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  It felt like nothing.

  Hoosier Daddy

  Ty Crenshaw died. Sixty-two years old and fat as a cow, he'd suffered a fatal coronary climbing his own staircase after a midnight snack. The TV played old footage, non-stop, of skinny Ty with the duck's ass hairdo and cowboy boots and those sunglasses he'd only let slip to the edge of his nose for a split second to wet panties with his baby blues. They showed him playing his Rickenbacker like his nads were hooked up to the battery of his trademark beat up Chevy pickup. Then they showed clips from a handful of movies he'd appeared in like Mark of Cain where he'd played a reformed convict hitchhiking to Nashville to make his mark on guitar town and Redneck Blues about a city girl whose car breaks down in nowheresville and then falls for her mechanic, a white guy who plays guitar in colored clubs by night. The coverage was endless and I found out all kinds of things about the hillbilly rocker I'd never heard before, about his copious cocaine use, numerous betrayals by managers and record companies as well as five adultery-ridden marriages, but what surprised me the most was that after all of it, how much money he was still worth. All that music and those cheap movies had made him wealthy and none of his bad habits had broke the bank. Good on him.

  The news hit me harder than I’d thought it might. I guess growing up with his music always in the background had made it sink in deep. His were the records, playing in the house, that I’d drown out my own dad’s cursing and threatening with. Mom would put ‘em on when she felt a storm brewing and I’d play Star War or whatever with Ty’s screaming electric twang soundtrack.

  Mom finally left dad and took me with her, but we left those records behind. Left everything behind, as it was one of that middle of the night escape jobs. I missed some of my toys and clothes and I missed my dog, but it never occurred to me to miss ol’ Ty’s music. So after he died, I became one of those late to the party enthusiasts of his. Hey, I’ll own it; I’ve never been a big music fan. I couldn’t tell you the names of the guys in Led Zeppelin and I don’t know which of the Beatles is still alive or who exactly Nick Jagger was. All I can say is, when I saw the footage of that cracker on TV with the tight jeans and sunglasses, making sex to that guitar, so full of fight and life, and then pictured that he was dead? Maybe I cried a little.

  Turns out, there was a lot of copiers, or people what they call “influenced” by Ty, still making music and they came through town playing concerts more often than you’d think. I started catching shows at Mississippi Nights and The Galaxy and The Hi-Pointe or The Way Out Club down on Cherokee a couple nights a week. I never bought the t-shirts or did the dances, but I’d stand near the front, watching and really listening to the music for the first time in my life.

  It was powerful. It did things to me. Sorta molested me without me having any kind of say so. I won’t say it was all pleasant. I’m not the type to let that happen. Don’t like to be blindsided or surprised. I don’t even go to movies anymore, ever since I saw Hoosiers back in high school. For some reason, I thought maybe it was gonna be a funny one, but it wasn’t. And when Lex Luthor let that old rummy coach the game, I balled so loud that everybody turned around to look at me. When I noticed that they were staring, I went berserk, started screaming at all of them plus my own daddy, who was a rummy too. I threw my spit cup at the screen and it splatted and dripped down all over. Then I grabbed one of the guys looking at me and just about beat the piss right out of him.

  So I’m not the touchy feeling type usually, and I’ve still got a temper on me, but that music was changing me, opening up new parts of me that I hadn’t known were still around or even there to begin with. Sometimes in the middle of a song, I’d have to go lock myself in the crapper and have a little cry, but I wouldn’t leave the show.

  One night I was down on the Landing to catch Junior Brown and got told at the door that the show’d been cancelled on account of sickness. That was a big disappointment. I was finding my tastes were drifting toward country music and Junior played it straight, but still batter dipped the shit outta his guitar sounds and had that deep authoritative quality to his voice that I really responded to. I didn’t mind so much being made to cry by somebody that sounded like that, but I figured if one of those slick little shits from the radio ever turned me out I might as well put on a dress and suck on cock.

