“Yeah, I bet.”
“ ’Specially you got to redefine what it is you believe in,” he said. “Gotta take a good, hard look at what you believe about us having this benevolent creator who cares about us down here on this planet.”
I said nothing.
“I got to the point where I decided that if God’s gonna do a person like he did me, he don’t deserve to be worshiped, prayed to, served, whatever.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’ll tell you when I’ll listen to what he has to say.”
“Okay.”
“When he brings Angie and Carter and Maygan back.”
I didn’t know what to say. Finally I reached out to pat his wrist. “That must have been awful.”
“Yep. Awful. I couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t enjoy a single breath for over three solid months. I’d lived my whole life with this deep faith. You know, praying without ceasing and measuring everything by this heavenly yardstick. Tried my best to walk uprightly. Even singing and playing gospel music with the Born Again Boys was my way of trying to keep on the narrow path. I was living for God, and I thought he’d take care of me.” Roy slapped his thigh. “What a load of crap!”
I was awed by such irreverence spoken aloud.
“Now, some folks need that kind of stuff, Jennifer,” Roy continued. “They need themselves a crutch to lean on. And some just get indoctrinated as they grow up. Especially growing up down South, you know, in the Bible Belt. That was me. I was raised on ‘The Lord loves you, and the Lord’s got a plan for you.’ ” His gaze on mine was steady, intense. “In fact, Nashville’s called the city of churches. There are more churches per capita here than in any other city. Southern Gospel and country music, they go together like a hand in a glove. You know?”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
“But you know what?” Roy’s voice was matter-of-fact. “I’m free now. I live life on my own terms. Way I wish I had from the very beginning.” His blue eyes were intense.
“Really?”
“Really. I do what I want, when I want. I live without constantly thinking, ‘Is this wrong? Shouldn’t I be—?’ ”
A crowd of folks walked through the lobby, talking and laughing loud. Roy paused to take a swallow from his Dr Pepper. “I use to be, oh, what’s that word I’m looking for? Repressed! I was repressed, or maybe oppressed is a better word. I didn’t do a blasted thing without looking at it through this religious filter. I lived like there was this gigantic magnifying glass sticking out of the clouds, hovering right over me, and you know what? It cramped my style.”
He smiled when he saw me looking so hard at him.
“God doesn’t give a flying fig about us, Jennifer. If he did, why would he allow me to lose my family? Why doesn’t he do anything about all the pain and evil in this world? Sometimes I even wonder if he doesn’t get some sort of perverse pleasure out of watching us squirm down here.”
I nodded, even though I was a little scared to think a thought like that. I’d been taught to believe in a being who, even if I had no warm fuzzy feelings toward or urge to pray to, was at least someone to be afraid of, to respect. But if what Roy was saying was true, it certainly would be freeing. I looked away, realizing that a moment like this was where my mother would operate on blind faith. She’d say something like, “Oh, the Lord has a purpose in it all. We’ll see his purpose by and by.” That was the moment I decided to hang my hat on the freedom of Roy’s philosophy. I would be free and live life on my own terms. I felt like a baby bird cracking out of her shell, all wide-eyed and shaky, stretching her wings after tight confinement, right before the mother bird pushes her out to fall a ways before she soars up high, through lavender skies and golden afternoons.
I laughed then, just as the front doors opened and a skinny guy in a white apron zipped in holding two Styrofoam take-out boxes. Roy flipped up the lid on the one set before him. “My, my!” he said, looking up to beam at our server. “You outdid yourself again, Colin. This looks absolutely dee-licious!” He handed him two twenty dollar bills, waving a hand and saying, “Keep the change,” as Colin bowed slightly and hustled back outside.
“Mmmm, this is to die for,” Roy’s voice cracked with emotion as he bit into his burger. I looked over at him as I took a bite, expecting to see tears streaming down his cheeks. But he was smiling around his mouthful, and so was I. I hadn’t had a real, complete meal in more than a week.
