Pretty Paper

by Willie Nelson

  Next thing we know, we were booked on local TV shows in Austin, Abilene and Longview. That meant wearing nicer clothes. We put Cynthia and her mom in charge of that. Our outfits—Western-styled suits in black suede—gave us a classier image. Then Ring, who also ran a booking agency, found us work in places as far away as Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Denver, Colorado. Our first hotel lounge gig was in Reno.

  “Nevada? That’s where people either lose money or get hitched,” I told Marla.

  “Is that supposed to be a proposal?”

  “You know I want to marry you.”

  “Then propose the right way,” she demanded.

  “Which way is that?”

  “On your knees.”

  I fell to my knees.

  “How’s this?” I asked.

  “Now say the right words.”

  “Marry me.”

  “It’s gonna take more sugar than that. I’m gonna have to hear some pretty words.”

  I spoke the words. I said I adored her. I called her the most wonderful, beautiful, incredible woman in the world.

  “Is that enough?” I asked.

  “Enough to give me something to think about.”

  “You’re playing with me.”

  “Only ’cause I love you. Let’s do it in Vegas. We’ll get Willard and Cynthia to go along with us.”

  On a Monday morning in June, in a little chapel across from the Sahara, Marla, myself, Willard and Cynthia stood in front of a justice of the peace dressed up in a clown costume. The neon sign outside advertised FIVE-DOLLAR WEDDINGS.

  “How much for a double wedding?” asked Willard.

  “Another two bucks,” said the clown.

  “Deal,” said Willard, who loved bargains.

  Cynthia was hesitant. Her mom had her heart set on a fancy wedding at an Austin country club.

  “We’ll have the party there,” said Willard. “But we can’t let Vernon and Marla get ahead of us.”

  Sticks was our witness.

  Afterward, we went to the Sahara and got silly drunk. Louis Prima and Keely Smith were the lounge act. He sang “Just a Gigolo” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody.” For some reason his singing made me sad. That same night we booked a two-bedroom suite with a split-level living room. Cynthia and Willard never made it to their bedroom. They passed out on the living room couch.

  In our room, Marla stood in front of the window that looked out onto the dark desert.

  “When I saw we were being married by a clown,” I told her, “I almost ran out.”

  She turned to me and said, “I thought it was funny.”

  “Marriage isn’t supposed to be a joke.”

  “It isn’t?” she asked.

  —

  Gray paper for the gray concrete highway that became our home. The highway never ended.

  By the middle of the 1950s, we were road-weary, but we were also seasoned pros. We’d been out there for years and were determined to take it to the next level. “Faith” had sold enough to convince Ring Dawson to let us cut a whole album. I wrote eight new songs—Marla sang five and Willard sang three. None of them hit. Skeeter was in the studio when we recorded and urged me to sing at least one number, but I wasn’t feeling it. For me as a singer, “Faith” was a one-shot deal. Willard had the better voice, no doubt, and I liked the way he sang my songs about looking for love in all the wrong places. Marla had been on my case to write a hit song for her, and God knows I tried.

  I wrote heartache songs, happy songs and work songs. The year before Tennessee Ernie Ford hit big with “Sixteen Tons,” I wrote a tune called “Coal Miner’s Heartbreak.” Willard did a good job singing it, but the song went nowhere. As a group, I guess you’d have to call us a “one-hit wonder.” At best, ours was a regional hit that faded after a while. Not that I was complaining. “Faith” was popular enough to get us out there on a circuit of barrooms and dance halls in the Southern and border states, to where we were able to eke out a living.

  Sticks, our steady drummer, had no problem hanging in. Willard, who had dreams of being the next Eddy Arnold or Hank Snow, liked the spotlight. So did Marla, who also had designs on big-time stardom. It was Cynthia who suffered most. I do believe that she loved Willard and, at least for the first years, she shared in our fantasy of show business fortune and fame. But unlike the rest of us, Cynthia came from an upper-class family. She had never been deprived of the creature comforts that our band had to forgo. We barely got by. We had no choice but to crash at the cheapest motels and eat at the cheapest dives. The places we were playing were rough and rowdy. It all came to a head—or more specifically Cynthia’s head.

