by Dave Hickey
Which is not to say that I was a Gloomy Gus, far from it. I always felt a little bit outside, and a little bit below. So I was always trying to please and always expecting to be caught red-handed at something, found guilty of breaking some rule I’d never heard of. So I always pretended to be cutting-up and doing things in silly ways, like I really knew how to do them, but was just goofing around for fun. Even after I got famous, I remember this time in Tulsa, me and the band got taken to this bowling alley. And everybody was saying, “Boy, I sure like to bowl. Do you like to bowl, Hank?” And I said, “Oh, yeah, I love to bowl,” having not the faintest fucking notion until we got to the alley what bowling was. But I killed a pint in the car driving over there, and done all sorts of crazy things when we got there, so as not to let on—like rolling the ball back between my legs and pushing it down the lane with the toe on my boot. This was pretty hard on the nerves, I tell you, and even worse after I was a big star. But a fool knows how to be foolish, so it wasn’t too hard to make everything into a joke. If they figured out how really stone ignorant I was about things, they very rarely let on.
But it didn’t really matter, because, to be honest, I never really trusted another man except for maybe Fred Rose and Rufus Paine. But they, being a New York Jew and a black African blues man, respectively, were not all tore up with the idea of Southern Manhood like me and my buddies. And between the two of them, Fred Rose and Rufus Paine, they taught me how to make my special kind of redneck song, which is really just a combination of the black man’s blues I learned from Rufus Paine and the Jew craftsmanship I learned from Fred Rose. Between the Jews and the Blues, I used to say, the only redneck thing about my songs was me singing them through my nose. Because they taught me that the true songs, the real songs, the ones that lift you up, are built and well built out of the heart’s lumber, the singing word of your feelings about things. And all the rest don’t mean doo-doo as long as you’re accurate about that.
People kept telling us how country songs had to be simple and true to be great. Fred and I knew that was bullshit. We knew they had to be clear and perfect. Because if they were, they’d be the only clear and perfect thing in the stinking ditch most of us live in. Let me take an example, She’s my Eskimo baby, she’s my Eskimo pie. Now, that’s George Jones, and that’s simple. And that, God help us, is probably true. But it’s also bullshit. Today I passed you on the street and my heart fell at your feet. That’s not simple and that’s not true. But it will never come undone. Because it is clear and perfect about the feelings which, unfortunately, your average Southern boy would no more admit to having then he would admit to having the clap.
So, however much my songs made me into a rich Somebody, they never made me into one of the boys. Because the boys, no matter how thankful they was for me putting their feelings into words, still couldn’t respect me for it—no more than they could respect a Hebrew or an African or a woman or anybody who forgot to act like a goddamn Roman Emperor, and let his feelings show, especially his romantic feelings. It’s pretty silly, when you think about it, since these days nobody but Frenchmen and Hollywood homos believe that old saw about how Southern men are as cold and bold as their women are flighty and sentimental, when the fact is just the reverse. In truth, no Southern woman has believed a single word out of the mouth of a Southern man since 1861, when the men went riding off on their chargers shouting, “Not to worry, sugar plum. We be home early from the war.” And, as a result, your average Southern belle of today is about as sentimental as a chain saw. And though she might twitter on about good manners and religion and such, when it really comes down, she don’t believe in nothing but hard currency, land in clear title, and rigged elections. Lily and Audrey didn’t even believe in the last two. On the other hand, your average Southern gent, of which I was a touching example, believes in his heart of hearts and despite of his rough and tumble ways, in fair play—and remains a fool for any kind of romantic adventure that requires charging the cannon to demonstrate his pure and constant allegiance to some lost cause, which, often as not, turns out to be one of them beautiful Southern girls without an ounce of mercy nor a jot of fair.
