The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,36

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“This is Mrs. Broussard, Aaron’s mother, Mr. Krauser. I understand you think his friend Saber Bledsoe is of questionable character. . . . You saw him at the Pink Elephant? Can you please tell me what you were doing there? I see. Why would you have Jimmy McDougal in your automobile at the nightclub if in fact you did not want Jimmy to be in the company of the men who frequent the nightclub? Mr. Krauser, I’m not going to report you for your activities. Instead, if I hear you have lied about or mistreated either my son or any of his friends, I’m going to take a horse quirt to you in public, in front of witnesses. Then you can explain your shameful behavior to others, in particular the superintendent of schools. Thank you for your time.”

There are good days you never forget. There are also days when people can throw a cup full of kerosene into a smoldering, wood-fueled stove, not pausing to think about the evaporation process and its effect when they casually toss a match through the grate.

That evening I called Saber and told him I was sorry I had ever hurt his feelings or done anything bad to him. I also told him he was the best guy I ever knew, and that Valerie felt the same about him, although that was a lie. I also told him it was time to visit one of our favorite nightspots, Cook’s Hoedown, the honky-tonk where Elvis said he loved to perform more than any other. I snapped my Gibson into its case and put it into the backseat of my heap and headed for Saber’s house. It was a bad choice.

Chapter

9

THE CLUB WAS on Capitol Street, and all the big Western bands and stars played there during the 1930s and ’40s, including Hank Williams. A disk jockey named Biff Collie used to let me in through the back door and allow me to sit in with a couple of the bands at the back of the stage. To this day I tell people I played with Floyd Tillman, who wrote “Slipping Around,” and Jimmy Heap, who recorded the most famous song in the history of country music, “The Wild Side of Life.” I don’t tell them I sat in the shadows, my acoustic Gibson lost among the drums and amplified instruments of the band.

It was a beer joint with a small dance floor and an earthy crowd. My parents wouldn’t have approved of my being there, and few kids from my section of Houston wanted to go there unless they had an agenda that had to do with the availability of uneducated blue-collar girls. But for me the coarse physicality of the culture, the hand-painted neckties, the slim-cut trousers, the two-toned needle-nose boots, the drooping Stetsons, the sequined snap-button shirts that sparkled like snow, all somehow created a meretricious artwork that was greater than itself, one that told the audience that fame and the glitter of stardom were only a callused handshake away. Even Saber seemed in awe of me when I stepped down from the back of the stage and returned my Gibson to its case. “Jesus Christ, I cain’t believe it’s you up there with those people,” he said.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said.

“Fuck it’s not. That’s Leon Payne.”

Payne wrote “The Lost Highway” for Hank Williams. I didn’t want to let on how proud I was, so I didn’t say anything.

“Let’s get a beer,” Saber said. “My best friend plays acoustic guitar for Leon Payne. How about that, music fans everywhere? Hey, those girls over there are looking at us.”

They weren’t, but I didn’t want to disillusion poor Saber. Cook’s Hoedown wouldn’t serve minors, as many of the nightclubs and beer joints did. So we went to a place called the Copacabana, over on Main. It had fake palm trees, the cloth trunks wrapped with strings of white lights by the entrance, and shades made of bamboo on the windows. It was a dark, refrigerated club, with only a jukebox on weekday nights. You could order beer or Champale from the waitress or at the bar; if you wanted anything harder, you had to bring your own bottle and order setups, which meant glasses, a small bucket of ice, and carbonated water or Coca-Cola or Collins mix at premium prices. Also, the bottle had to stay behind the bar. On Friday and Saturday nights there was a jazz