Chapter 2
FIFTEEN YEARS LEFT
I remember it was early morning when I stumbled onto the main road. I wiped my bloody hands in the snow and rubbed fistfuls of it against my spattered cheeks, leaving the snowbank stained a hot pink.
There was nothing that could be done about the blood on my clothes, but they were so filthy from my trek through the woods that I reckoned most would see a dirt child and move on.
I heard a rumble up ahead and stuck my thumb out, trying to look as innocent as I could. I was so lightheaded from hunger and cold that I did feel quite saintly standing there on the side of the road, bathed in the sunlight glinting off the ice. Like a holy apparition.
The truck stopped a few paces on, and I could see the driver’s face in the side mirror. Middle-aged and mealy. About a 40/60 chance of him trying something, which were good enough odds for me. I felt for the kitchen knife in my coat sleeve and got in.
We wound our way out of the mountains in toasty, engine-rolling silence, and I finally began to thaw. I asked if we could listen to the radio, and he flipped a switch on the dash.
As we descended into the valley below, Mother Maybelle Carter sang about a better place waiting in the sky.
It was late afternoon when the driver dropped me on Fifth Avenue. He’d barely said a word beyond offering me half his sandwich, and I thought he must be a silent angel sent by God to get me where I needed to go.
Nashville. The promised land.
I had dreamed of this place my whole sorry life, and now here it was, solid and towering above me, the street like a narrow valley cutting through skyscrapers.
For all of my fantasizing, I wasn’t sure what came next. I’d always planned to come by bus with enough money for a room, find a few gigs, get noticed. But fate had led me here, now, without a cent to my name, and I had to make the best of it.
First things first, I needed new clothes. I spotted a department store swarming with customers, and I slipped in, yanked a few items off the racks, and left through the back before anyone noticed the dirt child. In the bathroom at the drugstore, I changed and took a bird bath in the sink.
Once I was presentable, I wandered around taking in the sights. Workers stood on ladders painting billboards and on scaffolding constructing buildings, replacing the old with the new. Loew’s movie theater gleamed in the winter sun.
When I came upon the Ryman, home to the Grand Ole Opry, it loomed like a fortress above me, solid and impenetrable. I stopped and ogled it from the sidewalk, imagining what was inside.
Some of my best memories were listening to the Opry broadcast with my uncle and cousins when my granddaddy went out to visit his congregation.
We would put on the radio, and my uncle would pour a few inches of the whiskey he kept under the floor.
I loved hearing the singers’ voices coming out live and raw from the speaker; it always did something special to me that I couldn’t get from records.
Afterward, if he was jolly drunk, my uncle would show me a few things on the guitar.
He was a genuine devil, but he did teach me how to play.
The Opry was the pinnacle. If I ever made it to that stage, I’d know I’d really done something with my time. I’d know I’d made it. Not arriving at a destination, but rather, an act of creation. Making my life into exactly what I wanted.
Around dinnertime, I found my way to a honky-tonk on Broadway.
On the little stage in the corner, a Gene Autry wannabe played his old tunes in a high, cheap voice, and I listened politely, imagining myself up there instead, belting it for real.
I scanned around the room, looking curious.
I just needed one idjit cowboy to come along and buy me something.
I was so hungry I’d chew their boot leather.
Sure enough, it only took five minutes or so before one sidled up and asked if he could get me a beer. I said, “Hell yeah, mister, and why don’t you throw in some grub while you’re at it?” I could tell he liked a little sass. Most of them do if you’re small enough, and I came up to his shoulder.
I ate the fried bologna sandwich like an animal while he told me about himself.
Shoe salesman downtown or some such. Lived with his mother but wouldn’t admit it outright.
Your average city boy with a bit of cash and no sense.
When I got to the bottom of the bottle, I thanked him and headed for the door.
He followed me out, whispering sweet nothings, but when I kept walking, he went salty fast. Pushed me into the alley next to the bar and pinned me against the brick. Before he could reach for his buckle, I had my blade against his throat. That cleared things up real quick.
