I could tell Tonilynn was put out with me, and I hadn’t even mentioned Holt Cantrell. All of a sudden I remembered the pound cake. “Let me get our dessert.”
Before I could even get to my feet, Bobby Lee shocked me by saying, “Keep your seat, Aunt Gomer, I’ll get it.”
8
Easter Sunday 2010 fell on April fourth, and I felt like a kid playing hooky as I drove down Old Hickory. Even though Mike’s one of those obsessive-compulsive types of businessmen, I was fairly certain he was spending the day with his wife and stepkids, so I wasn’t letting myself think about the business end of anything. Easter’s like Thanksgiving and Christmas and the Fourth of July. You’re supposed to shut off thoughts about work.
The reason I felt guilty was that Aunt Gomer called me the day before. I was startled to hear her old voice coming out of my cell phone, but I guess she got my number from Tonilynn. “Good evening, child!” she said. “My offer to carry you to the Lord’s house with me tomorrow to celebrate the Resurrection still stands. I’ll come fetch you before the rooster crows and we’ll hit the sunrise service at Bethel, followed by breakfast on the grounds. They do ham biscuits that are out of this world. Sound good?”
I told her I was sorry, that I already had plans. When I hung up, I felt a little shaky. My excuse wasn’t an actual lie. My plan was a cinnamon crunch bagel and espresso so strong it would have me shaking.
The streets were still fairly empty at eight a.m., and I drove along, thinking about how bright and clean-washed everything looked outside. The sun shone in a cloudless sky and everywhere were shameless bursts of forsythia and all these silly, optimistic daffodils with trumpets that reminded me of the hoopskirts of Southern belles. Perfect weather for Easter.
Then I started thinking about the reason Aunt Gomer invited me to church with her. If I were honest with myself, thoughts of my father’s demise still lived like bright glowing mushrooms in the dung of my dark fantasies. I viewed them from a sideways glance, like when Sarah Bean, a disabled girl, was sent to our regular classroom in middle school for something called “mainstreaming.” You were aware of Sarah Bean at all times, even though you knew it was rude to stare at her.
Though the hate-filled words spewed out of my mouth easily up there on Cagle Mountain, I definitely didn’t like to look at my death wishes for my father head-on. Even then I knew that they were not what nice little girls, good daughters, thought. Definitely, I did not have the “joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart” we used to sing about at vacation Bible school. But then again, I remembered thinking so long ago, being absolutely positive, that God would understand that it was precisely because of that absence of joy that I fantasized my father’s demise.
I knew better than to stay on that train of thought, and so I summoned another image from Cagle Mountain: Bobby Lee going outside with me.
“Looks like it’s finally clearing off?” Bobby Lee said just as we reached the Pontiac. “I bet Aunt Gomer’s going to be out here dancing a jig.”
I looked up. The moon was high and full and a luminous white, and when I looked back down I saw it reflected on the surface of a hundred little puddles of rainwater in the road and also in the chrome on Bobby Lee’s wheelchair. I couldn’t help noticing a Mason jar with two very tall purplish-white irises situated between his thighs. He saw me looking and nodded his head down and said, “These are for you.” His long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and when he bent his head I could see a jagged scar on his neck, running from behind his right earlobe and disappearing into the neck of his T-shirt. I was so surprised I didn’t say anything for a minute. Then I said, “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
He nodded, smiled, and patted Erastus’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “Wanna know something? One of the things I admire most about you, Jennifer, is that you’re famous but you don’t go around with your nose stuck up in the air. You’ll stoop to hang out with regular old folks like us.”
I liked hearing him say that, but I didn’t know what to answer, so for a while I just leaned against the door of the Pontiac, looking at the shape of the giant pecan tree to the side of the house, and then I leaned forward to scratch behind Erastus’s soft, warm ears. “Thank you,” I murmured. “That’s so sweet.”
