Her Wild Oats (15 page)

“See?” Oats glared. “Now will you give me that room number?”

“Wow! I never seen what one of these buses looks like on the inside.” The teenaged desk clerk climbed up onto the bus and started walking down the aisle. Oats followed and watched, annoyed, while he started poking around, looking into bunks and opening cabinets.

“We should go now,” Oats said. “We’re really not supposed to bring friends on the bus…” It was a total lie, but he wanted to get out of there and get Bobby Lee’s room number.

“Who says I’m your friend?” The older boy grinned. “Hey, what’s back here?”

Before Oats could stop him, he had opened the door to Bobby Lee’s private area in the back of the bus.

“Hey, stop! We’re not supposed to…”

“What the fuck?!” a man’s voice shouted from behind the door, and then the sound of zippers being zipped and general scrambling. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on behind that door, especially when Dickie Jaspers came tearing out half-dressed, shouting, “Get the fuck out of here, I’m gonna kill you little shits!”

There was a split second of open door that Oats didn’t really mean to look through. And there was no mistaking the long smooth hair and the green uniform as she pulled back away into the corner of the bunk, hiding under the thin Mexican blanket, right before the door slammed and Dickie came running, screaming his head off.

Oats started running, without even caring what direction he was going in. He headed out toward the highway and ran along the shoulder of the road while cars zoomed by, sounding like they were just inches from his head.

He ran and ran and ran.

Lost in the Moment

12

The interruption brought Arizona abruptly to her senses. What was she doing in the back of a rock & roll tour bus with her blouse half-open, a cigarette-flavored tongue halfway down her throat, and rough, calloused fingertips pawing at her, anyway? As Dickie took off after the intruders, screaming expletives, she pulled herself together as quickly as possible.

She had been lost in the moment, allowing herself to be seduced by Dickie’s bad-boy charm—which suddenly didn’t seem so charming anymore. She checked her pockets to make sure she had wallet, room key, hairbrush, and iPhone.

Arizona was pretty sure she’d seen a shock of bright red hair in the doorway just before Dickie lit out, and it didn’t take much brain power to figure out whose it was. It was hard to believe that Oats would be that rude, but it was clear that the kid had become rather attached to her. She was torn between anger at him for intruding on her private moment and relief that things had not gone any further with Dickie. Smoothing her wrinkled uniform and combing her hair with her hand, she stepped off the bus into an empty parking area and began walking, head down, toward her motel room.

Arizona was so distracted that she didn’t see another redheaded figure approaching, intently reading a pamphlet titled “What every stroke victim’s caregiver should know.” She didn’t notice the man’s shadow cross her path, and she didn’t sense his approaching presence until she had walked directly into him, causing him to yelp in surprise and drop a pile of colorful fliers all over the asphalt.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“No ma’am, it was my fault…”

“Here, let me at least help you pick those up.” She knelt on the pavement and began helping the man, whom she recognized as the guy she’d mistaken for Oats’ father.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated.

“It’s OK, really. Thanks for the help.” The man grabbed his last few pamphlets and stood up. “I’ve seen you before. My name’s Bobby Lee Crenshaw. I’d shake hands, but…” He looked down at his armful of pamphlets. “I don’t want to spill these little suckers all over the pavement again.”

“No problem.” Arizona smiled. “I’m Arizona Rosenblatt. It’s nice to meet you.” Arizona and Bobby Lee stood there for a minute, looking at each other and smiling in a kind of goofy way.

“I’m the che…” she said.

“My ban…” he said at exactly the same moment. “No, ladies first.”

“Oh, I was just going to say I work the counter in the gift shop over at Murphy’s on the morning shift. I saw you and your friends come in this morning.”

“Yeah, looks like we’re stuck here a few days. I was starting to say that I’m on a summer tour with my band. We were just passing through but our tour manager had a stroke and it looks like we’ll be here a little while longer.”

“I guess I knew that. I’ve met your harmonica player…and your guitar player.”

“Aw, Oats, yeah; he’s a good kid—smart, and a hell of a musician to boot. As for Dickie, allow me to apologize in advance, ma’am, on his behalf, for any untoward behavior. Even if he hasn’t done anything yet, he’s sure to yank your chain sooner or later.”