  At a sawdust-on-the-floor cowboy barroom in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a fight broke out and a misdirected flying beer bottle caught Cynthia on the forehead and knocked her out. The emergency doctor said she was fine, but she wasn’t. The next day she went back home to her mother and two weeks later filed papers for divorce.

  Naturally that changed our chemistry. To save money, we decided not to replace her. Cynthia looked good on the bandstand, and she was an okay fiddler, but I knew we could do without her. As for Willard, losing his wife was no big deal. Now there was nothing to stop him from loving on those willing women who came his way.

  It was Willard’s situation that gave me an idea for a song. I heard it as a duet. I imagined someone like Willard finally free to do what he had always wanted. And then I imagined one of those women wanting to do it with him. A lightbulb went on in my mind that let me see the title—“Willing Woman/Willing Man”: He sings: “I’ve been hankering for someone new to have a good time . . .”

  She sings: “I’ve been hankering too for a man to call mine . . .”

  He sings: “I need a woman to put out this fire . . .”

  She sings: “I need a man to meet my desire . . .”

  He sings: “A willing woman, willing and free . . .”

  She sings: “A willing man, willing to love me . . .”

  It all came together in a hurry. I was so excited that I called Ring Dawson in San Antone and ran it down over the phone.

  “I can hear Willard and Marla singing it,” he said. “Aren’t you back in Texas next week?”

  “We’re in Houston on Monday.”

  “Then I’ll put you in the studio on Tuesday. You got something for the B side?”

  “I will by Tuesday.”

  And I did. Something I called “Dreamin’ in Blue.”

  —

  So we’re back to blue paper.

  “Dreamin’ in Blue,” unlike “Faith,” wasn’t a surprise B side hit. This time, the A side was the good side.

  I was especially happy to see that Skeeter was able to come by the studio. He was recovering from a heart attack. We’d heard the bad news from Willard’s dad when we were playing Lafayette, Louisiana, a few months earlier. But Skeeter had survived and showed up to do what he always did—encourage us to play our best.

  “Two damn good songs,” he said when he heard them run down. “That ‘Dreamin’ in Blue’ is a pretty ballad, boy, and Marla does it proud. But that ‘Willing Woman’ ditty—man, I think you got yourself a hit there, son. And Willard and Marla, them two sing it like they mean it.”

  When Skeeter spoke those words, a chill ran up my spine. A terrible thought attacked my mind: Had I written something I had been sensing for years? Had I written a blueprint for my own misery? Had I predicted the future?

  Looking back, I can now say that I did. Now it all seems so clear. At the time, though, it was a muddled mess. And it all seemed to happen overnight.

  “Willing Woman/Willing Man” hit the bottom of the country charts. It sold just enough to convince Ring to have me write enough new songs to fill up a second album. One of those new songs—“Leavin’ Ain’t the Last Thing on My Mind”—was another way I read between the lines o
f my marriage to Marla. It was another way that I predicted the future.

  As it turned out, Marla was more than willing to leave. And so was Willard. They left together and, if you can believe it, Ring Dawson helped them do it. Turned out, a Nashville producer liked Marla’s voice and saw her prospects as a solo artist. He had assembled a bunch of songs for her written by leading Nashville writers that he claimed would take her to the top. A few of those songs were duets, meaning that Willard could come along for the ride.

  Making matters worse was the way it all came down. There were no face-to-face talks, no long discussions. Only a note from Marla that said, “I think you know how I’ve been feeling. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have written the songs you wrote. Willard and I are in love. We’ve been in love longer than you need to know. I don’t need to hurt you anymore. I don’t want to hurt you at all, but I have to do what’s best and what’s right for me. Ring will tell you the rest.”

