Crazy Heart

by Thomas Cobb

  “Just the gas?” the boy asks.

  “Can I put anything else on the card?”

  “Hell, anything I got in here, except beer.” He gestures around the inside of the station, which looks more like a damned grocery store than a gas station.

  Bad walks down the aisles. Nothing here looks like breakfast. Still, breakfast costs cash. He takes two ham sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a bag of potato chips, three fried peach pies, a handful of Milky Ways, a six-pack of Coke, a carton of Pall Malls, a Playboy magazine, and a red-and-yellow plastic lighter that says “Land of Enchantment.”

  “I got tires and batteries outside,” the boy says.

  “I believe this is all the hungry I got.”

  “I mean for your car.”

  “It ain’t hungry at all.”

  The boy rings it up. Forty-seven eighty-three with the gas. Bad signs the receipt “B. Blake / Greene and Gold Productions.”

  “You must be on your way to the races,” the boy says as he hands Bad the receipt.

  “Races?”

  “Yeah. You look like a horseman and all. I figured you was on your way to the races.”

  “Where?”

  “Raton. About ten miles south. People have been coming through all week for the races. They run every day, all month long.”

  “Ten miles. And how far is, what the hell, Las Vegas?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one on this road—New Mexico.”

  “Well, the other one is on this road, too, if you’re starting on this road. Of course, you’d have to get off it to get there.”

  “Las Vegas, New Mexico?”

  “About a hundred and fifty miles, straight south.”

  Life has a way of dropping itself into your lap. He is down to his last ten bucks, but he has five and a half hours to make one hundred and fifty miles, and ten miles away there is a racetrack.

  He leans on the rail, squinting at the racing form. He has bet two races, and he is two dollars and thirty cents to the good after expenses. He has paid two dollars to park, one dollar to get in, and fifty cents for a racing form. He is making old-lady bets and they are bringing him back. He bets two dollars on the favorite to show. One horse pays two thirty, and the other, which really does run third, pays four fifty.

  “Don’t believe that thing,” an old guy in a straw hat and blue jeans tells him. “Those damn things don’t tell the whole story. If they did, you can damn well bet you they wouldn’t be selling them for no damn fifty cents.”

  “It’s what I got.”

  “And you ain’t got much there, let me tell you. Damn things don’t tell the whole story.”

  “I don’t ever expect the whole story. Except in dirty books.”

  “And you don’t get it there, either. When’s the last time some old gal farted in one of them books? You want the whole story, you got to find someone that knows it. Then you got to make sure he knows it. Then you got to convince him to tell you.”

  “You got someone who knows?”

  “Hell, I ain’t got nobody. I had me an old woman a while back, but she didn’t want me sniffin’ after nothing but her.” The old guy hacks up a wad of phlegm and puts it over the rail and into the grass. “I sent her packing. I can’t be roped down like that.”

  “Yeah. Well, there’s that.” Bad goes back to the racing form.

  “What I got is myself. Myself is what I trust. And I know a couple things about ponies.”

  “I’m only betting this race. I got to get back on the road.”

  “I could use one of those cigarettes you got.”

  Bad shakes one out of the pack and lights it for him. The old guy doubles over with a fit of coughing. “Shit,” he says. “I ain’t got no lungs no more. What is this?” He looks at the cigarette. “Hell. Used to be, I thought only little girls smoked these things. I rolled my own out of Mexican tobacco. Now I ain’t got no lungs. Ain’t got no knees and I ain’t got no lungs. I still got a brain, though. And”—he pokes Bad in the ribs—“I still got me a pecker if you got some old gal who’s got the hungries.” He wheezes and hacks more phlegm. “I can tell you a goddamned thing or two about these nags here, too. Which one you figuring on?”

  “Six.”

  “Old Judy’s Pride. He can run. That form there will tell you that. Of course, that ain’t the whole story.”

  “I kind of figured it might not be.”

