eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466882782 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/07/2014 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 327 KB |
About the Author
Laura Watt is the author of the novel Carry Me Back. She also wrote Yours Truly, the Queen.
Read an Excerpt
Carry Me Back
By Laura Watt
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 1997 Laura WattAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8278-2
CHAPTER 1
The Greyhound bus terminal in downtown Tulsa smelled of diesel fumes, cigarette smoke, and slightly rank bodies. Not a whiff of Dial soap anywhere. Hair pomade, the kind old black men favor, and sour apple jawbreakers, maybe, and a hint of dirty diaper coming off the kid down at the end of the row.
It smelled like freedom to me. New odors, not prison odors. I was fresh out of the state penitentiary down at McAlester. About six hours since I walked out the front gate. Four years inside. I did what they said I did, but I was justified. You've heard of justifiable homicide. This was justifiable kneecap shattering. I'm still glad I did it, but sorry the law doesn't pin a medal on a man for protecting what's his.
My name's Webb Allen Pritchard. What happened was, this guy came to steal my tools. So I shot him in the leg with my deer rifle. I wasn't trying to kill him. And he didn't die, he just lay there, screaming and bleeding all over the AstroTurf beneath my carport. I'm the one who called police. I didn't run. I sat there in my La-Z-Boy outside my home at the lovely Shang-Grah-Lah Trailer Park in east Tulsa, with a bottle of Budweiser and the rifle across my lap and watched that asshole roll around. Man, he bled. Steal my tools, will you? You won't be stealing much from your wheelchair, friend.
I represented myself in court. The public defender's office told me not to do it, but you know how it is. I felt I could tell this story better than anyone else. Those tools were my livelihood. I worked construction. This jerk came around breaking into my place after dark. I was out, but I came home early. Caught him red-handed. He had a record, of course. Breaking and entering. What a surprise.
They tried to make me the bad guy. Dug up my past. That's how it works these days. But my record's nothing next to his. I'm a Boy Scout compared to him. A couple of DUIs, one misdemeanor disturbing the peace, and that time they pulled me over and found one joint in the ashtray. Now this guy, he was in the state reformatory as a kid, in and out, in and out, then one long half-assed crime spree after he graduated from the juvie program. He was pretty stupid, too; he kept getting caught.
He rolled into court, Mr. Ironside, and because he's a crip they just fell all over themselves, made him out to be some kind of disabled saint, his life's ruined, blah blah blah. He winked at me when he took the stand. Winked at me! You sonofabitch, I'll blow away your other worthless kneecap.
Well, they didn't see things my way. I got eight years for attempted murder and served half of it. My tools got stolen anyway, while I was awaiting trial, and my good neighbors at the Shang-Grah-Lah carted off my beloved La-Z-Boy.
The crip, he went straight for a while, conned himself into some bullshit program where they make crocheted keychains, but his true nature got the better of him and he tried to rob a 7-Eleven. Got his wheelchair stuck in the door. Cry me a river. I wished they would've sent him down to McAlester, where I headed the welcome committee, but he wound up in some facility for other criminal crips. I wonder if they put little speed bumps out in the yard, you know, to prevent escapes. Anyway, he's still in there, Mr. Ironside, and I'm Mr. Outside, breathing free.
Here's what I have with me: one suitcase, appropriately cheap and battered and covered with duct tape, as no one ever comes out of the joint with matching leather monogrammed Gucci luggage; a Sony Walkman; and this new banjo, Lil Darlin'. Only she isn't exactly new.
I found her in a pawnshop down on Greenwood. Went there as soon as I hit Tulsa a couple hours ago. Guy in the joint told me about this place where they have nice instruments cheap. I went in there, past an old sign at the door that said NO LIQUOR SERVED TO INDIANS, and asked the guy if he had any banjos. Well, he had all kinds: cheap little Japanese models all the way up to some vintage Mastertones. How about something in between, I said. How much you got to spend, he asked. When I told him, he said hold on. He went down some stairs, and came back up carrying a really beat-up banjo case. Didn't look too promising.
