Twang

by Julie L. Cannon

  I knew I could just ball it up, throw it away. But I didn’t. I didn’t seal myself up while I still had a snowball’s chance. I was trembling as I called Mike and sang “Dirt Roads and Sequin Gowns” over the phone to him. He was so excited; he drove out to Harmony Hill right away.

  Monday came and I trudged around the house, exhausted from two nights of short, fragmented sleep, an undertow of anxiety about my new song tugging at my thoughts. Not to mention that on Saturday, I’d overheard part of a celebrity gossip’s show where the host talked about Holt Cantrell and his accusations. I started to worry that I really might be a neurotic, overreactive crazy woman who’d thrown away her only chance at love and happiness.

  I guzzled a cup of strong coffee and went outside to lie on my back and look at the clouds in hopes it would get my mind off things. But as it happened, I’d hardly warmed up the patch of grass when I heard a car’s engine. Lifting my head I saw Tonilynn’s ancient Pontiac Grand Am. You couldn’t miss her duotoned automobile if you tried—the white hood with orangish streaks of rust in sharp contrast to the pine-green body. It dawned on me that I’d totally forgotten my appointment in the Hair Chair. I flopped back into the grass, feeling like a selfish, inconsiderate heel.

  Tonilynn spotted me right off, waved, and came striding across the stretch of lawn, waving a Panera Bread bag. She wore giant tortoiseshell sunglasses that made me think of movie stars from the 1970s.

  “Howdy, hon,” she said, peering down at me with an amused expression. “I bet you wish you’d never given me your gate code!”

  When I didn’t answer, Tonilynn pushed her glasses up on top of her confection of hair. “You okay, Jennifer?”

  I didn’t want to get weepy, so I made myself concentrate on Tonilynn’s pink cowgirl boots, on the intricate curlicued pattern sewn with silver thread around the ankles. “I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t fooled. “It’s such a pretty day we can just sit out here in the grass and talk.” Tonilynn plopped down on one hip, arranging her legs to the side, knee to knee like a movie star in an old photograph. “So what’s going on?” she asked, handing me the Panera bag.

  “Thanks,” I said, unfolding the bag to sniff a cinnamon crunch bagel. “Sorry I forgot my appointment in the Hair Chair.”

  “You’re welcome, hon. I had a feeling you were fighting the mulligrubs today.”

  She had no earthly idea. The emotional fallout from “Dirt Roads and Sequin Gowns” was staggering and what irritated me even more was that I was already working on my next song! I felt crazy—chasing after a career that bred insecurity even without a dysfunctional childhood. I’d come to the conclusion that I was more or less possessed. That music was in my DNA and there was no way I could stop pursuing those perfect lyrics, the song that would bring a tingle to my spine and a smile from my audience. Still, occasionally, I’d daydream about what I’d do with myself if I could manage the impossible. I had no other marketable skills except working at McNair Orchards, and I knew Mac would rehire me in an instant. But that was crazy thinking because even if I were able to quit, I would never, ever head back anywhere so close to the place I was running from. If I sold out, I’d invest what I had and go somewhere out of the country and simply lose myself. This was all small comfort because I knew it would be easier to escape my shadow than to get away from the urge to write songs.

  “It’s tough being in the public eye, isn’t it, hon?” Tonilynn’s voice pushed its way in. “I bet you feel like you need to just go crawl into a hole for a while sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I understand. There have been times when I just wanted to yell, ‘Stop the world! I want to get off!’ ”

  That made me smile. “Sometimes I don’t even want to write music or sing anymore, Tonilynn. I mean it! I am so, so weary of ripping pages out of my past and putting them to music.”

  Tonilynn reached for my hand, her big, brown eyes full of concern as she began quoting the liner notes from my recent album: “ ‘Jenny Cloud grapples with memories of her Southern roots. Her world-weary sounds and lingering vocals touch her audiences’ souls.’ ” She squeezed my hand. “You’ve got a gift, hon. A miraculous gift. Crafting a piece of art from nothing but words and notes the way you do? Touching folks? Surely you know the Lord gave you the ability to write certain things no one else can, and he wants you to use your gift for his glory.”