  “Shit. You figure I’m jerking you. Hell, you ask anybody around here if old Shorty jerks people. Shit, no. Son-of-a-bitch. I know these goddamned horses. I help folks out. You’re figuring on betting on Judy’s Pride. You need helping out. That’s all I’m trying to do. Let me explain one damned thing to you. Judy’s Pride is skittish as hell. If he gets pushed into the rail, he’s going to back off. There’s an old boy riding this race that’ll push him right through the fucking rail if he gets half a chance. That horse is going to finish out of the money, and your money is going to be about three steps behind him.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Well, I was you, I’d get me a bottle of good whiskey and just set here and watch ’em run while the jackasses with the racing forms throw their money at ’em. That’d be a hell of a lot cheaper than the way you’re going at it.”

  “I got to hit one more before I leave. And that number six looks good to me.”

  The old guy coughs again. “Hell. I got time invested in you. I tell you what. I’ll give you the damn horse. You win, you slip me a fin. You lose, it don’t cost you a dime other than the money you was all set to lose anyway.”

  Jesus. Bad wonders if everyone in Judah, Indiana, raises the kind of fools his mother did. “O.K. What do you have?”

  “Stick Shift,” the old boy says. “Stick Shift to win.”

  Bad goes back to the form. “Stick Shift hasn’t run better than third in a single start.”

  “That’s right. Twenty to one right now. Let me tell you something. That horse started the season with a bad knee. I watched him run this morning. He’s ready, and he’s got Jesse Castenada on top. That old boy will bring him in. He’ll go after the six horse on the rail, and he’ll take the rail the rest of the way in. He’s healthy. Six is the only one that can flat outrun him, and old Jesse Castenada will make sure he doesn’t. That boy is as smart as he is mean. And he’s meaner than day-old coffee.”

  What the hell, Bad figures. He’s only got twelve dollars. If he loses five, what the damn difference does it make? The old guy has him too confused to figure anything out for himself anyway. “Let’s go to the window,” he says. The old guy gimps along behind him.

  When Bad has his five dollars down, they head back around the grandstand for the race. “Why don’t you bet if you know so much?”

  The old guy looks at him. “I suspect you done some drinking in your time.”

  “Yeah. A bit.”

  “A bit, my ass. You know what I’m talking about. Betting’s gambling. Drinking’s too damn serious for gambling. I pick a few horses, I make a few bucks. I never worry about a damn dry streak. I get me a bottle and a place to drink it, what the hell do I need money for?”

  When the horses leave the gate, number six takes the early lead, and Stick Shift hangs well back in the pack. Around the far turn, Stick Shift moves up, and they run neck and neck until the last turn, when Stick Shift moves up by a neck and crowds toward the rail. It is just as the old guy has said it would be. Coming out of the final turn, it is Stick Shift on the rail. Judy’s Pride has fallen back a full length, and Stick Shift has the rail and only space to the finish line.

  Stick Shift has come off at seventeen to one. At the window, Bad collects eighty-five dollars. He gives the old guy a twenty.

  “Thanks. I’m obliged. I only need five.”

  “Buy yourself a good bottle. Have a good time.”

  “Hell, I’ll damn well do that. Someday, someone will do you a favor. Hell, I’ll probably be dead by then, but someone will do you one. And I’m going
to goddamn hope you don’t need it too bad.”

  He has started the first set feeling good. Things have turned around. He can sense that things are going to go his way for a while. Now, deep into the set, he is getting weary, trying to sing half a beat slower to find the band’s pace. When he slows, they slow further. He’s afraid the whole set is going to wind down like a four-dollar watch. He has taken to giving the drummer the beat before each song. He counts it, the drummer taps it. When Bad turns his back, the drummer slips right back to the slower tempo.

  “That was ‘Cold, Cold Heart,’” he says. “Hank Williams did that. He’s dead now. Next we’re going to do Lefty Frizzell’s ‘Please Release Me.’ Lefty’s dead, too. All this done by a singer who’s nearly dead. Backed by the band that probably killed them all.” And damned if the band doesn’t take a bow.

  He lets the band take the tempo and tries to adjust to it. Instead of singing the song in the lower register, letting it rumble, he decides to try it Lefty’s way, bending the notes. That way, he figures, he can get a little ahead of the band, and bend the notes until they come strangling up behind him. It works better than anything else he has tried. He’s not Lefty, but then neither are all the singers who are trying to imitate him, and the people in the audience who don’t remember Lefty know the imitators and appreciate the sound.