Here's one you might like, he said. Got some history to it. He opened it up and there she was, the love of my life. An old Gibson, but not a Mastertone. Kind of cobbled together, you could tell. Somebody had built and rebuilt her over the years. Mahogany neck and resonator, rubbed to a satin finish. Strange kind of flower inlay on the fingerboard. And the head was made of hide, not plastic, and real old, probably the original, all yellowed and stained. Written on it in a kind of old-fashioned script were these words: Doc Mullican's Traveling Hayride & Medicine Show.
This banjo had character. She had a story to tell, and I wanted to hear it. I lifted her out of the case and cradled her in my arms. You're my Lil Darlin', I said. We belonged together. Her strings were shot but I could hear — no, feel — her mellow tone.
Where'd you get this, I asked the guy.
Old guy brought that in about three years ago, he said. Told us it'd belonged to a friend of his who died. That's all I know.
I paid cash for it and walked on over to the bus station.
She weighed almost fifteen pounds — more — when she was in the case. I just love to hand banjos to people who don't know anything about banjos, which is practically anybody. Just casually say, Here, and watch them try to handle it. It's like dropping a bowling ball in their palm. There was one time, pretty recently, where a man killed his wife by smacking her in the head with his banjo. People laughed about it, and it sounds funny, but if you got hit with a true banjo, a bowling ball on a stick, it would not be funny. It would be, well, homicide. Maybe I should've hit the crip with Lil Darlin', if I'd had her then. No, come to think of it, she might have been damaged.
This banjo was going to be my ticket to a new life. Yeah, I know, I've heard all the reasons why this is stupid from my sister, Dot Pritchard McGee. But she's wrong as rain. It's going to work. I trust myself. I think.
When I worked construction, I also played in a bar band at night, the Wiley Coyotes. Country-rock. I played rhythm guitar. We'd do covers of "Born to Be Wild" and "Sweet Home Alabama," stuff like that. Eagles tunes. Lynyrd Skynyrd. Hank Williams, Jr. Good stuff, but not what I was putting on the tape deck when I was alone. What I like is what I call real country music. They don't play it on the radio anymore. Haven't for decades. Wait, that's not quite true; there's an all-night trucker show you can pick up all across America, and on Saturday nights in the real wee hours, around three A.M., this guy plays Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers, Uncle Dave Macon, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers. String band music. Early Grand Ole Opry. Then he'll move up a bit and get into Webb Pierce and Kitty Wells and Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams without the Junior.
That's the kind of music that speaks to me. Not the soulless, computerized shit that passes for country these days. When Ole Hank sings about that lonesome whippoorwill, I hear it, and I get lonesome, and when Bill Monroe gets to chopping on that old mandolin of his, I am truly moved. There's a lot of the blues in bluegrass. Of course, being a banjo player, it's Earl Scruggs who gives me a reason to live. Thank you, Earl.
I was born in 1953. The same year Hank Williams died. When I was a kid, all I listened to was rock'n' roll. Country to me was something hokey to make fun of, like Porter Wagoner's Nudie suits. He was on TV on Saturday afternoons. He'd step out from behind some hay bales with this fantastic blond pompadour about four inches high, his sequined suit just about blinding you, and launch into some serious nasality. I couldn't stand it. But it was fascinating. He had Dolly Parton with him then; she was just a little ol' country gal with blond hair even bigger than his. That's probably why they parted ways. Battle of the Big-Haired Blondes.
Anyway, when I was in high school, I had this friend who was a bit progressive. He would listen to all kinds of music, not just Top Forty. One day I was over at his house and we were playing records. After we heard some Jimi Hendrix, he pulled out another album and said, Here, listen to this guy, he's a real original. And he put on a Doc Watson album. I was blown away. I had no idea anybody could play guitar like that. Notes flying out like a flock of sparrows. You could hear his fingers sliding over the strings to reach the chord, and he'd just nail it. And his voice ... mountain minor ... it gave me the shivers and I didn't know exactly why.
