“Oh Jesus Mother of—pull over, will ya?!”
Two large, pissed-off men and one boy piled out of the old car parked on the side of the highway. Smelly old rags, salvaged from the trunk, were put in the boy’s hands. Reeling from the sour smell and the booze still rolling around in his belly, he tried his best to clean up his own mess while the two men watched. Finally, they told him to get back into the sour-smelling car.
“Let’s hit the road. It’s getting late.” Oats was afraid to ask, late for what?
It was too scary to think about the possibilities so he tried to turn his brain off and not think. For the moment he was safe—or at least as safe as you can be in the back of a car with no seatbelt and a couple of brew-swilling wackos in charge. Even Mr. Volstadt had abandoned him after his last warning (Make sure you know your area code and phone number; do you know how to make a collect call or dial 911 in case of emergency? DO NOT give your address or phone number to strangers), reminding him that he’d never bothered to learn the phone number at the motel, and that since Bobby Lee’s and the other band members’ numbers were stored in his missing cell phone, he didn’t have those either. It didn’t matter anyway.
Major Booty turned off the highway and drove along a bumpy, badly paved road for quite a while. Oats had to go to the bathroom really bad by that time, but he didn’t want to call attention to himself and there wasn’t any place to stop anyway. No buildings in sight, just overgrown trees and shrubbery as the road grew narrower and narrower, finally becoming one lane of dirt. This wasn’t Bakersfield. Who were these people? Where were they taking him, and why? He wished his brain wasn’t so muddled so he could figure things out.
Just when he thought he was about to burst, they pulled into a driveway and up to a couple of ramshackle mobile homes placed close together on a patch of asphalt next to a tiny swamp.
“OK, get out of the car,” Lonesome Al ordered in a not-very-friendly tone of voice. “We’re here.”
Lonesome Al knocked on the door a few times, and when no one answered he tried the handle and found it unlocked, so they went on in.
Oats looked around at the cramped, dusty room. There was a desk and chair, an old dented file cabinet, and a stained, orange shag carpet. The desk was piled high with papers, and there were half-empty coffee cups scattered everywhere. A ray of sunlight coming through the teensy window illuminated thousands of dust particles floating around in the air, and a tiny, distorted speaker squawked what he thought might be one of those machines that monitors police radios.
This might be the last room I’ll ever see, and it’s so ugly. It’s not fair.
Another, competing squawk came from across the room, and Oats turned to see a huge, elaborate birdcage with a parrot in it.
The parrot squawked, “Jell-O shot! Jell-O shot!”
And this might be the last thing I’ll ever hear. That’s really not fair.
Oats thought about making a run for it, but Major Booty and Lonesome Al both blocked the doorway. Searching for another exit, he spotted a small glass window that had been inserted into the wall. It was smudged and greasy, but clear enough to see through into the next room where a chubby, balding man sat at a desk talking into a microphone on a table stand. He looked up and saw them standing there.
“Gentlemen?”
“Hello there,” Major Booty shouted. “We brought you a present, special delivery.”
Oh shit. This is it.
Oats hoped that whatever happened would happen fast. He tried to prepare himself for the worst, but how in the world do you do that? His head hurt, his whole body ached with the need to pee, and—more than anything else in the world—he wanted his mommy.
The man motioned to wait a minute. He fiddled around with an old-fashioned machine, and walked out to where two men and a very frightened boy stood waiting.
“Howdy, I’m the Con Man. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
Oats’ mind started reeling…a con man? Were they planning to leave him here out in the middle of nowhere with this funny-looking old guy and his demented parrot? He looked around, once again searching out some means of escape.
“We are big fans of your wonderful media establishment,” the Major said.
“Well, ain’t that something. You and Pepper there would be just about the only ones in that case.”
“Squawk. Jell-O shot, Jell-O shot,” the bird screamed.
“We need to use your access to the public airwaves,” explained Lonesome Al.
Oats’ imagination started running wild. Maybe they were going to make some kind of announcement they were holding him for ransom. It seemed like time to set the record straight.