“We’re turning into the Mutual Thank-You Club, now aren’t we?” Bobby Lee grinned as he wheeled forward and reached for the door handle to the backseat. He wedged the jar of irises between some shoes and boxes on the floorboard. “Speaking of thank-yous, after I got your Blue Mountain Blues CD, I must’ve listened to “Walking the Wildwood” a hundred times, and every single time, I fell into it. It’s a beautiful experience. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, judging from the story you told tonight, but there’s no doubt you have an awesome gift of touching folks through your music. So, thank you.”
Hearing that thrilled my soul. Being able to supply someone with joy, well, that was almost reason enough to keep pursuing the dream and braving the heartbreak of it all. Wasn’t it? I rode along, hugging that memory of Bobby Lee beside me in the front yard on Cagle Mountain, the moon shining down and the smell of rain in the air.
Here was the dilemma: I knew music was my gift, and I loved knowing it brought happiness to people besides myself, but my whole goal in getting away from Blue Ridge was to forget everything, to NEVER resurrect it, no matter what, and the past was starting to blindside me even when I wasn’t in that vulnerable place of falling asleep. It would hit at the craziest times. Just when I’d get to feeling fairly safe, something would prompt an earthquake that sliced that red Georgia clay wide open, and boy, was I a mess for a while. Thankfully, that episode between my sophomore and junior year was still safely in the grave.
All of a sudden, the idea of sitting in Panera with just my thoughts made me cringe. Wasn’t Easter supposed to be about pretty baskets full of eggs, fluffy yellow chicks, bunnies, and little girls in frilly dresses? Having a childhood rocked by emotional ambushes certainly wasn’t the proverbial “warm coat to wear when you’re older.”
I stomped on the brake, made a U-turn, and went speeding back toward Harmony Hill, telling myself the cops wouldn’t ticket on Easter. Right before I reached my drive, I stomped the brake again, skidding to a stop on the side of the road. Inside my enormous house it would be as silent as the grave. Another U-turn and I felt like Mario Andretti, speeding toward Cagle Mountain.
I turned on the radio because whenever I felt myself drowning in fears, listening to music helped me kick back up to the surface where I could at least dog paddle for a while. Kenny Rogers was singing “Coward of the County,” and then I was singing along to Dolly Parton’s rollicking “9 to 5,” and then really belting it out with George Jones on “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” I was tempted to close my eyes as I sang along to “The Dance” with Garth Brooks, and also “Forever and Ever, Amen,” with Randy Travis, but I managed to keep my eyes on the quiet roads.
When Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” finished, I figured I had to be about halfway to Tonilynn’s, but then, wouldn’t you know it, Tammy Wynette started singing “Stand by Your Man.” I love Tammy, but those lyrics, particularly after my scene with Holt, were salt on a wound. For some dumb reason, I didn’t turn it off, and the deejay came on when it finished, crowing something about how some singers do live out their songs. “Take Tammy Wynette and ‘Stand By Your Man,’ ” he said. “This song was very successful, reaching the top spot on the Country charts in 1968, and then crossing over to the Top 20, peaking at No. 19 on the Billboard pop charts.”
I drove along with the deejay’s words echoing in my head, almost running off the road as the astonishing parallels of “Stand by Your Man” and “Honky-Tonk Tomcat” dawned on me. Both were about turning a blind eye to your man’s faults and both had been number one on the Country charts and both had “crossed over” to pop. I didn’t know if Tammy Wynette actually lived out her lyrics, but mine were 100 percent blood-bought.
When I b
urst into the kitchen on Cagle Mountain. Tonilynn was standing at the table, dyeing eggs in bowls of colored water, watching a little bitty television atop the refrigerator, where a preacher in a shiny black suit stood behind a row of Easter lilies. She looked over at me, surprised, and went to turn down the volume.
“Well, ain’t this a nice surprise!” she said. “Aunt Gomer told me you had other plans, and she’s gone to the sunrise service, followed by breakfast on the grounds.”
I glanced up at the preacher banging his fist into his palm to bring home a point I couldn’t hear. The camera panned the crowd and they were nodding, crying, and smiling. “I don’t feel good,” I said, an excuse that wasn’t totally untrue.
Tonilynn held the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re not hot. What doesn’t feel good? Want me to fix you some tea?”