Roy Durden was a serious eater. I watched his eyes literally roll back in his head as he scarfed down the burger, the fries, and the coleslaw. He slurped the last of his tea noisily, released a satisfied sigh, sat back, and focused on me. “Tell me about your music,” he asked after a soft belch.
I literally jumped. I couldn’t swallow my bite of burger until I told myself Roy had not asked about my childhood, nor my family. Just my music. “Well,” I choked out after I’d finally swallowed, “music comes as naturally to me as breathing. Even when I was little I could sing other artists’ songs after hearing them a couple of times. I started composing songs when I was around six. I’d be hanging out the wash, feeding the chickens, riding my bike, sitting in church, walking down the hallway at school, and it was like they just came through me, you know?”
He nodded.
“I’d be in the middle of something and I’d literally think up a bridge, or a hook, or a prechorus, and I’d have to stop to scribble it down. I practiced singing constantly.”
“A natural,” he mused. “What I really want to hear about is your first time.”
“What?” My voice came out shrill because I thought for a split-second Roy was referring to sexual intercourse and I’d been going with my gut instinct that he wasn’t the lecherous type.
“You know,” he answered, chuckling, “the first time you sang for an audience. A real audience that wasn’t family or friends.”
Too much baggage, I thought, after mentally tiptoeing over a scene as carefully and quickly as if it were fiery coals. Finally, I squeezed my hands into fists and launched in. “Um, okay . . . I was six, and my mother and I were at church one night during revival week in the summer. There were lots of visitors there—folks who’d come to hear this new young preacher—and the woman who was supposed to sing a solo didn’t show up.”
“Really?” Roy encouraged. “Well, that’s certainly interesting. She didn’t show up. Did you get up there and fill in for her?”
“Um, yeah . . . the preacher asked if anyone in the congregation ‘had a pretty voice they was willing to share,’ because he’d been counting on Ms. Turlette to sing ‘Love Lifted Me’ to set the tone for his sermon. Normally I was hiding in my mother’s skirts, but I shocked myself when I hopped up from the pew, ran to the microphone, and started belting out Dolly Parton’s ‘The Golden Streets of Glory.’ ”
The next part seemed a strange thing to share with Mr. Durden, but for some reason, I did. “I actually felt like Dolly was right there beside me that night, like her hand was on my shoulder and she was smiling at me while I sang.
“I mean, it amazes me even now how calm and confident I was with that sea of eyeballs zoomed in on me. Normally I was scared of my own shadow. But it was like I’d found my place in life, and I started strutting up and down in a little puddle of light from overhead, basking in those beaming smiles and nodding heads, singing pitch perfect. I could’ve stayed up there forever. The applause, the whistles, in church, made it feel like this out-of-body experience.
“In fact, that night was when the stage began her siren song for me. After that, I could never turn down a microphone, and anytime I’d sing—at church, at school, at local festivals and fairs—afterward people would flock up to me saying, ‘That was incredible, Jennifer!’ and ‘You’re truly amazing!’ with these breathless voices, and I thought, Okay, here’s something I was born to do. I may get nervous in crowds, be tongue-tied in social situations, I may not be the brightest at math, but I can sing songs that make people smile.”
“Six y
ears old,” Roy mused, “that’s mighty young. How old are you now if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Twenty-two,” I answered.
“Sixteen years of experience, hmm?” The twinkle in Roy’s eye let me know I was safe with him. “Bet you got a heck of a lot of songs, don’t you, missy?”
I nodded. “After that night in church I wrote a song called ‘Dolly, Hold My Hand,’ and I kept it in a shoebox with other songs I’d write. This may sound weird, Roy, but I’d curl up in my bed at night, mash my face into the pillow, and practice saying stuff like, ‘Ladies and gentleman, let’s welcome Jennifer Anne Clodfelter to our stage tonight!’ ”
“That’s not weird,” he said. “That’s beautiful.”
After I finished my meal and Roy’d cleaned up the trash, he looked intently at me. “Sing for me, would you? Can you sing on a full stomach?”
I looked at his greasy lips curved into a smile. “What do you want me to sing?”
“Sing your favorite. You and Dolly.”
