Dispatch #19: Wild Times at the Ruby Slipper (part 1)
a novelette on love, death, and country music, part 1 of 4
Happy New Year!
I’m excited to the share “Wild Times at the Ruby Slipper” over the next four dispatches. The story follows three main characters— Randy, Lynda, and Denny— over the course of decades in and around the Ruby Slipper, a honky tonk bar in Grainger, Texas.
As a bit of orientation, there are three threads intertwining— the rise and fall of Randy and Lynda’s cosmic country band, the Wagoneers; the couple’s second act, the Ruby Slipper, and the fall out when it’s forced to close; and Denny, grappling with dreams of music and art.
New parts will arrive each week until Feb 10, at which point I’ll post the whole shebang for those interested in reading the whole thing in one doc.
Also— check out a playlist here, filled with 3.5 hours of two of the best types of music: country and western.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
WILD TIMES AT THE RUBY SLIPPER (PART 1)
PART 1
Yesterday: Lynda and Larry
The burgundy Peugeot pulled into the alley behind the Ruby at 2:30pm the same way it had every day for nearly forty years, and Lynda had yet to find a good place to keep her keys.
She got out of the car and patted her legs. Squeezed her gloved hand inside one jacket pocket. Then the other.
"Goddammit."
"Got a smoke?" said a voice behind her.
"What?" Lynda replied without turning around. She felt her back pocket. No goddam keys.
"Smoke!"
Lynda turned around. "Nope, sorry, Larry," she said with a sigh, her breath visible in the gray light. "Have you seen any keys around?"
"No," he said, as he fished a half-smoked Camel light from his jacket pocket. "Got a light?"
"No, Larry, Jesus, help me find my damn keys, will you?"
Lynda and Larry kicked fallen leaves and trash up and down the alley. Lynda took off her gloves and checked her pockets again.
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Got 'em." Lynda said, holding up two silver keys connected with a zip tie and a weathered tin dog tag with "RC" embossed on it. "Thanks, Larry. Want to come in for a warmup?"
"Yep," he said as he shuffled away down the street toward downtown. Over his shoulder he muttered, "Gonna light this friggin thing first."
Lynda blindly fiddled with the key in the lock, her fingers numb in the damp East Texas cold. The door finally gave, and the familiar stale air filled her lungs and fogged up her glasses. She brushed a lock of coarse gray hair from her face and flipped on the house lights and the neon sign out front.
"Hey babe."
Lynda waved at the larger-than-life portrait behind the bar: a young couple riding a Bonneville, the woman in aviators and a tank top, smooth skin and big teeth, hugging the barrel chest of a man in his 20s from behind. The man's shaggy blond curls billowed, shit-eating grin on his face, right hand on the handlebars, the left giving a big middle finger to the camera. The background is a blur, but these two are in perfect focus. Randy and Lynda in their prime.
She stuffed her hat and gloves into the sleeve of her coat and hung it on the rack behind the bar. The red pearl-snap and blue jeans hugged her thin frame, and a single long braid down her back, now mostly grey, swayed as she busied herself around the bar.
In a couple hours the staff would arrive, and with them the first wave of regulars and jukebox quarters. Then a few bands, another round of regulars, the party crowd, and finally just the drunks and lonesome wanderers until close.
A cold metallic bell crashed through the pre-open silence from the small office behind the bar.
"It's the Ruby, you got Lynda."
Lynda listened to the voice on the other end. She knew this call would come, but that didn't make taking it any easier.
"Yeah, I gotcha,” she said. “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. OK."
She hung up the phone and sat in the lemon-lime flickering fluorescents, staring blankly at the invoices pinned to the wall, unable to dislodge herself from the chair. Her thoughts escalated like a barber shop pole, winding up toward a resolution that would never arrive. Her heart raced, heat pushed out of some internal furnace and into her throat, the backs of her eyes. She felt that she might explode from the pressure building and building from within, and then she heard the front door open. She broke the spell with sheer force of will and she relaxed her face, forcing her insides back to stasis.