  At the break, he stays at the bar. He has two quick whiskeys, then switches to Coca-Cola. The memory of last night is still fresh, and if he is going to do one more set dragging this band behind him, he’s going to have to stay sober.

  He shakes hands and smiles. “Of course,” he says. “How the hell are you doing?” “Des Moines, sixty-two—hell yes, I remember. We had a fine time.” “It’s good to see you again.” “It’s real nice to meet you.” “You take care of yourself now.” “Sure I’ll play ‘Slow Boat’ again for you.” “Tommy’s in Nashville, working on a new album. Next time I see him, I’ll say ‘hey’ for you.” People are pressing notes written on cocktail napkins into his hands while he talks. He pockets them. Most of them are requests for dedications of “Slow Boat.”

  While he shakes hands and talks, he looks around the bar. It is full of wood paneling and cowboy art. From the wall opposite him, a deer stares at him with black marble eyes. It is a huge buck that must have run and rutted through the mountains for years until some accountant or bricklayer with a pickup truck, a five-hundred-dollar rifle and a case of jolting bad desire slammed him into the rocks. Someone has put a baseball cap on its head, between the magnificent rack. Bad takes out his glasses and looks.

  “Let’s fuck,” it says on the cap. Jesus, isn’t that just the way? As if it isn’t bad enough that they run you to the ground sooner or later, they insist on making you into a fool.

  “Bad?” A tall, thin man in a western shirt reaches a hand to him. “It’s good to see you again, Bad.”

  “Hell, old buddy, it’s good to see you again.” Then he stops and looks again.

  “Bob Glover, Bad.”

  “I’ll be goddamned, Bob Glover. Jesus.” He takes off his glasses and pockets them. “It really is good to see you again. What the hell are you doing here, Bob?”

  Bob Glover was his bass player in 1959 or 1960, one of Bad’s Boys for a couple of tours during the years that Bad was on the road constantly.

  “I live here. In Las Vegas. I been here nearly twenty years. I got a construction business here. I’m doing all right for myself.”

  “Well, hell. That’s wonderful. Why the hell aren’t you up here with me tonight?”

  Bob Glover holds up his left hand, fingers upright and spread. “Smooth as a girl’s cheek, Bad. Not a callous left. I don’t play anymore. There’s no time for it, the business and the kids and all. I brought someone to meet you tonight.”

  Bad looks down to a boy in a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. “Howdy,” Bad says. “Bad Blake’s my name.”

  “Hello,” the boy says. “Todd Glover, sir.”

  “Well, Todd, I’m real pleased to meet you. Did you know your dad and I used to play together?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Grandpa, Bad. Todd here is my grandson.”

  “No. The hell you say.”

  “Sure enough.” He laughs. “Tod is Bob junior’s oldest.”

  “The hell. You had a boy. I remember that. But Bob, he wasn’t any older than this boy here.”

  Bob laughs again. “Time has a way of slipping by. You had a boy, too.”

  “He’s in California, with his mother. But he’s…Hell, Bob, he’s twenty-four years old now. I don’t see him. I mean, since the divorce. Todd Glover”—he bends down—“how would you like to see your grandpa get up on the stage and play with me tonight? Would you like that?”

  The boy nods.

  “Oh no, Bad. Not this old boy. I’m a businessman now. I haven’t played in years.”

  “Oh hell. You haven’t forgotten anything. It’ll come back. You bring any equipment?”

  “No. Bad, I don’t play.”

  “No problem, old buddy. We’ll just kick one of these clowns out for a while. You can play guitar. You can play my guitar. I’ll take the bass for a while. We can get these yahoos playing in the right tempo. Come on up. Just for a couple of songs. Hell, just for ‘Slow Boat.’”

  Bob laughs. “Bad, no. I can’t. I won’t. I appreciate the offer, but that’s not my life anymore. I just came by to listen and say ‘hi’ and let Todd here meet you. I wanted him to see you, to know what I used to do.”

