Dispatch #20: Wild Times at the Ruby Slipper (part 2)
a novelette on love, death, and country music, part 2 of 4
Hey yall—
Part two of “Wild Times at the Ruby Slipper”— here’s the link to part 1 if you missed it.
We pick up where we left off— Randy’s driven by desire and desperation to get his band off the ground; Lynda learns this is the Ruby Slipper ‘s last night; and Denny breaks up his band, the Mind Killers, looking for something more.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
1969: Randy and Lynda
The following Tuesday RC Cole got to the Chuckwagon at the top of the second set. A dozen two steppers kept the dance floor busy. He nursed a whiskey and watched the band, mentally taking notes and making plans. By the end of the set, Randy caught the piano player on her way to the bar.
"Why hello again," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said, not stopping. "Do I know you?"
"We met last week?"
"Did we?" she said. "Whiskey and water, Gus, thanks."
"Randy Cole, recording artist," he said, holding out his hand. "And I don't believe I caught your name."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Cole. Enjoy the show." She turned back to the stage.
"Well actually," Randy said. "Actually, I have a question for you."
"I'm not interested, thanks."
"No no, not like that-- like I mentioned I'm a recording artist and musician, and I've got a gig you might be interested in. Could double your money."
"Go on," she said, turning to give a skeptical eye.
"You know Stella? Stella Broussard, owns this place? Ol Stella and I go way back, friend of the family. Said she'll give me a prime spot here on a Friday night, any time I'm ready. I'm putting a band together, and I need you."
"Oh, you know Stella, eh?" she said. "I know Stella, but I don't know you from Adam, so no. Not interested. Thanks."
"Well, Jesus," Randy said. "At least tell me your name?"
"Lynda," she said over her shoulder. "Maybe ask me how I feel next week."
Randy was back next week, a little lighter in the wallet and down to half his ration of rice and beans.
"Did I hear you on the radio, Mr. Cole?" Lynda said, on the way to her whiskey and water. He was nursing a whiskey of his own, and it was going straight to his head through his empty stomach.
"Oh my," he said, genuinely surprised. "Ms. Lynda, are you finally gracing me with your attention?"
"Knock it off," she said, laughing. "Heard 'Beaumont Blues' on the air last night, thought of you. Good tune."
"What? Really?" Randy said. "Holy smokes!" Randy didn't know what to do with himself, he'd stopped calling the station to push them to play it. "But see?" he said, regaining his composure. "Real deal."
"Hmm."
"So, what do you say? You and the boys want to join me in my new outfit?"
"Whiskey and water, please," she said to the bartender. "OK what if I am interested. What do you suggest we do with Larry?"
"Larry?"
"You haven't met our frontman?"
I haven't had the pleasure," he said. "Guess he can go kick rocks, we're set on singers."
"You really are wet behind the ears, huh?" Lynda leaned in close. "Remember how I said he knew the owners of this place? Your ol buddy Stella?"
"Oh, yeah," Randy said. "Yeah, I haven't had the chance to--"
Lynda leaned in close and whispered in Randy's ear. "You can cut the shit, cowboy." He heard something about Stella's brother Larry, about how the Broussards owned half of Grainger. But what made his spine tingle wasn’t the bald-faced lie he’d been caught in; it was the wisp of her hair touching his ear, the long fingers holding his forearm, the soft cottony voice speaking straight into his soul, the brush of her hips against his knee.
"I got you," he said, barely able to speak. "So, he'll be our manager, why not? Plenty to go around when we pack this place."
That night Lynda introduced Randy to the band in the green room across the dancefloor from the stage. The wood paneling was the same shade as the camel-brown pile carpet, and every surface had a film of cigarette ash. The couch was the color of dust. The room was just big enough for the six of them.
