Page 7 of Night Songs

I stared at her smug, pinched face and imagined ripping her eyes from their sockets.

“I thought if you didn’t know, then maybe you wouldn’t be like her,” she continued, lowering her voice. “But that was naive. I seeherin you. The way you look at my husband.” She moved closer and whispered even more softly, “The devil’s in you. I can feel it every time you’re near. Makes my skincrawl.”

I pushed her off hard with my shoulder, and she stumbled back against the wall in surprise. When the shock wore off, she hissed, “I want yououtof this house.”

“Don’t worry. I’m gone.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed for the door past a slack-jawed Carl. “Good luck paying for Cocoa Puff now,” I called behind me as I skipped down the stairs to their stunned silence.

That evening in my roomy first-class seat, I ate white chocolate raspberry cheesecake and sipped on my fifth free Dr Pepper.

I had always thought of being rich, or more precisely, the aspiration to be rich, as pathetic and unimaginative—the provenance of my aunt and uncle and their poor taste.

But I couldn’t deny that it was sort offun.

The captain announced we were landing, and I watched with my face pressed up to the window as we sailed over the modest Nashville skyline with miles of fertile green spreading beyond it. I searched for some recognition of my homeland, but it still looked foreign to me. A place waiting to be discovered.

Mr. Blau leaned over and took in the view. “You know, Belle was your same age when she first came to Nashville.”

“Tell me more,” I demanded.

He gave me a fatherly smirk. “The story goes that in 1967, when she was eighteen, she came to Nashville on a bus from the mountains with just a cardboard suitcase and her daddy’s beat-up guitar.” He paused for effect. “She hopped off that bus, and just a few hours later, met a record executive at a honky-tonk.” He smiled, his eyes filled with the silver reflection of the city. “The rest is history.”

2lulabelle

1967

FIFTEEN YEARS LEFT

I remember it was early morning when I stumbled onto the main road. I wiped my bloody hands in the snow and rubbed fistfuls of it against my spattered cheeks, leaving the snowbank stained a hot pink.

There was nothing that could be done about the blood on my clothes, but they were so filthy from my trek through the woods that I reckoned most would see a dirt child and move on.

I heard a rumble up ahead and stuck my thumb out, trying to look as innocent as I could. I was so lightheaded from hunger and cold that I did feel quite saintly standing there on the side of the road, bathed in the sunlight glinting off the ice. Like a holy apparition.

The truck stopped a few paces on, and I could see the driver’s face in the side mirror. Middle-aged and mealy. About a 40/60 chance of him trying something, which were good enough odds for me. I felt for the kitchen knife in my coat sleeve and got in.

We wound our way out of the mountains in toasty, engine-rolling silence, and I finally began to thaw. I asked if we could listen to the radio, and he flipped a switch on the dash.

As we descended into the valley below, Mother Maybelle Carter sang about a better place waiting in the sky.

It was late afternoon when the driver dropped me on Fifth Avenue. He’d barely said a word beyond offering me half his sandwich, and I thought he must be a silent angel sent by God to get me where I needed to go.

Nashville. The promised land.

I had dreamed of this place my whole sorry life, and now here it was, solid and towering above me, the street like a narrow valley cutting through skyscrapers.

For all of my fantasizing, I wasn’t sure what came next. I’d always planned to come by bus with enough money for a room, find a few gigs, get noticed. But fate had led me here, now, without a cent to my name, and I had to make the best of it.

First things first, I needed new clothes. I spotted a department store swarming with customers, and I slipped in, yanked a few items off the racks, and left through the back before anyone noticed the dirt child. In the bathroom at the drugstore, I changed and took a bird bath in the sink.

Once I was presentable, I wandered around taking in the sights. Workers stood on ladders painting billboards and on scaffolding constructing buildings, replacing the old with the new. Loew’s movie theater gleamed in the winter sun.

When I came upon the Ryman, home to the Grand Ole Opry, it loomed like a fortress above me, solid and impenetrable. I stopped and ogled it from the sidewalk, imagining what was inside.

Some of my best memories were listening to the Opry broadcast with my uncle and cousins when my granddaddy went out to visit his congregation. We would put on the radio, and my uncle would pour a few inches of the whiskey he kept under the floor. I loved hearing the singers’ voices coming out live and raw from the speaker; it always did something special to me that I couldn’t get from records. Afterward, if he was jolly drunk, my uncle would show me a few things on the guitar. He was a genuine devil, but he did teach me how to play.

The Opry was the pinnacle. If I ever made it to that stage, I’d know I’d really done something with my time. I’d know I’dmadeit. Not arriving at a destination, but rather, an act of creation. Making my life into exactly what I wanted.

Around dinnertime, I found my way to a honky-tonk on Broadway. On the little stage in the corner, a Gene Autry wannabe played his old tunes in a high, cheap voice, and I listened politely, imagining myself up there instead, belting it for real. I scanned around the room, looking curious. I just needed one idjit cowboy to come along and buy me something. I was so hungry I’d chew their boot leather.