  “Used to do, hell. Once a musician, always a musician. You know that. It’s in your blood, Bob.”

  “No, Bad, it’s in yours. I believe that, but it’s not in mine. I’m happy with my life the way it is now. I wouldn’t trade it.”

  “Come on, Bob Glover, don’t tell me you didn’t have yourself a good old time when you were one of Bad’s Boys.”

  Bob laughs. “Oh no, I’d never try to tell anyone that. I did have some real good times, but that’s what they were, Bad, some good times. And it got to me. The road, you know. It wore me down. I loved it for a while, but I got tired. Remember nineteen sixty? We were on the road more than we were off. God, we’d get home and I’d see Martha and Bobby for a couple of days, start to settle in for a little bit. I mean, the dog would start to recognize me again, and then you’d call and off we’d go again. I got so I knew that bus better than my wife.”

  “Jesus, I loved that bus, that old Silver Eagle.”

  “Yeah, you did. You really did. And I really didn’t. I’d have a great time the first couple of days out, then I just got tired of the road, the booze, the bars, the dope and the women. I just wanted to go home. I never understood how you did it.”

  “Well, hell, Bob, that’s the business. When it’s your business you just do it.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. It wasn’t my business. I’m a born house builder. I leave at six in the morning, and I come home at five. And twice a year I get in my Winnebago with Martha, and sometimes Todd here, and then I go on the road. Only we go fishing.”

  “Well, we had us some good times.”

  “We sure did. And I’m still proud I was one of Bad’s Boys. It’s a fine thing to look back on. And I’m real glad to see you’re still at it. You still love it like you did?”

  “I’ve slowed down some. I guess we all have. Mostly I stay in Houston. I’ve got a good little band there and steady work, but I go out every summer for a month or so. I’m the whole show now. I’m the band, the road crew and the bus driver, but yeah, I still like it.”

  “I hope you’re easier on yourself than you were on us. You remember? Work hard, play hard? You expected everyone to work, and then, when we were done with that, you demanded everyone go play. You were like one of those slave drivers, only instead of a horse and a whip you had a guitar and a whiskey bottle.”

  Bad laughs and takes Bob by the shoulder. “Like I said, old buddy, I’ve slowed down a bit. Play one song with me and I promise I’ll let you go, and get you hom
e before sunup.”

  “That would be a change, but thanks just the same, I think Todd and me will just sit and listen tonight.”

  Bad bends back down to the boy. “Todd Glover, your grandpa here was a real good musician. I want you to know that. Him and me had some real fine times in the old days. And he could still play better than any of these guys up here with me tonight. And I’d like to buy you both a drink.” He stands back up. “Coca-Cola?”

  Todd nods.

  “And?”

  “Coca-Cola. A lot of things have changed, Bad. I don’t do a lot of the things I used to do. I got a problem or two with my heart.”

  Bad nods. His own heart jitter-steps.

  He hands them their Cokes. The band is already on the bandstand. “You sure you won’t change your mind?”

  Bob shakes his head and holds out his hand. “It’s been great to see you again, Bad. You’re still going strong. I’m real happy to see that.”

  “Yeah. Well, the same here. You were probably smart to get out when you did. The business has gone to the dogs. You take care of yourself. And Todd Glover, you take good care of your grandpa here. Remember, he was one of Bad’s Boys. Ain’t a lot of them left anymore.” They shake hands.

  Sweet Jesus, he thinks on the way back to the bandstand. Bob Glover a grandfather. There is another idea connected to that. He jumps up onto the bandstand and grabs his guitar. “Welcome back,” he says. “Glad you stuck around. There’s a lot of great music, and hell, we might never quit.”

  Chapter Three

  He has three days in Santa Fe. He has never seen such a flat place. Buildings are built low and nestle into the hills. Even signs hug the tops of buildings. He feels he is the only vertical thing in the town.

  Jack has sent two hundred dollars, waiting at the desk of the motel when he checks in. It is still morning, and he is doing errands. He has not been able to do errands in three weeks. He stops at the liquor store, and then he finds a laundry.