1.
“My name is Billy-Jack.”
That’s what he first said to Caroline. And that’s probably how he began most of his conversations there in the parking lot.
Billy-Jack spent a lot of time on that pavement, that’s for certain. Sunburned pavement so hot that the gum spit on it would sometimes melt. Wandering back and forth in front of the strip mall that housed Prince’s Chicken Shack and Phat Cuts and a few other signless businesses.
“My name is Billy-Jack. Take my picture.”
Nobody had ever come across that parking lot with a camera. That’s probably why he kept talking at Caroline. Hers wasn’t even a real camera, just an old silver Minolta that was used in the ‘70s and vintage by the time it came around to her. Sometimes when she pushed the shutter down it didn’t seem like anything actually happened, didn’t seem like whatever was in front of her made it onto the film.
“Take my picture,” said Billy-Jack. “I’m going to Hollywood.”
If this last statement was true or not, Caroline didn’t know. She didn’t ask. He seemed convinced enough of what he said.
“My name is Billy-Jack. And I’m going to Hollywood. I’m a real, corn-fed hillbilly and I’m-a going to Hollywood. So take my picture,” and he stood there, arms at his sides and his face posing for the camera.
“Yes siree. Hollywood,” he said and continued down the pavement.
“Well, good luck, buddy,” said Caroline and when she looked up from the viewfinder, he was gone. Just like that, just as quick as he appeared.
Caroline never saw Billy-Jack again. And she never since had anybody demand to have their picture taken. It’s a strange thing for a stranger to want. As if he was demanding not to be forgotten, to not just disappear.
2.
They sat at booth 97 in the convention center, surrounded by rows and rows of
booths of other country singers hawking loudly to draw the attention of
passersby, people looking for autographs of the big names they knew- the ones
who sang at the Opry on TV. Lolo and Eugene mostly just sat and watched, Lolo fidgeting every now and then
at their CDs with the desktop-printed labels. She swung her feet back and forth under the table, never quite long enough to
reach the floor. Eugene sat with his arms crossed on his belly, occasionally re-crossing his
Wrangler-jean legs or adjusting the bolo tie under the collar of his white
shirt.
They packed up early.
“Think anybody there got signed?” asked Lolo.
“Don’t know. Hard to say,” said Eugene. “Probably.”
“That’d still be nice,” Lolo said. “Our names lit up.” FLYING PIG BBQ twitched neon on the crowds.
“Maybe next year,” said Eugene.
“Y’all in for the CMAs?” asked the blonde, unaware that she might be interrupting their after-dinner
reverie. She was young.
Lolo and Eugene talked politely with her. She hoped to get signed or on TV, something. And Lolo knew that feeling, knew what it was like to be the opener for Little
Jimmy Dickens or someone at some obscure place, never making it to first act,
though she kept that to herself. God had his plans.
Oh yes, drove all the way from Maryland. Yes, all on our own. Sure, we sing. Brought our CD, and Eugene here even brought his tambourine.
They clapped tentatively when the blonde took stage, though few others bothered.
Yet soon Lolo was tapping her feet and Eugene was keeping beat on his thigh and
they concluded that she wasn’t half bad. A bit over-sung, but most here were.
Somewhere during her set that blonde got to talking. “Come on, folks, let’s hear it! All the way from Maryland and playing on special appearance here at the one and
only Layla’s Country Music Inn!”
“Might as well give ‘em a show,” said Lolo.
“The Medley,” said Eugene and he whispered some things into the bassist’s and drummer’s ears.
When Lolo opened her mouth, sashshaying around in the black skirt she normally
wore out to The Midland for polka, all the people there at Layla’s suddenly hushed up.
The cowboy who performed the early slot stopped posing like Hank and taking
shots and clapping his buddies on the back. The couple in from Hendersonville stopped discussing divorce and the bartenders
stopped swooping up the empty bottles along the walls of the long and narrow
joint.
And all breaths stopped, for a moment, as Lolo batted her last lash at the
audience and Eugene brought his tambourine to a rest. And they, too, held their breath, waiting. Everything still.
3.
Breanna Villansenar and Caje Cassidy lazed with flight-sized bottles of Jack
Daniels that Caje had lifted from the Willie Nelson Museum and Memorabilia
Showcase Shoppe and compared tongue colors, which had turned neon from the XL
Slurpees that they had bought at the gas station.
They idled by the less visited attractions, across from the Opryland with its
neatly groomed lawns and polo-shirted employees, all but on the edge of the
highway. They sat on the stoop outside the Hank Williams Bar, a haphazard place nestled
between the Country Music Wax Museum Hall of Fame and the Dukes of Hazzard
(Unofficial) Museum, taking pictures with Caje’s phone.
“So you like it here?” Caje asked.
“It’s ok,” said Breanna. “‘Specially when I’m, like, hangin’ out with you.” A-nd she kissed him near his ear.
When he didn’t say anything, she kept talking to fill in the space. She never liked silences much.
“I mean, things are just different,” she continued. “Like, I don’t know, California was way better. I miss the beach and I really miss my friends there.”
“We’ve got beaches here,” Caje said.
“You have to have an ocean to have a beach. And there’s no ocean here. Like, lakes don’t have beaches. And anyhow, I think it’s harder for Mama to have enough money here. She brings, like, stuff from work a lot for dinner, saying it’s like somethin’ special or whatever, but I know she just doesn’t have the money to go to the store.”
Caje flicked a bottle cap. “Just eat at my house. My folks ain’t home much and they wouldn’t care.”
“Maybe,” said Breanna.
“But people here,” said Caje. “People are nicer, aren’t they? I mean, neighbors and stuff. L.A. must be so, like, big—no one could have really cared ‘bout you.”
“I s’pose,” said Breanna. “Course our neighbors here might be, like, different than yours.”
“I guess,” said Caje. “But if you were back there, we wouldn’t, like, know each other at all”.
“Yeah,” said Breanna, pausing gravely at her realization. “But my heart will always belong to Cali.” And she dug a pen out of her backpack. “You know sometimes when I’m, like, mad at Mama or something, I think of running away back there. I figure I could just, like hitchhike or something.”
“I could go with you, babe,” Caje said, but Breanna wasn’t listening. She had turned to the plywood and 2x4s of the bar’s wall, the whole thing covered in writing and painted with an American flag,
its paint crackling.
“Cheers to today,” she said, lifting her Slurpee and taking a drink. “And to skipping school.” And Caje wrapped his arms around her stomach as she wrote.
Breanna was Here
on 5-19-08 and she is
14 Today she ditched
School at 1230 to hang
with a guy that likes
Me Her and they made out
and on the other way
it says Caje ♡ Breanna
I think you need to go
find it and write the date
Next to it if you saw it
Always & 4EVER
Breanna Villasenar
Born in Cali and always a Cali Girl
