Dear Hank Williams (6 page)

You're probably wondering how I'm going to attend the Father and Daughter Potluck Banquet when my daddy is all the way over in Paris, France, taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. Well, Uncle Jolly, of course! He's not my daddy, but he will do in a pinch.

I can't wait until all those folks at church ask me what my secret ingredient is.

Your fan and creator of the Secret Agent Yam Mash,

Tate P.

PS—The night before the banquet, Aunt Patty Cake is going to roll my hair in rags. I'll bet I'll have more curls than Verbia.

 

November 16, 1948

Dear Mr. Williams,

T
HE OTHER DAY
when I was rehearsing my song, I started wondering if you had a special lady. Then you go and sing with your missus. When they announced that Mrs. Hank Williams would be singing with you, it was as if you were reaching out of the radio to personally deliver my answer. After you finished that gospel duet, I said, “I'll bet Mrs. Williams is real pretty.”

Uncle Jolly said, “Of course she is. I can tell by her voice.” Uncle Jolly thinks if someone doesn't sing good on the radio then they must be good-looking. (Just a reminder—Uncle Jolly is no expert on singing.)

Do you have any children? If you do, is one of them a girl my age? If there was a Father and Daughter Potluck Banquet at your church, I'll bet you would take her even if it was on the night of the
Louisiana Hayride
. I don't know why, but I'm just certain you would. I feel as sure about that as Uncle Jolly feels sure about your wife being pretty. And if my daddy wasn't all the way over in Paris, France, he'd be taking me too.

Sure of a lot of things,

Tate P.

PS—I can't wait to tell you what everyone thinks of my Secret Agent Yam Mash and my curls.

 

November 20, 1948

Dear Mr. Williams,

W
HY, OH WHY,
did Dolores pick the day of the Father and Daughter Potluck Banquet to break up for good with Uncle Jolly?

Apparently she went and fell in love with a fellow named Chester Fairfield from Oakdale. Rumor has it, Uncle Jolly found out the hard way. He caught them zipping around Glenmora in Chester's new Chevrolet Fleetmaster. Now Uncle Jolly has the lovesick blues.

I guess he found all that out a few hours before I started dressing for the Father and Daughter Potluck Banquet. I was ready thirty minutes early. My Secret Agent Yam Mash was in Aunt Patty Cake's best bowl, wrapped with a warm towel. I was wearing my pink Sunday dress that Aunt Patty Cake bought for me at Penney's in Alexandria. And when she untied the rags in my hair, the curls came out somewhat tighter than I'd preferred, like a bunch of skinny mattress springs glued to my scalp. I'm not complaining. If anyone asks me about them, I'll just say it's the newest look from Hollywood.

Thirty minutes after the banquet was supposed to start, Aunt Patty Cake said, “We might as well eat. My mouth has been watering for that secret recipe of yours, Tate.” But I told her no, maybe Uncle Jolly was just running late.

Frog and I settled on the porch steps. The moon was a great big buttermilk pie against the black sky. It stared down on me as if it was saying, “Still waiting?”

It was eight thirty before Uncle Jolly drove up. By then the banquet was halfway over. Remember I told you what else Uncle Jolly was addicted to? Well, it was clear he'd been at the Wigwam partaking in that addiction. He eased the car door open, but he lost hold of it. Then he leaned way over, trying to grab at the door to catch his fall. Lucky him, he caught it. He swung his legs out of the car and carefully stood. Still gripping the door, he hollered in a slurred voice, “I'll be ready directly, Sweet Tater.” Then he rocked back and forth on his feet while he held on. Finally he straightened and swaggered toward the house.

Frog spit on the ground. That's how you know he's good and mad. I scooted over and let Uncle Jolly stumble up the steps. This time he forgot to open the door. He fell plumb through the screen and knocked the door off its hinges. Now it's good and broken.

Aunt Patty Cake rushed out to the porch, where Uncle Jolly lay facedown on top of the door. She opened her mouth a few times like she was going to give him a big ole speech, but all she managed was to shake her head and say, “Just leave him be.”