But I wanted to trust women and be trusted by them, though I can’t imagine why. I’d’ve never expected that of a man. And it wasn’t that women wouldn’t love me. They would. It was just that they wouldn’t keep on loving me irregardless. I wanted to be loved that way. I wanted to be loved the way I loved them, right or wrong, good or bad, fair or foul—like Stonewall Jackson loved the South, lost cause or not, like Jesus loves us all, but with a little more fucking thrown in. Because I wasn’t ever going to be all good, I knew that. Not with whisky as my copilot. But I always tried to be extremely good, when I was good. To balance out the extremely bad that was bound to crop up from time to time. But I didn’t intend to perform for love, not in private. I wanted it fair, open, aboveboard, and in advance. But they just couldn’t see that part of it, not the religious side.
The love I got was always practical and profitable, when I was thinking about something more along the lines of constant. And my mama, Lily, Christ, she didn’t know nothin’ but how to pinch a penny until it screamed and complain. She busted my ass and let me grow up ignorant as a stump of everything in the world but woman-talk, about all the good things these little Southern boys did for they mamas that got them out of south Alabama. But she did do that, Lily did. She got me out of south Alabama, and I was grateful for it. It was just too bad, I guess, that I got out of there with such a clear picture of how painful it was to be clean and thrifty and Christian. Because after I achieved that Louisiana border, I never felt the least inclination to try it for myself. Why be an upright Christian citizen, I thought, if it keeps you in such a damn foul humor all the time.
Of course, the woman was just trying to make herself irreplaceable so I wouldn’t run off on her like Lon did. But, by the time I figured out that, it was too late again. I had already replaced Lily with someone just as crazy, and crazier even. I mean, Lily drove me toward the stage like I was a draft ox, but at least she had the sense not to follow me up there into my safe place. Because the stage was my hideout, you know, my last resort. Right up there in front of God and everybody I was my own man. I could find some warmth up there, with nobody standing in my light. Until Audrey, that is. And God knows I loved her better than free whisky, but she chased me clean out onto the stage, up to the edge, and over into the orchestra. I nearly throttled her a hundred times for the few times I really tried it, and the damn woman was so thick, she could not understand. She thought I was “stifling her career,” and I couldn’t explain it to her noways. That stage was my club. You know how them railroad barons and Tammany politicians had these private clubs just for them and their buddies? No women allowed, not wives, nor mothers, no how? Well, when I was up there on the stage with the Driftin’ Cowboys, that was my club, and the damn crazy female would just not let it be.
Still, I don’t want you to think that my life was just fighting and cheating, and whisky and mojophine, and crying and dying. A lot of it was laughing and loving and just living. Having a soda pop and breathing the air. I remember I wrote this song for Audrey one time, which nobody much recorded, called Why Do We Try Anymore? The song was about the feeling of not wanting to try anymore, so the answer to the question wasn’t part of the song. But the answer is that you try because, when you quit, you die, and life is better than death, I promise. I remember this one time, right after we moved into the big house in Nashville, I’d come in from the road and crashed out for about two days, and when I woke up, it was about five in the morning and I didn’t know where I was. I was in this big, cool room with light colored walls full of gray, predawn light, stretched out on this big, soft bed with crispy, clean sheets. Wherever I was, I’d never felt so good in my life. And then I saw Audrey sleeping beside me, and I knew it was my house, and I felt even better. Without waking Audrey, I got up and tiptoed downstairs in my stocking feet, loving the feel of that plush car
pet through my old white socks. Downstairs, I got me a Coca-Cola out of the Frigidaire and carried it into my den, which had a picture window looking out over the lawn, and, just as I walked into the room, the sun broke over the hillside and the whole yard of St. Augustine grass, covered in dew, burst into Technicolor, just like in The Wizard of Oz. And I stood there, in my dark den, smelling the leather and sipping my Coke, looking at that bright-green yard, and I thought to myself, “Hank, just this one morning, just this single sunrise, is your everlasting reward.” And, for once, I was right.
