“Good morning.” I couldn’t help smiling. Wasn’t long ago that being so near this man in a wheelchair made me feel shy, uncomfortable. But now I hardly noticed Bobby Lee was without the use of his legs.
“Mercy!” Aunt Gomer almost fell out of her rocker. “Boy, you scared the daylights out of me! What in heaven’s name are you doing up so early?”
Bobby Lee laughed. “Figured I’d eat breakfast, then go see about that job before I get to fishing.” He was looking at me the whole time.
Aunt Gomer yelled, “Hallelujah!” and threw her hands up in the air.
He raised his eyebrows. “Mama doesn’t seem too excited about it.”
“Tonilynn’s up?” I hopped to my feet.
“Yep. But I’d let her finish her Diet Coke if I was you. She’s kind of grumpy.”
“I don’t mind. I need to talk to her about something. Y’all excuse me, please.”
Tonilynn sat at the kitchen table where a lone iris drooped over the side of a jar. Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed as she drank straight from a two-liter bottle. The space where Bobby Lee generally sat had some playing cards laid out in a half-finished game of Solitaire.
“Morning, Tonilynn. Mind if I talk to you about something?”
Tonilynn looked at me. “Have a seat,” she said in a clipped voice, nodding at the chair across from her.
“I mean somewhere private.”
She shook her head.
I was shocked. Never had I found Tonilynn to be anything but agreeable and accommodating when it came to lending a listening ear. “Please? I need to go somewhere we can be private. Hey! How about while you’re driving me home?” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Would you please drive me home? I’m scared to death to ride with Aunt Gomer. On the way here she kept switching lanes without looking, and people were honking at us like crazy.”
“Oh, good grief. Guess it’s time to take her license away.” Tonilynn sighed. “Listen, I’ll drive you home. We’ll talk, but it’ll have to be later. There’s something I need to hang close for.”
I knew what that was, but if I was going to survive, I had to stand my ground. “Please. I really need to talk to you in private. Now.”
Tonilynn got to her feet, hugging her two liter, and using a nod motioned for me to follow. We stepped out the back door onto a footpath winding past a tin roof on four poles that was Aunt Gomer’s car shelter, then a small shed with no door where I saw garden tools lining the walls, then a leaning chicken coop where it looked like they stored firewood, and finally to this old barn I’d noticed before but never really seen. It was half-hidden behind a row of azalea bushes on one side and a massive oak on the other. There was no door, and we stepped over a threshold into a large musty-smelling place. The walls were ancient logs laid one atop the other with cracks big enough to slide a flattened palm through, and the roof sagged here and there, and a few patches of sky were visible. Several mule collars hung from pegs, and in one corner sat a dilapidated sawhorse.
Tonilynn sat down on the wide-planked floor, settling the two-liter between her knees.
“How old is this place?” I whispered.
“Aunt Gomer claims it’s over a century. Her great uncle put it together without nails. You don’t have to whisper. Nobody ever comes out here.”
I sat Indian-style, facing Tonilynn, and before I could figure out my opening statement, she said, “I know, hon. You’re upset about the worms.”
“No. Honestly. I just need to—”
“Well, me too,” Tonilynn cut me off, something else that shocked me. “Last night was proof she doesn’t need to be alone. The woman’s losing her grip and doesn’t need to be by herself, and here she is pushing my boy to go out and hunt for a job! I could just about wring her neck! If I hear her saying, ‘Tonilynn, you’ve got to stop babying Bobby Lee,’ one more time, I’m liable to snap!” She made a fist and pounded the floor.
I sat there looking at Tonilynn’s face, wishing I knew what to say. Bobby Lee seemed excited about finding a job.
“You’d think she’d understand that having Bobby Lee here will mean she doesn’t have to go to an old folks’ home. Aunt Gomer’s a proud, stubborn woman.”
Tonilynn was pretty stubborn herself. She liked to claim she’d laid her past out there for all the world to see, but she hadn’t exactly been Miss Honesty when it came to revealing Bobby Lee’s father to Aunt Gomer. She raised the two liter to her lips, threw back her head, and guzzled it down. I’d never seen her like this. I could literally feel the fury spilling out of her. She didn’t say anything for quite a while and this gave me time to decide on my opening line.