“I just need some peace,” the words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’d give anything for some peace. Is that too much to ask?” I dropped onto one of the oak chairs at the table.
“ ’Course not,” Tonilynn knelt beside me, held my hand. “We all want personal peace. It’s a . . . what do you call it? A universal desire!”
“Well, I can’t even listen to the radio safely anymore, Tonilynn. I just heard a song that took me back to a bad place.”
“Yeah,” she sighed, “Certain songs are like a time machine for me, too. Whenever I hear Styx singing ‘Lady,’ I’m fourteen, and I’m at the high school dance, standing outside in the parking lot with Justin Predmore. I’m wearing this Pepto-Bismol–pink dress with a push-up bra, my heart going a mile a minute, and Justin’s in this baby-blue tux, and we’re smoking a joint and then . . .”
I was glad she trailed off. Though Tonilynn’s confessionals about her former life were interesting in that way soap operas can be, I sure didn’t want her expecting some give-and-take about our pasts. I glanced up at the congregation on television, eyes closed, faces lifted beatifically, and for one fleeting moment I felt a little bit jealous as I looked at those people communicating with some higher benevolent power. But just as quick, I returned to my usual fantasy about having a gigantic lever I could pull that would totally erase my past.
Tonilynn put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m praying the Lord will rip the veil off your eyes, Jennifer, and reveal to you just how much he loves you, how he wants to redeem those ugly things in your past and use them for your good and his glory.”
I stomped my foot. “I don’t want anybody to redeem those ugly things back there!”
She knelt beside my chair. “Are you still having issues about old Holt?” She asked after a spell.
I nodded.
“Time will shine the light on his evil ways,” she said. “He likes to act like some refined country gentleman, but I don’t even need my sacred gift to see what’s inside of him! He’ll get his comeuppance.”
I liked hearing this. “Yeah.”
“He’s one of those ‘bad boys’ who’s never gonna grow up.” Tonilynn made a face like she smelled something nasty. “I remember, we were in Arkansas once, all the road crew was staying at this La Quinta Inn, and one night Holt came to hang out with us. Well, he got loaded and went down to the corner convenience store and bought himself some X-rated magazines. Then he came back and paid for one of those X-rated channels on the hotel television, and I’ll tell you something I learned, hon, classical music does not make porn classy! It was vulgar! And Holt got so vulgar I had to give him a piece of my mind. Right there in front of God and everybody. Nothing but white trash!”
I stared at her. Suddenly I knew. It’s normal for a woman to react the way I did! I wasn’t psycho or deluded! At last, I exonerated myself for pouring out Holt’s liquor. I also scrubbed the last shred of any feelings for the man right out of my heart. Part of that cloud following me disappeared, and I was actually hungry. I gobbled up the pecan spin and milk Tonilynn offered.
9
I got to Flint Recording early and walked up and down Seventeenth Avenue thinking about how this was the first time I was going to sing, “Daddy, Don’t Come Home” in public. I felt panic like hungry little dogs nipping at my heels, and I started mentally screaming for Tonilynn to arrive. Finally I saw her crossing the street, wearing a sparkly aqua T-shirt and tight stonewashed jeans tucked into her pink cowboy boots.
I held the door for her, and she passed through wheeling the biggest, reddest Samsonite I’d ever seen, and cradled in her other arm, like a baby, an enormous load of flowers. “Brung you some hydrangeas for the road trip, hon,” she said, her frosted pink lips stretching in a wide smile as she lifted the bouquet.
I was stunned. “Ohhhhh, thank you. Nobody ever gave me flowers before.”
“Sure they did. I’ve personally seen dozens of bouquets lined up every time you have a concert or award ceremony.”
“They all say ‘To Jenny Cloud’ on the little cards. Those people don’t know me.” I felt tears welling.
Tonilynn set the flowers on a table and took my hands in hers. “When we’re all boarded, I’m going to sit down and write a little card, saying, ‘To my dear friend, Jennifer Clodfelter, who is beautiful inside and out.’ ”
I blinked back the tears. Tonilynn loved me despite my flaws and it was a relief just having her with me. Maybe this tour wouldn’t be the disaster I feared.