She turned, and we followed her into the house, making giant steps over Uncle Jolly's body like he was a muddy rug we didn't want to wipe our feet on. Aunt Patty Cake set the table with sliced ham, leftover turnip greens, and my Secret Agent Yam Mash, but I didn't want to eat. I had a big hole inside me. Nothing could fill it. And here's the thing of it all—Uncle Jolly is not my daddy, and Big Pete might as well not be too.

When I was little, I would ask Aunt Patty Cake, “Was my daddy a bad man?”

“Now, baby, you have asked me that question a hundred times before.”

“Well, maybe I need to know again,” I'd say.

At breakfast, a while back, I asked Uncle Jolly about him. He told me, “Tate, your daddy wasn't a bad boy in the breaking-the-law sort of way. Let's just say he was a tomcat.”

“But you never tell me what that means.”

Aunt Patty Cake placed a plate of fried eggs and a slice of ham in front of me. “It meant he went a-creeping and a-crawling where he shouldn't have been.”

“Is that why Momma ran him off?”

Aunt Patty Cake sighed. “Yes, ma'am, it is. Now stop asking your questions and eat.”

Here is all I know about Big Pete:

–
He is not a photographer, although he did leave behind a bunch of pictures he took when he and Momma went to Grand Isle on their honeymoon, and a pair of boots that I hate and Frog loves.

–
He is not married to my momma anymore.

–
He is not anywhere I know, and probably anywhere he wants me to know.

–
The only thing I know about my daddy is his name, which he gave to me.

Sorry for the shameful lie,

Tate P. (which I wish stood for Patricia)

PS—I'll tell you the real story about my momma tomorrow.

 

November 21, 1948

Dear Mr. Williams,

I
KNOW YOU MUST THINK
I'm the biggest liar in the great state of Louisiana, but Aunt Patty Cake told me to lock my lips about my parents' real lives. She says, “No use inviting trouble.” Before I knew it, my little white lie grew and grew. Because Momma really is famous, and she did work in the picture-show business. But just not quite how I told it.

After Big Pete left, Momma started working at the concession stand, popping popcorn before the movies, dipping up ice cream cones after the shows ended. The way she tells it, Elroy Broussard the Third came to the Saturday matinee when a Gene Autry movie was playing. The movie had already started when Elroy arrived, but I guess he took one look at Momma and decided he wasn't in any hurry. Momma said she'd never seen a man dress so pretty. He spun a quarter on the counter and asked Momma, “Heads or tails?”

Momma said, “Heads.”

Elroy tossed the quarter, caught it, and checked. “I'll be. Looks like you're going to an early dinner with me tonight.”

Whenever Momma told that story, she ended it the same way. She looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “It was like Elroy Broussard dropped plumb out of the sky and landed in front of me and the popcorn machine.”

The first time Aunt Patty Cake heard it, she said, “Jordie June, you think the silliest moments are romantic.”

To me, Momma is the most romantic person I know. Some people with good singing voices around here claim, “God gave me this gift,” and they won't sing anywhere but church. Only church folk hear them Sunday after Sunday.

Momma wanted to share her gift with the world. She drove all around Rapides Parish with Lulu Swenson, singing in places where people could hear her. Aunt Patty Cake never said anything, although the way her mouth twitched every time Momma went, I could tell she didn't like it. Every Friday and Saturday night, Momma grabbed her purse, headed out the front door, and slipped into Lulu's car. Lulu's and Momma's voices harmonized like sisters. Which some say makes the best harmony. But personally I think a mother and daughter do.

I know because Momma and I sang together late at night when she'd get back. She'd try to be real quiet so as not to wake me, but I was always waiting to see the headlights of Lulu's car pull up in front of our house. I kept my window cracked just in case I fell asleep. When I heard Momma say “good night” in her hushed tone, my eyes popped wide open.

The front door squeaked and then our bedroom door. While Momma changed into her nightgown, I stayed quiet. After she slipped into bed, I'd whisper, “Momma, let's sing.”

She'd sigh. I knew she was bone-tired, but she always asked, “What are we going to sing, Tate?”

“‘Keep On the Sunny Side,'” I'd say, or “‘My Darling, Clementine.'”

