They moved to Nashville, because it was in Tennessee and, theoretically, not a big deal to visit their families. The real reason was: Music City.
Danny was still a young man, though sometimes he felt like he’d lived three lifetimes. The mirror told him he looked sharp, and his pipes were good; guys a lot less talented than he were making it big-time, why not give it a shot?
He used some of the cash he’d saved from years on the road and bought a little frame house in The Nations. Nice white neighborhood, full of hardworking people. Dixie wanted to play house that was fine; he’d be over on Sixteenth Street.
Baker went to junior high and met other kids. He stayed quiet but managed to make a few friends and, except for math where he needed some catch-up, classes were pretty easy.
Dixie stayed home and played her mandolin and sang “Just for the sake of it, Baker, which is music at the purest, right?”
Sometimes she asked Baker to jam with her. Mostly, he did.
Danny was out most of the time, trying to scare up a career on Music Row. He got a few gigs playing rhythm guitar at the Ryman when regulars were sick, did some club dates, paid his own money to cut demos that never went anywhere.
When the money ran low, he took a job teaching choir at a Baptist church.
After a year and a half of that, over dinner he announced it was time to hit the road again.
Baker said, “Not me.”
Danny said, “I didn’t mean you.” Glancing at his wife. She screwed up her mouth. “I put on weight, nothing’s gonna fit.”
“That’s why God invented tailors,” said her husband. “Or do it yourself, you used to know how to sew.”
“I still do,” she said, defensively.
“There you go. We’re leaving on Monday.”
Today was Thursday.
Dixie said, “Leaving for where?”
“ Atlanta. I got us a gig opening for the Culpeppers at a new bluegrass club. Nothing fancy, all they want is S.O.S.”
Family talk for the Same Old Shit.
Meaning the standards. Danny, seeing himself as a modern man, had come to despise them.
“Just like that,” said Dixie. “You made all the plans.”
“Don’t I always? You might want to get some new strings for your plink-box. I overheard you yesterday. The G and D are dead.”
“What about Baker?”
“He can take care of himself, right, son?”
“He’s not even fourteen.”
“How old were you when you had him?”
Talking about him as if he wasn’t there.
Baker wiped his mouth, carried his plate to the sink, and began washing it.
“So?” said Danny.
Dixie sighed. “I’ll try to sew it myself.”
From then on, they were gone more than they were home. Doing a month on the road, returning for a week or ten days, during which Dixie doted on Baker with obvious guilt and Danny sat by himself and smoked and wrote songs no one else would ever hear.
The summer of Baker’s fifteenth birthday, Danny announced they were sending him to Bible camp in Memphis for six weeks. “Time to get some faith and spirituality, son.”
By sheer coincidence, Danny and Dixie had been booked for a six-week gig exactly during that period. Aboard a cruise boat leaving from Biloxi.
“Hard to get phone contact from there,” said Dixie. “This way we know you’ll be safe.”
During the last week of camp, Baker ate something off and came down with horrible food poisoning. Three days later, the bug was gone but he’d lost seven pounds and was listless. The camp doctor had left early on a family emergency and the Reverend Hartshorne, the camp director, didn’t want to risk any legal liability; just last summer some rich girl’s family had sued because she’d gotten a bladder infection that developed into sepsis. Luckily that kid had survived, probably her fault in the first place, she had a reputation for fooling with the boys but tell that to those fancy-pants lawyers…
Hartshorne found Baker in his bunk room and drew him outside. “Call your parents, son, so they can pick you up. Then start packing.”
“Can’t,” said a wan, weak Baker. “They’re on a ship, no phone contact.”
“When were they figuring on picking you up?”
“I’m taking the bus.”
“All the way to Nashville?”
“I’m okay.”
Lord, thought Hartshorne. These new families.
“Well, son, can’t have you being here, all sick. Got a key to your house?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t mind Nashville. I’ll drive you in.”
They started out in Hartshorne’s white Sedan Deville at three PM, made a single stop for lunch, and pulled into Nashville at nine fifteen.
Lights out in the little frame house.
“You okay going in by yourself?”
Baker was eager to get away from Hartshorne’s Bible speeches and the odors the reverend gave off: bubble gum and body odor and for some reason, an overlay of Wheatena cereal.
“Sure.”
“Okay, then. Walk with the Lord, son.”
“Yessir.”
Baker got his duffel and his pillow from the back and fished out his door key. The Cadillac was gone before he reached the door.
He walked into the empty house.
Heard something.
Not empty- a burglar?
Laying his duffel and pillow on the floor, he tiptoed into the kitchen, snuck all the way back to the laundry room where Danny kept his pistol.
Ancient Colt, Danny called it protection for the road though the only time he’d had to use it was when some Klan-type guys loitering near their motel in Pulaski made remarks about seeing them going into a nigger juke-joint.
One flash of the Colt and the idiots dispersed.