THE LITTLE CHURCH OF PERRY MASON
From time to time, if I am not careful, people whom I do not know very well will come up to me and ask if I have any religion. I always say, “Not yet,” and then (in order to mitigate this confession) I volunteer that, even though I have no religion, there are some things that I do religiously. I listen to Exile on Main Street, in its entirety, at least once a year. I reread Under the Volcano and Tristram Shandy often enough to keep them fresh in my memory, and, whenever possible, I watch reruns of Perry Mason—the black-and-white television series from the nineteen fifties starring Raymond Burr as Earle Stanley Gardner’s fictional defense lawyer. Now, for the purposes of this essay, I must elaborate on that confession somewhat and admit that watching Perry Mason “whenever possible” has been pretty damned often over the years—that in fact, I have probably spent roughly three times as many hours in front of old Perry Mason episodes as I have spent listening to Mozart and reading Shakespeare combined. This is not a happy statistic, but there it is.
I began watching Perry Mason when I was an adolescent, during its original run from 1957 to 1966 (a total of 271 episodes). At that time, the appeal of the series was tripartite. First, it took place on the streets of Los Angeles—which was unusual for TV shows at the time—and Los Angeles was the coolest place in the world. Second, the series was sponsored by a sequence of Detroit automakers, so Perry always drove the shiniest models of the newest cars down the palm-lined thoroughfares. Third, and most importantly, Perry Mason trusted people. That was his “superpower”—and he used it to defend the innocent.
This made Perry Mason a fairly unusual hero for the fifties. He wasn’t particularly strong or wise or brave or good with his fists. In fact, he was a bit of a dandy—arrogant, overly clever, and sometimes downright sneaky. But he was basically a “good guy” who wore neat suits, drove cool cars, and trusted people. He had this uncanny ability to intuit native innocence. He could listen to the wildly improbable stories of the unjustly accused and just know they were the truth. Thus, for any kid growing up in the fifties—unjustly accused of being pampered, delinquent and, somehow, vaguely responsible for not having fought in World War II or suffered through the Great Depression—Perry Mason was an attractive and redemptive figure. Just the fictional probability of being presumed innocent in those fat, nervous, distrustful times was a big deal—and evidently it has remained so, since, subsequent to its cancellation, the series has never been out of national daily syndication.
I know this, because I have not had a day job for a very long time; and, over the years, watching Perry Mason reruns has gradually come to signify my not having one day job, to function as a sacrament in the Church of Unemployment. I cannot tell you how many quiet mornings I have spent sitting around hotel rooms and furnished apartments in the United States and Mexico, smoking cigarettes, plunking the guitar, and watching Perry Mason—telling myself, “Well, at least, I don’t have a day job. And there is nothing wrong with that. I am not guilty of anything. Perry would see that in a minute.”
At present, Perry Mason runs every morning on WGN out of Chicago; then it runs an hour later on WTBS out of Atlanta; and then, two hours after that, Perry and Della Street and Paul Drake and Lieutenant Tragg and Hamilton Burger reappear on the local Warner Brothers station here in Las Vegas. Whenever I am at home, then, I can usually catch at least part of one episode every day. (Usually the second half, the courtroom ritual, for which the first half is just set-up.) In periods of serious regression, I catch all three episodes, dozing comfortably through the sections I have memorized. Considering the ubiquity of Perry Mason nationwide, I presume that I am not the only snoozing devotee; and considering the sponsorship of these reruns (personal-injury lawyers, credit-clearing firms, The Devry Institute of Technology, and The International School of Blackjack Dealers), I must assume that I am not the only one for whom Perry Mason functions as a sacrament in the Church of Unemployment.
For all of us, I think, Perry and his legal secretary, Della Street, and his detective sidekick, Paul Drake, must constitute a kind of trinity—the Trinity of the Professional Family. They evoke for us a kind of ideal collegial atmosphere, which, if it actually existed, would make steady employment less onerous—although we are used to its nonexistence by now, accustomed to our disappointment. In the beginning, back in the fifties, Perry and Della and Paul were enacting this fantasy of happy, serious, collaborative work at the moment it became a fantasy, at the moment in history when the American ideal of the working family was finally supplanted—first in the workplace by corporate formalism, and then, in the domestic sphere, by this tarted-up, late-Victorian paradigm of Arcadian households tucked away from the tumult of commerce in tidy suburban cloisters.