I got to my feet, closed my eyes, and sang the first two verses and the chorus of “Spooky Moon.”
When I finished, Roy hopped off his stool, stood not three feet away, staring at me for the longest time, then began clapping and nodding so hard his forelock came loose from the rest of his hair. I saw tears shimmering in those blue eyes. “You’ve got real, honest-to-goodness natural-born talent, Jennifer,” he said, “and I’m gonna tell you something you can take to the bank. You’re gonna do well here! Trust me. I’ve been in this town for a long, long time, and some things I know.”
Warmth flooded my body. “Thank you.”
“I’m the one should be saying thanks. That was what I call a holy experience.” Roy lowered his voice to an excited whisper. “Care for some dessert?”
“Maybe,” I whispered back.
“Don’t let anybody around here hear me, but The Hermitage Hotel makes a milk chocolate crème brûlée I’d kill for. It’s this perfect custard, topped with caramelized sugar and fresh strawberries . . .”
Roy’s delight was so disarming, it was tempting to say yes, but something in me needed to give back. “Let me treat. Would you like half a package of Hostess Zingers out of the vending machine? They’re my favorite.”
“Certainly,” Roy said, a twinkle in those blue eyes. “I love Zingers.”
At last Monday dawned. I made coffee in my room, gulped it, splashed water on my face and went downstairs for breakfast. Sitting in the carpeted dining area with a cup of milk, a boiled egg, and two sausage patties, I looked at the stage across from the bar. I rested my elbows on the table, sunk my chin in my hands, willing the hours, the minutes to pass speedily.
Time passed the way it always did, and at five o-clock sharp I walked out to wait on the curb, guitar case in hand. Right on the dot this ancient white Cadillac pulled to a stop. It seemed just the sort of car Roy Durden would drive, and I didn’t even check to see if it was him behind the wheel before opening the back door to slide the Washburn in, then climbing into the passenger seat.
“Afternoon, Madam. Where to?” Roy asked in a fake British voice, his nostrils widened on purpose.
I had to smile. “The Bluebird Cafe,” I commanded in a snobbish voice. Trying to find a spot on the floorboard that wasn’t littered with fast-food cartons and soda cans was almost impossible, but I nudged a Hardee’s cup and a Dunkin’ Donuts bag over and settled my feet. From the corner of my eye I could see the white swoop of Roy’s pompadour, his big pink-knuckled fingers on the steering wheel, his enormous belly perched on his thighs.
“You ready?” Roy asked as we paused at the first stoplight.
“Mm-hm.”
“Well, I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again, I’m not going to fret about you one little bit, missy. You’re going to do fine.”
I nodded and we rode along in a comfortable silence, me thinking how great it was to have a friend who knew his way around Nashville. Roy seemed happy too. He fiddled with a radar detector on the dash, rustled around in a bag of potato chips on the seat between us, and slurped from a huge Styrofoam cup between his legs. “Alrighty. Here we are,” he said at last, nodding at a nondescript shopping center.
Heart thumping fast, I turned to look at a strip of businesses, and at last spied The Bluebird Café, next to a place called Helen’s Children’s Shop.
“Now wait just a minute here,” Roy said when he’d pulled into the parking lot, idling not more than twenty feet from the Bluebird’s door. He put a beefy hand on my arm and I didn’t even flinch. “You knock ’em dead, okay, Jennifer?”
“I will, Roy,” I said. “And thank you.” He could not have known all that my ‘Thank you’ encompassed.
There was no cover charge at The Bluebird Café, and I walked right in, surprised at how tiny the place was! I counted twenty small tables set so close together I wondered how waitresses could move between them. To the left was a bar beneath a Jack Daniels guitar-shaped clock, to the right a stage with spotlights. Christmas lights and a row of framed photos circling the walls made it feel cheerful.
It was 5:20 p.m., and there were a good number of folks there. Roy told me you signed up at 5:30 for a chance to perform, and then the Bluebird picked about twenty-four people per night. I had no doubt I’d be selected, and I wasn’t surprised when a woman touched my arm. “You’re here for open mic?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m Jennifer Anne Clodfelter.”