“You know how we were discussing my new image a few days ago?”
“Yeah, right,” she answered in a distracted voice.
“How I was going to talk with Mike about it, and you were going to make me over to be flirty and fun?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Well, Mike said I needed to see a shrink.”
“What?” Tonilynn banged the empty two-liter down beside her.
“Basically, he trashed my idea, just like you said he would, and then he said I needed to talk to a professional. He thinks a shrink can help me deal with my traumatic memories.”
Tonilynn nodded. “Listen,” she said, “I knew he’d pooh-pooh all that career makeover stuff. Man knows his business. And I don’t think he’s off the mark wanting you to talk to a shrink either.”
It flashed through my mind that the two of them were in cahoots, but that notion died with Tonilynn’s next sentence.
“I know I’ve told you this already, but I’ve had lots of clients say I’m even better than their so-called shrink that they pay hundreds of dollars to for every visit.” She raised her eyebrows. “Shrink. Isn’t that a funny word? Reckon why they call them that?”
“Because they’re supposed to shrink your problems?”
“Well, I swan!” She slapped her thigh, shook her head. “I’d never have thought of that in a kazillion years, but I believe you’re right. They shrink your problems! Well, you don’t need to go find one, because I can help you shrink your problems. With God’s help, I mean.”
My heart fell. “No. Please don’t go there again.”
“Oh, hon. You know you can tell Tonilynn what’s hurting you. I promise, what’s said in the Hair Chair stays in the Hair Chair.” She laughed. “Even though we’re not actually in the Hair Chair.”
“No,” I said, surprised at the sound of my firm voice spilling out into the quiet barn. “Revisiting that memory I shared before we ate supper last night was bad enough. That was unacceptable.”
“Bless your heart.” Tonilynn leaned forward to pat my hand. “That really was something. It makes me sick your father treated you that way!”
“That’s nothing compared to some other things he did. If I could get away with it, I swear I’d kill the man.”
Tonilynn shot to her feet. I was frozen at the sound of her venomous hiss as she yelled, “By the blood of the Lamb, I command you to get behind us, Satan!”
I felt all the hairs on my arms standing straight up as she closed her eyes, raised her face, and began moving her lips silently. After a long, charged silence, she opened her eyes, reached down to take my hand and looked hard into me. “I know you’re hurting, Jennifer. Believe me, I know. Sometimes I look at these tattoos of mine, and I remember things that hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”
I’d gotten so used to Tonilynn’s tattoos, I really didn’t see them anymore, but in the barn’s half-light I focused on the intricate designs stenciled on her wrists and up her forearms, disappearing into the cap sleeves of her blouse.
“What I do try to do,” Tonilynn said, “is look at them from a different perspective. They’re my very own monument, testifying to how far I’ve come—what God’s brought me through. Like I’ve said, I’m actually glad I went through all that stuff because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be who I am today. In God’s timing, he used them f
or my good.
“And he wants to do the same for you, Jennifer. He’s no respector of persons, and he wants to shrink your problems. But you’ve got a part in it too. You’ve got to allow him to help you dig them up.”
More light was filling the barn. Tonilynn lifted the empty two-liter and tried to shake a few more drops into her mouth. She never ceased to amaze me with her inexhaustible effort to push her religious views on me. She wasn’t dense, she couldn’t have failed to notice it made me uncomfortable when she talked to the devil around me, when she gushed about God’s redeeming love.
I narrowed my eyes. “My Nashville dream wasn’t the only thing that died because of the event that inspired ‘Daddy, Don’t Come Home.’ ”
Tonilynn gave me a curious look.