"From what I can tell," Randy said. "Yall are a fine bar band. Weekly gigs on a Tuesday night, enough to get yall some walking around money and free booze. That right? Fine bar bands are a dime a dozen, but I don't think that's why yall are here. Sure not why I'm here. I'm here to make it big, Nashville big—hell, Vegas big. George Jones big. And I'm already on the express train, baby. What I'm asking is if yall are ready to come aboard?"
Lynda rolled her eyes and looked around the room. The band members were looking at her.
"Listen, Mr. Cole," she said. "Spare us the door-to-door salesman crap. We're a family here and I wouldn't have brought you here if I didn't think it would work out. The boys listened to your song, it's good. But more importantly you kept coming back."
"Well thank you for that endorsement," Randy said.
"I think there is one detail that needs to be worked out," Larry said, hands on his hips. "Can't help but feeling like chopped liver, friend."
Lynda started to speak but Randy waved her off.
"I got you, Larry," Randy said. "Lynda tells me you're not just the songbird in this outfit, you're the numbers guy, the deal maker. That right?"
Larry puffed up a bit, shrugging slightly. "Well yeah, sure."
"You're pulling double duty, friend. But if we pair up, you and me, you as manager and me as singer and songwriter and frontman, there's no end in sight. And I think that might be what this outfit needs. Now how does that sound?"
Randy put his arm around Larry, pointing to an imaginary horizon.
"Imagine it, Lar," he said. "Record deals, headlining gigs, newspaper write ups, first class flights to exotic locales. Women, Lar, the women! And don't forget--" He whispered a percentage in Larry's ear, imperceptible to the rest of the room. Larry's eyes opened wide, and he looked at Randy in disbelief.
They talked long into the night. By last call they were amped up on possibility and had even settled on a name-- "RC Cole and the Wagoneers." To celebrate they convinced the cook to stay late and whip up steaks and French fries on the band’s tab. Randy cleaned his plate in seconds flat.
Soon the band parlayed weekly stands at the Chuckwagon to weekends at bigger clubs, and eventually to regional auditoriums and dancehalls. They played civic centers and auditoriums, barns and beer halls, state fairs and church picnics. Radio stations in the area hummed with requests for more music, and soon the band delivered the "Endless Blue LP," with the title track as the lead single. Country and western stations across the state put it in heavy rotation, and after signing to Nashville-based NRC Records, Randy and Larry got to work booking more gigs out of town.
With few exceptions, they stuck to the Cowboy Circuit-- Grainger to Dallas, Lubbock to Joshua Tree to Bakersfield, Reno to Spokane, Missoula to Bismark, Sioux Falls to Omaha, KC to Wichita Falls, all points in between. Rinse, repeat.
"More repeating than rinsing," Lynda used to say.
On the way to Bismark during their first tour, the band had dispersed at a truck stop for a few minutes of fresh air before piling in again, but Randy and Lynda wandered together.
“Thanks, by the way,” Randy said.
“What for?”
Randy squinted, Chevys and horsetrailers silhouetted against the golden hour sun. “I don’t know. I never had a band before, my own mother wouldn’t want to spend more than a day and half with me. I don’t know where I’d be if you weren’t…” Randy nudged a rock with his boot and looked up. “Just. Thanks for being here.”
Lynda brushed a lock of hair out of her face and gave Randy a good long look. She grabbed his hand and never let go.
#
1973: Randy and Lynda
The Wagoneers soon outgrew the honky-tonks and roadhouses, the wide spots in the road in the middle of nowhere. Larry outdid himself, landing the band opening slots on larger tours, even top billing every once in a while. Soon they had enough squirreled away from record sales, radio royalties, and nonstop touring to buy a proper bus.
According to a Rolling Stone write up, "Cole and his band straddle the line between cosmic and outlaw country, breaking rules and expanding perceptions of the possible in country music." Anything to sell tickets, Randy thought.
In July they had a two-week stint with Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels, opening for the band from New York City to Austin, TX. Randy and Parsons hit it off, swapping songs and tall tales long into the night from the first show.
