The world if full of fascinating people. Today I went to a coffee shop to work, and I met Dennis. (I must look up any significance to the letter ‘D’ as it seems I am running into a string of fascinating men whose names start with D and have the most bizarrely wonderful advice for me.) Dennis is a big man, barrel chested, with bald hair and just enough of a lisp to banish any fears over his intentions. He wanted to introduce me to music, particularly his favorite musician: James Hand. Willy Nelson has declared him to be “The One” – the Neo of Honky-Tonk, I suppose. Dennis played for me a funny and yet rage filled song about a pet parrot, belted out in a drunken, Johnny Cash-esque bass. Dennis supplied the slurred and barely discernible words of each line after it was sung, muttering the syllables with a hushed wonder until I shared my enthusiasm.
We talked about local honky-tonk clubs, none of which I have been to, and he chastised me for the sin of omitting so many Austin staples from my rotation – particularly as so many, like Don’s Depot and Genny’s Saloon (where they play chicken-shit bingo once a week) are not going to be around forever, at least not authentically. Genny and Don knew Kris Kristofferson before he made good. Now Genny sits in a corner of her church-hall narrow saloon, her fingers bent arthritically (Dennis didn’t say that, but showed it more eloquently with his own thick fingers), bouncing unwanted patrons from her establishment with a few softly-spoken words, and sitting court amid Austin’s dying breed of true cowboys as they pack the room for Dale Watson and the next generation of “true country” singers.
Somehow I found myself telling Dennis that my husband’s family was from New Jersey and explaining my bewilderment the first time I attended an East Coast Catholic funeral, reminiscing about when I used to know how to two-step because I grew up in a small town at the base of the Texas Hill Country and that’s what we did on Friday night, and lamenting that my once one-streetlight town was now nothing more than a suburb of San Antonio (complete with a La Quinta Inn and Denny’s, but even in my state of over-share I didn’t list that deep blot on the virtue of my hometown).
And darling Dennis listened to all of it. A group of chattering skinny girls, with blond hair and ragingly short shorts, came in, breaking the relative solitude of our corner of the coffee shop. In way of winding down the conversation, he informed me that someone (whose name I’ve already forgotten but he spoke with that same reverence he seemed to have for everything from drunk musicians to his homeboys in Hoboken, New Jersey) was playing for no cover charge at Don’s Depot tonight at 9:00, and before I had kids I had to take my husband there. And to Genny’s. And to Broken Spoke. He even grabbed my notebook and wrote the names down, asking if it was okay only after he had pen poised over the paper. He then tried to give me his pen back with the notepad. When I returned the pen, his look was equal parts admiration for my honesty and a strange disappointment, as if he wanted me to leave with the cheap plastic and ink he’d been scrawling away the morning with.
I really should have been working on a synopsis as I promised an editor I’d have it to her this week, but thus far my morning has consisted of an inability to pull my eyes out of Sherry Thomas’s latest novel followed by an interview with Dennis; the book is my fault – and Sherry’s, damn her awesome writing skills – but talking with Dennis is just not an opportunity one turns down. As we parted, Dennis promised that if he happened to see us in one of his favorite haunts, he would clap my husband on the back and, with a grand parody of an East Coast dialect, say “Oy! Fuckin’ Jersey boys!” He was kidding, but I told him he definitely should. I think he might.
And I think I need to take his advice. There’s a lot of world out there I haven’t seen yet, and far too much of it is in my own town. Besides, who can resist the siren call of chicken shit bingo.
