Chapter Twenty

It hadn't been an easy tour...but then what tour was ever easy? Ireland, the UK; Charles tightens the screws even with an ocean between us. Back home, an ending approaches.

I don't think I realized until recording this episode how sad, and how strong I must've been back then. Thanks for listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Chapter twenty It hadn't been an easy tour, but then what tour was ever easy? For this one, I'd traveled with two other American artists, Amy Allison and Neil Cleary. We'd all released albums in the UK through the Scottish label Shoe Shine, and a COBIL idea had been devised where we'd each play a set, sharing a guitarist, and work up a song or two all together. It was an idea that sounded better on paper. Only the most focused, discerning music fans pay attention to record labels. Touring was a challenge as a solo artist, and the package idea took those challenges, finding an audience the right night and the right venue, and multiplied them by three. The tour started in Ireland. I arrived in Dublin via Airlingus from Atlanta to the news that all the Irish shows had been cancelled. The reasons were vague. It was like that old game of telephone. Promoter talks to the label who shares the news with the tour manager, who takes us for a meal in a pub, but to explain that she doesn't know what happened. I didn't mind hanging out in Dublin for a few days, spending money instead of earning. The money part was nebulous anyway. Who knows how the shows would have done? Now the pressure was off. I was several time zones away from Alabama, and Hazel was safely at home with her dad. I shared a room with Amy, one of my favorite people in the world. Amy had a voice like no one else, wrote wonderful songs, and possessed a tart sense of humor befitting the daughter of Mose Allison, one of the great musical wits of the twentieth century. The two of us snuggled into our twin beds like sisters who shared a first name. I imagined life would have been different if I'd had a sister to share secrets with instead of four brothers. In Dublin, I learned that Jack Emerson, who'd created the Praxis label in Nashville with his friend Andy McClennan, had passed away. Praxis was the first label interested in any music I helped create, bringing last round up to Nashville to make a record back in the mid eighties. I found out about Jack's fatal heart attack when I logged onto a public computer in an internet cafe and saw his name in capital letters in my AOL inbox. None of us had a cell phone that worked overseas, and I'd left my unwieldy laptop back home. There was no Facebook or Twitter. There may have been MySpace, but I hadn't heard of it yet. I was still young enough to feel disbelief along with a deep sadness that someone so vital and shockingly I discovered only upon reading his obituary, a year younger than me, was gone. He'd been the authority that blessed my band with a memorable chance to record in the shadow of giants like Johnny Cash and Cowboy Jack Clement, with the great Jim Rooney producing. He'd also infuriated us all, deciding to pass on the results, but he'd been nothing but encouraging since I'd gone solo and moved to Nashville. Later that night I walked to a payphone on the corner outside the hotel to call Charles. I wore the engagement ring he'd bought me, a diamond set in a platinum band. I'd chosen it myself, feeling like a floozy. I stood in the rain just across from the American embassy, a striking circular sixties building that had the odd effect of making me feel safe. Imagination, courage, remember, you're an artist. I focused on the building while Charles ranted. How dare they cancel our shows? It was ridiculous that I was stuck in Dublin with no gigs while he was made to suffer without me back in Alabama. Once we were married, he'd see to it that I never had to waste my time again. Not sure when he became a booking agent with a magic wand, but hadn't I wanted a man to love and think about me when I was out in the world, playing my songs? I pulled my coat tighter and hoped my friends back in the hotel had picked up some beer and snacks. We needed to rehearse and make the best of the UK shows. In Manchester, the venue got switched at the last minute. In Sheffield our van was broken into. In Glasgow, we replaced the van and played a decent show. Newcastle went well. We drove and drove, listening to CDs of the Strokes, newly released second album, comedian Mitch Hedberg Live and Laura Nero. Everyone got a turn to play their favorites. Our date in London at the borderline felt successful enough. We performed in Brighton and Hull. I wondered what reckless Eric was up to. Fighting off exhaustion and a cold, I dialed my number back in Nashville from a payphone in Heathrow to retrieve my messages. I was happy this tour, cancelled gigs, low turnouts, van break in, lousy weather, balanced with a few good shows, was over. I listened to a voicemail from my brother Riley. I heard from Dad, Amy. Mom had a stroke. She's in the hospital. I hope you get this message. The slick airport lounge floor rotated beneath me, and I felt a stab of guilt. I hadn't spoken to my parents in weeks, months even. Did they have any idea I was out of the country? I thought of my own daughter back in Nashville, how it would wound me to hear that she'd flown across the Atlantic Ocean without my knowledge. It would be like a part of my own soul had set off from the earth, leaving me with a void inside, and not knowing why. I felt guilt for being out of touch, even though it's possible my dad hadn't even realized we'd been out of touch. We only talked on the phone when it was absolutely necessary. I dialed the calling card access code and PIN, then entered the childhood phone number I would never forget, to let my father