“You know,” he said, “this isn’t going to work. For one thing, my parents don’t have that much money. So you won’t get much ransom…”
They all stared at him as if he were talking Martian.
“Who said anything about money?” Major Booty asked. “We don’t want your parents’ money. We want something else from you, pipsqueak.”
And Oats had thought Bobby Lee was after his ass! Again he looked around, desperate, for a window to climb through, or something—anything. But they were locked in a tin box at the end of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Oats was sweating hard and breathing fast, but determined to watch for any opportunity that presented itself.
“Actually, we came here with a specific agenda in mind,” Major Booty explained.
“Aw, come on, let me show you around.” The man led them into what Oats recognized as a radio broadcasting booth crammed with old equipment, even a couple of turntables set up to play actual records, instead of just CDs and downloads.
The man put his fingers to his lips in a sssh signal, sat down, and put on a pair of headphones before leaning into a large, old-fashioned microphone. “This is Conman Connie West, Honky-Tonk King of the Central Valley at KRUM, home of the cowboys.
“Let’s put some possum on the pot, ladies and gents, with a little ‘White Lighting’ by George Jones.” As the song began, he turned his attention back to the group. “All right, boys, how can I help you?”
“Well, sir, there’s this musician we really like a lot,” Al began. “His name is, um…”
“Bobby Lee Crenshaw,” Major Booty interrupted. “And we’re trying to figure out where he might be playing next, if indeed he is still in the general vicinity.”
So they aren’t going to rape me, kill me, or hold me for ransom! At least not right away…
“Yassir, the ‘Not if I See You First’ man! Great stuff, great stuff there. Classic sound but not tired, if you catch my drift. The only thing is he’s been canceling a lot of dates due to some kind of illness. The rumor is he’s got terminal cancer, or worse.”
Oats wondered what could be worse than a terminal disease, but kept the thought to himself in favor of setting the record straight about Bobby Lee’s health. Before he realized he was blowing his own cover, he blurted out, “No! It’s Pete the tour manager who got sick. Pete’s kind of like one of the family, so it’s not like things could just go on without him. Pete had a stroke, and…um…” Oats noticed all three men staring at him.
“I know who you are now!” Conman Connie cried. “You’re that kid from the band, the little harp man. I’m right, ain’t I? Me and some of my friends caught your act over in Bakersfield and you kicked ass, kid.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Hey, come on into the booth. I’ll play a Bobby Lee Crenshaw song and we can do something fun with you on the air. Whaddaya say? Then we’ll look up the calendar listings and I can tell you all I know about them tour dates. You got a harp on you?”
Oats, still trying to adjust to the fact that his life wasn’t in danger, nodded yes and pulled out the old “A” that was always in his pocket.
“OK, just follow my lead, kid.”
“Um, before we do that could I please use your bathroom?”
*
Conman Connie opened the door to his production booth with a flourish, and they all piled into the tiny space. He plunked a set of headphones on Oats and pointed for him to sit down in a rickety desk chair across the table from his seat. Al and the Major tried to figure out places to stand where they wouldn’t be in the way.
George Jones faded out and Conman pulled a lever that made the mics go live.
“Hey, all you KRUM listeners, a mystery guest just walked into our palatial media center here this afternoon. I’m going to let him strut his stuff on the air, and the first listener to call in and guess who it is gets a KRUM T-shirt. He pointed at Oats, who started to play “Juke” into the mic. A moment later, the lights on the phone began blinking, with people calling in to guess every blues harp player, living or dead, they’d ever heard of. One slightly deaf listener even thought he was playing the accordion and guessed Jimmy Sturr. Oats was starting to have fun, but it looked like they might be in for a long afternoon because no one was guessing his name.
*
Something about seeing Hoagy Guitarmichael spin Hank Wilson around made Arizona think about her husband in an achy way that she found surprising. Jerry was great with kids; her niece and nephew adored him, and she’d always thought he’d make a terrific dad. In fact, they’d been talking about getting pregnant when he met Stephanie at his high school reunion and became so distracted and remote, becoming a Jew for Jesus in the process. Remembering all of that still left her hurt and angry, but for the first time she wondered if her certainty about being in real physical danger had been exaggerated, or even imagined. There was something about Oats being gone and seeing his family—however screwed up—rally to find him that made her want to work things out with her own small family.
