Tag: Nashville Star

Mountain Laurel – Segment 5

Published on by Jan Sikes22 Comments

As this story has progressed, we met Andy Roberts, who has made it big in the country music world of Nashville, but is tortured by demons and memories that won’t leave him alone. We first met him in a bar where a reporter was trying his best to get a feature story out of him and we left him last week at the remains of the cabin where he grew up and where so many memories, both good and bad still linger.

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The porch and most of the walls still stood, and the Mountain Laurel tree Papa had planted for Mama at the corner of the porch gave off a sweet tantalizing fragrance. It seemed to be the only thing left alive.

mountain laurel

 

Inside, I found decaying ruins inhabited by varmints. I took in the familiar rough-hewn board walls and kicked at a tin can that rolled across the dirt covered floor. A mouse streaked across the floor and into a hole.abandoned_Cabin

I sank down on my haunches and put my head in my hands. Somehow, I had to find a way to get past the guilt that gnawed at my insides like a rabid animal. Papa would be sorely disappointed. I’d been handed an opportunity that few people ever get in a lifetime. And yet, I was dead inside.

 

 

Papa’s flashing eyes and wide smile were in front of me. I could almost feel his breath on my face and hear him say, “Son, get my banjo. Let’s pick a little.”

banjo man

After some time, I got to my feet and poked around the house in the fading sunlight. A yellowed envelope tucked carefully away in Mama’s top dresser drawer caught my attention. The address showed Blackmon Children’s Home in Bowling Green, Ky. I carefully slipped the letter out of the envelope and my heart jolted. I never knew where they’d taken Timmy until now. I folded the letter and slid it into my pocket.

In the back corner of the kitchen pantry, I found Papa’s banjo covered with a thick layer of dust. I picked it up and wiped it off with the tail of my expensive silk shirt.

It wasn’t until minutes later I realized tears coursed down my cheeks. I tuned the rusty strings, picked out Papa’s favorite song and talked to him. I felt like a real person for the first time in many years. A man needs roots no matter if they’re only in his mind.

“I’m sorry, Papa. I let you down. I let Mama die and I let the welfare lady take Timmy”…the words poured out of me like water from a spigot. The louder I played, the louder my voice got until I was fairly shouting.

The room began to spin. My knees buckled and I went down with a thud.

When I opened my eyes, the room was pitch black. Where was I? I groaned and rolled over. I was going to be sick. I stumbled out onto the porch and let the whiskey spew from me. When had I eaten last? With knees like Jello and only pale moonlight to guide me, I made my way down the rickety porch steps to the Jag. With any luck, I’d find a package of crackers in the glove box.

 

I returned to sit on the porch with half a bottle of water and two crackers in hand. I knew I had to rid myself of this demon. I needed a sign, something to tell me Papa forgave me. I reached inside my pocket and felt the letter. It was too late for Mama, but maybe not too late to do something for Timmy.

I lost track of time as I sat cloaked in the darkness. A flash from the sky got my attention. A shooting star streaked across above me, followed by another and another.

shooting stars

I felt a familiar hand squeeze my shoulder. Was it really Papa’s voice, or did I imagine it? Then I heard his easy-rolling laughter when he told me to get my ass back in that fancy car and go make some music.

I stood, brushed the dirt off my clothes, retrieved Papa’s banjo, threw it in the back seat and turned the car around just as the sun peeked over the horizon.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mountain Laurel – Segment 4

Published on by Jan Sikes21 Comments

Last week when we left Andy Roberts and Lewis Washington in a Nashville bar, a voluptuous brunette had caught Andy’s eye and, we were just starting to hear the story of how Andy got to Nashville. I have a feeling this is going to be juicy. Of course, Andy is lost in his thoughts and sharing very little of this with the insistent reporter.

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The brunette managed to bump into me as she brushed past on her way to the ladies room. “Oh I’m so sorry,” she tittered.

I silently tipped my black Stetson and turned away.

“Pardon my French, Mr. Roberts, but what in the hell does a fifteen-year-old kid do in Nashville?”