Arizona found herself fervently hoping that Bobby Lee would never find out about her close call with Dickie Jaspers. For safety’s sake, and to steer the conversation away from the guitar player, she turned the subject back to Otis Ray.

“How does a boy that age end up in a band with a bunch of grown men?” she asked.

“Well, ma’am, it’s a long story. I’ve known Otis Ray’s mama since before he was born. Her people own a great little music club up north around the Clear Lake area, and when a kid grows up in a honky-tonk it’s hard not to be musical. But he’s got something special going on, too. Oats has been playing up a storm since before he could walk, seems like.”

“He’s an unusual kid,” Arizona agreed, “extremely self-assured for someone his age.”

“Yeah, well, it would be due to growing up on the bandstand, I reckon. Hey, I’d best be moving along. Thanks for helping me pick up my papers, ma’am.”

“No problem…but what’s with the ‘ma’am’ stuff? My name’s Arizona. ‘Ma’am’ makes me feel a hundred years old!” Arizona tried to smile in a way that would let him know she was teasing, but the events of the last hour seemed to have knocked the teasy flirt right out of her, and her smile felt cracked and stiff.

“Aw, no, ma’am…I mean Arizona…I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just trying to be polite and debonair.” Bobby Lee replied, his own smile twinkling. “Say, do you know what a fellow might do for evening entertainment around here? My boys have been great about this unexpected hiatus, but I can feel them getting antsy. I was going to spring for a night out on the town, only there doesn’t seem to be any town.”

“I’m pretty new here myself,” Arizona said slowly, “and honestly I haven’t been getting out much. But I hear there’s a strip mall with a multiplex about eighteen miles south. Best of luck finding something to do.”

“You’d be most welcome to join us.”

“Oh! No, I don’t think I can. But thank you so much for asking.”

Bobby Lee looked disappointed, but he gave her a wink and a smile as he walked off toward the motel. Arizona would have loved to accept his invitation, but the idea of going out to a movie with Bobby Lee and Dickie was unsettling—especially with Otis Ray in the mix. She was feeling more idiotic by the minute for her lack of judgment. How in the world could she ever have thought that hooking up with Dickie would be a good idea? Now she’d have to avoid the whole gang until the bus rolled them out of town.

“Great,” she scolded herself. “Just great. You sure know how to pick ’em, Ari.” She walked across the parking lot as fast as she could, hoping to get to her room and the safety of a double-locked door before running into anyone else on the “Hell Bent and Whiskey Bound” tour.

She was too hurried and preoccupied with kicking herself to notice a voluptuous blonde and a sleek young lawyer getting into a late-model sports car with a “Jews for Jesus” bumper sticker on the fender. And they were too preoccupied with a passionate kiss for the road to notice the tall, sad-looking woman in the green polyester uniform dashing to the safety of her room.

*

By the time Oats stopped running, he had arrived at the next exit south, and walked slowly toward the off-ramp. His legs were tingling and his brain felt like it was tied in knots; all he wanted in the world was a glass of water and his bed—not the one at the motel, but the top bunk in the big attic room he shared with Hank Wilson at home.

He sat down by the side of the road for a few minutes to catch his breath, then wandered down the off-ramp into a travelers’ rest stop area very much like the one where the band was staying. There was a Denny’s and a Chevron and a place called “Mike’s Home Cooking” that didn’t look very homey. He chose the Denny’s, sat down at the counter, asked for a glass of ice water, and then somehow heard himself order a cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake.

While waiting for his food, he tried to sort out what had happened. He was furious at Dickie and even more furious at Arizona, even though he knew that didn’t make total sense. They were both grown-ups and could do whatever they wanted, right? But she was such a smart woman and he was so obviously a creep that it was hard to imagine her falling for his bullshit, even for a minute. The more Oats twisted the facts around in his brain the less sense they made.

Suddenly he remembered the lyrics of an old song, one of the first ones he’d ever learned—a simple, slow tune by obscure bluesman Fast Freddie Blouster called “Loser Blues,” in which he was expressing all this pain over stuff that was going wrong in his life—really hard, adult stuff about hard, adult losses.