She went out to the bar and poured herself a healthy shot of something brown and strong.
"Well," Lynda whispered, holding a shot glass up to Randy. "We had a good run. Looks like we're finally outta gas."
Larry backed onto a bar stool like an arthritic emu, all ass and stiff knees.
“You get that thing lit, Lar?”
"Yessiree, some kid down on 5th. Fire and something for later," Larry said, peering above the top of his glasses. He tapped on the breast pocket of his brown corduroy suit jacket, all sly like, raising his bushy grey eyebrows.
"I get it, Lar." Lynda grabbed a case of Bud heavy from the stock room and set it on the bar. Her body moved more easily with every familiar motion. "Now make yourself useful and help me throw those in the cooler."
"Don't mind if I do," Larry said. He grabbed a can out of the box and drank deep. Lynda rolled her eyes and loaded the beers three to a hand into the ice box. She emptied the box and grabbed two more, and when the cooler was filled, she broke down the boxes and set them in the dumpster out back. Suddenly it was any other day.
#
1969: Randy
"You know plenty of guys come through here full of piss and vinegar and don't make it," Mr. Emmons said, taking a leak in the next stall. "Don't take it personal."
Randy Cole zipped himself up and nodded his understanding to the bar owner.
"Fine," he said, touching up his hair in the mirror. "But you still owe me my five bucks."
He kicked the door open and returned to the stage to pick up his guitar and duffel bag.
"Tuesday night crowd, eh?" he said to the bartender. The bartender nodded gravely and continued wiping down the empty bar. "I'll take a whiskey and close out, Ol Man Emmons said my cut's 10 this time."
Randy wasn't interested in looking at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. He owed the studio $200 for the time recording his latest 7", with the "Beaumont Blues" single and the b-side "Don't Call Me Darlin' (Song for Maryanne)." Even saving money on studio musicians by recording all the tracks himself left him without two nickels to rub together. He needed a steady gig, or better yet a record deal, or else it was back to the oil patch with his brothers.
"Fuck that," he muttered.
He turned and took in the rest of the club. Wood paneling layered with decades of music memorabilia and taxidermied bucks enveloped the large open space. Small round tables with chairs lined the sawdust-sprinkled dance floor a few steps down from the bar. Beyond the stage was a large picture window and a sign advertising "Live Music Every Night."
"Sign's workin’ hard at least," Randy said.
"What's that, son?"
"Nothing," Randy said. "See you next week, Mr. Emmons-- KCOU said they're getting my single in rotation, should be a good crowd--"
"Son," Emmons said. "I think we're done here."
The old man nudged his gray felt cowboy hat high on his forehead. "We can't pay you to serenade the staff any longer, I'm afraid."
He leaned in and pulled Randy's hand in tight. "And the next time you try to swindle me, son, you'll be pickin’ that guitar one handed."
Randy jerked loose and saw a crumpled five-dollar bill in his hand. He straightened his own cowboy hat and silently tipped it to Mr. Emmons, who smiled gently with his hands folded behind his back.
"Rain check on that whiskey, friend," he said to the bartender and turned to the exit.
The street was slick with a recent rain, but the air was cool and clear, almost crisp compared to the usual humid east Texas bayou air.
"Well, boy," he said. "Here we are again." He'd been in Grainger, TX, the largest town between Houston and Baton Rouge, just off the I-10 line, six short weeks and he'd lost about as many gigs. Randy made his way back up the street toward the flea bag motel that gave him a decent monthly rate.
He passed half a dozen clubs, all bustling despite the weather. It was like walking through a party with everybody coupled up but one, paying customers everywhere but where he just came from. He stopped in front of the last place on the block to light a smoke in the vestibule. The neon signed blinked "the Chuckwagon" with a crude wheel appearing to rotate in midair. Painted on the door in wild west lettering read "Stella Broussard, Proprietor."
He leaned his guitar on the wall and smoked as he watched the band through the window. A five-piece band was speeding through a cover of "Mama Tried" like they were pacing a stock car. The singer wore a long duster jacket and black out shades, and his voice seemed to swing wildly at the melody like swatting a fly.