Momma would start out singing soft so that she didn't wake Aunt Patty Cake. Her voice moved through the lyrics as if she was on a big stage. Like someone sticking their toe in the water, I'd join in the middle. Singing with her made me feel like I'd hitched a ride on a cloud. We'd finish with Momma saying all dreamlike, “Thank you, very much.” Then she'd fall sound asleep. That's what I miss most about her. Lying in the dark, side by side, singing together, oh so sweetly, until Momma found her way to dreamland.

I don't know why Mr. Broussard came all the way from Crowley to the Glenmora picture show. I wish he wouldn't have. The first time he came around here, Uncle Jolly said he looked like a gangster with his fancy suit, shiny shoes, and tilted hat. He gave Aunt Patty Cake a bouquet of roses, Frog a slingshot, and me a Little Orphan Annie doll.

Frog immediately ran to find a rock outside and practice. Me, I don't play with dolls. Never have. But I said thank you just the same because I saw Momma giving me her three-two-one look. That's her countdown look, meaning if she had to start counting, I would be in trouble by the time she reached “one.”

So I said, “Thank you, Mr. Broussard. You shouldn't have, sir.”

Momma smiled and winked at me.

They left in Mr. Broussard's black Mercury. Aunt Patty Cake, Uncle Jolly, Frog, and I stared as the car rode past the Applebuds' place and disappeared around the bend.

“Highfalutin nonsense,” said Uncle Jolly. Then he spit on the grass. (I guess Frog gets that nasty habit from him.) Aunt Patty Cake didn't say anything, so I followed her into the house and said, “Those sure are nice roses.”

She was filling a vase with water. “Mm-hm” was all she said.

“I'll bet Mr. Broussard is rich.”

She turned toward me with raised eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

“He bought all this stuff for us.”

She turned back to the sink. “Could be.”

That was as far as I could get her to go on the subject. Aunt Patty Cake loved to give her opinions, but when she didn't want to, her lips could be as tight as Dolores's girdle squeezed over her lumpy rear end.

Momma went out with Mr. Broussard almost every night. But Mr. Broussard stopped coming around our house. I don't think he liked how Uncle Jolly gave him the three-two-one look. Instead Mr. Broussard picked Momma up at the picture show, and she didn't get in until late. She stopped singing. The only reason we know was because a couple of weeks later, Lulu drove up and said, “Tell your momma that I wish she'd let me know if she doesn't want to sing together anymore. Mr. Lacombe is threatening to replace us if she doesn't come back.”

Momma got fired from the picture show in Glenmora. For weeks, she'd called in sick and gone on dates with Mr. Broussard instead. And since she wasn't singing with Lulu anymore, she wasn't making any money.

She used to talk about getting a big break and being discovered like Lana Turner at a drugstore soda fountain. But now she seemed to be more interested in Mr. Broussard's big break.

“What is it that man does all day besides strutting around like a proud rooster?” Uncle Jolly asked.

“He's a businessman,” Momma said.

Uncle Jolly snorted. “I reckon I know what kind of business he's in.”

Momma rolled her eyes and left the room.

“What kind?” I asked Uncle Jolly.

“The no-good kind.”

Nobody around here seemed to explain things where I could understand. Aunt Patty Cake with her talking about Daddy's tomcat ways, and Uncle Jolly with his griping about Mr. Broussard's no-good kind of business. A person could go crazy dreaming up things about what that means. That day, I thought I'd never know what Mr. Broussard's no-good business was. But then, two weeks later, I found out. And oh, how I wish Momma had never seen the likes of him.

Mr. Williams, this sad story has plumb worn me out. I'll finish telling you about Momma tomorrow.

In a sleepy and sorry state of mind,

Tate P.

 

November 22, 1948

Dear Mr. Williams,

B
RACE YOURSELF FOR
a dramatic ending to Momma's story. One day Momma had been gone longer than usual. We heard from Mrs. Ronner before the sheriff called us. That's how fast news travels in Rippling Creek. Mrs. Ronner's son's best friend's cousin works at a Shreveport bank. His bank got a call because a Texas bank near the Louisiana state line had just been robbed. After holding up the bank, the man ran out to a car that was being driven by a young woman. The driver took off fast and lost control. The car hit a fire hydrant, and water spewed everywhere. Momma never could drive good. The car backed up quickly and didn't stop until it hit the front door of the bank. By that time, I imagine, the alarm was going off.