At four or five years old, Oats used to get up on the stage at the Dewdrop Inn and perform it with his parents’ band, playing a really simple harp line in between the verses. The first couple of times, he’d been confused by the audience’s amused reaction. His mom explained that it was because he was little and cute, and the lyrics were so sad that people thought it was funny to see someone so young singing about heartbreak, something she said most people experience in life but not until they’re a lot older. She said she knew Oats would most likely experience some disappointment in love, but not until he was a grown-up, and if he looked into the audience’s eyes he would see friendliness. So he started playing it up for laughs, and got plenty. Imagine a little kid singing these lyrics.

Fall out of bed, I walk a mile

I get to the factory, stand single file

I stare at a machine, oh Lord I’m bored

We make a million things here and not one can I afford

Oh, don’t ask me nothin’, baby

Don’t bother wondering why

I’ll be a low-down dirty loser, mama

Until the day I die

My baby walked out, at the end of her rope

She took my car, and she took all my hope

She took all the money, leaving nothing behind

She even took my old guitar and destroyed my peace of mind

Oh, don’t ask me nothin’, baby

Don’t bother wondering why

I’ll be a low-down dirty loser, mama

Long after I die

Oats hadn’t thought about that song in a long time, but he suddenly realized that it summed up his feelings perfectly. And that led to his understanding that the situation was really quite simple. He was in love with Arizona and jealous that she’d chosen Dickie Jaspers and none of the other stuff really mattered.

The waitress put a plate down on the counter, and he ate fast; he hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and walked outside. The late-afternoon heat felt like an oven blast after the refrigerated atmosphere in Denny’s, and who would feel like walking back all those miles under the blazing sun? He sat down on the curb, pulled out his harp, and started playing “Loser Blues,” adding a couple of new verses made up on the spot. Oats knew that Fast Freddie Blouster was an old black guy from the south, as different from him as two guys could get, but right then it seemed they had a lot in common.

The verses to “Loser Blues” were coming thick and fast, and he found a piece of a pencil and some half-torn-up paper in his pocket and started writing them down in a kind of code, in order to remember them. Oats ended up with his own loser story.

When I was just a newborn, I had to make it on my own

My mama left my stroller in a tow-away zone

I shared things with my brother, had one sled to go around

I had it going uphill, he had it going down

Oh, don’t ask me nothin’, baby

Don’t bother wondering why

I’ll be a low-down dirty loser, mama

Until the day I die

Oats was on a roll! He ran out of paper and had to start scrawling on his hand, but another verse—this one inspired by recent headlines and certain questions from his recent conversations with Melody—came rushing in.

I tried to play the market, I was raking in the cash

I bought everything on margin, that was right before the crash

And now my life is over, the hearse is rolling slow

But I never was religious—all dressed up, with no place to go

Oh, don’t ask me nothin’, baby

Don’t bother wondering why

I’ll be a low-down dirty loser, mama

Until the day I die

He may not have had the woman of his dreams, but he had a head start on an original song. He wondered about asking Bobby Lee about doing this one instead of “Orange Blossom Special,” assuming that he got to stay in the band. Finally there was no point delaying it any longer; he had to start making his way back to the motel and the band and the wrath of Dickie and the embarrassment of having seen Arizona fumbling to button up her blouse. Although every inch wanted to stay sitting on that curb playing the blues, he knew better than to think he could avoid facing the music, especially after having spent so much time trying to convince Bobby Lee that he was a pro. Either that or he was going to have to hitchhike home to Clear Lake or—better yet—get hit by a car and killed. Then they’d miss him.

*

Bobby Lee Crenshaw was having trouble concentrating on his “What every stroke victim’s caregiver should know” pamphlet. A stroke is the sudden death of brain cells due to a problem with the blood supply, resulting in abnormal brain function, he read over and over again, distracted by his encounter with the charming woman in the parking lot. She didn’t seem like the usual type he’d seen working in places like Murphy’s. He wondered what her story was, how he could finagle a way to spend time with her away from his band’s prying eyes.