In the late-winter of 1975 I drove an blind piano from an art-deco hotel in Miami Beach to the flatness of eastern Texas in his Delta 88. Everyone at the Sea Breeze Hotel had warned about Old Bill's driving. I thought that they had been kidding, but outside of La Grange on Route 71 he ordered me to turn onto a dirt road.
"I'll take over from here. My lady friend lives a couple of miles up this road." He motioned to get out of the car.
"You know where you are?" There wasn't a single house in sight.
"Road 4123, right?"
"Yeah." I didn't ask how he knew, having witnessed the extraordinary powers of the blind man's remaining senses on more than one occasion. I stepped out of the car and grabbed my bag, as Old Bill slid over to the driver's seat.
"Good luck." I watched the old piano-tuner grasp the wheel, as if he were reading the braille from the road. He was really going to do this.
"You too, hippie boy, am I pointed straight?" The white orbs of his eyes blinked with radar precision.
"I left you on the crest of the road." The hard-scrabble two-laner ran straight as a strand of dry spaghetti to the hazy horizon.
"Then I'm good. See you, when I see you." Old Bill laughed and drove off slow, weaving from side to side. After a few minutes the Delta 88 was a black speck swallowed by yellow dust of East Texas.
"You too, hippie boy, am I pointed straight?" The white orbs of his eyes blinked with radar precision.
"I left you on the crest of the road." The hard-scrabble two-laner ran straight as a strand of dry spaghetti to the hazy horizon.
"Then I'm good. See you, when I see you." Old Bill laughed and drove off slow, weaving from side to side. After a few minutes the Delta 88 was a black speck swallowed by yellow dust of East Texas.
A trucker stopped a half-hour later. The long-hauler dropped me south of Austin near sunset. The far horizon was boiling with splattered layers of color. The next big city was El Paso. I had read about Austin in Rolling Stone magazine. The World Amarillo Headquarters had been anointed the musical navel of the Southwest. Jerry Jeff Walker and Willie Nelson were regulars at the rock venue. I had some time to kill before heading out to the coast and hitchhiked into town.
A red Ford pickup with Texas plates pulled over to the shoulder. Two hippies were in the front. I was a longhair. We flashed each other peace signs and I told them my destination. "Commander Cody's playing tonight with Asleep At The Wheel." The driver motioned for me to jump in the back.
"First round on me." I jumped into the flatbed. It smelled of cowshit.
The Amarillo was located next to a roller rink. I brought my bag inside with me. The two hippies knew the man at the door. We entered for free. I checked my bag with a dazed girl at the coat check and walked inside the enormous club. Billy Bob, the pickup's driver, informed me, "The Amarillo used to be an armory."
"The acoustics suck." His scrawny friend lit up a joint. Marijuana possession was a serious crime in the Lone Star State. Huntsville Prison was infamous for the harshness of incarceration. My hosts could easily be narcs. They both wore battered cowboy hats and shit-covered boots. I stepped away a few feet from them.
"Don't worry, there ain't no one gonna bother you in the Amarillo about weed." Billy Bob accepted the reefer and his inhale expanded his lungs to the bursting point of a thin balloon. His exhale released a thunderhead of smoke smelling of across the border.
"Cops, lawyers, judges, everyone comes here to hear the music and drink beer. I thought you said that first round was on you." "That's right."
I surrendered my caution and bellied up to the bar. Lone Star was the beer of choice. I ordered six. We drank with other cowboy hippie, who were well over 6-feet. Most looked like they had played college football for an angry coach.
I don't recollect the opening bands, since Billy Bob, his friend, and I tossed back shots of tequila to get in the mood. Billy Bob had been wrong about Commander Cody, but he was right about Asleep At The Wheel. They were a killer band. Most of the audience watched from tables, but the dance floor was active and I performed a country version of the Hustle with a redheaded woman in a filmy black dress. "You're new around here." "Just got into town today from the East Coast. "Nice." Her accent was Dallas. "Where you staying?" she asked after a breath-taking swirl. "Nowhere." I hadn't slept with a woman in over two months. An actress was waiting for me in LA. It was a long way away.