  Since I was already down there in that nightlife area of town, by the river, I figured I might as well look around at the other attractions. Most places were featuring music that didn’t do anything for me and they were attracting a young crowd - just dripping with entitlement and inheritance. But finally I found a place having a good old-fashioned titty show.

  On stage there was a pale, skinny little girl with short hair of an unnatural color wiggling her ass not unlike those old movies of Ty Crenshaw, and unlike the slower more seductive movements of the tanned girls with bright teeth. I mean she was electric-fied; got-chiggers- all-over-me shaking, just mesmerizing me. Her name was Lila and all I could think to call what she had was spunk. She was one of the finalists of the wet T-shirt contest and clearly out of her league glandularly speaking. Still, she made a barn burner of it; giving the blond with the tits like furniture you could kick your feet up on, a run for the money. She smiled big and when the winner sought to extend the good sportsmanship gesture, Lila socked her in the left sand bag. She turned around, bent over at the waist and mooned the crowd at JR's. She gave us all the finger as she walked off stage. The winner was immediately forgotten. Even as she fiddled endlessly with her tits to make them point the right way after Lila's punch, nobody remembered there was another contestant.

  I caught up with her outside hailing a cab. It was chilly that night and she stood down on the Landing, on the cobblestone street, dripping wet in the forty degree night.

  "You're gonna catch a cold, Lila."

  She turned and regarded me coolly, trying to remember if there was a reason I'd know her name. "Get lost perv." She turned her attention back to the cabs that weren't coming.

  "I bet your name really is Lila, isn't it?"

  "Why, you getting a tattoo?" She gave up on the corner and started to walk toward the north end and the casino. All the cabs waited by the Admiral for fares.

  "Need a lift?"

  She ignored me and kept walking.

  Another couple of patrons stumbled out JR's side door and began to approach Lila from the cross street. They were college aged shitheads in sports shirts and jean shorts, with ball caps turned backward above their tan, booze-broadened faces. One of them, sporting a necklace of conch shells called out to her. "Hey, Surfboard show me your tits."

  Lila didn't give them the satisfaction of even turning her head. She kept walking and disappeared around the corner. The two dudes walked in the same direction and I followed.

  When I rounded the corner I saw they’d brought themselves up beside her, walking fast to match her pace. Conch shell's buddy with the blond goatee and Buffet Gut said to his friend, "It's a dude, Dude. I got bigger tits than him. Watch."

  I'm not sure how far in the bag they already were, but they either overestimated the effects of their charm or underestimated Lila's waifish volatility. When buffet gut reached out for the hem of her still wet t-shirt she grabbed the trespassing finger and broke it with a quick twist. On instinct he swung at her and she tore at his face with her tiny fingers and came away with blood colored nails.

  Conch necklace came over his buddies’ shoulder and smacked her high on her forehead with his fist. When Lila went down I saw red. The one asshole with angry red scrape marks across his face screamed at her calling her a bitch and promising to sue her or fuck her up or both. His buddy was giggling a little bit, glancing back and forth between his friend and Lila getting up slowly, braced against the wall. I walked up behind them and blindsided Conch Shell. Then I turned toward Buffet Gut and threw a hammer, pouring every ounce of advantage my extra fifteen years of alcohol thickening gave me, into his nose, which squished like a blood-swole tic. He never even knew
I was there.

  When I turned around, Lila was gone. I caught up to her down the street, wiping blood off her finger tips onto her white cotton shirt and by way of thanks; she let me walk with her.

  Trying to appear less winded than I really was, I sucked air through my nose and spit out in four blasts, "Where're you going? You shoulda won that contest, no doubt. It's a disgrace that you didn't. Just cause you're not blowing the owner every night."

  She turned on her heel and looked me in the eye. "That true?"

  I nodded while my heart rate returned to normal. When I was Lila’s age, which I’d place in the late part of the twenties, I would still get in little scuffles most weekends, but I’d mellowed some in the years since. I told myself, like a fine wine. A fine, chubby wine with a steady job, my own apartment and car. "Everybody there was talking about it. JR's been bragging on it for a week now. Says she's got no technique, but lets him rub off between her tits. The gland canyon, he calls 'em."