  That note was left on my bed in a Memphis motel when I woke up late on a Thursday morning. She and Willard were already gone.

  I called Ring, who told me about this new business arrangement that completely cut me out.

  “How could you do this?” I said. “You’re the one who sang my praises. You’re the one who couldn’t stop talking about my talent.”

  “Well, this producer in Nashville has bigger talents working for him. He has bigger connections and bigger money.”

  “And he’s got no use for me at all?”

  “He doesn’t think he needs you.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think like a businessman. I’m getting paid, Vernon. The way I figure, I’m entitled. I’ve put in my time with you guys and this is my payoff. Far as you’re concerned, Vernon, you can find a couple of other musicians. Do that and I’ll try and get you work. That’s all I can do.”

  —

  Gray paper for the gray day I went to see Skeeter in Austin.

  I was sliding down into the deepest funk of my life—deeper than when my folks were killed, deeper than after Grandma died, so deep that I honestly thought of throwing it all in—my music, even my life. How can life be considered worthwhile when, in one fell swoop, you’re screwed over by your wife and your best friend? I couldn’t imagine a lower blow. I couldn’t imagine picking up the pieces and moving on.

  My imagination was doing me in—imagining Marla in bed with Willard, loving him as she had loved me; imagining them singing in a Nashville recording studio; imagining them being promoted by some big-shot producer; imagining the success they would have, the money they would make, the happiness they would find. The more I fantasized about their good fortune, the more I imagined my ruin. And the more my ruin seemed like a reality, the more I had to ask myself whether I was to blame. Hadn’t I been naïve? Hadn’t I missed the most obvious signs along the way? Hadn’t I seen that Marla was secretly hot for Willard? Hadn’t I known that she was always out for herself? And—worst of all—wasn’t I the one who wrote the damn script? Hadn’t I given them the parts they had both wanted to play? She’d always been the willing woman; he’d always been the willing man. “Leavin’ Ain’t the Last Thing on My Mind” had been on her mind for a while. I knew it, but I just wouldn’t admit it. Yet I wrote it. I put it down in black and white. She sang it, and then she did it.

  If in my heart I felt hatred for Marla and Willard, I felt even more hatred for myself—for denying the truth that had been staring me in the face for so long. I hated myself for being stupid. I hated myself for being a jerk and a tool. I hated myself for being a loser.

  The only person in the world who might understand was Skeeter Jarvis. He was Willard’s uncle, but he was my mentor. He was the first person to say I had talent. He never stopped encouraging my playing and writing, and even my singing. He was the nearest thing I had to a father. He was a lot closer to me than to his nephew, and I figured that, no matter what, I could count on him.

  I figured right.

  —

  I’m picking yellow paper—not the sunshine-bright yellow I’ve used before, but a pale yellow that reminds me of how Skeeter was able to give me the small shot of hope I so badly needed.

  Not long after Marla ran off with Willard, I found my way down to Austin. That’s when I learned that Skeeter was no longer living at home. After his heart attack, he’d suffered a stroke and was recovering in a nursing facility off South Congress Avenue. The place was pretty dismal—a single-story building with peeling paint and a long hallway that smelled of disinfectant and piss. Skeeter shared a small room with a man who looked like he’d died some time ago.

  “He may be dead,” said Skeeter. “The nurses don’t come ’round often enough to notice.”

  Seated in a wheelchair, Skeeter could still speak, but couldn’t use his left leg.

  “They called it a mild stroke. But I call it a stroke of damn good luck.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “’Cause it made me grateful for something I took for granted. Made me count my blessings. You see, son, I can still pick that guitar. Long as I can finger my guitar, I can get through anything, even this godforsaken place.”

  I understood what Skeeter meant. What looked like mental patients—wild-eyed women in housecoats—were walking the halls talking to themselves. A morbidly obese man came in Skeeter’s room, his mouth covered with drool, and sat on the floor.

  “I need company,” he said.