“Alrighty,” Tonilynn said a bit later, “time to head to our home away from home.”
We hit the sidewalk, striding along in the early morning air, walking the few blocks to the tour bus
“Thanks again for the flowers.”
“Well, all I did was cut them. Aunt Gomer did the planting, the fertilizing, and the weeding. I swan, Jennifer, that woman may not know what she ate for lunch, but she recollects every little thing from her growing-up years! She started in telling me this long, convoluted story about how these hydrangeas are descended from ones on her great-aunt Myrt’s homeplace, and you know how old people are, once she got going on the hydrangeas, that led to her having to tell about how she used to love to play marbles out on the packed dirt of their front yard, and then how on Saturdays, she and her passel of cousins would ride the train into the big city to watch a moving-picture show. She still calls them moving-picture shows! Ha! Then she got going on the gristmill. I don’t hardly know what a gristmill is.” Tonilynn laughed as she wrestled her luggage down a curb, turning the corner where the Eagle came into view.
“Ooooh weee!” Tonilynn stopped so abruptly I almost crashed into her standing there, her mouth open as she stared at the side of my forty-five-foot “Eagle Luxury Entertainment Coach,” which Mike had recently commissioned to be painted with a huge color picture of me from the waist up, holding my Washburn, singing. Next to my giant head were the words JENNY CLOUD, LIVE! Milky-blue clouds airbrushed in the background gave the image an otherworldly look.
“That just beats all I ever saw,” Tonilynn said after a spell. “A bona fide piece of moving art! The artist captured both your tomboy side and your sweet side. I love it. Don’t you love it?”
“Sure,” I said. But for the millionth time that day I felt really unsure. The stage had always ushered her siren call, offered me the promise of her transformative powers. I’d always anticipated her with full faith in a beautiful experience. But today, the fear was overwhelming. I still didn’t know how Mike had convinced me to journey back to that place I had to go in order to write “Daddy, Don’t Come Home.” And though I’d rehearsed to a ridiculous degree what to say between numbers, working up a smooth transition from “Blue Mountain Blues” to “Daddy, Don’t Come Home,” trying my best to soften the bad feelings by coating them in vague words I didn’t really want to call lies, still I had a sense of overpowering dread inside me. I was so nervous about tomorrow at the Toyota Center in Houston I could hardly swallow. What if I lose it up there? What if I fall apart and embarrass myself in front of thousands of fans?
Tonilynn hauled her luggage up onto the Eagle. “Soon as we put our things away, I’ll m
ake coffee and we can just sit and visit a spell.”
We had a half hour before Mike and the band were scheduled to arrive, and I was glad to hang out with just Tonilynn and her chattering, get my bearings, and settle in for the week ahead.
Every time I boarded the Eagle for another round of concerts, a part of me was still astonished. To look at the Eagle from the outside, you wouldn’t dream it could hold a kitchen, a lounge with a U-shaped leather sofa, a full bath, and a color satellite TV along with a complete sound system in all ten bunks. For sleeping, on one side of the bus was me, Tonilynn, Mike, my publicist, and the driver, and on the other, my five band members. The band and I shared a lot of mutual love and respect, but we didn’t hang out together. I think they understood I’m the loner type. The rest of my entourage traveled separately.
After a bit I heard Tonilynn calling, “It’s ready, hon!” and I met her in the lounge where she had two mugs waiting. She’d put my hydrangeas in a pitcher full of water.
“That looks pretty,” I said.
“Well, I was gonna bring you some Queen Anne’s lace, too, but I ran out of time because I made Bobby Lee pancakes and bacon.”
“You’re a good mom,” I told her, cradling my warm mug in both palms.
“Lord help me, I try. Poor thing’ll have to deal with Aunt Gomer by himself for a week. I just don’t believe they’re weeds, do you?”
“Huh?”
“The county agent said Queen Anne’s lace is actually a weed, in the carrot family or something. But I think they’re every bit as pretty as a rose. In their own way. I mean, who makes the scientists—or whoever it is that classifies stuff—the end-all-be-all as far as classifying something a flower or a weed?”
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