  I just laughed.

  “Hon,” Tonilynn said. “You’ve got to believe your music has a purpose. You’ve got to trust that the Lord was with you as you went through those hard places in your childhood, and that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be now.”

  I said nothing.

  “My past used to torment me until I learned some things, and now I use it to my advantage. Well, to the Lord’s advantage, I ought to say.” Tonilynn smiled. “Helping folks in my little corner of the world. Know what I mean?”

  I shrugged. She’d never shared with me the specifics of her past.

  “I’m here to tell you there are songs only you can write, Jennifer. And in the great orchestra of life, you owe it to the Lord to play your instrument, your beautiful voice, the best you can. I’m telling you right now, hon, if you’ll let him, he’ll redeem your past and use it for the glory of his kingdom. Your music can have eternal value.”

  I glanced down at the ground. A voice in my head said, She doesn’t know what you’ve been through, Jennifer! She’s making a lot of assumptions! Using a lot of weird terms. Just don’t answer and maybe she’ll hush. But I looked up at Tonilynn, at those sincere eyes of hers, and I got a guilty feeling thick as molasses.

  “Well,” I said, “I appreciate your concern. Honestly. But I don’t want to discuss religion. The fact is, I don’t really even look most of my past in the eye. I make up stories to myself about it so I can handle it.”

  We sat for a while without saying anything. At last Tonilynn spoke in the gentlest voice, “Something I’ve been wondering, hon. Where do you run in times of trouble?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do you do when life gets stressful, throws you a curveball? When issues come up that you can’t handle?” She used two perfect pink fingernails to pluck a clover from between blades of grass. “Where is it you go for relief from life’s pain, in your hour of need? We’ve all got a refuge, an escape, and it doesn’t seem to me that you’re a drinker. Or into drugs.”

  I shook my head. I looked at Tonilynn’s sparkly blue eye shadow catching bits of the sun. “The river,” I said at last, “I go to Riverfront Park and sit on the bridge and watch the Cumberland. The water’s soothing, peaceful.”

  Tonilynn thought for a while. “Yes, river water is nice,” she said, “but I want you to know, Jesus Christ is the fountain of living waters. Where folks thirsty for things like love and beauty and joy and peace in regard to their pasts can come and drink.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” I was impatient to move on to other subjects.

  “I promise, Jennifer, put your hand in his and Jesus will help you deal honestly with those painful pieces of your past. Then you can use them in your music to help folks.”

  That just about did me in. It was getting exhausting. “Let me get this right, I’m supposed to let myself get tortured and suffer just so other people can enjoy my music? Why would anybody in their right mind want to do that?!”

  I watched Tonilynn’s face droop, saw lines of her pancake makeup in the downturned corners of her mouth and the grooves between her eyebrows. “Listen, hon,” she said finally. “It’s not just something I got out of the Bible. I read about this fellow, he’s dead now, but his name was Freud, and he was real famous for psychiatric stuff. He said that when a person locks things away in their unconscious mind, all it does is make things worse. He said it’s important to dig things up and look them in the eye, release them because emotions are so powerful they’ll backfire sooner or later if you don’t.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Freud . . . he wasn’
t exactly somebody I was familiar with. I’d heard of him but never studied him or anything he said about keeping stuff pushed back. Maybe it was real and maybe it was harmful, but it wouldn’t do us any good to sit around talking about it. “I . . . I’m just really exhausted today, Tonilynn. I’ll be just fine tomorrow.” This came out thin and unconvincing.

  Tonilynn took a deep breath. “If you’ll allow the Lord, Jennifer, he’ll use that awful stuff to bring you a blessing.”

  I sighed. It was useless to argue. Tonilynn had a stubborn streak a mile wide. I’d begun to grow so weary of her incessant talk about all the God stuff. I knew without a doubt, whatever Freud or God Almighty had to say to the contrary, that digging up the past was crazy. Part of me wondered if I could tolerate this fixation of Tonilynn’s any longer. But just as quick I knew I would, because Tonilynn was my friend. My only friend and therefore, my best friend. I would just have to be more stubborn than her.

  “Hey,” she said softly after a bit, “you ready to tell me that one story?”