"You, sir, are no Merle Haggard," he chuckled.
When they started the next tune, he took the last drag of the cigarette and almost continued his trek back to his motel when he noticed the piano player. He felt in his pocket to make sure the fiver was still there, tossed his butt into the gutter, and went inside.
He ordered a whiskey and turned to watch the band. From this vantage point he could see the whole band and the piano player in profile. She played an old upright against the wall. Her expression was blank, if a little mean, her brows furrowed in deep in concentration. Her long fingers danced lightly across the keyboard like an acrobat on the flying trapeze, all flips and turns. She sat up straight as a flagpole, the product, Randy reckoned, of years of formal training.
Randy nursed the whiskey until the set break. He tried to catch her eye as she passed on the way to ladies’ room, but she didn't pay any mind. He swigged the rest of the whiskey and waited for the set break.
"Hey Gus," she said to the bartender. "Whiskey and water, please."
"You got it."
"You play real nice," Randy said, leaning against the bar like he was Steve McQueen.
"Thanks," she said, not looking up. "And no, I'm not interested."
"Now what's that?" he said. "I'm not trying--"
She looked him dead in the eyes. "It's late, guy. We have one more set left out of three. I'm tired. And I've been avoiding bird doggin' sons of bitches like you all night and frankly I've had it."
Randy had heard too many sappy songs about getting lost in someone's eyes to fall for it now, but damn, he thought. This woman.
"No bird doggin' here, ma'am," he said. He lowered his voice. "Name's Randy Cole, recording artist. I'm putting a band together and couldn't help but notice you're really holding this outfit together."
"These jokers?” she looked back the stage. “They just know the owner and pay me what I'm worth."
He leaned in and lowered his eyes.
"Well, what if I told you I'm the real deal and could double your cut?"
"I'd say you're a fool and a liar, Mr. Cole," she said. She downed the drink and pursed her lips in the mirror behind the bar. "Excuse me."
Randy spent half of his last liquid assets on well whiskey watching the best piano player he'd seen in a long while. He analyzed the rest of the band. They were rough around the edges, but he saw just enough green shoots to know they could, if given the right songs and proper direction, put on a good show. The drummer was a tall and lanky, a giraffe behind the four-piece kit. His rhythm was rocky, but he kept the dancers on the floor. The pedal steel player danced around the beat, playing off the bass and rhythm guitar like a water sprite. The bass guitar player tried to keep the group together with limited success, throwing looks and nods around the stage like flight controller in wartime. All told, nothing a little spit and elbow grease could clean up.
"They'll do," Randy said.
He went home before the band left the stage, knowing he'd have to scheme a bit to make this work.
He spent the week trying to dig himself out of the whole he made losing the Emmons gig. He had a few weeks till rent was due, and enough odd jobs to keep him in rice and beans till the first of the month. After that, all bets were off. He picked up some bar back shifts at the few places he hadn’t yet burned a bridge. One weekend he helped a cousin build a fence from sunup to sundown and ended Sunday in a fistfight with his uncle.
Come Monday morning, there remained only one option. He stared at the water-stained ceiling and called into being a band.
Yesterday: Den
"Hey dudes, I guess maybe yall knew this was coming, or maybe not, I don't know, especially after we slayed in La Porte last night, but I think it's time to call it off-- shit! Sounds like a goddam rom com."
Den deleted the video from his phone with a beep and set it back on the dashboard of his 1997 Dodge Caravan.
"OK dudes, well it's been a good ride but it's time we-- wait am I recording? Fuuuuuuck." Beep.