  "I knew it." She wagged her finger at me like she'd been trying to make this point for a long time, now. "I knew I coulda beat that peroxide bitch fair and square." Her hands rested on her hips. "You cheered for me?"

  "That's a fact."

  "What's your name?"

  "Carl."

  "Carl, you've got a car nearby?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "You wouldn't mind giving me a lift? My girlfriend deserted me."

  "Sure. Where to."

  "Wings down in South County. There's another contest at 11."

  Turned out she'd been competing regularly. Most nights actually. Picked up prize money a couple times a week on average, which was saying something seeing as how she's not got the biggest rack or the prettiest face. What she had in spades was spunk.

  I took her to the next bar and she didn't even make the top five, but I yelled myself hoarse for her and she noticed. I guess that's why she ended up back at my place that night.

  So that's how things started.

  Now jump forward just one month in time and she's yelling at me that I'd better not quit and that if I can't keep it up till she's finished than I'm just no use. I'm looking at her skinny, naked body coiled tight with concentration and a demonic determined cast to her eyes, a look that normally I would respond to with an eager rigidity. Only I’m not. Now I'm just sinking lower and lower into what may become a terminal depression.

  She'd got far beneath my skin, in such a quick time. I’d never had a girlfriend before, let alone one like Lila. We sat around my apartment a lot, listening to old shitkicker music together and went to see bands all the time. At the Horton Heat show I even let her see me cry. She got a sad smile on her face and reached up to smear a tear across my face. When we got back to my place, I tipped my hand. I called it love.

  And she hit me right away with a life plan that'd occurred to her recently.

  The thought of having a baby was so weird. It didn't seem real. The thought of having one with Lila was like a dream and I was half convinced that that was all it was. Every lucid moment, though, I made plans for our future. I started reading books about pregnancy and how precious children were, which confused me some because all the kids I knew or grew up with were little shits from the get-go, but I was determined to do the fatherhood thing right.

  I started looking for a better place to live out in the county, a little house to rent with a back yard. Maybe even get a dog. There was a supervisor position opening at the Walgreen’s and I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

  Rings were another thing on my mind and I found myself browsing the coupon section of the Sunday papers for Shane Company ads. I didn’t like the idea of somebody calling my kid a bastard, but when I brought up getting hitched to Lila, the scary way her face twisted, youd’ve thought I’d suggested a three way with her mom. “Uh-uh, no. I don’t want to ever get married, Carl.”

  “But why’s that, Li?”

  “It’s cause is all, Carl. Gonna have to trust me on this one.”

  “But I love you Lila. We’re gonna have a baby and I want to do this one thing right.”

  She pouted and put her hands on the sides of my face and looked up into my eyes. “Carl, honey, I want to have a baby too and I want you around to help and daddy it, but I don’t wanna spoil what we got by getting the government involved, that’s all. Nothing’s changed and it’s sweet, but…”

  “What about a ring, then?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What would you say to just wearing a ring? I’d like to get you a ring and have you wear it.”

  At this she smiled big. “Carl, I would be happier than shit to wear your ring.”

  Good enough.

  Flash forward one week and she’s on top, sweaty and convulsing shouting orders to me. “Oh! Carl, ugh, get in there, uh, whew, all the way, uh, c’mon, harder, don’t you dare pussy out on me you son of a bitch. Carl I swear to you if we don’t make a baby tonight you and me are through.”

  That’s pressure.

  “Baby, guess what? I got us tickets to the Copernicus show at Pop’s tomorrow night!” She looked excited like the quarterback just asked her to homecoming.

  “Who’s Copernicus?”

  “You know, Copernicus – ‘Ooh, woman, I’m the one you don’t know you want’.” I didn’t know the song, and her rendition didn’t excite me much, but she sure enough looked eager to go.

  “I don’t know that song.”