I walked for a long time in no particular direction, trying to keep warm.
Eventually the buildings turned to houses, the windows glowing so bright in the darkness that I could almost feel their warmth.
I passed scenes of families sitting around television sets and drinking cocktails in front of the fire and bickering in the kitchen.
When I could no longer feel my feet against the pavement, I searched for some kind of shelter. Back home, I could have fashioned something in the woods, but here, there was a kind of desolation I hadn’t expected. Without nature, the land offered nothing.
After a while, I came upon a house with boards nailed over its windows and door. I crept around the back and tried to pry one free, but that sucker was stuck. A few more attempts failed.
In the backyard, I saw a large twisting tree that reminded me of the birthmark that took up most of my torso: the deep-purple trunk that began at my belly button and sprouted up into branches that extended to my collarbone.
Next to the tree was an old shed with a nailed door and a small hole in the roof.
I climbed on the wood piled to the side and, using all the energy I had left, hoisted myself up and through the opening.
It was dark and filled with God knows what critters, but it was warm.
I found a tarp folded on a shelf and wrapped myself tight.
Before I had another thought, I was out cold.
The next few days passed in a mad blur of searching for food and heat.
My favorite spot became the dumpster behind the Krystal Burger, where the air was warmed by grill fumes.
It was sinful what people threw away in this town.
Fresh golden burgers with only one lipstick-lined bite taken out.
I imagined a ponytailed girl pecking at it and putting it down, trying to impress her date.
I searched the dumpster for newspapers to check for my picture, and at night, I stuffed the paper inside my tarp cocoon so I wouldn’t freeze. It was an old trick from back home—we lined our walls with newspaper every winter to keep out the draft.
I asked about jobs at all the businesses I passed, no matter what they were. I’d dig graves if they’d give me a shovel. But no one wanted to hire a skinny little dirt child. They all shooed me away like a barn cat begging for scraps.
I thought about going to one of the church shelters, but I was a wanted woman now. My picture could be hanging in their office, even if it wasn’t in the paper yet.
I wasn’t soft. I could have lived that way for a while. But the one thing I couldn’t stand, the one thing that turned me sour, was not singing.
Back home, I heard music in everything; new songs drifted in and out of my head throughout the day among the trees and creeks, sent from God above.
But now, my mind was empty of music. Even when I sang a bit of an old hymn, my voice was quiet and dry. I didn’t feel the freedom to belt it like I’d done in the woods. I couldn’t let go of the fear that I’d be found in the shed and locked up.
One night I went to a bar nearby to see if I could play or just listen to music, but they wouldn’t even let me in the door. How was I supposed to become a country star if I couldn’t sing? If I couldn’t even find a job or a place to live?
There was something building up inside of me. Something that needed to get out.
At night I felt it like a cat stuffed into a sack, jerking and clawing inside my middle. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d stare out the tiny shed window at the tree, and I’d think about my mother and the time I had left.
On her 33rd birthday, when she was nine months pregnant with me, she was hit by a truck and launched into a tree. While she died instantly, by some miracle and the shield of her body, I survived.
But this wasn’t some freak accident.
Her mother had also died at 33. And her mother. And her mother’s mother. On down the bloodline to some distant ancestor who’d made the wrong deal with the devil.
I was the latest in a long line of cursed women, destined to meet the same fate.
I had fifteen years left.
Fifteen years.
And I was no closer to getting what I wanted out of this life.
One morning, about a week after I arrived, I woke to guitar song wafting through the air.
For a moment I wondered if music had returned to me.
A new song floating down from above. There was something strangely appealing about it, like the melody was twisting in on itself.
I closed my eyes and listened, and I realized it was outside my head, coming from somewhere nearby.
I left the shed and followed the music to a first-story window in the house next door. Through the curtained glass I could see the outline of a person playing a guitar, but nothing more. I stood there for a while not caring who saw me, soaking up the sound like cold, clear water.
I heard a gasp and the guitar stopped with a sharp pluck. My body swayed forward, wanting more. Then the curtains parted, and the window shot up.