Photo by Juan Encalada on Unsplash
Two nurses, a doctor, and me are standing by my Mother’s bed, her hands shaking in mine. Mama sits up and says, “Sing it one more time, Whistler.” Staff eyes and mouths open wide. I kiss Mom’s forehead and sing Lead Belly’s version of Goodnight Irene, because I can and because we can’t, anymore. “Mama, I’m going to make it big someday. I promise.”
It’s nineteen sixty-six and I’m leaving Boston, never to return and never to sing that song again.
*
Ten years after nineteen sixty-six and this working class hero’s still a roadie with an above average band traveling roadways that take me to scenic Scranton, beautiful Buffalo, awesome Aberdeen, heavenly Hartford, Tulsa, and Allentown too — chasing dreams on dark, dank, and desolate roads whistling love songs in the city, road songs in the town and country, and where the atmosphere is far out.
Rockers do the jams. Give me a double sawbuck every time I whistle the chorus for Otis Reading’s, The Dock of the Bay and other songs. If Mama was alive she’d say, ‘twenty-dollars ain’t big time, Jason.’ Time to honor promises made, time to make it big, and time to boogie.
*
After the last show hit the road, thumb out, and with enough bread for another year. Laying over in a border town I book a room beside The Magic Owl Saloon. The music’s deafening. I smother my skull with a pillow, to no avail. Later emerge from The Owl, winner in a game of eight-ball. Remembering a brute yelling, ‘Whistler, you hustled us, ya bastard!’
Up in time to meet the gray dawn, breath smelling like last night’s pickled eggs, shove my hair into a ponytail and stuff five ‘C-Notes’ in a red flannel shirt. Head feels worse than old wrinkled Ben Franklin looks. Press brown-feathered Stetson Fedora real tight, walk out The Northern Inn, step onto a wooden porch, and bend to enter a narrow aisle in a country store that snakes in-between rows of paraphernalia. Rocky Raccoon’s playing on an eight-track. A mechanical owl beside the clerk stares and says, “Drop two-bits in the slot and make a wish. Drop two . . .”
I oblige by dropping in a quarter. I wish to be a lead singer in a rock and roll band. Have an audition with a well-known blues band later in the day. Last chance saloon for the Whistler, here. “Soft pack of Marlboros and a one-way-ticket to Vancouver, sister,” saying to the clerk while I glance left and wink. Old ‘Huttie’ winks back.
Boarding a near-empty Greyhound I bump my head and the Fedora falls to the deck. I stoop and pick it up, sit down and pull out a near empty pack of coffin-nails, and snap it on the armrest. A butt pops high. I catch and flip it off my thumb into my mouth. Please close cover before striking.
A subtle and pleasant laugh. “Nice trick,” says a chick across the aisle.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Irene.”
I whistle Good Night Irene for her. She digs it.
“Can you sing it?”
“Someday, maybe.” Tell her about Mama, my promise, and my upcoming audition. Make out in the backseat. Slender hands brush my cheeks. Even us roadies get lucky, once in a while.
Constable Irene Ryan Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a girl with owlish eyes, tucks her hair under a hat, adjusts her uniform, and asks, “Will I see you again?”
Scratching at the scraggliest beard this side of the Rio Grande. Something ‘bout a pretty girl in a uniform. “I’d like that, but when your mama gets a load of me, she might not.”
“Don’t worry, my Moms are very liberal.”
We step off the hound. I say, “Irene” and hum.
In a firm voice. “Do you want this gig or not, Jason? Don’t whistle or hum, sing it, Damn it.”
I look in her owlish eyes. Feel safe there, like I once did with my Mama. Kiss her forehead. “Maybe I will, Irene.”
Looking to the sky with a tear in my eye, remembering another Irene saying, ‘Sing it one more time, Whistler,’ and the bartender at the Last Chance Saloon shouting, ‘Last call.’
Before Don Robishaw stopped working he was a Sailor, Peace Corps Volunteer, bartender, hitchhiker, world traveler, college professor, circus roustabout, and most recently ran educational programs for homeless shelters. Author's Page: www.facebook.com/donrobe1/