“Barbara,” she said. “Let’s go ahead and put your name in the hat.”
“Great.” My fingers were crossed behind my back. I didn’t want to go first, but I also didn’t want to be last.
“Lineup’s announced and show starts at six. If you’re picked, you’re allowed two original songs. We don’t provide an accompanist, and no tracks are permitted, but we do have a Kawai keyboard you’re welcome to use.”
“Thanks. But it’s just me and my Washburn, and I’m only going to do one song.”
Despite nothing since breakfast, I wasn’t hungry, so I leaned against the wall, watching the clock over the bar, which ticked along annoyingly slowly. A little before six Barbara climbed onstage. “Welcome to open mic night here at the Bluebird, one of the world’s preeminent listening rooms. Remember our policy.” She held an index finger to her pursed lips and hissed out, “Shhhhhhh! Please keep your background conversation to a minimum. Our ‘Shhhh’ policy is designed to support a listening environment where the audience can concentrate on the song. Speaking of that, we’ve got a wonderful lineup for you tonight—”
Her voice faded to distant background noise as soon as I heard I got the number-four slot. I ran over the words to “Spooky Moon,” vaguely aware of the first performer: a huge, hulking bear of a man in tight faded jeans and a sleeveless flannel shirt and with a long Charlie Daniels beard. He surprised me with a high-tenor voice accompanied by a saucy guitar line. He whined and wailed and twanged his way through a song called “Gimme Back My Catfish.” There was a smattering of polite applause and a few soft whistles. Then up came a plump, peroxided blonde with a very low-cut spangled top that got some subdued catcalls before she even opened her mouth.
She introduced her song called “Mayhem Mama.” She wiggled and jiggled around up there a while, strumming and singing way off-pitch on the very first line, but sounded okay in a hillbilly way once she got going. Seemed the audience was more focused on her chest than her music, however, and I was glad for my modest blouse with only the top snap left undone.
Next came a man in a white suit who reminded me of Colonel Sanders. He sang a song called “Walking the Railroad Blues” with a gravelly Johnny Cash sound. He got a good reception from the crowd.
When it was my turn, I climbed up onstage wrapped in that magical preperformance euphoria I always got. I leaned in to kiss the microphone, feeling the little electric buzz on my lips that I love. I adjusted the Washburn and moved my brain into that small-town dialect I’d sure heard enough of and that audiences loved, smiling a
t each face I could see.
“Good evenin’. My name’s Jennifer Anne Clodfelter, and I’m gonna sing a song I wrote called ‘Spooky Moon.’ I wrote the chorus of this song one summer night when I was eight years old as I lay on my pallet out on the screen porch, which incidentally was my bedroom. I was watching the moon from underneath a little burrow I made out of my covers. Mainly, I wrote the chorus to calm myself down. You know, as a sort of good-luck charm, because my mother was constantly warning me not to sin, not to walk down that wide, easy road that leads to hell, and many a evening she’d grab my hand and look up at the sky and say this little poem that went, ‘I see the moon, the moon sees me, please old moon, don’t tell on me.’ And of course, being a kid, the first thing I thought of when I did somethin’ bad was that the moon was gonna tell on me.” I paused as laughter rippled through the crowd.
“Well,” I continued, “now I know the moon ain’t gonna tell on me.” I paused again, waited for the knowing smiles, the encouraging nods among the hundred or so people in the audience. “And so I wrote the rest of this song around that comforting chorus. A chorus I credit for getting me through many a long, scary night.”
My guitar pick was like a part of my hand that found the right strings instinctively. My voice soared on the first note as I strummed a mournful A minor on account of the song started out sweet and melancholy:
When I was a little, wide-eyed gal
I hated for darkness to fall
I hid in the covers and hugged myself
Squinched up in a tight little ball
Singin’ ‘Oh, spooky moon, you taken the
sunshine and you hid her away.
But I guess it’s your turn to shine.
I know I done wrong, but if you’ll keep your mouth shut,
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