“My family’s going to a big clan gathering down in Arizona,” Eddie said. “That’s where my grandma lives, remember?”
“Whoa, you mean like a powwow?”
“Ha! If you call grilling burgers on the barbeque and checking out the Monster Truck Rally a powwow,” Eddie laughed. “My grandma’s not much for tradition. She always wanted to be an all-American girl. My parents are the PC ones. They keep telling her that we’re the original Americans and all, but Grandma just takes out her hearing aid and keeps crocheting doilies for her mobile home.”
Bobby Lee and Billy Crenshaw walked in, talking softly. Bobby Lee looked pale and upset, and Billy kept patting his arm as they both looked at a small stack of papers in Bobby Lee’s hand. Oats wondered if maybe Pete had taken a turn for the worse, but then he heard Bobby Lee say, “I can’t get her on the phone—I’ve been trying for hours,” so that probably wasn’t it. Maybe they were just having trouble figuring out the hospital bill or something like that, he decided.
The other band members followed a few minutes later, and were seated—oddly, Oats thought—at a separate table toward the front of the dining room. The boys could see and hear them all, but unless they all turned around to the side, they weren’t likely to notice. It was the perfect vantage point, if a guy felt like spying on his bandmates. “Whoa!” Eddie’s head swiveled toward the door as Helen led a couple over to a nearby table for two. Oats saw all his bandmates’ heads swivel in the same direction. The woman was gorgeous, blonde and curvy in a very revealing outfit. She laughed at something her handsome companion said, patting his butt as he gave her a little kiss.
“Lucky guy,” Eddie sighed.
Helen took the couple’s order and walked away toward the kitchen. Then Bobby Lee walked over to the band table and asked if anyone had heard from Dickie. No one had. “I wonder if I should call in a hired gun,” he said.
“No, no, man. You can handle it,” they all said. “You play as good as any of those guys.” But that wasn’t really the point, and they all knew it. Bobby Lee needed to be the spangled front-man singer-songwriter, and it would be easier all around to have an ace picker holding down the lead guitar slot even if he, Bobby Lee, was an equally good player.
They kept batting the idea around, discussing the pros and cons until their food came, and as their conversation rolled on Oats turned his attention to Eddie and Hank Wilson. Hank Wilson was trying to interest Eddie in a contest to see who could balance the most French Fries on the top of a salt shaker, while Eddie remained lost in his own little dream world, staring at the gorgeous blonde woman. Oats spent the next few minutes concentrating on his cheeseburger.
*
A shout rang out like a pistol shot and Oats spun his head around toward the band’s table to see what the commotion was all about. It was Dickie Jaspers, walking unsteadily into the restaurant.
“Here he is, the perfect darling hushband,” Dickie shouted, pointing at Bobby Lee. “You get anything in the mail today?”
He looked around the room and spotted Oats.
“Kid! Come here,” he shouted. “Yeah, you! You need to hear this. Come on over—who’s your daddy? Ha ha, yeah, that’s it all right. Who’s your daddy?”
Bobby Lee stood up.
“Dickie, sit down and shut up!”
“Too late, too late, too late,” Dickie sang out. “Kid, didn’t you hear me? I said come on over here. You’ll be glad you did.” Something told Oats that what was coming wasn’t for his little brother’s ears.
“Get Hank Wilson out of here, OK?” he whispered to Eddie. Eddie shrugged, but didn’t ask any questions, and suggested that they go check out the pinball machines in the empty bar.
“Y’all can take your fuckin’ kiddiegarten tour and shove it.” He looked at Oats again. “I said, get over here, squirt. I have something to tell you.”
Whatever was going to happen, Oats figured he might as well go get it over with. He had no idea what was going on but he knew it was big and serious and hard. As he approached the gathering he heard his mother’s voice shouting from across the restaurant.
“There you are!” she called out. “We’ve been looking for you guys.” As she ran toward them she started to say something about Pete, with Arizona walking purposefully behind her. Then she took in the scene: Dickie weaving around and pointing his finger at Oats, Bobby Lee white-faced and tense. She stopped dead in her tracks, so abruptly that Arizona nearly crashed into her.
“Oats, where’s Hank Wilson?” Sarah Jean asked. He pointed in the direction of the video game area and she nodded OK.
Oats couldn’t have said a word if he tried. His heart was pounding so loud he could hear it in his head.