  “Sure you do. They opened for Tesla and Mr. Big back about 1990 and my dad took me to see them.” She put her hands into the back pockets of my trousers and rubbed herself up against my leg. “I remember that show was the first time I thought I wanted to try sex.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah, Tracy Collins was sooo hot. He had –“

  “He?”

  “Yeah, he. Tracy was, is the lead singer. He had gorgeous long, dark hair and didn’t really have to wear make up to be pretty like everybody was those days.” She went to the other room and began digging through a collection of cds she’d moved into my apartment last week.

  This wasn’t sounding good. “You mean he’s one of those fairies with the teased out hair-dos and eyeliner used to prance around in music videos?”

  “Yeah, but Tracy Collins was so much better than that.”

  Huh. Well, there didn’t seem to be any way of getting around going without really letting Lila down. Besides, I was changing. Growing.

  She came back into the room with a cd cover held out for my inspection. I took it and looked at the picture. Five skinny guys with their hair teased out using what must’ve been a whole can of spray, dressed in black cowboy boots and tight black jeans with scarves, hoop earrings and silky blouses open to their navels so that their downy soft chest hair could catch the light, smirked at me in front of a solid pink backdrop. I searched each smooth, rouged and mascara heavy face till I came to the one blowing me a kiss with sparkly pink colored lips.

  Lila’s finger reached over the top of the cd cover and rested just above the kiss blower. I looked over the top of the picture at her staring back at me expectantly with a finger in her mouth held delicately by her front teeth. She snatched her hand back and put it between her knees.

  “You gotta be shittin me, Li.”

  A high pitched squeal was all the answer I got.

  Flash forward to the next night and Lila’s just about to cry. She’s pulling on the useless dick meat in her hands, her frustration matching my embarrassment. We’re both exhausted and chaffed. There’s a heavy smell of blood and shit hanging in the hotel room. I’m beginning to look around and think about leaving and Lila senses it. “No! We aren’t through. I can’t do this all by myself. Carl, you have to stay here and get me pregnant.” And she loses it. The frustration and exhaustion is finally too much. She cries. It’s the first time I’ve seen her vulnerable like this. Her face is red and puffy, her legs and ass just chapped and raw and I can’t bear it.

  “Okay, one more try, Lila. Just one more.�
�

  She nods, grateful, but can’t stop sobbing while I stretch and flex, trying to work out some of the stiffness and ache from the last hour’s efforts. I look into Lila’s eyes shiny with tears and I reach over to smear them away.

  I know I’ve already lost her.

  On our way across the river to Pop’s, the same place I caught Motorhead with Nashville Pussy not long ago, she’s so excited that I’m convinced it’s going to be a great time. One that we’ll look back on fondly years from now. We’ll tell the kid about it. Hell, we’ll tell the kid about the night he was conceived. Lila said that tonight was the night, she was ovulating and she’d got us a hotel room for afterwards. She gave me a key.

  When the first jangly acoustic strums of Capernicus’s set cue the whistles and cheers from the faithful, I look up to see Lila’s sex god, Tracy Collins, now middle aged, overweight and nearly bald, close his eyes in concentration and give that girly voice of his a push. What comes out is a beautiful and true note that shuts me right the hell up. I don’t know if Lila knew his looks and body had gone, but she didn’t show any signs of surprise or disappointment. It was me who wasn’t prepared for him.

  Number after number, Tracy fuckin Collins broke my heart with his voice, aged and cracked by cigarettes and over use, but finally as honest and lived in as Ty Crenshaw’s Rickenbacker.

  At the end of the set they do their signature number and I do recognize it. It was one of those songs that was just everywhere for six months somewhere between 1988 and 1992. I’d hated it. The lyrics seemed like meaningless saccharine sentiments strung together against a backdrop of acoustic guitars and a fuckin chamber orchestra with a blistering guitar solo stuck somewhere in the middle, but not tonight. Tonight it’s something new. The guy singing it isn’t some twenty year old pretty boy. He’s got some life under his belt, some hard times and a long slide from the top to Pop’s plus all the painful learning about yourself that goes with it.