So, at its inception, the fantasy of Perry Mason arose to fill the vacuum left by the schism of love and work, to hold that place for us in memory and expectation. Thinking of it like this, as a compensatory narrative, probably explains why so many rock-and-roll musicians of my generation were (and probably still are) addicted to Perry Mason. Leaving aside the fact that rock-and-roll musicians tend to watch a lot of morning TV, that they have an affinity for shuffles like “The Perry Mason Theme,” and are often in need of defense attorneys, the fact remains that a rock-and-roll band, at its heart, aspires to be just the sort of working family that is idealized in Perry Mason.
The issues are the same: love and work, justice and democracy. Charles Williams, in his lovely essay about television writing, argues that all popular narratives, in the maintenance of these issues, elaborate a single plot—The family is threatened; the family is reunited—in infinite variations: The galaxy is threatened; the galaxy is reunited. The earth is threatened; the earth is reunited. The nation is threatened, the city threatened, the neighborhood threatened, the family threatened; they are all reunited. Unfortunately, as Williams notes, all of these plots, in practice, aim at restoring Daddy to his rightful place at the head of the table.
There is, however, an even more basic plot at work in Perry Mason and in rock-and-roll—one that preempts the reign of Daddy and speaks to the primal, social imperatives of human beings adrift on the prehistoric veldt: The band is threatened; the band is reunited. That’s the plot, and before the pressure of its imperatives, gender roles are only decoration, like the cars and the coco palms. Miss Marshall Chapman, my ex-paramour and rock-and-roll co-conspirator, put it best one night in South Carolina: We were working up “The Perry Mason Theme” for her walk on . . .
“See!” she said, executing her Perry Mason walk, standing very erect, holding her elbows in and moving from the shoulders, kind of swooping across the stage light on her feet. “It’s not a boy thing. It’s not a girl thing. It’s a cool thing. Cool is what you do!”
Which is simply to say that, in rock-and-roll and Perry Mason, the integrity of the family roles are not at issue. What matters is the integrity of the family endeavor, the style of love and work, because the traveling band and the working family exist not just to preserve values, but to invent them, to propagate them by doing things in the world. In this sense, then, both rock-and-roll bands and Perry Mason’s staff reconstitute the ideal of the American family in its original, nineteenth-century form, as a quasi-democratic, mercantile unit (the family farm, the family firm, the vaudeville act)—as a collective endeavor in which the static rigor of single-provider patriarchy is mitigated by issues of competence and merit, by the exigencies of coll
aboration, and by the ethics of the task at hand, which, in Perry and in rock-and-roll, is the affirmation of American innocence in the face of pervasive guilt and complicity.
Thus, the “front story” in any Perry Mason episode—Someone is murdered; the murderer is identified and found guilty—is never the real story. Because in the Church of Perry Mason, the victims are also guilty; they are, every one, so deserving of their fates, so thoroughly unmourned and unmournable that everyone in the narrative, excepting Perry and the defendant, is complicit in the death. Perry demonstrates this during the trial and then exposes the most guilty of the suspects as the murderer. But this is not his real job. Perry’s real job is the public validation of his client’s private decency, because the story in any Perry Mason episode—the real story in a journalistic sense—is that one person, in the whole sordid, sun-drenched Babylon of Los Angeles, is innocent! So we root for Perry’s professional family, and hope that, by establishing one person’s innocence, his family might survive in harmony to demonstrate the innocence of others—to perpetuate the possibility of redemption.
This, it seems to me, is a relatively benign fantasy. The possibility that private decency might be publicly validated and that human beings might work together happily to this end are not, after all, such terrible dreams. They are not “real life,” but popular narratives are not real life, and everyone knows it. In truth, such narratives are the churches of everyday life. They bless its ragged contingencies with rituals of closure and reassurance, and, since we have freedom of religion in this republic, each of us may worship at the church of our choice—or, if we wish, worship like ancient Romans, at as many churches as we please, according to our local needs. I have done this on occasion, when the pressure of circumstance has led me from the Way of Perry Mason.