As Sarah Jean ran to stop him, Dickie leaned over and grabbed Oats by the shoulder. Arizona, rushing up behind them, nearly tripped over a man’s long leg. She mumbled a “beg pardon” as she looked up, into the face of her husband.
“Ari?” Jerry cried.
“Jerry!” she shouted, then looked at his companion. “You must be Stephanie,” she said stiffly.
But Stephanie hadn’t noticed, distracted as she was by the commotion on the other side of the room.
“Oh my God,” she cried. “It’s been a long time but I’d know you anywhere. Dickie Jaspers!”
“Baby, is that you?” he replied. “Wow…”
Arizona looked at Otis Ray. He was pale and shaking. Dickie’s face went from triumphant to confused as he focused on Stephanie (from so long ago, so out of context). Jerry stared at Stephanie, then at Arizona, then back at Stephanie. Bobby Lee and Billy had to physically restrain Sarah Jean, who was shaking a butter knife at Dickie’s head. Time seemed to stop in freeze-frame until the spell was broken by a tiny, adorable, apparently very stoned woman walking into the restaurant, taking in the scene, and lighting up in a huge smile of recognition.
“Arizona!” she cried. “Fancy meeting you here!”
Of course. Who else could it be?
“Hey, Kira.” Arizona sighed weakly. “Fancy indeed.”
*
Bobby Lee looked around the table at his bandmates, his drunken childhood friend, his ex-girlfriend, his new crush, and the kid. After all these years, he couldn’t believe this was happening now, in front of nearly everyone he cared about (what miracle had spared his daughter, Valerie?) in the middle of Murphy’s Corned Beef ’n’ Cabbage Emporium, in the middle of a tour—with a cheerful Irish jig playing in the background instead of the appropriate heart-tugging twang of a pedal-steel guitar. He stood helplessly, watching the train wreck happen.
With tremendous force of will, Oats looked up.
Bobby Lee just stood there. Sarah Jean walked over to Oats and put her arm around his shoulder.
“I bet you’re wondering what all this is about,” she said.
“Who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy?” Dickie, only momentarily distracted by seeing the amazing Stephanie, resumed dancing around the table singing his drunken song.
“Stop it, Dickie,” Sarah Jean shouted at him. “You’ve done enough damage; it’s pointless to continue to be annoying.” Dickie shoved his middle finger up at Sarah Jean.
“I don’t want to mish the show,” he drawled. “I got a front-row sheat.”
“Then sit down and shut up,” Sarah Jean snapped at him. Surprisingly enough, he did.
Sarah Jean looked at Bobby Lee, still standing there apparently paralyzed. “Do you want to tell him?”
“No, you,” he mumbled. “Please.”
“As usual—some things never change. OK, listen. Oats, here’s the thing. A long time ago, before you were born, I was a singer with Cindi Lou Bender’s band. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What you might not know is that Bobby Lee was also in that band for a little while. We hit it off, and we ended up spending one night together, right before I left the tour.”
“What?” Dickie cried. “That was right before Bobby Lee and Charlotte got engaged!”
“Dickie…” Bobby Lee whispered.
“Look,” Sarah Jean said. “I know some mistakes were made here, but keep in mind that on the night in question, Bobby Lee and I were both officially single…I had no idea Charlotte was in the picture, so just listen, OK? Should I have asked, ‘Hey, I think you’re cute but do you have a girlfriend?’ Probably. But honestly, it never occurred to me.
“It would be nice to get a little help with this,” Sarah Jean said to Bobby Lee. He shook his head and looked down.
“Anyway—Oats, honey, the next day I got fired from the tour. I was whisked out of town without a chance to say goodbye to anyone in the band. I went home and then a whole bunch of stuff started happening really fast. I had a surprise hit record, my dad left my mom for a waitress in North Carolina, I met your da—I mean, Greg, and I discovered I was pregnant…with you.”
“Um, so you’re saying you don’t know who my father is?” Oats asked.
“No, I absolutely do know who it is.” She took both his shoulders in her hands, and she took a big gulping breath before she continued. “Your biological father is Bobby Lee Crenshaw.”
“But wha…why?
Why
didn’t you bother to mention it?”