  The hair on my arms stood up. “What?”

  “You know, the one you promised to tell me about how you got to Nashville?”

  First of all, I didn’t remember promising, and second, it made me queasy to think of all the different events leading up to that day. I knew I couldn’t tell one without the others. I took a huge bite of bagel so I wouldn’t have to talk.

  “Okeydoke, hon,” Tonilynn said, getting to her feet. “Reckon we need to reschedule our Hair Chair appointment. I called Mike on the way here and told him he better call the photographer and move your appointment with him. How does tomorrow afternoon look? Say, three p.m.?”

  “Okay.”

  “Great. Hey, why don’t you just plan to come have supper up on Cagle Mountain after our session? I’ll carry you up there in the Pontiac.”

  I was taken aback. I didn’t want to sound mean or ungrateful, but I just couldn’t imagine being couped up in Tonilynn’s car while she was in this Jesus mood. I had to think up an excuse. “Um . . . I can’t. I’ve got something going on tomorrow night.”

  She knew I was lying. “Aw, come on. You’ll get a kick out of Aunt Gomer.”

  I looked at those pleading eyes and I said, “All right.”

  Later that evening, I ran myself a hot bath. With Alan Jackson blasting out of the radio on the top shelf of the towel closet and a full moon shining through the window, I lay back in the tub thinking, How in the world did she get me to say yes to going up to Cagle Mountain?

  Bridge: Aunt Gomer

  I was raised right here in the hills of Tennessee, with the sound of the mandolin, the banjo, and the fiddle as my lullabies. I may be eighty-six, but I’m still spry enough to dance a fine jig. ’Course I have to be careful my bloomers don’t show if we got company comin’ like we do tonight. Tonilynn’s bringing that new country music star she fixes the hair and makeup for.

  I’m excited because I love true country. Real country music has to have a twang to it, and I don’t cotton to that so-called new, progressive country music I hear coming out of Tonilynn’s radio.

  Tonilynn says I’m stuck in the past and need to change with the times because Nashville and country music are both much more sophisticated than they used to be. Well, there’s some things you just can’t improve. I don’t know why they think it’s progress to ruin something perfect.

  I told that to Tonilynn and she says if God was to allow Hank or Patsy to leave heaven and revisit this planet, they’d be the first to embrace the new country sound. She says it don’t matter about the style of a country song as long as the soul of country is behind it. I disagree. My country music has to be 100 percent pure. The way this little gal, Jenny Cloud, does it.

  A lot of these “contemporary country” songs are just rock ’n’ roll if you ask me. I remember back in the sixties when rock ’n’ roll got to be so big and caused the youth of our nation to go wild. In fact, it was rock ’n’ roll what led Tonilynn astray. Music is powerful stuff. Satan was the minister of music up in heaven, you know, before the Fall, when he exalted himself and grew proud, which is why God kicked him right out of the heavenly choir loft. But old slewfoot’s still in the music business today, down here on this earth, and rock ’n’ roll is his specialty. I may sound old-fashion, be set in my ways, but I don’t cotton to raunchy lyrics and a beat that makes young folks want to gyrate their bodies and lose their morals. It puts ideas into their heads and makes them desecrate their earthly temples. Just look at all the tattoos on Tonilynn. I asked her if she thought she could find herself a man who’d like all that stuff she has on her.

  She said, “Aunt Gomer, I don’t give a fig. You need to give up your dream of me finding a man. I work hard keeping the stars beautified, and when I get home, I don’t have the energy to go off courtin’. Plus, I like spending time with my baby boy.”

  I told her, I said, “First off, Bobby Lee is thirty-two years old, and second of all, you could quit your job and spend time in the day with Bobby Lee, and in the evenings go find yourself a man. You don’t need to worry about earning a living because I own this house and the land straight out, and we got the garden to feed us.”

