladies’ room, ordered the pilot to fly away and leave her, with no money or luggage.
Why did I do it? I’m not making excuses when I say I didn’t. The whiskey-and-cocaine-drenched demon that lived inside of me did it. I was a different man inside the same body you see today.
I was a different man.
Nancy grew to believe that drugs are the enemy of the world. Good people do bad things while under the influence of drugs, she insisted. She refused to blame me and always blamed the drugs.
Nancy hates drugs. She’d fire anyone in our organization who used them, on or off duty.
And I would too—now.
Nancy left me once. It was when we were still in Muscle Shoals. She said she didn’t want to, but she had to leave to preserve her sanity. She honestly felt she was having a nervous breakdown. The fact is she probably suffered an untreated nervous breakdown.
She always kept Adina’s and her own clothes packed and two credit cards in her brassiere. Armed with these, she got into her car and got as far as the end of the street.
“But if I go it won’t serve any purpose,” she later remembered thinking, “except that the drug dealers will kill him.”
She stopped the car and cried uncontrollably. Then she turned around and came home.
And so, for the duration of 1982, Nancy pressed on—locked into the seemingly unending and impossible task of rehabilitating George Jones.
Chapter 23
I feel inner restlessness today less than ever. Far less.
Yet, when I least expect it, restlessness occasionally bursts through, although I’m sixty-four. It obviously isn’t as strong as it was during my crazy days. That’s a good thing for several reasons, including the fact that I’m too tired to roar the way I once did.
My life was once running ninety miles per hour down a dead-end street. Cats, not humans, have nine lives, yet I must have used up nine times ninety.
There is a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous. An alcoholic will either sober up or he’ll wind up locked up or covered up. One of the two would have been my destiny if I hadn’t finally, finally quit drinking and using drugs.
TV’s “60 Minutes” did a documentary about the Rolling Stones in 1994 in which Mick Jagger said that using drugs was a waste of life. The interviewer asked how long it took before he realized that.
“About twenty-five years,” Jagger laughed. “I was a quick study.”
So was I.
I don’t think I’d been drinking or using drugs when Nancy asked me to go to the store one day in 1982. The sun was high and I wasn’t, so I didn’t have my usual paranoia toward my enemies, real or imagined. I had no reservations about going to the market.
I had worked two or three shows and had bought a new pickup. I told Nancy I’d be right back with a loaf of bread.
I returned a week and two thousand miles later. What can I say? In those days I still had to sometimes get away on impulse. I still had the restlessness.
Nancy alerted law enforcement authorities, and I understand an all-points bulletin was issued regarding my whereabouts. Nancy feared the evil ones had found me and that I was dead. But I didn’t consider her or her worry when I took off. A heavy drinker and drug user is selfish and often doesn’t think about anything except his own elusive peace of mind.
I pulled off the highway, got a bottle, and soon had that golden glow that all binge drinkers know. I had the steering wheel in one hand, whiskey in the other, and the sun in my rearview mirror. I headed east toward Florida, where I still knew a few folks. I didn’t bother to see any of them. In fact, I only talked to one other person on the entire trip, and that was by accident.
I pulled over to take a drink and pee beside the road. I was too drunk to notice that I had stopped near a hitchhiker. The passenger door swung open and an old black man climbed into the seat.
When I first heard the noise of the door I jumped, thinking the drug dealers had followed me.
But this guy was too dirty and too scrawny to hurt anyone. He wasn’t carrying a gun. He didn’t look as if he had the strength to lift one.
“Now where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
I didn’t realize that the man expected me to ask that, believing I had stopped to give him a ride. He was drunk too.
“Where are you going!” I asked again, meaning, “What are you doing in my truck?”
The man was going to Fort Myers, Florida. But he had a thick, drunken accent, and I had a thick, drunken ear.
So when he said “Fort Myers” he pronounced it “Fouh Meyuus,” or so it sounded to me. I thought he said “Four miles.”
“You’re going four miles?” I asked.
“Fouh Meyuus,” he said.
“Well, I don’t know what the hell is so important four miles down the road, but I’ll give this old boy a lift,” I thought to myself.
I had never thought that a lot of black folks cared for country music. My pickup radio was set to a country station, and the old man told me that his favorite singer was George Jones. A couple of my records were played, and he sang along, telling me all about myself.
I’d never previously seen this guy in my life.
“Have you ever met George Jones?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I’s bin all over the world with him. Him and me is like that.”
He held two fingers together. Because I knew he was lying, I could think of one I wanted to hold up for him.
I passed the bottle to him each time I took a swig, and he seemed to be having a wonderful time. By that time I was sure I had driven seventy-five or eighty miles.
