Chapter 4
Ford was glad that the sun was bright and there were no threatening clouds in the sky the afternoon that they rolled into Nashville.
The bucket-list crowd, as he’d begun to think of them, would be so disappointed if they couldn’t have a jam season in a parking lot.
The first one that Nita had found wasn’t right across the street from the strip.
The folks wanted to have supper and listen to some music at one of the bars after their concert, so he really hoped that one would work out.
Driving the bus and trailer was no big thing on the open road, but navigating narrow streets was a different story.
“Are we almost there?” Billy Joe’s question reminded Ford of the times when his folks were taking him to the ranch to spend some time with his grandfather and he’d asked the same question about a million times.
And when we got there, you were so happy, his mother’s voice whispered in his ear.
Ford couldn’t argue with that, not when the happiest times in his memories were on the ranch with his grandpa. So why am I kicking against the idea of settling down there?
“Just another mile. What are we going to play and sing first?” Sharlene asked.
“Hank Williams Sr., all night long,” Nita answered. “He would have been over a hundred years old by now, so it seems fitting that we honor him while we’re in Nashville. We’ll start off with ‘My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It.’”
“So, your bucket list has a hole in it?” Joelle asked from the front seat.
“It sure does, and the top item has done leaked out, but we’ll plug that hole and refill it when we get home,” Nita answered. “Are y’all going to play and sing with us?”
“We’ll be your groupies and hold up lights when it gets dark,” Ford said as he got in line behind a car waiting to get into the parking lot.
“The concert is over when it gets dusky dark, and then we’ll go have supper at one of the places on the strip,” Nita said. “After that we’re going to the Gaylord for a few nights. I’ve told them that we’ll have a late check-in.”
“No camping out?” Ford asked.
“Nope,” Nita answered. “We need a base camp where we can catch shuttles and the tour buses. We can’t drive the bus all over the place.
And besides, the bus needs to be in a safe place.
We’ll have it valet parked, and no one can scratch it.
I don’t want to live with Sharlene if someone hurts her baby. ”
“Thank you,” Ford said as he pulled forward when it was his turn. “That way, I can see all the sights and not have to worry about parking this thing.”
An older guy who didn’t look to be much younger than the bucket-list crew took a step forward with a brochure and handed it to Ford through the window.
“You’re ridin’ in style. I haven’t seen something like this in more’n fifty years.
That’ll be ten dollars for the rest of today.
I should charge you double, since you’ll be taking up two parking spaces, but this thing is too cute to make you pay more.
I loved the hippie age, and I hate that I ever let my VW bus get away from me.
It wasn’t painted up pretty like this one, but if it was still with me, it could tell some really good stories. ” He winked at Ford.
Nita unfastened her seat belt and handed a bill over the seat to Ford. “Can we play and sing in the parking lot?”
The man tipped his cowboy hat toward her. “Yes, ma’am, you can. I’m here until we close the gates at two in the morning, so I’d love some live entertainment. You might draw quite a crowd with this vehicle and a bit of music.”
“Thank you, and we appreciate the discount,” Nita said.
Ford nodded in agreement. “Thanks again.”
“I’ll be listening for some music in a little bit,” the man said with a grin.
“What kind of stories could this bus tell us, Aunt Sharlene?” Joelle asked.
“Oh, honey,” Nita said with a giggle and twinkling eyes, “not a one of us three kiss and tell.”
“Except to each other,” Billy Joe said, “But we’re all leaning toward memory loss, so we can’t be sure if what we remember is what really happened.”
“Yeah, right!” Joelle pointed to a parking spot big enough for the bus and trailer.
Nita was already out of the van before Ford could open his door, and long before Joelle could get out of the passenger side. By the time he made it to the back to help take things out of the trailer, Billy Joe had opened the doors and was setting lawn chairs up in a circle.
Billy Joe and Nita went to work tuning their guitars, while Sharlene took her fiddle out of the case.
Ford sat down in one of the chairs and got ready for the show just like he had on the nights when they camped out.
That evening was different in that Billy Joe left his guitar case open and set it to the side of his chair.
Ford leaned over and whispered for Joelle’s ears only. “You think they’ll bring in enough money to pay for the parking fee?”
“If they do, they will brag for the rest of the trip and claim that they are now professionals since they had been paid for a gig,” Joelle answered.
“I hate to see them disappointed, so I’ll be the first one to make them into professionals.” Ford pulled a five-dollar bill from the money clip in his pocket and tossed it into the guitar case.
“Thank you,” Billy Joe said in an Elvis impression, “thank you very much.”
Joelle’s giggles at his antics warmed Ford’s heart.