Lying on her bed, clutching the new Madison with Gertrude inside (she’d started thinking of the toy’s name as Maditrude) in her arms, she went over all the details for the thousandth time. Jerry’s affair was terribly hurtful, but she’d just met some really nice, smart, basically good people who had succumbed to the same temptations. And she couldn’t deny that she had the potential—look what had almost happened with Dickie!
The password change on her checking account was weird, but there might be a very mundane explanation. Jerry had assumed the “tech support” role in their household, and perhaps there had been some little issue, a security breach or something, that had caused him to change their access codes. It wouldn’t be unheard of for him to futz around with their wireless network, change some settings, and forget to tell her.
The checks to Jews for Jesus on her account were weirder, and it would absolutely not be OK for him to ever do that again. It was enough to get upset about; but maybe not enough to be worth ending a marriage. She’d have to give that issue more thought, but he deserved an opportunity to state his case.
It was the gun, and the threatening note, that stopped her cold. But what if it wasn’t a death threat at all? What if the scrawled words on that index card were a quote, something he’d heard at a meeting or read on a web site, and had nothing to do with her? Couldn’t this all be a huge misunderstanding? It was worth finding out. She had to have another conversation with Jerry, at least, to try to set things straight. She owed that to her marriage. But first she’d do a little online research about Jews for Jesus. Despite all the evangelical fervor and bumper stickers, she realized she knew very little about the group.
Arizona pulled her iPhone out of her purse and tried to log on to the Internet, but the motel’s wireless system seemed to be down and she couldn’t get online. She sighed, rolled off the bed, and walked over to the motel’s tiny office to ask the desk clerk to reboot.
“Yeah? Whaddaya want?” The pimple-faced kid looked up grudgingly from his Game Boy.
“Uh, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could reboot your wireless system so I can get online upstairs.”
“Sure,” the kid said. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll get to it. I can’t leave the desk. New rules.”
“Um, it’s kind of an emergency.”
“I said I’ll get to it when I can.” The kid turned his back on her and made a point of fiddling with the radio on a shelf behind him.
“Wait a minute,” she insisted. “That’s really not OK. Please…”
The kid shrugged and turned the radio up louder. Furious, she turned to leave—and then stopped dead in her tracks.
*
Arizona came barreling through Murphy’s front door, nearly crashing into Bobby Lee, Greg, and Sarah Jean.
“Listen, you guys, listen. Listen!” Arizona shrieked, holding up a small plastic boom box. “I was down in the motel office trying to get them to reboot the wireless, and the pimply kid had the radio on, and I took it so you could hear.”
“You stole the kid’s radio?” Greg asked, as the desk clerk dashed into the room.
“Lady, give me back my radio,” he shouted. Arizona, a full head taller than he was, held the radio above her head as he tried to jump up to retrieve it.
“Listen,” she said, “let me get the station up again. I think we have to stand over in the corner to get a signal.”
Arizona led the small group—including the pimply-faced desk clerk, still jumping up and down and trying to grab his radio—to the window, where the sound was a little better than in the center of the room under the restaurant’s Muzac-dispensing speakers.
“There it is, there it is,” she shouted, and the unmistakable sound of Oats playing “Loser Blues” came crackling through the static.
“What is that, a bootleg of the Bakersfield show or something?” Bobby Lee asked.
“No, that’s Oats, live on the radio, right this very minute. He’s at KRUM, home of the cowboys, being interviewed by Conman Connie. The girls who work here all love that guy.”
Sarah Jean jumped up out of her chair. “Are you sure it’s live, absolutely sure?”
“I figured…I mean, it’s a live show usually.”
“What if he taped it last week or something?”
“Ladies,” Bobby Lee interrupted. “I know that every woman in my life thinks I’m a class-A dufus and y’all may be right. But I’m certain that Oats didn’t tape any shows with Conman Connie, and I know for a fact that the man does his show live. Always has.”