"OK dudes, Den here, listen this ain't easy, and I know yall probably won't get it now, but I think the Mind Killers has run its course. Just feel like the time get out is now while we're still friends and we're riding high after the La Porte show and all, you know? And I'm gonna miss it, shit, it's about all I do here and yall are the only friends I got, really, unless you count Lynda and Larry, but basically they're like my grandparents... But anyways, Steve, you said something last night when I was all bent out of shape after we loaded up the Pequod, and maybe you were just giving me shit but it's the truth, and I've been thinking about it a lot. You asked me what the hell my problem was, you said 'we just got some free beer, we got to play fuckin loud to our friends, and we're out of the damn house.' And, I just. You're right. I don't know what my problem is. That sounds great. But it's just not enough right now. And I'm not trying to say yall are not enough, it's just I don't want to just play for free beer, man. And I--"
Den took a long breath when his eyes start to burn. He looked out the window. A couple seagulls were pulling apart a Whataburger bag in the gas station parking lot.
"Goddamit fuck fuck fuck." Beep.
"Hey dudes, great playing with yall last night, but that's gonna be the last Mind Killers gig for a minute, just got a lot going on. So anyways yeah I love you guys and come by the Ruby tonight I'll get you hammered. Peace."
Den leaned over and stopped the recording. He got out, pumped a tank of gas, went inside for a Gatorade and a pack of Camel Lights and got back in the van. He watched the video again. He noticed his face looked thinner than usual and he looked more tired than he felt. He looked in the driver side mirror and lifted up a flop of black hair, thinking he saw evidence of recession, and convinced himself otherwise. He lit a smoke and watched it a second time.
"Fuck me," Den said. He hit send and drove to work.
When Den arrived for his bar back shift, he was surprised to see Lynda had already loaded the cooler and sliced up half the limes.
"Damn,” he said. “Somebody ate their Wheaties, shit."
Den busied himself with whatever he could to keep from looking at his phone. When he did, despite himself, there were no messages. He rolled his eyes and went out back to find some boxes to flatten.
"How was La Porte?" Lynda said, poking her head out the back door.
"The gig? Yeah, good, great crowd," Den said. "Oh, by the way, thinking about taking a long weekend next week, I'll find somebody to cover my shifts."
"Denny," Lynda said. “Gotta tell you something.”
They walked in a took seats at the bar. Lynda skid him a Miller Lite and told him all about the building.
"Well shit," Den said, thinking through what this news meant. The Ruby was the only thing he had going in Grainger, till now anyway. “You gonna fight it, Lyn?”
“I’ve tried it all, son,” she said. “It’s his inheritance, he can do whatever he wants. Guess it's been in the works for a while, but now the ink's dry. Said he got an offer he couldn't refuse from some developers. Something about condos and a co-working space, whatever the hell that means."
Den thought a minute. "Wait what does that mean?"
"I honestly couldn't tell you," Lynda said. "All I know is Marc Broussard is just some North Shore New Orleans wino with a Perlis charge card. I'm sure this place was worth more to him in cash to pay for coke or his girlfriend's tits or whatever. Who knows."
Den sipped the beer. Not even a week ago, he would’ve flipped a table, wanted to fight somebody, anybody, raging at a town that felt like it was just kicking you, and pissed that the memory of a music legend would be lost when the place shut its doors. But today he felt strangely numb. It just felt like a time for endings.
Lynda poured herself a shot and flipped on the TV at the end of the bar. Jeopardy played on mute and she watched in silence with Den and Larry.
"Now don't tell anybody," Lynda said, eyes on the Daily Double. "Last thing we need is the goddam waterworks. It'll be a quiet death and burial."
Eventually the rest of the staff to shuffled in and by 6 the place was rumbling with the early drinking crowd winding their way through the bar. The Ruby was in full swing, caught in the typical currents, patrons wearing the floor into dry riverbeds circling around the room, from the front door, down the long bar, around to the dancefloor in the adjacent room, and out to the back door to the alley. A honky tonk cover band hammered out a Waylon and Willie tune, the door guy collected the five-dollar cover, the sound guy lazily turned knobs, the bartenders slung the same cheap beers and stiff drinks as always.
At the first set break Den grabbed a cup of water and took a second to collect himself in the corner behind the pool table. He checked his phone, no messages. He turned it off and back on, just to see if it still worked.