A smile crossed my face as I remembered the lady who took me in off the streets. She was a beauty with flaming red hair and fourteen years my senior. But, she could sing. She was already a star, performing on the Grand Ol’ Opry and recording on Columbia Records. She would tell me I was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen and I’d blush.

dottie-west-196956-1-402

I raised my head and stared long and hard at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I never thought of a man as being pretty. My eyes weren’t violet like April’s, they were more of a blue-gray and I had a head of dark wavy hair.

cowboy black hat

I was tall and slender and she loved dressing me in expensive rhinestone suits. She was as fine a lady as had ever been born. She took me with her everywhere she went and introduced me to all of the Nashville players.

And at night, when the curtains fell and we were alone, she took me to her bed. She made me a man…a real man. She taught me how to please, exactly how to touch all the right places and what made a woman lose control. By the time I turned seventeen, I opened shows for her and warmed her bed when her husband was away.

Corinna South was on top of the world. She drank heavy, fought hard, loved harder and sang with all of her heart and soul. Then a car wreck took her from me and from the world. There would never be another Corinna South and I’d never give quite as much of myself to another woman.

Despite the thoughts that flooded my mind, I managed a civil reply to the insistent man. “I was lucky. Corinna South needed an opening act and I auditioned.”

After a long moment, I stood, threw some bills on the bar and headed for the door.

tip money

Lewis shouted after me. “But, I’m not done yet, Mr. Roberts. We’re just getting started.”

I waved at him over my shoulder and dug the keys to the Jaguar out of my pocket. Without a second thought or backward glance, I turned the car onto the highway and gunned it. I didn’t let off the gas until the speedometer hit one-hundred. When it slowed to ninety, I hit the cruise control.

It didn’t matter that I had a show to do twenty-four hours from now, or that a pretty blonde waited for me at my uptown Nashville apartment. I located a half-empty bottle of whiskey under the front seat. A quick twist of the lid and the amber liquid burned its way down my throat.

Jack Daniels Half Full

The sun was starting to slip behind the mountain when I turned down the rutted lane that led to the familiar miner’s shack. My Jag hit bottom as the tires slid into deep ruts. I maneuvered it the best I could and rolled to a stop in front of what was left of our cabin.

TO BE CONTINUED………

Mountain Laurel – Segment #2

Published on by Jan Sikes23 Comments

We met our main character in the first segment of Mountain Laurel last week. So far, all we know about him is that his name is Mr. Roberts and he’s obviously a country music star in Nashville.  We also know he lost his father in a coal mining accident when he was a young boy. A reporter is trying his best to get an interview out of him and so far that isn’t going well. Let’s head back to the bar and see how he fares.

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I had a little brother, Timmy, seven years younger. Timmy had been born different. They said his brain never developed the way it should. He’d sit for hours and play with the dust that danced on the sunbeams through the windows, lost in his own little world. Oh, how Papa doted on him.

After that fateful day in the coal mines of Kentucky, the life we’d known as children of Robert Anderson was over. Mama fell into a deep depression and locked everyone out. If it hadn’t been for April, us Anderson kids might’ve starved to death.

My one solace was music. I’d often disappear for hours at a time, taking my guitar with me. A stream ran a few hundred yards from our miner’s shack on the side of the Cumberland Mountains. That’s where I’d go. I played my guitar and sang to the fish that jumped out of the water, turtles that sunned on a log and frogs that leaped from stone to stone.

The fat man cleared his throat loudly. “Mr. Roberts, I don’t think you’ve heard a word I’ve said. Would you at least answer one question?”

Oh yeah, I’d forgotten all about the insistent reporter. I turned to look squarely at him. “What’s your name?”

“Lewis Washington, sir. What inspired you to write your hit song, Cumberland Mines?”

“It was a tribute…to my father.” I motioned to the bartender and returned to my thoughts.

Not too long after we lost Papa, the local welfare lady came. I hid under the porch and listened.

Mountain_Shack

“Mrs. Anderson, we’re sorry for the loss of your husband, but it has come to our attention that your young son, Timmy, may need to be placed in an institution where he can get the kind of help he needs.”

I didn’t have to see Mama’s face to know she gave the lady a blank stare. That’s all she’d managed to give any of us for months.