Now, I was vaguely aware of folk music. I had the obligatory Peter, Paul & Mary album, and I had an old cheap guitar and I'd play along. I was so stupid I thought Peter, Paul & Mary wrote "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A'Changin'." Who read the fine print? I was just a kid. So when Doc came into my life, he changed it. I began to haunt used-record stores and explore the unknown world of old-time country music. A rough, dark, inviting world full of cheatin' and drinkin' and bar fights and death, but also a place where God and redemption and Mama and home were held in high esteem. You could sing a song about a man who drowned his girl and used her finger bones and hair to make a fiddle, and follow it up with a sweet little hymn. There was lots to learn from. Bluegrass. Old-timey. Cowboy songs. Bob Wills and western swing. Mountain music. I loved it all.
None of this obsession helped my love life. Linda Townsend, head cheerleader, she of the long chestnut hair and deep green eyes and rich daddy, just didn't understand what I saw in Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers. I quickly learned not to bring up my musical tastes too early in any relationship.
My sister, Dot, kept my record collection safe while I was in prison. She understood what it meant to me. She put it in a downstairs closet instead of the garage because I told her heat and cold would warp the vinyl.
All the time I was inside the joint, I kept my chops up on a crappy old banjo they had down there. Just to entertain myself, mainly, but then I started having ideas. They kept it locked up with a couple of other instruments in a cabinet in the library. I'd go get it every evening after supper, and pick away.
Soon, a couple of other guys joined me on guitar and fiddle, and we had a regular little prison string band going. For them, it was just a way to pass the time and forget what a shithole we were in; for me, it was part of my grand plan.
I wasn't going back into construction. Nossir. And I wasn't going back to the Wiley Coyotes, either, or any other bar band. I was going to go it alone playing the kind of music I loved. Hit the road with a fine new instrument and play the festival circuit. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Webb Pritchard.
"Are you nuts?" Dot said when I informed her of this career move via prison telephone. It was obvious she didn't see the potential. "You can't make enough money to eat that way. Nobody listens to that kind of music except you. It's a stupid idea."
"Thanks for your support," I said. "I'll send you free tickets to the Opry when I'm on. Maybe I'll introduce you to Reba."
"You'd better go talk to Mr. Shively." My ex-foreman.
"Nope. When I get out, I'm coming by your place, and you'd better have some decent food on the table." Dot was a great cook. "I'm dying on this shit in here."
"OK. How about some turkey roll and Jell-O?"
"Forget it. How about some real roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy and strawberry rhubarb pie?"
"What happened to the vegetarian phase?"
"Uh, I'll get back on it. It was too hard to maintain in here."
"I could make you a nice nut loaf. Or tofu bake."
"Roast beef, woman. Rare. And pie."
That was a couple of months ago. Now I was on my way to Dot's. It's a long way from Tulsa to Montrose, Colorado. But I don't mind buses. Most people hate 'em. Me, I like sitting up high and watching the world roll by through tinted windows. I hate to fly. The way I see it, if the bus breaks down, you sit by the side of the road till the mechanic or the tow truck shows up. If the plane breaks down, you're basically dead.
"Hey, mister, what's in there?"
I looked up. I must have dozed off. A little kid was standing in front of me, pointing at the black banjo case patched with duct tape.
"It's a banjo."
"What's that?"
So I showed him. I snapped the locks and lifted the lid and let that wonderful smell seep out; pressed velvet and light oil and wood. Lil Darlin' gleamed softly.
"Wow. What's it sound like?"
"Like rippling lightning, son. Go get yourself some Earl Scruggs records and you'll find out." I snapped the lid shut.
He trotted back to his people. They eyed me suspiciously. They didn't know from Earl Scruggs. But I probably looked like a convict. Or a pervert or something.