“Now where did you say you were going?” I asked.
“Fouh Meyuus! Meyuus!” he insisted.
“Well, goddamn,” I thought to myself, “this is the longest four miles I’ve ever driven. I think this old boy just wants my free whiskey.”
A person usually can’t smell too well when he’s soused, but I could sure smell this guy. I used the power switch to roll down each of our windows.
“Tell me where you’re going!” I yelled, above the noise of incoming wind.
“Fouh Meyuus, goddamnit,” he screamed. “Fouh Meyuus.”
“This son of a bitch must think it’s four miles to the end of the earth,” I thought. “Four miles my ass. I’ve been driving him for two hours!”
I had to do something to get rid of this guy, or at least his smell.
“All right,” I said. “Maybe you can see your destination better from the bed of the truck. I’ll stop, and you climb back there.”
; “Fouh Meyuus,” he muttered as he moved from the cab to the bed.
I drove through Fort Myers, and the old drunk was waving and pounding on the roof of my cab. I didn’t know we had reached his destination. He was trying to get me to stop, but I thought he just wanted another drink.
“I don’t guess he’s used to whiskey that good,” I thought, and zoomed right past the place where he wanted to get out. By then he had stood up in the pickup’s bed and begun to stomp. He was doing all he could to get me to stop, but I didn’t get it. So I just hollered out the window at him while he staggered inside the bed. “I know, ‘Four miles, four miles,’ ” I yelled, and kept on driving.
“Boy, that guy is making so much commotion, that booze is doing him better than it is me,” I thought. I took another swig.
I had to pee and pulled to the side of the road. He jumped out of the truck bed. I think the wind had sobered him up a little because when he said where he wanted to go, I understood Fort Myers.
“We just came through there,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”
He began to scream and jump up and down. Once again I couldn’t understand him. Then he peed and was still doing so when I sneaked to the truck. I burned rubber getting away from him. Blinking, he was holding himself and looking at me as I sped down the highway.
Stories like that are funny to me now, but only because they’re a past-tense part of my life. I walked into Nancy’s and my house after my absence and Nancy remembers that I made no explanation about where I’d been for a week. I simply told her about the passenger whose speech I couldn’t understand and then sat down as if nothing had happened.
I think I ate the bread.
* * *
They say folks can go home again but that they can never return. I had not lived in Texas since I had divorced Shirley. I wanted no part of Florida, Alabama, or Tennessee. My records were doing so well that I felt I could live wherever I wanted and still work. Maybe if I slipped away, the cocaine pushers and crooked managers would finally give up on me.
And that, in essence, is what happened in time, although I continued to use cocaine and underwent additional abuse for a while after the move.
I told Nancy we were going to move to East Texas to be near my sister Helen. I wanted to eat with my brother and other sisters too. I wanted to walk the dirt where I had walked as a child, when drinking and failure were something I saw the grown-ups do and wondered why they did. I wanted the soothing safety that went with the tall arms of the East Texas Big Thicket once again.
I knew my life could end any day from circumstances induced by my lack of food and excessive drinking and drug use. I knew that others, such as Elvis Presley, had officially died of heart failure but that the heart failure was drug-induced.
I frequently expected each binge to be my last. But I didn’t care. I was unhappy to the point of misery and didn’t know why. I was head over heels for Nancy, but on the other hand I was furious at her for being nice to someone I hated so much—me. So sometimes I sought to punish her by getting drunk and drug-soaked. What a pathetic existence. I would have preferred peace in death over misery in life. So when people told me I was drinking myself to death, my first thought often was “Pour another drink.”
My feelings for Nancy then were nothing like they are today. An alcoholic and drug addict doesn’t love himself. Someone who doesn’t love himself can’t really love someone else, not to the full degree.
Returning to Texas helped me stop drinking for a while. I went on a sobriety binge. And then I got the idea to stay in Texas and once again make my home part of my livelihood. I had owned the Old Plantation Music Park when I was married to Tammy in Florida. I had “owned” the two Possum Holler clubs when I had lived in Nashville.
I told Nancy we would open a recreational vehicle park, featuring live country music and other attractions, and call it Jones Country. Working on the place, I knew, would keep me busy. The busier I was, the less I would drink. I think my dry period lasted several months, with only an occasional slip.
I started working clubs again and often played for the door because I didn’t want to commit to an advance booking. Nancy and I (Adina was living with her father at the time) moved into a used mobile home, so our overhead was next to nothing. I’d perform on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, then work all week at clearing land with rented equipment. Nancy cooked at home, and all we did was work, eat, and sleep. Helen’s kids worked with us, and they were mighty inexpensive laborers. Tom Binkley, my attorney back in Nashville, handled my delinquent credit cards, and I got my credit rating built back up once again.