know I'd be there in Pittsburgh the next day. It's up to you, he said. She might pull through, or she might not. What must he have been thinking and feeling? All those years of taking care of my mom. He was seventy five. How had he survived fifteen years of parenting his wife? It hadn't been easy for him to parent actual kids when I was growing up. He'd never been the tender, caring kind of parent my mother had been, but he'd done his best. As soon as I landed in Atlanta, my cell phone rang. When are you coming to Birmingham? Charles asked, wanting to see me immediately. I told him about my mother. She'll be fine, he said. What about me? I drove straight to Nashville and picked my daughter up from her dad's apartment. I think I need to go see my mother, I told Hazel. I'm sorry, I know I just got home from tour. You should go, Mom, she said. I collapsed into bed and in the morning drove to Pittsburgh, north through Kentucky, east at Cincinnati, skirting Columbus, and hitting Wheeling, West Virginia as it was getting dark. Charles called often to pout. How can you do this to me? he said. You're selfish. The BMW glided powerfully, silently, over the hills into Pennsylvania. Why had I let him give me this car? And worse, how could I love it so much? After years of breaking down on the side of highways, it worked well. It was something to rely on. I drove straight to the hospital I was born in and met my dad on my mother's floor. He showed me to her room and told me he'd see me back at their apartment, where he'd found her slumped on the bathroom floor a few days before. I feel awful I wasn't there when she needed me, he said, breaking my heart and reminding me how human he was beneath the stern exterior. My mother looked like a child in her hospital bed. She lay on her back, a breathing tube in her mouth. Her eyes were closed, and she didn't appear to be conscious. But I felt sure she knew I was there. I held her hand and sat with her, watching her chest rise and fall. My mom I'm here, Mom, I said. I'm okay. That's all I wanted her to know. Because I'd learned as a mom, it's all that matters that your kids be okay. I arrived at my parents' apartment and senior living at 1 AM and took half an ambien. I fell into a real sleep, the one you can only get to when you know you've made it home. An hour later my older brother John called. Mom's gone, Amy. What if I hadn't come? Would she have held on? I felt sure she waited until after I arrived to let go her last act of caring for me. John and I told our dad his wife was gone. We sat up all night, figuring out what we needed to do. We decided she would have wanted the simplest pine box coffin. Then we hit on the idea she would have loved it if we painted the coffin in folk art bright colors and rustic designs. Country crafts and antiques and collectibles had been her life after we kids left home. A country coffin. We were sure of it. It's what we needed to do. Then we were screaming with laughter, picturing neighbors and relatives and family friends looks of shock and dismay at a country living casket. We calmed down and when morning came called the funeral parlor and asked for something standard. John and I walked up and down hills through old familiar neighborhoods to the funeral parlor. I flashed on a high school era joy ride with my older brother and his buddies, drunk on beer, taking the steep, narrow, cobbled streets at a crazy speed while I screamed at them from the back seat to slow down. And here my family always called me the rebel. Wasn't I just a good girl whose hormones occasionally led her astray? We brought an outfit for the director to dress my mom in. When the undertaker finished, I looked at her and she looked very wrong. He'd applied pink lipstick to her lips. My mom's overbite framed by Revelon Fire and Ice had been one of her standout features, part of what made her her. To see her in pink lipstick was jarring. I decided this moment was the reason for my existence, to correct a ghastly but honest error that negated everything my mom had been and done and stood for. She was red lipstick, plain and simple, classic. Charles phoned again, asking when I was coming back. He sent a beautiful floral arrangement because the best he could offer was the things money can buy. My ex husband Will brought Hazel to the funeral. Will loved my mother. When all the relatives and friends were in the room with my mother laid out, looking peaceful in her red lipstick, my brother's sister in law Karen, our kids and I hung out in a den of the funeral parlor. There was a basket of old VHS tapes and a TV with a VCR. Patrick pulled out a tape. Hey look, Tim Conway. Our mom loved Carol Burnett's TV show and all Carol's co-stars, Harvey Corman, Vicky Lawrence, good old Tim. This tape was called Dorf on Golf. Dorf was a grown man who hobbled around with shoes on his knees to make him look especially short, genius in a silly way. We sat around the funeral parlor TV and laughed hysterically, taking turns crying. Other mourners approached the room and fled immediately, unsure what was happening around the TV, but knowing they couldn't penetrate our circle of memory and despair. We watched Dorf tee up on a bright green golf course, shoes on his knees. Dorf, look after our mother, we screamed, choking on tears and guffaws. Dorf knows, Dorf knows all. Later, up in the apartment, we went through Mom's clothes and entertained ourselves trying them on. Somebody found a C D of forties big band music, and we jitterbugged and jived in colorful scarves and plaid jumpers, just like our mother would have done. This was my family. My phone rang, it was Charles again. Michael was mincing around the room with shoes on his knees.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

I silenced the ringer was just a little gum.