  “I need to get out of here,” Skeeter said to me. “There’s a patio in the back. Roll me out there, will ya?”

  I wheeled Skeeter to a small patch of grass. I took a folding chair and sat next to him. Puffy clouds moved across the afternoon sky. The air was chilly. Skeeter wore a wool ski cap with the word UNDEFEATED written across the front. The lenses of his glasses were dirty.

  “Glad you came to see me, Vernon,” he said. “I heard what happened.”

  That made it easier. That meant I didn’t have to explain. Before arriving here, I worried whether I could actually tell him the story. In truth, I hadn’t told anyone. There wasn’t anyone to tell.

  “You been hit hard,” said Skeeter, whose voice, despite sounding frail, was still self-assured. “I been hit hard. That’s the world. Shit happens. You get a heart attack. You get a stroke. Your wife runs off with your pal. You feel the world’s against you. You feel like you been had. And you have. We’ve all been had. We’re all born to die. It’s just a matter of how you gonna live and, when the time comes, how you gonna die. Well, son, I know my time’s coming soon. I’m looking death in the face, and you know what I’m seeing?”

  “No.”

  “I’m seeing a song. I’m seeing a song about an ol’ geezer like me who’s scared to death. Who’s scared of death. And rather than rattlin’ on with some stupid philosophy, I just pick up my guitar and turn the whole mess into a tune the whole world can whistle. Go fetch me my guitar, Vernon. It’s back in my room.”

  I got Skeeter’s guitar and handed it to him. He held the instrument cautiously. I worried whether he had the strength to play. I worried that he might drop it to the ground. But he held on. His fingers, once lightning fast, moved slowly but deliberately. Each note counted. And his voice, with all its shakiness, touched my heart.

  “I call it ‘Easygoing,’” he said, “and it ’bout explains everything that needs explaining.”

  With his eyes closed, he sang:

  You get to the end of the road

  And wonder why

  You’re battered, you’re bruised

  And start to cry:

  “What did I do to deserve this fate

  That all adds up to a big mistake?”

  The answer’s not in some fancy prayer

  The answer, my friend, is everywhere

  The sun comes up, the sun drops down

  Seasons change while the
world spins round

  You’re born, you live, and then you die

  And all the time you wonder why

  You never know why and that’s okay

  ’Cause the mystery ain’t going away

  Love the mystery and you’re sure to find

  An easygoing peace of mind

  Easygoing when it’s good

  Easygoing when it’s bad

  Easygoing when you happy

  Easygoing when you sad

  Easygoing even when things go wrong

  Easygoing like this easygoing song

  Skeeter stopped singing and started smiling.

  “Make any sense, son?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to say that his song didn’t change the fact that I didn’t have Marla and was still messed up. But before I could say that, I realized that when he was singing I wasn’t thinking of Marla or of me. I was just hearing this simple bluesy melody and this easy-to-understand message. I guess that was the whole point.

  “The whole point, Vernon,” he said, reading my mind, “is that you do what you can do. Gardeners dig gardens. Truckers drive trucks. Pickers pick guitars. So pick up your damn guitar and quit whining. Hell, what’s happened to you in the last couple of weeks is enough to give you ten years’ worth of good songs. Go write ’em, son. Go write ’em while the pain’s still fresh.”

  —

  Guess I gotta go from light yellow to bright yellow paper ’cause I left the nursing home that day knowing I’d been given a good reason not to do myself in. The reason was writing. Basically Skeeter was saying that you can live with anything long as you can write about it. And he wasn’t just saying that. He was doing it. If he could keep his spirits up after all the sickness he’d suffered and keep from going crazy in that run-down nursing home, why couldn’t I?

  I hadn’t had a heart attack or a stroke. I wasn’t an old man looking at death. I was a young man looking at life. Had my health. Had a little savings in the bank. Had a car that ran, legs that walked, a mind that thought. My mind had been muddled before I went to Skeeter, but now my mind was clear. My mind could see the truth of what he said.