And each time I saved a few more thousand dollars from working weekend shows, I bought a few more acres. Finally, I had all the acreage I needed. We put in bleacher seats that went up a natural slope. We built an economical stage and put a sheet-metal roof over it. We had electric hookups for recreational vehicles and another area where folks could camp in tents. There was a concession stand and a restaurant too, and Nancy and I pretty much lived on the property after building the facility.
I don’t think there has ever been a time when I saved more money faster than when I built Jones Country. We barely had a grocery bill because we grew a lot of our own food.
Nancy was working in the garden one morning when I approached her. “If you’re going to be the next Mrs. Jones,” I said, “you’d better get up from there and let’s go get a blood test.”
Not straight out of Shakespeare, is it?
We didn’t even change out of our work clothes. We washed our hands and drove to Woodville, where we took the blood tests and bought the marriage license. We came back to our trailer, and I called Helen. I asked her to have a preacher and some witnesses at her house the next morning.
We got up the next day, took showers, put on our work clothes, and went to Helen’s. She, Uncle Dub, the preacher, and a cake were there to receive us. The preacher, Nancy, and I stood before the fireplace in Helen’s den. The preacher said his part, we each said “I do,” and that was it. Helen took some Instamatic pictures.
That was enough ceremony for me.
Helen also cut the cake, and I told her that Nancy and I didn’t have time to eat. We had a park to build.
That was on March 4, 1983.
We drove twenty miles to Jasper, Texas, and ate at the Burger King. I paid for our hamburgers with a twenty-dollar bill. When the change was returned, it was all the money we had in this world. At home we had one sack of beans. That was the extent of our pantry. That’s how we started our married life.
But the month’s installment on the mobile home was paid. Our food, because of the garden, and the sparse amount of cash would last us until I could get to a weekend show and pick up a few hundred dollars if I played for the door or a few thousand if I played somewhere where the promoter had adequate time to advertise.
I was interested in building Jones Country more than in performing. So I sometimes went back to deciding on Thursday morning whether I would work on Friday night. I resorted to calling a few honky-tonk owners personally, usually in Texas, and told them I’d come and play for the door. I’d ask for the telephone number of their local country music station, then call the program director and ask to have my telephone voice put on the air.
“Howdy, folks, this is George Jones,” I’d say. “I’m going to be at such and such ballroom tomorrow night from nine until one for three big shows. I want you all to come and hear me ’cause we’re going to have a mighty big time.”
Nancy and I would drive to the dance hall, and there was almost always a crowd waiting. That’s what you call show business by the seat of your pants.
I don’t know what else to say about Jones Country except that once again the biggest names in country music played my outdoor park, and I owned it for six years. Country stars put on concerts during summer holiday weekends, and we had a dance hall that was open on weekends year-round. The dance hall featured name entertainers, including Johnny Cash,
George Strait, Janie Fricke, Little Jimmie Dickens, Waylon Jennings, and others.
There was also a country store at Jones Country.
I might still be living in the East Texas woods next to Jones Country except that my recording and touring careers got so hot I couldn’t handle the responsibility of the road and run Jones Country as well. Rather, Nancy couldn’t.
In 1983 I had “I Always Get Lucky with You” and “Tennessee Whiskey,” songs that were number one and number two in that order. I went to number three and to number two in 1984 with “You’ve Still Got a Place in My Heart” and “She’s My Rock.” In 1985 I topped at number three with “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” a song that is a part of my live show today. And the hits, thank God, and the fans, continued.
As I mentioned, Nancy had pretty much become my manager, and there was no way she could approve the road bookings while trying to run Jones Country from our touring bus. I didn’t want anyone to cook at Jones Country except Nancy because no one else’s cooking could suit me. She’d be cooking one minute and working with a maid to clean the bathrooms the next. She was totally overloaded.
One day a customer complained that he couldn’t get his camper where he wanted because of a tree. Nancy got tired of hearing him bitch and fired up a chain saw. He’s lucky she took the saw to the tree and not to him.
She was about to drop dead from too many irons in the fire, and then, just when she thought she might actually be seeing the end of my drinking, I started again.
That was the final straw. I was going to have to sell the place or lose a wife and manager. So in 1989 Nancy and I returned to Nashville to be near my record label, as well as the recording studios, music offices, and all the rest that went with the life of a traveling recording artist.
But before we were married and before we returned to Nashville, there were additional wrinkles in our life.
In 1982 I had decided to visit Helen and let her have me committed for drug and alcohol abuse for the second time in my life. I was once again determined to get off the booze and cocaine. Of course, the treatment didn’t take.