The Woman in Oil Fields by Tracy Daugherty Page B

“You ready to go?” He shrugged. “Gonna cut us a hit!” She poured herself some whiskey. “Top forty, coast to coast.”
    A gust of wind blew my crash cymbal over. It clattered on the sidewalk, frightening a cat from under a car across the street.
    Handbills and hamburger wrappers blew against the Waldrip’s red wagon. We waited for thirty minutes.
    â€œSon of a bitch said he’d meet us here at seven-thirty,” Jackie’s mother said.
    â€œWhen did you talk to him last?” her husband asked. He’d opened the second bottle of bourbon.
    â€œJust this morning.”
    We waited another half hour.
    â€œScrew it,” said Jackie’s father.
    â€œBut I want to sing my song!”
    â€œAnother night, honey. Let’s go see the Weavers.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and led her to the car. Jackie and I lifted my drums into the back seat. “Big baby,” he whispered.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œNothing.”
    We drove through neighborhoods where the lawns weren’t mowed, where people left strings of Christmas lights in their eaves all year.
    â€œWho are the Weavers?” I whispered to Jackie.
    He shrugged.
    Mr. Waldrip stopped the car in front of a small Spanish-style home made of brown brick. A power line buzzed overhead. A water tower, shiny in the moonlight, stood at the end of the street.
    Joy Weaver, a thin woman with dark, stiff skin, hugged Jackie’s parents in the doorway. “I’ll be durned, look what the cat dragged in,” she said. Her light blond hair reminded me of the fiberglass insulation in the heating unit my father had in stalled last week at home.
    â€œEarl here?” asked Mr. Waldrip.
    â€œOl’ sourpuss is out playing cards.”
    â€œWell, he’ll miss the party.” Mr. Waldrip handed her the near-empty bottle of Old Charter.
    â€œSweetie, we can do better than that.” Joy Weaver pulled two bottles of Jim Beam out of a cabinet underneath a bookshelf.
    â€œWe even brought live entertainment,” Mr. Waldrip said, pointing to Jackie and me. “These boys is hot!”
    Jackie scrunched into a chair by the television set. A velvet painting of Christ kissing a child hung above a hound’s-tooth couch at the far end of the den. A marionette in a straw sombrero, gripping two silver pistols, dangled from the ceiling next to an ivy plant.
    â€œYou kids want a beer?” asked Joy Weaver.
    â€œNo,” Jackie said. He seemed about to cry. His face was red.
    â€œSure, I’ll try one,” I said.
    â€œDavid, get your drums,” said Mrs. Waldrip. “Let’s do my song for Joy.”
    â€œYou wrote a song?”
    â€œHell yes, girl, I told you someday I was going to crawl out of this hole and be famous.”
    â€œI always knew it,” Joy said. “I wish I had your talent.”
    â€œI wish I had her time,” said Jackie’s father. “Shit, I could write a song if all I did was sit home all day.” I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, what he did for a living.
    â€œWe oughta get Ida to sing. Have you ever heard Ida sing?” Joy said. “She does ‘Bobby McGee’ worlds better than that Joplin woman can.”
    â€œWhere is Ida?” said Mr. Waldrip.
    â€œI think she’s back in her room, doing her homework. Ida! Ida Mae! We got company!”
    I’d unloaded my drums by now. I stood by the couch, tightening the wing nuts on the hi-hat, testing the tom-tom’s tone with the drum key.
    A pretty young girl in jeans and a pullover sweater came into the room and sat down. Her brown hair was pulled tight into a ponytail. She had blue eyes.
    â€œJackie, what grade are you in?” Joy asked.
    â€œTenth,” he mumbled.
    â€œSo’s Ida. We oughta get you kids together more often.”
    Jackie chewed his guitar pick.
    We ran through Mrs. Waldrip’s song, then Joy asked