Suddenly my back hurt from the hard plastic chair. One of the wonderful side effects of working construction. Just then, the P.A. system crackled to life.
"The 2:40 bus to Denver is now departing from door four."
I grabbed my suitcase and picked up Lil Darlin'. She felt light as a feather.
* * *
Did I say I liked buses? Hmmm. Sixteen hours to Denver, and we must have stopped at every wide spot in the road across Kansas. All the way I sat next to this old black man on his way to Las Vegas. He wore red head to toe — even his shoes were red. Boy, where do you find red shoes? He kept flashing his wad at me, probably a couple of hundred dollars, all small bills, winking and saying how after he won at the blackjack tables he was gonna go spend his winnings on a fine woman. And he knew just where to get one, too. Did I want to come along? I let him yammer.
A slight layover in the Mile High City, and then another bus through the mountains and down to Montrose. Dot met me at the station.
She looked great. Dot was always kind of heavy, but she was one of those women who really couldn't look any other way, and she carried it well. She was three years older than me. Married, two kids in high school. Her husband, Vern, was a salesman at the local John Deere dealership. He'd always said he would've blown away the guy's kneecap, too. Didn't hold my prison time against me.
"Where's that roast beef?" I squeezed her tight and kissed her neck. Tabu talcum powder, like always.
"In the oven. Come on."
They lived outside of town, in a big frame house on eleven acres. I'd been there many times. Dot's vegetable garden was the stuff of dreams. It's hard growing things in Colorado; rocky soil, wind, dry air and the cold make it so. But Dot managed to bring forth the kind of goodies I only used to see in the Miracle Gro ads on TV.
I stood out in the garden and surveyed her handiwork. I like gardens.
"We having corn?"
"On the cob. You've lost weight. You look like shit, by the way."
"Thanks. So do you."
"Grandma left you some money."
Out of the blue. Just like that. I pondered.
"Yeah? How much?"
"Fifteen thousand."
I swallowed. A dozen crazy things flashed through my mind, but I knew instantly what I would spend it on.
"If I were you, I'd put it away and watch it grow," she said, lighting up a Merit. "We put our share toward the kids' college."
"Yeah, well, I'm not you. I have to think about this." Her smoke bothered me. "Can you please hold that thing downwind, for Chris-sakes?"
She grinned and switched it to the other hand. We stood there awhile in silence, watching the corn plants bob in the breeze. Then we went inside to eat.
* * *
One day a week, Dot put in a half day at the Carbon Copy, the little newspaper in the even littler town of Carbon. Her title was Food Editor, but what she really did was type in a couple of recipes and sort the mail. The Carbon Copy laid claim to one distinction: It had a famous movie critic. Ed Dittmer was a fraud. He was just a guy from the county who ran a few head of cattle and sometimes plowed his neighbors' roads for a few dollars. He liked to think he held some sort of official status because of this, and acted like he did, but actually he just had a blade on the front of his truck. Ed fancied himself a movie expert because he'd seen an awful lot of movies and read a whole raft of movie trivia books. Who was Alan Ladd's stand-in in Shane, and shit like that. I used to quiz him, and he'd never slip up.
"Ed," I'd say, perusing the trivia book, "who played the sheriff in Psycho?" Practically a bit part. "John McIntire," he'd reply in about two seconds flat. Looking nonchalant. Ed hated Woody Allen movies. "Only New York Jews can understand 'em," he'd say. "If there are any New York Jews here in Carbon, I haven't met 'em."
So he had this bogus column in the Carbon Copy. One day, he gave a rave review to the truly wretched Howard the Duck, a film not widely considered one of Hollywood's strongest moments. "One of the Year's Ten Best!" he wrote. And somebody somewhere must have seen this issue of the Carbon Copy, because those very words soon turned up in ads for the movie.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Carry Me Back by Laura Watt. Copyright © 1997 Laura Watt. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.