Life on the underside of America could have its moments.
Five days later, I climbed down from the cab of a tractor-trailer and walked four blocks through a run-down, tree-shaded neighborhood to Eddy Ray’s house. He had scraped up a pile of black leaves and moldy pecan husks in his side yard and was burning them in an oil can, his eyes watering in the smoke.
I dropped my duffel bag on the gallery and sat down in the glider and waited for him to say hello.
“It’s me, in case you haven’t noticed the man sitting about ten feet to your rear,” I said.
“I got your postcard from the Big Horn County Jail,” he said, fanning smoke out of his face.
I didn’t remember writing a card from jail, but that wasn’t unusual considering the number of organic chemical additives I had been putting into my brain. “Remember when I told you Cool Daddy Hopkins was lying about Kitty Lamar?”
“I do.”
“Know why you wouldn’t believe me?” I said.
“Not interested.”
“’Cause Cool Daddy fooled me, too. I thought Kitty Lamar had stuck it to us. Know why I thought that?”
He leaned on a rake handle, shutting his eyes, maybe hoping I’d be gone when he opened them again.
“’Cause I had a grudge against her from the first time we heard her sing,” I said, answering my own question. “’Cause I didn’t want her coming between us.”
I felt a little funny saying that and I let my eyes slip off his face. He picked up a huge sheaf of compacted leaves and dropped them into the flames. Thick curds of yellow smoke curled into the tree limbs overhead. “So what’s changed?”
“When Cool Daddy told us Kitty Lamar had been bad-mouthing us at Sun Records, the Greaser had already been gone from Sun. Kitty Lamar didn’t know anybody at Sun. The only person she knew there was the Greaser. Besides, why would people at the record company want to hurt us? Sun doesn’t do business like that.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I read it in the newspaper. Then I called the reference lady at the public library to check it out. The Greaser has been managed by this carnival barker or freak show manager or whatever he is for the last year.”
Eddy Ray sat down on the steps, his back to me. His face and arms were bladed with the sunlight shining through the trees. He rubbed the back of his neck, like a terrible memory was eating its way through his skull.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“The Greaser called up and asked me to send him a demo. He said he’d take it to a studio for us. He said he’d always thought my voice was as good as Johnny Ace’s.”
“What’d you do?” I said.
“Told him he was a hypocrite and a liar and to lose my phone number.”
At least I wasn’t the only one in the band with a serious thinking disorder.
“Seen Kitty Lamar?” I said.
“I heard she was singing in a lounge in Victoria.”
I pushed the glider back and forth, the chains creaking, the worn-out heels of my cowboy boots dragging on the boards.
“I’m not gonna do it,” he said, looking straight ahead at the yard.
“Do what?”
“What you’re thinking. She can ring or come by if she wants to, but I ain’t running after her. Will you stop playing on that glider? You’re giving me a migraine.”
“You got that 45 rpm we recor
ded on the amusement pier in Galveston?”