“By the time I figured out I was pregnant Bobby Lee had quit Cindi Lou’s tour. He was out playing with another group; I don’t remember who, but I found out they were performing in Japan. I called every hotel in Tokyo until I found him listed, and when they rang the room Charlotte answered the phone. She said, ‘This is his wife, can I take a message?’ I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend! I found out later that she’d gotten pregnant right after Bobby Lee joined our tour, and Charlotte and Bobby Lee got married and went to Japan on their honeymoon! Imagine my surprise…”
Oats looked Sarah Jean straight in the eye for the first time, and spoke so softly that they all had to strain to hear.
“So how come Dickie knows? How come everyone knows but me?” He turned to the rest of the band. “Did you all know?”
“Uh, no, sport,” said Jeremy. “I had no idea, though many fans look at you and feel you favor Bobby Lee.”
“That’s sure true,” added Rascal. “Some folks on the tour have mistaken you two for father and son, though on reflection I guess it wasn’t mistakin’ now, was it?”
“I didn’t know neither,” Willie declared.
“Well, Dickie sure knew, and I bet that Billy did, too. How could you do this?”
*
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Sarah Jean said, starting to cry. “This is the really hard part actually.”
Oats couldn’t imagine what could be harder than what he’d just heard. He looked over at Arizona and she came and stood next to him with her arm draped around his shoulder, but she kept glancing over in the direction of Jerry and Stephanie, who seemed to be having a whispered argument. Kira stood nearby, large stoned eyes watching with rapt attention.
“I decided to have you, to be a single mom. I had a lot of support at home, and had fallen into this on-again off-again relationship with Greg. We loved each other from the start, but figuring out that we were in love took a while. When you were a toddler, Hoagy took me to see a Patty Loveless show. He had backstage passes, and who should I run into but Bobby Lee Crenshaw? We ended up—we ended up having an affair that lasted for some months, maybe longer. At that point, yes, I knew he was married. I knew he had a child, and I told him that he also had a son.” She turned and looked at Bobby Lee. “You told me your marriage was falling apart, and I wanted so badly to believe you.”
“What about me?” Oats screamed. “Didn’t you think I deserved to know too?” Arizona gripped his shoulder tighter.
“Oats, I don’t know how to rationalize this to you. There’s really no excuse. You’re right, and I’m trying to tell you everything now. Greg knows, of course, and when we married he adopted you with so much love and a full heart. He was there when you were born and he has always been your dad. I guess I was waiting for Bobby Lee to come clean with Charlotte. I didn’t want to burden you with this big secret. I wanted to protect Charlotte and Bobby Lee too, a little. I know it sounds awfully lame…”
“I’ll say,” Oats snapped. “Like everyone in the world is more important than me. I think you were really protecting yourself.”
“Oats, honey, it was so compli…”
“Fuck you! Fuck you all!” And Oats bolted from Arizona’s grasp.
“Let me go talk to him,” Arizona offered.
Sarah Jean pulled her back to the table. “I don’t know. Maybe he just needs a little time.” She wished she felt as certain of this as she tried to sound.
Bobby Lee, catatonic from watching his marriage fall apart in front of his eyes, didn’t voice an opinion.
“Does anyone need a Valium?” asked Kira. Seven people held their hands out. Sure, thanks. That’d be great. Don’t mind if I do. Thank you kindly, miss.
“Hey,” Arizona called out. “Let’s go check on Eddie and Hank Wilson. Come on, Sarah Jean.”
Sarah Jean followed Arizona out of the room, leaving Bobby Lee with the rest of the band watching, paralyzed, from their table.
*
Oats ran out the door and up toward the freeway. This time he stuck out his thumb, hoping for a ride from a kindly stranger. He was too tired to run, too tired to think. He’d take a ride anywhere. He just didn’t care.
Gone Like a Cool Breeze
20
Here’s a story problem for you: If you take a thirteen-year-old kid and lie to him for his whole entire life about who his father is, how many dads does he end up with? None, is the answer, or maybe—if he’s hitching down central California’s Highway Five, minus two. Oats figured he had plenty of time to come up with the answer because in a matter of seconds everything he’d ever thought was real turned out not to be. It was going to take a while to sort things out, and Oats knew one thing. He didn’t want to do it around any of the people who called themselves his family.
He stood by the side of the road and stuck out his thumb. Cars whizzed past, and several times the back draft from an eighteen-wheeler nearly blew him off the highway. The sky was huge and blue and dusty air filled with the odor of manure, and no one had ever felt so alone. He imagined himself getting hit by one of the trucks, Arizona finding him, lifting his head onto her lap, weeping as his mother stood by, everyone else gathered around her. Then they’d be sorry.