Half of Paradise

“Yes ma’am. They’ll hear you all over the South. Mrs. A. J. Ricker, voice of the Southland.”

“I declare,” she said. “Do you think they’ll want me to make any more recordings?”

“I don’t think so. You’d better run along home now. You don’t want to miss the afternoon show.”

“I’ll leave my phone number in case they want me again.”

“That’s fine. Goodbye.”

The door clicked shut after her.

The sound engineer stuck his head out of the control room.

“You want to hear the playback?” he said.

“Why not?” the announcer said. “Let’s hear Mrs. Ricker tell us of the wonderful medicine that saved her husband and brats from ruin.”

“I’m going back to the hotel,” J.P. said. “I don’t want to hear no more about vitamin tonic.”

He picked up his guitar case and left the studio. He walked out on the street and turned up his coat collar. It was November and the air was sharp with cold. The wind beat against him and almost whipped the guitar case from his hand. There were snow clouds building in the east, and the sky was lavender and pink from the hidden sun. He turned around the corner of a building to protect himself from the wind. There were no taxis on the street. An old woman sat in the doorway of the building with an army coat around her shoulders. She had a wagon made from apple crates, filled with old rags, newspaper bundles, and things she had taken from garbage cans. Her hands were raw and chafed. She dipped snuff from a can and spit on the sidewalk. J.P. started up the street and walke

d the six blocks to the hotel.

He went through the lobby into the coffee shop. The waiter brought him coffee and a plate of sandwiches. Nothing but a poor-white tenant farmer with one pair of shiny britches and a polka-dot bow tie, he thought. I paid my last five dollars to enter a crooked talent show and now I’m on the Nashville Barn Dance. Everybody from Raleigh to Little Rock can listen to me on Saturday night. Seven weeks on the Barn Dance and an afternoon show besides. Ain’t that too goddamn nice?

He thought about the few days he had taken off from the show to go up to the mountains. He had worked almost constantly since coming to Nashville. The director of the radio show had given him three days’ leave. J.P. went up by the Kentucky line and stayed in a hunting lodge. The mornings were cold and misty, and there was always a smell of pine smoke in the air. When he walked out on the front porch after breakfast he could see the log cabins spread across the valley, their stone chimneys stained white by the frost. The first snowflakes were just beginning to fall, and the mountains were green with fir and pine trees. There was a trout stream just below the timber line that wound across a meadow and rushed into a great rock chasm behind the lodge. It was good country, some of the best he had seen. He wanted to stay, but he went back to Nashville to sell Live-Again.

He took out an aspirin bottle and shook a Benzedrine and a Seconal into his hand. A month ago he had used up the supply Doc Elgin had given him. Several days later he bought ten rolls of yellow jackets, bennies, and redwings from a junkie on the other side of town. He had learned to mix the three in a combination that gave him a high alcohol never had. Soon he would have to buy more. He had only a half roll left in his room.

A porter came into the coffee shop and gave him a telegram. J.P. tipped him and tore the end off the envelope,

GET READY TO LEAVE

WILL PHONE THIS AFTERNOON

HUNNICUT.

He paid his check and went out to the lobby. He told the desk clerk to page him in the bar if he received a long distance phone call. He left the guitar case with the porter to be taken up to his room. The bar was done in deeply stained mahogany with deer antlers and antique rifles along the walls. There was a stone fireplace at one end of the room, and the logs spit and cracked in the flames. A thick wine-colored carpet covered the floor. Brass lamps with candles and glass chimneys were placed along the bar. He drank a whiskey and water and wondered what Hunnicut had planned for him now.

Later the porter paged him. He went into the lobby and took the call at the desk.

“Is that you, J.P.?” Hunnicut said over the wire.

“I got your telegram.”

“How’s Nashville treating you?”

“All right.”

“A lot of things have been happening since you Left.”

“Why am I going back?”

“We got some big things planned. Jim Lathrop is with me now. I want you to get back as soon as you can.”

“What for?”

“Jim is going into politics. He’s running for senator, and we’re campaigning for him. We’re going to organize a show and tour the state.”