Some part of me had known all along the exact moment a certain silence had fallen on my spirit, the instant my childlike faith had turned up its toes and died. Roy Durden had only confirmed what I’d learned that awful night. “After my father imparted his so-called wisdom, I was thinking I just wanted to die. So, that night I got into my pallet and turned on my radio that had always been my gateway to joy in life’s darkest moments. They were having a gospel show, and it used to be that every hurt and care fell away when I’d listen to hymns by Elvis and Mother Maybelle Carter, or “Amazing Grace” coming from a giant pipe organ. I closed my eyes and prayed that I could find peace, and then I listened hard, expecting the sound to lift me up above all the ugly hurts. I thought it would be like usual and I’d feel the presence of God, and he’d fill me with peace so I could fall asleep. You know, the way it usually happened? But that night it was like . . . nothing. I was all alone. Inside of me was dark and empty. I knew then that God couldn’t care less about me.”
Tonilynn reached for my hand and said in the softest voice, “But look at you now, Jennifer. Your father didn’t keep you down. You’ve built an impressive career.”
“He did keep me down! I don’t even want to tell you another thing that happened as a result of that night, but it’s haunted me for years! And I cried rivers while writing ‘Daddy, Don’t Come Home!’ and IT RIPS MY HEART TO SHREDS EVERY SINGLE TIME I SING IT!” I yanked my hand from Tonilynn.
She flinched but quickly regained composure. “Oh, hon. You can’t undo what your father did to you, but please, ask God to help you forgive him. Forgiveness is so liberating, and then, God will use what you went through for his glory. He can heal you up from all those ugly memories so you’ll have peace.”
Forgive my father?! Was she serious?! My brain was screaming as I stumbled over the threshold sprinting from the barn and back to the house. I slammed the door to my bedroom, shoved the back of a wooden chair underneath the doorknob, and dove onto my featherbed, breathing so hard I thought I’d hyperventilate.
Close to noon, there was a knock at the door. Groggily I moved the chair, opened the door, and saw Tonilynn standing there, her makeup flawlessly applied, her generous thighs in extra-tight blue jeans.
“Ready for me to carry you home, hon?”
“I guess.” I smoothed the wrinkles out of my blouse. I had nothing to pack since I hadn’t planned to spend the night.
Aunt Gomer stood on the porch, wearing a purple blouse, red polyester slacks and blindingly white sneakers. “I’m so proud you came to visit, hon.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Can’t you stay a spell longer?” She grabbed my elbow. “Be proud to have you for supper again tonight.”
I shook my head. All I could think about was getting myself to the soothing waters of the Cumberland.
“Jennifer’s got things to tend to in Nashville,” Tonilynn said, tugging me down the steps before Aunt Gomer could respond.
As I opened the passenger door of the Pontiac, I heard tires on the gravel. Bobby Lee smiled big beneath a camouflage bill cap. Dressed in a mud-splattered T-shirt and black waders, he had a tackle box nestled in beside him, and two fishing rods stuck up like antennae behind his back. Erastus was standing beside him, panting.
“I heard the screen door slamming, and I figured you might be fixing to leave, and then I figured you might rather go see if the fish are biting today. Check out the artificial catalpa worms?” He said all this in a rushed, hopeful tone. A hoot owl called from the trees beyond the house as a bittersweet longing washed over me. I pictured fishing from a pond on a spring day, frogs kerplopping into the water, bugs scuttling along in weeds at the water’s edge, the quiet anticipation of a bite.
“Might be the inspiration for that perfect country song,” Bobby Lee urged.
I ran a hand through my hair. It was a Friday afternoon, no appointments, no . . . Quickly I remembered why I felt the urgent need to get back to Nashville. “Sorry. Can I have a rain check?”
He nodded and Tonilynn ducked down from the driver’s seat to look right into Bobby Lee’s face. “Keep an eye on Aunt Gomer, hear?”
We rode a long ways without talking, lulled by the whine of the Pontiac’s tires speeding along the main road once we’d descended Cagle Mountain, and it came as a sort of shock when Tonilynn said, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
“What?” I looked over at her.
“That’s a Bible verse.”
“I thought it was a song by the Byrds.”
“It was a Bible verse first. Anyway, Jennifer, after you ran out of the barn, it just sort of popped into my head like a neon sign while I was helping Aunt Gomer hang out the wash, and I knew it was God talking to me about your father.”
Did she ever give up? “I said I don’t—”
“Didn’t you say those demos Mr. Anglin helped you make were burning a hole in your pocket until you could get to Nashville?”