  Thinking of Bobby Lee, I’m wondering if this Jenny Cloud person might be a good match for him. Tonilynn says she’s twenty-seven, recently busted up with Holt Cantrell. Only thing is, I wonder does Bobby Lee’s equipment still work? That’s the one thing might be an issue and I may be bold of tongue as Tonilynn likes to say, but I don’t dare ask Bobby Lee about his privates. That’s why they’re called privates. His legs don’t work, but I don’t know if all that stuff down there is connected. I do want him to look nice tonight, and I told him he was going to wind up like Absalom if he didn’t cut that long hair of his. He just laughed.

  Tonilynn says not to get fancy. Country music stars are no different from us—they got hopes and dreams and fears underneath all the fine clothes and fancy hairstyles. They talk about mortgages, shopping, and the weather same as we do. But in the very next breath, she tells me Jenny Cloud lives in a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion, which she owns outright, and that she has her a maid service and a lawn service and no telling what all else.

  But the sad thing is, Tonilynn talks like Jenny Cloud doesn’t have a soul on this earth. When Tonilynn asked me if she could invite her to supper, of course I said yes. I said we could be her adoptive family because Jesus wants us to care for the lonely.

  You would think a star would enter a room and fill it up with her stage presence, her charisma and what not. But when Tonilynn showed up with Jenny Cloud, the girl was all but hiding behind her. When I introduced myself, she squeaked out, “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m Jennifer Anne Clodfelter,” in the most pitiful little voice. Seemed uncomfortable in her own skin.

  I’ll give her credit, though. I respect folks who are kind to helpless animals, and once we got inside the house, she went right over, knelt down, and just buried her face in Erastus’s stinky neck. ’Course, anybody who loves that hound is good in Bobby Lee’s book, and he came wheeling in from the hallway. And I said, “Bobby Lee, this here’s Jennifer Anne Clodfelter.” Then I turned to her and said, “This here’s Bobby Lee Pardue, Tonilynn’s son and the owner of this canine.”

  She got a real surprised look on her face, then said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pardue,” and, “Your dog has the most beautiful, expressive eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “I couldn’t do without my Erastus,” said Bobby Lee. “I’d be absolutely lost without this feller.”

  Jennifer asked was Erastus trained to help folks in wheelchairs, and Bobby Lee said, “Only thing he’s trained in is chasing rabbits and scratching fleas.” She started laughing and I was feeling real encouraged they were hitting it off so good.

  We got seated around the table, and I said for everybody to bow their head while I asked the Lord’s blessing: Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and our lives to your service. In Jesus’ name, Amen, an
d then I started helping myself to mashed potatoes and butterbeans and collard greens. I had hot pepper sauce and vinegar on the table, so I passed them to Jennifer, along with the biscuits and the platter of pork chops.

  Bobby Lee helped himself to some sorghum syrup, and when he was done, I said to Jennifer, “You want some for your biscuit?”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “You don’t like sorghum on your biscuit?” I patted the side of the jar. “Ain’t nothing better than a hot biscuit with butter and sorghum.”

  “Um . . . no, thank you. I really don’t care for any.”

  “Just try it. Go ahead, you’ll love it. I guarantee.”

  Tonilynn reached over and grabbed the sorghum right out of my hand and set it way over beside her plate and said, “What’s on your head, Aunt Gomer?”

  Well, she knew good and well what my garland was for, but I figured she was just trying to make conversation on account of Jennifer wasn’t talking much. “It’s my pennyroyal, to cure swimmy-headedness and headaches.”

  “Modern folks call that aromatherapy,” Tonilynn said. “When a smell can help things.”

  “Well, whatever you call it, I believe the Lord gives us remedies in our natural world, and pennyroyal helps a lot of things. In addition to soothing human heads, it’s a dandy natural insect repellant.” I turned to Jennifer. “You like playing in the dirt?”

  “What?” She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

  “She means gardening.” Bobby Lee used his biscuit to sop up some pot likker.

  “Oh, um . . . I guess.” Jennifer forked up a single butterbean, looking hard at it before she put it into her mouth.

  “Well, I’ll have to take you out and show you my garden when we’re done. I’m aiming to plant my melons and my zinnias tomorrow.”

  “Aunt Gomer,” Tonilynn piped up, “we talked about this. You need to relax. It’s not even April yet and the last average frost date is April fifteenth, and there’s a reason the weatherman calls it a killing frost.”