Velva Jean Learns to Fly

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Authors: Jennifer Niven
floor of the Warner Building, near Cyclone Records. Union membership cost twenty-eight dollars, which took almost all the money I’d saved up from working at the Lovelorn. But joining the musicians’ union meant bands could hire me to sing with them and give concerts at the local restaurants or hotels. It also meant that record studios might be more willing to look at me.
    The problem was that anyone who wasn’t twenty-one needed a parent to sign a sheet giving them permission to join. I figured I was done in then, but that’s when the Lovelorns stepped up and walked with me to the union office and offered to sign the sheet as my landlords and unofficial Nashville guardians. Afterward I handed the money to Mr. Bob Payne, who was the secretary-treasurer and spoke so soft you almost couldn’t hear him. Then he gave me my union card, and I almost floated the whole way back to the Lovelorn, with Nori and Crow walking on either side of me. “That girl’s not even using her feet,” Crow said to Nori. “She’s going to fly all the way home.”
    Before bed that night, I said to Gossie, “That was a nice thing Crow and Nori did for me.” I was sitting on the floor, with my back to one of the chairs and the typewriter on the coffee table in front of me, typing up one of my songs. I thought I might write a song for the Lovelorns. I was far away from home and practically an orphan, and it felt good to have two kind people acting like parents.
    Gossie lay on the settee, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You know that Crow sang at the Opry?”
    I stopped typing. “When?”
    She blew three rings. “About twelve, fifteen years ago. You’ve heard him play, but have you ever heard him sing? He’s good. Damn good. That man can sing and play like a house afire.”
    I thought of Crow down in the kitchen making fried chicken and pot roast and chocolate cream pie. I pictured him washing dishes and stacking plates. I said, “What happened?”
    She said, “Just because you sing at the Opry once doesn’t mean you keep singing there.”
    I said, “Why not?” I couldn’t imagine a thing in this world that would keep me from singing at the Opry over and over once I got my chance.
    She blew two, three, four more rings and then she sat up and brushed the ashes off her lap. Gossie was the messiest person I knew. She said, “Oh, Mary Lou. You got so much to learn. Crow’s good, but so are a lot of people in this town. Most of it comes down to luck.”
    I said, “Johnny Clay says I’m the luckiest person he knows. He says I’m charmed.”
    Gossie stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. She didn’t blow rings this time, just took two puffs and then stubbed this one out too. “That’s a good thing, then,” she said.

SEVEN
    A ccording to Granny, there were three things to do if you saw a mad dog: climb up a tree, crawl into a ditch, or stand perfectly still and hold your breath. There was no use running, she said, because a mad dog could smell you and would be on your heels in an instant. Johnny Clay and me used to take turns playing the mad dog and the prey, one of us growling by, foaming at the mouth, or crouching behind a bush, and the other trying to hurl himself at the nearest tree or ditch. I used to practice on my own too, trying to see how long I could stand still and not breathe. From what Granny said, being bit by a mad dog was the worst thing that could happen to you. She said it only took nine days to go completely mad yourself, and then you just dropped dead.
    On the afternoon of December 6, 1941, Tommie Lou was standing at the corner of Church and Fifth Streets, waiting to cross, when a mad dog wandered up and bit her right on her behind. At first, she didn’t think anything of it—the dog wasn’t drooling or growling. She just told it to shoo and then she hugged her purse to her chest and walked over to the other side of the street. Because mad dogs don’t

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