I couldn’t stop my nod.
“You were way too young at sixteen to hit Nashville,” she said. “See what I’m saying?”
“No.”
“I believe God is telling me that it was a good thing, a blessing in disguise, when your father said all those ugly things to you and crushed your dream.”
“That’s stupid! Nothing good came of that awful day!”
“Don’t you see?” Tonilynn was pleading. “Sixteen-year-olds get chewed up and spit out in Music City every day! They’re way too vulnerable and immature. You’d never have made it, hon, especially without anyone to take care of you.” Tonilynn paused dramatically. “Sure doesn’t sound like your mother was supportive.”
I knew where they got the expression “seeing red” when a person was angry.
“You were how old when you got to Nashville? Let’s see, you’re twenty-eight now, and you’ve been singing for close to six years, so you were twenty-two when you arrived in Nashville, and twenty-two minus sixteen equals six. Six years! You didn’t leave for six years, and six years makes a humongous difference. It’s night and day between a little sixteen-year-old girl and a twenty-two-year-old woman. I’m living proof of that!”
I wanted to think of something sarcastic, but I had no words, and anyway, it seemed Tonilynn was impossible to offend. I didn’t know if it was because she was so emotionally stable or simply clueless.
“Don’t you see, Jennifer? It just wasn’t time for you to hit Nashville when you were sixteen. You needed those extra years to mature. So your father actually did you a favor. In God’s economy, even things we think are hurting us can be used for our good.”
I could not believe the words coming out of Tonilynn’s mouth. God’s economy? If Roy Durden were here, he’d laugh his head off! If we hadn’t been going seventy-five miles an hour, I would have wrenched my door open and jumped out into the ditch. We sped past the sign saying Davidson County and Tonilynn was still talking a mile a minute about God’s providence, how his hand is orchestrating all this stuff, good and bad, to get us to our destinies at just the right moment, and we needed to live by faith that it’s all going to work out for our good in the end. She was still going as we pulled thro
ugh the iron gates of Harmony Hill.
She turned to me when the ignition was off and said with this incredulous voice, “You know what? I still haven’t heard the story of how you finally did get to Nashville.”
I looked her right in the eye. “Well, it sure wasn’t the Lord’s doing.”
“Please tell Tonilynn,” she said, ignoring the snide tone in my voice. “Was it dear Mr. Anglin?”
“No,” I said, feeling the sides of my throat beginning to ache. “Mr. Anglin died in a car wreck.”
“Oh, nooooo. Hon, I am so, so sorry. I know he was very special to you.”
“Yeah, he was,” I said, “and what’s worse is that his death was my fault.”
Tonilynn’s eyes were wide. “Were you in the car with him?”
“No.”
“You were in the other car?”
“There was no other car. Mr. Anglin lost control of his car and skidded into a wall.”
“Then why was it was your fault?” Tonilynn whispered.
My voice was a whisper too. “Because you’d have to understand what a sensitive soul Mr. Anglin was. He felt things very deeply, and I could tell it really hurt him the day after my father crushed my dream, and I went to the school’s office to tell Mrs. Vestal I was dropping out. Of course I didn’t tell her the ugly story about my father. I lied and told her I had to get a job to help support my family. Anyway, Mr. Anglin overheard us, and he ran in there. He had this pink face and he was saying in a real loud, shaking voice, ‘No! You can’t drop out and go to work! You’ll never get out of Blue Ridge! You’ll never get to Nashville! I’m not going to stand for this!’ You should have seen him, all wrought up and waving his arms. Mrs. Vestal got up from her desk, patting on Mr. Anglin and saying, ‘Now, calm down, Ron. Just calm down. Take deep breaths and come sit down.’
“I couldn’t tell anybody why I was really dropping out, about my father. I said, ‘Mr. Anglin, I have changed my mind. I don’t want to sing anymore, so chill out.’
“He flew into an even bigger fit, said I was squandering my talent. Then, that very night, I heard he’d crashed into the brick wall at Sayer’s Corner on his way home from work.”
Twang Page 21