“You want out of here just as bad as I do,” I said.
“What about my dad?” she asked, but the question wasn’t born of true concern.
“We’ll head to Nashville, get a group going,” I said. “I can still play decent until I heal up. You should be singing for people. Not hiding out down in that basement.”
Angela handed over the money, and I stuffed the cash back inside the sound hole. She hummed an E note so I could match it while pulling the slack out of the strings.
She returned later that night, and I burned the church before we departed.
* * *
• • •
Nashville remained our intended destination, but we ended up on the outskirts of Lexington, renting three rooms above a hardware store. The bathroom sink leaked, and the sodden linoleum warped up around the base of the toilet. The carpet smelled of cat piss despite the current no-pet policy. After just two weeks, our funds were already running out. Since I’d never had money before, I was shocked at how quickly it was spent.
The apartment was in Angela’s name. She’d called from a pay phone after seeing the ad and, anticipating the landlady’s demeanor, went to view the place alone while I waited at the local library. After I spent a few hours being stared at by strangers, Angela picked me up. The landlady was a Jesus freak. A two-ton crucifix swung from her neck as she showed Angela the rooms and ticked off the rules. No men, no pets, only one other roommate of the same sex.
Those rules kept me living like a refugee, only sneaking out during rare opportunities for exodus. I didn’t mind. The city was too crowded for my taste. I was still a spectacle on the street, but fewer people accosted me. Mostly kids or the occasional redneck who felt the need to toss ridicule from a car window. All that grew tolerable. The hard part was living with Angela.
The fantasy of playing house unraveled fast. The first night in a Kentucky motel, I lay in bed beside her with only blankets separating our clothed skin. The next morning the bed smelled of both our bodies, fire and ash. In the apartment, I slept on the couch, curled around myself like a broken-shelled crustacean. We talked less. Communion reduced to smoking the occasional joint and playing music. We built an impressive body of work, expanding the jam sessions from the basement into something more tangible. Even with a wealth of equipment smuggled from her father’s studio, my guitar and her voice remained the only instruments. I remember feeling separated from my body when she sang, lifted from the broken frame until only her voice filled the dark room. My hands played along, but I wasn’t present.
Like my body, I believed my feelings were something I’d never share with her. Understanding that and living with its constant reminder seemed irreconcilable. I was pondering these thoughts one evening when Angela returned drenched from rain. She looked at me huddled over my empty coffee mug, the crushed brown filters of cigarettes like small trees I’d planted in the ash-filled china. I tried to hide my frustration, but Angela was already accustomed to the mood swings.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“I put in an application at Kroger. Bagging groceries.” Angela plopped down beside me. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said.
Angela produced a flyer from her purse. She spread the paper across our table, scooted the cup aside and blew away the ash like a child extinguishing birthday candles. I read the block print.
REMINGTON’S LIVE MUSIC NIGHT FEATURING COWBOY CARTER, THE TWAIN SISTERS AND ANGELA CARVER & HOLLIS BRAGG. TEN $ COVER CHARGE. DOORS OPEN AT SEVEN.
Some mingling of pride and regret filled me. Back then, I didn’t think I could stand under the bright lights. I knew I was supposed to do it. If I contained any self-fulfilling purpose, it was the requirement of all artists. I was meant to take personal calamity and shape it into some form of truth, but that required a resolve I feared.
“No,” I said and pushed the flyer away.
“Why do you think I did it this way?” she asked. “I know you, Hollis. The only option is to force you to do it.”
I started to rise from the couch, but she snatched me by the wrist.
“Isn’t this what we left for?”
I should have confessed that the music was always secondary. If I had, it might have saved us from what came later.
“Have you ever thought it’s selfish to keep it to yourself?” she asked. “Didn’t you tell me that if you have something, you’re supposed to share it?”
I could’ve offered countless arguments about how no one wanted what I had, could’ve explained she was proof of that, but I knew better than to argue. I rarely told her no.
* * *
• • •
The honky-tonk we played was full of patrons in cowboy hats shelling peanuts at the mahogany bar, tossing the hulls on the floor as they washed them down with tall drafts of Lone Star or Pabst. The stage was nothing more than a small platform where a man in white jeans and a western sports coat sang “Amarillo by Morning” for divorcées in tight denim. We avoided the crowd by entering through the back door. I sat behind the drab curtain gripping the neck of my guitar while Angela paced, her boot heels clicking as she sang to herself. I tried to close my eyes and concentrate only on her voice, but the crowd on the other side of the curtain sounded agitated. Laughter exploded with the cadence of firecrackers and drunken hollering overcame the man’s serenade. He finished his set to anesthetized applause.
There are gaps. Moments of lost memory like scenes cut from a film. I can only recall certain things. The scent of cigar smoke. A cold glass of water perspiring in my hand. Angela running up and down her vocal range. Somewhere in this blur, a man announced us over the PA. Angela wrapped her hands around my shoulders and gave a squeeze of encouragement.
When I’d fantasize about these moments, the applause always halted, the spectators silenced by the sight of my body until I played. Slowly, as if chiseling away at their shock, my guitar made them take notice. Sometimes the daydreams failed midway through, stalled by someone jeering from the back row. As private wish turned to nightmare, an audience member inevitably threw something.
No bottles sailed past my head that night, but the silence was palpable. Angela gave a brief introduction while I waited for an outburst of protest. I noticed a group of women seated at a table in the far corner. Even today, I can recall the expression present on one woman’s face, the way her breath seemed caught in her throat and her red nails trembled as she touched her lower lip. It didn’t hit until Angela and I reached the final chorus of “Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel,” but I recognized it as pity. The absolute rawness of the woman’s pity for the body I must live in. It was more painful than any other barb. I played the last song poorly, but Angela left the stage ecstatic. She took me behind the curtain, clutched me tight and raked her fingers through my hair.