“Worried about you, sister,” Larry said after a gig in Memphis. The bus driver had pulled over to change a tire on the side of the road on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi. Larry hoisted himself onto the top of the bus and handed Lynda a pack of Lucky Strikes.
“Don’t worry about me,” Lynda said, shaking a cigarette out and holding it up for a light. “It’s those bozos daring each other to swim across the damn river.”
Larry lit Lynda’s and one for himself. When he clicked the lighter shut, a roaring campfire and a waning gibbous were the only lights illuminating the two frontmen dancing and bullshitting on the dirt and gravel shore below.
“There’s always Grainger, you know,” Larry said, laying on his back, eyes closed. “Could always get our old slot back at the ‘Wagon, big fish in a little pond and all that. Be home for Christmas, see the nieces and nephews… Maybe we had it made in the shade.”
Lynda took a long drag and blew the smoke out of her nose. Everything was enveloped in humid air and mosquitos, cicadasong and the roar of the river, and Randy and Parsons’ lycanthropic howls and mews. Lynda chewed the filter, feeling more like a den mother than a lover.
“Randy knows what’ll last,” she said, flicking the cherry into the shadow under her dangling feet. “Man deserves to blow off a little steam.”
The nights got longer. By the tail end of the run, the most Lynda saw of Randy was the back of his sweaty head as he swayed through a well-worn set and immediately off stage right to raise hell.
"Where have you been, mister," Lynda said, back in the bus in Houston, early morning sun peaking through the curtains. Randy had the now familiar faraway look in his hallowed out face. He passed out into his bunk without a word and Lynda performed her familiar ritual-- lean him on his side, pull off his boots, hang up his hat, and lay awake fingering her wedding ring.
#
Last Night: Lynda
By the time the second band went on, Lynda was lit up like a Christmas tree. She retreated to the green room not only because she was sick of talking to people and pretending everything was OK; the walls wouldn't stop spinning and the floor kept tripping her up.
She locked the door and flopped on the couch. Memorials to the club's heyday filled every square inch of the little room. Much of the furniture and decor remained from the Chuckwagon days, RC too sentimental or cheap to let it go. Evidence of the intervening decades piled on like with layers of Earth. Every band that played there since the club re-opened as the Ruby in '85 had scrawled their name in thick black marker on the back wall, floor to ceiling. Sprawled on her back, she traced “RC loves LF” upside down on the wall.
She looked around the spinning room. A Union Jack the singer from Diamond Tusk presented to Randy after a sold out show in ‘96. A leather jacket that belonged to Randy’s nephew, the drummer of the Expos, who died in a touring van when the driver fell asleep at the wheel on the way to a show in Boise, slipping into the wrong lane as an east-bound big rig rolled through at 80. A hole in the drywall where the singer for Death Lips threw a fire extinguisher at Randy’s head after he pulled the plug on a particularly raucous show. Randy never fixed it, just laughed and made the same joke about his cat-like reflexes, even as the years tolled on his aching frame. Every piece brought up a thousand stories, and all of them began and ended in the same place.
"Randy why'd we let this go on so long," she said, her arm splayed across her eyes. "We should've packed it in ages ago."
The dull throb of the band and the crowd through the thin walls washed over her and soon Lynda dreamt her long recurring dream.
She and RC are on the Bonneville, just like the picture behind the bar. It's all feathery, golden light, and Lynda can hear Randy singing, harmonizing with the engine's hum. She's grabbing on to him with both arms, her face pressed tight against his back so she can feel the vibrations as he sings. The scenery's all a blur and she can smell the sweat and the road dust and the gasoline haze on his hair and jacket. And then a new part. Lynda's squinting into the sun and Randy turns back and calls over the engine's roar, "Burn it down, baby!"
"What? I can't hear you!"
"You heard me!" he says, turning back to the road. "Burn the shit down."
Lynda sat bolt upright, like a vampire awake at sundown, eyes wide as beer mats.
"Fuck you, Marc Broussard."