For the past three nights, he hadn’t even gone to his grandfather’s tent, but rather rolled his sleeping bag out on the floor of the van right beside hers.
Sharlene had teased them about needing to find a courthouse on the way to Nashville, so he could make an honest woman out of her great-niece.
But after that one morning, no one had said anything, which was still a mystery.
The way they bantered and bickered, Ford had expected more talking about it and teasing than he wanted to hear.
Nita hit the chords for “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” and before the end of the song, several people had gathered around.
Ford didn’t know if they were there for the music or to take selfies and family pictures with the bus, but it didn’t matter, because all the attention sure put big smiles on the band’s faces.
Billy Joe took the lead on the second Hank Williams song, “Lost Highway.” Ford kept time to the music by tapping his thumbs on the arm of the chair and wondered if his grandfather had chosen that song to mess with him.
Ford realized he had to choose a path before long, but until he made up his mind about whether he wanted to put down roots or do some serious traveling, he wasn’t going to be goaded into saying he would take over the ranch.
The lyrics became more than just words when they talked about the time when he would curse the day that he started rolling down the lost highway.
When the song ended, folks around them clapped and whistled, and Billy Joe smiled and started off on another Hank Williams tune.
Sharlene and Nita took turns with the verses and then harmonized with him during the chorus.
The crowd grew bigger and bigger, and several of them threw coins or bills into the open guitar case.
When they started singing, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” Ford thought of the nights that he had slept close to Joelle and didn’t have those horrible nightmares.
Then he remembered the nap he’d taken at the dude ranch and how he had awakened in a cold sweat as he relived the day that he had been the only one to survive the ambush.
Why have you been fighting so hard against what you feel for Joelle? his grandmother’s voice whispered.
Could his grandfather possibly be right about a good woman and roots curing the problems he’d brought home from the last deployment? He glanced over at Joelle to find her staring at him.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you remember these songs?” he asked, but what he really wanted to know was if she was feeling the same thing he was.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Saturday night at Aunt Sharlene’s was concert night at least once a month. You’ve been gone too long, Ford Holt. I could have used some backup on the nights when I was the only one in the crowd to listen to them.”
“I’m here now,” he said.
“Yes, you are, and I’m glad,” she said with a smile.
Could she mean that she was glad—as in just liking him as a driver? Or could it possibly be more?
***
Dusk was settling, and the crowd had thinned out a little when Sharlene stood up.
“We’ll be closing out our tribute to the amazing Hank Williams Sr. tonight with one of his hymns.
When I was a little girl, it was a good night when my mama could pick up the Grand Ole Opry on her radio.
It was an awesome night when Hank Williams ended the show with this song.
Thank all y’all for coming around and thank you for your contributions. ”
She put her fiddle to her shoulder and pulled the bow across the strings. The light breeze picked up the haunting whine and carried it across the parking lot and down the strip. Then Nita and Billy Joe started picking their guitars and singing, “I Saw the Light.”
“Think they’re talking to us when they sing that?” Joelle asked. “Maybe not in the spiritual sense, but in seeing the light of what we should do in the future?”
Ford turned to look at her, and she could see that he was struggling with the same thoughts that she was. Did they take over the ranches? Did they step back and ask for more time? Where was the light, and what was it showing them?
“Good night, folks,” Sharlene said when the song was over. “Thanks again for coming around to make us old folks feel like stars.”
“Old Hank sure set the bar high for country music, didn’t he?” A gray-haired man stopped and put a bill into the guitar case.
“Honey”—his wife looped her arm in his—“Hank didn’t set the bar. He was the bar.”
“Amen,” Nita said with a smile as she put her guitar away.
Joelle glanced over at her aunt, who was loosening the strings on her fiddle. She had set the bar high—no, she was the bar—for the kind of independent woman Joelle wanted to be when she was almost eighty.
She picked up her aunt’s fiddle case in one hand and Nita’s guitar in the other.
The three of them had drawn their chairs up around Billy Joe’s case and were sorting and counting money.
In that moment, seeing the happiness on their faces, she knew what decision she had to make if she was ever going to be like Sharlene.
She was already thinking about the wording when she wrote her resignation while she put the instruments in the trailer.
Peace that she hadn’t known in many years flooded her heart and soul, telling her that she was on the right path now for sure. No more lost highways for her.
“That was quite an experience,” Ford said.
“And just look at how happy they are,” Joelle said with a broad smile.
“You look pretty happy yourself,” he said.
“Yep, I am,” she admitted. Ford would have to come to his own decision about ranching, but if he made the right one, she wondered if maybe they could pursue this attraction that had popped up between them.