The welfare lady droned on and on. By the time she drove her ’49 Ford down the dirt road that had brought her to our shack, I knew she’d be back to get Timmy. I crawled out from under the porch and kicked at the dust that settled under my feet.

1949_ford_carros_antigos_19

 

Anger took over and I bounded up the porch steps and into the house. Brushing past April, I went straight to Mama. Nothing I said would make her look at me. She was gone.

The worst thing a boy can do is cry in front of his older sister. Once I’d said my piece, I grabbed my guitar and headed for the creek as I’d done a hundred times since Papa died. Oh, how I pounded on the guitar that day. The more I cried, the harder I hit the strings. But, by the time I dragged myself back to the house, I’d written my first song about a tragedy in a Cumberland Mountain coal mine.

“Ahem. I heard Andy Roberts ain’t your real name.” The reporter didn’t give up.

I glanced at his flushed face. “Nope.”

“What’s your real one?” The way he held the pencil over the paper reminded of me a bird about to dive for its prey.

“You’re getting awful personal,” I growled. For a long minute, I considered punching him in the face.

TO BE CONTINUED……

Mountain Laurel – Segment #1

Published on by Jan Sikes29 Comments

If you follow my blog, you know that a big part of my life revolves around all kinds of music, but country, folk, and Americana music in particular. Why? Because most of the songs in these genres are story-driven. As a writer, that is what I gravitate to. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy classic rock and blues, because I love them. But, ultimately it’s the stories that draw me.

There are certain songs that invoke the desire to expand and tell the story in greater detail than what you get in three minutes. That is the case with “Mountain Laurel.”

“Rocky Mountain Music” by Eddie Rabbitt is the inspiration. I hope you enjoy the story and here’s a link to the song, if you want to give it a listen.  The storyline does not follow the song a hundred percent but does take bits and pieces of it to weave into this tale.

Segment 1

“Tell me, Mr. Roberts. What’s it like bein’ a big singin’ star?”

The afternoon sun reflected off the lone front window of the Nashville bar. I turned my attention from the shot glass nestled comfortably in my hand to the watery blue eyes of an overweight fellow in a cheap leisure suit. “I reckon it’s okay.”

The heavyset man eased his rear up on the bar stool next to me and motioned to the bartender. “I hate to intrude, but I’m tryin’ real hard to get established as a reporter in the music industry and I need a story bad. What was it like for you growing up?”

Shifting away from the obtrusive interviewer, I stared past him at a memory as vivid as if it were yesterday.

Wide-eyed, I watched as my mama sank into the nearest threadbare chair and crumpled into a heap of sobs.

I could hear the words that fell out of the foreman’s mouth as he laid a clumsy hand on Mama’s shoulder, but it took a while for them to register in my twelve-year-old brain.

coal miner

“Miz Anderson, I’m sure sorry. We tried everything to get Robert out, but when the back section of the mine gave away, it was awful bad.” The miner sighed and shoved a hand covered with coal dust in his pocket. “I’ll have the missus come around and check on you if that’s okay.”

Mama didn’t answer. The kind of grief a person only feels when everything they love is snatched away wracked her body causing her frail shoulders to heave. Guttural cries sprang from her throat making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Thank heavens my older sister had the good sense to see the man to the door. After all, April was the strong one. Barely fifteen, she had long dark ringlets that hung down her back and violet eyes that Papa often said could turn any man’s head. She looked more like Papa than the rest of us.

I spared Mama a glance. She was broken. Deep down that day, I knew I no longer had a mama or a papa.

“Mr. Roberts, sir. I really would like to ask some questions if you can spare me five minutes.” The reporter fished out a pencil and tablet while he sipped on a foamy draft beer.

It wasn’t that I minded being interviewed; it was just the memories his questions stirred. No matter how much I drank, how many women I slept with or how many shows I sold out, the guilt was always there.

Papa was my best friend. I admired everything about him; the easy way he moved through life, always smiling and tipping his hat to the ladies, but most of all the ease that music flowed through him. He could play damn near any instrument.

That was the gift he’d passed on to me. From my barstool, I could picture him in his favorite rocker on the front porch blowing smoke rings from his pipe, plucking on his banjo and nodding at me when it was my turn to play my old beat-up Harmony guitar.

banjo man

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT SUNDAY…