"I live on Blanco." Ginger was thin and still a waif at 25. "I don't know where that is." "It's not a walking distance."
"I don't have a car."
"Me neither." "They have taxis here?" I was hoping that we didn't have to ride a horse. At this stage of the evening I was too off-balance to challenge heavy machinery or large animals. "Probably one waiting outside." Her fingers graced the inside of my elbow. Seduction was her mission. I was an easy target.
"Then let's go to your place." I was 23. 5-11. Long brown hair. Ginger and I were made for each other.
"If you need someplace to stay later, call us." Billy Bob wrote his telephone number and address on a napkin. 22nd and Chestnut. "We have a commune. One more or two ain't gonna kill us."
"Looks like the Yankee Boy done good." His friend winked his approval. "He won't be needing us tonight, but if you do get up our way, just ask for the hippie commune. The peckerwoods will show you the right way, if they don't shoot you first."
"Tomorrow."
Because tonight I was a lucky man.
Ginger's house was a bungalow not far from Shoal Creek. The classic western decor spoke old cow money. Ginger had two family names echoing the importance of their past. Her bed was brass. The sheets were scented with spices. <
She placed Joni Mitchell on the stereo. It was a Marantz. The song was CALIFORNIA from the album BLUE. James Taylor was playing guitar. Our young bodies recreated Eden on her bed and we didn't fall asleep until dawn. My clothes were piled on my bag was in the corner.
"You have to leave before noon." Ginger's drawl was exhausted by her effort and mine.
"Noon." I mentally set an alarm in my head.
It failed to go off at noon and Ginger's violent shaking ended my coma.
"You have to go." A silk robe was wrapped around last night's body.
"Now?" I was very comfortable.
"Now."
I heard the slam of a truck door. A man's cowboy boots were lined against the wall. They looked size 12.
"My husband is back from the oil field."
"My husband?"
A man called out her name. I grabbed my bag and clothing. Ginger pointed to the bedroom's open window.
"See you at the Amarillo later."
There was no time for a kiss. I fled the bungalow naked without a backward glance. A taxi took me to the commune. The driver knew the house. He came inside to smoke some weed. Billy Bob and his friend were sympathetic about my plight.
"Even cowgirls get tired of fucking cowboys."
Billie Bob belonged to a vegetarian commune. We ate cheeseburgers before showing up for the evening meal of mushed broccoli and peas. My passport into their midst was a big bottle of red wine. Eight co-eds from UT, Billie Bob and his friend. We ended up at the Amarillo. I repeated the previous night with Ginger.
A week of nights with her and every morning I left an hour after dawn.
The Amarillo opened early. The jukebox covered a lot of ground. Bands auditioned in the afternoon. The bartenders knew my name. I tipped better than the goat-ropers. One called me to the side.
"Jo Jo Booth Gammage been looking for you." He placed a Lone Star beer on the bar.
"I don't know any Jo Jo Booth Gammage." The last names were vaguely familiar.
"Ginger's old man and he don't look none too happy."
"Oh." The vague became very familiar.
"Thanks for the info." I tipped him $5 and left the Amarillo by the rear exit. It took me an hour to walk to Chestnut by the back roads. The sun was down by the time I arrived at the commune. The front door had been kicked in. Billy Bob was sporting a black eye. My bag was at his feet.
"Sorry, but the commune has voted you out."
"I understand." They commune was into peace and love.
His friend stood at the door. The girls were shadows in the kitchen.
"I vote me out too." I picked up my bag. The welcome rug had been rolled up into the closet.
"I'll give you a ride to the highway." Billie Bob handed me my bag.
I didn't refuse his offer.
71 was more than five miles away from the house.
The radio played SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL BY Grand Funk and FREE BIRD by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Billy Bob said nothing about the black eye that had meant for me. He was cool and waited by the side of the road, until a westbound Camaro shuddered to a stop. I waved good-bye to Billie Bob and got in the car. The driver was a soldier. He was headed west and so was I.
It was a good time to be heading to the coast.
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